Network

Current Mood: inspired
Current Music: Life is like a hurricane / Here in Duckburg

Entry tags:

yuletide

Yuletide request #1 for 2026

The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill + ... well really I would take just about any fictional or fictionalized city, so that's why I feel comfortable floating it as a possibility for Yuletide.

The original inspiration was "The Pushcart War set in Gotham City." I would take just about any year setting. The OG era. The social media version, complete with vigilantes with pea pin shooters.

jadelennox suggests that Alfred and General Anna are old besties, and I concur.

But, in the grand tradition of my Yuletide requests, typing this up makes me realize how much I want this story in any fictionalized 'verse of which I am sufficiently knowledgeable.

The Rivers of London take sides! You know Lady Ty is for the truckers.

Mountie under suspicion! Benton Fraser seen with pea-tack shooter! Claims it is reusable straw. Is Big Red Green?

Mélusine + trucks. Not necessarily including our protags from canon; the city is sufficiently a character to count for my purposes.

The Slow Horses investigate the pea-tack problem with their usual bumbling flair.

The Pushcart War was part of what spurred the Earth of the Expanse to implement UBI. Eh? Ehhhhh?

Manchester in 1973 is not maybe the best place, but London in 1981? Give me the Alex Drake peapin saga.

Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler III vs. trucks? :D If Palpatine can find time to reproduce, so can Throat.

Entry tags:

if and and but

Yesterday was Shakespeare's (alleged) birthday, so here (a day late, because yesterday was a little bit of a doozy) is a Shakespeare poem! It is also a poem about horses, since I haven't posted one of those yet this year, and is obviously a sonnet.

( Shakespeare's Horse )

Current Mood: hungry

Entry tags:

🔊 Daily music

Watch on YouTube

@ Spotify

Some dreams are lost forever
Some dreams, some dreams never die
Some dreams, they go on forever
Some dreams, they are just a lie🎤
A Flock Of Seagulls - Some Dreams

(no subject)

Aria's class concert this morning was fun. I had an excellent seat, a few rows back from the front but with a clear view straight ahead to Aria between the various people sitting in front of me. When I first walked in she was looking very shy; I think she suddenly got overcome when all the parents started arriving. I'm not even sure whether she saw me, but I hope she did. Anyway, she perked right up when they started singing and was very animated, doing all the actions and obviously singing loudly. (She's a good singer.) I took quite a lot of photos and a couple of videos for her parents. After the concert we all went to the classrooms (there are three first grade classes) and there was a lot of milling around while the children ate their special "post concert snacks". This felt awkward to me, since most of the other parents seemed to know each other and I'm sure my daughter would have known most of them too, but I didn't know any of them. I've met the mothers of a couple of Aria's friends but neither of those friends is in her class.

I've got a virtual signing appointment for the sale of my house on Monday, and I've been feeling sort of nervous about that. I was also nervous about going to Aria's concert since I don't know my way around her school very well. I needn't have worried about finding my way to the concert, since the teachers let all the parents into the school at the same time and then we were thoroughly guided to where we needed to be, but this plus stress about the Monday appointment have been filling my mind and crowding out other things, and last night I couldn't get to sleep for a long time.

Entry tags:

2026 52 card project

2026 52 Card Project: Week 16: Spring

In a lot of ways, this is my favorite time of year. Taxes are done! Porch season has begun, so I can start eating my breakfast outside. It's not too hot, and it's not too cold. There's no need to shovel, there's no need to rake leaves, and it's a little early to start mowing.

So all you have to do is to relax and enjoy the flowers that are starting to spring up. Forsythia blooms in April, and my tulip bed is making a splendid show. Pretty soon the lilacs and apple blossoms will be blooming.

It's too early to garden (the frost date is usually assumed to be around Mother's Day), but not early to start garden dreaming. Everything is potential, and you don't have to weed yet!

Image description:Background: a chart showing high and low temperatures for April and May. The chart is bordered by orange tulips (bottom), forsythia (left side), pansies (right side) and pink bleeding hearts (top).

Spring

16 Spring

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Entry tags:

loveblog

MGS loveblog I

ended up deciding to watch a lets play of MGS (PS1 version) instead of continuing with Twin Snakes; sadly I got another disk-read error when I got to the helipad, and between that and not really enjoying the gameplay but very much wanting to see where the story goes - a letsplay seemed better. (Thankfully my gamecube is fine; it's just this one disk, apparently.)

Also funnily enough MGS is the one series that kinda lends itself to watching what with the cutscene/codec call overdose, lol; this is giving me flashbacks to watching 4 in college right after it released. :)

( Thoughts on the first 1/4th )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Seapeekay stream

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Once again the past days have been low energy with my focus not being as there as I hoped.

Castle reruns started on channel 5 this week so we’ve ended up watching those. It’s such a great show and it’s so good seeing it from the start. I’m just a sucker for detective shows, especially with an outside consultant, they’re always fun.

I watched the other resurrection of the daleks special features, which were mostly with Janet Fielding (Tegan) and damn. I’d no idea that she’d had cancer, or that she’d been married to someone that she found out was dealing arms. Like ?? That’s so crazy. Plus there were cute seals.

I’ve also been continuing Tomodachi Life, which now has 3/4’s of MCR (minus Frank) and four people from Stranger Things (Dustin, Steve, Jonathan and Argyle). It’s funny seeing them go around doing their silly lil things. I wish I had art skills to make use of custom stuff and I do hope they add more things. I think the best of the miis I’ve made were Seapeekay and Ray.

I am still going on Pokopia, mostly still trying to get rid of ash. I think I have all the recipes now (bar the last few levelling ones) though I still need to get Pokémon. But the ash has sidetracked me and there’s so so much. Person who decided on that, you’re insane.

Also I watched Maul Shadow Lord, albeit a bit belatedly. Ugh the empire is there and being assholes. I really hope we get stuff that isn’t so empire centric some day but this was still pretty good. It was surprising how they made Marrok’s comeback so threatening too.

Wednesday was a trip to get mums meds which went wrong cause some weren’t there and so that’s caused issues (she has a certain make, but apparently they’re not getable anymore and we don’t know why). I did get a marvel rivals graphic novel and the usual Lego magazines from sainsburys, plus gaming books from Aldi but not much else.

So Stranger Things Tales From 85 went live yesterday and I watched the first two eps (I’d have watched another but, as is often the case tiredness hit) so thoughts ahoy.

Before I go into detail I have enjoyed it so far in general. But more thoughts are under the cut (with - when we get to more detail to avoid spoilers)

( Read more... )

So yeah I think I might try and watch the series over the weekend (superseding the plans I originally had for nighttime stuff).

General night time stuff I wanna watch being Heated Rivalry, The Beauty and Pizza Movie (plus I wanna finally get back to Welcome to Derry I’m determined to finish the last eps over the next two weeks). Also I am thinking of doing a Mandalorian rewatch but I dunno i can squeeze it in before the film. We’ll see.

Plus I wanna watch the blu rays of Warning From Space (and maybe other things too, like Life Force, Sacred Spirit and Weapons).

But next week is one of those busy weeks. Mum’s friend coming (ugh), food shop delivery, mum’s birthday and free comic book day/theatre open day.

(no subject)

From

thefridayfive

1. What decade did you attend/are you attending high school or college? High school: 1960s. University: 1990s, but by then I was much older and much less influenced by fashion and behaviour trends.

2. What clothing fashion from that time are you glad/do you wish went out of style? Stirrup pants.

3. Do you still listen to the music from your high school/college years on a regular basis? Yes. I often find some of my favourite 1960s songs on YouTube and go down a rabbit hole listening to them.

4. What hairstyle/hair color did/do you wear during high school/college? My hairstyle was the same as it is now - short, parted on the side, completely untreated, but back then it was blondish brown and now it's grey. In the intervening years it's been long, short, long, short…

5. What was/is "the cool thing to do" while in high school/college? I have no idea because I lived on a farm and had no way of hanging out with anybody outside of school hours.

Entry tags:

Friday, April 24 - Symbols

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Bad Brains - Don't Bother Me

Entry tags:

The Friday Five: High School/College

1. What decade did you attend/are you attending high school or college?
The 80s!

2. What clothing fashion from that time are you glad/do you wish went out of style?
Puffed up curly perms - Nancy and Karen Wheeler make me cringe.

3. Do you still listen to the music from your high school/college years on a regular basis?
Oh, yeah, I found punk rock and never looked back. Social Distortion, Ramones, Black Flag, Bad Religion, Bad Brains, XTC. I loved New Wave also. I also love the newer post-punk/pop-punk bands like Green Day.

4. What hairstyle/hair color did/do you wear during high school/college?
Surprisingly similar to the wolf cut I currently have, but way more spiked up on top.

5. What was/is "the cool thing to do" while in high school/college?
In high school, we had an open campus and a mod schedule, so none of the teachers or administrators knew when anyone was supposed to be anywhere. We all left campus for lunch as soon as one of us could drive. Sometimes we came back for afternoon classes, sometimes we didn't.

My college was huge so I couldn't really say what the overall 'cool' thing to do was. My group tended to have pig roasts and camp outs in the nearby national forest, so that was pretty cool (sometimes literally - it got cold in those mountains!).

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

Coyote vs. ACME

Watch on YouTube

I've gotta admit, I'm really excited about this movie. Also? Considering all of the drama that's been going on the last few years in regards to its release, the very obvious shade they throw at Warner Bros. in the trailer made me cackle.

Entry tags:

Heated Rivalry rec

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

Husband and Wife

https://xkcd.com/3237/

Borat came out twenty years ago this year--closer to the breakup of the Soviet Union than to today--but it honestly feels like it's been even longer, somehow.

https://xkcd.com/3237/

Entry tags:

lecture/reading

[livre] Contes du Yemen

Titre : Contes du Yemen
Auteures : anonymes, collecté par Fatima al Baydani
Langue : traduction française de l'arabe
Type : contes
Genre : /

1ère parution : 2008
Édition : L'école des loisirs
Format : medium poche, 10 contes/120 pages, illustré n&b

(d'après l'étiquette de prix ça viendrait de Boulinier ? mais alors ça fait un paquet d'années
que je l'aurais ?)

Des variations sur les déshérités qui triomphent, certains schémas que je n'avais pas encore plus, un ou deux pas très intéressants en soi, mais ce sont à la fois les différences culturelles et les thèmes communs transcendaux qui sont intéressants à comparer ?

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Heated Rivalry rec

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

Current Mood: blank

Entry tags:

Game Check-in: "Tokyo Debunker" season 1 ch. 1-9

[Official Site]
[Previous]

Season 1: The Man Who Grants Wishes

A boy named Riku is able to have a nice birthday party thanks to 'Daddy Long Legs', but that night he sees something when he's walking around at night.

We meet the vice-captain of Frostheim Touma (stylized as Tohma). The leader Jin hasn't shown his face in a while. A gossiping girl says that there's no point going for Jin because he has Tohma. "There seems to be an unshakable bond of trust between them." I guess 'Jin's friend' disgraced himself so Tohma took his place. 🤔

MC looks around and finds a damaged and unused Church. The area is called Cathedrale Terminate and it was recently vacated, it looks like someone rampaged. 🤔

Kaito trying and failing at being smooth. *smh*

It's cool that the looks and surroundings of each house is different, even the weather changes a lot in Jabberwock.

Luca has a brother that likes shortbread biscuits.

MC's first day of classes. Ghouls are considered anomalies. 'Demonic pacts, possessions and curses are all categorized as anomalies'.

Students can choose one artifact to 'license' for use. MC already has her ring so she can't. Luca picked out twin swords. Kaito's is a bow. I wanted to see what MC would try with her artifact...

Professor Moby is too much for me;;

There are pink doves called 'Like Doves' that appear to show that someone is thinking about how much they like you?? "It's kind of like the bird version of someone swiping right on you."

MC and Kaito exchange numbers but not Luca and MC?

Corenlius called MC to his office. Ghouls have been abusing Mesmer Matches on missions. They were using them on the inspector and covering up details related to investigations, geezus. And now MC has to deal with it?! At least her memory can't be wiped. Not only that, the ghouls keep destroying the anomalies that are needed for research. MC has the biggest stake in them being captured alive. Man, the bad ghouls are not going to be happy about her at all. :/

Of course Frostheim is going to be her first mission partner. 😭

MC goes to meet the leader of Frostheim Jin. Tohma is telling him about a 'corpse walking around involving a high-rank anomaly.', and Jin isn't feeling well.

Well as expected the meeting did not go well, he tried to erase her memories and then threatened her.

Entry tags:

escapril,
poetry

escapril 2026: #24 needle

pushing to make a point
an entryway for connection
to tie things together
but a needle by itself
cannot join, sew -
it only makes a hole

Entry tags:

Book acquisition

I've been doing a lot of staring at bookshelves (bookshops, libraries), online library catalogues, publishers websites, book recommendation sites, online book retail sites and a range of other places that seemed like a good idea at the time. I have not completed the full systematic search I want to have done, but I'm allowing that some of that is going to happen during the writing phase, because I do not actually expect to find the kinds of books I'm after in most of those places.

My spreadsheet of books now has over 150 entries. Quite a lot fail one or more of the inclusion criteria, and some of those are duplicates because I'm attempting to capture the sources as well (will I analyse that? no, probably not. Am I capturing it anyway because I think it will have the potential for me to talk about? yes). Several I've already started reading. I'm most excited about Attack of the Smart Speakers, which I'm halfway through, and as I'm writing my reading notes I keep writing enthusiastic commentary. This one is a bit frustrating because it is a library copy, and so I'm writing more than I would if I could just mark up my copy -- I've now ordered a me copy to annotate.

I'm also really happy with Orion Lost, although I'm not sure how much that one is going to fall in a heap in terms of getting done, because the next set of plot beats have the potential to go places I'm not comfortable following. Yes, it is middle grade fiction, and it will be resolved, but some of where it has already gone has required a few breaks. (I'm aware that these are me specific emotional land mines and that they aren't affecting my interpretation, just how fast I can cope with it). Plus, I put it aside to deal with library books that are due next week (I found three possibles of which two are yeses).

Which brings me to my evening -- I have spent some hours on The Nile and Fishpond websites looking for books that might suit my parameters. On The Nile, I found searching for 'AI' and then filtering to books / fiction / children and young adult did a reasonable job; on Fishpond I found no search that was useful. And then at the end of that I looked through my spreadsheet, picked what was reasonably priced and high in my priority rankings and was a variety of options, and ordered Slightly Too Many Books. Including one co-authored by Farah Mendelsohn, which was has been in my wishlist for multiple years and was about half the price I remember it being (Farah is going to be the GUFF delegate to the local con this year, so I'm extra motivated. Will I take everything I own of theirs to be signed? probably not. But I'm not ruling out the possibility).

And now I have to wait. The original delivery date range when I looked was mid May, and when I checked out it was early to mid June, so who knows when I'll get any of them. I have no shortage of things to be getting on with, but I'm presenting my initial findings at the end of May!

The Daily Life Of A Cake Wrecks Reader

Posted by john (the hubby of Jen)

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/the-daily-life-of-a-cake-wrecks-reader-2026

Thanks to Jasmine T., Desi E., Tina M., Jodi F., & Pam C. for always recovering enough to come back tomorrow.

*****

P.S. Sorry for the fowl content. Let me make it up to you with something cuter:

Disney's Tangled "The Snuggly Duckling" Tee

My favorite thing about this shirt is how you can randomly point at people and shriek, "RUFFIANS!" Lots more colors and cuts at the link.

******

And from my other blog, Epbot:

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/the-daily-life-of-a-cake-wrecks-reader-2026

Entry tags:

loveblog

git gud, krad

finally taking a stab at MGS Twin Snakes after I had to clean the disks - and promptly died like five times in a row even before getting to the first elevator. on easy. with the easy radar. lol.

tiny bit relieved that redditors mentioned that yes, that starter level sucks ass difficulty wise and actually gets much easier later. :D;; i didn't even know you could choke out soldiers?? and forgot about hiding in lockers???

intrigued at liquid snake ngl, he feels... krad bait shaped.......

anyway, spending today's PTO on MGS, the coolest damn old-web rabbit hole of this transmasc/queer film archive -> the site creator's mastodon -> this web theory collective(?) borne out of one of the longest running mailing lists since the nineteen EIGHTIES??

i <3 the old web and <3 old games ~~