Sunshine Revival Post

Jul. 2nd, 2025 01:23 pm
yourlibrarian: Every Kind of Craft on green (Every Kind of Craft Green - yourlibraria)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian
1) As part of [community profile] sunshine_revival's first challenge: "Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community."

I just shared some necklaces I made a few months back over at [community profile] everykindofcraft. I did a lot of beading in the first 13 years after I took it up, but things have been rather start and stop in the last 10. A craft store closeout + a challenge from a relative got me making some new things in the last few months. That probably also contributed to my starting [community profile] everykindofcraft here, because I saw various people posting wonderful stuff that not many people were seeing, whereas on Pillowfort some general craft communities there are always getting posts.

Hopefully we can get more crafters sharing here!

2) Have been watching a slew of Apple+ shows as our subscription cutoff nears. The miniseries Disclaimer was framed in an interesting way, one which I suspect had a lot more clarity in multimedia than in the book, but perhaps not. It uses multiple narrative voices and POV for the narration, including second person, first person, and some omniscient narrative. This was pretty relevant because of who was being framed (literally) and who actually got to have their voice(s) heard. Read more... )

3) Surface is a story told in a much more straightforward manner even though it also involves an unreliable narrator of sorts in that our central character had memory loss and is trying to piece together her past which also involves a parental mystery. Read more... )

4) Also saw the movie Wolfs, which is fine but largely a vehicle for us to watch Pitt and Clooney do fun stuff. Read more... )

5) Finished The Big Conn and Cowboy Cartel, two documentaries about big crime. I found the former much more interesting, even though I'd heard about the case before. What was probably the most striking about both was the role of the media in precipitating change. Read more... )

6) Careme was marketed as the story of the first celebrity chef, who served Napoleon, Tallyrand and others. It was certainly about far more than cooking. Read more... )

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Been away, came back.

Jul. 2nd, 2025 02:17 pm
aunty_marion: (Y Ddraig Cymraeg)
[personal profile] aunty_marion
Hmmm. And it's been a year since I posted, it seems. There *was* six months of chaos following the flood last year, of course. Mostly sorted (two new shelving units, lots of unpacking, packing, re-unpacking, lather-rinse-repeat) & I still have 3 tubs of what S & N packed for me stacked in the bedroom, & still haven't got rid of my archery equipment.

Various other things have happened - I went to stay with [personal profile] lexin in December, & had a reasonable holiday, as usual, though I seemed to have gone almost completely deaf in my right ear just beforehand, which was ... interesting ... and has led to me getting hearing aids this year!

I went to the filk con in February, a friend died in May & I went to her funeral in early June; and I've just (on Monday) got back from another lovely 2-week stay with [personal profile] lexin in Bangor, where we had numerous outings!

List of the out and abouts )

Week one, done!

Week Two )

I came home on Monday with a slight sense of dread, but nothing seems to have disastered this time. Tomorrow morning I have someone coming on behalf of the council to do a 'condition survey', which I do have a slight feeling of dread about, as they may be recommending a new bathroom, which I shall fight because if they do I'll probably lose my washing lines.

...well, hardly ever...

Jul. 1st, 2025 05:18 pm
ysobel: A kitten on a piano keyboard (music)
[personal profile] ysobel
So I was listening to an audiobook of Agatha Christie stories

and one character mentioned the "why and wherefore" of something

which *immediately* got "Never Mind the Why and Wherefore" from HMS Pinafore going through my head [https://youtu.be/fz00Ru9RXA8?si=_iW2jYRH-8RW_w49]

which of course meant I had no choice but to listen to the whole of HMS Pinafore [https://youtu.be/N6iNGprcxFI?si=B-vFtrypguIKurHv for example]

and now various of those songs keep popping up ... for at least week now ... only the lyrics are starting to scramble, which tends to happen when something is stuck in my head long enough.

("I am the captain of the minotaur~~" wait no)

Anyway my plan for dealing with this is to watch the 1983 film version of Pirates of Penzance, which is an extremely solid plan with no possible down sides.

Success on cooking a new dish!

Jun. 30th, 2025 12:55 pm
readera: a cup of tea with an open book behind it (Default)
[personal profile] readera
I made 2 Korean dishes both from Maangchi recipes for dinner last night. One is fairly familiar & easy, garlic green beans, but the other was new and a bit more complicated.  Spicy Braised chicken 
I made some adjustments, as usual. I used boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of breasts & I used applesauce instead of sliced apple. I also used American style red pepper flakes instead of Korean since that is what I had at home.  For the garlic green beans I used frozen instead of fresh and I thawed/cooked them very briefly in the microwave before adding them to the cooked garlic and oil in the hot pan. You finish it with sesame oil, off the heat which was the main difference from how I normally make garlic green beans. 

I served them together over rice in a bowl and they were good. Next time I make this I will make enough for leftovers & used sliced apple. If you want to try out Korean home cooking Maangchi has been making YouTube videos for years. She is a Korean immigration who lives in NYC(I think) so she has knowledge of traditional Korean cooking & how to adapt it to available ingredients in the US.

All is Well

Jun. 30th, 2025 12:15 pm
yourlibrarian: (MERL-ArthurLake-kathyh)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian
1) A few more trip photos posted over at [community profile] common_nature, these of Oneonta Gorge.

2) Saw The Flash film and found it better than expected but also so-so. The big problem to me was the lead himself. Granted his character isn't really written to have any charm but a good bit of the humor fell flat for me, and when he was on screen twice as much it made it worse. Read more... )

3) Just an update about the bed situation listed in my last post. Everything went well! The youngsters delivering the bed had no problem with taking the old one down to the moving truck, and moving the other one to another room. Read more... )

4) A new wrinkle in the last few weeks is that during yet another heavy rain we got a leak near our front door. Read more... )

5) I quite liked this diagram of the interaction between entertainment production and fan activities. This came from an interview on Henry Jenkins' blog about a new set of textbooks for studying fandom.



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Duo blathering

Jun. 28th, 2025 10:28 pm
ysobel: Pink bunny (bunny comics), holding a sign: "jesus save / cthulhu eats"; text: choose wisely (choose wisely!)
[personal profile] ysobel
Duolingo's increasing reliance on AI at the expense of human employees bothers me a lot. It's also, not coincidentally, gotten sloppy. I've noticed things in the English that feel off -- "He didn't die because he had the operation on time" should have been "in time"; "It's possible that I start going out with Francisco" should be "I'll start" or "I might start"; "She isn't tolerant with other ideas" should either be "of" or the object should be "people" (this may be regional? but for me it's tolerant *of* things, tolerant *with* or of people); "The travelers would buy at the market" should either have a different verb like "shop" or should have a direct object (I know "buy" can be intransitive but it still feels weird in this sentence); etc. If there are things that strike me as odd about the language I'm a native speaker of, how the fuck can I trust them to be correct in the language I'm trying to learn?

I currently have a subscription, partly so I wouldn't get ads and partly because I supported their stated mission. I no longer want to support them. My renewal, set to annual, renews next month.

On the other hand I have a streak of 3839 days, several friends streaks over 300, and a ridiculous number of friends quests in a row (can't find the info but I think it's around 85-90?). Also while practicing Duo mostly makes me better at Duo, I am still learning vocab, even if some of it doesn't want to stick.

So I'm trying to decide:

Option 1: cancel subscription and delete app. Up side: cheaper and more ethical. Down side: realistically I'm not going to find an easy Spanish-practice alternative.

Option 2a: cancel subscription but keep "playing" until I reach a pretty streak number, then quit. Up side: cheaper, though ads mean they're still profiting, and I get to leave on a pretty number. Down side: ads, plus im still planning on breaking the streak.

Option 2b: cancel subscription and keep playing indefinitely. Up side: still get Spanish practice. Down: ads, blech.

Option 3: keep subscription for another year. Up: practice, no ads. Down: I'm paying money for dubious AI.

If I take one of the streak-breaking options -- either now or in 161 days (which is, uh, 5 months and change, so December? -- and then regret it, I'll have lost the chance to make the long streak longer. OTOH it literally can't go on forever anyway, and I don't like supporting AI. OTOOH one subscription isn't noticeable really, so they won't care.

...I hate making decisions...

(Side note: my phone's predictive texting really wants to decapitalize I. If I type "i wo" it of course autocaps i to I, but then doesn't suggest "would"/"wouldn't" for the next word, but instead suggests "i would" which changes the I back to lowercase. Is this inherent to autocorrect or am I doing something wrong?)

(no subject)

Jun. 23rd, 2025 06:58 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Kinda funny how mood can affect experiences as much as the other way around.

Impulse-went out to eat tonight... Black Bear Diner, a casual diner spot where I Read more... )

and I'm just really satisfied and happy, and I know good food improves my mood, but good moods make food better

I don't expect this mood to last all evening but dang it's nice

* * *

Unrelatedly, I love that the D&D DM for my group rewards roleplaying. Our group had freed a genie and were granted a wish; the guy with the highest charisma was volunteered to make our request. He didn't make any effort and was just basically "give us X", got a 19 on a persuasion check, and that failed and annoyed the genie. I used the inspiration I'd gotten (from a really good pun) to undo that attempt, then decided to take over since high-charisma dude didn't want to try again. My character has -1 to charisma, but I gave a passionate speech about the various adventures we'd been through and the various perils we were facing and how we could Defend The Innocents better if we could get some fun magic items to use... I got a 10 for the persuasion check and *passed*. (High-charisma dude is already at BEC status for me, so it was extremely amusing to win with a lower roll just because I ... erm, roleplayed, in a role play game, how novel...)

Anxiety

Jun. 23rd, 2025 07:21 pm
yourlibrarian: Chani and Paul (OTH-Chani and Paul - myrmidon.png)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian
1) I've been seeing a lot more posting on [community profile] common_nature, very encouraging! Have added the first of my waterfall photos there, of Latourelle Falls.

2) Looks like there is a spammer at work on Squidgeworld. I got 3 comments to different posts within a few hours today, two with outright solicitations for commissions.

3) Saw Dune 2, and thought it was ok. It's almost as if the movie was made to be the direct opposite of David Lynch's version in casting and tone as well as visuals. Read more... )

4) Finally saw the Barbie movie as well. I can see why it did well. Given its remit and likely limitations, I thought it did a good job. It had a clear direction, and it did it well and with both humor and heart. I also quite enjoyed its ending. That said, I think the film itself opened the door to a more incisive critique which it didn't follow. Read more... )

5) This past month is turning out to be an expensive one. My partner's sister had a roof leak in her spare bedroom, which went on long enough that it damaged the bed underneath it before she noticed. Since this was where my partner stays when he visits his family, a replacement was needed. So we decided to move his current bed there and get a new one. Read more... )

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