spindizzy | Network

1. I decided to work from home today, originally because we had an appointment to take the new car to the dealership so they could put some sort of protective coating on it and I thought I might go with Carla and then take the opportunity to walk back home as my midday walk, but then in the morning I heard back from one of the electricians I'd emailed yesterday and he was able to come by to do an estimate this afternoon, so I'm glad I had already decided to stay home! (I ended up not going with Carla after all, but I did take a nice bike ride in the afternoon instead.)

2. The prices the guy quoted were very reasonable and he's just charging based on the distance to run the wires, not that plus another fee, as some other places were, so I decided to go with him. He helped me pick out a charger and I ordered that and it will arrive on Wednesday, so we set an install date of Thursday. The car still has over 50% charge, so even if I drive it to work tomorrow and/or Wednesday, as I think I might, I shouldn't need to use a public charger before we get our own installed.

3. Molly's such a sweetie girl.

labingi

Hm, my attempt to embed this came through as a link. Well, if you feel inclined to click the link, you'll see photos and everything!

torachan

I woke up around six and had breakfast in the hotel, then walked to the monorail station around seven and got to the park at 7:20 to line up. As with previous DisneySea trips, I made sure to get in the far right line so that Carla could easily find me when she joined me later.

( So many pictures, but not quite enough to break into two posts! )

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3256/

Gen-Z got a chunk of the Carboniferous, and now all their memes are about how pathetic and small today's dragonflies are.

https://xkcd.com/3256/

princessofgeeks

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rydra_wong

Watch on YouTube

Featuring some of the most batshit possible Heath Robinson arrangements for making a tiny quasi-acoustic version of their industrial noise. MIDI-triggered mug pinging!

Daveed Diggs: "Thank y'all for this opportunity to do needlessly complicated shit."

ETA: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jte7_yZuZVk -- short on some of the aforementioned batshit Heath Robinson arrangements.

rosa_heartlily

A year ago I was enjoying Younger Grandson climbing around the furniture, feeling sorry for Granddaughter who was teething, making progress with COE33, and watching The Sinner.

Today I took full advantage of a quiet day working from home.

Last night, I read some more of TOBS. I got through one chapter, which rounded off the next stage of Mary's life nicely.

[Then came the next chapter...]

[Three... count 'em, THREE... sources of irritation on one page.

Firstly, the previous chapter clearly stated that Mr Gardiner was going to meet Mary at Charing Cross, but in this one she appeared to arrive alone.

Then her cousins were named as her 'nephews and nieces' (the same mistake the 1995 adaptation makes).

Next, 'The Gardiners' house... [had] a dark green door and high windows on each floor' - I mean, I know what it MEANS but it doesn't say what it means. Again, where's the editing?!]

Now I'm finishing the day with a couple of episodes of 'Yes, Minister'.

Current Mood: relaxed
Currently Reading bedroom

asakiyume

One cool thing I did on my last trip to Leticia was visit a foundation that a woman (Johana) had set up, all on her own, to take care of stray dogs and cats (but especially dogs) in Leticia. Of which there are many. She has two locations where she houses the animals she takes in, and I got to visit one.

--And I want to take a moment to say, Johana not some wealthy woman doing this with her spare pesos. No: she's one of Colombia's many many internally displaced people, who, with her parents, had to flee her home due to the civil war (which was mainly, but not 100 percent entirely, brought to a close in 2016). She ended up in Leticia. What I'm saying is, she started with nothing, no anything.

She takes animals in--again, mainly dogs--and a lot of time they're in pretty rough condition, but she nurses them back to health, and then they are as healthy and happy/bouncy as any dog you could imagine. If you can tolerate looking at pictures of a very poorly-off dog if you know at the end you are going to see pictures of a happy, healthy dog, this video montage from the foundation's Instagram shows the healing.

She also arranges sterilization clinics that people can bring their pets to--and it's free. There was one going on during the time I was there, and the receptionists at the place where I was staying knew about it and knew about the foundation.

So one evening I hopped on the back of L & R's motorbike, and we visited one of those houses. The mural was painted by volunteers from a local cell phone carrier:

whitewashed wall with dogs painted on it and doggie footprints

whitewashed wall with dogs painted on it and doggie footprints

a canvas sign showing a pair of wings around a heart holding a dog's paw

There were so many dogs! So many! I didn't get a picture, but here is one from the Instagram:

a bunch of very happy-looking dogs

( three more photos under the cut )

Johana has trouble getting dogs adopted out because there are so many dogs in Leticia, and someone's dog is always having puppies. But she's committed to taking care of those she can't find homes for. Needless to say, all this takes funds, and Leticia is not Cartagena. There aren't bunches of wealthy people around. I promised a donation when I got home (she has a PayPal account for overseas donations), and I said I'd spread the word on social media.

People who donate to animal shelters are, in my experience, super generous, but also they already have many, many places they donate their funds. BUT. If you are such a person, and if maybe it would tickle your fancy to support a very underresourced animal shelter in the Amazon, here is your chance.

To pay by PayPal, go to PayPal, and type @ fundacion09 --but all closed up.
(If I type it closed up here, it will end up pointing to a nonexistent Dreamwidth account.)
[Thank you

sovay for pointing out this problem!]

And this is a link to the Instagram post that gives that information.

And lastly, here's a link to the overall Instagram

Current Music: Shakira: Dai Dai

oursin

The Ph.D. Is Not a Pit Stop for Creative Writers: Don’t do a Ph.D. program because you want to work on your novel. (Well, with the proviso perhaps that you're not using the PhD programme as MATERIAL either for a campus novel or maybe a murder mystery or even a rom-com.)

But, okay, the UK system is different anyway (this looks to be very much about the US setup), and anyway I did my PhD in a history-related discipline Many Years Ago and I was basically Doing It For Fun, although my workplace also considered it a form of professional development and gave me study leave, paid fees, etc.

And at the same time I was writing fiction - sf and fantasy, i.e something pretty much unrelated to my research (though that, as it were, mulched down into the soil that nourished the roots of a much later fictional endeavour!).

So it was a break and something different using different mental muscles.

I am pretty much there with the author of the article that the anticipated synergy is unlikely to be there, and the credo that

I truly believe that one has a better chance of becoming a writer by working at a bakery, a coffee shop, a bookstore, a 9-to-5 corporate job, a blueberry farm, a publishing house, etc.

(I am reminded of a Jules Feiffer cartoon featuring a guy behind a bar who mentions all these guys who used to come into the bar he tended who had sold their novel on their basis of having done these various manly roughneck career things, like working on fishing boats and tending bar, and he pitched a novel on the basis that he has done all those things, taken the advance and set himself up with a bar of his own.) (If anyone can point me at this, please do.)

Also that 'Much of the performance of creative writing happens in moments of quietude and, quite frankly, daydreaming'.

We are given to wonder whether the people who undertake this rather ill-advised course are writing for FUN or is it srs bznz? Perhaps they would do well to consider the case of Carolyn Heilbrun/Amanda Cross and writing a kind of campus fiction that involves pushing pompous professors out of windows and finding out whodunnit.

sovay

Good Monday! I slept an hour and have to fight with both my insurance and the city parking department. Have a small number of links.

1. Thanks to the ongoing movement to eat the invasive green crab, I have discovered the existence of Maine Garum. Of course I want to order a bottle of their fish sauce; I haven't had garum in the kitchen since our last apartment. Then I want to order their crab sauce, because intense oceanic funk is most attractive to me.

2. Since I last checked in on Dermot Turing, he has produced two books of obvious interest to me: Enigma Traitors: The Struggle to Lose the Cipher War (2023) and Misread Signals: How History Overlooked Women Codebreakers (2025). The first makes me hope he has written about Leo Marks and Englandspiel, the second is right on.

3. Have a photoset of Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton outside a pub in Shepperton, 1963. They are obviously in the middle of filming Becket (1964) and just as obviously are the modern AU. "He's drunk and wenched his way through London, but he's thinking all the time."

I have draft schedules for both Readercon and NecronomiCon Providence. I like the looks of both of them. Wish my constitution luck.

Current Music: Joy Oladokun, "Nothing Comes Easy"

shewhomust

It's not news that supermarkets stock numerous products which claim to be high in protein. Mostly I hardly notice them: I'm not interested. There's nothing wrong with protein, but there is enough in my normal diet, I don't need to supplement it. That being so, if something I might otherwise buy - yoghurt, say - is advertised as high in protein, I automatically avoid it. This may be irrational, but there it is.

But for some reason, in Lidl last week something caught my eye: high-protein tiramisu.

It's a small step, I suppose, from yoghurt to tiramisu, but it still seems incongruous: My protein levels are deficient. Bring me tiramisu!

althea_valara

I pushed an update to my Final Fantasy Recaps Neocities site a few days ago. The biggest update was changing things so that instead of "Jump to" links and one l-o-n-g scrolling page of text, I added accordions for sections. That breaks it down into more manageable pieces so it's less intimidating.

I also finished documenting the Bastok Missions from Final Fantasy XI! \o/ It's nice to have something completely done.

I wanted to work on Windurst missions last night, but the mission my low-level alt is on can't be soloed unless you are a MUCH higher level. I'm thinking I might try to be brave and yell for help with it - just need someone who has a portal charm! - but yelling, frankly, scares me these days.

I was not brave enough last night, so I logged off and dug out my notes from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius:

[Image Description: A large quantity of handwritten notes, documenting stories from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. There's one two-inch binder, two one-inch binders, and enough loose leaf pages to make up a fourth binder, if not a fifth.]

Present me is REALLY IMPRESSED with past me for putting in all that work! I did the bulk of this when I didn't have a computer of my own, hence handwriting it out. I don't have everything written, because I started the documentation project after story events had already played and they weren't ever repeated, BUT I found a site that has a lot of the story events as YouTube videos. So I can transcribe the missing ones from others' videos, and type up the ones I have documented already. Gonna take FOREVER, but I am determined.

I started typing up Lasswell's short story last night, and gods did I miss these characters. They are delightful and fun, and it's been neat to revisit the story and smile again.

I checked out my site from my phone, and frowned at how small the text is. I need to see about fixing that eventually. I also want to do another section of Shadowbringers soon, and continue working on FFXI. LOTS TO DO.

Finally, I became a Neocities Supporter this morning. Mostly for the yummy stats, but also... well, I'm obviously having fun with the site, might as well give them some money. I do believe in supporting others' works monetarily, if you can afford it. At $5 a month? Yeah, I can afford that.

Current Mood: bouncy

wispywillow

I haven't done a comic post lately where I talk about what I read or share favorite panels from the issues. Nerd-out time. (My bullet point discussion of the issues may contain spoilers.)

( Daredevil #299 )

( Daredevil #300 )

I'm going to try to be better about engaging with others' posts here. I tend to have tunnel vision with hopping on here, doing a post, replying to comments, then bouncing off to do something else. It's a bad habit that I need to address.

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

Jerome Opeña

wispywillow

33	TMNT Adventures		The Karma of Katmandu	June 1992	June 05, 2026
24	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	1	Down to the River	August 1989	June 05, 2026
299	Daredevil	1	Last Rites (pt. 3): Regicide	December 1991	June 06, 2026
300	Daredevil	1	Last Rites (pt. 4): Long Live the King	January 1992	June 07, 2026
🦇	🦇 Two-Face		Crime and Punishment	July 1995	June 07, 2026	BBfB 54

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

waneella - Second Chance

javert

Just a little life update... I want to experiment with picking a day to blogpost no matter what (I've kind of settled on Friday, maybe) but in the meantime, I thought I'd try to make a bit more of a positive post..?

In an attempt to find something that brings me joy again, I'm getting back into webdev. My current project is a Baba Is You fanlisting! This is the layout I have so far, which is basically almost done:

There's other stuff I'm working on, but that's all I really want to talk about right now. I miss making things a lot. I also haven't drawn or written in a bit (I was taking a break on purpose) and there are other creative endeavors I'm contemplating... I'm hoping that German classes ending soon will free up time to do stuff.

We're seeing the Backrooms movie in two weeks and I'm looking forward to it! They're playing it in English at one of the nearby theater. We also saw Project Hail Mary last month. I'd really like to go see movies more regularly. I'm also going to get back into comic stuff soon.

Hope everyone is doing well! That's it for me for today. o7

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Baba Is You OST - Flag Is Win

linky

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: tired

kalloway

I am surviving. Everything is kind of in hurry-up-and-wait mode. I am so tired of phone calls.

Currently I'm trying to make my old bedroom into a welcoming space. I don't think anyone has vacuumed or dusted in here since I moved out 14 years ago.

In my plans for the weekend that didn't happen, I was supposed to renew my DW account. At this point I don't even know where my card is for that. In my work bag? Which is? Hopefully at my place somewhere.

~~Anyway, could someone kindly float me a bit of DW paid time til I can find my own arse without a flashlight and map?~~ Thank you. ;_; Truly.

sewn

I went to the pictures. Ticket prices are through the roof so I rarely do it these days, but I wanted to go see the new He-Man movie with friend T, who is a massive fan. He-Man was never a thing for me as a kid because I'm too young for its heyday and I seldom played with ~boy toys~ so most of my familiarity with the IP is through the new She-Ra.

Well. More thruthfully, when I hear "He-Man" I rather think about... dan na naa naa, dan na naa naa, TAISTELU-JASKA!

Taistelu-Jaska (Jaska the Fighter) is a video series from when "funny" dubs of cartoon recuts were peak Finnish Youtube. I bet for a large chunk of a certain millennial demographic, Taistelu-Jaska is the definitive iteration of He-Man. I know I still often think of the truly iconic lines ("parempi nyrkki perseessä kuin asua Lohjalla" - 'better a fist up your ass than to live in Lohja'). It's just... so dumb especially trying to explain it in English, but it's also genius.

Watch on YouTube

Be as it may, we ended up having a really fun He-Man afternoon. We watched the 1987 Cannon Films version (I had seen it about a decade ago and had forgotten how much of it takes place on Earth) and an episode of the 1983 cartoon to prime ourselves. The first movie is... not terrible? And actually a really interesting project for Cannon to take on. It's just boring in a lot of places, especially the regular human drama bits.

The new movie might be a lot of things, and it is certainly not boring. I didn't know what to expect really and it was so much fun. :D

I avoided all possible spoilers so I didn't even know the cast. Teela is Veronica Riverdale! There's Idris Elba!? He was fantastic as always. And Adam is played by the prince from Red, White and Royal Blue. He was such a good choice for the type of character they went for. Very similar to David Corenswet's Superman. I think there's something to be said about the masculine softboy/babygirl male hero, but I don't have a thinkpiece in me. Besides He-Man himself, the movie is very much similar to James Gunn's oeuvre in general, but I found it... more pleasant to my own sensibilities? I also really liked Bumblebee, so I think I just jive with Travis Knight's style.

The one strike against the casting is Jared Leto as Skeletor. He didn't do a bad job per se, but Skeletor was memorable mostly because of the writing -- the scriptwriters were having so much fun with him -- and the visuals. I feel like there are a dozen actors who would have delivered a really fun performance just as well. He didn't suck. It's just. Why would you hire Jared Leto. You don't need to do that, you know?

Still, that choice didn't detract from the whole. The visuals are so so pretty. The movie is looong (40 minutes longer than the Dolph one!) but it didn't feel like a slog at any point. The fights were well done. It was nice to see lots of melee fighting (with the POWER SWORD). It has a lot of jokes and a lot of them don't land, but it's very charming about it. The bad jokeyness won me over. Prince ~~Henry~~ Adam is buff, but in what I consider a realistic way. You know what I mean? There's like... a layer of fat tissue over his muscles and his veins aren't popping. He's like a regular, super buff but regular guy.

One of the absolute stars of the movie is the score. If you like power metal and Brian May shredding on the guitar, please listen to the score. For that alone I was glad we went to see it on the big screen. And then they even ( spoiler )

So yeah, it was fun! The plot is very standard hero's journey, but it's lovingly, thoughtfully made. I think for big He-Man fans there are a lot of fun details that I completely missed, but it works for the uninitiated perfectly well.

oursin

Happy birthday,

badgerbag and

randomling!

sholio

I was answering a comment over on AO3 on my old Stargate fic Old Soldiers Die Hard, the one with Annie the candystriper viewpoint OC, and got to thinking about the elapsed time since I posted it in 2006. She was probably meant to be in her late teens in the story, something like 17 or 18, which means that if she aged in realtime, she'd be in her late 30s now.

I was thinking about this in particular because it was always one of my most popular fics in that fandom, and people often asked for a sequel to that story about Annie grown up (and still do now and then). I don't mind being asked, although it is definitely not happening because I've long since moved on, but it's a bit wild to consider the passage of time in that particular way.

(Annie is grown up and doing fine, btw.)

Susan

Daily Happiness

Reflecting on Place and Climate Grief

2026 Disneyland Trip #17 (4/11/26) Tokyo DisneySea

Nostalgia Content

Heated Rivalry rec

CLIPPING TINY DESK CONCERT

Just when you thought it was safe...

Fundación Ángeles de 4 Patas

This is all pretty alien to me for several reasons

What can a friend do to try and convince you that trouble's the cost of being alive?

Seen in Lidl

neocities updated, and more coming!

Daredevil #299-300

06.08.2026

back to business

Toku (and one general) Fandom Events

Small Updates

Masters of the Universe (2026)

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Sheer randomness

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