Fishin' in the stream of consciousness (all-purpose, no topic chat thread)

Had my first Jodo and Iaido training yesterday, and now most movements hurt. Joy! But it's very fun. I have huge trouble with assessing the actual position of my jo and bokken, but I figure that's training and muscle memory.
And I finished reading the WTNV novel ::D And I guess I'll return The city of dreaming books unread, because I still can't fucking stand Moehr's writing style. Gah. It's better than Tolkien and Hohlbein, but still.

 

Oh shoddy writing style is the worst. Like, you have a great story here but you can't tell it for shit.

It took me forever to get used to C J Cherryh's writing style, and now Faded Sun is in my top 5 series but oh my stars did that first book drag. It took me three tries to actually read it.

 

Oh, I've been considering reading Cherryh because Ann Leckie says she's an inspiration, but the bookstore I went to didn't have the beginning of any series.

 

The Faded Sun is a compilation of Kesrith, Shon'jir and Kutath. It's my aaabsolute favorite.

Insight into humanity/what it means to be "human" via reflections or comparisons against alien races that represent different aspects of humanity, and the wisdom of bringing a sword to a laser-pistol fight. I named a couple Jedi OCs after some of the characters.

It's also hilariously dated. You'll whiplash from GLORIOUS SPACE FUTURE lightspeed jumps and hoverchairs and holoscreens to the protagonist flipping out at a slow, jamming printer that uses the old paper with the perforations on the edges and data stored on tapes.

Most of it is GLORIOUS SPACE FUTURE but there's a couple little things that are presented as the PEAK OF TECHNOLOGY that just... aren't.

 

Oh nice! I did a leeeetle bit of those when I was a kiddo, and I might come back to them sometime.

I loved the city of dreaming books. I wonder if it's an easier-to-read writing style in the translation?
(or I might just have higher tolerance for such. Tolkein's doesn't bug me at all.)

 

Okay. Break has been had. Need to get food, eat the food, then finish and submit this essay. Then I need to send an email, and I am free to cross-stitch until I fall asleep.

 

I am listening to Emily Browning's cover of Sweet Dreams (are made of this), reading a new chapter in the Artist's way, and marking up the margins with interesting bits.

It's an enjoyable combination of perspectives; part of the song's chorus goes "some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you, some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused." A worldview that the world will hurt you if you don't hurt it first.

And then the Artist's Way is about uncovering and addressing the blockages that we use, however unintentionally, to keep ourselves from being creative. It's about finding where those sorts of nasty certainties have buried themselves in our thought process code too deep to easily notice, and learning to notice them and overcome them. And it's got some woowoo sentiments of ~opening ourselves to the creativity of the universe~ that's pretty opposite the pre-emptive defence that song seems to advise.

Spoiler: Undertale spoilers

I find it very helpful, when writing morning pages or just in my journal, to signal certain tone shifts by doodling Flowey in the margin. Certain smiles really give the impression of seething anger, frustration, sarcastic cheer, and critical undermining sentiments. He makes a handy sock puppet for voicing thoughts I don't quite want to take credit for. Kinda like a yellow-eyed shadow.

 

Spoiler

well that's creepy and appropriate.

 

Spoiler

Not at all...

hmm. i may need to double these images.

...eta.

do not accidentally open like 50 images at the same time.

Spoiler: you'll have a bad time

and it gets really spooky when an animation manages to play, popping up here and there across your screen.

 

Hey, if there's any USians around who haven't voted yet, y'all should go do that.

 

I'm pretty sure election dates are different for all of the states though?

 

in other news i tried on 10 ish dresses today at the thrift store and none of them fit. this is for two reasons: 1, i have slightly more generous hips than i really ought to; and 2, my fucking singer's ribcage that makes every dress not fit ever.

grump grump. a couple of them were really pretty... :(

Spoiler

 

No? There's only a very few states that don't hold elections the first Tuesday of November, even off-years.

e. sorry, tuesday after the first monday of november

 

Yeeeeeees, I love 40k humor and I love tabletop write-ups. Insta-bookmark for later reading. <3

 

Small gauge, large diameter captive bead earring are nearly impossible to find.

Small gauge spiral tapers are nearly impossible to find (under $30)

I'd had my old set for literally five years. I never change my earrings. I have a Look. But nope, one of the main ones is now 60ft underwater in a man-made reef. I have to improvise. Grump grump.

Finally found something that will work, but it's a size up from what I've worn for years. One hole stretched just fine. The other did not, and stings like a sonovabitch.

Am I the only one with a jewelry Thing? Like, never change style ever? People who change their jewelry every day baffle me. How?!

 

I used to have an earring Style, but I'm sensitive to every form of metal out there (even stainless steel! I know, it's messed up) and couldn't wear my earrings to bed because the posts would stab me in the neck. I got sick of constantly living on the brink of infection in my earlobes, and took them out. Now you can hardly tell my ears were ever pierced.

It's a shame too, my look was awesome.

 

Oh, you meant general. For some reason I was thinking you were talking about the primaries- they're kinda all over the place lol. Speaking of those though, here's a calander for the primaries if anyone needs it- http://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2016-presidential-primary-schedule-calendar/

@Aviari I'm not sure what color or how big of balls you want, but body candy has some really nice looking ones http://www.bodycandy.com/search/go?view=grid&w=Captive+ball I feel you on the consistent jewelry- I change the lower ones rarely, but the tops are basically always silver and turquoise studs.

@mazarinedrake thats a shame :c ever tried arcyrlic? Ig it doesn't matter if the holes closed though..

 

@Alska It's not the ball, it's the size of the hoop itself. Like, I want 16 gauge earrings, with a hoop diameter greater than 1/2in. BodyCandy is all 5/16-9/16 at most.

Found a couple places that do sell large diameter, but they're like, $25/each hoop, not even sold in a pair and custom made, so it'll be weeks.

I've settled on some 14g 9/16 and I'll prolly put some dangly charms or connecting chain on them to make them less 'series of thick, plain hoops'

I had the same problem @mazarinedrake did, and plain surgical stainless steel rings that I can roll around in the hole appears to be the only thing that'll work. Luckily I like silver.

 

@Aviari like this? :D they're surgical steel, and you can pick gauge and size(up to 3/4") http://www.freshtrends.com/cgi-bin/item/cbr