Reading

Current Mood: contemplative

Tall Ships

Watching the tall ships aberdeen instagram stories is making me want to reread copperbadge's tall ships focused shivadh story Pirates of the Riviera - a kid on the story just said he’s volunteering aboard as part of his schooling and made me think of noah? Actually I might just settle in and reread the whole thing. Words: 561,081. Works: 19

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nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist

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Daily Happiness

1. We got fancy bagels for breakfast again. This time managed to get up to the shop around nine or so, so there was hardly any crowd yet.

2. I thought the limited edition chamoy Kettle Chips were all sold out for good as we hadn't seen them in a while, but they got restocked, so we snagged another couple bags.

3. Chloe is such a cutie.

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weekly reading

Weekly Reading

Currently Reading
Nikhil Out Loud
10%. Middle grade book about a teen voice actor who moves from LA to Ohio with his mom when his grandfather gets sick. This is by Maulik Pancholy, whose Murder at the Patel Motel I recently enjoyed a lot. Since I liked his narration of the other book, I decided to do this as an audiobook, too. I'm enjoying it so far.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
6%.

Kill Her Twice
33%.

Just Happy to Be Here
58%.

Sister Outsider
60%.

Recently Finished
A Slash of Emerald
I enjoyed this. Looking forward to more in the series.

A Deadly Night at the Theatre
The new Dahlia Lively mystery came out just as I was finishing up A Slash of Emerald. Perfect timing. I like this series a lot.

The Nice House by the Sea vol. 1
I knew this was associated with Nice House on the Lake (obviously) but since the name is different, I didn't realize it was the direct continuation. So I read it, but I didn't remember enough about The Nice House on the Lake, so then I had to reread those first two volumes as well (not a hardship as it's a great series). There are too many characters and too many things going on and I am almost certainly going to have to reread things before the next volume comes out, too...

Something Is Killing the Children vol. 8
I hadn't realized this was out. It's just a collection of stand-alones set at various times in the series rather than being a new arc.

The Deviant vol. 2
I liked this series a lot, but was a little disappointed in the ending as I thought we would get to find out who had really committed the first string of murders as well. ( spoilers )

Current Mood: hopeful

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real life: extended stay hotel

Hotel Life: Once more on the power front...

The power went off again for a bit but, once it turned back on, everything was working correctly again.

Well, mostly. My AC was still making the odd grinding sound, but I did some googling and opened it up, and I was able to get it fixed. The sudden power outage while it was turned on basically knocked a couple of things loose, but I was able to get them all screwed back in properly so that it's working properly again.

We'll see if it lasts?

ETA: The power went out for another half hour around 7pm, with the fire alarm going off when it went out and again when it came back on. Our guess is that the fire alarm is being triggered for some reason when it transfers to the emergency back-up battery and back. No updates from Pepco about what's actually causing the outages (which is par for the course for Pepco), so everyone is assuming it's because the network is so overloaded from everyone using the AC 24/7.

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book things

Mid-year Book Tag

Doing the thing from over on Booktube since I haven't been posting monthly :/ So here I am, taking stock of the reading year so far. As of today, I've read 60 books.

1. How has your reading year been so far? I’ve read as much litfic as I have fantasy, which is unusual for me, 20 apiece. And I’ve read 8 classics! Proud of that bit. Average rating is a 3.95 overall, which is pretty good!

2. What is the best book that you’ve read so far this year? I've got three.

'
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1846). An absolute banger. Expertly plotted, exquisite characters, delicious drama, a total page-turner for preeettty much all 1240 pages. Edmund Dantes is one messy bench. He's basically Batman, the greatest Gary Stu of them all, and I love that for him. Revenge, righteousness, justice, loyalty, filial piety and rebellion -- Dumas packs it all in, along with a bunch of historical context. The wrongs done to Dantes are appalling, the villains reprehensible, and the vengeance he orchestrates so deeply satisfying; I'm so glad we get a (ridiculous) hero we can cheer for.
He loses half a star for drawing out Morrel's misery for 200 pages and for the random epic drug trip, and for everything involving Haydee. Eek. In a book of normal length, these flaws might be fatal, but over 1250-some pages, these bits were relatively easy to skim over. WHAT A STORY. Read this in June. 4.5 *s

( Read more... )

Current Mood: annoyed

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real life: extended stay hotel

Hotel Life: Power Update

Okay, so apparently the sister hotel and the 7-Eleven next door are having the same issue where about half the lights/plugs in the building are working and the other half aren't. So it looks like it might actually be an issue with the power company rather than some of the wires specifically in this hotel getting fried like we were initially suspecting might be the case.

My AC still won't cool, but I have managed to get it to at least have a weak fan blowing which is better than nothing. And the AC in the hallway just outside my room is working, which is helping a little with keeping the temperature from going up too quickly in here.

Both the power company and the fire department are wandering around trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, especially since two extended stay hotels full of people without working AC (in some rooms, not all - the AC is working fine for some people, although most of the rooms with working AC don't have working lights) in 90+ degree weather is... not great.

The temperature in my room is slowly edging upwards, but it's not too bad yet at least. When the power went out at 11am, it was about 68°F in my room as I turn the AC down low at night to sleep so it hadn't had a chance to start warming back up yet at that point. A little over three hours later, with no AC that entire time, it's gone up to 74°F, so it's averaging about 2° an hour. Which, you know, could be worse.

Now, if they don't get it fixed within the next few hours, it's going to start being a problem. My fingers are desperately crossed that they'll figure it out before then, though.

ETA: It only went up to 75°F by 3pm, so it looks like the temperature might not be rising quite as quickly as it gets warmer. We'll see what happens.

Current Mood: frustrated

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real life: extended stay hotel

Hotel Life: Happy Sunday?

The power in the hotel went out a little while ago and, while it came back on after about twenty minutes, the plugs for my fridge and microwave are dead and my AC won't blow cold air. And it's definitely not the circuit breaker, because I already checked it and tried flipping everything on/off to be certain. 🙃

While the plugs for the microwave and fridge aren't working, there are three more in the kitchen that are working fine (two on the wall over the counter and one for the oven). I was able to move the fridge to another nearby plug that was working, and I'm pretty sure that there's one close enough that I can do the same for the microwave if I need to use it. Or I can move the microwave to on top of the stove top long enough to use it if the cord won't reach.

It's not a great option, but it's at least an alternative until they can figure out what the fuck went wrong.

The temperature in the room is quickly ticking upwards a little at a time without a working AC, though, which is definitely not a plug issue since it's turning on but is just not cooling anything off. I turned the AC completely off, flipped the breaker off/on, and am letting it sit for half an hour to see if that helps. I know sometimes that can be enough to reset it, so my fingers are crossed it will work this time. Luckily, I had the room cool enough that it will take a while before it gets too hot in here, but still. It's supposed to hit 90°F today, so a working AC is kinda vital.

The lovely part is that the person at the front desk has no idea what to do, because a ton of people are having similar issues where some things came back on but not others. Half the lights in the hallway are still dead and a lot of us are having issues with some things working but not others (although it seems to vary from person to person per the person at the front desk who I spoke with), so it's gotta be some type of wiring issue where plugs that are piggybacked off the same failed wiring are the ones not coming back on for anyone. The maintenance guy doesn't even work on weekends, though, so.... yeah.

ETA: And now the fire alarm is going off, presumably due to the same wiring issue as there's definitely no fire. Today's great, y'all.

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fic rec,
meme

thanks for coming to my TED talk

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Daily Happiness

1. Our window for the internet upgrade was 8am to 12pm and I got a text at 7:30 saying the guy was on his way, and he arrived a little before eight. Glad we were his first stop! Since it was just an upgrade, not setting up new service, it didn't take that long. I think he was gone by 9:30 or so. Everything seems to be working well, both in terms of speed increases and, more importantly, wifi range. When Carla got her Switch 2, it wouldn't connect to the wifi if it wasn't in my room (where the router is), which is inconvenient. We hoped it was just our crappy old router affecting it and not the Switch itself, and sure enough it works fine now. Whew!

2. Since the guy finished so early, we decided to go to the farmers market and then go to Disneyland for lunch afterwards. Got two bottles of the watermelon lemonade at the farmers market, as well as some more rhubarb as Carla wants to make a rhubarb syrup to make rhubarb lemonade. We also got some delicious grapes. Carla had run to the store while the internet guy was here and I had meant to ask her to get some sort of fruit and totally forgot, so I was excited to find some really tasty grapes at the farmers market.

3. It was very sunny down in Anaheim today, though not super hot. Crowds were decent. We had a nice lunch and had a fun afternoon. Definitely felt a little wiped out from that sun afterwards, though.

4. This is what I wake up to every morning. Molly always sleeps in this spot right next to my pillow. She usually keeps me company the whole night, too.

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disney

2025 Disneyland Trip #51 (7/19/25)

We originally moved our weekend Disney trip from Saturday to Sunday because the internet guy was coming this morning, but then he ended up getting done so early that we decided to go ahead and go today for lunch and just stay home tomorrow.

( Read more... )

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if Ignorance is bliss, why aren’t there more happy people in the world?

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Daily Happiness

1. I did some store visits today, none of which involved having to go there for negative reasons, so it was very pleasant. I did have some deskwork that needed to get done today that I then had to do at night when I got home, which sucked (especially since the bulk of it was pushed to today because two people did not get something to me they were supposed to do by Wednesday, even though I reminded them multiple times, so now I had to finish it all by tonight or else on my day off, because if I left it till Monday it would not leave them enough time to revise before the final deadline EOD Monday). But I got to eat some tasty food at the stores I visited and stopped for mochi donuts on the way home as well.

2. Just one more week until our new store grand opening. That was one of the places I stopped today and it's really coming along and looking great.

3. Our router has been slowly dying so today Carla got online to see if we can get a replacement, and also ended up getting us an upgraded plan, so we will have a new router with a longer range (sometimes wifi drops in the garage, but this should cover it better) and we'll have much higher speeds, for just a little more per month. They are coming to do the installation tomorrow.

4. I started playing Donkey Kong Bananza the other night and it seems like a lot of fun!

5. We got two new hires for our NoCal management team confirmed. Hopefully they work out, because our next new store is in the SF Bay area and we need to prepare!

6. Tuxie modelling how to do a perfect loaf.

Current Mood: exhausted

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d&d: pyra cantha

Pyra Cantha D&D: Summary for 7/18 Game

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Current Mood: excited

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d&d: pyra cantha

Disaster Squadron

Look at these amazing emotes that the DM commissioned for the group to use on Discord!

The artist is WillowPotato on Bluesky.

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meme

if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice

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public post

(no subject)

I do realize that #irfanview is a fairly obscure tag that I used a lot recently on tumblr, so I guess you could say I gamed the system. But I was a bit surprised to see that somehow one of my pictures is currently "the" picture for the irfanview tag? (It's the freeware program I use to edit my photos and make blue frames around everything that doesn't move and even around some things that do)

How did that happen? It's not that I object, and the picture is clickable and leads to the post its from and it's attributed and all that. It's effectively the same as getting reblogged. But it's like, if it's a reblog I get my notice. Here, I got nothing. Is this something I agreed to in the ToS?

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meme

the secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. if you can fake that, you've got it made

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(no subject)

- As mentioned, I signed up for

battleshipex. I guess this was a good decision(??), becuase I've now written 8400 words across six fics in the past six days. That plus an impulsive art piece meant I capped out for board 1, which feels like absolute crazypants. I hope I like the fics okay when I go back and edit them...

I might be a little burned out now. If my team reaches board 2 before I leave for my trip, then maybe I will feel like writing a couple more things, but if not, that's also fine. I've more than doubled my participation the other year I played, so!

- I continue to play Cult of the Lamb. It's so fricking cute. I've beat the main boss and am now indulging in the extras like sending my cute followers to the mating tent where they make eggs that hatch into more cute followers. My only complaint is that the music is extremely repetitive, just one samey jingle for the home base and another for combat.

- The Oasis tour has started, and I've been trying to avoid hearing too much about it, but I DID have friends sending me tons of photos and videos from the first couple of nights, and they hugged?? Noel CRIED????? They walked out together, and Liam took Noel's hand and lifted it like he was a prizefighter? Have I mentioned Noel CRIED.

The first gig was July 4, which meant I was getting all this at the same time I was trying to be social at a cookout.
Me on the outside: So you finished that degree? Congratulations!
Me on the inside: OH MY GODDDDDDD THEY HUGGGGGGED.

I peeked at the forum around that time, and everyone there was absolutely euphoric. Cannot WAIT to see it all for myself! SOON.

Current Mood: drained

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. . .

Today was certainly a day. Well, technically yesterday at this point since it's a few minutes after midnight, but still. I haven't gone to bed yet, so we'll just call it "today" and be done with it.

( More under the cut. )

And once I get out of the shower, I have something like five or six more things that I have to get done online before I go to bed despite it already being after midnight. I'm going to have so much fun in a few hours when I need to get up early to take care of some things before work. 🙃