It's competitive parade season

Oct. 5th, 2025 05:24 pm
neonvincent: For posts about cats and activities involving uniforms. (Krosp)
[personal profile] neonvincent
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Pacifist Dorsai, space forts, duelling reviews, a rant about that mean Mr. Einstein and more in this issue of Destinies.

Destinies, February-March 1980 (Destinies, # 6) edited by Jim Baen

Week in review: Week to 4 October

Oct. 5th, 2025 08:53 am
pedanther: (Default)
[personal profile] pedanther
. I have a book in mind for the next link of the Book Chain challenge, but I'm waiting for it to come in at the library, so instead I've been tackling the backlog of the monthly Random Book challenge.

For September, I read A Tremble in the Air by James D. Macdonald. It's a mystery novella, in which a psychic investigator is called in to investigate a ghostly apparition, and uncovers a murder. Read more... )

For August, I read A Moment of Silence by Anna Dean. This is also a murder mystery; this time the gimmick is that it's set in Regency times - the Kirkus review features the phrase "if Jane Austen had written Miss Marple", which gives a fair idea of what it's aiming for. Read more... )

For July, I'm reading Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit, which is an interesting experience because every other time I've read a Dickens novel I've gone in basically knowing the story already, but this time I had no idea what to expect. Read more... )

Little Dorrit would also work as the next link in the Book Chain, but I have a feeling I'm going to be a while getting through it, so I'm keeping it in mind as a fallback but if something quicker comes along I'll use that instead.


. Unrelated to any of the book challenges I'm doing, I'm also participating in Around the World in Eighty Emails, an online book club that's doing Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days in sections attached to the dates on which the novel's events take place, starting on 2 October and finishing eighty days later in mid-December. I wasn't sure before I started if I'd ever read an unabridged version of the novel before, but I'm thinking I hadn't; the general outline of events is familiar, but a lot of the details are new to me.


. I finished the jigsaw puzzle early in the week, and what with one thing and another I haven't got around to packing it away and starting a new one yet.


. At Monday Knights, we had a long weekend session that started in the early afternoon. We began with The Mind as a warm-up, spent several hours playing Arkham Horror, and finished up with a few rounds of Concept. Read more... )


. I was listening to music on my earbuds while I did something in the yard, and I wanted to skip to the next music track but I'd left my phone (which was acting as the music player) inside. I had a vague memory that the earbuds had a way of signalling the phone to skip to the next track by pressing one of the volume buttons the right way, so I started randomly pressing buttons to see if I could find it. Read more... )


. I've added a new category to my monthly fiction log. Read more... )


. Another thing I've been doing to take my mind off things is playing a computer game called Squeakross, in which you solve picross puzzles in order to earn clothing and furniture items to decorate a cartoon mouse and its habitat. Read more... )


. Some years ago, I agreed to store some stuff for someone I knew, on the understanding that they'd come and pick it up next time they were in town. What with one thing and another (including, to be fair, several actual family crises), it never seemed to be the right time for them to come, so the stuff's been sitting in my storage unit for years, but this week finally they arranged for somebody to come and get it. I'm hoping to ride the momentum and take the opportunity to reassess my own stuff that's been sitting in the storage unit, and see what can be disposed of or shifted to somewhere less expensive.


. Yesterday I went to the pool and swam laps for the first time in quite a while. I enjoyed it, though unsurprisingly I don't have the stamina I used to have when I was doing it more regularly. Afterward, I got an interesting foot cramp that may or may not have been related.


. Another for the Words I'd Only Ever Seen Written Down and Thought I Knew How to Pronounce file: prions, the biochemical whatsits responsible for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and mad cow disease, are correctly pronounced pree-on. The way I've been pronouncing it for the last thirty-odd years, with the same first syllable as "pry bar", is apparently common enough that I may well have heard it pronounced that way in the wild, but is not the original pronunciation and is not officially considered correct.
neonvincent: For general posts about politics not covered by other icons (Uncle V wants you)
[personal profile] neonvincent
I used one from last night in Colbert, 'The Daily Show,' Meyers, and Kimmel take closer looks at the shutdown instead.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Twelve books new to me. Four fantasies, one horror, one non-fiction, and six (!) science fiction works, of which at least four are series instalments.

Books Received, September 27 — October 3

Poll #33688 Books Received, September 27 — October 3
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent (December 2025)
3 (5.6%)

Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis (January 2026)
8 (14.8%)

The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang (April 2026)
22 (40.7%)

We Burned So Bright by T. J. Klune (April 2026)
20 (37.0%)

We Could Be Anyone by Anna-Marie McLemore (May 2026)
7 (13.0%)

These Godly Lies by Rachelle Raeta (July 2026)
3 (5.6%)

The New Prometheans: Faith, Science, and the Supernatural
15 (27.8%)

Every Exquisite Thing by Laura Steven (July 2026)
4 (7.4%)

The Infinite State by Richard Swan (August 2026)
6 (11.1%)

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky (June 2026)
24 (44.4%)

Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne (July 2026)
19 (35.2%)

Platform Decay by Martha Wells (May 2026)
40 (74.1%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
38 (70.4%)

Bruno (morning writing, cats)

Oct. 4th, 2025 07:39 am
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
[personal profile] elainegrey

We are welcoming Bruno, a young charcoal grey cat, in our home. He was a kitten rescued during Helene last year, and we are his third placement. It seems that children and a tumultuous household may stress him, and he has some sort of GI/urinary tract issue.

Christine had reached out to Cat Tales Cat Cafe (cattalescatcafe.com) on Thursday -- i think because her sister is likely to adopt from there -- to discuss our outdoor space as they only adopt for indoor cats. I overheard her chatting, explaining our past, acknowledging their boundaries, and concluding that they could keep us in mind if there were any cats who came through them who would be exceptions.

Thursday night she received an email:

 Thank you for your application for a cat in our rescue.... And we usually require that the cats adopted through our rescue are indoor only cats with a few exceptions. And I wanted to discuss one of those exceptions. Let me tell you a little about Bruno.

Bruno was found during the heavy rainstorms we got in our area from hurricane Helene last year. He was found with 3 siblings, all of whom have been adopted. Bruno was adopted as well but he was returned to us when he had inappropriate urinary issues when he never had those issues before. Bruno was a fairly shy guy and had been adopted into a very busy household with a bunch of kids. We believe it was just too much for him and the inappropriate peeing is stress related in addition to crystals being present in his urine. We had another person adopt Bruno and they were aware of his issues and told us they wanted to work on it with him. They also have young kids and they told us that Bruno only peed inappropriately when the children were around. So we feel strongly that Bruno could be a good indoor/outdoor cat in a low stress household without children. He loves people and other cats but has never been around a dog so that's an unknown factor. ....

 I personally fostered Bruno for a couple of months before he went to the second adopter and he never had a peeing incident unless a young person or a stranger was around. Would you be willing to give this very handsome, sweet and affectionate guy a try? He needs a special place that's not easy to find. He really is a gem and deserves to have a happy home.

Bruno was returned to the fosterer on Thursday evening. By end of work Friday we had chatted with my sister (who has a cat with crystal and kidney issues) to see what her experience was, and made plans to check him out. We brought him home last night. It's been OK so far, although i probably rushed taking him from the bathroom to the front room where there is a bed he can disappear under. He did get up to see me, but when i pulled a kleneex out to address a dingleberry he disappeared again.

He has a higher pitched meow. He was apparently named according to a pixar theme, and Bruno of Encanto is his eponym. (Haven't seen the movie; listened to the song, and read about the character last night.)

I hope he foresees peace and quiet with us.

Meanwhile, Christine is in a migraine cluster. My labile moods remain.

tcpip: (Default)
[personal profile] tcpip
Two weeks ago, I gave a presentation on "Stoicism, Daoism, and Apathy" at the Melbourne Agnostics Society, which was attended by over fifty people. I have finally managed to compose my notes into something approximating a transcript of the event. At over 5,500 words, the presentation took about an hour to deliver and was followed by a Q&A session that ran for at least another three hours afterwards. Apparently true to their tradition, philosophers like to talk, and frankly, I was mentally quite exhausted at the end of it. Still, I am hardly going to spend this much effort if I didn't care very deeply about the subject and the potential for synthesis of these two great philosophical traditions.

However, it doesn't stop there. I've nailed my colours to the mast, so to speak, and visited the Melbourne Tattoo Company, who also did my Math-Rat-Tat three years ago. I had a couple of design pieces that combined my Stoic and Daoist interests, which were expertly compiled by my dear friend, Lara, and then etched into my skin by a talented young man named Jake. With plentiful etchings, he is a good walking advertisement for his craft. As is always in my taste, the design has many layers of symbolism which require elaboration.

The two-part taiji diagram, commonly known as yinyang ("dark-light"), represents the essential unity and inclusion of apparent opposites that are in dynamic motion. Instead of the seeds, however, I have alternating Stoic flames (a design originally from DT Strain), representing both the arche (basic state) and panta rhei (everything flows) from Heraclitus. When viewed as phase states, rather than fixed "elements" (c.f., Chinese wuxing), "fire" (i.e., plasma) was the first state of the universe. The tips of the flames also represent the Stoic cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance of Stoicism, with the flame bodies themselves the three treasures of Daoism: Compassion, Frugality, and Humility.

Finally, the taiji is surrounded by a Hellenic meander, itself named in the river in contemporary Turkey. Apart from the varied changes in direction that are part of the flow, it also serves as a border from which Okeanus, representing the great river that both encircles the world and separates our time in existence from the period outside it. Memento Mori! If you remember that you will die, you can live with purpose. Do not postpone what matters, avoid the distraction of things that don't matter, and focus on virtue. Nemo vir est qui mundum non reddat meliorem!
neonvincent: For posts about geekery and general fandom (Shadow Play Girl)
[personal profile] neonvincent
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Forgotten again by her family, Joan Greenwood discovers that this time her witch-kin had a legitimate excuse: a potentially existential threat to Greenwood power and privilege.

An Unlikely Coven (Green Witch Cycle, volume 1) by AM Kvita

Checking In - 2 Oct. 2025

Oct. 2nd, 2025 09:15 pm
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
[personal profile] dewline
The knee x-rays are done. I expect to know what's up/down with those by mid-November.

I spent the afternoon filing job applications and watching a joint session of city hall's Finance and Planning+Housing committees. Which kept my brain ticking over well enough, I suppose.

Not much else to mention.

Acercándonos

Oct. 2nd, 2025 10:53 pm
tcpip: (Default)
[personal profile] tcpip
Although the trip to South America and Antarctica for Kate and me is two months away, there have been a few progressive and positive changes as that date nears. The first is a very recent decision from Chile that Australian passport holders no longer require a tourist visa for stays up to 90 days. That is quite beneficial, as there are a couple of visits to said country on the itinerary, including the capital, Santiago, and Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego. The second was a visit to the Travel Doctor-TMVC for a few various vaccines and boosters in preparation for the trip, of which the Yellow fever vaccine was most notable. I still had my WHO vaccine card from the last time I visited said clinic over twenty years ago for my first trip to Timor-Leste, and have carried it around with my passport ever since!

A third update is a decision by yours truly to flesh out the itinerary for various cities and towns that we're visiting that's not part of the standard tour. Unsurprisingly, this will include over fifty museums, art galleries, theatres, historic buildings and the like, which this lover of art and beauty cannot ignore, no matter what country I visit. Said locales include Santiago, Lima, Cusco, Buenos Aires, Punta Arenas, Ushuaia, Stanley, and Montevideo, so if any readers have recommendations they are very welcome. What I haven't done yet is work out what to do on the several days on the cruise ship from Buenos Aires to Antarctica and return, which I suspect will be quite boring, and I'll end up spending most of my time either in the theatre, gym, or dining. Fortunately, a deck plan is available.

Finally, with some prior learning and a great deal of recent interest, I have spent a good amount of time building my Spanish language skills in recent months to the point that I feel fairly comfortable with B1 CEFR level communication. Most of this has been through Duolingo, as always. However, being of a certain age, I have also joined and enrolled in the Spanish language and literature classes conducted by the Melbourne city University of the Third Age. I must confess I prefer the current French title (which the concept originated in 1973) as "Union Française des Universités de Tous Ages". Still, each body is independent and makes its own rules, and I rather suspect I'm going to enjoy this environment.

Rejected video for Jane Goodall post

Oct. 2nd, 2025 08:51 am
neonvincent: Spider Jerusalem blogging on a taxi hood with a dagger in his mouth. (Spider Jerusalem)
[personal profile] neonvincent
I replaced this video with one from PBS NewsHour in R.I.P. Jane Goodall, 1934-2025.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A field agent armed with privacy-violating technology searches for Nazi loot--stolen diamonds--on behalf of a South African diamond cartel.

Probe (Search, # 1) by Leslie Stevens & Russ Mayberry

October 2025

S M T W T F S
   12 34
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Oct. 5th, 2025 11:44 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios