Network

(no subject)

The Northwest Community Bail Fund has put out a zine on how to help friends and family who've been arrested. You can read it here. I haven't had the chance to go through it in-depth, but while it has a lot of regional advice, there seems to be plenty of general advice, too.

If that link is inaccessible, an unofficial mirror of the zine can be found here. I recommend downloading your own copy of this zine and any others that you might want to read or share later, as a general rule of thumb.

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Lake Lewisia #1375

The lake monster bopped its nose into a large, red button set into the side of a rig that had been installed with much excitement by the Engineering and Cultural Studies departments at the community college. The waterproof cabinet to which it connected, after a moment for the signal to be transmitted across many miles and a great deal of water, lit up with a display of another aquatic mystery creature waiting in its murky loch. One did not live long as a lake monster without a healthy appreciation for alone time, but it was still a treat to be able to sing with its Scottish cousin now and then.

---

LL#1375

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So, you want to be a writer

So, where are we? Ah. Friday. Cloudy and colder than the last couple days. Haircut scheduled for this afternoon; before that, more reading of Kin Right.

Drafted "Melant'i Refresher for Terrans" to go into the front of Kin Right, pointing to the Cast of Characters in the back. Was reminded in so doing about the dog who was our outfielder back when I was eight or so and playing pick-up baseball at the local rec center. We couldn't keep the dog off the field, so we made him The Outfielder. He fielded for both sides instead of batting. Helluva outfielder, that dog.

What else?

Rookie got locked in the bedroom closet, and missed breakfast. He's making up for that now.

I think that's all I've got, really. The Exciting Life of a Writer, ayuh.

What're you doing that's exciting today?
#
Tali helping me edit in the Command Chair

#
So, Kathy talked me out of a buzz cut. After the new 'do, I walked over to Holy Cannoli and bought two lemon-blueberry ricotta cheese cookies -- one just eaten with a mug of tea, and one for tomorrow. I really ought to learn how to make ricotta cheese cookies. Or, yanno, maybe safer not to.

Rook is sleeping in the copilot's chair at my desk (as different from Steve's desk), while I take my first stab at a list of characters for Kin Right. This? Is going to be An Undertaking.

Next book, I swear -- one character and nothing happens to them.

I have about 100 pages to read in Kin Right, then 200 pages to enter correx into, then finishing up with the cast of characters and so on. The end, as the saying goes, is in sight.

I'm a little less than half-way through Theo of Golden, and the next meeting of the book club is April 20. I did finish reading Balance of Trade, and I'm going to have to take a step back and given some thought to my reading strategy here. If I'm going to be re-issuing the fey books, I'm going to need to read them, so I may have to break off the Liaden read-through for that. In the meantime, books I preordered last year when I foresaw oodles of time to read -- are starting to download.

Whee...

Well. It's good to have things to do, amirite?

New haircut:

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daily

Daily Check In.

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Friday to midnight on Saturday (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #34419 Daily poll

Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 10

How are you doing?

I am okay
3 (30.0%)

I am not okay, but don't need help right now
7 (70.0%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans are you living with?

I am living single
3 (30.0%)

One other person
2 (20.0%)

More than one other person
5 (50.0%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

Current Mood: aggravated

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pokemon

Pokémon Legends Z-A again

Still plugging away at this! I've mostly gotten over the motion sickness, but it does pop up from time to time. That said, a new contender for annoying traits has arisen: The absolute supremacy of the night/day changeover. Surely, even if simply challenging someone in the Z-A Royale isn't enough to override the change, being mid-battle with a wild Pokémon should be?

Speaking of things getting interrupted in the Z-A Royale, I'm definitely miffed that another trainer can spot and challenge me when I've already sent my Pokémon to challenge them. Very annoying! I should absolutely get first strike if I've already targeted their 'mon and set mine to attack it! Harrumph!

On the plus side, in addition to the guaranteed shiny Mareep, I've picked up a shiny Alpha Bellsprout and a shiny regular size Weedle, so I'm ahead of the game on shinies! Thank goodness for the shiny announcement side effect, or I never would've noticed the Weedle.

drive bys

I've lost a shit ton of money this month. I made a shit ton in January and February and all that is gone now. The only redeeming feature is that I just know this stock market downturn is a nightmare for Trump and I'm totally willing to make the sacrifice if it ruins his day/week - here's hoping for more.

I got my little tiny laptop all working. It was not easy. Finding mobile media that works across platforms was the first challenge. Then, turns out, this little bugger has a very odd processor. Gemini was just stumped until finally figuring it out and showing me how. It's now perfect. It's a little smaller than 10" and no one makes one this small any more. I have two - both very very old. They have not been eligible for updates in years. I'm not even sure how I was able to do it today but Gemini did let me know that they will only work until August of 2027.

I'll just enjoy while I can. I'm glad I didn't toss 'em out.

I'm looking forward to tonight's baseball game. In a week or so, I'll be frustrated with the coverage or the play or the broadcasters but right now I'm just glad to have baseball back.

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end of the year round-up

2025: Many Things

It's very late March, I know, but better late than never. Most of this was written back in December/January.

( Fannish things )

( Non-fannish things )

Current Mood: contemplative

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 12: Dissolving

I made three entire collages this week, and rejected the first two of them. I guess they were aesthetically fine, but they were about subjects I'd touched on before, and I was dissatisfied that I was saying anything new and didn't feel like rehashing everything.

My problem was partly that I didn't feel I had much to work with this week, because I fell ill partway through the week, and everything dissolved into that. At first, I was afraid I had contracted Covid, as some of the symptoms matched. Everything became a blur, and I was barely able to care for myself (Eric, bless him, did do an emergency grocery run for me). I did order Covid tests from the drugstore and had them delivered, but I kept testing negative.

After three days of blurred and surreal misery, I recovered. Eventually, I decided it was just a particularly virulent general bug with a heaping side of extremely gross gastrointestinal effects.

Okay, not very interesting to do yet another collage about being sick, either. But what particularly struck me about falling ill this time was how very helpless and isolated I felt. And that, more than the illness itself, is what I tried to capture in the images I used.

I experimented with technical effects to do this, extracting the figure on the bed and mixing it with an image of bare tree branches, and then overlaying the result back over the same position on the bed (keeping the bed itself in clear focus). I then used the same tree branches as a scrim overlay in the background. I was trying to capture the sense of dissolving, the fear that I might actually fade into nothingness and not be able to come back.

I did come back. This time.

I always have a lurking fear that I won't manage to do so the next time.

Image description: Foreground: a woman lies on a bed, either asleep or ill. The bed is focused but the woman is indistinct, as if run through by cracks. Background above the bed: the blurred image of a woman with closed eyes, overlaid by a scrim of semitransparent leafless branches.

Dissolving

12 Dissolving

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

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Mistakenly Saving the Villain by Feng Yu Nie

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

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Feeling the Ugh

1) For those who use Zoom for meetings, something to be concerned about: WebinarTV Turning Zoom Calls into AI Podcasts. Stanford has issued guidelines to campus users to prevent it happening.

2) Turns out Xfinity offered us free Peacock (supposedly Peacock Premium but we have ads anyway). Getting Peacock access was quite a process though. All I should have had to do was click the email link and accept the offer. In fact, everything I tried kept sending me to a 404 page. ( Read more... )

3) When I finally did get into Peacock, I used it to watch Song Sung Blue and thought it was mostly an enjoyable film. I liked Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson leaning into their ages and downplaying his looks. The music was fun and it was a nice, small scale love story. ( spoilers ).

3) The Peacock issue wasn't the only technical frustration of the last few days. After finishing my taxes and other to-dos I had pending, I wanted to take some time to get back into my LEGO Star Wars game on the Xbox which I'd last tried almost 3 years ago. ( Read more... )

4) I feel surprisingly upset to hear that Starfleet Academy is essentially cancelled. (There's another season coming but that had already been planned before S1 began). I wrote earlier about how much I was enjoying it, and that was before I watched the fourth episode. I will miss these characters, and it seems there's so much more that could be done.

5) The latest

marchmetamatterschallenge writing prompt was "How do you define genres? Is it still a useful tool to find entertainment you like, or have offerings become so niche and melded that it's hard to use categories anymore? Was it ever something useful for you, personally?"

To some degree yes, but increasingly no. ( Read more... )

Poll #34417 Kudos Footer-568

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

Want to leave a Kudos?

View Answers

Kudos!
5 (100.0%)

Gap Week, March 27, 2026 (Society for Military History Annual Meeting)

Posted by Bret Devereaux

https://acoup.blog/2026/03/27/gap-week-march-27-2026-society-for-military-history-annual-meeting/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gap-week-march-27-2026-society-for-military-history-annual-meeting

https://acoup.blog/?p=34513

Hey folks! Another gap week because, as mentioned last week, I am at the annual meeting for the Society for Military History happening in Arlington. That said, we actually did have a major post this week, my 7,500 word primal cry concerning the current war in Iran. I know that won’t be for everyone – some of you read this to get away from current events – which is why I dropped it ‘off schedule’ midweek rather than having it replace this post.

That said, as I often do with weeks where I am at a conference, let me share the abstract of the paper I am delivering, “Unlearning the Marian Reforms:”

The transformation of the Roman army from the conscription-based citizen militia organized by maniples of the middle republic to the long-service professional army organized by cohorts in the early imperial period remains a topic of intense interest for specialists and non-specialists alike. In recent years, however, the specialist understanding of this transformation has increasingly diverged from a non-specialist generalist vision which remains wedded to the notion of the ‘Marian Reforms.’ The idea of a set of reforms, occurring in the late second or early first century BC, which can be tied particularly or generally to the career of Gaius Marius (cos. 107, 104-100, 86) remains common in popular history and even academic textbooks and so permeates the non-specialist understanding of the Roman army’s transformation. However, as this paper demonstrates, functionally every part of this narrative has come under attack and nearly all parts of it must now be discarded: there were no ‘Marian Reforms,’ ‘so-called’ or otherwise.

Instead, what has emerged from the scholarship is a prolonged process of change beginning far earlier in the second century and not entirely complete until at least the reign of Tiberius (r. 14-37 AD), in which Gaius Marius’ career forms only a single episode and not necessarily a particularly important one. This new understanding of change in the Roman army now dominates the specialist scholarship but has not filtered through to general discussions of either Roman or military history. This paper addresses this gap in understanding, outlining the key elements of the ‘Marian Reforms’ have been undermined and demonstrating that the notion of the ‘Marian Reforms’ as an event in the history of the Roman army is to be abandoned in generalist and textbook treatments, at it has already been in specialist ones.

Now normally this is a case where I have to hem and haw about how conference presentation papers aren’t really ready for publication even on a blog, but this conference paper is in fact a more-or-less direct translation of a blog post we have already had, “The Marian Reforms Weren’t a Thing.” Indeed, whereas my speaking time here (around 20 minutes) limits me to just around 2,800 words, the original post is about three times longer, with significantly more detail than I can fit into a conference paper. So you can in essence, read a longer, even more decompressed form of this argument! So feel free to go and read that if you missed it and to read my Iran War take if you want and didn’t catch it midweek and we’ll be back next week with something different (maybe Carthage themed?).

https://acoup.blog/?p=34513

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Birthplace

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Well I wasn't expecting THAT

Soooo this evening my neighbour came over to let me know that we have a water leak in the front yard. (Again.) I actually saw it was super boggy yesterday, I just thought it was the rain! I mean, it's boggy out back, too, so...

Anyway, it's not the tap itself this time, but it's something around there. So I had to turn the water off at the mains, which is... less than convenient. And I'll need to call the plumber in the morning. Boooooo. (Luckily we have water in the tank again, so at least the toilets still flush!)

So, that meant I didn't get any stripping work done this evening - I do NOT want to mess with paint stripper without a ready source of water on hand in case of spills etc. But I DID do a bunch of sanding with the electric sander this afternoon, and I got a LOT done there. (I just had to stop due to noodle arms needing a break, and then it was too dark, alas.)

As it turns out the sandpaper I had on was almost at the end of its life; once it became obviously dead and I switched it out stuff went a LOT faster. So hopefully tomorrow I can get all the rest of the stuff the electric sander can reach done! And then strip the rest if possible, because even with the electric sander it takes A While to get enough paint off, so with the hand sander my arms are gonna be SO sore...

My cocoa and other baking supplies finally came today, too! Ended up taking like a week from when I ordered it, but that's okay, it's here now! So I made some more zucchini bread! I'll take a loaf over to the neighbours tomorrow in thanks, I think. :3 From the piece I had I don't think the chocolate buttons are as good as the choc chips, so next time I might smash them into bits before adding them, that might help. Experiments!!!

I really should try and flip my sleep schedule, btw. It's cold again, why am I staying awake through the coldest hours and sleeping through the warmer ones, this is stupid...

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sunset

Late Bloomer Sunset

The sunset last weekend looked very simple, but I liked its casual glow stretched on the clouds. Less than 10 minutes later my partner called me to come look at the sky and the red in it was astonishing.

( Read more... )

Good news - bad news

Not long ago, I bought a very large tablet for two main uses - taking notes (it has a stylus attached) and watching baseball. I gave away my bedroom TV and only need to watch TV in there when the baseball game goes past my bedtime.

The tablet is really too big but after some trial and error, I found it works very nicely for taking notes. I use it to record the Food and Beverage meetings and it's excellent for that.

And, last night, I learned that it's an AMAZING bed TV. It is really too big but the too big comes in very handy when you are watching baseball. It's actually a much nicer watching experience than the giant TV in the living room.

Of course, last night, the first game of the year, I got to watch them lose which wasn't wonderful but it was nice to have baseball back.

I stayed up late so I slept in late-ish and then piddled around and didn't get to the pool until nearly 8:30. And then I swam extra long so now here it is nearly 10 am and I'm still naked in my swim robe and haven't even gotten the day started. And I don't care!

Retirement rocks.

Today's big ticket item is to revive my ohsovery old Acer tiny Chromebook. It's just a lovely size for having next to the couch but it is too old for chrome updates so won't sync with my other stuff. BUT I can install Chrome flex which will give it new life. So that's today's project.

But, first, I think I'll get un naked.

Crossposts: https://lb-lee.insanejournal.com/25563.html

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politics

Meagan Morris

Someone I knew from my North Texas days, Meagan Morris, is one of the folks arrested in the Prairieland debacle, which I only just learned about. She is facing minimum ten years in prison (as a trans woman, in Texas) for... I can’t even figure out what exactly she’s supposed to have done!

I’ve been on an antifa watchlist since before COVID because I went to a protest wielding a sign covered in penises and got quoted by USA Today. I guess I’m a terrorist now.

I’ll be at the protest tomorrow. Fuck this bullshit.

EDIT: okay, as far as I can tell, Meagan was convicted for going to an anti-ICE protest (“riot”), helping others there (“providing material support to terrorists,” now that Trump has declared antifascists terrorists), and using fireworks there (“use and carry an explosive” and “conspiracy to use and carry an explosive”).

She is facing 10-60 years in prison as a trans woman for being an antifascist and having fireworks. That’s terrorism now. That’s hitting people I KNOW. (Or knew.) This is where I used to LIVE.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

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March 27, 2026

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ballet

(no subject)

The Dream

Partially inspired by

chestnut_pod's posts on how to enjoy ballet, we went to see Boston Ballet's The Dream last night.

It opened with a new ballet, The Leisurely Installation of a New Window, choreographed by My'kal Stromile, an abstract conceptual ballet describing itself as an exploration of the way complex social systems incorporate new ideas. We definitely did not entirely follow what it was saying, but I understood it as depicting a relatively functional social structure with a certain amount of conformity and cohesiveness depicted in larger patterns in the dance, and a certain amount of room for individual expression depicted in smaller patterns. An outsider dancing with a book appeared throughout, her characteristic move especially in the first movement was an incredibly graceful transition from dancing to walking away any time someone tried to dance with her. And yet elements of her style are slowly (leisurely) assimilated into the dancing of the other dancers in the second and third movements.

I thought there were interesting moments but the music was undistinguished and the overall narrative was blurry. And I don't feel comfortable enough talking about the dancing to comment on it the way I'd like to in a review, it was impressive?

But then even before the curtain raised for Frederic Ashton's The Dream, the overture played and I knew I was in good hands with Felix Mendelssohn's beautiful score.

I liked The Dream about as much as it's possible for me to like a Midsummer Night's Dream adaptation that cut my favorite character. (It's the Wall. How could it be anything else?) The dance performances were incredible, I loved Puck's frantic physicality, the fairies floating almost in midair on tippy toes, Bottom convincingly somewhere between human and animal. Bottom's dance with Titania was my favorite moment but it's hard to pick over Oberon's final dance with Titania or the dance of mis-aimed love with the four mortal lovers or basically any of the fairy ensemble dancing.

This was such a fun night, hopefully if I keep seeing more ballet I'll get better at talking about it.

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birds

A lifer for me!

Wednesday was just another snowy spring day when this guy showed up!

OMG! A Northern shrike!!!

I was upstairs in my office when I heard the budgies flapping and didn't see the problem at first.

Then I saw this beautiful, but deadly bird!

He flew at the window and scared the budgies again, so I moved the cage away. He sat there for a good long time and flew away. He was not bothered at all by me standing right at the window looking at him.

Shrikes impale small birds and animals "for later", so I'm going to keep an eye on my bird feeder because I don't want my rose bush to become a graveyard. I haven't seen it again so far today, so perhaps the snow derailed his travel plans like everyone else lately.

Black and grey bird sitting on a bird feeder hook

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Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate (2023)

Back in 2008 the creators of Homestar Runner released a short escape-the-room Flash game starring Strong Bad's nebulously-defined private eye/crooked cop alter ego, Dangeresque. I played it, it was fun. Then in 2023 they revamped the original game and re-released it with two brand new episodes, so of course I bought that, and it sat in my Steam library for a year. Then they threw in a free DLC that added another episode, and it sat in my Steam library for two more years.

But this year I'm going to get my Steam backlog under control. This time for really real.

standing behind an office desk, dangeresque makes a sarcastic remark about really needing an unsolved stamp

standing behind an office desk, dangeresque makes a sarcastic remark about really needing an unsolved stamp

The first episode has Dangeresque trapped in his office until he can "solve" a cold case (i.e. fabricate evidence out of whatever's lying around). I think it's pretty close to the original Flash game, though I haven't played that in 18 years, so who knows. In the second episode, Dangeresque flees the scene but runs into car trouble (i.e. a bomb under the hood that he has to defuse). The trilogy wraps up with Dangeresque forced into an alliance with his gangster nemesis Perducci, whose other enemies are plotting to bump him off. Once you've beaten the three main episodes, you unlock the fourth, this time starring Homestar's alter ego Dangeresque Too as villanous goons have him trapped in an elevator. All told, it's about three hours of gameplay.

If you like Homestar Runner and you like point-and-click adventure games, you will like this. I do, and I did. The writing is funny, the puzzles are absurdist but fair, and if you blow yourself up the game just puts you right back where you were before you did the dumb thing you did. I would play ten more of these if they made them, though I can't guarantee I would play them within a punctual timeframe.

Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate is on Steam for $7.99 USD, and includes the free DLC.

Subtly beautiful staging of Ana Sokolović's "Love Songs"

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/03/27/love-songs/