I am currently ill with my third cold since November. This is very boring, I am blaming uni open ice on Monday with all the students returned to Cambridge from all over the world. I am trying a radical new approach of "stop working, go to bed, do nothing but rest and hydrate and breathe steam at regular intervals". Attempting to push through the last two colds this winter just led to being subpar for days on end and missing a lot of hockey practice, and I really, really don't want that again.
The one hip bruise healed up enough by Saturday night that I could return to sleeping on that side, phew; the other is still making itself known, and is going a truly remarkable range of colours. (me to fanf: do you want to see my epic bruise? fanf: absolutely not)
Our trusty Pointer standard bike (not the cargo bike) failed catastrophically in December. fanf took it to the bike shop for assessment: minimum £350 to repair, it cost £500 new, lo these many years ago, a new bike of similar quality would be £700 now. We thought about it for a bit, and eventually I said Vimes boots theory also applies to bikes and so we'll order the good bike and hope it lasts at least another 15 years.
Warbirds (or Tri-Base 2 I guess these days) had a game in Peterborough Saturday night, and my teammate who lives nearby kindly drove me up, and gave me the cultural experience of visiting a huge Eastern European supermarket near the rink. We lost, again, but the bench atmosphere was good, the opponents were fun to play against, and I was reasonably happy with my play.
I joked in the car about Tony buying an expensive bike as soon as I left the country, and teammate said "uh, can't you use Cycle to Work?" and it turns out yes I can, and in fact the whole process was very straightforward. So now we'll pay for this bike in ten monthly instalments from my salary which brings tax savings but is also way easier to budget. The actual bike hasn't arrived yet, which is leading to some interesting logistics around work and school and who is where with what bike, but this too shall pass.
I may, or may not, be playing a game on Saturday for the uni. It's a challenge game against UCL, with players from both Womens Blues and Huskies, but there are way more players available than needed and the roster is still not out (eh, students). I hope I can kick this cold by then; if I'm not playing I'll do game ops as usual.
Итак, в субботу мы оба направляемся в Россию и пробудем там какое-то время (надеемся уложиться в две недели). Причин несколько, и главная из них – у нас обоих назрела необходимость менять внутренние паспорта. Попутно – заберём из типографии тираж новой книги стихов Маши, решим пару насущных вопросов, да и вообще – оглядимся/осмотримся. Будем надеяться, что всё пройдёт гладко. Пожелайте нам удачи.
Следующий стамбульский пост всё ещё в процессе написания. Постить я его буду, скорей всего, уже из России (надеюсь, тамошний кривой интернет мне это позволит).
Посмотрела "Большой баг" Жана-Пьера Жёне. Я ужасно зла на Нетфликс! Это фильм 2022 года, за новостями кино я слежу, но ничего о нем не слышала. Узнала, только когда закопалась в фильмографию Жёне (думала, он давно ничего не снимал). А "Уэнделл и Уайлд" Селика! Такая же история - режиссер мне нравится, фильм отличный, но узнала о нем я случайно. У меня ощущение, что Нетфликс хорош для сериалов, а не таких вот жемчужин, которые он попросту хоронит.((
Title: Couldn't Wait Rating: R Warnings: No Warnings Apply Fandom: S.W.A.T. Relationships: Donovan Rocker/Molly Hicks Tags: Established Relationship, Child Birth Summary: Molly couldn't wait to be a mother with Donny. Word Count: 2,746
Fandom: Star Wars Pairings/Characters: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi Rating: General Audiences Length: 22,206 words Creator Links:Nanaille / nanaille Theme: Crack Treated Seriously
Summary: In this house we respect the Jedi Order, the Force, and our Very Holy General Kenobi (peace be upon his beard).
Obi-Wan is back on Coruscant. Wary, famished, and deeply not ready for what’s waiting.
He thought the clones would hate him. Instead? They built shrines. They quote his sass like scripture. And someone really needs to stop printing stickers.
Featuring: false sightings, reverent memes, emotional breakdowns, and a commander who never stopped waiting.
Reccer's Notes: A very fun fic which mixes modern media fandom things (e.g. the clones have a kind of Discord chat), a fix-it AU (well...some things are fixed, anyway), and heartfelt feelings platonic and otherwise.
Announcement: the audience for these has changed, so I’m going to do them once every three or four months instead of monthly. So please come to this January one if you’re interested, there won’t be another until probably April.
24th January, 1pm, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX.
We will be on Level 5 blue side (the upper levels are no longer closed to non-ticket-holders), but I don’t know exactly where on the floor. It will depend on where we can find a table.
I have shoulder length brown hair, and will have my plush Chthulu which looks like this:
Please obey any rules posted in the venue.
The venue has lifts to all floors and accessible toilets. The accessibility map is here:
The food market outside (side away from the river) is pretty good for all sorts of requirements, and you can also bring food from home, or there are lots of cafes on the riverfront.
Other things to bear in mind:
1. Please make sure you respect people’s personal space and their choices about distancing.
2. We have all had a terrible time for the last four years. Sharing your struggles is okay and is part of what the group is for, but we need to be careful not to overwhelm each other or have the conversation be entirely negative. Where I usually draw the line here is that personal struggles are fine to talk about but political rants are discouraged, but I may have to move this line on the day when I see how things go. Don’t worry, I will tell you!
3. Probably lots of us have forgotten how to be around people (most likely me as well), so here is permission to walk away if you need space. Also a reminder that we will all react differently, so be careful to give others space if they need.
Please RSVP if you’re coming so I know whether or not we have enough people. If there’s no uptake I will cancel a couple of days before.
Title: Four Socks Fandom: Spooks (MI5) [Werewolf AU] Rating: G Length: 378 words Summary: It often happens that when a dog has a leg wound a sock is worn to prevent the animal chewing at the wound. Of course, with a werewolf this proves more complicated.
I define "the long 1970s" as from 1968, when the Hays Code in the United States was abandoned, to 1982, the year of the Twilight Zone disaster. This period saw an almost "Wild West" era in which previously restricted kinds of film and subjects were made in large numbers, and undoubtedly there was a great deal of innovation and ingenuity going on. However, when people say, as some do, "It's such a shame movies will never be made that way again", that is where I say, "Now, wait a minute".
Among other things, that period saw:
The Last House on the Left (1972), in which an actress was seriously psychologically and emotionally abused by co-stars, with her director failing to protect her. Later, a live chainsaw in a fight scene.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), in which an actress's finger was deliberately cut by one co-star and her blood non-consensually sucked by an unknowing (ie thought it was stage blood) second actor.
The Exorcist (1973), in which two separate actresses were seriously injured and their director chose to keep their genuine cries of pain in the final movie.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980), notorious for its on-screen real animal killings, but also the use of a local Indigenous girl (possibly as young as 14) to act a victim in a rape scene without clear certainty that she knew exactly what would happen.
The Deer Hunter (1978), in which a real bullet was placed in the revolver (even if not in the next chamber) for the Russian Roulette scene.
Roar (1981), in which dozens of cast and crew were injured, some seriously, through being surrounded by untrained big cats on set during the multi-year production.
That's off the top of my head; there are plenty of less famous films that had similar problems. I have seen half of these (Last House, Texas Chain Saw and The Deer Hunter) and the number of those where my experience was heightened from knowing about the abuse, recklessness and danger was zero. I will never watch Cannibal Holocaust, and I'm not especially inclined to watch the other two either.
Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, William Friedkin etc are forever being lauded as geniuses. In some ways they were. But I am absolutely delighted that films can no longer be made the way they made them. The human (and animal in certain cases) cost was simply too high. Friedkin in particular is someone I've gone right off in recent years. If you have to traumatise your cast to make a film, you are doing it wrong.
And if that makes me a pearl-clutcher, sign me up for shares in the oyster farm!
It's Thursday, or as I like to call it, Friday Eve. We're getting there! I'm really looking forward to relaxing for the weekend. I feel like that might help clear out the last of this crud. I'm defintely doing better, but I'm still coughing a bit and my voice varies between semi normal, gravel filled and hoarse and squeaky, sometimes all in the same sentence. It's annoying.
Yesterday was another busy day, though I spent some of it making outbound calls to fill in some slots and get some patients in sooner. Still, I kicked so much ass. One of my favorite things is playing tetris with the schedule. Sometimes, you'll have a 1/2 hour slot in a few days, and then two half hour slots with a patient in between them. So you're going to call that patient and move them. Preferrably to the earlier slot, but if not at least up or down 30min. So you end up with a 60 or 90 minute slot. I have very good luck at getting that 90 minutes. Case in point yesterday, where I opened up two hours (which coincidentally was how much we needed for a patient's MRI).
I got a bunch of clothes delivered from Thredup, which are all pretty nice. There's two pieces that weren't what I expected, so they go into the donate pile. Then, there's one I'm not sure of. But what I definitely got out of it is two fleeces, a cute orange cardigan, a swim cover up and a little black purse for the vow renewal that I absolutely love. Need to have my room key and inhaler with me when I'm out of the cabin.
Then, after work, there was an exciting thing. I was sitting and relaxing and I got a call from a 604 area code. Which is Vancouver, CA. I knew this from setting up stuff for the Alaska trip. So, I picked up. It was our hotel, the Pan Pacific calling to offer an upgrade for our room. Previously, we were staying in kind of the bottom tier of rooms. Still gorgeous, because it is a 5 star hotel, but their basic room. They offered an upgrade to the Club level for $50/night. I of course said yes. So now we're going to have breakfast, snacks, sodas and appetizers in our club lounge. I'm looking forward to trying it out. Looks like it's very nice. So that made me happy.
Something about speaking with an actual human made things feel more real. Like holy shit, y'all, I'm going to see the Pacific Ocean! It's been three years since we had a really good vacation at Disney, so this is very exciting. I've never seen another ocean, always the Atlantic. Even when I went out of country, I saw the other side of the Atlantic from the plane that took me to Scotland.
Today, I shall work, it will hopefully be a less busy day, and I will have some interesting projects.
Today, we have two packages coming. First one is from My Ireland Box. I had gotten my sister a box from Ireland for Christmas, but I ordered it too early and a lot of the baked goods had gotten moldy. (I wasn't sure about shipping time with the shit that was going on with the mail and tarrifs, so I ordered in November.) The second box is from Sitka Seafood. The Dungeness crab that came with our last monthly box was so good that I ordred more. We're going to invite the BIL over for a full out crab feast. It should be delicious, but I'm a little nervous about where we're going to put them while we wait for Feast Day. I need to get some good butter for dipping.
Payday was yesterday, so I paid all the bills this morning, whoo. It's nice not to have the car payment. I still owe money, but I'm paid up til 2027. I just keep putting some money down every month, so hopefully I'll have it paid off early next year. But the internet and car insurance are good.
I didn't end up doing the halibut last night, so I'll have to do that today. I wish I had a beer, so I could do a beer batter, but it's such a pain to order it and wait for delivery. It takes forever to get here. I could just run up the road to a liquor store and grab a six pack, or to the slightly further one and get an individual beer, but that seems like a lot of work. I'm excited to try halibut, as I have never had it before. I may just bake it, we'll see how it goes. I need to get some tartar sauce and lemon. I might make a lemon butter sauce. I'll source it from the internet how it's best to cook it.
This weekend, we have one game on Saturday and nothing else. That's probably for the best, since my voice is so unpredictable. I can get through DMing one game. Plus, it's Arvandor, which is a small party, which makes it a bit easier. Less talking over each other. There is one currently scheduled on Sunday, but that's dependent on how poisontaster is feeling. And I'm not GMing that, so I don't have to talk nonstop.
Okay, time for me to hop off, and consider getting dressed. Everyone have a stellar Thursday!
And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.
And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.
What are you thankful for this week? · Photos are optional but encouraged. · Check-ins remain open until the following week's post is shared. · Do feel free to comment on others' check-ins but don't harsh anyone else's squee.
1) Happy birthday to my younger brother today! I got him a shirt with a smiling Mimic that says "I'm still a treasure"
2) I made an appointment for tomorrow morning for the Career Services department at the local community college, so I'm another step closer on my goal of becoming more employed
And now I move on to my night time routine. G'night!
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