elayna: (Captain America Sam Wilson)
[personal profile] elayna
I actually went looking for The Lurch, as I'd seen it mentioned in a Facebook reel. If you have an affection for The Addams Family TV series, go check it out, but too grainy and not really amusing enough to me for a post.

YouTube offered, because of course it does, a car ad featuring Mark Strong, so I thought, okay. But it's more than Mark Strong! And now I want an AU where Loki tries to take over the Earth again, with Trevor from Shang-Chi as his hapless adviser and Strong's villain from Shazam was his co-villain? Or competitor?

(Actually I went first to Loki having survived death at Thanos' hands, because of course he does, and being found by Trevor and the two of them survive the snap and start a two man traveling company entertaining all the devastated people. And maybe help heal Strong's villain after the end of Shazam. But that seemed sorta sad and contrary to the spirit of the ad.)

(no subject)

Jun. 20th, 2025 07:34 am
logans_girl2001: (Default)
[personal profile] logans_girl2001
I didn't post the past couple of days because I had made a red velvet cake and had several pieces every day and knew my glucose would be extremely high. Plus, I didn't really have anything to post about, but I do today.

When I started at this job back in 2015 (I was a temp until May 2016) we used a different software to enter the sales from our sites (I work for a gasoline distribution company) and we had to manually enter fuel rewards/car washes (fuel rewards are discounts given if you prepay for your gas or pay in cash).

The new software, our manager (W) has to enter these. She has so much to do that part of our job was to fill out a spreadsheet with the site number, the date, and the amount of the discount/car wash and send it to her once a month.

One of my coworkers (B), has had health issues since 2023 (bad enough that she missed almost a whole year of work). When she came back, W gave her the job of filling out this spreadsheet so that the rest of us don't have to do it. She also has other jobs that aren't important to this story, so she only fills this sheet out once or twice a week. When she does this, she does two things that annoy the shit outta me.

1) she marks the emails as read (I can let this one go because it's easy to mark them as unread) 2) if they have not sent in their paperwork when she's filling out the spreadsheet, she sends an email requesting it.

This last one I cannot let stand any longer. She sends these emails too early (the sites do not have to have their paperwork sent in until 9am our time) and she does not use the proper format (using a shared email, bolding and underlining the site number, the date missing, and how many days out, and writing out the the number of days missing instead of using the number (one instead of 1)). Plus, she doesn't always know if there's a reason the site hasn't sent in paperwork. W doesn't always communicate this via email so no one but that biller would know.

Just a few days after three of my sites were put on temporary hold (Tuesday of this week) and I was told via teams to not request paperwork from them, this came to a head. The hold had been lifted by then but that's not the point.

I sent her the following email:

B,

Please do not send emails to my sites requesting paperwork. The sites do not have to send in their paperwork until 9am. They tend to get upset when we request it before then.

Thank you,

I wrote and deleted several lines about how she doesn't always know if W has told me to not request paperwork. Her response:

Melissa,

I am only trying to get the paperwork that I need for their discounts, some of the sites are 1-2 days out , so please excuse me if I emailed your sites early.

Thank you,

All my sites were current through Saturday so not exactly sure what she was talking about. I thought about my response all day and finally sent this email:

B,

Please know that I am on top of requesting missing paperwork. I request every day, unless I’m off. Sometimes, I have been asked to not request paperwork for whatever reason and it is not always communicated via email so when you ask for paperwork when I have been asked not to, I get in trouble. I am asking you nicely to please wait until after 9am to see if I will request paperwork or if the site will send it in without it being requested.

If you must request it, please use the proper format. I have included an email where I have requested paperwork for you to see what I am talking about. This keeps it uniform within the site folders. Also, please remember to change the ‘from’ to the reports email, not your personal address.

Thank you,

She did not respond to my last email and has not requested paperwork before 9am since.

Mirror Uhura

Jun. 20th, 2025 06:08 pm
mific: (Spock and cat)
[personal profile] mific
Going slowly with my into-a-bar fic, but meanwhile, I made art of Uhura from the mirror universe to celebrate Juneteenth day. Click through for the full size pic on AO3.


jesse_the_k: ASL handshapes W T F (WTF)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

I always enjoy the wide variety of postcards which appear regularly from [personal profile] fflo. Tuesday, [personal profile] fflo posted about the "Best Wrong Answers" to LearnedLeague. These are a series of punchline-worthy responses to Jeopardy!-style questions. For example:

In photography, the overall brightness of an image is determined by the "exposure triangle" of aperture, shutter speed, and a third factor which is a measure of the sensitivity of the camera's sensor (or the film) to light. This third factor is known as what?

  • REMEMBERING TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF

Even though I got online before the WWW, I’d never heard of LearnedLeague, which is a very dedicated group of trivia fiends. Here’s what I found:

Like any tight-knit community, there’s a ton of jargon. Participants are called LLamas (the double L matching Learned League). Membership is by invite only, though there is some public content at
LearnedLeague.com

Some of the world-readable "Best Worst Answer" tallies follow the URL pattern

https://learnedleague.com/hist/awards/100.php

Where 100 references the season—I had some fun plugging in random numbers.

From season 97:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L'Engle in what 1962 novel?

  • 3 REASONS TO HAVE HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

Public, unofficial Learned League groups on Reddit and Facebook. More fun to be had from grazing the #BestWrongAnswers tag on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bestwronganswers

Things I Can Only See Up North

Jun. 18th, 2025 12:58 pm
jesse_the_k: Flannery Lake is a mirror reflecting reds violets and blues at sunset (Rosy Rhinelander sunset)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

I’m up near Rhinelander staying on Flannery Lake. I’ll be reveling in 15:45 hours of daylight on the summer solstice. Today there’s zero wind, while the second-growth white, yellow, and red pine trees are pumping out their jizz with enthusiasm. The lime-yellow grains appear darker as they overlay almost every square inch of the water, with wild swirls and eddies that extend many feet off shore until eventually the black surface reflects many puffy cumulus clouds in a light blue sky.

Lovely to look at, but not so great to breathe. At least we're not bedeviled by wildfire smoke.

click for pic )

Fly By Night, by Frances Hardinge

Jun. 18th, 2025 08:14 am
runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Hereditary rule, little gods, and the power of the printed word in a world very much like early 18th century England, only not. But this is really the story of a fatherless girl and her Horrible Goose as they spy, steal, and blackmail their way through a world still recovering from, or possibly on the edge of, civil war.

I got a bit bogged down in the middle where there were too many guys (gender specific) that I didn't care about having problems that I also didn't care about, but Hardinge's wonderful descriptive writing carried me through. She is so good at writing, you guys (gender neutral), and this has some especially brilliant descriptions of water and the various sounds it makes:
There was no escaping the sound of water. It had many voices. The clearest sounded like someone shaking glass beads in a sieve. The waterfall spray beat the leaves with a noise like paper children applauding. From the ravines rose a sound like the chuckle of granite-throated goblins.
And that's just the beginning. Every time she describes water, it's doing something different, a combination of words you've never before seen put in that order, but after a moment's thought it's obviously perfect. Her character work is excellent, too, though the POV of this book could best be described as "distant third person omniscient," and not really in a good way.

Contains: child harm, probably; animal harm; "gypsies" for some reason.

music: A Wistful Satellite Song

Jun. 17th, 2025 10:33 am
jesse_the_k: Photo of Pluto's heart region with text "I" above and "science" below. (I love science)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

I’ve been a Karine Polwart fan for decades, which led me to her recent collaboration with Julie Fowlis and Mary Chapin Carpenter. "Looking for the Thread" mixes Scots Gaelic and US country and a little bit of rock’n’roll.

I was moved by this farewell from the POV of a dying satellite—can you tell me if this matches an actual satellite that circled our planet?

Stream here on YouTube )

Or on SoundCloud or on Spotify.

Lyrics in the cut )

badfalcon: (Luke Skywalker)
[personal profile] badfalcon
My most played song last week was “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” by Taylor Swift, and frankly? The drama was earned.



There’s something about that swelling orchestration, that breathless key change, that full-tilt declaration of "It's a love story, baby just say yes". Apparently, I needed to relive every intense teenage emotion I’ve ever had—on repeat.
42 plays. Zero regrets.

It’s the kind of song that makes you believe in running through the rain for someone. The kind of song that pairs well with being emotionally obliterated by… oh I don’t know… a tennis schedule that shows zero respect for your wellbeing.

Because let’s talk about Tuesday.
Let’s talk about Queen’s and Halle.
Let’s talk about how the tournament schedulers clearly do not care about me personally.

Behold:

13:30Ben “Sunshine” Shelton (Queen’s)
14:30Jannik Sinner (Halle)
15:00Carlos Alcaraz vs Foki (Queen’s)
15:00Vavassori/Bolelli doubles (Halle)

That’s four must-watch matches in the span of ninety minutes, across two tournaments.
How am I supposed to choose between Carlos chaos, Jannik precision, Foki flair, Italian doubles magic, and the serve-and-smile energy that is Ben Shelton?

The answer is: I can't.
There will be tabs. There will be streams. There will be suffering.

So this week’s Music Monday theme is tragic love - the love I have for tennis, and the tragic way it betrays me with schedule overlaps that feel like personal slights. Taylor understood. I feel like Juliet on the battlements, except instead of Verona, I’m in front of three screens whispering “baby just say yes” to all of them.

Happy Music Monday. I’ll be horizontal, emotionally shredded, and trying to stream four matches at once.



[Edit to add:]

I regret to inform you that the scheduling chaos is even worse than previously reported.

Over in Berlin, Sara Errani/Jasmine Paolini are also playing at 13:30, which now overlaps with Ben Shelton. And then at 15:00, Diana Shnaider is playing as well—at the exact same time as Alcaraz v Foki and the Italian doubles team.

So to recap, my updated Tuesday viewing choices include:

  • Ben Shelton (Queen’s)
  • Sara Errani / Jasmine Paolini (Berlin)
  • Jannik Sinner (Halle)
  • Carlos Alcaraz v Foki (Queen’s)
  • Vavassori / Bolelli (Queen’s)
  • Diana Shnaider (Berlin)

I’ve gone from mildly overwhelmed to actively oppressed.
I am but one gay with a playlist and a dream. This is scheduling violence.


Explicit vs Suggestive

Jun. 16th, 2025 09:22 am
melagan: Coffee cup with Atlantis in the rising steam (Default)
[personal profile] melagan
smaller plot bunny banner


There are many shades of suggestive.


Forbidden love

Explicit...well now, some work is a little more explicit than others.

NSFW )

My current WIP is turning out barely suggestive and I'd really really like to have at least one explicit scene.

I can't get the characters to cooperate. *sigh* Has that ever happened to you? Or maybe the reverse? You meant to write a gen story but the characters insisted on getting naked? (Yes, that has happened to me too) Damn characters just seem to take over.

(no subject)

Jun. 16th, 2025 07:52 am
logans_girl2001: (Default)
[personal profile] logans_girl2001
Plans for the weekend:
Clean my bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room, do the dishes (the kitchen and the dishes are two separate chores in my house), read some more of Ghost Eye, and work on my fic.

What got done:
My bedroom, the dishes, and read some more of Ghost Eye.

I was planning on walking this morning but that didn't happen. I went to bed around 9pm and woke up (and could not fall back to sleep) a little before midnight. I wasn't feeling the best, so I got up. I did end up being sick and spent the rest of the night on the couch. I'm feeling a bit better this morning but I was definitely not up to walking when I woke up at 5am.


(no subject)

Jun. 15th, 2025 09:05 am
elayna: (elayna)
[personal profile] elayna
My sister, her kids, and I attended the No Kings rally yesterday. Her oldest squiggled thru the crowd to get a space where he could hear the speakers, he said they were really good. The rest of us drifted in the less dense part of the crowd. The speakers sounded like the adults in a Charlie Brown special but we were able to join in the chants, which felt energizing.

This was the third for sis and I, first for the kids. Previous two, there had only been 3-4 cops mounted on horseback and staying off to the side. This time 4 cops were positioned near where a lot of people were walking up and seemed to be hassling people carrying flag poles. I did see flag poles in the crowd, so not sure if they were stopping anyone or just warning them to be careful.

No violence. Lots of great signs. Never saw so many icky pictures of the orange felon, that man is not attractive, in appearance or character. This crowd was more age diverse. Previous were mainly 40s up, I would say. More in their 20s and 30s this time. A few with toddlers or dogs.

I was very glad to have gone. Pleased to have my sister as a constant companion. I highly recommend attending one if you can. It feels good, in this stressful time, to be around so many others sharing the same concerns. I’m seeing over 12 million estimated for the crowd size across the country, which is fabulous, but I’m sure there will be more. It’ll take time to restore decency and a commitment to democracy to our government.

should you choose to accept it

Jun. 14th, 2025 10:54 pm
smilebackwards: john with left yellow stripe (Default)
[personal profile] smilebackwards
Put down my book list for a hot second to finish watching some things.

Ghosts (US) (season 5) - This is such a silly fun show! I know like 1 person that watches it and yet to have been going for five seasons it must have some popularity somewhere.

Doctor Who (season ?? - this 2025 one) - I didn't even know this season was airing until I saw a random news article. Finale was recent so spoilers )

Leverage Redemption (season 3) - My comforting revenge show.

Mission: Impossible - I'm having such an unexpected moment with the Mission: Impossible franchise? I wasn't even going to go see the new movie but then I did and I enjoyed it a lot which reminded me that I enjoyed the other movies so I rewatched them all and they're ridiculously fun. I love Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation best but watching all of them is so interesting because it's like okay the first movie is much more of a spy movie, the second movie is I don't even know, like I would love to know what direction John Woo was giving to Dougray Scott because he was fully insane in it, then we get JJ Abrams MI3, and then Ghost Protocol with the Russian prison escape and the Burj Khalifa, Rogue Nation gives us Ilsa, honestly they're all fun to me. I spent the last like 2 weeks watching these and reading fic and here's a fic rec list if anyone's interested.

Also a couple weeks ago was [community profile] vidukon_cardiff (Bristol)! As always, live-watching and Discord commenting on hundreds of vids with other vid-loving people was great and I've got a whole new docket of shows and movies I'd never heard of to add to my watch list. I didn't make a vid for Premieres this year which was a little sad but someday I will vid again!
elayna: (Stargate DW where we parked)
[personal profile] elayna
I was visiting with friends this weekend and it came up that Air New Zealand had done a LOTR inspired safety video. So I had to look for it and thought I'd share.

Though actually this one must have done after The Hobbit trilogy as Sylvester McCoy! But also Elijah Wood!



Also found this older one. Fun, with a Peter Jackson cameo, and others that I thought maybe I was supposed to recognize but didn't.



Not sure I did find the one my friend meant, but these were worth watching. YouTube is pretty amazing for all the random silly fandom vids on it.

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