conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
And not, apparently, legitimately going anywhere?

Guys, you need to tell me these things! Now where am I supposed to pirate this one from? (I mean, uh, legally obtain it - oh, fuck it.)

Home again home again

Jan. 23rd, 2026 09:27 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

For reasons I am too tired to get in to, there ended up being no need or reason for me to be in London for work today. The thing I had been dreading didn't happen...not today anyway.

I sorta got my wish of not working much today. Viva la huelga. I got home in time to walk Teddy this afternoon, and both of the others could make it too. It was Vee's first time in a while and Teddy was beside himself to see us all.

I spent some time being annoyed by having bad to pointlessly stay away a second night. I could only conclude that the real reason I had to be here today is just so I could watch Heated Rivalry last night (it's on HBO in the U.S. so not easy to get here). And that cheered me up.

oddities in reading

Jan. 23rd, 2026 08:58 pm
tielan: (Merlin - gwen)
[personal profile] tielan
Usually when someone goes reading through my work, they go through multiple fics in a single fandom, kudosing all the way. (It's a nice feeling.)

I've just had someone who's kudosed a single story each of SG1, Firefly, Merlin, JLU, Harry Potter, and Atlantis, and two stories of The Bourne Identity.

Now I'm wondering how the others just didn't hit their buttons...

Also, the stories in each were "oddball" - not the major or popular pairing in most cases, and often not one of my more popular stories.

For instance, the Merlin fic they kudos'd was Merlin & Gwen, modern AU, which is not even close to common for the fandom!
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
If you're actually writing for children, especially young children, then I guess you don't want to scare them off - but if you're writing for adolescents or adults you can afford to be honest.

So here's the thing. Every book or story in which a character gets glasses for the first time - or the second if their first pair is painfully out of date - emphasizes how clear everything is and how they can see so much detail that they had no idea they were missing. And yes, that's a thing. None of them point out that it's a thing that can be less "wondrous" and more "disorienting and distracting" until you've gotten used to seeing that much detail.

None of them mention that if your prescription is strong enough - especially if there's astigmatism involved - your perception will be wonky and you'll have a hard time judging how close and far things are for a day or two.

Definitely none of them mention that you will absolutely get eye strain every time you get a new prescription, and possibly headaches or nausea to accompany it. It goes away, again, in a day or two, but until it does you'll feel like you're cross-eyed at all times. (And with children, every year is a new prescription. They grow, which means their eyeballs grow, and just like that growth is unlikely to suddenly give them perfect vision if they already were nearsighted, it's also unlikely to keep them exactly where they were before.)

Absolutely none of them point out that if you've never worn glasses before you'll have to spend the aforementioned day or two learning how to not see the frames. This is also true if your old frames were much bigger than the new ones, but that, at least, is less likely to apply to children - their faces grow along with the rest of them, necessitating larger frames, so even if they choose a smaller overall style with the new pair the fact that it fits properly may even out.

Moving past the realm of accurate fiction writing, children really should have their first optometrist appointment, at the latest, in the summer before first grade (so, aged 5 or 6 years old). Ideally, they'll have it before they start school, at age 2 or 3, but you can't convince people on that point. They should have a new appointment every year until the age of 20 or so, or every two years if every year really is unfeasible, even if you don't think you see the signs of poor vision. They won't complain that they can't see, because they'll just assume that their vision is normal. This is true even if they wear glasses - you never notice how bad your eyes have gotten until you get a new prescription, and then it's like "whoa".

The screening done at school or at the doctor's office is imperfect at best. You really want the optometrist.

*******************


Read more... )

Good ice and bad ICE

Jan. 22nd, 2026 10:28 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I finally got around to watching the gay hockey show.

Highlights from my social media thread:

First impression is how nice it is to hear some people who talk normal! Aww, some Canadian raising! When I write smut about gay linguists north of the 49th parallel, I'm gonna call it Canadian Raising.

Okay yes it's nice to see some butts and clavicles and forearms and all that, but also this is just making me miss my BlackBerry.

I watched this with a friend who'd been told that stuff doesn't start happening until episode 4. So by the end of episode 1 he was like "What the fuck happens in episode 4?! What is my friends threshold for stuff happening?! Because this is my threshold!" I replied: "This is more stuff than happened to me in like the first thirtysome years of my entire life."

omg why has being that awkward never gotten me that...result [I relate to Kip a worrying amount] Why isn't someone else the one saying "can I be too intense for a bit" to me for a change?

Yeah it's hard when you can't be out. You can't even like go fuckin... art shopping or whatever. It gets everywhere, after a while. This is what homophobes don't get: they think gayness can just be hidden like evangelical hypocrites hide it, just a behavior that stays dark and shameful. They don't know what it's like when someone makes you light up and you can't put a bushel basket over that.

Do they get a gay sports bar?? I want a gay sports bar!

I want a Canadian boyfriend with a cottage!

I miss loons.

We watched the whole thing and it's exhausting. So many big feelings!

Also I read a Margaret Killjoy thread that made me cry (content notes: ICE, Minneapolis). But also laugh. Especially this bit

Another person put it: "we're Minnesotans. We're excited to get out our real winter gear out of the box for the year."

Because I can absolutely hear this in my dad's voice.

I kinda wish I could have a day off for the strike tomorrow, but instead I'm gonna have a particularly stressful day at work! And then get a train back to Manchester! Bleh. I am donating money to various things -- here's another collection of links -- and I will be following on social media and trying to support my friends as much as I can from a distance. But I feel really weird being expected to have a normal day.

[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I did an interview that might become part of a radio piece on e-bikes as pavement obstacles for blind people today.

He'd done some reconnaissance before I showed up and had found the most e-bikes I have ever seen in one place, taking up most of a pedestrianized side road. We came around a corner to this nest of chaos and all I could think of was "If we were in a science fiction movie about aliens invading the Earth, and the aliens were Lime bikes, I feel like this would be their mothership."

He pointed his microphone at me and said "Say that again." Ha! I gotta watch my goofy metaphors better.

So if you ever hear someone on the radio say they found the giant egg all the Lime bikes hatched from...uh, that's me.

Occasional Poem by Jacqueline Woodson

Jan. 27th, 2026 01:03 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that's gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.

Like what?! Lamont asks.
He's all slouched down in his seat.
I don't feel like writing about no occasion.

How about your birthday?
Ms. Marcus says.
What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain't
June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact,

he says, it's January and it's snowing.
Then his voice gets real low and he says
And when it's January and all cold like this
feels like June's a long, long ways away.


The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus.
Some of the kids are nodding.
Outside the sky looks like it's made out of metal
and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes
and coming underneath them too.

I seen Lamont's coat.
It's gray and the sleeves are too short.
It's down but it looks like a lot of the feathers fell out
a long time ago.
Ms. Marcus got a nice coat.
It's down too but real puffy so
maybe when she's inside it
she can't even tell January from June.

Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that's
an occasion.

But she looks a little bit sad when she says it
Like she's sorry she ever brought the whole
occasional poem thing up.

I was gonna write about Mama's funeral
but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth
zapped all the ideas from my head.

I guess them arguing
on a Tuesday in January's an occasion
So I guess this is an occasional poem.

*************


Link
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
No real symptoms, but I'm a little stuffy and super sleepy.

******************************


Read more... )

Brr! "14F, feels like 7"

Jan. 25th, 2026 08:16 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
That is not a sentence I want to read at any time in the morning.

(In celsius terms, it's -10 and feels like death.)

**********************


Read more... )
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

A Minnesotan friend read out to me a social media post that went something like "If you know any Minnesotans, you'll know that we take every opportunity to bring up Minnesota and Minnesotan things." The next sentence started something like, "If we manage to expel this ICE invasion..." but I don't remember properly because by the time I heard that much of this sentence I was already sitting up from where I'd been lounging on the couch, so when the sentence ended with "...you'll be hearing about it for the next twenty years."

"Twenty?!" I said. "We're still talking about the Halloween storm of 1991 and that's more than twenty years ago! I think people will be hearing about this for, more like two hundred years."

He scrolled down and chuckled, read out a comment that might not have been understandable because he was still laughing, but I knew what he was saying "This comment says, 'I remember the Halloween blizzard of 1991.' "

Speaking of October 1991, I was just thinking the other day we'll be hearing about the World Series of 1991, and 1987, at the very least every time it's another 5 or 10 years after those dates, for the very least as long as any of those players are still alive.

I said that I remembered hearing about, like, the 5-year-anniversary of that time there was a raccoon on the MPR building.

We are never gonna let you forget, you'll be hearing about this for ever. I guarantee it.

I can't wait (to be talking about this in the past tense).

Scourge of the Spaceways

Jan. 21st, 2026 11:27 am
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] book_love
Scourge of the Spaceways by John C. Wright

Starquest book 5. And it is seriously a running story. Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes.

Read more... )

Books

Jan. 20th, 2026 10:26 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Oh good: the problem with my Kobo not showing up in Calibre was as easy to fix as I hoped it would be: dodgy USB cable. Phew. (I still think of this kobo as new, but it is seven or eight years old now.)

So I have a lot of new-to-it books on there now, which is exciting. Good timing, since I'm off to London for three fucking days tomorrow.

And despite D's efforts at de-DRMing the ebook he got me for my birthday, the way for me to read it turns out to be to just log in as him on the Bookshop app. Stupid DRM! I've got a bunch of vouchers to spend on bookshop.org too, and it'll probably still be more worth my while to get ebooks than paper books, but it's not as sure a thing as the calculation would be otherwise.

Still, it's been nice to read the first 10% of my birthday present.

[community profile] threesentenceficathon is open now

Jan. 24th, 2026 03:04 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
And posting is rapid. Don't you need a distraction?

Linguistics question

Jan. 23rd, 2026 07:26 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 56


After the snow has fallen, sometimes it looks like more snow is falling when the wind blows it off of trees and roofs. Do you have a word or specific phrase for this?

View Answers

Yes, and I'll tell you in the comments
7 (13.2%)

No, but I've heard some people use a term which I'll tell you in the comments
1 (1.9%)

No
40 (75.5%)

No - I don't live where it snows and am unfamiliar with this phenomenon
5 (9.4%)

Clicky?

View Answers

CLICKY
41 (100.0%)



Read more... )

Taste of China

Jan. 20th, 2026 12:41 pm
dorchadas: (Chicago)
[personal profile] dorchadas
The wind chill when I left today was -16°C. Now it's up to a toasty -9°C and tomorrow it will get to almost above freezing! ...and then on Friday it'll drop down to -22°C overnight. Welp.

This morning I overthrew my entire usual days in the office tradition and, rather than have a traditional Japanese breakfast with rice and pickles and miso soup, I had avocado toast and Greek yogurt with raspberries and almonds on it. Much more filling, honestly, but not something I want to do every day. There's something nice about being able to take the already-made shiozake out of the fridge, crack the rice cooker open to get the already-hot rice... Just enough time-saving to let me enjoy my mornings.

I went to the work canteen today and got a meal from Taste of China and it made me put another category in my Notes app list of work restaurants. Right now I have "Restaurants Yes" (home to places like Tandoor Char House) and "Restaurants No." I ordered mabo dōfu with egg fried rice and...it was fine. Worth the $9 I spent on it, I guess. I'll think about it when I see it in the future. And when I realized I had that reaction, I made a "Restaurants Maybe" list and put it on there. We'll see what else gets put there.

Tomorrow is a soul food restaurant and, well, no thanks. Nothing against soul food, I just don't trust that I can eat any of it. Maybe if Michael Twitty cooked it for me.

Gaming in 2025

Jan. 5th, 2026 04:11 pm
dorchadas: (JCDenton)
[personal profile] dorchadas
Last year I played a game a month, and actually accomplished it! This year...I did not. I had plans but everything was overthrown in the first part of the year. These are the games I played in 2025:
  1. Vintage Story
  2. Jupiter Hell
  3. Forgive Me Father
  4. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (review pending)
I was originally playing Horizon's Gate and then Vintage Story hit me like a truck and consumed all of my time. I spent the first six months or so of the year playing that, then played some Cataclysm and other games for a bit before picking up Jupiter Hell, played Witch Spring R but didn't beat it--I'm playing in Japanese so it's taking quite a while--and near the end of the year I bought Clair Obscur on sale and played it right through the end of the year. No review yet because I'm cleaning up all the post-game stuff, but soon.

Not as many games as last year, but boy did I enjoy all that time with Vintage Story.

New Year's Retrospective 2025

Jan. 2nd, 2026 11:15 am
dorchadas: (Maedhros One Hand)
[personal profile] dorchadas
New Year's meme time.

Read more... )

Happy New Year to everyone!
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I held the bannister and I got it

I sat down to look for it

I took it with me because I could not find it

Damn splinter!

Forty years burnin down the road

Jan. 19th, 2026 09:55 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

At various points today while I was slaving away over a hot laptop, I heard various Bruce Springsteen songs floating down from upstairs.

He said on fedi: "I have often noted similarities between the musicians, but I desperately want to hear New Model Army covering Bruce Springsteen's 'Further On (Up the Road)'."

(It was when he first said that he wants them to cover "Badlands," and Springsteen to cover their song "Vagabonds," that I figured I'd probably made a proper fan of him, if he could see the overlap between Bruce and a band he likes as much as he does New Model Army.)

He also sent me a link to what Springsteen said after Renee Good was murdered and then a YouTube playlist centered around Springsteen being in the Kennedy Center Honors of 2009. Which I think must be where I heard those songs from.

My newest library book, has been acquired after I heard the author, Steven Hyden, speak briefly on a short podcast series about Springsteen that D found and recommended to me (and actually listened to, which is amazing because he normally can't/doesn't want to listen to podcasts!). I found his book, called There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The U.S.A” and the End of the Heartland, and honestly I can hardly imagine anything more Me.

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