calzephyr | Reading

Soo... I'm dealing with a light hangover from sleep aide sedative effects, but I will feel bad if I don't post about Engage's 3rd anniversary.

Unfortunately I took my review offline*, but everything went offline yesterday. Most of my opinions from 3 years ago are the same, albeit harshly worded back then. My expectations were really low! But I thought Alear was charming in an ugly way so I went ahead and bought it. I thought it was really fun and a cute game! I've soured a lot on Three Houses, so I'm fine with the 30th anniversary game being a hybrid of FE6+FE1+diet Fateswakening. I have my share of gripes, the manga adaption is more interesting story-wise and the first 8 chapters of the game are piss boring. It very quickly became a special game to me. I may have fallen in love...

I have so much more to say (or copy and paste from my offline shrine) but i have to go to work in an hour... I should probably cross-post serious or subjective takes here.
3 years is baby, but it's weird how it's been that long. My life has changed a lot since then, desk shrine and itabag aside...

Hopefully I'll check here more after I bring my site back online and the con prep stress fades.

*When my website comes back online, I'm going to have a "vault" folder of runes that don't fit my values, but I want to keep online anyway. My Engage review might be in there... I find it very terrible and badly written tbh.

soemand

I've been profiling my home and work environments for ambient noise to better understand my listening experience. At home, it's a serene 25 dBA, while my workplace averages a much more active 50 dBA.

To maintain focus, I use headphones that provide 40 dB of isolation, and I typically listen to music at levels between 70-75 dB. Because most commercial music is mastered with a dynamic range of around 60 dB, the audio easily swamps any stray external sounds that might try to sneak through. All told, this setup creates a total sonic bubble—don't hear the background at all, regardless of what's happening around me.

Current Music: Wild World, Cat Stevens

susandennis

1. Uncustables do not suck. I had a honey and peanut butter one yesterday and enjoyed it thoroughly. Tasty, easy, and just the right amount to polish off between here and the pool. A very good option!

2. You know how when people die and you go through their stuff and find random bits of change? Well, I'm not dead yet, but I just went into the fabulous storage area to find paper clips and discovered $98.76 in change and a spare mail key!! On the down side, sorry, bro. On the up side, my storage area shelves are now my happy place.

3. Daniel - the very best of our maintenance guys - just came in to check my dishwasher door situation. He thinks he might have to replace the door. He did not take it off but took pix and went to find a part. He left his cart outside my door so I'm thinking this will happen soon.

brerrabbit posting in

scans_daily

( Read more... )</>

jazzy_dave

Bill Bryson "A Walk in the Woods" (Black Swan)

A Walk in the Woods opens with the author and his family moved back to the US, settling in New Hampshire. The author, never having attempted true, rugged hiking, becomes enamored with the idea of taking on the Appalachian Trail. This famous trail begins at Springer Mountain, Georgia and extends an astonishingly 2,000 (arguably more) miles to end in Maine at Mount Katahdin. Bryson’s journey actually begins when he finds himself and his credit card gearing up for the endeavour while also trying to lure friends from far and wide to join him on the excursion.

Katz, a former friend from childhood days in Iowa, answers the call for companionship. The reader is shocked when he appears out of shape and overweight with a dubious past – one cannot help but marvel (and giggle) at the contrast between the two men as they struggle with themselves, each other, and the famous hiking trail. Along the way, the reader meets other characters who become memorable despite their short stays; such as Chicken John the habitually lost hiker and Mary Ellen with the musical eustachian tubes. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

Bryson has an uncanny knack for mixing humour with sobering facts. A Walk in the Woods finds the author blatantly honest about his own foibles, and those of others while attempting to hike the legendary Appalachian Trail. All the while he continues his commentary on deforestation, the US Parks & Wildlife service, and human ineptness in general. At 397 pages the book is more than a weekend read and may require some patience when reading through the author’s many elaborations on the danger we, as clumsy humans, pose to nature. Though the work was published in 2006 it is more relevant than ever both in consideration of climate change, as well as man’s desire to conquer even a small span of wilderness.

jazzy_dave

Rita Indiana "Made in Saturn" (And Other Stories)

We meet Argenis in the Havana airport--his father has sent him from the DR to detox. That doesn't go as planned, but we learn a lot about Argenis. When he makes it back to his aunt in the DR, we learn as he does.

Argenis struggles with his family history--and that is what this book is about. He is the younger and un-favored son of a former revolutionary. His parents were revolutionaries in the 60s. His father then flipped and took a position in Balaguer's government, and is now fairly high up. Argenis has little to no respect for his father, or his older brother who was a show-off as a child and is now a businessman who uses their father's connections. Argenis, meanwhile, is an artist and has attended art school. He started with cocaine before becoming hooked on heroin. Does he want to stop? It's unclear, but he DOES want to be able to function, to do his art, to not constantly be on the hunt for his next high.

As he manages to stay off the heroin, he learns more about what his parents, their friends, and his aunt went through--and about his grandmother's life as a maid--he gains some perspective. He has only ever wanted to do art. Not to perform recitations on his father's command as his brother did. Nor to use his father's connections to succeed in business--as his brother does. Yet he also finds it very sad how his grandmother--who now owns her former employers' house--still wears her maid's uniform and sleeps in her maid's room. Though she only serves herself. It seems he is ready to grow up and find a happy medium, if he can stay away from heroin.

mallorys_camera

We are in the midst of a severe solar storm, the magnitude of which has not been seen since 2003. The Aurora Borealis is supposed to be visible to the naked eye at my latitude, but I had to use the night settings on my iPhone camera to snap this:

And the Arctic blast is back. It is cold out. Very, very, very cold. Not supposed to rise above 18° F for the next three days.

###

As above, so below.

Trump is literally sundowning—a thing that happens to many people with dementia. They may seem coherent during the day, but at night, they lose it entirely, hence Trump's late-night social media posting mania: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace!

The historical comparison is no longer strictly to Nazis anymore—though ICE is the Gestapo.

No, the historical comparison is more to Caligula.

Assuming human history continues past 10 years—to my mind, not a safe assumption at all—historians are going to be asking the same question over & over again, WHY didn't they DO something? He was so obviously insane.

Honestly, I do not know.

This is very, very difficult to live through.

Because, I mean, what do we do?

Ignore it? Keep living our lives as though it isn't happening?

There's a core of physical dread inside of me; I walk around, trying to ignore it, trying to maintain, but that's increasingly hard to do.

###

I have a bunch of errands to do today, plus the gym—bad weather has kept me away from the gym since Thursday last—but I have very little interest in doing them, very little interest in doing anything. Even parking myself in front of a screen & watching mindless television would not distract me from the mind monkey sitting on the Bodhi Tree's branch & chittering.

But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, so I guess I'll force myself to do those errands. As the I Ching reminds us: Perseverance furthers.

susandennis

When I signed up for Wegovy at NovoCare I was asked to pick a date - I picked the first available date - Wednesday, the 21st - tomorrow. I thought I was picking a delivery date. I'm guessing now, I was picking a date for the fun of it. Reddit research now shows that NovoCare will send my prescription to Centerwell who will text me to set up an account (which will likely get fucked up because I used to have Humana and they used Centerwell so I have a non-working account there). Then Centerwell, will send me the goods.

I was looking forward to Wednesday. Now I'm hoping I get the shit in my lifetime. Sigh.

Oh well. This is one sure way of avoiding nasty side effects.

I can just now see the work of loud landscapers of yesterday and they did a fabulous job! Everything looks so tidy. Soon they will be planting the flowers they put in every year. 'They' are the resident volunteers.

Today is housecleaning day, Tomorrow is Food & Beverage meeting day, Thursday is volleyball?, Friday is Closet Day.

Yesterday I was looking up shit on the internet. Every search was investigated by AI and it was driving me nuts. I just wanted the URL of this one company. I did not want its history! I just wanted to know this one thing, I did not want a Ted Talk! Then... I remembered. A while back I was so proud of myself when I engineered my default search tool to be AI! ha. That was a short love affair. I switched it to Google and calm came over the waters. Now I get AI only when I want it. Thankyou, me

Jim Across The Hall has now taken to throwing his garbage into the plastic milk carton that is specifically for glass wine bottles (we do way more trash separation here than is necessary but that's another rant). He's been having trash issues for a while. Bonny went in a couple of weeks ago and showed him what not to do. It did not stick. I do not want to be scraping tomato slices off the floor and the first time Joan slips on one, it ain't going to be pretty.

So I sent an email to the person who manages the carers who come see to him twice a day. She got right back to me and said she would let the carers know to make sure he's not taking out his own trash. She got back to me so fast, that it made me think she was glad to have more evidence that he cannot live in the independent living community any more. His career told me yesterday that he now goes to bed at 4 right after the second carer leaves for the day. I am grateful every day that at least he gets dressed before he comes out.

The door at the end of my hall goes right into Assisted Living which goes right into the Nursing and Memory Care wings. It's also a short cut down to the main lobby/dining rooms/etc. They put a note on that door yesterday that they had a confirmed case of RSV and precautions now required. Happily, I do not have to go through that door but, sometimes, Jim takes that route. I hope his carers steer him clear of it.

Well, I'll be damned. Reddit was wrong! Or, more accurately, my mileage varied. I just got a text from NovoCare with a FedEx tracking number! No delivery date but it's FedEx Overnight Service. So... looks like my Wegovy will be here tomorrow.

prettygoodword

farouche (fa-ROOSH) - adj., shy and socially awkward, unsociable; disorderly in appearance or behavior, wild; outrageous, extreme.

Taken in the 1760s from French (though there the meaning is more the first and somewhat the second sense), from Old French word foroche, wild/untamed, alteration of forasche, from Late Latin forasticus, living outside, from Latin foras, outdoors. So the core image is someone who has lived outdoors away from, and so not used to, people.

---L.

heartsways posting in

scans_daily

( Read more... )

icon_uk posting in

scans_daily

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

Well... yes... the world is... isn't it?

Dolly Parton celebrated her 80th birthday (All hail one of the few utterly admirable people around) and it was also the anniversary of Edgar Alen Poe's birth too. I suspect there's a cosmic balance involved in that.

To my own eternal shame I managed to overlook that the 1966 Batman show had it's 60's anniversary last Monday

Disney made something of a tactical error when they asked on Threads for people to post Disney memes about their current mood. Remember a few years back when Elmo asked "How is everyone doing today?" on Twitter and there was a deluge of what social anxiety? Imagine that, but with anger and frustration

Starfleet Academy debuted with two episodes with the anticipated rigmarole from fans and "fans".

No art is above criticism, but the level of vitriol that got sprayed at this show was like a firehose often from those who hadn't watched it and never planned to. I'm not sure what was the worst of it: Was it the racist comments? The sexist comments? The fat shaming? The many combinations of two or more of those?

Was it a perfect show? No, of course not. It's a new show, with a new cast, and a LOT of stuff to shovel into it's premiere episodes. But I thought it showed promise, Sandro Rosta's Caleb is a bit of a dick at the moment (but it pretty enough in a Power Rangers sort of a way to get away with it for maybe one more episode), Holly Hunter is both tiny and imposing, Karim Diané's Kraaag is my favourite Klingon in years, and Gina Yashere's Lura Thok is fantastic! And I love the many easter eggs dotted around the place (There's a passing shot of a Brikar, an Exocomp student, and a scene-stealing extra as a Kelpien who has Doug Jones "Bob Fosse-like" Saru arms swinging thing down to an absolute T so when they're in a scene you NOTICE!)

If you're wanting an even handed but generally positive approach to Trek, I'd suggest the "Trek Culture" YT channel, where their "Ups and Downs" reviews are geeky as hell, but in the FUN way.

I think my biggest gripe was the shiny new "Trek Franchise" opening logo has some lovely new models of the main starships from each series (With the Defiant for DS9), but omits the Protostar and the Cerritos, which just seems rude!

soemand

Driveway successfully liberated from its layer of solid‑state precipitation — otherwise known as snow. With any luck, there’s now just enough of it left in the trails for my wife to sneak in a quick cross‑country ski session before heading to work in the morning.

Current Music: Blue train; John Coltrane

stonepicnicking_okapi posting in

1word1day

bristlecone [ˈbri-səl-ˌkōn-]

noun

a pine, Pinus aristata, of the southwestern U.S., bearing short needles crowded into long, thick bundles and cones having scales tipped with a slender, curved spine; one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating

examples
1. Ultimately, it's the rising temperatures and droughts associated with global warming that will significantly impinge upon Nature's finest masterpiece -- the near-immortal Great Basin bristlecone pines. Dr. Reese Halter: Saving the Ancient Pines by Reducing our Global Footprints, 2010

2. "There is a bristlecone pine tree that's nearly five thousand years old."
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

origin
first recorded use of the word 1893

cyberghostface posting in

scans_daily

( You're about to view content that the poster has marked as potentially inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

jazzy_dave

Maggie Harris is a poet, prose writer, and visual artist. Originally from Guyana, South America, she recently re-located to Kent after 10 years in Wales. She attended Kent University as a mature student, achieving a BA and MA, and started her career performing, running workshops and teaching creative writing. She has worked for Kent Arts & Libraries, represented Kent in Europe and was International Teaching Fellow at Southampton University. I met her doing a talk and book signing at last years Faversham Literary Festival.

4 points 1

Maggie Harris pays homeage to the inspirational power of the poetry art form with this track titled, Not A Gospel Song. The sound fuses elements of Afrobeats, the Cumfa beat and the tabla strains of a Bhajan with the unmistakable Reggae vibe.

Watch on YouTube

ENJOY.

heartsways posting in

scans_daily

( Read more... )

susandennis

The pool's closure has felt kind of like a vacation for me in many ways. Which is weird because I do miss volleyball and I do miss swimming but I'm very much enjoying waking up with nothing I have to and nowhere I have to be. My sleep numbers are in the stratosphere.

But, hopefully, the vacation will be over soon. They are saying they hope to finish up the fix on Tuesday and have the pool open on Wednesday and probably warmed up enough for Volleyball on Thursday.

Oh fuck, the landscape guy just fired up the very loud hedge trimmer and it's just now 8 am. They are supposed to hold off until 9. Old people will be bitchin' today. This is where my neighbor Ingrid, will lean out of her terrace and screech at them to be quiet and then scream at them at length about why they need to be quiet. Irony and Ingrid are one and the same. She usually only comes to elbow coffee when she has some outrageous wrong she needs to have all of us help her correct. This could mean we see her next Saturday.

I have three free months of Apple TV but I really watched what I wanted weeks ago so haven't logged on. Last night I fired it up and ohnyfuckingod, Apple stopped just short of sending someone to take a DNA swab. First the message said my account was locked. I got it unlocked then I had to log in - the first of 5 - yes, that is FIVE times they required me to log in. Happily I had set up security questions and answered those several times - the same ones, over and over again. By the time I got Apple TV on my TV I was way too annoyed to watch any of their shit. I have no use for Apple - the hardware, the software, the company. None.

And I am kind of feeling the same way about Microsoft. Dick (of Dick and Jan) asked for my help yesterday showing him how to do something I showed him how to do a month ago - attach a One Drive document to email. That it was a repeat did not thrill me and then I could not figure out how to sort the documents to show him. It did not help that he kept moving the fucking mouse around while I was trying to figure it out. Also his data was at 98% on his machine so I knew it was going to freeze up beyond use any second. I got the document attached to the email and sent. He kept hitting send and sending the email over and over again with no attachment. Finally, I gave up and told him to call the IT guys. I have not used Windows in the last decade or more and I sure do not miss it. Also call the IT guys first next time.

I did get my closet emptied of shoes. I'll clear it out completely on Friday morning but until then, I'm set.

There is a new season of Night Manager so I thought I'd rewatch Season 1. But, turns out, I'd never seen Season 1! I finished it last night. Season 2 is a serial dropper and the last one won't be until the first week of February. I prefer to watch only when the whole season is available. So I'll hold off for now.

Ingrid has not done her balcony scream yet. I'm disappointed in the old girl.

The egg muffin situation is good. The ones I made reheated really nicely. In fact, they are a little better and easier to eat on the run (walk) when reheated. They are too big and not proportioned correctly but I can fix. I think what I really need is egg bites. I will adjust.

I am skipping exercise this morning. Since the pool is reopening, I am less motivated. The guy teaching today is really annoying. He only does the class on two Mondays a month and today is one of his. Plus, the class is at 10. So it makes no sense to shower and get dressed and then go sweat. So I come home and shower and dress and the day is half gone. Nope. (There is a MWF class earlier that is more advanced exercise. And I think there is even a killer class before that one. So I have choices. I chose none of them.)

Oh these landscape guys are really doing a great job! They are clearing out all the old winter stuff out of the beds and it's looking lovely.

Time to get into the shower and get dressed.

soemand

Research from 2005 provides a clear understanding of the current strategy that is playing out down south. Mark Kleinman passed away, but from an intellectual perspective I suspect he would be quite surprised to see his ideas being applied at such a scale.

Mark A.R. Kleiman's parking lot analogy illustrates enforcement swamping. If a parking officer can write only ten tickets, but only five people double-park, enforcement is certain and violations remain low. However, if 100 people double-park, the officer is "swamped," and the individual risk of a ticket drops to 10%. This creates a "tipping point" where the law loses its deterrent power.

Kleiman argued that spread-thin resources fail because they lack certainty. Instead, authorities should use dynamic concentration: focusing resources on one "lot" at a time to restore order before moving to the next, ensuring rules remain credible.

mallorys_camera

I think I'm gonna call the Work in Progress The Real Sister Wives of the Quaint & Scenic Hudson Valley.

tcampbell1000 posting in

scans_daily

Giffen plot and breakdowns, DeMatteis script, Hughes pencils #33, Tom Artis pencils #36.
Warning for suicidal behavior.

Issue #33, “Nitwits, Knuckleheads, and Poozers!,” begins with an old-fashioned narrative caption or two. “It’s a lazy afternoon, and Guy Gardner is bored. Heaven help us all.” ( Remember what being bored for a whole afternoon was like? )

Profile

calzephyr

January 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Paletteable by branchandroot
Theme: Full Sky by krja

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jan. 20th, 2026 09:21 pm

Got to be birds flying higher

in a sky more blue

Reading

FEエンゲージ3周年

Music setup

Three Random drive bys

Childhood Friend and Girlfriend #15

Book 8 - Bill Bryson "A Walk in the Woods"

Book 7 - Rita Indiana "Made in Saturn"

As Above, So Below

Not so fast there, fatty

farouche

Beavis and Butthead #23

Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

⛷️

Monday Word: Bristlecone

Everything Dead & Dying #4

Maggie Harris

Beavis and Butthead #22

Vacation

Ice, ice, baby

Naming Day

Green Friendliness: JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #33, 36 (JLI 46)

Profile

January 2026

Links

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags