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just one thing

Just One Thing (21 May 2025)

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

Goomer (Spanish) for Wed, 21 May 2025

https://wp.comicskingdom.com/goomer-spanish/2025-05-21

Goomer (Spanish) on Wed, 21 May 2025

Source - Patreon

https://wp.comicskingdom.com/goomer-spanish/2025-05-21

A Toda Velocidad (Spanish) for Wed, 21 May 2025

https://wp.comicskingdom.com/a-toda-velocidad/2025-05-21

A Toda Velocidad (Spanish) on Wed, 21 May 2025

Source - Patreon

https://wp.comicskingdom.com/a-toda-velocidad/2025-05-21

(no subject)

Well, what an unexpected photo of two of my fannish faves to wake up to. Thank you, MWay for posting this.

Entry tags:

meme

to achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: bed
Current Music: lunch by billie eilish

Lucky Star: Icon: Nap

Fandom: Lucky Star
Rating: G
Format: GIF icon
Characters: Tsukasa Hiragi
Challenge: Nap
Summary: there is so little to say abt the gif but like. i made the border and edited it

Entry tags:

Daily Happiness

1. Recently Carla saw a video on youtube about making pistachio pesto and she tried that the other day and it turned out so good! We've been having it on sandwiches, mostly roast beef but also ham. It was fine with the ham but amazing with the beef.

2. I had an all day meeting today but was able to get a bunch of small stuff done on my to-do list here and there during the day. Tomorrow I've got a busy work day, too, but at least don't have to get an early start.

3. You can tell this is Molly's spot on my bed by how much white fur there is.

Current Mood: crappy

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Not gonna lie, today was pretty shitty. You'd think it would be difficult to have such a bad day while at Disneyland, but here we are.

The first thing I saw this morning when I opened my eyes and checked my phone was a message from my girlfriend, telling me the leasing agent handling our apartment application said that to even start processing it, I will need an offer letter from an employer stating that they will hire me.

How am I supposed to do that? I don't live there yet. I can't do interviews. We have to turn in applications ASAP if we want even a hope of getting an apartment anywhere, but who is going to want to hire me two and a half months before I can even start working? No one!

I got to Disneyland late. When I did get here it was so hot and sunny that my phone kept overheating, crashing and turning itself off, so I couldn't capture pictures or video of anything I wanted to for like the first three hours. All the lines were insane. The first three rides I waited in line for decided to break down just as I was getting close to the front, after I had already wasted all that time waiting in the hot sun.

Normally if it's crowded, I'm usually okay to just vibe since I'm a pass holder, but today was my second to last opportunity to go before my pass blacks out and then I will be moving away, and it felt so frustrating to hardly be able to DO anything when I have like no time left.

I tried to implement something sweet and romantic for my girlfriend. When she came for Star Wars Nite, we were really excited to get to see the Star Wars fireworks over Batuu, but they ended up disappointing us by doing a projection show instead. I knew she had to get up kind of early for an appointment before work so I told her hey, I have a surprise, I can record it and show you later or if you think you can stay up fifteen more minutes, we can enjoy it together.

Of course, they started fifteen minutes late. She had to go, her meds were dragging her under and I had already kept her up past her bedtime, which I felt guilty for, for what turned out to be nothing. The fireworks did happen and I did record them for her, but god.

And I am dreading going to work tomorrow. The air conditioning was broken yesterday and it was MISERY. It got up to 80 degrees in the clinic hallways which means our tiny little massage rooms, where we are shut up for hours at a time with patients, doing hard physical labor, were three or four degrees hotter than that. I spent my whole shift suffering, completely soaked through with sweat, thirsty the whole time because I could not drink enough water to stay hydrated.

It's supposed to be ten degrees hotter tomorrow, because we're experiencing dumbass weather, so if the AC is still broken I don't even want to think about what that will mean for how miserable my shift will be. But think about it have been, and think about it I will continue to do.

As well as the notion that we might not get this wonderful apartment we need and want so badly.

This has been a vent.

(no subject)

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250520.html

Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy?

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250520.html

Tumblr grab-bag

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Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Thanks to a donation from

lone_cat, you can now read the beginning of "In the Heart of the Hidden Garden." Lawrence and Stan look for their classrooms at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Entry tags:

fandom: music

Music Tuesday

Watch on YouTube

The CBC keeps playing this at me for some reason, and it's really pretty.

BUT ALSO: what is that piano intro reminding me of? I'm thinking late'90s with a female singer, but it might just have been... something I listened to a lot in the '90s.

(no subject)

* I just got caught up in my D&D homework and refreshed myself on how to multiclass with wizards. Both my characters are multi-classed, but one is way more complicated then the other. The irony is that at the end of the chapter Leyfarers is switching from the original 5th edition rules to the 2024 redo of fifth edition, so I am going to need to redo everything and relearn everything.

I am going to need to figure out soon if I am re-speccing either of them, because the rules changeover will be a one-time chance to change classes and other stuff. And right now I really don't know.

* I really need to do glamour shots of my dice and also stop buying dice.

hapless

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/hapless-2025-05-21

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 21, 2025 is:

hapless • \HAP-lus\ • adjective

Hapless means "having no luck." It's a synonym of unfortunate.

// The documentary follows a hapless victim of false allegations.

See the entry >

Examples:

"The New York Yankees had a nice, feel-good return to their spring training home this weekend by beating up on the hapless Tampa Bay Rays." — Kristie Ackert, Athlon Sports, 19 Apr. 2025

Did you know?

Hapless means exactly what you'd expect it to mean: "without hap"—hap being another word for fortune or luck. Hap comes from the Old Norse word for "good luck," which is also the source of happen and happy. English has several words to describe those lacking good fortune, including ill-starred, ill-fated, unlucky, and luckless, a word formed in parallel to hapless by adding the suffix -less. Ill-starred suggests bringing calamity or the threat of a terrible fate ("the ill-starred year the Great Depression began"). Ill-fated refers only to being doomed ("the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic"). Unlucky and luckless usually apply to a person or thing notably or chronically unfortunate ("an unlucky slots player," "some luckless investors swindled in the deal"). Hapless is often imbued with a touch of pity, humor, or both for those to whom it refers, as in "a hapless goalie who couldn't block a shot to save his life."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/hapless-2025-05-21

Entry tags:

books

Books

* The Left Handed Booksellers of London - I wasn't familiar with the author, Garth Nix, when I picked this up. He does a lot of books aimed at younger readers. I feel like the start of this book was more serious, and then devolved into whimsy and random exposition. 1980s London, gender fluid character, booksellers who monitor the occult, and a plot that hooked me. I really wanted to like this and should have DNF'd it sooner.

Trying to avoid making a powerpoint presentation on the complexities of YA as a marketing term and how it makes my life harder. I don't want to double check everything to see if it's considered YA and discount it based on that, because a lot of stuff that isn't gets categorized that way. Sarah J Maas' ACOTAR being a prime example.

* Hell Bent - The sequel to Ninth House and the middle book of what will be a trilogy. It sounds like we should heard about the final book soon? Very excited. On one hand, I love the writing and am already looking forward to rereading both books in prep for the final one. On the other hand, the occult elements didn't feel as solid as in the first book. I loved it, but it's not to the bar of the first book. Middle books of trilogies are like that sometimes.

Of course try to look up anything about Ninth House and every website gets even more convinced that I want to see Gideon the Ninth stuff. On Amazon it's listed as The Ninth House Series. I think 'Alex Stern' is used as a alternate name to deal with disambiguation, but that only helps so much. The lesbian necromancers in space are inescapable!

* Blood Trail - I liked it more than expected. I am determined to read this series, but how often I was told to start with the later books was worrying. It drags a bit in places, but also it's an early urban fantasy book so I don't mind.

It is an amazing time capsule of that time in the 90s when technology became more part of our lives, but no google or cell phones yet. People needing to stay in for phone calls, discourse about whether screening calls with an answering machine is anti-social, etc. Also, cities being very gritty and dangerous. Obviously it wasn't intentional, but it's a very dense capsule.

Reading it so soon after a Di Tregarde book was funny because in the Tregarde books, Di is a romance novelist partially to deal with her odd schedule as Guardian, but in Blood Trail the vampire is a romance novelist to deal with his odd schedule. They are both writing similar sounding books involving sea captains. Also, both in cold cities and dealing with the cold winds, etc. There's a lot of notes in common, which may be them both riffing on the same thing or being plugged into the same trends. To be clear, the similar notes are interesting and amusing, not anything else.

Entry tags:

The Incandescent (Tesh)

4+/5. ( Cut for length and at least one random aside; no spoilers. )

( Not sure about that one minor spoilery thing. )

Anyway...

hidden_variable and K, I spent this entire book thinking, you should absolutely and positively read this book!! (And many of the rest of you should too --

crystalpyramid, I think this is also directly relevant to your interests -- though I also don't think everyone who liked SDG will like it.)

ISC Stormcast For Wednesday, May 21st, 2025 https://isc.sans.edu/podcastdetail/9460, (Wed, May 21st)

https://isc.sans.edu/diary/rss/31966

(c) SANS Internet Storm Center. https://isc.sans.edu Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

https://isc.sans.edu/diary/rss/31966

Current Mood: melancholy

Got the ahes

Got up this morning at 9:30 and breakfasted, coffeed, showered and dressed. Then I packed up my laptop and headed out.

First I went into Flushing and got money from the bank. Then I went to Duane Reade and got a prescription filled. I had to wait a bit for that but not long.

Then I took the 7 train heading to

mashfanficchick. The escalator was out of order at 74th street so I had to walk down the stairs, but better down than up.

Got to

mashfanficchick's and dropped off the laptop and my Al-anon book, then walked back to the 46 bus and headed to my gyn appointment. Turns out I got on the wrong 46 and ended up in Glen Oaks and had to turn around and go back a few stops to Union Tpk. Eventually I got to the right stop though, and had the 15 minute walk to the medical building.

The gyn exam was fast and not too unpleasant. She said everything looks OK. She did a pap smear, fortunately I am not one of the women who finds them painful. I'll get the results of that in about three days.

Then I took the 46 back to Queens Blvd and called

mashfanfickchick from there. We decided to meet in Starbucks, then get dinner, so thats what we did. We got sushi.

Robyn texted that she arrived at the apartment when we were just finishing up, so we paid and hurried back.

I signed the paperwork and now I have Oldest Brother's ashes. It's painful to say anything about that.

At 7:00 I phoned the FWiB, who still is having computer issues. At 8:00 I had my meeting, which sadly was only M and me.

After that

mashfanficchick and I just hung out. We are going back to my place tomorrow, to try again with getting the python hooked up to the sink. We have more tools this time.

Have exchanged texts with the Kid, she is trying to make me feel guilty for leaving Oreo alone for another night.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2.

mashfanficchick

3. Robyn.

4. The gyn checkup was good.

5. My meetings and the people there.

6. I have the ashes safe and secure.

Entry tags:

Someone in South Korea made a good choice

Kanye West was supposed to have a concert in Korea at the end of this month, but after he released a song called "Heil Hitler" on VE Day, his concert was canceled and — perhaps even more devastating — sales of his merch were stopped. Hopefully we'll see more of this sort of thing going forward.

Entry tags:

apple,
tech

Lots of System Updates

On Monday, UPS gave me a delivery window for my OWC ThunderBlade X12. The window was 12:15 pm to 3:15 pm, and a signature was required. So I waited. And waited. And at 3:30 pm I checked the tracking page, and UPS had assigned a new delivery window: 3:45 pm - 6:45 pm. I couldn’t even go for my daily walk until the package arrived. Finally at 6:00 pm, UPS came to my door and exchanged a package for my signature. By then, I’d given up plans on configuring the RAID unit that day and slipped the task to Tuesday. I finally went for my daily walk.

This is all to say that I was held captive in my home all afternoon – and I ended up updating the OS in my Apple devices. And in advance of figuring out what to do with recently retired devices, I updated the OSes in them as well. Crazy OS blitz.

Current Devices
Belldandy (2025 M4 Mac Studio):
Updated macOS to v15.5 from v15.4.1
Updated Zoom Workplace to v6.4.10 (Apple Silicon) from v6.3.11 (Intel)
Authorized computer to play content (music, video) from Apple account

Fern (2024 M3 MacBook Air):
Updated macOS to v15.5 from v15.4.1
Authorized computer to play content (music, video) from Apple account

Holo (2024 M4 iPad Pro):
Updated iPadOS to v18.5 from v18.4.1

Meiko (2021 iPhone 13 mini):
Updated iOS to v18.5 from v18.4.1

Retired Devices
Frieren (2017 iMac Pro):
Updated macOS to v15.5 from v15.4.1
(Deferred content deauthorization on Apple account)
 
Hinata (2018 MacBook Pro):
(Battery was dead and had to recharge before computer would boot.)
Updated macOS to v15.5 from v14.3.1
Deauthorized computer from playing content (music, video) from Apple account

Kanna (2017 iPad Pro):
(Battery was dead and had to recharge before tablet would boot.)
Updated iPadOS to v17.7.8 from v17.7.1
(iPadOS v17.7.8 was Released that same day)

Hinata and Kanna are on Apple’s list of Vintage products, prior to becoming obsolete.