larryhammer | Network

Universal Studios has short hours during the off season, making it inconvenient to go for dinner on weeknights, but today we had an opportunity to go for lunch since we were sort of partway there.

The park wasn't crowded at all, but all the good parking was taken, so we had to park at the ET parking structure, which is at the far end of CityWalk, but at least that meant we got a nice walk to and from the park as well as inside.

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nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
心 part 21
愿, to wish; 慌, to panic; 慢, slow ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=61

语法
2.19 (part 1) Result complements 完，会，懂，住
https://www.digmandarin.com/hsk-2-grammar

词汇
程序, program; 工程, engineering/project ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

Guardian:
你真的愿意帮助我们, are you really willing to help us?
你听我把话说完, wait until I'm finished talking
龙城大学生物工程系的教授, a professor in the bioengineering department at Dragon City University

Me:
慢慢来，别急。
你听不懂的话，我就再说一遍。

ysabetwordsmith

Thanks to a lot of work by

fuzzyred, you can now read A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows on its own landing page. :D This series of linguistic poetry uses novel words presented in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Current Mood: accomplished

mellowtigger

Reminder for locals in Minneapolis: The general strike is scheduled for 2026 January 23 Friday.

People are posting photos and stories of cars left abandoned in the middle of neighborhood streets or on the side of highways after ICE took away their occupants. I can't remember if I've mentioned it already, but since ICE is taking unfair advantage of "public space" to enter businesses and arrest shoppers or employees (even after benefiting from the staff's labor first), some businesses are closing the public space. One grocery store I visit locks the doors now, so patrons have to wait for staff to unlock the door to let them enter or exit. A local business magazine tells this story about statewide business changes, including this new practice of locking the doors. Local KSTP News aired this piece about business closures in downtown Minneapolis. When our plutocrats notice, then something might finally change.

You know it's bad when local police from various cities have to hold a press conference to tell the public (paraphrased), "Please, stop hating on us because we're not the ones committing these obviously unconstitutional crimes. Our own off-duty officers are being racially targeted for illegal harassment by ICE."

Watch on YouTube

Click to read details about today's tiring tasks...

I had yesterday off from work due to national holiday (ironically MLK Day), and I scheduled vacation for today and tomorrow. I didn't know when I requested the vacation days that I wouldn't get to sleep excessively and play computer games during all of my waking hours. I didn't know that instead of rest and relaxation, I'd need to organize myself to protest my country's turn to fascism.

On the plus side, I walked to the library, printed out my informational notices for neighbors (and got my Prince library card because they still had some available!), walked to the store to buy nylon cord for whistle necklaces, and walked around my block delivering every single paper notice and a few requested whistles.

I'm disappointed that I'm getting too old for this resistance effort. Everything hurts now: feet, waist, back, hands. I had to go find my arthritis cream for my hands while I was trying to tie knots in the cord for the whistles and notices.

When I was leaving a house that I believe to include Native Americans, I saw a car stopped directly in front of that sidewalk, with what I guess to be a Native American person at the wheel, staring at me. Hopefully they calm down once they finally check their mailbox and see my note. In better news, one of my neighbors offered eggs to me from their chickens, so I'll have to talk to them another day and learn how that process should go. I didn't think to ask for details at the time. I left a notice at every house, even the one with the NRA sticker on the door.

But, at least it's all done now. Within a 1-block radius of my house, I know homes that include each of the currently-targeted ethnic identities: hispanic, asian, native american, and somali. I hope these notices (redacted here for sharing publicly) that I delivered can help in at least some small way, and it isn't just me spinning in circles wondering what to do.

kaberett

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pushkin666

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Current Mood: awake
Current Location: on my Chandler/Joey chair
Current Music: Rewatching the X-Files

trobadora

What I did during my lunch break: assemble Ikea shelves \o/
What I didn't do during my lunch break: write /o\

(And then the entire afternoon was non-stop meetings until smoke came out of my ears.)

Today's writing

A little more than an alibi sentence, but not much more.

WED Question of the Day

Poll #34101

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

View Respondents

I find ...

View Answers

shorter fic easier to write than longer fic
11 (61.1%)

longer fic easier to write than shorter fic
4 (22.2%)

something else (see comments)
3 (16.7%)

I mostly write ...

View Answers

drabbles and ficlets (<1k)
2 (11.8%)

short fic (1-3k)
5 (29.4%)

medium length fic (3-6k)
4 (23.5%)

longer fic (6-10k)
4 (23.5%)

long fic (10-20k)
0 (0.0%)

very long fic (20-50k)
0 (0.0%)

epic fic (>50k)
2 (11.8%)

I often write ...

View Answers

drabbles and ficlets (<1k)
9 (56.2%)

short fic (1-3k)
12 (75.0%)

medium length fic (3-6k)
8 (50.0%)

longer fic (6-10k)
7 (43.8%)

long fic (10-20k)
3 (18.8%)

very long fic (20-50k)
1 (6.2%)

epic fic (>50k)
3 (18.8%)

Tally

( Days 1-15 )

Day 16:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 17:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 18:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

cornerofmadness,

luzula,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 19:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 20:

china_shop,

trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

shipperslist

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olivermoss

* More straight hockey content creators liking Heated Rivalry and not being weird about it. This time it's Eck. Two guys write for the channel. One really preferred the Skip content, but interestingly the other was more into Hollanov. It's only ten minutes, but it doesn't say anything revolutionary. it's interesting that it's happened again.

* The Sens' Heated Rivalry jerseys sold out in about an hour. The sales benefit Ottawa Pride Hockey.

Importantly, this is the logo for the Ottawa Pride Jerseys:

Perfection.

* I haven't watched the whole thing, this goes on the pile with some other interviews to watch when I have time, but Linus Ullmark has addressed the batshit rumors about his brief leave of absence in this interview. I've only seen a clip, but he talks about why so many players seen closed off in interviews, don't talk about their lives, and seem to not have personalities. There has been a lot of talk about how it's a real thing in hockey culture that players are closed off, never give real answers and seem to be robots all running on the same software.

That this is a real thing/problem is hockey has been something hockey fans have been trying to explain to parts of HR fandom. There is a certain Kraken who still gets dunked on by Canadian sports media for a single comment taken out of context back in 2014, he later wound up being trained by Sid himself in No-Speak, the art of saying literally nothing ever in front of media.

Anyway, I am still new to hockey but it must be frustrating to see a lot of new people come in with very strong assumptions about what is and isn't accurate in the GCU books. Hockey isn't a monolith, there are exceptions. Joey, for example, is very open about parts of his life and does chat with fans. But also, hockey players being media trained into being politeness bots who say nothing is also a big part of the scene.

ribirdnerd posting in

birdfeeding

A bit of snow and cold over the long weekend kept the birds busy. We ended up with just 4.5 inches even though it snowed on and off all day and night Sunday plus into early Monday morning.

Blue Jays, Tufted Titmouse, Morning Doves, Cardinal, House Sparrows, Woodpeckers and Carolina Wren were all around. One night I saw 2 Deer walking down the street, the next night 3 Coyotes

The snow stuck to the tree branches making a great winter scene. This is a view of the small trail right near my house.

beatrice_otter

so why. why why why. Do I so often come across fic where the author clearly a) doesn't have any idea how far apart two places are, or how to get from one to the other, and b) never thought to check google maps?

Just read a fic where one character is thinking that "it's only an 8-hour plane ride!"

and. I have driven basically between those two places.

It's a 6-hour drive unless traffic is really bad. if you hit the most congested bits exactly at rush hour, it might take you 8 hours. to drive.

Flying? Well, if you were starting at a small regional airport and needed to make a connection, it might take you four hours.

I actually mind this shit more than the big stuff. The big stuff is hard to research. Google Maps is really really quick and easy.

goddess47 posting in

sweetandshort

Title: An Unexpected Discovery
Author:

goddess47
Character(s): John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: PG
Length: 442 words
Warnings: none

Notes:

For

mcsheplets prompt #138 - missing

For

sweetandshort January 2026 prompt - queen

Summary:

"Grab your shit and go!" John ordered in a hiss.

An Unexpected Discovery on AO3

bloodygranuaile

After several months of threatening people with a bad time, I finally talked my book club into reading Vincent Bevins’ The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped our World. I read this book with another book club about two years ago and it is one of those books that permanently rewired my brain. Ever since I finished it then, I’ve wanted to reread it, if only because some of the sequences of events discussed are complicated and I need to make sure I know these things. It seems like important stuff to be able to speak knowledgeably about at the drop of a hat–not even for picking fights with people you disagree with, which I don’t spend a lot of time doing, but to be able to talk to reasonably well-meaning people about how everything is so much worse than they realize.

These days, people are certainly beginning to realize that a lot of things are bad, but what’s often missing among the various well-intentioned liberal platitudes of this “not being who we are” is that much of the current fuckitude going on at home is part of something annoying lefties like me call the “imperial boomerang,” where we do fucked-up shit in other countries and then we bring it home. We have not yet, so far, brought home Operation Annihilation, the Indonesian military coup that postured as having stopped a different Indonesian military coup and which deliberately murdered a million Indonesians in the course of six months, and chucked another million into concentration camps. But if you’ve spent any time at all listening to the rhetoric of our fascist far right lately, you know at least some of them want to.

Anyway, I’m not sure I have much to say this read-through that I didn’t have to say in my review the first time around, but I’m excited to once again be upset about this book in good company. Everyone should read this book but I do not recommend reading it alone! Have people to process it with!

the_shoshanna

I'm in Massachusetts visiting friends and family, and the US border guard was even brusquer and more unfriendly than the one the last time I crossed the border. They used to be reliably genial-while-professional, and now they're barking grumpy questions at me -- and I'm a white English-speaking US citizen with a NEXUS card (pre-screened, "trusted traveler"). A Canadian friend who drove across the border last year said that guards were going down the line of cars waiting to approach the booth and pulling people out to interrogate them on the side of the road, and who'd a thunk it, everyone they pulled out was brown. (When I crossed yesterday, I was the only car in sight, which I'd love to think was because Canadian travel to the US is way down, but probably had more to do with the extremely bad weather forecast that day. I managed to get south of the storm band before it hit, though.)

My obsession with Heated Rivalry continues, though I'm trying hard not to be That Fan at people. I have successfully recommended it to two board members at my church 😈 A friend I'll spend a week with this summer wants to watch it with me then, so I have that to look forward to, and there's a chance I'll get to watch it with other friends this weekend, if they're interested. Meanwhile I'm reading a lot of fic, but also freely DNFing anything that isn't working for me, whether for characterization or bad grammar or spelling it "Rosanov."

["Why, oh why, do people keep incorrectly capitalizing dialog-tag fragments like this?" She wailed. -- I mean, I know why they do it: because autocorrect sees the punctuation ending the quotation and thinks the dialog tag is a new sentence, and the writer is foolishly trusting autocorrect over the evidence of every published text they've ever read. But it drives me nuts; my sense of the flow and pacing of a sentence is very much guided by its punctuation, and this is like hitting a pothole every time.]

Geoff and I have started the new season of The Pitt, and certainly I'm liking it so far! It's interesting how much less chaotic the ER seems than it was in the first couple episodes of the first season. I'm very curious about all the characters they've introduced (and about where Mateo, the World's Hottest Nurse™️, is), and I love seeing Whitaker now a fully qualified MD with his own little ducklings following him around. (Is he still living with Santos?) I don't see an overarching plot yet ~~other than "just how suicidal is Dr. Robby?"~~ but/and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's going.

loganberrybunny

Public

History will really not be kind to the people who could have stopped this, some of them years ago, people who were not True Believers but who refused to act when they could.

Cowards.

Current Mood: discontent

rekishi

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chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/01/20/transoceanic/

ysabetwordsmith

Cow are the latest animals observed using tools, reopening the debate about animal intelligence

Researchers report the first documented case of tool use in cattle, based on a Swiss Brown cow named Veronika who doesn’t just grab an object and rub it against herself.

She chooses the “right” part of a tool for the job, changes her technique depending on where she’s scratching, and repeats those choices in a way that looks consistent and intentional.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith posting in

birdfeeding

Today is sunny and cold.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen at least one starling.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

We brought in more firewood to stack beside the stove.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Current Mood: busy

oursin

At which I was able to make a couple of minor contributions.

Reason why serving soldiers a very small statistical minority in divorce statistics pre-1914 (post then increased massively....): there were huge restrictions on how many could marry 'on the strength' so there were fairly few actually married in the first place. Mi knowinz on this partly from Victorian fiction (I think it features in one of Charlotte Yonge's) but mostly from Being A Historian who had to do with the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Also able to make some comments apropos of preserving archives of relevant organisations and the problems of digital records.

A lot of oh dear less change than one would like to imagine took place over time in matters of divorce, family disruption, domestic abuse, gendered assumptions, etc etc: but also, a sense that, in fact Back in The Past when women may not have had much agency, they were nevertheless using what they could get, e.g. separation law, protection orders, and various legal intricacies.

Also wondered how far they were able to manipulate (or the law was actually based on) certain patriarchal assumptions, which is what I found when reviewing book by one of the major contributors - i.e. that deserting husbands were falling down on doing patriarchy like they should, bad boy, no more right of coverture if your wife goes through a fairly cheap and simple legal procedure, post-1857.

Also there was a lot of archive love going on!

soemand

I've been profiling my home and work environments for ambient noise to better understand my listening experience. At home, it's a serene 25 dBA, while my workplace averages a much more active 50 dBA.

To maintain focus, I use headphones that provide 40 dB of isolation, and I typically listen to music at levels between 70-75 dB. Because most commercial music is mastered with a dynamic range of around 60 dB, the audio easily swamps any stray external sounds that might try to sneak through. All told, this setup creates a total sonic bubble—don't hear the background at all, regardless of what's happening around me.

Current Music: Wild World, Cat Stevens

ysabetwordsmith

Here's an interesting observation:

Hey ding-dongs, let’s have a chit-chat about Ablaut reduplication.

If you have three words, the order usually goes 'I-A-O.'
-tic-tac-toe

If there are only two words, ‘I’ is the first and the second is either ‘A’ or ‘O.’
-click-clack
-King-Kong

I can think of a few exceptions, like "bone-dry," and more rhymes like "helter-skelter." Some like "merry-go-round" seem to follow a similar high to low pattern.

Current Mood: busy

rionaleonhart

After seeing Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on stage, I bought the official script; I thought it would be a nice way to remind myself of my evening at the theatre. And it is! But it's also interesting to see how many things had been changed or added by the time I saw it in performance.

Flicking through, here are some of the more interesting differences I've noticed between the script version and the actual performance I saw on the fourteenth of January!

( Some differences between the script and the actual staged version of Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. )

Finally, a delightful little exchange from the script that I don't remember being in the show itself:

Sandra: Listen, we all know the Cornley Gazette's official policy has been not to review our shows since our immersive production of Dracula.
Robert: The small print on the ticket clearly said I would enter his house and bite him.

schneefink

I think this is the last year I do

fandomtrees because like last time I didn't make as many gifts as I wanted and feel bad...

But I did write a post-canon Silksong drabble I'm quite proud of:
Silk Snare for

knave_of_swords
post-canon Lace(&Hornet) drabble
Summary: Much Silk was needed to see her sustained.
Notes: One of my favorite fannish drabbles I've written, I think it works very well.

I got pretty icons under my tree: some Hornet icons by

gimmighoulcoins and some Grian icons by

sarajayechan :D Lovely.

And I also got two other Silksong gifts recently:
Sunlight Dyed by

CrushingOnGogh
stained glass art
Summary: Hornet from Silksong, depicted in stained glass
So pretty! The lights and the colors and the shapes!

reprieve by

strifetxt
1k, Hornet & Shakra gen
Summary: Hornet, a conversation, and a musing.
Aaah the Hornet feelings <3

jazzy_dave

Bill Bryson "A Walk in the Woods" (Black Swan)

A Walk in the Woods opens with the author and his family moved back to the US, settling in New Hampshire. The author, never having attempted true, rugged hiking, becomes enamored with the idea of taking on the Appalachian Trail. This famous trail begins at Springer Mountain, Georgia and extends an astonishingly 2,000 (arguably more) miles to end in Maine at Mount Katahdin. Bryson’s journey actually begins when he finds himself and his credit card gearing up for the endeavour while also trying to lure friends from far and wide to join him on the excursion.

Katz, a former friend from childhood days in Iowa, answers the call for companionship. The reader is shocked when he appears out of shape and overweight with a dubious past – one cannot help but marvel (and giggle) at the contrast between the two men as they struggle with themselves, each other, and the famous hiking trail. Along the way, the reader meets other characters who become memorable despite their short stays; such as Chicken John the habitually lost hiker and Mary Ellen with the musical eustachian tubes. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

Bryson has an uncanny knack for mixing humour with sobering facts. A Walk in the Woods finds the author blatantly honest about his own foibles, and those of others while attempting to hike the legendary Appalachian Trail. All the while he continues his commentary on deforestation, the US Parks & Wildlife service, and human ineptness in general. At 397 pages the book is more than a weekend read and may require some patience when reading through the author’s many elaborations on the danger we, as clumsy humans, pose to nature. Though the work was published in 2006 it is more relevant than ever both in consideration of climate change, as well as man’s desire to conquer even a small span of wilderness.

kitarella_imagines

Challenge #10: Big Mood (Board)

CHOOSE SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND CREATE A MINI MOOD COLLECTION OF THREE (or more) ITEMS THAT EVOKE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT. You don’t have to limit yourself to visual media, or collect the items into a special format like a square (though you can if you’d like).

I had no clue what to do for this challenge but innitmarvellous told me about Colour Picking Palettes. So here is my GOAT Marc Marquez and his brother Alex, and their palettes! It is a mood board about their colours. Marc tends to be red, Alex tends to be blue. Also, Marc really does look like an elf these days, his ears and nose are getting pointed.😅

Here is an additional colour scheme for Alex, so he's not overshadowed by Marc:

Current Mood: artistic

jazzy_dave

Rita Indiana "Made in Saturn" (And Other Stories)

We meet Argenis in the Havana airport--his father has sent him from the DR to detox. That doesn't go as planned, but we learn a lot about Argenis. When he makes it back to his aunt in the DR, we learn as he does.

Argenis struggles with his family history--and that is what this book is about. He is the younger and un-favored son of a former revolutionary. His parents were revolutionaries in the 60s. His father then flipped and took a position in Balaguer's government, and is now fairly high up. Argenis has little to no respect for his father, or his older brother who was a show-off as a child and is now a businessman who uses their father's connections. Argenis, meanwhile, is an artist and has attended art school. He started with cocaine before becoming hooked on heroin. Does he want to stop? It's unclear, but he DOES want to be able to function, to do his art, to not constantly be on the hunt for his next high.

As he manages to stay off the heroin, he learns more about what his parents, their friends, and his aunt went through--and about his grandmother's life as a maid--he gains some perspective. He has only ever wanted to do art. Not to perform recitations on his father's command as his brother did. Nor to use his father's connections to succeed in business--as his brother does. Yet he also finds it very sad how his grandmother--who now owns her former employers' house--still wears her maid's uniform and sleeps in her maid's room. Though she only serves herself. It seems he is ready to grow up and find a happy medium, if he can stay away from heroin.

maju

Violet has had a resurgence of interest in knitting and it seems she practiced enough in my absence to now have a good grasp of the mechanics of the knit stitch. She has had to start a new project, because the one she started some time ago accidentally went through the wash and ended up extremely felted. It was a rather fuzzy yarn and hard to knit with, so I was happy to start her off with some smoother yarn that she had chosen for herself at Michael's (I think) and hadn't used yet. So far the little practice piece she is working on has no holes and no extra stitches and is looking good.

There has been a lot of activity in the basement over the last few days. My son in law decided to move his piano away from the part of the basement where I sleep, but his chosen spot (and really the only other place in the house as it's currently set up where there is room for a piano) was just a tiny bit too narrow for the piano. He worked out that if he took the quarter round molding off the parts of the wall on each side of the space the piano would just fit, so he did that this morning but then discovered that the one convenient power point is behind a large shoe rack that's right beside the piano, and there isn't enough clearance to insert a power cable (making the power point very not-convenient). There are at least three double power points in the part of the basement where I sleep, but only the one at the other end where the piano now is, because it's set up as a storage area. There is, however, a power point halfway along the hallway between the two areas, so I'm thinking my son in law will have to run a long extension cord from there to the piano.

While he was thinking about the piano placement, he and my daughter also decided that maybe they could reposition the corner couch that's near my bed, and put it over where the piano used to be. Unfortunately they didn't ask my opinion first (I was upstairs doing something else while this was going on) and when I saw the new layout I didn't really like it, so they ended up moving the couch back.

mallorys_camera

We are in the midst of a severe solar storm, the magnitude of which has not been seen since 2003. The Aurora Borealis is supposed to be visible to the naked eye at my latitude, but I had to use the night settings on my iPhone camera to snap this:

And the Arctic blast is back. It is cold out. Very, very, very cold. Not supposed to rise above 18° F for the next three days.

###

As above, so below.

Trump is literally sundowning—a thing that happens to many people with dementia. They may seem coherent during the day, but at night, they lose it entirely, hence Trump's late-night social media posting mania: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace!

The historical comparison is no longer strictly to Nazis anymore—though ICE is the Gestapo.

No, the historical comparison is more to Caligula.

Assuming human history continues past 10 years—to my mind, not a safe assumption at all—historians are going to be asking the same question over & over again, WHY didn't they DO something? He was so obviously insane.

Honestly, I do not know.

This is very, very difficult to live through.

Because, I mean, what do we do?

Ignore it? Keep living our lives as though it isn't happening?

There's a core of physical dread inside of me; I walk around, trying to ignore it, trying to maintain, but that's increasingly hard to do.

###

I have a bunch of errands to do today, plus the gym—bad weather has kept me away from the gym since Thursday last—but I have very little interest in doing them, very little interest in doing anything. Even parking myself in front of a screen & watching mindless television would not distract me from the mind monkey sitting on the Bodhi Tree's branch & chittering.

But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, so I guess I'll force myself to do those errands. As the I Ching reminds us: Perseverance furthers.

daisyface posting in

fandomcalendar

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Current Mood: excited

paperghost posting in

journalsandplanners

ysabetwordsmith suggested I share this short list of resources for printing stickers and other relevant accessories.

This is old news, but Stickermule has shown their asses again by giving away free pro-ICE merchandise, so people have been scrambling for other suppliers for custom stickers. I'm thinking about ordering stickers of my art by Harmonycon. I can't keep up with a million tweets and my Bluesky feed is already scrambled, so here's what I've found:

https://www.standoutstickers.com/
https://stickerguy.com/
https://thestickybrand.com/en-ca (limited time deals page is worth looking at)
https://thestickerlad.com/home (website looks like a WIP but furry-owned. Prices are ok)
https://stickerninja.com/ (this looks like Stickermule's biggest rival)
https://unionmadestickers.com/en-ca (you can probably use them for non-union stuff lol)
https://stickerblitz.com/ (another rival with good prices)
Vograce orders from China but I've had a good experience ordering sample packs and one-off keychains from them. YMMV. It's better for physical goods. Not sure of any alternatives that let you do one-off orders.

ETA 1/17: Found some more options.
https://wiki.scumsuck.com/resources:stickers (guide on how to print your stickers at home. Lists options for scanners and paper to buy, etc.)
https://zapcreatives.com/en-us (UK based)

ETA 1/24:
https://bearandbeagle.store/ (furry-owned, worth noting because you can input a "due date" for an upcoming convention)
https://www.copybaracreations.com/contact (also furry-owned and convention-oriented, currently no TOS / quote guide but you can contact for one)
https://stickerjerk.com/
https://stickerapp.com/
https://www.stickerbunnies.com/ (I've read good experiences on Bsky, but you have to email to start instead of using an on-site form)

shipperslist

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dine posting in

gamechangerhr

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girlmeetstrouble

Chapter 14: ( Read more... )

Comment: The line ‘all women love semi-rape’ left me speechless. Also, again Bond hasn't bothered to check the status of the bodies in the car ... which he admits was an error, but such a rookie one for somebody as experienced as he is!

Chapter 15: ( Read more... )

Comment: Mostly under a cut, other than the observation that Bond is pretty open with being a 'secret' agent - not very secret at all! ( Read more... )

And that's the end of this one! What's next?

Current Location: office
Current Music: None

jesuswasbatman

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jesuswasbatman

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rolanni

Monday, condensed

The Long Back Yard

1 Monday morning. Snowing lightly. And the sound of chainsaws from next door.

I expect it will be my turn when and if the guys get here with the equipment since they have to take down two big pines for me.

In the meantime, since I don't have any work to do today, I'm sitting in the comfy chair in the window in my office with the happy light on, dictating this note to the world.

How's everybody doing today?

2 My mission today, aside from staying away from chainsaws and falling logs, is to change out the cat fountains, and catch up with friends at Front and Main this afternoon.

I will also, today, or tomorrow, be posting Explanatory Notes to the Read-Along thread on Splinter Universe, explaining why I fell off the wagon, and offering some insights to the rest of Agent of Change and Conflict of Honors.

I am now reading Carpe Diem, aka Val Con and Miri go to Madison, Maine, which I'll note that they arrived there before we did. We finished Carpe and mailed it to our editor before we made our own migration to Maine, where we fetched up in Skowhegan, which is right handy to Madison. The first time we drove through Madison's shopping district, I said to Steve, "This looks really familiar." And he laughed at me, the rat. Which is when the penny dropped, and I said, "It's real?"

3 Well. That's a different look. I purely hate taking down trees, and, yes, I know that these were in fact very sick trees, and a danger to the house in the next high wind, and that the top of one had already (previous to our tenancy) snapped off in a windstorm, but -- still.

Trees.

4 So, that was a nice visit before the group splits for winter vacations. Front and Main has an amazing lobby. There was a woman at one of the tables all set up with her papers and her laptop, and honestly I think she's on to something. The tomato-veggie-lentil soup was very good, and so was the company.

Went to the grocery after, but forgot to go to the hardware store. Ah, well. I'll be out again tomorrow.

I believe I will putter for the rest of the day. Maybe make a frittata and see how that goes. I should freeze the second pork chop so I have something to draw on; I let the freezer get a little low. I made a fresh batch of hummus a couple days ago, so that's not quite gone. Maybe some time this week I can bake bread. Oh! And I can finally finish my second glass piece.

So this is what people who don't write books do. Wow.

Still snowing, just enough to be pretty.

While the tree guys were doing their thing, Firefly and Tali went back to Steve's office, but Rook vanished, so he missed the play-by-play. When I came home, he had a lot to say about how the trees are gone, Mom, while he was sitting on my lap, banging his head on my chin. I think we've managed to agree that it was probably for the best, since he's had a wee dram of dry food and wandered off to the bedroom window.

And so, the midday report.
* * * * *
The Long Back Yard:

#
Tuesday. Sunny and cold. Trash and recycling are at the curb. The space where the trees used to be is noticeable, but not raw, thanks to the snow.

Breakfast was leftover soup. Lunch with either be leftover frittata or leftover pork and sauerkraut. Prolly pork; frittata will go better in the evening, after needlework.

I have errands this morning, because! not only did I forget I needed to go to the hardware store yesterday, and even though I was there, I forgot to pick up my meds, so back to the grocery for me.

I woke up at 5, and said to Tali, who happened to be sleeping next to me at that time, "I don't have to get up now." She knocked her head into my chin -- I'm not sure if she picked that piece of communication up from Rook or he from her -- and started to purr. And I went back to sleep.

I thought I was going to update the Read-Along blog last night, but I wasn't able to get into Splinter Universe. That's been fixed, so I can get with that today. Instead of updating, last night I carried on with Carpe Diem, where I've just now gotten to the point where Val Con is introducing his kin's theme songs to Miri.

And that's what I've got this morning.

What's everybody doing today?