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shadowkat

10. It’s International Wig Day – have you ever worn a wig or a hairpiece?

No, and I'm pretty bald on top.

11. How organized are you with household paperwork (or is everything just in one big pile)?

Reasonably in that I can find things, as for this tax season. Important stuff goes in a filing cabinet. Less important stuff gets shredded.

12. When was the last time you vacuumed the floor?

My cat has an open sore on the top of his paw, I'm not going to mess with the floor till it gets better. I will have to do some spot cleaning of the rug before I can vacuum.

13. It’s International School Meals Day. Did you ever have school meals, and what dish still sticks in your memory if you did?

I had school cafeteria meals for many years. From grade school, I remember sheet cake and little slabs of ice cream from the local dairy. On the bad side we'd get the world's worst meat loaf occasionally. In high school, I skipped the full lunches. Some kids swore by the pizza there, but I thought it was not great. I mostly lived on hamburgers or little sub sandwiches with orange drink, that I purchased every day. As an undergraduate the food was mostly just okay but they had shrimp nights occasionally. If you had late class they might run out on shrimp nights and you'd get liver and onions, which I detest. The funny part was that if a serving of Jello had lettuce under it, it was salad and you could have as much as you wanted. Without the lettuce it was a dessert and you could only have one serving. In grad school the food was great, but I only got up for breakfast when they had donuts.

14. International ‘Ask Me A Question Day’. Go ahead – ask me a question!

(Assuming I've not already answered everything you could possibly want to know...)

15. What’s the weather like today?
Low in the high 50's. High in the mid 80's. It's supposed to hit 100 degrees this week. A little early in the year for that even for here in the desert.

james

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rebelsheart

I've had the same roommate for years at Midwest FurFest - with him only missing one as he'd moved.

He was laid off from his government job a month ago. His attendance is understandably in doubt, though we've got time to spare to determine this.

My plans for an Alaska trip this summer hit the wall of finances for friends who were interested, so I made alternate mini-vacation plans. One to Myrtle Beach with a friend, and one with my husband.

My friend has suffered a family emergency involving a significant number of dollar signs. Right now, he is unlikely to be able to join but has asked me to check in with him in a month.

I don't know who's karma is coming back to get them, but it is causing me frustration.

Current Mood: annoyed

mcshep_feed

Posted by Tazmy

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81282081

by Tazmy

While Teyla and Rodney are stuck on Atlantis sick, John and Ronon go missing off world. In the backdrop to all of this, one ill-advised kiss. Rodney is so mortified.

Words: 9057, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: M/M
Characters: Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard, Ronon Dex, Carson Beckett
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, Ronon Dex & Teyla Emmagan & Rodney McKay & John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan & Rodney McKay
Additional Tags: First Kiss, Feelings, Denial of Feelings, Sickfic, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Rodney McKay, Sick Teyla Emmagan, Unconscious John Sheppard, Struggling to Admit Feelings, admitting feelings, team friendship

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81282081

frazz_comic_rss_feed

https://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2026/03/16

julian

Went to a memorial Thing, for

minoanmiss. (Speaking of, apparently her parents are getting told soon, so we're cleared to go posting in the clear.) Meant to get there early enough to help with cooking for the Watertown Free Fridge, but I didn't, or rather, I got there late because I hadn't had coffee and got some, and then discovered I had forgotten my seltzer I'd gotten as an event thing, so I waffled and came down on the "bringing something is important in a symbolic way" and stopped at Trader Joe's to get lemonade.

I did get there theoretically in time to cook (which we were doing as a memorial thing because Ny did buttloads of cooking for the Fridge), but I kept getting happily lodged in conversations and/or hugs instead, so, well, it was what it was, and it was good.

(I will donate to and/or volunteer at my local Food Pantry in her honor, methinks.)

Stickers, fans, poetry, food, pictures, recipes, music, people, laughter, sadness, occasional sudden memories popping up for people. Because of someone else's story, Eggplant Caponara will now be associated with Ny for me. And when I was outside taking a people break,

katarik sang what turned out to be an Episcopal mourning hymn but which to me (before I asked) was someone with a very nice voice singing something that works very well for her voice, which was steeped in sadness yet joy and beauty. It spoke to and of the afternoon.

I took enough fans that I can use some of them as Kid Prizes at work. (And buy some more later. The stickers aren't quite my thing; Ny gave them to small people she met in the subway and doctor's offices and so on, but I think I'll leave that as a thing to smile about about Ny, not as a Thing To Adopt.)

Saw someone from High School I literally have not seen in what, 30 years? (I mean, we read each other's journals, but it's different.) Honestly, haven't seen most of these folks in at least 15 years, because school eats my brain and then my work schedule is peculiar and family stuff is what it is, but the point is: was good. Even though I felt like I was hyper and a little off balance.

(Thanks to the Cambridge Commons co-housing folks for hosting. And thanks to the snowdrops there, too. First of the season for me!)

The Virtual Memorial, I have just learned, will be on April 12 at 1 pm Eastern, via Zoom. I assume the link will be shared on the Google announce list. (If you're not on there yet, just follow the link and explain how you know Ny to the nice friendly info-boxes.)

Also, more info on Things Ny Related, including vague but pertinent info on who her organs went to, here.

gingicat

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ranunculus

Thursday was dentist day. An absolutely routine cleaning.
Friday was go to Fort Bragg and see Richard day. He fixed both Donald and my backs. As usual I went in with pain and emerged an hour later pain free. Nice drive, easy and almost traffic free.
Garden. ( Cut for pics )

kaberett

Reading. I continue to work my way through the She's A Beast archives, to a degree that is not necessarily ... uh ... optimal, in terms of all the other things I want to do...

I slowed down on LIFTOFF, on account of resuming reading from the start with A, and then this evening I tripped and fell and am. More. of the way through it. again.

Finished What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall. Ultimately the argument is that the queerness is a function of community -- the role that food plays in eating together -- though he also tries at various points for "enjoying food is queer" (among other things), which I do not think I am the target audience for. (Having said which I am now wondering what it would take to convince me of that line of reasoning, and Ideas Are Stirring. Hmm.) Overall a mixture of anecdotes from culinary history and fiction to fill in events that went unrecorded; he does hold space for people to be complex and flawed, and I appreciated the history that was actually history, but -- alas, this did not really work for me.

Writing. Words. Continue. To be. Eked out.

Watching. The 2026 Migraine World Summit is ongoing and eating a lot of my time and brain; thus far nothing has made me actually vibrate with fury and I've had a couple of useful joining-the-dots moments, so mustn't grumble there, really. And I have finally watched the talks from last year's Day 2 that I missed due to time changes, and have started transferring my digital notes from last year into my notebook...

Playing. Inkulinati: we continue Not Dead Yet in the Exploders run on Master difficulty.

The Ridiculous Colours Game.

Sudoku... appears to have let go of my brain for now?

Cooking. This evening I have been attempting to remember how to make Spätzle, and got there eventually (part of the difficulty being that this is the first time I've made them since acquiring a dedicated Spätzlebrett, and I needed to reestablish correct consistency of the dough...)

Eating. This morning we engaged in a Weekend Morning Ritual of going down to the local fancy bakery and getting brunch from them. We also got Treats for Afternoon Tea; I am delighted that they'll supply me with cardamom buns that I don't have to actually make myself.

I have also been Craving Brownies, but not enough to actually make them myself (and also The Oven Is Broken), and consequently have eaten them courtesy of both Wagamama (ritual Thursday night takeaway) and London Zoo (Saturday afternoon tea).

Exploring. London Zoo! Saw creatures! Maybe I will even go back and edit in more details about the creatures! Creatures: good.

Several bimbles around local front gardens (etc) to enjoy Spring Flowers.

Growing. Harvested (and consumed!) more salad. Transplanted some garlic. Wrangled some more weeding. Have yet to sow any more things but really want to have Actual Plants this growing season so, uh, maybe that can be a priority for Breaks From Migraine World Summit, not that that's worked so far...

Observing. THE BAT.

And then for brunch this morning we took our breakfast slightly further than usual to a different park bench, this one surrounded by daffodils, and then additionally wandered a little way down the New River (neither new, nor a river) to see if the coots were doing things yet (which I have also been checking every time I go to the pharmacy to pick up meds). The coots aren't, BUT there were TEN EGYPTIAN GOSLINGS peeping about the place!!! At least one of whom was Extremely keen on coming All the way down the bank and plapping along the edge of the bricks, presumably because they were warm and felt nice on feet? Certainly two very gentle attempts to chase it back towards its parents got them contemplating hissing at me, and only persuaded it to maybe do the thing for about thirty seconds at most, so I gave up on that and just stood back and watched them for a bit, and then was very relieved that the foolhardy baby did upon parents Alarm Calling (as best we can tell about A Passing Dog) go FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP all the way back up and into the bundle of its siblings. An unexpected and very welcome delight.

soemand

This should make for an interesting commute/day tomorrow. The ground is still rock hard frozen, and gfs has a rainfall warning ⚠️ flashing for the next two days.

We usually get spring flooding, and I’d bet tomorrow we do. I have alternate routes into and out of work, so I’m not too bothered.

mcshep_feed

Posted by LogicGunn

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81271936

by LogicGunn

Sheppard's down, Larrin's lonely. What harm could a few bottles of russ wine really do?

Words: 1550, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of Less Haste, More Speed

Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/M, M/M
Characters: Larrin (Stargate), John Sheppard
Relationships: Larrin/John Sheppard, pre Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Additional Tags: Casual Sex, Drunken sex, Pining, background Jennifer Keller/Rodney McKay - Freeform, POV Larrin

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81271936

shakalooloo posting in

scans_daily

Yeah, Cosmic Ghost Rider's in the team, but we do have Amadeus Cho to make up for it! And Marvel generously allowed the use of Gamora. And Abnett can get back to what he had been doing with Darkhawk.

Of course, a return to Abnett Guardians also means a return to after-action video logs!

( Read more... )

witchpoetdreamer

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Current Mood: happy

neonvincent

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: House in the woods at the edge of town
Current Music: Star Wars: The Old Republic

garote

This is a showcase for Meat Beat Manifesto's crunchy industrial energy in 1996. It's also full of the st00pid kid energy my friends and I had in high school a few years before, because tape recordings we made at the time are scattered all over it: Sketches, commentary, fart noises... You get the idea.

The result is not dour and spooky like most industrial mixes (well okay, there are a few places that get spooky because I couldn't help it) it's more like a party that starts out fun, grows out of control, then somehow continues even while everyone is crawling around on the ground in the public park or lying on the beach trying to sober up and find their missing clothing.

The story behind it:

This mix was put together the same way I did "numbah crunch": Windows box, two CD players, and a tape deck. Then the tape got thrown around in a Mercury Tracer hatchback, accumulating hamburger crumbs and dirt, and roasting in parking lots.

Four years later I was driving a Honda Accord with no tape deck, so I re-digitized the cassette into a couple of MP3s and used those as reference to painstakingly rebuild the mix from lossless CD tracks. In the intervening time I'd lost some of the Monty Python dialogue, tape recordings, and random sound effects I'd scattered across the cassette, so in parts of the new mix I just crossfaded from pristine digital goodness back to tape-derived sludge, so those samples could stay where they were. Not for whole songs, but for, like, one-second chunks of songs. Aggressive filtering on the tape source disguised only some of it.

This thoroughly proves how stupidly obsessive I can be: Back in 1996 when I hit "play" and "stop" on a sample of John Cleese trying to buy a pack of cigarettes using a prank language translation book, cutting the conversation up into pieces so it played out across a creepy ambient thing from the Quake soundtrack, I didn't plan on re-splicing the whole sample back on top of the original source track, dragging every bit into place like I was reconstructing a long-lost scroll from the Library Of Alexandria. I mean, okay, it only took a few hours, but was it worth even that? All I can say is, I thought so at the time...

Anyway, I burned the reconstruction onto two CDs, and those lived in a 200-CD jukebox for, I don't know, another eight years maybe? Then those got ripped again. They hopped across an unknown series of hard drives and operating systems for fifteen more years, and now (in 2026) I'm putting them on the internet. What a strange ride, for a strange mix.

Lossless-encoded version:

DJ_Fixed-Meat_Beats_The_Devil_1996_Mix-01-Side_A-ALAC.m4a
DJ_Fixed-Meat_Beats_The_Devil_1996_Mix-01-Side_A-ALAC.m4a

AAC-encoded version:

DJ_Fixed-Meat_Beats_The_Devil_1996_Mix-01-Side_A-ALAC.m4a
DJ_Fixed-Meat_Beats_The_Devil_1996_Mix-01-Side_A-ALAC.m4a

delphi

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brokenframe posting in

vidding

Title: Can’t Pretend
Characters/Pairing: Jonathan Pine/Teddy Dos Santos
TV Series: The Night Manager
Music: Can’t Pretend by Tom Odell
Length: 3:35
Streaming/download at: DW | Tumblr

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7009 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1001.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73052&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=language-policy-at-the-chinese-national-peoples-congress-npc-2

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73052

China to Enshrine Xi-Era Ethnic Policy in New Law
by Chenghao Wei, NPC Observer (3/5/26)

The following is the introductory paragraph to the prospectus for the NPC's proceedings next week:

Next week, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to adopt a Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Law) [民族团结进步促进法]—designed to codify General Secretary Xi Jinping’s new orthodoxy for governing China’s ethnic minorities. That doctrine, known as the “Important Thinking on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work,” reflects the “Second-Generation Ethnic Policies” promoted by several prominent scholars. In a nutshell, this new “assimilationist” approach aims “not just to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to a larger, unified Chinese nation under the Party but also to mute expression of other—in the Party’s view, competing—identities.”

Chapter II is where the plan focuses on language policy:

Chapter II (Building a Shared Spiritual Home)lays the ideological foundation for the assimilation project. It affirms the policy of fostering identification with “the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics” through patriotic education, education in official historical narratives, publicity of “the fine Zhonghua traditional culture,” and promotion of “Chinese cultural symbols and image of the Chinese nation” (arts. 11–14).

This Chapter then affords language and education particular attention. It incorporates the relevant rules of the newly revised Law on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language [国家通用语言文字法], but often goes beyond them. For instance, it codifies the goal of having preschoolers become proficient in Putonghua and requires that Chinese characters be displayed more prominently than minority scripts if both must be used in public (art. 15, paras. 2, 4). It also tasks the education and ethnic affairs ministries with developing textbooks on “the community of the Chinese nation,” while requiring all schools to integrate that concept into their curricula (art. 16, paras. 1–2; art. 18, para. 1). This Chapter does vow to support the standardization, digitization, and preservation of minority texts (art. 15, para. 5), but the goal of such investment is to “protect languages from being completely forgotten rather than protecting their ongoing, everyday use by living people.”

Finally, this Chapter broadly requires media, internet service providers, families, among others, to promote the Party’s ethnic policy (arts. 19–21). Parents are reminded of their duty to provide lawful family education and are prohibited from “instilling in minors ideas detrimental to ethnic unity and progress” (art. 20, para. 2).

There's not much ambiguity about where they're headed with regard to language.

Selected readings

"NPC Delegate Proposes To End Foreign Language Translation" (5/31/20) — that was six years ago; it didn't happen
"Badge of honor: Language Log is blocked in China" (12/26/19) — with an account of other major banned websites: Wikipedia (all languages), The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Hackernews, Imgur, Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many other invaluable websites were already off-limits to Chinese citizens for years. The internet in China is severely decimated by the CCP government.
"The Arithmetic of Party-Speak: The 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is just around the corner — and that means the machine of political discourse is humming away at high speed" (8/28/17).
"The mind-numbing official-speak of the CCP" (8/29/17

[Thanks to June Teufel Dreyer]

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73052&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=language-policy-at-the-chinese-national-peoples-congress-npc-2

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73052