(no subject)

Jun. 7th, 2025 06:26 am
apiphile: tom hardy as billy prior (ha bloody fucking ha)
[personal profile] apiphile
I've spent almost the entire night doing a chunk of a first pass editing readthrough of Clementine, which has been surprisingly good for my brain, but it's interesting that there is a CLEAR point at which the quality drops off. Curious about what's caused that.

More Ratcraft

Jun. 5th, 2025 04:30 pm
zesty_pinto: (Default)
[personal profile] zesty_pinto


It's a time sink but I'm learning more and enjoying it. Also trying methods to make it quicker to keep the nephew's attention.

I don't think he's watching them but still doing this because.

Minor Political Post

Jun. 5th, 2025 04:13 pm
zesty_pinto: (Default)
[personal profile] zesty_pinto
Just to say that the two worst people you know are in a spat. One of them even brought up the Epstein connection.

Bluesky is reveling, the world cheers, nature is healing, etcetera.
zesty_pinto: (Default)
[personal profile] zesty_pinto
So yeah, Michelle just told me that her Switch 2 being delivered from Nintendo received a UPS notification that the shipment could not be delivered because of weather or unforeseeable delays. It's 84 and sunny outside and Rutgers is closed for the semester so traffic is lighter than ever, so when she saw the UPS truck come up shortly after that message came up, she rushed down, opened the door, and watched two young guys slowly pull over and reluctantly hand her her package. Later on, we found the tape tampered with so they knew what it was and were probably thinking of stealing it.

This is New Brunswick and porch thieves aren't exactly uncommon here, but losing your job for a game like this is honestly a waste, especially when it's UPS which is one of the last good union jobs out here.

For the record, we didn't rat them out. The contents were intact and sealed and figured if anything, they were probably going to replace the box or "lose" the package altogether if we didn't blatantly show we were waiting for it to come in.

Actually, they kind of lucked out because Michelle only noticed the tape tampering after canceling a call with customer support, but still: not worth it, especially now that there's more of them available than originally thought.

Just came back from Best Buy getting the second one. Just saw a bald guy that looked like an extra from Roadhouse go to his car holding one as he went to his Murica'd up truck. Bipartisanship in action.

I found out that Michelle actually got the placeholder for FOUR Switch 2 orders so she canceled her Target one. We're only waiting for the Gamestop one now, which can obviously wait and we decided will probably be a gift for my brother come October. If the availability of these consoles is that high then I can't see much justification in reselling our good fortune anyway especially since eBay will take a chunk of the take as will PayPal, so... Guess we'll wait and see.

Michelle has been getting good response from her doctor on her health; she gained like 8 pounds but the doctor said she looked healthy so I think it's a sign that she's gained muscle and tbf it's hard not to when you spend your weekend going several miles hauling several pounds of glass and using a telephoto.

She does have some bruises from some of it though, as she slipped and fell when I tried to lift her up into an observation post. Just her elbow but it's still very obviously there. Sigh.

She is also very happy with the results otherwise. She said photography has been a great excuse for her to keep active and has been posting happily on Flickr. Glad I could bring something positive into her life.

Speaking of which, I guess I should divulge a few more travel shots, so here's some travelogue stuff with photos. )

I've got a few more trips after that too as it is June and all, but not sure if they're worth mentioning yet. Just stuff to keep us busy and moving, like visiting giant malls and whatnot, though we did find another nice overlook not far from Sandy Hook where we could get an amazing view of NYC during sunset. I'm leaning towards another trip to NYC since Michelle wanted a set of blocks from there that we can't find elsewhere and it gives us another excuse to get insane numbers on our Oura scores. Really depends on how hot the weather plans to kill us though. Maybe a trip through another old trail I remember along Secaucus?

All in due time. Just glad most UPS delivery people DGAF what B&H means around here.


In the meantime, stay safe everyone!

Another May

Jun. 5th, 2025 04:50 am
viridian5: (Angel cracked)
[personal profile] viridian5
Lynch angel and the citySeeing as how I'm not going to chance gimping around cemeteries in a podiatric boot for a while with how uneven the ground can be in places, I decided to post a bunch of photos I haven't yet from past visits to First Calvary Cemetery, most of them from May 2021, as well as a few more from last week. Thus, I have 15 new photos up at my Flickr.

+++

Anime I'm currently watching:
Oshi no Ko season 2
The Dangers in My Heart [Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu] season 2
2.5 Dimensional Seduction [Nitengo-jigen no Ririsa]
Ao-chan Can't Study [Midara na Ao-chan wa Benkyou ga Dekinai]

I recently finished season one of I Parry Everything: What Do You Mean I'm the Strongest? I'm Not Even an Adventurer Yet!

Look what you've done

Jun. 5th, 2025 12:12 am
viridian5: (Reb (hand))
[personal profile] viridian5
My right leg is killing me today far more than my sprained and fractured left ankle, because of the boot. Lots of new places hurt today as a result of the boot making me move and handle weights differently. Also, parts of my left leg hurt from the top and struts of the boot.



Around the house, I just tight-wrap the foot for compression and use a cane, because that way it's not too heavy for me to elevate it somewhat as I sit. I have the cane from a prior ankle injury.

Step by step

Jun. 3rd, 2025 09:24 pm
viridian5: (Farf (cracked))
[personal profile] viridian5
Remember what my roommate said? Ha.

I have a sprain and a fracture. I walked around with no support for two miles on that yesterday before I could get home to ice and tight-wrap it for compression. Just tightened my shoe. It felt like usual low-grade sprain pain to me.

Glad I went to the podiatrist for X-rays today because I thought sensation in my toes was a bit off. I've sprained both ankles so many times I have actually lost count. Sometimes I don't even go to the doctor for it anymore.

I've had my ankles and feet X-rayed many times during a sprain situation, but this is the first time they found something. At the doctor's office I went right to the X-ray machine, without needing directions, from being such a veteran.

(In my near 52 years, this is my second fracture. Never had a full break. My first fracture was when a Volvo door closed on my thumb while I was in high school. That was agonizing. It didn't help that it tore off the fingernail and left a long wound that had to be stitched up.)

Today, I walked around with a big podiatric boot on my left foot for a while, and now my right calf is also killing me for compensating. They gave me a smaller boot this time, so it's a little lighter and it doesn't make life even harder by going all the way up to the bottom of my knee like my original did. Soooo, I have to spend four weeks in the boot.

Every move I make

Jun. 3rd, 2025 02:56 am
viridian5: (Yoji (hmm))
[personal profile] viridian5
I was dumb enough to tell someone last night that my ankles have been good for over a year. Today, walking to the train for that GEICO doctor appointment, I twisted my left ankle. Since that appointment was such a pain in the ass and was only one hour from that moment, I did all the walking to and from the trains to get there, then did the same back.

It's currently swollen and painful, so I'm RICEing it. I see my podiatrist tomorrow morning. Hope I don't need to go back to the podiatric boot because then I can't bring my own laundry up and down stairs. The boot goes up to my knee, so I have to do stairs carefully step by step while holding on to the railing.

This GEICO appointment was bs. They had me fill out two pages of stuff, wait for an hour, then the actual doctor saw me for three minutes. I could've stayed home and not hurt my ankle.

Roommate: "It must be mostly okay if you could walk on it."
Me: "You'd be amazed what I'm able to walk on."

+++

Sunday, I stumbled upon Juniper Valley Park's Italian National Day, which I didn't know gets held there annually, and wandered it in search of free food like a hungry stray cat. I waited in a long line for an Italian sausage sandwich, part of that wait being when I finally reached the table and they didn't have any cooked sausage left and I had to wait for them to finish grilling some more. I wonder what the people on line way behind me thought was going on.

Later, I saw a truck near the park for German bratwurst, which supplied the Grill King who made my sandwich. Scandal!

I tried to have my phone Shazam some of the music but it didn't have a clue, and I don't know if it's because some of it was in Italian or because a lot of it was sung to a prerecorded dance track. The electronica backing "Sweet Caroline" was really something.

Alas, I was too old for the bouncy castle-type stuff and the lines were long.

I’m only ¼ Italian and don’t know Italian, but my bits of French and Spanish were enough to let me understand some of the rudimentary stuff the Federazione Italo-Americana of Brooklyn and Queens folks said on the stage.

+++

Last week while I was driving the streets of Queens I heard loud music. Then a funeral procession pulls up, the front car with its back hatch open to reveal a wall of speakers blasting out that "I'll be missing you" song that's set to "Every Breath You Take." I saw passengers in two cars behind it with their arms out the open windows recording on their cellphones.

(no subject)

May. 31st, 2025 05:34 am
viridian5: (Kazuki (Ambiguous))
[personal profile] viridian5
It's a quick read that pulls you through it, and it certainly has a lot going on. I appreciated how it dealt with what's seems to be the obligatory for YA love triangle thing. Some of its twists didn't surprise me. The ending made me order the next book, Heavenly Tyrant, from the library to see where things go from there.

While the book's selling point seems to be the giant mecha, the majority of the plot is more about personal and societal politics.

I have a bit of an issue with the book being considered feminist by some people. For all that Zetian (and Iron Widow) talks about the poor girls murdered by Chrysalis piloting and the many horrible ways this society oppresses and mutilates women, almost every single other female character in the book, who are very few in number and don't get much page time, is an antagonist for Zetian, someone brainwashed by their society and thus against her one way or another. (Which makes one ask how Zetian alone is so different. She's just Not Like the Other Girls.) She's self-righteous but is she really fighting to make things better for anyone other than herself and the few people she deems worthy? spoiler ) For all I know, this might be the author's point about Zetian and we just haven't gotten there yet.

I found Li Shimin interesting. spoiler ) I do not trust Yizhi--he seems too good to be true for me, especially considering all the lying and betraying almost everyone does around Zetian--but I guess I'll have to wait to see if I'm right on that.


There was a thing in the text that stopped me dead: spoiler ) Maybe the author is trying to get at that, but "vacancy" is not it. Maybe it's meant to be something like "intensity"?

This edition is several printings in, so it's not a first pass thing either. It seriously stopped my reading flow dead for a while.
viridian5: (Nagi (Society))
[personal profile] viridian5
Summer of Staud 2 (angle)I posted a ton of photos at my Flickr since the last time I mentioned here. While Bergdorf Goodman hasn't put anything new since then, I have new Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue window display shots up. (By the way, despite posturing by the Trump administration, Congestion Pricing is still going on.)

I've also done some cemetery shooting since then, this time at (Lutheran) All Faiths and First Calvary. When I last checked, Irving still hasn't been stood back up. For First Calvary, I was there Memorial Day, which was part of why I took some photos of their Civil War veterans' memorial. It was dedicated in 1866, and it looks like the city hasn't bothered to fix anything at the site since the last refurbishment I heard took place in the 1920s. (The memorial is supposed to be cared for by the New York Parks Department.)

There are some monuments I looked for but unfortunately couldn't find. The last time I shot them I had my Kodak digital camera that didn't do geotagged information, and First Calvary Cemetery is huge. Specifically, these two: photos )

As you see, they're nowhere near the roads and require quite a hike into... somewhere.

+++

We've been having a lot of rain here lately. As I drove into Long Island Friday, I saw a double rainbow overhead.

The back brake light alert hasn't come on in my car's dashboard in weeks. I have no idea what's up with that.

+++

At some point I have to use "You're just a sad song with nothing to say" from My Chemical Romance's "Disenchanted" for a fic.

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