Network [crazyscot]

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Writing has been difficult. I only wrote 10,000 words this month and I don't think too much of that was new. I've been having trouble rewriting the novel. Feeling very didactic right now.

( the bit where fiction is about the real world, too )

And yes, it's hard to focus on writing sometimes when my train of thought just wants to scatter.

Maybe with a (more or less) clear weekend, I can get some focused writing done? IDEK. I hate rewriting.

--

Also, I'm tired.

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Happy birthday,

silveradept!

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While there are still a few weeks before we actually begin construction work, I’m having to relocate my existing bookcases – some will be repurposed and some will be given away (probably to ReStore).

The first step is to pack up all the books. It’s like moving, and I hate moving.

( Photos, Below This Cut )

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Got halfway to the bus stop to go to the pool and realised I didn't have my shoulder bag. Sprinted home, got it, and made it to the bus.

Got off the bus at the other end, realised Sophia's bag didn't have her swimming costume in it. Got a bus home, grabbed it, now in a taxi.

Fingers crossed that nothing else comes between me and drop-off and work!
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

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This show is such a freakin' delight.

( Spoilers )

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I logged in on my work computer this afternoon long enough to apply for a promotion at my current job, becoming more of a Lead support technician. I was on the proverbial fence for several days. The money would be a few thousand more per year than I make now. Money never hurts, but it's not enough to make a huge difference. Money seems so meaningless these days, and it doesn't go far. I'm not motivated by money anyway, or prestige.

What finally tipped my decision in favor was more consideration of what my supervisor said during our biweekly 1-on-1 meetings this week. They're considering the possibility of creating an A.I. subject on our team expert to coordinate answers we give from across departments to our users. They were curious if I'd be interested, "even though that role usually goes to leads". Subtle. Very subtle. Yes, of course, I'm interested in that. LOL.

I applied to the job. I don't have strong feelings about it, though, which seems weird. I've applied to other jobs in the past that I wanted very much more than this one.

I'm also experiencing an odd emotional state about tomorrow's holiday in the USA. It's not the feelings I usually associate with the day.

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Library / Kitchen Floor Plan, Proposed
Extracted from my requirements / vision proposal

At the start of 2025 I vowed to finally restart the home library remodel that got put on hold when the pandemic began in 2020. The interior designer I had selected had moved from Portland to California, and I basically had to start over.

Instead of describing everything in detail, I’m simply listing the chronology of events. Excluded is all the email correspondence I’ve had with my designer, Hannah Lichtenthaler at Allison Smith Design. Also, for now, I’m skipping over all the design decisions. In short, here’s how I got to where we are today:

Library Remodel, Chronology of Events

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I embrace new tools. In Fabula Ultima, for example, the order in which characters go in combat varies. I found it hard to keep track of who'd gone, so I went out and got poker chips and little round labels. Now, I can just toss the chips representing characters into a bowl once they've gone. Order!

OK, except it turns out I can't tell blue from green under the ceiling light in the room where I DM and the names on the labels need to be bigger.

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Warm and dry and breezy day, a relief after the mug of earlier this week. May content myself with window fans tonight.

Woke at too early a.m., went to bathroom and then back to sleep in the AC coolness. Woken by a scam phone call several hours later ('This is VISA security. We have noticed a charge on your card for $400 on ebay this morning etc etc'-- they always give round numbers, which you'd think was a tip-off, or maybe these guys come from countries with no sales tax.) Wondered why I hadn't heard the garbage trucks which I always do hear even with closed windows and white noise. Maybe an unwontedly late pickup? Was then struck by horrid thought that maybe Tuesday's holiday had shoved everything one day along and there was my green bin out rotting in the heat. So limped downstairs and located the garbage schedule which said Thursday July 3 garbage day. Then wondered if today really was Thursday, but phone assured me on that point. Heat and isolation really do rot the brain, and I'm not sure what to do about either.

(Garbage pickup wasn't late. I just didn't hear it. And someone kindly put my bins back for me but not NND who usually does it, because theirs were still out.)

But did have an hour long massage, which helped some of the owies, at least for a while. 'Your quads are really tight, ' she said, 'and your hip flexors, and your hamstrings, and your piriformis, and and and.' Apparently my shoulders are looser than before, which isn't much comfort because my shoulders still hurt.

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Working this Saturday - about 4 hours. I get time off in lieu, which is better than nothing but also...kind of annoying. I didn't have that much on anyway, and can spend the day in my room, crafting and waiting for a ping of notifications.

Project Manager acknowledged the holiday. Still haven't received notification that my contract is being renewed though, but I can't imagine they have anyone else positioned to do my job yet...

All my holiday tours are paid for. Once I have the renewal of work contract, I shall go ahead and book/check my places to stay.

--

B2's strata management (HOA, but less about aesthetics more about practicalities) is wanting another payment for the 'collective kitty' for works around the building. I am personally of the opinion that this is being driven by a retiree who has invested in an apartment in the building and doesn't really care if the works are too expensive for the owner-occupiers, because she can just raise the rent on her renters and unless they want to be kicked out.

Anyway, that stresses B2 out and she comes and stresses on us...

(I tend to hide out in the study when that happens, I love B2, but she is very loud and present and I'm not always up for that. B1 seems to enjoy her being here...except when B2 is stressing on B1.)

And she won't accept assistance from the parentals (which I understand, because financial assistance to the parental generation tends to mean they feel they have a right to have a say in your life which...even I - living pretty much in a way they don't criticise as much - don't want that).

--

Will try to join in with

sunshine_revival but I feel...out of it. I'm not involved in any of the fandoms that most people are involved in, and my characters and pairings are all out of joint (mostly thx to TPTB, who never seem to see in my favourites what I see in them).

I have adjusted my sign-ups and profiles and stuff to state that I'm against AI. But even putting those statements out there feels like waving a flag telling people to kick me, I'm so used to having my fannish preferences weaponised.

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Before I even moved in here, one of the things highest on my list was a built in ironing board. We found a couple that just weren't right and we never found a place to put it and I gave up. I tried living with a little one that you sit on the counter but it was a fail. Then I bought a small apartment sized one and last week, one of the cats knocked it over and mayhem ensued.

Turns out what I really wanted was an always available ironing situation. In the condo, I had an ironing station always at the ready. I hate to iron so just walking up and turning on the iron, doing the deed and walking away was perfect and what I wanted here.

After the flying ironing board incident, I spied an option. My closet is huge by Closets I Have Had In The Past standards but it's also pretty full but there was a spot...

So I ordered this.

It arrived today. The instructions were not too specific and the bits were not totally labeled and so the project was a bit bigger than I expected but I managed it. (Thank you, me, for that more powerful cordless drill you finally bought not long ago. You rock.)

And now it has a home.

It came with a door but I thought that was unnecessary. I already ironed a shirt that got wadded up in the last laundry. Turned on the iron, rolled out the board, did the deed, rolled it back. Done. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

And I'm quite delighted.

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Well, in further conferencing misadventures, woke up around 5 am with what I came to realise was a crashing migraine - it is so long since I have had one of these as opposed to 'headache from lying orkard' - took medication, and after some little while must have gone to sleep, because I woke up to discover it was nearly 9.30, and I had slept well past the alarm I had set in anticipation of the 9.00 first conference session. But feeling a lot better.

I was only just in time to grab some breakfast before they started clearing it up.

The day's papers were perhaps a bit less geared towards my own specific interests - and I was sorry to miss the ones I did - but still that there Dr oursin managed the occasional intervention. There were also some good conversations had.

So the conference, as a conference, was generally judged a success, if somewhat exhausting.

I managed to get the train from the University to Birmingham New Street with no great difficulty.

However, the train I was booked on was somewhat delayed (though not greatly, not cancelled, and no issues of taking buses as in various announcements) and I initially positioned myself at the wrong bit of the platform and had to scurry along through densely packed waiting passengers.

Journey okay, with free snacks, though onboard wifi somewhat recalcitrant.

At Euston, the taxi rank was closed!!!!

Fortunately one can usually grab a cab in the Euston Road very expeditious, and I did.

So I am now home and more or less unpacked.

Given that Mercury is, I recollect, the deity of travellers, is Mercury in retrograde?

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Happy birthday,

stardyst!

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It's that time again! More thoughts on media:

The Truth Season 3 case 8 (I think, the numbering is confusing now)— this case featured Chinese style horror, and it was very creepy but in a fun way. I also enjoyed the earthly 20th inspired costumes

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming— I’m writing about this even though I didn’t finish it because I think some of you might enjoy this. The first bit was really fun! The main character is a wildlife biology PhD student, who when she finds herself on an alien planet is upset that it's full of dinosaurs all from different time periods from each other! (Very relatable really) The book has a very fun voice. Unfortunately it ends up becoming too much sex for me.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh— A Korean inspired fantasy YA novel about a girl who chooses to sacrifice herself in place of the designated Sea God’s Bride and enters a spirit world full of mythical beings and complex politics. (I read this even though the mom is dead, and really there’s no narrative reason for it) This was lovely and very atmospheric, though the ending left me a little dissatisfied. (Content Note: Infant death)

Painted Devils by Margaret Owen— Second book in the Little Thieves trilogy. Very fun and twisty in a similar way to the 1st book.

Kpop Demon Hunters — It's an animated movie about a kpop girl band that are magical girl-sque demon hunters, there's lot of musical numbers.A Koren friend of mine described it as “an American movie set in Korea” and I think that’s spot on. She specifically complained about how the worldbuiling/theology feels too christian. It doesn't fully work through the consequences of all the violence but the flight scenes are very swooshy and fun, and I liked the themes a lot. I also really liked the female friendship aspect.

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Turns out my foot hurts far less than yesterday UNLESS I'm bouncing on it in the pool. And then, OMG! So I played with one leg and the ouchy foot tucked behind the good leg's knee. That was an experience. It's really hard and after 2 hours I think my back is going to be pissed tomorrow. But I was really surprised when I got out and started walking - it didn't really hurt at all. The 48 hours of pain expire in 4 hours. I'm counting.

And in other good volleyball news, the asshole is gone for a month. It was so lovely this morning without him. I'm going to enjoy July.

2025 is half done today.

AND today is the day I brought Biggie and The Smalls home from the shelter in 2019.

I got an interesting email from Gmail today. It said it was getting ready to close out an old email address of mine for lack of activity. So I thought I'd see if I could resurrect it. I have a giant fear of Google blocking my account. It happened once. I don't remember why. It was years ago and I finally managed to snag the helpful eye of a googler on Twitter who got me back on track. But, since then, I've lived with the fear. That first time, I was unable to come up with a former password or the date I opened the account which were two bits they wanted to prove I was me. Once I got back in, I captured that data and put it into an Outlook email account.

This morning I was interested in pulling the thread on this 'new' email account and seeing if I could get back in. It did ask for a former password and I typed one in that it did not reject. Then it wanted the email address I was using for backup. That took 2 tries. Then it wanted a phone number to text. But, once I got that far, it let me reset the password and BOOM I was in. Cool. Turned out I opened the account in 2005 and looks like I last touched it in 2006. And, shockingly, there were only 300 junk emails. So that now you can easily run multiple Gmail addresses in chrome, I think I'm going to start using it for storing misc bits.

So then I remembered I had not backed up the database that holds my notes. So I did that - which goes to email so then I decided to check and make sure it went to my backup email. All of the mail that comes into my main Gmail account automatically also gets sent to my backup account. So I went to Outlook and could not get in!! It let me reset my password but still would not let me in! so I noodled around a little and found a reddit thread about VPN which I do not use but it did lead me to try turning off wifi and using my cell data on my phone with a hot link to my Chromebook and BOOM! Microsoft is happy again. What a PIA. THEN I discovered remembered that because Microsoft is such a PIA, I had moved my backup email to me@susandennis.com which is over on my website hoster. So I go over there, log in and BOOM! There's all my email safely waiting for me and not connected to Google or Microsoft.

An interesting thread pulling for sure. But I do like that I finally got in everywhere and my stuff is safe.

All that thread pulling was time consuming. It's now 9:30 and I'm still in my robe from the pool. I need to make my daily run to UPS. I'd better get dressed first.

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Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/butlerian

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I don't believe in a fast take-off for evil AI because it's gonna take at least a few weeks to get the human-grinders up and running.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/butlerian

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Director of the nation formerly known as Canada Quinn Atherton is determined to deliver much mass murder as it takes to achieve peace, order, good government. Why do so many ingrates object?

Blight(Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen

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crazyscot

Interesting Links for 04-07-2025

writing thoughts and the politics of fiction

(no subject)

Library Status Update #2: Packing, Part 1

Photo cross-post

Murderbot 1x09

feelings are weird

Library Status Update #1: A Chronology

Every time I run something

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a few things at the end of the week

Manual labor

Whoam, whoam, like a wounded maggit

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Meida Round Up: Girls and Demons

one legged volleyball

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Butlerian

Blight (Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen

Cerys Hafana - Helynt Ryfeddol

Interesting Links for 03-07-2025

November