Daily Happiness
Jan. 19th, 2026 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torachan1. Pretty chill day at work today. I got stuff done. The office situation is a bit annoying now because as of last Thursday we have a handful of new people moved in, but there weren't enough empty desks so they brought desks from their previous office and crammed them in where we had previously had a meeting table and it feels very crowded now. I'm sure I'll get used to it, though.
2. I love the dramatic lighting on Gemma. It suits her dramatic personality lol.
2. I love the dramatic lighting on Gemma. It suits her dramatic personality lol.
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snowflake_challenge 2026: Day 10
Jan. 19th, 2026 07:27 pmlightbird
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'm not exactly a visual person, so the mood board is kind of out, lol. I went with music instead.
Anyone who has ever watched Hey Arnold! knows that when it comes to music for it, it's all about the jazz. So here are some tunes!
(1) Jordu by Irving "Duke" Jordan
Here is the version by Clifford Brown and Max Roach. This upbeat song, or at least parts of it, could definitely have been background music for an episode.
(2) On Green Dolphin Street
This beautiful, bittersweet song, written by Bronisław Kaper, was actually the soundtrack of the 1947 historical drama/disaster film Green Dolphin Street (there's a ton of drama in this, but it actually has a happyish ending), and although the movie soundtrack is performed in a more straightforward orchestral classical style the song became a jazz standard. There are many great versions of the song, but I like this one a lot. Though there is lots of truly laugh-out-loud humor in Hey Arnold!, there are also many poignant and some truly heart-breaking moments in the show, too. I think this melody captures that mix very well.
(3) L'il' Darlin' by Neal Hefti
A definite choice for adult Helga and Arnold.
The Count Basie Orchestra recorded and performed this song as an instrumental, which you can listen to here. It's a gorgeous tune and arrangement. And so sexy for our favorite OTP.
John Hendrix later wrote lyrics to the song, and his jazz vocalese trio Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross recorded and performed the sung version with Count Basie. You can listen to their version here. The lyrics are as perfect as the tune (of course Arnold is the kind of man who likes to stay home in the evening, if he's with Helga), and Annie Ross's solo in the middle is *chef's kiss*.
And while that trio was terrific, I also want to link this performance of the song by the Seattle Academy Onions, a terrific high school jazz choir. This performance is from over a decade ago, but it's a fantastic arrangement of the song and really worth listening to, especially if you like jazz choirs and vocal ensemble music generally.
Previous Days
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
The Daily Spell (2025)
Jan. 19th, 2026 07:42 pmpauraque
In this daily puzzle game, the goal is to spell out the words in a newspaper headline by choosing letters to drop down from the columns above. The headline starts blank, so you have to figure it out based on possible English words, syntax, and context. (E.g. If there's a one-letter word and the possible letters you can drop are A, G, and X, well...) When you've filled in the headline you get to read a short news article from the cozy fantasy realm of Yliad, where arcane scribes study at rival magic schools. Each week's puzzles form a story arc, and the arcs gradually piece together the worldbuilding.
I saw this game linked in the Clues By Sam newsletter, and I've added it to my morning round of daily puzzles. I find it pretty easy, but word puzzles are definitely more in my wheelhouse than logic puzzles, and there's nothing wrong with a quick warm-up before your brain is fully in gear. The little stories are on the cutesy side, so, you know, don't expect epic tales of blood and sacrifice or anything. The narrative just adds some interest and flavor to your standard drop-quote puzzle. And it's queer-inclusive so that's a plus!
The Daily Spell is free to play in your browser. ✨
(no subject)
Jan. 19th, 2026 08:00 pmaurumcalendulaAny recs for live action media with both a mystery/thriller plot and a significant f/f romance (with a happy ending)?
( some stuff I've seen )
( some stuff I've seen )
Lake Lewisia #1358
Jan. 19th, 2026 04:28 pmscrubjayspeaksIn partnership with the Society for Retired Knights and Swordspeople, the community center will resume its training sessions in nonviolent resistance for those involved in protest and community organization. Even if all you feel is a nameless, restless urge to do something to fix what is broken, these sessions are an excellent opportunity to connect with the people already doing that work. That work may go on forever, but for now, consider starting with an afternoon at the community center.
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LL#1358
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LL#1358
3SF 26 #3
Jan. 20th, 2026 12:16 amraisedbymoogles...it's just kinda been a bad day for writing -_-
Original - everyday magic
Transformers G1, Galvatron/Cyclonus/Scourge/Rodimus - intense cuddles
Beast Wars, Rattrap - unlucky four
Original - everyday magic
Transformers G1, Galvatron/Cyclonus/Scourge/Rodimus - intense cuddles
Beast Wars, Rattrap - unlucky four
Questions never to put on a trauma-aware intake form
Jan. 19th, 2026 03:50 pmsoniaRun your massage therapy practice so that people aren't relieved (as well as pissed) when you stand them up.
( Nope nope nope )
When we were first discussing schedules, she offered to refer me out, which I did appreciate, except one of her referrals was someone I've already seen who wasn't a great fit for me, and the other is someone I traded with over 20 years ago who's connected with my very estranged ex. Fortunately she's way up in the hills, so I could use that as an excuse for saying she's not a good fit.
( Nope nope nope )
When we were first discussing schedules, she offered to refer me out, which I did appreciate, except one of her referrals was someone I've already seen who wasn't a great fit for me, and the other is someone I traded with over 20 years ago who's connected with my very estranged ex. Fortunately she's way up in the hills, so I could use that as an excuse for saying she's not a good fit.
(no subject)
Jan. 19th, 2026 10:40 pmbeccaelizabethToday I learned:
There is a unit of weight, grains, that goes into troy and imperial weights as a nice neat whole number
so you don't have to fiddle around with grams with approximations after a decimal
to try and
honestly
figure out what one Pathfinder gold piece is worth in today's gold market
(it is A Lot)(probably passed £1000)(that is so much more than it was five ten twenty years ago)
there will of course be a lot of fiddly decimals in the middle of your calculation
but
whole numbers of grains.
I feel like I learned a Key for old units
because my mum said there was a nice whole numbers one
we just didn't use it any more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_(unit)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems#Weight_and_mass
There is a unit of weight, grains, that goes into troy and imperial weights as a nice neat whole number
so you don't have to fiddle around with grams with approximations after a decimal
to try and
honestly
figure out what one Pathfinder gold piece is worth in today's gold market
(it is A Lot)(probably passed £1000)(that is so much more than it was five ten twenty years ago)
there will of course be a lot of fiddly decimals in the middle of your calculation
but
whole numbers of grains.
I feel like I learned a Key for old units
because my mum said there was a nice whole numbers one
we just didn't use it any more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_(unit)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems#Weight_and_mass
Forty years burnin down the road
Jan. 19th, 2026 09:55 pmcosmolinguistAt various points today while I was slaving away over a hot laptop, I heard various Bruce Springsteen songs floating down from upstairs.
He said on fedi: "I have often noted similarities between the musicians, but I desperately want to hear New Model Army covering Bruce Springsteen's 'Further On (Up the Road)'."
(It was when he first said that he wants them to cover "Badlands," and Springsteen to cover their song "Vagabonds," that I figured I'd probably made a proper fan of him, if he could see the overlap between Bruce and a band he likes as much as he does New Model Army.)
He also sent me a link to what Springsteen said after Renee Good was murdered and then a YouTube playlist centered around Springsteen being in the Kennedy Center Honors of 2009. Which I think must be where I heard those songs from.
My newest library book, has been acquired after I heard the author, Steven Hyden, speak briefly on a short podcast series about Springsteen that D found and recommended to me (and actually listened to, which is amazing because he normally can't/doesn't want to listen to podcasts!). I found his book, called There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The U.S.A” and the End of the Heartland, and honestly I can hardly imagine anything more Me.
Snowflake Challenge: day 9
Jan. 19th, 2026 07:34 pmshewhostaples
Talk about your favourite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)
Where to start? Let's start with swashbuckling. That's a nice easy one. Really, I think my fannish id was formed by The Prisoner of Zenda at an early age (I am still very fond of The Prisoner of Zenda).
See also: Ruritania. I love a good fictional society, and the deeper we go into the government departments and the transport infrastructure, the happier I am.
And love and duty. I don't necessarily mind which triumphs, so long as both are taken seriously. I also love it when one of the arts - or sports, or whatever - is the third party in a relationship, particularly when the partners are both very enthusiastic about that. Not to mention the creator. (This was why I enjoyed Yuri!!! on Ice so much: it was very much about the skating.)
I like relationships between women, romantic or otherwise. And friendships between men and women where it's never going to become romantic.
And then I always enjoy a good description:
Food. Chalet School breakfasts. The Marseille chapter in Madam Will You Talk.
Clothes. Annoyingly, I can't think of a good example at this moment. Probably Eva Ibbotson.
Landscape. A John Buchan evening. Can't beat an apple-green twilight.
Finally, something that I write more often than I read is the situation where you will never be able either to clean up Dodge or to get out of Dodge, you have to live in Dodge, but nevertheless you can find a way to carve out a happy and/or meaningful life there. And maybe you find you've made it slightly less grubby.
(no subject)
Jan. 19th, 2026 05:03 pmkitewithfishI am post- Arisia 2026* and I have come out of it with book recs and it was fascinating and I’m so so interested in sharing them with you and I’m tiiiired.
Some books and things that were mentioned in the panels I went to!
Moonwise Greer Gilman (out of print, may be on the internet archive) but part of a series that the author hopes to continue (I sense publisher problems)
Gillian Daniels is getting a book out! Jenny Will Eat You Now
Noble Train of Artillery
Carol Berg The Spirit Lens
Kingdoms of the Elfin by Sylvia Townsend
Out of the Dark David Weber
The Glass Pearls Emeric Pressburger – the panel that recommended this was interesting, as one of them mentioned that this book is full of the author’s memoirs of his youth in Hungary before he fled the Nazis and lost his family, disguised in the story as memories stolen from a Jewish victim of a Nazi war criminal. Pressburg was also a writer for film and some of them seem engaging.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (movie)
There is no Antimemetics Division qntm
BLIT (short story) by David Langford in Different Kinds of Darkness
Dark is better Gemma Files
The Moment of Change Rose Lemberg (one story in particular but I didn’t actually log it with the title of the book)
Andrea Hairston – The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays (This sounded very funny)
Jane Yolen Wizard Hall
Elisha Barber by E C Ambrose (also publishes as E Chris Ambrose)
Virconium M John Harrison
M.R James – various ghost stories
Rosemary Kirstein – Steerswoman
The Stones are Hatching Geraldine ……
Cemetery of Forgotten Books - Wikipedia
Library of the Unwritten Aj Hackworth
The Book of Joan Lidia Yukanovitch
Wearing the Lion – john Wiswell (however, did not enjoy Someone You Can Build a Nest in, but it showed promising elements)
Nothing in the Basement – Romie Stott
Press Enter John Varley
Tony Tulathimutte – Rejection
Brent Weeks The Way of Shadows
Christopher Moore A Dirty Job
St Joan of the Stockyards – Bertolt Brecht
*Arisia is ongoing, but I am not.
Write Every day 2026: January, Day 19
Jan. 19th, 2026 11:01 pmtrobadoraIn the first draft poll, 30% of respondents usually produce a first draft that's very close to the final draft, and no one usually produces first drafts that barely bear resemblance to the final draft. And most respondents (57%) at least sometimes produce a first draft very close to the final draft. *g*
For the "usual" question, slightly more people have too-wordse first drafts (25%, compared to 20% for too sparse), whereas in the "sometimes" question, too sparse is more common (38%) than too words (23%).
(70% of respondents believe that tickyboxes know no such thing as overkill, btw!)
As for me, it differs wildly - I used to produce very clean first drafts that didn't get changed much during editing/betaing, but for the last several years now it's been much more inconsistent. The more I struggle with either writing or finding time/energy to write, the worse my first drafts get - because sometimes I just have to get something, anything, down first, or I won't get anywhere at all. But it's pretty frustrating, so I want to get back to how I used to write, and I need to figure out how to do that with less time and energy than I used to have ...
One thing's remained the same, though: my first drafts are generally too sparse, which is why they always grow - sometimes considerably - during editing as I flesh them out and add in all the things that I had in my head but didn't put in the actual text. *g*
Today's writing
Again not as much as I'd like. I need to actually sit down and finish something, but it's hard to find the energy.
WED Question of the Day
Today I don't have a poll, but instead a request for advice: when you're low on energy, do you have any strategies that make it easier to write? Or to get started writing, at least? Because I often find myself just staring blankly at a page for way too long until I somehow get going, and I'd really rather not. *g* When I have more energy, I can usually get there much more easily, which is really unfair. :p
(I want to be writing! I feel better once I actually get started writing! But getting there is such a pain on some days. *grumbles*)
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, chanter1944, cornerofmadness, luzula, goddess47, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadora
Day 19:china_shop, trobadora
Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)
For the "usual" question, slightly more people have too-wordse first drafts (25%, compared to 20% for too sparse), whereas in the "sometimes" question, too sparse is more common (38%) than too words (23%).
(70% of respondents believe that tickyboxes know no such thing as overkill, btw!)
As for me, it differs wildly - I used to produce very clean first drafts that didn't get changed much during editing/betaing, but for the last several years now it's been much more inconsistent. The more I struggle with either writing or finding time/energy to write, the worse my first drafts get - because sometimes I just have to get something, anything, down first, or I won't get anywhere at all. But it's pretty frustrating, so I want to get back to how I used to write, and I need to figure out how to do that with less time and energy than I used to have ...
One thing's remained the same, though: my first drafts are generally too sparse, which is why they always grow - sometimes considerably - during editing as I flesh them out and add in all the things that I had in my head but didn't put in the actual text. *g*
Today's writing
Again not as much as I'd like. I need to actually sit down and finish something, but it's hard to find the energy.
WED Question of the Day
Today I don't have a poll, but instead a request for advice: when you're low on energy, do you have any strategies that make it easier to write? Or to get started writing, at least? Because I often find myself just staring blankly at a page for way too long until I somehow get going, and I'd really rather not. *g* When I have more energy, I can usually get there much more easily, which is really unfair. :p
(I want to be writing! I feel better once I actually get started writing! But getting there is such a pain on some days. *grumbles*)
Tally
( Days 1-15 )
Day 16:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilmeDay 17:
alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilmeDay 18:
badly_knitted, chanter1944, cornerofmadness, luzula, goddess47, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadoraDay 19:
china_shop, trobadoraLet me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)
Monday Media Musings: 01/19/26
Jan. 19th, 2026 01:54 pmowlmooseThe Scavenger Door by Suzanne Palmer : The third book in The Finder Chronicles; as much fun as its predecessors, and the end had me immediately turning around to start book four. ( Spoilery thoughts. )
Non-spoilery thought: Suzanne Palmer sure knows what it's like to live with a cat.Um Actually live show: I don't subscribe to Dropout, so I'm sadly unfamiliar with most of their shows, but during high pandemic, they dropped a bunch of Um Actually episodes on YouTube, and T and I spent a lot of time watching them. So when we learned that there would a live show at this year's SF Sketchfest, we immediately decided to get tickets. The panel, which was not announced in advance, was Janet Varney, Marc Evan Jackson, and Tawny Newsome; they were an awesome group who played well off the hosts and each other, and we had a great time.
He can have that one
Jan. 19th, 2026 08:07 pmdavidgillonMy sister and I were telling my mother (who is in hospital again) that we had been meeting with her doctor, but he had to dash off because he's adopting and had a meeting with the social worker.
My mother instantly looked across at me and said "He can have that one".
Lord Peter Wimsey: My True Love Has My Heart by Nineveh_UK
Jan. 19th, 2026 07:40 pmshewhostaples posting in fancakeFandom: Lord Peter Wimsey
Pairings/Characters: Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane (not requited - yet)
Rating: G
Length: 12,200
Creator Links:nineveh_uk
Theme: crack treated seriously
Summary: Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey have triumphantly solved the Wilvercombe murder, and only want to return to London. But first they must solve a new mystery: why they have woken up in one another's bodies, and what on earth are they going to do about it?
Reccer's notes Bodyswap is a pretty cracky trope, but herenineveh_uk uses it very effectively to explore the nuances of the complicated and touchy relationship between Peter and Harriet. As the summary suggests, it's set straight after Have His Carcase, where in canon they seem somehow simultaneously closer to and further away from resolving their relationship than ever. The bodyswap twist doesn't make things any less confusing. The voice is pitch perfect: if Dorothy L. Sayers had thought to write this premise, this is exactly what it would have sounded like.
Fanwork Links: My True Love Has My Heart
Pairings/Characters: Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane (not requited - yet)
Rating: G
Length: 12,200
Creator Links:
nineveh_ukTheme: crack treated seriously
Summary: Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey have triumphantly solved the Wilvercombe murder, and only want to return to London. But first they must solve a new mystery: why they have woken up in one another's bodies, and what on earth are they going to do about it?
Reccer's notes Bodyswap is a pretty cracky trope, but here
nineveh_uk uses it very effectively to explore the nuances of the complicated and touchy relationship between Peter and Harriet. As the summary suggests, it's set straight after Have His Carcase, where in canon they seem somehow simultaneously closer to and further away from resolving their relationship than ever. The bodyswap twist doesn't make things any less confusing. The voice is pitch perfect: if Dorothy L. Sayers had thought to write this premise, this is exactly what it would have sounded like.Fanwork Links: My True Love Has My Heart