highlyeccentric

My partner Doug tipped me to "Hordes of the Khan" by Scott R. Brooks, a Johnny Quest fancomic.

Check out the "Quest for Knowledge" page. That is very typical of comics in Terramagne, which often throw in some fun facts about the setting, history, flora and fauna, etc. even if the story is wholly fictional.

Current Mood: busy

soc_puppet posting in

queerly_beloved

How is it only the third Thursday of the year? It feels like it should be the twelfth Thursday at the very least!

Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!

kareina

Oops, I was so sleepy last night that I went to bed at 20:00, and I forgot to plug in my phone, so I woke to a very low battery, which will complicate my morning phone call.

Luckily, it turned out that today is the day he has am appointment at the local health center to look at the foot that has been hurting, so I was able to let it charge while I packed To get ready to head to the bus, so it was over 60% before I had to go.

I had a good day at work, but Keldor had grumpy day. He thought he had booked an appointment with a doctor, and had written down in the online form the three things he wanted to accomplish: a blood test to screen for prostate cancer, checking the foot that has been hurting, and look at the ugly growth on his skin. It turns out that what he got was an appointment with the same physical therapist he saw last time about the foot, and they had no new ideas, and suggested he try calling to see if he can get an appointment with a doctor instead. He called, left the voice mail, and an hour or so later got a call back. The part that makes him grumpy is that apparently he can’t actually request the prostate cancer test himself—if he has symptoms he can make an appointment with a doctor, and if they agree that the symptoms are concerning, then they do the test. Given that we lost a friend to prostate cancer which wasn’t caught early enough, we don’t much like this protocol, and think it should be a routine test, the same way mammograms and pap smears are. Why wait for symptoms? by then it could be too late.

After work I spent the evening, and way too late into the night dealing with Shire financial paperwork. I had to learn how to do “bokslut” (the closing of the books at the end of the year, which turns out to be a very easy task in GnuCash), and while I was at it, I cleaned up the accounts by deleting accounts that had never been used, and moving those which haven’t been used in a log time to a folder called not used anymore, and updated my readme file explaining what the various accounts are accordingly (this eliminated the last of the “no idea what this is” comments in the readme file)

Then I prepared all of the reports needed for the shire Annual Meeting on Sunday, and sent them to our “revisor” (person who checks to see if I did everything correctly, in this case, the last Exchequer) and to the Seneschal. now it is closing in on 03:00, and I really should do some more yoga and head to bed.

kareina

En kul historia från min morgon…

Jag sitter på bussen, ta ut min banan och vitaminer, åta dem, och sträcka armen över ryggstödet för att kasta bananskalen i papperskorgen som är monterade vid sidan av trappan. Men papperskorgen lutade liten åt sidan, och trycket från bananskalens slaget efter den hastiga nedstigningen gjorde att papperskorgen lutade ännu mera, och sin innehåll (bananskalen) ramlade ur, och fortsatte vidare mot golvet.

Då såg jag framför mig att nästa personen som skulle stiga på bussen skulle möta sitt slut genom att halka på ett bananskal. Därför ställde jag datorn och grejer åt sidan och tog mig upp från sätet och ner trappen, var jag fick veta att det är en jättebra design, eftersom banan hade ramlade precis i papperskorgen som stå under och lite till sidan av den jag siktade på.

Men nu sitter”min” papperskorgen ordentligt i sitt hållare, och lutar inte alls, så den nästa som har skrap att kasta inte behöver ha så mycket tur som jag hade!

Vilken snälla dåtid-jag jag har!

Min dåtid jag lämnade mig snacks på kontoret! jag har en burk pumpafrön med skäl (det har vi varit slut på hemma i flera veckor), och en burk hemgjord kex, och en glasburk smör som har suttit i mitt kyl kista under skrivbordet och smaker fortfarande bra, så sedan jag kom i till kontoret har jag ätit lite pumpafrön och kex med smör. Jag hoppas att ni också få något lite som detta som fick din dag att vara lite bättre!

energi tog slut ganska tidigt

Jag hade energi under hela jobbdagen, och jobbade utan problem tills bussen var nästan framme i Lövånger. Då packade upp mina grejer och tog sparken hemma och sätta mig på soffan tills Keldor ringde. Under tiden han körde hem hunn jag äntligen tomma kisten av käader vi tog till eventet, men då var dagens energi slut, och jag var i säng redan kl 20,00 och sov direkt.

kareina

Today was a work from home day, as I had that doctor’s appointment that I should have gone to last week, but lost track of the days of the week, and saw the calendar reminder 20 minutes after I should have been there.

So I did the meeting to discuss the funding application for the workshop we want to run in October over zoom, and got good input, and should be able to get the application done on time.

Then the doc appointment, they said that the weird hard lump on back of my arm that I can’t quite see doesn’t look concerning

Then a long lunch break, followed by work, including a meeting with a colleague in the states to discuss ways to liik at database structure. These meetings may result in a paper. With luck it might even get my colleague’s thesis kickstarted back into progress again.

This evening was the Nordmark members meeting over zoom, and after our zoom training session.

Then I stayed up too late, and ought to go to sleep, as tomorrow I have to go into the office for the first time in weeks.

kareina

I expected to sleep in after yesterday’s road trip, but woke at 05:34, so I got up, fed the cats, did a 15 min pilates, took my morning vitamin, and decided that I was awake enough to work for a while, so I put in 4 hours, then took an hour nap, enjoyed lunch and a game of Qwirkle with Keldor, and then resumed work while he made a new knife handle.

After work I made salad, a pear crumble (which I will eat tomorrow as it was too late to be interested in eating by the time it was done), and did some sewing. Now I have done my yoga and ought to get some sleep.

kareina

Left site ~ 09:40
Malby 10:24
Gävle 12:50
Tönnebro 13:40
Timmerå 16:00
Örnsköldsvik 17:53
home 21:26
mostly unpacked, 22:19

saw one moose, which was more animals than we saw on the way south

kareina

breakfast
market
meetings & lunch
more market
court fealty by language
serve feast
music
partial cleaning of hall
pack
yoga just after midnight & sleep

maevedarcy

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princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: indescribable

kareina

We had planned to leave at 05:00, and Keldor figured that he would need only his normal 15 minutes to go from the alarm rings to out the door. So I set the dawn light to 05:40, and hoped I would wake early enough for a quick pilates, so my hips wouldn’t hurt later.

This worked well enough that I managed a four minute session before his alarm. However, even though we had packed everything last night, it was still 05:18 before we had the last things in place, cats fed, etc and we actually started driving.

Luckily, that meant that Angelika was also ready, and we had picked her up and started driving south at 05:25

We dropped off Angelika with Maria and Matts in Umeå, and continued south 07:05

Quick stop at Örnsköldsvik for a toilet at 08:30.

Timmerå 10:37, picked up Charlotte.

Tönnebro 13:06

One more stop at a random gas station , somewhere.

On site 16:59.

Check in for those of us in crash space was delayed due to last minute change in plans. The site owners decided that we were too many to sleep dormitory style in one house due to there not being tjat many toilets, so there were some emergency reshuffleing, which resulted in we four from Reengarda who were in crash space being assigned to the boat house, which is a long way away from the other houses.

So we drove out there, unloaded everything we needed to have there and settled in (this house has a refrigerator, so I emptied the ice chest into it, and put the ice in the freezer). Then we got dressed, gathered the things we’d need on site, and drove back over to the main castle area, then walked down to the house where dinner was served so the others could eat.

Then we moved over to the main hall and hung out chatting with people, and sewing,till time for court, which I enjoyed. Lots of good awards for well deserving people, the incoming Kings looked magnificent in their matching garb.

After court four musicians started playing violin, so I hung out sewing, dancing, and chatting till qiute late, then I walked back to the boathouse with Keldor’s sister and we did yoga today before heading to bed at about 02:30. An hour and a half later, I got up, went downstairs to the loo, and found poor Keldor who had been awake for 23 hours, trying to deal with the drain on the bathroom floor. He had started to shower, but as soon as the water went down the drain the toilet backed up and spit icky water all over the floor.

So I sent the event stewards an email letting them know, and went straight back to sleep

kareina

While we often leave for roadtrips to southern Sweden already on Thursday evening, this time Keldor decided that we would leave super early Friday instead. Given that there is some serious snowstorm and winds happening today, especially in the Sundsvall area, where they had thunder and lightning with the snow, but most of the extreme weather warnings are for Thursday and not Friday, this is likely a good thing.

So today started with my getting the last of the cutting for the Keldor copper trim tunic done so it is ready to sew this weekend. Then packing and organising, with breaks for food, and chores like washing the cat’s water fountain.

Now it is later than I should still be up, given that we want to pick up Angelika at 05:00.

kareina

I had planned to get up early and start laundry. I managed half of these, but the first load didn’t get in the machine till almost 09:09. I also planned to do my morning workout while it ran, but the time needed to run that load vanished to writing 2026-01-06 book review, The King’s Dragon and scrolling a bit.

Keldor went in to town to use the workshop at work to finish projects for friends we will see this weekend, and I got the last of the small final pieces for the Silk bliaut short tunic cut out. I think I can easily finish the sewing during the drive to 12th Night on Friday.

I was busy enough that I didn’t get to my workout at all till time for the evening zoom workout with friends.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: cheerful

kareina

In between errands and computer stuff I finished reading The King’s Dragon by Kate Elliott. I started it at least a week ago (when I did my first log entry for tracking reading, but was already 200 pages in, so I strongly suspect I just failed to mske a note of it). I remember that I bought the book much longer ago than that, but after downloading the app complained that I needed to activate some sort of Adobe security thing, which I had previously activated for another book, and it just didn’t work, so I gave up and forgot about it for weeks, till I bought another book for school that had a similar issue, and when i solved it, by getting yet another book app, the new book app worked for this one too.

However, the delay between purchasing and access means that I have long since whose recommendation got me to buy it, and what they said that got me past my inherent reluctance to buy stuff. Whatever it was, it didn’t warn me about how very, very unpleasant huge parts of the story are, with abusive people being abusive. I almost didn’t finish due to that aspect early on, but decided to persevere, as somewhere, somewhen, someone whose opinion I respect had said something good about the book.

I am still not sure what that praise might have been. Our viewpoint characters experience many very unpleasant things, and at no time did I wish I could live in this world, which is full of religious fanatics, sexism, class opression, and callousness. Yah, sure, the sexism is packaged a little different than is the world we live in, as power and inheritance is more through the female line, but it is still very unpleasant.

Like many classic fantasy books, this one focuses on young people who are raised to believe they are unimportant and outside the established power structure, and by the end of this book at least one is revealed to be very much part of it after all, and the other has been set up to soon be significant in kingdom scale politics.

I have always been an addicted re-reader, loving to go back to books now that I know the overall framework of the story to pick up the details and connections I missed on the first pass, and to learn who everyone is. Especially for a book like this one, where the viewpoint characters don’t cross paths till late in the book, so there are double the number of people to try to kerp track of. However, I don’t know if I am willing to go back and read through those abusive bits again. Once feels like too many, and one can’t un-read to get the bad taste out of the brain.

If you can ignore that aspect and enjoy major political upheaval, battles and betrayal, this might be a book for you.

kareina

I woke up this morning to a notification that I clicked on. I don’t remember what that one was, but as soon as FB presented whatever it was, I saw a post by Anne Marie Decker of https://nalbound.com/, saying she will be attending the Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC/TRAC 2026) in Denmark. so, of course, I sent a note wondering if she’d also want to come to Umeå University and present at our department seminar. She said that it sounds interesting, so after my morning workout I sent an introduction email to Ivanka, our seminar coordinator this term. I hope it works out, it would be lovely to see her. Even better if we can find museums in the north with nålbindning fragments we could go look at when she is here. Since I was sitting at the computer anyway, I got ChatGPT’s help to add properties to the GitHub version of my blog , since I had them in Obsidian. In the process I tried linking to my notes (adding properties), which file is not in the content part of this blog, and that caused an error message for the missing file such that the blog wouldn’t post at all. So I tried making that an external link to the obsidian URL, and now the link works fine, for me, and if I click on it, from within the blog it will open obsidian and display that page. However, I assume that anyone reading my blog will get an error message, unless they happen to have an obsidian vault with the exact same name and file path.

By the time I got the blog working Keldor was up and had eaten breakfast, so I grabbed a quick lunch, packed food for later, and we went into town, where we bought some things for the car and I picked up some fresh vegetables for a salad. Then we went to his job workshop and I borrowed the kitchen to make the salad while he changed burned out bulbs and checked fluid levels of everything that needed checking. Then he washed the outside of the van while I vacuumed the inside, whiped down surfaces, and sorted out stuff that shouldn’t be there.

Then we waxed the car and made certain it was dry before heading back into the -15⁰ C weather. Now the car is ready for the drive to Drachenwald 12th Night Coronation on Friday.

After we got home and put everything away I spent some time figuring out how to create some of the year-end financial reports for the shire. I will need to get help from Þórólfr for the others, when he is over his cold.

alchemicink

(Giggling quietly because "trust the process" to me is a reference to the Philadelphia 76ers 🤭 this has nothing to do with the actual post. It was just amusing joke to myself. IYKYK)

Anyway...

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

Challenge #8

Talk about your creative process.

Oh this is gonna be a rambly answer... 😅

( Read more... )

mecurtin posting in

fandom_checkin

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Thursday, January 15, to midnight on Friday, January 16 (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #34086 Daily check-in poll

This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 26

How are you doing?

I am OK
16 (64.0%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now
9 (36.0%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
12 (46.2%)

One other person
11 (42.3%)

More than one other person
3 (11.5%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

kaffy_r

Per the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Maria Corina Machado says she offered her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump.

She did not answer reporters' questions as to whether he accepted it.

We are indeed in not only the darkest timeline, but the most fucking surreal timeline.

*wanders off to find alcohol and a wall she can bang her head against*

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Mingi, "ROAR"

shadaras

Sometimes adulthood is going "oh wow for once I don't have anything I need to do once I get off work" and promptly going and doing an errand and then washing dishes and doing laundry once getting home.

Assorted brief notes:

1.
My dojo is doing kyu testing this coming Saturday, which will be delightful. The two people testing are more than ready for these tests. (There's another person who we've been trying to get to test for years and it's just a matter of "please come consistently for a few months and take this test already!" at this point.)

2.
Wednesday evening classes are just. Draining. I do not like needing to be at school from 5pm-8pm. I didn't even when I was in college! Now it's just like "I wake up at 4:30am because of work, why must I suffer like this."

Also next week is going to be very boring because this week was a "oh shit the guest instructor suddenly can't make it" week and so they sort of half-assed an unprepared version of what they were gonna do next week. So. You know. I understood what they were teaching from the half-assed version, the teachers know that, but since most of the cohort was like ???, next week will be them going step-by-step through it with more prep. Which will be useful, and is good pedagogy, but is also going to Bore Me.

3.
h/t to

trobadora for talking about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which mostly got me going back to Star Trek: Discovery, since Academy is set after Disco.

which means I am currently re-watching the first episode of s3, because I watched the first two episodes when they first aired and then fell off because... idk, it was Oct/Nov 2020 and I was running headfirst into QZGS and infinite flow cnovels...? But hey, Disco is a fun show, I'm so fond of Michael Burnham, and s3 is in some ways a soft reboot due to being right after the timeskip, so! Looking forward to actually getting to know the future timeline.

I do think that a huge amount of why I fell off is just... 2020 being 2020. Because I don't think I had nearly as much fun with this the first time I watched it, and now I'm just like "wow this is such good tropey fun, s3e1 is using so much good trope stuff to set up Michael/Book".

4.
god I feel like I had some other things. hm.

A podcast reminded me that Escaflowne exists, and that it's an anime that I probably would have been obsessed with as a teenager if I'd seen it then. Mecha and guys with wings. Normal things. xD I feel like it should be on crunchyroll but it's not? Alas. Probably for the best if I'm going to actually watch Star Trek right now, but I do want to at some point experience this show.

5.
Work is very nonsense.

...I think I was going to give examples, but, idk. just. nah. it's! a lot! and mostly not outright bad, just tiring, and takes too much time, as work does.

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highlyeccentric

November 2025

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Page generated Jan. 20th, 2026 06:06 pm

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Read "Hordes of the Khan"

Thursday Recs

rapport accomplished

vilken bra design

inspiring work meeting

first work day after the holidays

roadtrip home

12th Night Saturday bullet points

Community Thursday

OMG

Drachenwald Coronation roadtrip

packing for tomorrow

sewing progress

2 Heated Rivalry recs

book review, The King's Dragon

adding properties to the blog

Snowflake Challenge 2026 #8: trust the process

Daily Check-In

Dept. of JFC

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November 2025

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