July 2nd, 2025
smuttymcsmutface: Kink Mod (mod2)
Kink Hub: A Sharing & Reccing Community for Kink Fics

Links:[community profile] kinkhub | Community Rules | Posting Guidelines | Monthly Themes & Free-For-All | July: Sex on the Beach

Description: Kink Hub is an 18+ comm for anything kink fic, where you can self-promote, share and rec fanfics of all fandoms and original works. RPF is welcome.

For the month of July, the theme for all shared fics is "Sex on the Beach", which means any kinks related to outdoor fun (no actual beach required) and/or alcoholic beverages (no cocktail required). If you've written or read fics featuring any related kink, you're very welcome to share the links to them in this comm.
flemmings: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] flemmings at 09:15pm on 01/07/2025 under
The day was pillow hot and muggy so I stayed in and ordered Vietnamese delivery. The chicken and vermicelli wasn't as good as Pour Boy's but the Vietnamese coffee was excellent. Swiftered the kitchen floor, lick and promise but better than nothing. Then as the afternoon progressed the weather turned warm and dry instead of hot and muggy, so went out with clippers to attack the hedge and whatever of the linden I could reach. Practically the first thing I did was catch my thumb in the little lock thing so I bled all over the clippers, and my back went into spasm, and the linden branches were nowhere close enough to cut. Returned to the sofa and fan and the three books I'm reading, none of them eformat so no bicycling either. Thus my useless Canada Day.
hannah: (Zach and Claire - pickle_icons)
posted by [personal profile] hannah at 08:48pm on 01/07/2025
It was such a slow first day, midway through the afternoon, I was being paid to sit there and read. It won't be like that every day - not even other days this week - and even if it doesn't get repeated, I can savor having had it for a little while.

So far, it's a front desk job like all front desk jobs: phone calls, emails, appointments, office supplies. People called, I called them back. Documents were scanned into the computer and copies were made. The clients were largely punctual and there's no music playing. While I doubt I can get away with headphones or a radio, there's a fan I may use for white noise to make the periods of sitting around, waiting for more nothing to happen, a little easier to get through without having to fall back on monetary compensation. Even if I got through a large chunk of some reading today.

Though I suppose longhand writing notes are always an option. If I remember to bring the right notebooks tomorrow.
Mood:: 'calm' calm
Music:: Tupelo Honey - Van Morrison
ysobel: A kitten on a piano keyboard (music)
posted by [personal profile] ysobel at 05:18pm on 01/07/2025 under ,
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.
July 1st, 2025
hudebnik: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] hudebnik at 07:14pm on 01/07/2025 under
I took an hour out of my work day to go to the swimming pool. Left the house a bit before 4:00 (wanted to leave earlier, but it took me a while to find my gym-bag). Got there around 4:15, stood in a line it turned out I didn't need to stand in, then went upstairs and checked in with my membership card and combination lock, no line. There were lots of lap-swim lanes, but more than half of them were closed for no obvious reason. Anyway, I swam nine laps before the lifeguards ordered everybody out of the pool at 5:00. They would reopen at 5:30, but only the "open swim" area, not the lap-swim lanes. Drove home in bad rush-hour traffic and did some more $EMPLOYER work. I think I hadn't swum laps in a regulation-sized pool since 2019.

One of the other guys in my lane commented "You swim really well for your age." I didn't ask him what he thought "my age" was -- I assume he based his estimate on the white hair in my eyebrows and five-o-clock shadow -- but I guess I can check off that Bingo square now.
shadowkat: (Default)
1. I feel I need to explain in detail how a Bill becomes a Law in the United States. Since a lot of people think now that the Senate passed the Big Beautiful (more like Butt-Ugly) Bill - it will now go to the House and voila, signed into Law. Uh, no, this is not how it works, folks.

But wait, another lawyer did it for me! To the tune of I'm only a Bill, just a little old bill...via School House Rock, which oversimplified it.

How A Bill Becomes a Law by Anne P. Mitchell

First and foremost: In order for a bill to be sent to the president to be signed into law the House and the Senate MUST pass *identical* versions of the bill!  This is what we are seeing happen right now with the budget bill, the House originally passed their version and sent it to the Senate. The Senate made massive changes to it, then voted on that changed version just now, so now it goes back to the House. If the House makes ANY changes, then it goes back to the Senate for them to either vote on or make additional changes.

Here is How a Bill Becomes a Law )

The process gives me hope. It did have a lot gutted from it. Also the Senate added 800 billion to the national debt. Meanwhile various States are in the process of passing laws to withhold federal taxes, since the federal government is not representing them in a fair and reasonable manner.

2. What is in the Big Butt-Ugly Bill aka the Big Beautiful Bill that the Senate Passed? (Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder apparently?)

Here's What got in and What got cut from the Big Butt-Ugly Bill

It went from 1000 pages to 940 pages.

In the bill: what stayed in the Bill )

On the Medicaid Cuts, what got in and got cut out of the bill:
Read more... )

What is left out of the bill or was cut:

Public land sales
what they were trying to do and why it was cut )

Excise tax on wind and solar, State AI provisions (The Senate stripped a provision barring states from regulating artificial intelligence (AI). )

For a more precise and total breakdown? Go HERE - The link is NY Times article via remove pay wall.

This tells you exactly what the Senate removed from the bill, changed, altered and left in and why.

Note they removed everything that wasn't budgetary related and broke the rules.

Example?

Measure to limit court contempt powers

The parliamentarian rejected a measure in the bill that would have made it harder for courts to enforce lawsuits against the Trump administration. The measure targeted preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by federal judges against Trump’s executive orders and other directives. MacDonough argued that limiting courts’ ability to hold Trump in contempt violates Senate rules.

Go HERE for complete list of no-gos that can't be in the Bill at all

Note, it's still a controversial bill.

3. Want a way to help either in the US or out of the US?

We The People Defend provides information on how.

It's a non-profit site that provides emails with contact information, and instructions on how to go about contacting Senators, White House, Congress, Etc.

You don't have to do everything or anything at all. There's no pressure. But it helps explain how the law works and how to help change what is going on in a pro-active way.

So far, folks have managed to change a lot of things by doing this, so it is working.

If however, you are too pissed off like myself to rationally call and explain in a calm manner, you might want to hang back for a bit or do something else?

4. [ETA: Folks? Be mindful of my blood pressure and please knock off the defeatist talk or keep it out of my journal. I get we're all worried, scared and angry. But it does nobody any good, including you. And I honestly have enough troubles sleeping as it is. I'm on medication for anxiety. So be mindful and keep it to yourselves?]

Actually, Jay Kuo states all of this better than I can - so I'm reposting his words below:

"Folks, some real talk.
Read more... )

What he said.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] james_davis_nicoll at 06:02pm on 01/07/2025
The quotation below is a quotation


CSFFA (The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association) is proud to announce the 2025 CSFFA Hall of Fame inductees.

Clint Budd, fan, convention organizer, modernized CSFFA and created the CSFFA Hall of Fame
Charles R. Saunders, author, journalist, and founder of the “sword and soul” literary genre
Diane L. Walton, editor, mentor, and a founding member of On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic

More information here.


Congratulations to the Inductees!
susandennis: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] susandennis at 02:11pm on 01/07/2025
So. The foot guy was pretty hilarious. ZERO warm and friendly bedside manner. He was all about the solution and he got on it fast.

My left foot has gross thick toenails and peeling skin. Terbenafine. Take it for 90 days. The skin will clear up after 30. The nails will be better after 90 and back to their original shape and texture in six months. 85% chance it will clear everything up.

My right foot gets a sharp pain irregularly, across the toes and cramps up a lot. He had me point where the pain starts and then he put his thumb near the spot and pressed. HOLY FUCK! Ouch. Then he pressed a couple more places. Not quite as ouch. Pinched nerve. Two cortisone shots. One now and one in August cause he's going on a motorcycle tour of the southwest for the rest of July. 75% chance it will make the pain go away completely. (I've had this pain for years and years and if this actually does fix it, I'm going to apply for some of those years to be returned to me.)

Wild. I assumed he was going to tell me to change shoes, wear inserts. Never go barefoot. Always do this, never do that. But, nope. I did take all my shoes with me. He barely looked at them and would not at all had I not asked him. He gave me the names and model numbers of 3 kinds of shoes to get if I wanted to be comfortable walking. And he told me that the inserts I'm wearing in my shoes right now are the best and the only ones I should ever use.

And that was it. The end. of him until August.

I had to go down and give blood to get a liver test which he assumed would not point out any issues so he went ahead and sent the prescription to the pharmacy. Including the blood test, I was on the road back home at 1:24. My appointment was 1.

I feel like I got more than my $30 (co pay) worth.

I had ordered 3 pair of shoes but all 3 now get returned. One, however, is a keeper but I need a longer size. I did all the online return bit. They all go to the same place - UPS. I'll take them in the morning.

It is hotter than a fire cracker out there. I'm in the elbow now waiting for my house cleaner to finish. It's pretty warm in here but she's about done and I can go home where it is very cool.
hunningham: Beautiful colourful pears (Default)
posted by [personal profile] hunningham at 10:09pm on 01/07/2025

When you get married they ask you to write an inscription. Think of it as being like taking out a subscription.
You should sign it with a feeling of elation and hope it won’t end with a cancellation.

Michael Rosen

I wish I could remember where I found this piece of doggerel, it wasn't in a book. Guardian maybe? Past me did a copy-and-paste into commonplace notepad (but at least I noted the author's name)

And yeah, I still like the sentiment, good wedding poem.

vivdunstan: Photo from our wedding in Langholm (martin)
Some musings from me, prompted by last week's graduation ceremonies at Dundee University, plus this week's graduation ceremonies at St Andrews University.
posted by [personal profile] cosmolinguist at 09:02pm on 01/07/2025 under

I could barely do the morning chores I usually feel neutral-to-positive about this morning -- I open the curtains, unload the dishwasher, make a pot of tea, get breakfast for myself... Things that are always the same and always different. It can be very grounding.

Today I wasn't especially tired and I wasn't in pain or anything, I just didn't want to. I couldn't imagine doing the first tiniest step.

This is a sign of burnout. I need a break. I was telling my counselor this evening that a break for me has to be somewhere away from my house, because my house is full of reminders of chores I need to do, things that get on my nerves, etc. I am not good at relaxing, but when I can do it it doesn't tend to happen at home.

I did an okay amount of work today but near the end of the day I was in this focus group about "inclusion" in our workplace. These things can be kinda therapeutic but by the end I was thinking that we keep having surveys and stuff like this, where we tell some nice external person all our woes and we're assured that the feedback is anonymized into themes that cannot identify us, but all that means is our specific nuanced articulations all get flattened in to "we all have good colleagues who care about their work but the executive team keep letting us down," and we're going to get the same kind of response from said executive team about how impressed they are at everyone's honesty and how committed they are to addressing these themes, and then we'll do this all over again in a year or two.

I felt really tired by the end of it, which wasn't great because it was almost time for my first counseling session in almost a month. A real "let me explain, no there is too much let me sum up" kind of situation.

My counseling happens on the phone and usually in my bedroom; I normally come right back downstairs in search of dinner, but this time I just lay on my bed for something ridiculous like an hour. I kept trying to get up and go back downstairs but again: so many steps. And it was relatively peaceful just lying there.

Since I had to come downstairs and try to eat dinner I'm feeling more depersonalization, so maybe all of this has been more stressful or triggery than I realized. I hate it; is probably the most uncomfortable symptom of my anxiety/depression.

choco_frosh: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] choco_frosh at 03:53pm on 01/07/2025 under
Today is--somehow--my tenth anniversary* as a changeringer.

* Well, with a couple of caveats. This excludes, obviously, trying to learn change ringing back when I was 14. And I'm using July 1 as a convenient approximation, in much the same way as [personal profile] sorcyress uses their birthday. I know had already been to a practice or two at Advent before I went to Old North the first time, which I think was on July 4; so the first time with a rope in my hands may have been July 1, or it may have been a Wednesday or two before then. The earliest reference I can find to ringing is a blog post from July 16 [Locked]--but I'd clearly been ringing for some time at that point.
...I should probably check the Log Guest book at CotA, huh.
squirmelia: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] squirmelia at 08:59pm on 01/07/2025 under
Low tide and lunch time coincided so I headed towards Custom House.

The tide was out enough that the foreshore was a good size, but there was quite a lot of broken glass in the left direction and some sinking mud furthest to the right, but in between, there were pebbles and bits of Bartmann jugs and tiles and other wonders.

I also saw a few bits of seaweed.

It was a very hot and sunny day and as I walked along the foreshore, I thought about how the day was just spectacular and how happy I was to be there by the river.

Later that evening, the tide was up and the steps at Blackfriars already had water on them but a man not wearing a shirt stood in the water, throwing stones.

I looked at my finds when I got home and was convinced that what I had previously thought was a clay marble was actually an eyeball. It looked sort of white with a pupil and with red veins, and for a while I didn't want to touch it, before I convinced myself again that it really is a marble.

I found some interesting sherds of pottery on the foreshore - nice raised patterns from Bartmann jugs, a pipe that has initials, Westerwald stoneware fragments, another piece of flint, and some Metropolitan Slipware.

Mudlarking finds - 26
andrewducker: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] andrewducker at 01:58pm on 01/07/2025 under ,


"Sophia, will you pose with your brother for a photo?"

"I will, but I'm very angry about it!"
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

oursin: a hedgehog lying in the middle of cacti (hedgehog and cactus)

Wot a saga, eh, wot a saga, first time I have ventured significantly forth these many years -

And to start with, MAJOR HEAT EVENT.

In anticipation, I had - or so I thought - prudently booked a taxi via taxiapp, with a certain amount of leeway, just in case -

- which turned out very prudent, as when I went to check the booking this morning the app was showing 'network error' and this was clearly on their end rather than mine, and a little looking about suggests that this is not their first rodeo server problem.

So when, at designated time, taxi cameth not, I set out towards the Tube, not without some hope that a black cab might pass me on my way, but that Was Not To Be -

And on reflection, I should perhaps have waited for a Bank train, because getting out on Charing X platforms at Euston involves rather too many stairs.

However, Avanti kindly texted me the approx time my train would be boarding, and this all seemed set - although my (1st class) seat was aisle, backwards, there was nobody in the other 3 seats so I switched -

HAH.

When we reached Coventry, choochoo sighed and gave up, and we had to debouch and take the next Birmingham bound train - which was delayed....

At Birmingham New Street had considerable faff trying to discover a Way Out that would take me to a taxi rank.

When I finally arrived at hotel booked by conference organisers there was an immense performance trying to find the right group booking, as it was not under any title that I might have thought of but that of some hireling booking agency.

However, I am now in nice cool room and have had tasty room service snack. Even if I have had to wrestle with getting my laptop to talk to the free wifi...

buttonsbeadslace: A white lace doily on blue background (Default)
posted by [personal profile] buttonsbeadslace at 02:26pm on 01/07/2025 under ,
I finished fruit slice #3 and that means now I'm putting together the pattern for all the fruit slice variations. So I have some questions:

1. If you download a knitting pattern from a website, do you print it out to refer to while you're knitting, or do you read the pattern off of a device?

2. If you read patterns off a device, is it a phone, tablet, or computer? Screen size is what I'm curious about here.
squirmelia: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] squirmelia at 07:25pm on 01/07/2025 under
A goose waddled up to me, inquisitively. The other geese, mostly Canada geese and a few goslings, lay on the beach, and I tried to avoid going close to them. The swans also loomed large. It was as if the swans and geese were guarding a patch of foreshore. When the tide went out a bit, I cautiously moved between them and the foreshore, not wanting to scare them away. “It's okay,” I told one goose, ”it's okay”.

One man, who I thought must be a pro mudlarker, quickly reached the third beach along when the tide was still fairly up, but it seemed that when he got there, he just took his top off and sunbathed on his own private beach, and I'm not sure he was mudlarking at all. A second man tried to get to the third beach along but wasn't paying enough attention to the boats and the waves splashed at him and he ran back.

I saw an ant.

The Canada geese swam away in a line and I watched as they floated past on the waves.

A white butterfly fluttered around the foreshore.

People were paddling in the Thames.

I was picking up pottery sherds.

A man said, “hello”, but I wasn’t sure if it was to me, as my back was to him and the sound of the waves splashing on the shore was loud at that point, and I didn't look around.

I found a lot at Limehouse:

A button, a cowrie shell, a stone that says “oy”, the most squiggly piece of combware I’ve found so far, a sherd that would have said “Staffordshire England” and another sherd that says “pottery”.

I like the colours of the pottery and glass I find in Limehouse - the sherds that are pale pinks and blues and yellows, and the glass that is light blue.

Mudlarking finds - 25.1

Mudlarking finds - 25.2

Mudlarking finds - 25.3
purplecat: The Tardis against a sunset (or possibly sunrise) (Doctor Who)
Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.
posted by [syndicated profile] jwz_blog_feed at 03:56pm on 01/07/2025

Posted by jwz

See Something, Tap Something:

ICEBlock is an innovative, completely anonymous crowdsourced platform that allows users to report Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity with just two taps on their phone.

The app ensures user privacy by storing no personal data, making it impossible to trace reports back to individual users. Available exclusively for iOS devices, ICEBlock empowers communities to stay informed about ICE presence within a 5-mile radius while maintaining their anonymity through real-time updates and automatic deletion of sightings after four hours.

The cowards at Time wrote a whole article about the app and didn't include a link to it:

Joshua Aaron:

"When I saw what was going on in this country, I just really felt like I had to do something," Aaron says, referencing the ICE raids that have taken place following Trump's return to the White House. As of June, over 100,000 people have reportedly been arrested by ICE during Trump's second term. [...]

"The app is 100% anonymous and free for anybody who wants to use it. We don't collect user data. We don't even capture user data. That's extremely important," Aaron says, recognizing the privacy concerns people may have. As such, the app is not available on Android because it "requires a device ID in order to send push notifications, which requires a user account and a password." [...]

"Before [the protests started], there were around 2,500 users, and I was thrilled. Then I logged on two days later, and there were over 20,000 users, and the app went to number 32 for 'Social Networking' in the App Store," he says. [...]

In response to a request for comment, ICE referred TIME to a statement from acting director Todd Lyons, who called the app "sickening," saying it "paints a target on federal law enforcement officers' backs" and "incites violence."

Aaron says he hopes the app, which became available to iPhone users in April, is used as a tool to avoid interactions with ICE agents, rather than users directly involving themselves in potential altercations. [...]

Aaron says his ultimate goal is to look out for the community. "When I see things like ICE outside of elementary schools, that's what we are trying to push back against, because you need to do more. You need to protect your neighbors," he says.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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