ficondemand | Member Posts

There is no way people still trust ceasefire agreements with Israel, like come on. I'm not sure there's even an agreement to speak of-- I've seen like four or five different accounts of the goings-on now, Idk-- but even if there is, does it matter? We all know this song and every verse is the same as the first.

joshuaorrizonte

If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.

I’m a bit sore today, aggravated by the fact that I’m wearing jeans and not my comfy pants. I don’t strictly need to wear them, but I want to be dressed and not in pajamas.

I played Breath of Fire 3 for five hours yesterday. I use autobattle as timer to play mobile games; playing the mobile game while the battle is running, that is. It works for me, but there was an event in one of them that my partners refused to participate in, and I really wanted the prize for finishing, so that’s what I spent my afternoon on.

In other news, I cannot get comfortable. My right side feels like it’s being pulled forward and I don’t know why. This is going to make writing very difficult.

Current Music: I Am Made Of You, Alice Cooper

dustbunny105

Very busy day today, as expected. Slept in later than I meant to but Idk if I would've finished anyway. Probably not. I know I've said this before but I always forget now much little stuff I have until I try to get everything sorted out.

My plan to move a bookcase into the closet was stymied by the fact that, as usual, I forgot to take into account the closet shelving. Which is weird since I use that shelving but such is my brain, I suppose. The shelf stuck out like an inch and a half too far for the plan to be viable, alas. So, I broke the bookcase down into roughly half it's size and stuck that in the closet. I then took the rest of it apart and set the boards aside for now. The two shelves will be used for my other, matching bookcase but Idk what to do with the two side boards. I'm thinking of getting some brackets and repurposing them but I'm not sure where I'd put them... Still, I'd hate to throw them away.

I filled the closet half-bookcase and I'm working on clearing as much as I can from the remaining bookcase so I can use it as a display case as planned. I've been able to consolidate a lot so far. I cleared all that closet shelf space when I rearranged before and I think I can comfortably fit most or even all of my stuff there now. Just gotta get everything in order Still facing the usual issue of having to work around things I'm not keeping. I put a lot of stuff aside for Goodwill that I probably should've sent off to Goodwill last time I cleaned, lol. Also facing the issue of knowing where I want certain things to be put away but not having a storage solution available yet. Gonna be haunting Marketplace for a while.

Crochet didn't end up happening in between everything like I'd hoped it would but I did make pasta sauce and vegetable stock and both came out tasting really good. Haven't decided which to use for dinner tomorrow but I don't think there's a wrong answer, so I'm not too fussed.

joshuaorrizonte

I went with Cal to grocery shop this morning. I won’t call it a mistake, but I’m feeling it now. Almost 2000 steps where for the last week and a half, I’ve gotten MAYBE 500 a day.

I’m hoping that I’ll be okay enough to go for 2-5 minute walks every day this coming week. We’re still under an extreme heat warning, but 5 minutes should be too dangerous.

My hands hurt terribly for some reason, which is weird, because I haven’t really been using them as much as I usually do. Have I? In any event, maybe today will be a reading day. I’m working on To Shape A Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. It’s good so far, but I’m reading it slowly, because the chapters are short and I’ve been stopping after a chapter.

Oh, I also managed a shower last night. I just washed my hair and got out, as I’m not comfortable getting soap on the incisions yet. Still, it was nice to rinse off, at least. I’m going to be doing that every day, hopefully, and next week soaping up.

I’m gonna go… well… write. I still want to get my words down for the day, pain be damned.

Current Music: I Am Made of You, Alice Cooper

dustbunny105

Okay, I. I'm gonna just ignore the elephant in the room. Just for now, y'know.

So! Berries were indeed very good and I look forward to getting more. Didn't get to the farmers market as early as hoped and it was pretty crowded already even though it wasn't late either. Was able to get everything on my shopping list except herbs; the booth I like for them just had way too long of a line and it was nasty hot by then. My heart goes out to anyone who didn't have somewhere to escape the heat.

The day flew by without much of anything getting done, unfortunately. My A/C isn't great and so I wasn't much inclined towards the kind of work I hoped to get done. Sister stayed over longer than she meant to as well, so I didn't even get a lot of reading done. Made up a to-do list for tomorrow, though, and I'm trying to psyche myself up for it.

I made a decision on how to finish that one scrap blanket and I'll work on that between bigger tasks tomorrow. Should have that done this week, I think. I also offered to make some home decor for my brother and sister-in-law as a housewarming gift, so I need to choose patterns for that.

joshuaorrizonte

I was “in bed” by 8. Didn’t go to sleep until after midnight. I was too busy getting mad at transphobes and classists on facebook. I have to stop doing that.

I am, needless to say, exhausted.

But I am dressed, and I went down the stairs to make my breakfast; Dad’s going to go out to buy a gift card with his Home Depot card so we can get groceries. Because the disability system is ridiculous and thinks it’s reasonable for someone to go almost a month with no income because we’ll get the money eventually. Like, that’s not how the real world works. At all. I feel REALLY bad for people who need to be on permanent disability. (Or “long term” disability. Like, no. Some people are permanently disabled and deserve to be left in peace without being harassed by constant “assessments”. Deal with it.)

My watch wants me to get just 1400 steps today, because I’ve been so inactive. I am itching to go for a walk, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that this week. There’s an *extreme* heat warning. Not excessive. *Extreme*. I don’t think it would be SAFE for me to go for a walk in those conditions.

I’m gonna try to do some exercises with Finch, though. See how that goes.

Current Music: Ashes of Eden, Breaking Benjamin

dustbunny105

My sister realized that her fiancé's work has a ton of blackberry bushes in the back. She picked a bunch of berries the other day and we picked a bunch more tonight after I got off work. I've got my haul soaking now and I'm planning to at them for breakfast with some cream~ We're planning to get some plants pots and clip a few stems to propagate our own bushes. Or, well, she is. I don't have a yard to put bushes in. Granted, the woods are right there but Idk how to tell if these are an invasive variety or not. More's the pity.

joshuaorrizonte

I was in bed by 8:30 last night. I’ve just been so tired, and in a LOT of pain. I don’t understand why it’s getting worse and not better.

I also realized my glasses were across the room the moment after I got comfortable. I’m hoping to hold out until Dad gets up and can bring them to me. I might not be able to do that, though. Not because I need my glasses, but if I need to get up for anything.

So I was copying a book into digital format. It’s out of print and not anywhere in ebook format, and my copy is in tatters. And I can’t read physical books anymore, holding them hurts my hands. So I figured, turning it into an ebook for my own use is fair. I’m not sharing it, and I’m not selling it or claiming it as mine.

Well. I lost it. I really didn’t want to buy another copy of the damned thing (This is the… 5th or 6th copy I’ve lost) but I was so close to finishing it. Le sigh.

I’m gonna go do my writing and then play some video games.

Current Music: Mirror of Night, Delain

scaramouche

Partway through watching The Devil's Plan season 1, I did a quick search on youtube for TDP-related content to get an idea if TDP is/was popular. The algorithm fed me a video by

TaranArmstrong commentating over Genius Game, a UK version of the original The Genius, which I forgot existed but at least knew existed at all because David Tennant is the "host". (Not really, he's in prerecorded video footage explaining the games and tallying results, but he's not physically there to host.)

I watched bits of Taran's videos and really enjoyed his commentary! He has a good handle on strategy and figuring out game mechanics to explain them in ways that I can understand (a blessing!), plus he has a good grip on the social aspects of the game. Most important though, I think, is that Taran's enthusiasm is nice and he gets invested in a fun-to-watch way, with good humour, and it's fun to see him so critical of Genius Game's mostly wishy-washy players and the UK audience's dislike of complicated games. The reason the algo fed me his videos is because he mentions that he loved TDP season 1 and wants to do commentary over TDP season 2. He couldn't upload the videos to youtube, so he put them on patreon instead, so I figured hey, once I started watching TDP season 2, I can intersperse that with his commentary videos.

TDP season 2 I think starts strong, there's a good selection of contestants, some of whom are well familiar with board games and/or card games, and the showrunners changed the format up where instead of two players going to prison at the end of every main match, half the players would go there, and instead of a prize match that all the non-prison players have to play to get prize money, there's a death match where all the prison players have to play to survive. Plus because the thing about season 1 was the hidden prison game, both sets of players immediately get on trying to figure out the hidden games in both areas, which are found pretty early in the season.

Unfortunately as the season went on, the flaw in the overall game design had an accumulative effect, and I found myself enjoying the show less and less, and ended up mostly (though not always) watching Taran's commentaries instead of the actual episodes. I bailed entirely in episode 10 of 12. I might go back, I might not, but it's just not fun anymore.

( Cut the rest for length. )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: (G)I-DLE - My Bag

dustbunny105

I decided to sign up for a prisoner correspondence program. Sent a message to the organization a little bit ago, not sure when to expect a response. I imagine they'll have something for me to fill out when they get back to me, then I'll be matched with someone inside. There's no hard requirement for how many letters to send per [amount of time] but they ask at least a letter a month and I believe I can manage that. Any other guidelines will be decided between me and my penpal, since of course they'll know best what kind of correspondence is both desired and safe to receive.

joshuaorrizonte

I don’t know what I did, but that lower-right abdominal pain was killing me last night. Not bleeding, so I’m not going to even bother calling. Just
gonna take my pain meds and let it be what it will be. I feel sick to my stomach, too, so I might just go back to sleep for a while. My heart rate got up to 130 while getting dressed. It’s calmed down to 107, but that’s still too high for just siting in bed.

I need to tinker with my discord server a bit once I’m up, though.

Rune Factory 3 is fun. Play Asia is supposed to release Rune Factory 6 tomorrow… well, the limited edition version. And then who knows when I’ll get it. I might start a FF4 playthrough. Feeling thirsty.

Current Music: Love Takes Time, Mariah Carey

scaramouche

I picked up Brittany Kaiser's Targeted: My Inside Story of Cambridge Analytica and How Trump, Brexit and Facebook Broke Democracy when it first came out in paperback a handful of years ago, but hadn't read it because, well, I figured it'd be stressful. And it is stressful to read, which I have just done, considering where the world has gone since the first Trump election! But I think it worked out in the end because the book is already dated, and that helps to put some things in perspective in how facebook is no longer the powerhouse it once was, and our understanding of Big Data and data protection has evolved somewhat.

So Kaiser was an employee and eventual whistleblower of Cambridge Analytica (CA), I think it's quite widely known now how CA used Big Data to develop highly detailed psychographics of US voters to manipulate them in the 2016 election, especially towards the goal of voter suppression. What the book does is provide Kaiser's understanding of the timeline of events plus the details of the wheeling and dealing of players behind the scenes who were funding and/or moving money around, plus how the data was scraped and hidden in the first place (like, I knew all those facebook quizzes were part of data scraping and psychological profiling, but reading about it is still upsetting). But Kaiser says she had no hand in the data herself, since she was mostly pitching customers towards signing a contract before handing off to the operations team.

Since Kaiser didn't handle data herself I didn't get what I would've loved to know more about, which is how manipulation happens, beyond Kaiser's description of customized advertisments to incite anger and fake grassroots movements, but we knew that already. The psychology of it is interesting, and I would've liked deeper analysis of how to process news in a noisy world, and of the psychological and societal consequences we're still living in. But that's not the point of the memoir, and Kaiser's main emphasis is the attempt to redeem herself for her role in CA by focusing on data protection moving forward, which feels at this point a little horse-out-of-barn situation, but that doesn't mean we can't become more conscious of our online safety and support legislation to better protect everyone's privacy. (Facebook also being a case study of new social media being the wild wild west and allowing such abuse because no one knew what to protect themselves from.)

Plus when I say the book is dated, I'm also specifically referring to how Kaiser's exit strategy to get out of CA was to join the blockchain community.👀

Current Mood: nauseated

lassarina

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

dustbunny105

Idk what the deal is but Peppercorn has been getting a bit... violent, I guess, with her grooming. I'm sure it has something to do with her summer shedding but I don't remember seeing her like this before, constantly pulling out tufts of fur. Still, for all that I feel like I could make a duplicate of her with the fur she's leaving everywhere, I don't see any bald patches. And I checked and there are no signs of fleas. So, I'm not exactly concerned but I am very confused.

white_aster

Via the False Claims Act, NIH Puts Universities on Edge
A funding pause at the University of Michigan illustrates the uncertainty around new language in NIH grant awards.

Sadly, another way in which the current administrative shenanigans are rippling out and affecting everything.

I post things like this because I think the devil is in the details, and changes to the Notice of Award is definitely a "detail" with far-ranging consequences. It's easy to read a headline these days and know something is bad and stop there. But I think everyone deserves to know where the actual levers of power are and how they are flipped. So, here is one: slipping changes into legal wording that make institutions afraid of crossing the government lest they get sued into oblivion.

white_aster

The ABA Declares War
Trump tried to first “kill all the lawyers.” Now the lawyers have hit back.

This is absolutely an issue to watch. Though there's real questions about the impartiality of the Supreme Court right now, the judiciary has been the last bulwark against the executive branch lately. Until the legislative branch manages to find its bearings (or we find them for them via midterm elections) and start exercising its OWN oversight powers, the judicial branch HAS to remain functional. And lawyers being afraid to bring suits absolutely will break the judicial branch. They can only rule on what people are willing to sue for.

Also, to be clear: this is not only about the lawyers. Even if you don't like lawyers for whatever reason, they represent real, live people being real, live hurt by things that are happening. And those real, live people whose rights have been violated need to be able to find a lawyer to help them defend those rights, or they can't push back, and they might as well not have those rights at all. Make no mistake: lawyers as a profession don't just work for the rich and powerful - they work for everyday folks, too. And given the rich and powerful in power right now, it's everyday folks who will be hurt the most if lawyers are afraid to go up against the government.

joshuaorrizonte

So a continuation of yesterday’s post, after playing phone tag with my team (and NO ONE knowing who I was supposed to actually call) my gyn finally sent me to the ER ”out of an abundance of caution”. They did nothing for me that couldn’t have been done at the office except give me zofran, and I while that was nice, I didn’t strictly need it.

That derailed my WHOLE day, but we’re back on track. I need to take my everyday meds, and then I’m gonna get started writing a bit.

Current Music: Motherfucker of the Year, Motley Crue

dustbunny105

The week has already started and I'm already planning for the weekend, lol. In my defense, I still have STUFF to get done. I've got a new layout for my room planned and I'm going to do a bit of a purge while I go about it. Might call and see if my oldest nephew is available and willing to come help, since I'll have to move some furniture and that's easier with two.

One issue I've had when it comes to decorating my space is that when I first started buying wall art, well, I had more wall. Since then, I've hung a painting that was languishing in my closet and gotten those new shelves. I really like the painting, especially how it fits in the space where I have it, but I think I'm going to take it down. I'm also planning to move one of my bookcases into the closet-- still to be used for storage purposes, of course. Since I'm already condensing a lot of the stuff I have on the (mostly) non-book-bearing bookcases and since I already cleared some of my closet shelves, I figure I can clear a lot of space on the remaining case and use those shelves for display space. I'll still need to weed my collection, don't get me wrong, but that'll save me some tough decisions and also open the door for a few display options I've been considering.

I've already moved along one Transformers toy on eBay and I've still got a lot more to list. Many of them, I don't think I'll get to until the weekend due to having them put up... in the closet. Yeah, there's lots of rearranging to be done, lol. I figure I'll focus on prep-work tidying this week, so I'll be ready for the big stuff. Depending on what I get done before the weekend, I may even have time to go to the farmers market. Don't wanna get too ahead of myself, of course-- still got a few days to go! That said, the better prepared I am, the more likely I'll be able to do what I want to do.

joshuaorrizonte

The good: My disability has been approved!

The bad: There’s a waiting period!

The ugly: ( I woke up this morning with complications )

Anyway, I finished Suikoden 2 yesterday, and started Rune Factory 3. I’ll be starting Suikoden 3 today, I think, assuming that I don’t need to go to the doctor. I better call them now.

Current Music: I Am Made Of You, Alice Cooper

dustbunny105

So, been having a pretty good reading month still, though I've slowed down a little over the last couple of days. I blame the world, lol. But I'm currently working my way through an anthology of lesbian literature from the seventeenth century onward and I also enjoyed a one-day read of a book of fifty short biographies of queer people through history.

That second one was... fine.The biographies themselves, all one-page affairs, were a little watered down and even over-sanitized for my liking but the book does seem to be aimed at-- or least intended to be welcoming too-- a younger demographic than I realized. The illustrations were nice, I learned a few new names and it was cool to see names I recognized. Of those latter was a poet nun who I had, as coincidence would have it, just learned about through the anthology. Which perhaps made it all the more jarring when I got to a page that opened by name-checking Sappho and then claiming that there were no poems about women loving women after her until 1900. Uh. There are a few women who I think would like a word on that one... Including the aforementioned poet nun.

Profile

Fic on Demand - A FanFic Requests Community

Most Popular Tags

!comment fic meme [3]
!fill [3]
!mod post [9]
!poll [1]
!prompt post [2]
!request [29]
!request index [1]
!request
- filled [2]
fic
- a bit of fry and laurie [1]
- bandom [1]
- blackadder [1]
- buffy the vampire slayer [2]
- dead poets society [1]
- harry potter [1]
- homestuck [1]
- iron man [1]
- jeeves and wooster [1]
- lord of the rings [1]
- loveless [1]
- magic knight rayearth [1]
- mario rpgs [1]
- no rest for the wicked [1]
- oglaf [1]
- star ocean 4 [1]
- stargate sg-1 [2]
- supernatural [2]
- the gazette [1]
- velvet goldmine [1]
- x-files [1]
request
- big bang theory [1]
- echo & the bunnymen [1]
- final fantasy viii [1]
- harry potter [1]
- hetalia [1]
- homestuck [1]
- honor harrington series [1]
- inception [1]
- jane austen [1]
- kindred the embraced [1]
- mass effect [1]
- merlin [1]
- mysterious skin [1]
- pirates of the caribbean [1]
- star trek [3]
- stargate sg-1 [4]
- supernatural [3]
- tales of the abyss [3]
- tales of vesperia [1]
- white collar [1]
three weeks for dreamwidth [4]

Page Summary

September 2012

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

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Fic on Demand - A FanFic Requests Community

Member Posts

(no subject)

Well well.

(no subject)

I’m gonna lay down and perish now

(no subject)

Ugh, me.

(no subject)

Ugh.

The Devil's Plan (& Genius Game UK)

(no subject)

Owww…

Book Log: Targeted

What Are You Playing Wednesday

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

The ABA Declares War
Trump tried to first “kill all the lawyers.” Now the lawyers have hit back.

WHY was I sent to the ER for something that could’ve been an office visit?!

(no subject)

The good, the bad, the ugly

(no subject)

Profile

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

September 2012

Expand Cut Tags

Member Posts

The ABA Declares WarTrump tried to first “kill all the lawyers.” Now the lawyers have hit back.

Page Summary

Expand Cut Tags

The ABA Declares War
Trump tried to first “kill all the lawyers.” Now the lawyers have hit back.