holli | Reading

Media intake for the last week or so boils down to "a couple chapters of various non-fiction [nothing new] and Thursday's The Pitt." We'll probably try to get an episode or two of Frieren in tonight, before Dayjob swallows me whole for another week.

My main goal for this weekend has been accomplished: today

scruloose and I decanted some spices from bags into jars (including the cinnamons and chai spice baking blend replenished from Silk Road* since the last time we batch-prepped for banana bread) and then did a round of bagging up dry ingredients for nine quadruple batches of my breakfast banana bread while actually baking a tenth batch. It's only the second time we've done it, and having the dry ingredients bagged and ready makes such a difference, but the prospect was more exhausting than it had any right to be. (Actually doing it was fine. This time we [reversing how we did it last time] went with me reading off the amounts for each ingredient and rotating the bags while

scruloose did the actual measuring and dumping ingredients in.)

*Last time we didn't have nearly enough of any one spice for ten quadruple batches, so some go the chair spice blend and some got the Vietnamese Saigon cinnamon and some got the Indonesian Korintje cinnamon. We also have some of their third type, the Sri Lankan true cinnamon, but the description on the jar says its flavor is pretty delicate, so it didn't seem likely to really shine in the banana bread.

(My erratic spices fascination has resulted in us currently having four kinds, actually, but little idea of what to make that will actually showcase the different types so I can really tell the difference. ^^; [The fourth is the Royal Cinnamon from Burlap and Barrel in the US.])

Current Mood: exhausted

oursin

Last week's bread held out pretty well, though got rather dry.

Enough left - though perhaps a bit too much on the dry side - to include in frittata for Friday night supper along with a yellow bell pepper and eggs also getting used up.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe, Marriage's Light Spelt flour, maple syrup, ground ginger: turned out a little on the dense side.

Today's lunch: the Mediterranean roasted vegetable thing: garlic cloves, red onion, fennel, baby courgettes, green bell pepper, red, yellow and orange baby peppers, aubergine; served with couscous - this time I tried M&S, and while the packet instructions are a bit misleading, turned out a lot better than Waitrose.

crantz

I've been doing my little comics but I've also been compelled to draw my City of Heroes characters a bunch, especially two named Silver Cygnet and Bugpunch, who are roommates.

Here are those drawings - see if you can spot my progress as it goes on.

( advice I saw once was if you want to improve your art, get a blorbo and then get mentally sick about them )

Characters featured were: Silver Cygnet/Su Yang, Bugpunch/Ladybird Latreille, Tough Girl, Agent Larimar (not my character) and Blood Widow Spitfire, and Brainfever.

jesse_the_k

The musician explains:

In 2018, I recorded and filmed a cover of "Yellow" by Coldplay under my former name, Lots Holloway. In 2026, I returned to the exact same place to film it again, this time as Dylan Holloway (Dylan And The Moon). What you're watching is both versions, woven together.

Lyrics at the band’s page: https://www.coldplay.com/song/yellow/

Watch on YouTube or ( stream it here )

oursin

Happy birthday,

thatyourefuse!

teland

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

Current Mood: content
Current Music: no but like we ALL got down to that song

hannah

Tomorrow, I have a scheduled meeting for contract negotiations. It's a phone call for the new archive and cataloging gig, where I'll talk to the client to see what he needs and how best to accomplish that, plus to work out the pay rate. There probably won't be any paperwork involved, though I doubt he'll go to the extreme end of the spectrum I enjoyed last summer where I got paid in cash to stay as under the table as possible.

Still. Contract negotiation. It sounds genuinely professional, which is the mentality I know I should bring to the discussion. Professionalism, and my salary record for similar jobs, and a track record for doing good work and being worth the money. I don't think it'll be a full time five day nine to five job, but possibly full time three day nine to five. I'll see how the other outstanding gig goes this coming week to better judge that.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Music: nothing now

musesfool

I know I owe comment replies and I am going to get to them. The intermittent internet situation this week made me very reluctant as it would drop and I'd lose track of what I was planning to say by the time it came back etc. But! My new modem and router arrived yesterday and early this afternoon, I hooked them up. It worked, though at first I was like, what is happening? Because you do all this waiting for the modem to boot up and activate and then the first thing the router instructions say is "reboot your modem" and I'm like "are you for real? I literally just activated it!" but I did it and plugged everything in and it worked briefly! And then the router started blinking and my phone told me I had no internet and I was like WTF? Because it could 100% be an outside the apartment problem, or it could be a cabling problem because I did not swap out the coaxial cables - why would I do that? They are all nice and tight and the splitter is connected and I have had no issues with my cable box. So I unplugged everything and then plugged it back in and went to the Spectrum website to activate everything and it told me I had nothing ot activate, everything was working! And it has been so far! I will keep the old equipment for a couple of days, just in case, and bring it back to the Spectrum store midweek, probably.

After that adventure, I baked these whipped shortbread cookies (pic). I did not separate into lemon vanilla/orange chocolate. Instead, I used 1 tsp of almond extract in place of the citrus zest, and added chocolate sprinkles once they were piped but before they were refrigerated.

I've mentioned this before, but I am trying to replicate a childhood favorite cookie from an old Italian bakery that closed long before I even moved out of Ozone Park. They were not kept with the fancy butter cookies but with the S-cookies and the biscotti and the anginetti, and they had a much crumblier/drier texture than the typical Italian bakery butter cookies (you know the ones, either dipped in chocolate on one end or sandwiched with apricot or raspberry jam etc.). they were piped round and a slightly darker brown than the butter cookies too. And they were my absolute favorites. I've never found them at another bakery either.

I've tried a few Italian butter cookie recipes but none were quite right (though the one from Dolci was pretty close!), and then last week on thee second or third day of the pecan shortbread, I was like, this is the texture! And almost the taste, but the pecans obviously made the flavor different, though they do have almond extract in them (almond extract is the smell of Italian bakeries to me). So I googled to see if there was a chocolate sprinkle shortbread recipe out there, and found the one I linked above, and they also seemed like they'd be close. So after checking to make sure I wouldn't leave myself out of butter if I made them (I had another pound way in the back of the fridge), I got to baking. I think these also need a little longer in the oven, but we'll see how they taste tomorrow - I think that will be the test. but I think I'm getting close!

*

Current Mood: surprised
Current Music: Mets winning in extra innings over the Pirates!!!

schneefink

A little over a month ago I finally started my Hades II 1.0 playthrough, and I've been having a lot of fun. I just reached another milestone today so I thought now is a good time to post some notes.

( My first 62 runs )

neotoma

Ramps! A loaf of whole wheat bread, dark chocolate walnut cookies, locally grown popcorn, Lucy Glo apples, frozen garlic pork soup dumplings, frozen lamb & scallion dumplings, masaco empanadas, chorizo & egg empanada, vegan vanilla donut, vegan guava donut, six macarons, and apple schitz.

oursin

Things happen over a long term.

Things that look at the time like a failure or even a disaster may be sowing seeds or releasing spores and having an impact that will go on.

Or even have a counter-intuitive impact at the time: okay, The Well of Loneliness got convicted for obscenity in 1928 but 1000s of women realised they were not alone just from reading the reports in the newspapers, and 1000s of them wrote to Radclyffe Hall.

Just because something does not endure does not endure does not mean it had no influence.

Am currently reading book by a friend which makes quite a thing of long-term impact of small obscure organisations of early C20th I worked on.

Was a piece in Guardian Saturday today which doesn't appear to be yet online which was doing the ever-recurrent WO about 'I see no feminists' and I wonder what they expect them to look like and perhaps they are supposing something flashy and dramatic, which can be appropriate at times. But the work is not necessarily drawing attention to itself.

Further thought: I was a bit irked to see this: Lifeline is both a musical following Alexander Fleming’s discovery of the first antibiotic and a warning about the threat of superbugs in the present day, because the Fleming narrative erases the immense amount of work that Florey, Chain and Heatley had to put in to make pencillin actually viable.

rmc28

(some of these have had their own posts; some probably should; do ask me to expand in comments if you want more details!)

( four busy weeks )

April has two uni Nationals weekends in Sheffield (one each with Womens Blues and Huskies), a hockey camp in Hull, three other hockey games, hopefully some more theatre trips, and a movie date next week with Tony.

hannah

Picking up the materials for a new contract project today had me thinking about average expectations. It's a small enough project to fit inside a banker's box, and a deep enough project to keep me busy for quite a few weeks. It's also not a heavy project - like I said, banker's box - but I was told I might need a cart to carry the box the few blocks from its owner's apartment to mine. I carried it on top of the twenty-some-odd jars of herbs and spices I'd bought from someone moving out of their apartment, plus the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and jarred tomato products. It was inconvenient to maneuver, but not hard to carry.

It's going to involve cataloging personal letters, probably with indexing who sent them and who received them, who else was mentioned and where they were sent from, and I'm already thinking about how to set this all up for optimal ease of use. The hauling it over was the easy part. It's why I keep going to the gym - vanity's a small part of it, and a much larger part is being able to haul stuff around without needing the help of other people, or even much in the way of carts.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: nothing now

musesfool

I made it through this work week unscathed! I logged off last night at 4:45 and took a 2 hour nap where I slept like a rock, got up, watched The Pitt (more on that below) and went to bed and again slept hard. This weekend could not have come at a better time! ;)

In other news, I am sure you have all see this, but in case you haven't: Himesh Patel joins the Ryan Coogler X-Files Reboot. Danielle Deadwyler was already on board. I am seated and ready! Though it will probably be several years before it premieres (if it doesn't get shitcanned the way the Buffy revival did).

My impression - not based on anything except how it's described in that article - is that this is more of a sequel than a reboot? Like a reopening of the X-Files several years later? But I could be wrong. It could be a straight up reboot. I am curious, though, how it will go, especially after we've had Fringe and, more recently, Evil treading similar ground.

As for The Pitt: ( spoilers )

And now I am just going to hit post while I still have an internet connection. The router has been worse today than ever before. I guess it knows its replacement is sitting five feet away, ready to be installed tomorrow.

*

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Stampede - Genesis Owusu

schneefink

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 )

oursin

Gosh those people with the archivists' sales team are persistent! I've heard again - okay, different name and email, exact same wordage - TWICE, second time with added 'Worth a chat?'

No, sir, not in the least.

***

This week I got the Authors Licensing and Copyright Society payout, which was an agreeable sum, maybe it would not actually support me in My Old Age, but it is Better Than A Bat In The Eye With A Burnt Stick. Furthermore, as it is itemised - all the tiddly sums that get totted up - it is a Revelation of what works of mine are still being looked at, wow.

***

Church attendance report pulled after YouGov finds 'fraudulent' responses:

A report claiming the number of young people attending church in England and Wales had skyrocketed has been retracted, after the underlying data was found to be flawed.
The Bible Society's "Quiet Revival" report had been widely reported on since its publication last year and became an accepted part of discourse among many Christians.
Now YouGov, which carried out the research, has told the Bible Society that an internal review of the data found that some of the respondents who completed its survey were "fraudulent".
It has said that quality control measures, which usually remove such responses, were not applied due to human error.
....
But academics questioned the findings, pointing out that the results seemed out of step with other data. Results from the long-running British Social Attitudes Survey, and even the Church of England's own figures, show a long term decline in church attendance.
Experts said that YouGov's methodology - gathering data from volunteers who received cash rewards for their time - left it vulnerable to "bogus respondents" skewing the data.

Murmurs about Mammon distorting the data....

***

Pepys ‘curated’ letters to conceal being offered enslaved boy as bribe – research:

Howe wrote to Pepys to “crave your acceptance” of a “small” enslaved boy, which “I brought home on board for your honour … Hoping he is so well seasoned to endure the cold weather as to live in England.”
Pepys wrote back indignantly rejecting the offer. But Edwards argues this was not because of ethical concerns about slavery, but the optics of looking like a man who could be bribed.

***

This is quite resonant with discussion I was having this week apropos of my 1930s feminists and the less visible ways in which the work was happening, so much so that it's been supposed (it was being claimed at the time) that Feminism Woz Ded: The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism.

tassosss

I've been listening to the audio book, and it's good. It's a classic romance structure and the show is a really faithful adaptation. What I'm really enjoying about it is the inner voice we get to hear from both Shane and Ilya. They are so head over heels for each other but they won't admit it, or look at those feelings because they're so afraid of what that means.

Good stuff.

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Loki, Thor
Rating: Gen
Length: 13k
Creator Links:
Theme: siblings, AU, fork in the road, character development, gen, politics, family,

Summary: "Because you are my brother," Thor told him.

(Politics and family on Asgard. A brotherly love story.)

Reccer's Notes: This goes AU just after the first Thor movie. It's a fascinating exploration of what might have been, and of Thor and Loki and Odin and what it means to be King of Asgard.

Fanwork Links: That Sheds His Blood With Me

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairings/Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Rating: teen
Length: 3k
Creator Links:

AJHall
Theme: siblings, family, gen, friendship, asexual characters, fandom classic

Summary: "Anyway. Enough of my embarrassing sibling brothel stories. Tell me yours."

A Sherlock conversation, over breakfast.

Reccer's Notes: I am shocked to find that this fic has not been recced before! This is a such a lovely picture of John and Sherlock's relationship, contrasted with Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship. (Not all sibling relationships are good or healthy.)

Fanwork Links: Breakfast at 221B

crantz

My movie list is now at 210 entries - I'd be adding The Barbarian Brothers tonight but I got exhausted at minute 39 and rainchecked the bff for tomorrow night. Finally some oiled hunk content though. A man has needs.

We were going to watch Shin Godzilla tonight (the Movie Pals, which consist of me, Ann, and Vali) but I discovered a Lovecraft movie by Roger Corman was leaving Prime in a few days so we switched to The Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. Sandra Dee's hair kept increasing in size as a dominance thing and Dean Stockwell had an amazing style of line reading. Also he has very pretty eyes. I was pleased/surprised they thanked me for the movie choice after. That was nice! I liked that.

The slump is sort of being overcome, since last post.

I bought 48 cadbury creme eggs because it turns out you can just buy the box they take the singles out of before they open it. Follow me for more life hacks.

I've been roleplaying a lot in City of Heroes lately, something I never did outside of close friends before and it has been a lot of fun. I think my main attractiveness as a roleplayer is I do not think I need to win any encounter, social or fighting.

Today's episode involved my character trying to kidnap another and it going so poorly the hostage gave the kidnapper a pep talk.

Profile

holli

December 2018

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Page Summary

umadoshi - Weekly proof of life is weirdly heavy on the cinnamon talk
oursin - Culinary
crantz - Art post!
jesse_the_k - Trans Duet: “Yellow” — Soprano and Tenor Eight Years Apart
oursin - (no subject)
teland - Story: 'cause I wanna take the walls down with you [Coral Island]
hannah - Forward thinking.
musesfool - his talent is unlimited
schneefink - Hades II 1.0
neotoma - Farmer's Market -- 28 March 2026 (Daffodil Day, 8th of Germination, Year 234)
oursin - There is not one single immediate thing doing change
rmc28 - Events of note: March
hannah - New work.
musesfool - Time to start a riot, where you at
schneefink - 2025: Many Things
oursin - Friday misc
tassosss - Heated Rivalry the book
beatrice_otter in fancake - MCU: That Sheds His Blood With Me Kadorienne
beatrice_otter in fancake - Sherlock BBC: Breakfast at 221B by AJHall
crantz - Movie talk

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