Reading

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haaa!

Checkout the Minnesota Historical Society's

Local History News: April Fools Edition

and be sure to click on all the links (well, they all link to the same thing!). Guaranteed legit(imately funny).

No previous knowledge of Minnesota history necessary. :-)

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Current Mood: bouncy

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rtbtcki

[RTBTCKI:Why is this rabbit different from all other rabbits?/I joke!]

*^Passover reference! AND it’s a full moon AND April 1st.

*Less TSA drama according to my niece who was at the airport and got right through security.

*Restocked my local little free library(and organised it, too.)

*Don’s Family Vacations had a friend of his buy him a bunch of Donald Duck Funkos.He said that it cheered him up.Big props to the friend-that would have cheered me up too!

*Stefan Burns is the new Paul Begley.

*Y’all..the next part I am going to put under a cut because..well, you’ll see.

( Read more... )

Not enough puking smileys for *that* one.

*For the first time in forever,no pilgrims in Jerusalem.This has led to people saying that it is “religious persecution”. No it’s not.It’s called “keeping people safe”.

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daily: check in

WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 1 -- Wednesday

Hello on Wednesday! How are things going in the world of fic?

Did you write?

- Yes!
- No!
- Not yet!

If yes, what kind of writerly activity did you engage in? How do you feel about it?
If no, what were the obstacles/situations that affected your writerly pursuits? What will you do differently tomorrow to get more writing done?
If not yet, because the day hasn't gotten going yet, what kind of writing activity are you planning (or hoping) to accomplish?

Entry tags:

just rl

deserve..?

Two days ago it was 75F/23.8C and it's gone downhill from there! We're expecting two systems to come through in the next four days. They probably won't bring much snow (and it will melt quickly), but there's always the risk of being in'the sour spot' - freezing rain.

(sweet spot <--> sour spot, you see) (my recent coinage)

I took notes on what to write about today, but hey, I just did my budget and I think I deserve a rest. :-)

My new iPad brought with it a free 3 month trial of Apple TV. I've decided to accept the trial -- to watch Slow Horses. I very much doubt I'll continue the service after that.

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And once again...

... there was a family invasion. This time I got really angry at hubby, because it had been his doing once again. It had been already decided that Wednesday after Easter the boys would do an overnight stay at our house, because their mum will have her vernisage in town and daddy will be at work. But hubby thought it'd best that we discuss the situation while having coffee and cookies. I thought it best to be left in peace, because I was tired, very much so. I had to get up early, had a very interesting search for Sunday's daily amidst a snow flurry, it took a long time to fall asleep when back home, because it was freezing cold in the bedroom and my idiotic self had already switched to summer bedspread. Alas, hubby won. And there's a new situation the week after the vernisage, when the boys' parents will go to Sellamse (Zell am See, favourite vacation spot for rich people from Arabic countries, sadly abandoned by them since the once orange menace started his next idiotic coup) for a revue. The outcome of the visit was a black eye for Cassian (he fell against the table) treated with ice and a salve for bruises, and a howling Flavius, who tried to obtain a black eye (wanted ice and salve, too) but did not succeed, and a mother, who went out into the garden thrice, because she did not understand why her fig trees did not survive the very cold winter. Well, maybe if her relatives would have sent the young trees earlier they might have had a chance, but they only came a week before the first, early cold spell. Family number two left at seven in the evening, that's pretty late for them. Of course, mummy will blame daylight saving time for the boys' hyperactivity. Not the bad weather, which was forcing the two rascals to stay inside most of the time. And there will not be any changes concerning weather during Holy Week, on the contrary, tomorrow the next cold wave will roll in. But it might get better- on Easter Sunday, when the holidays will be over...

Cleaning bug? No, thanks!

I got up earlier, went back to bed after four again- and left it for good at seven thirty. Postman brought an official letter with the summarized record of the hearing at eight in the morning. To get it I had to sign- not funny when one is still wearing a dressing gown! But at that time I felt energised and started project clean-the-shelves with soap water for the wood and a feather duster for the books. After the first shelf I was ready to give up. I was sneezing like a pro, when I pulled out the lowest row of books, the one which gets dusted less than the upper ones (because I hate kneeling). But I managed all six book shelves. I am so proud! By then energy had puffed out and I switched to proof-reading. As I said- not my favourite occupation. Hubby was off at that time, but came back for lunch, which was Grenadiermarsch. Thats a mixture of leftovers- in our case noodles, a dumpling, roasted pork combined with roasted onions and gravy. After lunch I rested, but hubby brought a picture frame to DiL. He came back livid. Cassian is not exactly a star when it comes to school. We now know why- instead of practising German dictations his mother lets him write Romanian sentences. On top of that some letters get written differently... I think a talk with number two is overdue!
I went into another battle with my mobile. Today it ignored my request to show the downloads, which I wanted to put into a new folder on my PC. Eventually they showed up, and I started to weed them. Oh dear, where do all those Tolkien characters come from? I had one laughing fit after another. Most of the pictures I was not even able to match with a character. There were the ones who looked like elves fed with saccharine- those went straight into the bin. Then came the ones who were supposed to picture valar (at least I think so). I was not sure why they looked like participants of the paralympics- does being valar imply blindness, because none of the characters had eyes that qualified as- eyes? Spooky! Hence with it! Lastly there were those elves apparently hand-picked by Peter Jackson. Those looked like participants of a cosplay- dead ugly, just like the ones Jackson found in NZ.
I think I offed two thirds of the downloads but had lots of fun doing so. Did not even notice how cold it was in the studio- 17 degrees only! No wonder that I always wake freezing during night! I turned the PC off at seven and had a look out of the window- yup, it's snowing again. Nlt much, but still! At two degrees. I so love spring!

It's getting warmer...

...from tomorrow on, when we might be up to heavenly seven degrees- oh, wow! Today three was the highest we got, in combination with sleet all day long. Around lunchtime the garden was white for a while. Not to mention the strong winds we had, which kept me awake for most of the night! Creaking roof beams, rattling blinds, eggs banging against eggs, the best of winter winds! Now we are used to cold spells in early spring, but usually those won't last long. This one does...
I put on my winter comfort hoody and tackled my PC problems. A lot of things can be solved with the help of doctor Google, but not all. The rest will hopefully get done with the help of number four- if Elsa gives us the time. Usually she will linger in the studio with Lily's box of horrors aka Barbie cemetery and hinder me from turning my PC on. And if I complain number three will always tell me that I am seeing granddaughter not often enough anyway, so I should interact with her only. Alas, there are still problems in need of solving, and number four is not here that often...
Apropos Barbie cemetery: that's what hubby found in the basement- zombie dolls! Definitely not Lil's (mine neither)!

Son number one did a pit stopp at our house on the way to grocery shopping just after lunch-time. Xaver is in day careduring the week, Oskar at home (he is twelve already, so no more allowed to attend). Son brought loads of dish washer tabs and rinse aid that aren't allowed into their dish washer anymore. From now on it's only organic agents- almost twice as pricy, ineffectual (I have tested them) but trendy, if you have money to waste. After the intermezzo with son I finally finished proof reading- that thing is definitely not going to pass, I told the young man already. It´s plagiarising in some parts (I tested it with free ‎Free Plagiarism Checker) combined with barely existing research. The young man hasn´t learned a bit from the first, failed try. Not my problem...
Hubby left at six for a concert and a visit to a friend´s retirement party afterwards. I sat in front of the TV, trying to remember the title of the film sis swears she has seen on Amazon Prime. It´s about an US-American judge. It took me quite a while to find the movie
It´s On the Basis of Sex and about Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Only that it is Pay-TV only now, so I will have to kill time another way...

Current Mood: bitchy

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fandom troll

[I can’t with..]

The Fandom Troll isn’t talking about Hannibal(at least not 100%)

So,she went to college for writing,But she has been nothing but a huge fail on this one.From the self published books(which she claims that she has sold 100s of.Yeah right.Self publishing is the way to go to hear her tell it. She thinks you can do stuff without paying much if any money(once again, her trying to claim that she is close to broke all of the time.So there’s nothing new there.)

Oh, and all of her “contacts” who know people who know people who *could* get her screenplay sold and turned into a movie. The Fandom Troll has been saying that for *YEARS* and it still hasn’t happened.And never will.If she did she would use a fake name(she has said this several times)..claims that if she used her real name and people were able to track her down that she would get hassled just like she has in the past and go into a spiral.Technically, that’s not true;she’s been in a spiral for years.

For someone that says that she is not trying to gatekeep she does a whole fucking lot of it. I mean look at how she was when she was in the Hannibal fandom.That is proof enough right there.

The other part of this was that she posted a video which was about something else..but in the context of the video, the Fandom Troll was mentioned and shown(with bars over her eyes like anyone who isn’t in certain fandoms doesn’t know who she is.)Especially if you’re in the Hannibal Fandom, you know who she is. The guy who did the video said that it was a “privilege” to talk to her.Because he’s already made up his mind that the Fandom Troll is NOT in the wrong here.

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What goes into a word count pledge

Get Your Words Out has pretty flexible and generous guidelines on "what counts" when choosing a word count pledge. My brain, however, doesn't count the same way. (I started by writing "unfortunately" instead of "however" but got stuck on the word -- I don't particularly think it's a bad thing! It just is a thing.)

When I first joined GYWO, I was already writing just about everyday and tracking "streak" with 4thewords. I was more interested in finding out how many "story words" I could write in a year, and challenge myself there. I still am... but recently, I'm also discovering the ways in which this works against me, too. For example, I HATE deleting stuff in general, but according to my way of counting words, if it's deleted or rewritten from scratch, then it shouldn't "count" because I have nothing to show for it at the end of the year. As of this January, I tentatively started counting deleted words in that I shelved the first version of the Leopard/Tree K-9 fic in January (1.2k words) because it came out with the same frustrating "flatness" issue I mentioned a few times recently. The second version I wrote in February ended up at 7.5k words and I'm a lot happier with it! In terms of content it's not that different, in the end, but it's (clearly!) expressed very differently, with a lot more emotion too, much more satisfying to me. I guess the first version could be considered a "Draft Zero" in a way; I was telling the story to myself and figuring out the broad strokes. I broke it down very differently in the second version, which I only could do once I knew where I was going. I'm vaguely tempted to write yet another version with (craft) stuff I've learnt recently, but we'll have to see about that!! I haven't even finished editing the new version, yet.

Another way I noticed my way of counting words works against me is in prep time. I (joyfully!) use the snowflake method, and so far that's meant "plot plot plot OMG SO EXCITED I'M JUMPING IN" which is fine, like, I wanted to see if I could finish long things. But having to do another set of structural changes after 3 rounds of editing and beta-reader feedback on the cursed witch was so painful, I know I should spend more time in the planning stages... but between "excitement for the story" and "nothing really 'counts' until I start writing actual story words", it tends to push me toward starting the writing asap (even though a snowflake outline is veeeery many words by the time it's done!). And likewise, I have written <500 "story words" this month, but I wrote a post-draft outline for the soul thief, then spent EXTENSIVE time planning all the structural changes I want to make, to the point where my new outline stands at about 10k words now. Grew from 30 scenes to nearly 50. And that doesn't include any of the analysis/brainstorming I did as prep writing by hand.

At first, I tried measuring "time" because as annoying as tracking can be, I've been finding that very helpful for understanding the amount of effort editing takes. I don't like that at all for plotting/brainstorming though, because it's "thinking" and that's less predictable or tangible. I think counting the snowflake and outline words could work decently, though, or is worth a try at least. But I don't really want to add those words into my GYWO pledge, I think, even though that would mean I met my monthly goal... Hm... HMMMMMMMMMMM... Hm!!

Okay. I think I would like to track the planning word counts on my spreadsheet, but separately from my "story words" (no idea what that's gonna look like, yet!). I'm not changing what I'm counting for GYWO this year, because I signed up with a particular way of counting in mind. I'll see how I feel about it when pledging for next year opens in December. Right now, I'm leaning toward still pledging only for "story words" going forward because, for me, that's what I'm interested in challenging myself to write more of. If I finished a year with only planning words, I would be massively disappointed.

But, if I notice that counting planning/plotting separately means I still get antsy and rush too early into writing "words that actually count" then I will have to reconsider.

I'm really hoping the amount of planning I'm making ahead of revising the soul thief will result in a lot less pain than the cursed witch revisions turned into, but we shall have to see. I'm excited about it, too! And of course, daunted as well :D /o\

Entry tags:

books,
j-wat

Turtle talk/ bøker

I had coffee with j-wat this morning at my local Turtle. Talk ranged from western Minnesota to Venice and many points between. :-)

Mystery novels. Rome and London. Rottingdean and 'that wonderful girl's school.' (Roeden) (lol) I told him one of the cops in Elly Griffiths' Brighton mysteries pretends she didn't go to Roedean. Too posh by half, that.

Why in the world doogie did just became chair of the German department?

I finally finished my Dickens novel tonight (976 pages, mass market paperback). This time the long involved sentences made me impatient.

Oddly enough, the latest episode of the podcast Tea or Books? is on the topic 'Is there a right time to read a book?' This might include trying to read a certain book several times, until suddenly it all clicks.

As an undergrad - off my own bat! - I read all of Hardy's major novels. The fatalism didn't depress me. That would surely not be the case now!

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monthly: sign up

April sign up

It's time to sign up for the April WIP challenge! Some people join the challenge mid month, or comment on check-in posts without signing up, which is fine -- I'm glad there's a way for the challenge to be useful in a variety of ways. For those of you who find the commitment of signing up useful, please leave a comment with the below information.

Sign-ups will be open until the end of April.

Level of challenge:

Fandom(s) involved:

What you're looking for from the challenge:

What you could offer other participants yourself:

How people should contact you:

Time zone:

Copypaste below:

The post for hosting the daily check-in is here and thanks to everyone who helps out with this. If you're interested in helping out and there are still slots available the post remains open until the last week of the month and we generally run our week Sunday to Saturday, I'm happy to chat via PM on DW for anyone who might need it.

If you have ever completed a fic through this challenge we have a collection on AO3 and on SquidgeWorld both collections are open and unmoderated. Should there be an issue with adding a work, let me know and I'll see if there's a fix for it.

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monthly: hosting volunteers

Volunteers for April

Week 1: 5th to 11th
Week 2: 12th to 18th
Week 3: 19th to 25th
Week 4: 26th to 2nd

linaewen

Current Mood: calm

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thinky thoughts

[Before we begin,a caveat:]

I have TRIED to read Cormac McCarthy’s books but he just does not work for me.

Found a ton of theories on what happened in The Road-why things are the way they are.

Theory 1:Meteor.

Theory 2:EMP.

Theory 3:Volcano.

Theory 4:Biblical

Or:a combo of 1 and 3.Which,if true, Earth is having a really bad week.

We’re not mentioning a nuclear bomb because it doesn’t seem likely to the situation.

The clocks stopped and power went out..that certainly could be from a meteor *or* a volcano.Also a nuke..BUT as as I said before, that,from what we know from the book and from the film, that seems highly. unlikely.

There are *some* survivors and they have health issues but not the ones you would think;also it is shown,I believe,in the film that people were killed where they were when whatever happened happened(which is highly suggestive of a volcano;it’s what happened in Pompeii.) That’s true of a meteor or asteroid too. You(may or may not) know it’s coming and the thing happens and you’re dead.

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daily: check in

WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 30 -- Monday

Hello on Monday! How's the day going so far for fic? (If you haven't gotten started on your day as yet, how did yesterday go for writing fic?)

- Excellent!
- Terrible
- Somewhere in between
- Nothing doing

How much time have you spent on writing fic today, roughly?

- None
- 30 minutes or less
- 30-60 minutes
- 60-90 minutes
- More than 90 minutes

In five words or less, how do you feel about that?

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music,
youtube

shooba dooby

Watch on YouTube

I came across this version as the audio on 'doggy daycare' shorts on YouTube. Silly. :-)

Later I remembered that Louis Prima did not drop by in the movie Big Night. (umm, that's a spoiler...?) Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub: a charming movie.

Louis Prima wikipedia

He was the voice of the orangutan in The Jungle Book!

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Current Mood: quixotic

Entry tags:

catholicism

[Semana Santa*]

Holy Week* which starts today, Palm Sunday(and yes,I went to Mass this morning for the first time in..a while.Let’s just put it that way.)

I’ve never done the Stations Of The Cross but that’s a pretty standard thing during Lent. Year round more likely in places where there are not a lot of Catholics(think a lot of the South.) There is Tenebrae which is done on Holy Thursday.The church is lit by candles,which are extinguished,until there is one,and it too is extinguished and there is the strepitius-noise-usually people stamping their feet which represents the earthquake that happened when Jesus died.)

There are a few places near me that have it-but several of them are *not* Catholic so,not strictly speaking an only Catholic thing.)

TM would hate this:instead of clappers or bells during the Mass, they used a xylophone.It worked.

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daily: check in

WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 29 -- Sunday

Hello on Sunday! What kind of a writing day has it been so far today -- or if today hasn't gotten going yet, how did you fare yesterday?

- I thought about my fic once or twice
- I wrote
- I did some planning and/or outlining
- I did research and/or canon review
- I edited
- I've sent my fic off to my beta
- I posted today!
- I'm taking a break
- I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment

Sunday Discussion: It's a new writing week, and the last week of the current month. How are you doing so far with meeting writing goals for the month?

Current Mood: satisfied

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my writing: fics: wind breaker

Updated Wind Breaker fic: Acting on instinct (Sakura/Nirei/Suou/Kiryuu/Tsugeura)

Now complete!

Acting on instinct | Wind Breaker | Sakura/Nirei/Suou/Kiryuu/Tsugeura | 5.3k words | rated T

Summary: Something shifted for them all in that moment at Kiryuu's house. They all felt it. But Kiryuu was missing for it, so they can't do anything about it.

Not yet.

Read it on Dreamwidth or on AO3.

Entry tags:

just rl,
tech

"Yes"

Though I was so tired yesterday I didn't actually sleep very well.

Today I had an appointment for a haircut. Buses run much more frequently since the E line started through my neighborhood, quite the change for Saturdays! I unexpectedly caught an earlier bus, so walked to the IDS center for a coffee before my appointment.

It was a bit hard to judge how to dress. It was under freezing at 10:00 but by the time I got home it was probably 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer, say 45F/7.2C. But windy! I noted the frozen lake (BMS) in passing.

After lunch "I just said, what the heck" and did the delete-reboot-enter deal. It worked! Email on my iPad. I also realized the reason why books stored on the Kindle cloud didn't appear on the iPad Kindle app (downloadable). This time when a notification popped up on my MacBook asking "allow this laptop to communicate with other devices in the area?" I knew the answer should be Yes! Lovely book covers appeared in the iPad app, ready for me to scroll through.

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Welcome to spring...

...Alpine style. Rain, heavy winds, snow, back to rain. I left the house for ten seconds maybe, when I carried waste to the dustbin, which hubby needed to bring to the main street for tomorrow's disposal. Needless to say he did it by car, not even hubby would do the walk in such a weather!
I would have loved to do some knitting, but haven't found a new project yet. Cassian's scarf will have to wait till autumn, and the knitting yarn I had set aside for a summer top for Elsa isn't to her liking- wrong colour, the young lady has switched from pink to violet. Maybe I will find yarn of this colour and mix it with the pink one. So I spent the morning with boring housework and watching TV. Oman from above was a beautiful documentary, but travelling there is unrecommended considering the current volatile political situation. After a clear-the-fridge lunch-chicken fillet with sauteed Chinese cabbage (had been dying in the vegetable drawer) on egg-rice (from the Chinese restaurant) I went to the studio and tried to convince my PC that I needed access to my WhatsApp pictures. No such luck, I thought that I'd have to wait for number one's visit next week- until hubby thought of the old way we got to our photos (once upon a time). And lo and behold, it worked! I copied two years of WhatsApp into new folders, will weed what I don't need tomorrow then start with 2024 and do the same. This way I will have a reason for staying in the house and not exposing my poor, old body to the dangers of belated winter- weather will stay wet and cold until the weekend! Then it will be cold only, a bit of improvement at least! Only that I will need to drive to a toyshop soonest, because I haven't found a present for Elsa on Amazon. Not that they don't have any, but what she likes won't be delivered in time!