selenak: (Breaking Bad by Wicked Signs)
([personal profile] selenak Jul. 5th, 2026 11:13 am)
Finally got to watch this, which turns out to have been worth all the hype. Also, good for Sandra Hüller getting/continuing her international career!


How many American high school teachers are thwarted scientific geniuses anyway? )
([personal profile] romantical Jul. 4th, 2026 08:50 pm)
I saw a thing on instagram that is likely false, but it was a post that some guy had been arrested for being a fake tour guide and telling people completely fake histories of paintings, and that is the most Ilya Rozanov coded thing ever. I can 100% see bb!Shane at some museum and getting in an argument with fake!guard Ilya. It would be hilarious. Extra points if Kip's there and trying to get the cops called on Rozanov. He and Shane can go on the lam so Ilya doesn't get arrested.

I did my exercise this week and one of the days I used my walking pad. Friends. Friends. I was apparently walking too fast or something and I stepped on the main part at the top, not the conveyor belt part, and fell. I thought I broke my pinkie but it was just sore and bruised - maybe misaligned? I don't know. It hurt for a couple of days. I also managed to scrape my knee and the heel of one hand, knock a table leg off the coffee table, and bruise my boob. I still managed to walk 2 miles though, so it's 100% a win. The second day I did half elliptical/half bike. I think I have a way to do the walking pad that won't result in me face-down on the rug, so I'll try that next time. I like walking better than the elliptical. I don't know why. Might switch it up every other time though. Another week of 2x a week and then might try for 3. anything is possible, I guess.

Still haven't figured out when there will be road tripping. I might go up to my mom's early and do some local stuff near her. I've got a bunch of things on a list. I shall see. I need to find out what her plans are.

It has somehow gone from 6pm to 11:30 pm and I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm pretty sure it means I should go to bed.
I finished the book "Myra, Beyond Saddleworth" and it was ok. Continued to be not what I wanted, but not bad for what it was. I also just finished another book - "The 7th Day" - and that was pretty good. I was hoping to do more reading this summer, but it doesn't seem like that's happening.
selenak: (The Americans by Tinny)
([personal profile] selenak Jul. 4th, 2026 04:29 pm)
I would say "happy 250th anniversary of tax dodging" except the Orange One has even ruined the tax dodging jokes, so, onto tv:

Star City 1.07: In which the devil you know turns out to be better than the devil you don't, sort, kinda?


Spoilers introduce the new regime )
12. Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar – Hm! This was a fun ride (helped along by knowing that [personal profile] cafemassolit had enjoyed it a lot), and an ambitious debut novel, just in terms of sheer scope and density of plot twists, but while I enjoyed reading it basically at all points and stayed up so I could finish the last 100+ pages in one go, I don’t think it’s a Hugo-caliber work (although a few things about it did reach that level for me). So, this was a good time, and I will probably pick up the sequel (even though where it seems to be headed is less interesting to me than where this book has been), but I don’t see putting it at, or maybe even near (depends on how many books I manage to read, LOL), the top of my ballot.

I’m not sure how to talk about it, either, because this book has a LOT of stuff going on. Maybe in my occasional good/mixed/not-good format? Yeah, let’s try that. With spoilers )

The book is up for Best Novel, where I’m definitely ranking it below The Incandescent (also flawed, but more unusual and more coherent, despite its flaws), and Hodgson is up for Astounding, where I think I’ll also be ranking her below H.H.Pak, who was working on much smaller scale but to greater effect, IMO. But I won’t be mad if Hodgson wins Astounding, because I do think there’s ambition and talent there, and I won’t even be mad if the book wins Best Novel, I don’t think.

**

Taskmaster Australia s5e08 – Anisa looks fabulous in her neon pink suit, and I’m also liking Celia’s pink and brown knit top. Spoilers )
romantical: (Muppets - Henson)
([personal profile] romantical Jun. 28th, 2026 11:46 am)
More people are posting and it makes me so fucking gleeful. Hello my friends! I have missed you!

Things:

1 - Two of my boys got drafted. One by New Jersey and one by Philly and they're both so far away. I have sad about this. I was hoping one would go to the Kraken so he could play with one of our other guys on the same line (like they currently do for us), but alas. It is not to be.

2 - Apparently a guy who just signed with the Silvertips got drafted too, so that's exciting!

3 - I am currently reading a book that keeps being not what I want it to be. It's called "Myra, Beyond Saddleworth" and it's about Myra Hindley who was a serial killer along with her boyfriend. It's fictional about her being let out of prison and her life then, and I just... I don't know. It's not a bad book, just not what I want/expect I guess.

4 - I actually managed to do stuff on Thursday, and I did my two days of exercise this week, so I know I've done things. It just doesn't feel like I'm doing anything. It's been a week and a half of vacation and I'm still doing the same thing I did when it started.

5 - There has been a little bit of progress on typing up the finished HR fic I have. I think it's ok? I think I like it? I made a comment on someone else's fic and it led to thoughts of a firefighter/EMT AU, and I have an idea for a centuries spanning AU, and potentially a satyr/angel AU, and I don't know. Many thoughts zero writing.

6 - I want to do a mini-road trip, but I have no idea when to fit it in. I was thinking a week, but now I'm thinking three days. I have a huge list of stuff to do where I want to go, and I know it's not all possible, but better to do some than nothing. Maybe if I do all the stuff that's currently on my to-do list, I can arrange it for the beginning of next week.

7 - The end of next week is up at my mom's for her annual "no, it's the last one, I mean it" garage sale. I like doing it, though some of my mom's friends that participate drive me a little bonkers. They talk. All. The. Time. In some ways, I wish it was just me and my mom hanging out.

8 - Today is the never ending cycle of laundry, this week including sheets and towels. It's noon, so I should get started. And then plan to do something that isn't just sitting around.

9 - I keep thinking I should go back to school - not for a degree, but just for fun. It would give me structure, which I like. But money and time play into it, and there's never enough of either.

I was going for 10 things, but I can't think of anything else. Which means it's time for laundry whether I want it to be or not.
selenak: (The Americans by Tinny)
([personal profile] selenak Jun. 26th, 2026 06:39 pm)
In space, no one can hear you scream, indeed.

Spoilers don't want their engineers to become executioners )
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
([staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance Jun. 25th, 2026 11:36 pm)
Folks may have noticed that the site has been slow for logged-out users over the last while. This is partly because we separate traffic by logged-in, "logged out but have visited the site before", and "logged out, never visited the site before" and assign the fewest resources to the last category (because we're pretty confident the overwhelming majority of it is bot and scraper traffic, even if it's often impossible to say for sure). The flood of garbage traffic is a plague and a scourge the entire internet is dealing with, and it's hitting small sites the hardest as operators get better and better at cloaking their requests to look like real, authentic use. We long ago hit the point where adding more resources is a possible solution (because they just eat them up as soon as we do), and splitting traffic lets us keep the site usable for our actual users without wasting too much server power on garbage.

We've now, lucky us, reached the point where the "logged out, have never visited the site before" path is just flooded all the time, and the "logged out but have visited the site before" path is suffering some of the overflow. We've made some changes to the routing to try to improve things for logged out users who have visited the site before and keep it at "it may be a little bit slow, but at least it works" instead of "it keeps timing out", and we've seen some improvements, but if you're accustomed to browsing the site while logged out, I'm really sorry but it may continue to be a little miserable.

You will get the fastest page loads and the best performance by browsing the site logged in. If you are having trouble loading the front page to log in, bookmark the direct login page. We can't route the front page to the "more power" server pool, because it's a common target for garbage traffic, but we've switched /login over to "more power" and we'll try to keep it there as long as we can unless it starts getting slammed, too.
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