Reading

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games

On actually enjoying games

I quit two phone games recently and want to work through some feelings about it.

Farm RPG

I started playing Farm RPG a while back because I was looking for something that was like Stardew Valley but more idle focused.

On the surface this is the case, but it’s not so much an idle game as it is a clicker. Some resources accumulate over time once you've bought the upgrade, but for the most part you are clicking to obtain them. Fishing is a twitchy “click on the moving dot” affair. Farming involves waiting (minutes, hours, days) or expending an item, but is not very profitable.

There are villagers to befriend (not marry) and quests to complete, but there’s a cynical snideness to the writing that didn’t really work for me. Some quests require items you get from sending your animals to the slaughterhouse, which I didn't want to do and used workarounds that just take longer (weeks/months instead of days.)

All of this I could deal with but I’ve reached a point where I cannot progress in the story without putting the raptors I have raised in a fight club and I just don’t want to. They’re good raptors! The only alternative I could see would involve many, many more months of grinding.

And then one day I missed finishing my daily quests, took a step back and asked, am I actually enjoying this game? Am I looking forward to doing the daily tasks or is it tedious?

So I’ve stopped.

nb. there is a social aspect to the game which I turned off shortly after starting. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I engaged with the community.

Pokémon TCG Pocket

If you want the feeling of opening packets of collectible cards with cute art but don’t want the clutter or to spend actual money, this game is almost perfect! You can open 2 packs a day for free! You can make decks and battle (against the computer or online)!

You can spend real life currency on a monthly subscription to open an extra pack a day, or à la carte to reduce the time until you can open new packs. But I wasn’t even tempted.

I quit because quitting Farm RPG made me question if I actually enjoyed this game too, and I thought how long the app takes to load every time, how unlikely it is that I’ll ever complete my collections, how I always battled in auto mode because it was slow and not interesting to me… so I’ve quit.

What games have you recently quit? What are you Actually Enjoying right now?

I have been trying to read more but ironically most of the time this is more engaging than playing a game and leads to more time on my phone.

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aaaand three minutes before midnight ALSO still counts!

+ Watched Wake Up Dead Man today, and out of the three I can safely say it’s my favorite. The setting, characters, theme, all hit home for me. Honestly one I wouldn’t mind rewatching.

Reactor Mag has an excellent article up on it: Entirely Too Many Thoughts About Wake Up Dead Man.

Btw does anyone want some screengrabs to make icons from uploaded to

capshare? (Not the very best quality possible, but serviceable) If so, specific characters?

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Rec-cember Day 17

Gilmore Girls
They Go Just as Quickly as They Come by

petpluto (2,004 words). Richard dies. Emily goes on living.
At first, its emptiness wasn’t as pervasive. She accepted the house, and the stillness.

It hadn’t been so long. Not really. Richard had spent longer away on business trips. The house was empty, but not unfamiliarly so. But there came a time when, if Richard had been away on a business trip, he would have been back from it. And the emptiness pressed in until it is all she can see, all she can feel.

The house is empty.

She doesn’t wander the halls. She doesn’t throw herself at his portrait. She does not have a portrait made. She doesn’t shutter the windows and regress. She doesn’t dress in all black. She isn’t part of some maudlin tale, some piece of fiction Rory and Richard had once fawned over together. She is a graduate of Smith, after all. She still belongs to any number of groups, of charities and clubs and associations. She fills her days, just as she did before.

The house, though, is still empty, when she returns to it.

Clean up on Aisle MP3

I swim to music. I had a player once that actually allowed me to download from Spotify. But, it was way too fiddly. Now I just use music from my own collection of MP3's. I've bought many of these and ripped the rest off of CD's over the years. Lots of years, as it turns out - some are from 2009. 5954 mp3's to be exact. Not bad for a non-music person, I think.

They were in folders in folders in folders in two massive folders on my Google Drive. Most were there twice some 3 and 4 times. They were organized by ... well, actually, they were not organized at all. It was an unholy mess. Some have the song titles as the file names, some don't. When I say mess, I mean it.

When AI first came to my web page, the first thing I ever asked it to do was organize my mp3 files. No Can Do, says AI. I asked again and again every few months and got the same answer. Then, about a year ago, the answer came back, no, but... AI pointed me to some Windows programs and Mac apps that would do the work for me. Thanks, but...

I persisted and today I was rewarded handsomely. Today I asked Gemini again, how the fuck can I get order out of this chaos and BTW the only operating systems at my disposal are android and ChromeOS. Well... this time, the first answer was a recommendation to look at a web tool called FileRev. It rapidly scans whatever drive you tell it to and reports duplicates, empty files, empty folders and all kinds of cool shit.

The free version lets you see how it works and does some stuff but I quickly bought a month of the top tier version and whoa mama! I deleted a million and a half duplicate files. I deleted 256 empty folders - how the hell did I get so many empty folders???

But then I drilled down on the mp3's. They were so nested into many layers of folders. With jpgs and pdfs of album covers and other junk. I got everything cleaned out and the extra files and empty folders gone but still then had 4,500 + mp3 files that needed to be collected out of their folders and into one big folder. I'm about 75% done.

Then I will copy them all onto an external drive just for safety. I keep about a couple dozen on my player and swap them out for different ones when the player comes in for recharging. Now I have a way bigger, easier to access, pile to pick from. Woot!!

Current Music: George Harrison

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I can't believe I caught another cold, I just had one last month. I probably caught it at the Dickens Fair. It was super crowded, much more than usual.

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What I'm Doing Wednesday

Rockstar Lestat is LIVE in my shop! Both the pattern and the doll are now for sale! \o/\o/\o/

And here's the tumblr link, if y'all wouldn't mind giving it a reblog.

books
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple. Really all over the place, and fails at sticking to a theme. Not academic enough for my taste, though there's some fascinating history in there.

media
Watched PBS's Great Performances 2025 Twelfth Night and really enjoyed it. Sandra Oh's Olivia was a delight and Peter Dinklage's Malvolio was stunningly good. Lupita & her brother were a refreshing take on the twins, too. It's available to everyone to stream through the end of the year, and then after that you need a PBS Passport to view.

( failing at fandom )

yarning
I went to yarn group on Sunday and had a nice time. We had our Christmas party with a lot of food, the vast majority of which I couldn't eat, darn it, but it was fun nonetheless. And my friend from there who I do ebay with gave me a big bag of craft books to list. I also worked on another burgundy kickbunny, as the one I just finished last week sold already. A number of people have sent me photos of their cats playing with things I made -- it's super gratifying, because CAT! And I've had two more people commission kickbunnies this week, yay!

yuletide
I finally stopped tinkering, knock wood. I still have a lot of anxiety over it, though, as I'm writing out of my comfort zone and I don't know if it works or not. The majority of my creative inspiration is yarning, so making words work is extra hard atm. ION: AUGH!

rl
Damn it, my amazon account got hacked AGAIN last night. It must have been a brute force attack, given the givens, although I did use public wifi yesterday, so maybe that was it. Hrm.

I hope you're all doing well, or as well as can be expected, or better! <333

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Movies: Silent Night Deadly Night, 100 Nights of Hero

Movies: the nocturnal edition, I guess!

Silent Night Deadly Night (2025). A nice young man who sometimes puts on a Santa suit and murders naughty people as directed by the voice in his head meets a nice young woman who sometimes really loses her temper.

This was a delight. I had the BEST time. It's a remake of a 1980s slasher I haven't seen, but the premise of that one sounds like it's played straight as a "guy in a santa suit goes on a psychotic killing spree" kind of thing, and this one is a lot more complicated/enjoyably weird in its execution. The lore of this movie is absolutely bananas, just total nonsense, but is never overexplained, which it seems like is where so many of these kinds of bonkers movies fall down. The script is surprisingly smart overall, I felt, with a lot of care and affection for its characters. It doesn't hurt that I adore Ruby Modine, who previously had smaller parts in Happy Death Day (the roommate) and Satanic Panic (the daughter). And the ending is *chef's kiss*. I would watch the hell out of a sequel that follows what happens next.

On a personal note, as someone who loves Christmastime but has had less opportunity/excuse to indulge in it as I've gotten older, I really enjoyed the over the top Christmas theming of this.

It does have a couple of awkward lines about gender(tm), which maybe are trying to do a thing, but do not succeed in my opinion. There's also an incident with a white supremecist which would have felt more successful if we'd seen, like, a single non-white person by that point in the movie. The movie also does not look great; it's kind of all sludge. Oh well, we can't have everything.

I think this movie is already almost out of theaters. If it sounds fun to you at all, I would absolutely recommend chasing it down for some Christmas-flavored horror cheese.

--

100 Nights of Hero (2025). In a misogynistic dystopia, a young married woman (Maika Monroe) whose inattentive husband is away on business must cope with a would-be suitor (Nicholas Galitzine) with the help of her maid and best friend (Emma Corrin).

I checked this out because the descriptions I saw were sending gay signals, and indeed, this is very gay! Monroe and Corrin's respectively repressed and hidden gay longing is great. It also, unlike the movie above, is beautiful and stylish, even though they were clearly working with a fairly small budget. The aesthetics are top-notch. And Galitzine (of Red, White, and Royal Blue, among other things) does a great job playing a hot himbo whose sense of menace is undercut by how dumb he is.

Unfortunately, the actual story a) is not my kind of thing and b) IMO sucks pretty hard on its own merits. If I had realized quite how much of a satirical fable it was, I would not have gone to see it. This takes place in a universe where women are killed for such sins as literacy, extramarital sex, and not getting pregnant within nine months or so of getting married. This last one is the key for our sad wife Cherry, whose husband and the villain of the piece simply declines to have sex with her, even when the local Puritan-flavored but fictionally religious order says she'll be executed if she doesn't hurry up and get pregnant.

I do get that we're trying to critique men's control of women's bodies, but like... this is not a scenario that has widespread analogue in the real world. Men refusing to have sex with women, even when the women's lives are at stake, is not a thing! RL misogyny is bad enough, you don't have to make shit up! The fact that it's suggested (but not confirmed) that the husband is either gay or ace makes it worse, as he's the only possibly queer man in the movie, and it makes it much much much worse that he's also played by the only actor of Middle Eastern descent that I noticed. In fact I think he's also the only character of color still alive at the end of the movie; all the various women of color have died. (Including Charli XCX's character, who along with her two sisters is executed for knowing how to read.)

This movie makes the Barbie movie look subtle. I would say I don't know who it's for, but apparently it's for the other five or so people on bluesky who've seen it, all of whom gave it gushing reviews. IDK man.

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Reading Wednesday, the Dog Days of Summer Edition

These are probably going to be short and sweet, given I read them in late August through September. I'll hopefully catch up to where I am now by the time next term starts, and I go back to only reading stuff for school. Expect a bunch of books about gender, followed by all the romance novels I read on my off time, lol.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, narrated by Jefferson White
I had only the vaguest memories of the account of Haymitch's games from Catching Fire, or anything else from Catching Fire, for that matter. I never did read the other prequel. If Haymitch is one of your favourite characters, and you just want backstory on all the olds who show up later in the original series, this is solid fun. Collins did a good job of thinking through where everyone came from, and how they got like they are when Katniss meets them. Effee showing up is especially fun. We also get confirmation of several queer characters (which I assume she wasn't allowed to do in 2008), and an interesting note about the Capital banning generative A.I..

I enjoyed all the themes of the amount of groundwork needed to put into a revolution, and how the lives of the people in this story eventually led to the events of the first books. Especially how the characters themselves feel like they've failed and wasted everything, but the reader can tell how it's more a process of (horribly) figuring out what works and what doesn't.

At the same time, it didn't feel like a story of only moving pieces into place for the "real story" that will start later. It certainly doesn't read as a stand alone novel, but it does stand up as being about these characters in this moment. Haymitch is such a sweet kid when we first meet him, and is a bit more of a dynamic lead than Katniss (i.e., he actually likes people and wants to talk to them), and given the pile of characters we meet for the first time (because these games have twice the number of tributes), each of the new people get enough development for the reader to become least somewhat invested in what happens to them (spoiler alert: it's the Hunger Games, so...).

I always found the games themselves the least interesting part of the earlier books, which is largely true here as well, but the story still moves along pretty fast. They probably would've been more interesting if I remembered what the story was supposed to be, as Collins puts a lot into the contrasts and surprises. The post-games section did draaaaaaaaaaaaag though. Especially the recap of the games we'd just read about, and the part that was set up as this huge poetic tragedy. I think if you're like... 14, you'd be weeping through the end, but I found it overdone, and thought her editor should've made her stop.

Still, I'm happy to have read it.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I hadn't read these in fifteen years, so I thought I'd swing back through to remember what we were supposed to know about all the characters we met in the prequel. Enjoyed it. Games still dragged.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
So most of the characters from Haymitch's book actually show up here, it turns out. So I read this one. Enjoyed this too, though found the games section dragged a bit. The love triangle continues obnoxious, and I did myself the favour of not reading Mockingjay again.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
I've been hearing bits of this quoted since it came out, and it's quite good. I think the target is more people involved in public life, but it was still good to listen to, these being the times that were given to us. I know it's his area, but I wish there had been more examples from autocracies other than 1930s Germany, for the sake of variety, if nothing else (there were a handful of comparisons from the Soviet bloc, but it was very Nazi centric).

I think it's on YouTube for free, if anyone wants to listen. I'll probably go back to it later, so that I take more on board.

Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke
Solid primer if you're interested in the a gender-diverse approach to Christian theology. Hartke talks to a variety of other trans and non-binary Christians, especially those involved in ministry, about their relationship with God and the Bible. Each chapter focuses on a few lines of scripture, which are largely clobber verses, and discusses how they can be seen as trans affirming. It's really beautifully expressed, and thoughtfully takes on some difficult parts of the Bible. Hartke does talk about how frustrating it is to feel like he has to spend so much time justifying himself and talking about the clobber verses, when he just wants to talk about religious gender euphoria. He's since put out a second edition, which might refine that approach, but I haven't looked at that yet. I really appreciated this edition is an intro, however, and helped me put together a church service for Trans Day of Remembrance.

3 stars at best

Turns out neither cat is loving the new food. They are eating it but they are not eating it with the relish that they give the cheap stuff. I still have a couple of more choices to try but they have a lot of the meh stuff to get through first. I did get some new treats yesterday and they were a hit. Again, lots of crappy treats left but at least we have some motivational food for Biggie.

He's still peeing which is lovely. They would have to completely upend the definition of lethargic to use it for him. If anything, he's even more active these days than usual. I hope that rock is melting.

I did finally get the car vacuumed yesterday. It was a lot more work than I expected. But it's done. And looks nice for now.

For the first time in I do not know when, I have nothing on order at Amazon and nothing to return. If they are not too busy with Christmas to notice, they will probably send out a hunting party for me.

My four trips down to the center section and the other miscellaneous steps put me way over my average. I'm going to try it again today. It would be lovely to make it a habit. We'll see.

I've really got no plans for today so I think I'll go consider my options while I swim some laps.

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books:vlad taltos

The chaotic Dragaera reread continues

.... but much more slowly. I reread Vallista this past week, and that book sure hits different in a few ways after reading Tsalmoth!

( Spoilers for both Vallista and Tsalmoth )

Current Music: Vivaldi

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Spent a good sized chunk of today with L. because she didn't want to be alone after her fiancee had to go back to Pennsylvania. She wants to move there but nobody is 100% sure when.

Current Mood: happy

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I was all geared up to talk about The Game Awards, but now I'm mostly meh. I don't have anything new or exciting to say about it. Like with the actual awards? I'm not one of the cynics. I don't think E33 should have won fewer awards. It's just that good.

As for the announcements, I'm most excited about Exodus and the KOTOR follow-up, Fate of the Old Republic. Which I know won't be around for a few more years, since it was more of an announcement for hiring and funding use (and to get us RPG fans fired up wayyy ahead of time). Not at all impressed with the 'big reveal' they saved until last. A live-service hero shooter? THAT'S your biggest announcement? Yeah, fuck that.

I haven't yet played the new 'Thank You' DLC for E33 yet since I um. Started a new game? I can't help myself! Also hoping to play Dispatch soon. And I picked up Control from PS+.

I have about 2k of my epilogue/sequel to my FTH fic and I really hope I can finish it in time for the FTH deadline. If I don't, my recipient has already said it's okay but still. I was HOPING.

The new antidepressant is still working well! The only thing against it is the joint pain. I've got a pretty bad elbow out of it. But I'm used to pain so I'll take that if it means less to no depression.

Current Music: Welcome To Derry 1x08

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Thirteen minutes before midnight, so it still counts!

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Rec-cember Day 16

Scott Pilgrim
Afternoon Delights by

wakeupnew (1,033 words). A good Wallace and Scott interaction never fails to cheer me up.
There is a bang.

The door, he realizes fuzzily. Possibly -- hitting something?? Definitely opening really loudly. He really wishes it wasn't doing that. He should probably start locking it while he's sleeping.

"I thought your shit had supposedly been gotten together, guy," says someone, who flings himself down on the sofa that Scott uses for a bed, hard enough that the cushions bounce under both of them. "What are you doing asleep at 3:00 on a sunny Saturday afternoon?"

"Frrrrsleeping," Scott groans indignantly, and then Wallace plucks the pillow off his head and out of his arms. Scott tries to grab it back without opening his eyes, and his hands mostly just flail ineffectually against Wallace's jeans.

"Whoa there, tiger," Wallace drawls. "I have a boyfriend now; let's keep it PG." He drops the pillow on Scott's chest. If it's possible to drop a pillow with force, Wallace does it. "You know, considering that you're the all-time evil-ex-fighting champion and the best fighter in the greater Toronto metropolitan area, it was very easy to pull that away from you."

Tuesday

I started a chat group for meal reviews. We get new menus every week with different meal choices for lunch and dinner. The new menus start on Mondays. So for dinner and lunch, they will have the same options for a week. (There is a buffet at dinner that is a different menu every night and a cafe that is a different menu every month, so we have lots of options.) Anyway, the idea is if you eat something for lunch or dinner that is particularly good or bad, share it - especially early on in the week. Right now there are only 4 of us but I'm hoping with time, the crowd will grow. Still even with 4, is better than 1.

Last night I had Shoyu Ramen Chasu (pork belly, soupy noodles and a very softly boiled egg). It was fabulous. I will have the rest of it for lunch and have it again for dinner at least once more this week. Martha reported that the grilled ribeye was really thin but tasty. I'll probably give that a go. Oh and all reported the side dishes this week all suck. So I'll get the ribeye to go and have my own sides ready to eat up here.

Biggie is giving in on the treats. This morning, he took one sniff, gave me the WTF side eye and ate them all pretty much right away. He's still peeing and this morning's contribution was a good amount. He has one more antibiotic pill and then it's just up to the Very Expensive food. Julio and Biggie are really going at it this morning. Running, chasing, squealing, hiding. Julio is usually the one who tries to get Biggie to play but today Biggie's leading the charge. They are a pair for sure.

I'm still struggling with how to get some walking, stretching, moving, stamina building, etc, into my life on a regular basis. So far, no scheme I've come up with is sustainable. And, of course, sustainability will be the only way to make it work. My legs are so week and I have no core strength. I can absolutely see the day when I just can no longer move. That alone, should give me what I need to keep up some kind of program but, alas, 76 years of sitting on my ass is a hard habit to break.

My scheme du jour is to walk from here to the lobby at least 4 times a day. I've done one - since the pool is on the other side of the lobby from here, getting there and back counts. It's a hard thing to force myself to do if I don't have a reason to go. But, it's worth a try anyway. I have a package to pick up (that's 2) and dinner to pick up (that's 3) so I'll really only have to invent one other trip.

Plus, shockingly, the car has not yet been vacuumed.

It's house cleaning day. My favorite day of the week.

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Finally Updated My Media Tracker

Which included a bunch of American Political movies, watches/rewatches of said being inspired in part by current events.

Dave and Independence Day: When the East Wing got it, in memory of the White House, and a time when we expected presidents to be non-terrible, or at least rational. Also, Nenya hadn't seen them.

Good Night and Good Luck: Following Keith Olbermann turning out to be the real villain in the Olivia Nuzzi scandal, and me remembering that even when I agreed with his takes (circa the Bush administration), I thought he had a hell of a lot of nerve to use that sign off. Also, Nenya hadn't seen it. Also, I couldn't find a good quality copy of the 1986 biopic I grew up watching (though I see there's a passible one on YouTube).

A Few Good Men: Because a man made a lot of art that mattered to a lot of people, and that should still mean something. Also, I'd never seen it.

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my day

Beads have arrived!

I lost the beads I was going to use for the two crocheted necklaces. (I think it's safe to say in *this* venue that I got commissioned to make a second one, and the second one is going more smoothly than the first one in all respects so far.)

Since the replacement beads included ones shipped from Czechoslovakia, I've been nervous that I won't be able to finish on time. (Which I still probably won't, but I can make An Effort now.)

The last of the replacement beads arrived today, and I am very happy with this. Will I get cracking on it? Well, probably not today.

Additionally, it's been a not as terrible as usual leg day. Hooray for physical therapy (and remembering to do it), and hooray for pain meds. (Yesterday I completely spaced my pain meds until bedtime. Surprised Pikachu was surprised at how horrible a leg day it was.)

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more FIAB recs

[ART] Night of the Red Sands, The Divine Cities Series - Robert Jackson Bennett. A gorgeous, dramatic painting as described in the novel. Can be appreciated canon-blind!

You're Gonna Need A Softer World, Jaws, A Softer World remixes. Every one of these is hilarious and absolutely spot-on.

Do Automatons Dream of Albino Eels?, Sunless Sea/Citizen Sleeper, gen, 6k. A zee-captain finds a mechanical stowaway and must decide what to do with it. I'm not familiar with the Citizen Sleeper, but the crossover character fits really naturally into the Fallen London universe. Great atmosphere all the way through, so many deliciously horrible little bits of worldbuilding flavor, and a satisfying arc of the stowaway automaton and the crew learning to care for one another.

fix it (how can you fix it?), BtVS, Spike/Buffy, 3k. Buffy's soulmark signifies that her soulmate died before she was even born. I really enjoyed the extra details of soulmate worldbuilding this added, and if Spike and Buffy were soulmates, I could definitely see it going exactly like this. <3

The Beat Goes On, At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha Christie, 6.6k, gen. The scandal at Bertram's Hotel is a major news story—apparently too major for Beatrice to be trusted with it according to her editors, even though she's always been the one to cover stories about Lady Sedgewick. A very cool timestamp featuring an OC I loved immediately, a female reporter trying to make it in a man's world, and doing whatever she needs to to get the story, including going back home to visit little old Miss Marple. IMO you don't need to remember the novel to enjoy this (because I did not remember it, lol).

Current Music: KiNG MALA - cult leader

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If you're a devil, how come you're not wearing Prada?

+ Managed to finish up nearly all my Christmas shopping today, huzzah. My brother is getting a bunch of cheeses and some spreads and crackers, I just need his gf to send me a picture of his comics shelf so I can order him a book to round it out.

I do need to do wrapping though. To think I used to love doing that back in the day.

+ Also found a Christmas calendar at 40% off, so now I'll have something to open every day after all. It's from the Finnish brand Lumene and if half of it is as good as the eye cream I've already tried, I got a real bargain.

+ Very sad to hear about the loss of Rob Reiner, and it just keeps getting sadder as I read about all the wonderful things he did and stood for.

+ Please tell me more of you are watching Pluribus? The last episode was the best one yet, and I find myself suddenly willing to go to war for one of the characters. But that whole episode, oh man. Ten out of ten. I even double dipped and downloaded a couple of episodes so I can make some damn icons. *mutters about stupid streaming apps*

+ Also I am now watching watch alongs for IWTV on yt. I need more people to be blathering on about these vampires. Still taking a predictable chunk out of my fic reading time, and now I'm down to one buffer rec for Rec-Cember. Somebody tell me to shape up.

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Rec-cember Day 15

The Good Place
Free Netflix Subscription by

Wildgoosery (10,103 words). Ah yes, the show that gave us an endless fun array of AUs to frolick in. And this is a delightful entry.
There’s a knock at the door. The weather here is perfect and mild — because of course it is — so they had left it standing open. This means that nothing obscures Eleanor’s view as an Amazonian gazelle of a woman steps theatrically into the doorway, one elegant arm sweeping up to rest upon the frame.

It occurs to Eleanor that this woman must have knocked on the outside of the house, then waited the exact right amount of time to make this entrance once Eleanor and Michael would be looking, but before they’d thought to shout “Hello?” or glance at each other or otherwise spoil the moment. Honestly, it’s pretty impressive, points for drama and also for wearing heels despite being damn near six feet tall.

“Ah, excellent timing!” Michael says, pleased. “Eleanor, this is your soulmate, Tahani.”

Tahani extends her hand, angled down and slightly curved. “Charmed,” she says, with the fanciest fucking accent Eleanor has ever heard in person.

“Soulmate! Wow!” Eleanor says. The position of Tahani’s offered hand makes her feel like she’s expected to take it in her own, bow over it, and kiss one elegant knuckle at a time, but she’s not really butch enough to pull off that kind of a Prince Charming maneuver, not even in flannel.

I'm a weirdo

Last night I started watching a perfectly good show. It met all my criteria, people getting killed, pretty scenery, smart police, interesting outfits... A rich guy gets killed early on. But, does he? And is he really rich? There are all sorts of interesting characters and 3 seasons. And one fatal flaw. The part of the rich guy is played by Alec Baldwin. I have never liked anything he's ever been in. I don't like him. I don't like what I read about him. And I could not gin up the enthusiasm about whether the character he played lived or died or was right or not... simply because it's Alec Baldwin. Ha. My TV standards are weird.

And in other weirdness, I have a flashlight fetish. Especially flashlights that do other things. I own a million. You can hardly be anywhere in my apartment without being in arm's reach of some sort of flashlight. I do not need any more. Does that stop me? Nope.

I bought a pack of motion sensor lights - flashlights for when I walk by a wall. AND another 3 pack of night lights that plug into the wall and can also be motion sensor or not and also can charge up your cellphone and also can be flash lights!! I should take them all back. But, of course, I will not.

I did not vacuum the car. Maybe that's what I'll do tomorrow while the housecleaner cleans.

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: Modern Jazz Quartet

(no subject)

It has been freezing around here (by Calif standards anyway)
I don't know if anybody reading this remembers I wrote something about some damn weirdo I saw fucking a grocery cart in my apt bldg hallway. There's some creepy guy hanging around in the hall when I was bringing my laundry back to my apt a few minutes ago and I think it's the same guy. I need to go out and get potatoes at the store but I want to wait till he goes away, especially since I have to use those carts to haul my damn laundry around in the first place.
I met L.'s fiancee who seems really nice. I hope everything works out well for both of them.

Biggie watch

I keep watching waiting for him to crash and burn, but so far, no dice. He just drank a bunch of water and his still peeing. Both he and Julio are gobbling up the new food. I guess they both have gourmet pallets. The Chewy order I placed on Thursday, arrived last night. I got a notice that it was delivered so I grabbed my cart and high tailed it down to security before they had a chance to do anything with it (such as put it in another part of the complex with the, likely, boatload of other deliveries from the weekend). It was a smart move as the box was right there by the door so I don't have to wait until this afternoon or maybe tomorrow afternoon to have it delivered.

He's still looking for his Temptations. I sprinkled about 6 of the new treats over the carpet and he sniffed every one and then walked away. But, not long after that, I noticed they were gone.

My TV streaming consolidation try is over. I killed YouTube.TV and am going back to paying for individual streams. The idea of using Prime to house cheap subscriptions turned out to be a 'get what you pay for' situation. The Max/HBO shows not only have ads, but tons of ads and sliced into places where ads should not go since most of the programming was designed for no ads. PLUS not all of the catalog is available.

So I'll buy annual plans for those I care about and get that Hulo/HBO/Max bundle monthly because they don't offer it annually. And then, probably, do this whole segregation/desegregation thing again next year.

Today is Costco with Bonny. And laundry. And that's about it for plans for the day. Maybe today would be a good day to vacuum the car...