IDK if I shared this before, but here it is again.

Sperm from cancer-risk donor used to conceive at least 67 children across Europe

Case of man carrying rare genetic variant fuels calls for limit on number of children that can be fathered by one donor.


It is not ethical to control other people's reproductive choices by force, which is what that proposal amounts to. There are better ways.

( Read more... )

CANON: Severance
CHARACTERS: Mark S / Mark Scout (Adam Scott).
ADDITIONAL INFO: 150 Icons, Season 2.
CREDIT TO: inkonic


HERE @ inkonic

I found this article about making a Mosquito Bucket of Doom. 

1) Fill a bucket with water and put it outside.

2) Add a handful of grass to make carbon dioxide which will attract more mosquitoes.

3) There are two options to kill the resulting larvae.

-- Dump the bucket weekly and refresh the trap with new water and grass.

-- Add a mosquito dunk, which lasts about a month.  Replace whenever it sinks or dissolves.


Also, make sure there are no other pockets of still water to attract mosquitoes elsewhere in your yard.  Every bit that you can find and remove is one less mosquito nest.

I cancelled the Shingles vaccine for Friday - because I was sleep deprived, and my blood sugar was up. Neither a good combination for a vaccine. I'd only gotten one hour of sleep Thursday night.

Wales: What happened?
ME: I don't know...digestive issues, restless leg syndrome, anxiety...(I certainly lay awake most of Thursday night trying to figure it out. That and how to get comfortable and stop hurting.)

Me: So I cancelled my shingles vaccine. Apparently the potential side effects (which are frankly worse and longer lasting than shingles), are more likely to happen if I'm sleep deprived.
Wales: Good idea. That's the last thing you need right now.

I'm better today. I got 8 hours and 48 minutes of sleep.

I've had shingles. It was a very mild case. I still have the scars, but they aren't noticeable, and not an issue. I'm more afraid of the vaccine at the moment than getting shingle again - shingles are actually treatable if you figure it out in time, and having had them? That's not going to be an issue. Reddit had a thread about side-effects to the Shringrix Vaccine that gave me pause.

Note? I am not advising folks to not get the vaccine. We are not a one size fits all species. Everyone's body is different. Some folks don't get any side effects, outside of maybe a sore arm, others get ill, some have long term side effects. It varies. Also not everyone gets shingles or chickenpox in the same way? I had a relatively mild case, my brother had a severe one. And two co-workers had horribly severe cases of shingles, while mine was relatively mild. That's the problem with our health industry, they want to treat everyone the same - but alas, we are not the same. I most likely wouldn't have any - I haven't had any side effects to either the COVID or Flu vaccines. But I was sleep deprived, and I don't know how this vaccine will affect me.

I've decided to be lazy this weekend. Maybe paint. Maybe read. Maybe write.

***

It's quiet in my apartment today. I've managed to find quiet in a bustling city - both at home and at work. Which may explain why I love New York City and many do not? Because I find the quiet, and it's a peaceful, safe, and comforting sort of quiet, not the lonely kind.

Wish World: quite the most unpleasant world yet. The scariest thing Doctor Who has shown us, ( Read more... ) That was not a subtle story but it landed some hits.
I think I'll withhold judgement until next week though. How the whole thing works depends on what he does with the ending. Nicely done so far but who knows.

I will say though it is the most RTD thing to make *that* earlier episode turn out to be important. So I rewatched ( Read more... )


Also listened to this week

Susan's War 3, Grandfather Time: more Time War stories, this time with the guy who doesn't want to be called The Doctor but thankfully for the writers will still answer to Grandfather.
I liked these two. Sending Susan on diplomatic rescue missions suits her. And this one of her grandfather has an extra edge to his actions, which compare contrasts interestingly to his earlier self who was still refusing the war after Susan had signed up.
( Read more... )

These Susan's War stories give her plenty to do and I like that.


After the Daleks, a Doctor Who Early Adventure, picks up Susan's adventures when she was still trying to get into the TARDIS that last time, then keeps going until she actually chooses for herself from a number of available options. It does a lot of good stuff with the setting, not just the immediate leftovers of the Dalek invasion but politics and bad guys stoking hate of aliens just to win an election. It would be really nice if that story was never timely.

Susan and Jack have a lot in common, and it would be interesting for them to have a conversation about it. Also, Jack would get to the relevant era on the slow path, which is actually pretty worrying when you think they'd still have to wait for the Doctor to fix things. Except Jack is from after the Time War and we're only sure Susan was there Before. What that whole era looks like After the Time War is still a question.

But Jack got left behind and according to Big Finish ended up in the historical record in such a way you have to wonder if a conscientious time traveller had to leave him there. And Susan does something here that would put her on the record right away. So, interesting.



I continue to like Doctor Who, so that's nice.

fuzzyred is hosting a pool for the half-price sale in Polychrome Heroics.  The pool will close Saturday evening, so if you want to join that, now's the time.

The sale itself will close Sunday evening, if you're shopping on your own, so you've got an extra day on that.

++ Yellowjackets has been renewed for a fourth season. \O/

++ Craig Mazin confirms that The Last Of Us will be a four-season plan. I remember him bringing this up some months ago, but it's good to get further confirmation especially since the show was renewed for season three already. And it makes sense, because the second game is quite long with so much happening that it would be impossible to wrap everything up in just a short amount of time.

With that being said, it makes me wish even more for 22-episode seasons again. When you look at the way these streaming platforms have shortened the number of episodes per season for shows, it's honestly not enough. You can literally combine at least two or three of those seasons would actually be considered one full-length season of what shows used to be, and that's kinda sad. While not every show needs 22+ episodes a season, a lot of them could really benefit from it, and I cannot help but wonder how the above shows would be like if they had gotten the full-length season treatment that I believe they should've gotten.

⌈ Secret Post #6714 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 44 secrets from Secret Submission Post #960..
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

I’ve been taking part in auctionsasthreatened, and it’s been a blast! …And terrible for my sleep schedule, since the six hour window where the start/end times of auctions take place in overlap almost perfectly with when I should be sleeping on work nights, but idc, worth it <3

But that’s not actually the main point of this post! During the auction for my own sign-up, a few people expressed interest in my Cinderella Phenomenon request—and specifically, in wanting to hear a pitch for the game. Words cannot express how delighted I was by the opportunity, so I did that—and ended up having an incredibly fun conversation with someone else who was also familiar with the game <3

Anyways—long story short, I decided I wanted to preserve said pitch on my dreamwidth as well. This is exactly what I posted to discord (outside of updating the markdown to html so that it would display properly & inserting the single [non-custom] emoji I used), meaning this was originally posted in a series of messages rather than being meant to be read as a blog-style post, though I think it still flows clearly enough.

( beneath the cut )

Today is partly cloudy and pleasantly cool. :D

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

I set out the flats of pots and watered them. It's down to 2 partial flats now.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I finished pulling the tall grass out of the septic garden. I cut down the tree seedlings.

I've seen a catbird and a fox squirrel.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- We walked the prairie garden to point out where to remow paths. My partner Doug is out mowing that and the ritual meadow.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I weeded the first section of netting in the prairie garden down to the ground, so that one is ready to roll up and add fresh dirt.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I weeded the wedge between sections of netting in the prairie garden down to the ground

EDIT 5/24/25 -- We walked around to look at the mowed areas.

I have a bee tree again! :D 3q3q3q!!! I am so excited. While walking through the savanna, I heard the lawnmower sound, so I checked the most recent bee tree and the girls were back to-ing and fro-ing overhead. *GLEE*

I trimmed around a hydrangea at the east edge of the house yard, in case more mowing becomes feasible.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I weeded the second section of netting in the prairie garden down to the ground. So the interior weeding is done. \o/

EDIT 5/24/25 -- We hauled the big bag of bedding soil to the septic garden.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I cut open the bag and spread fresh soil over the first section, then put the net back down there.

I've seen a male cardinal.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I sowed sunflower 'Hopi Landrace', Pinetree Sunflower Mix, Persian Carpet Zinnia Mixture, zinnia 'Big Flower Mix', four o'clock 'Marbles Mix', celosia 'Wooster Cockscomb', balsam, and ageratum 'Red Bouquet' in the first section of the septic garden.  Hopi Landrace, Big Flower Mix, Marbles Mix, and Wooster Cockscomb packets are all empty now.

EDIT 5/24/25 -- I sowed centaurea 'Tall Mix', evening scented stock, and nasturtium 'Alaska Mix' in the first section of the septic garden.  That's the end of the Alaska Mix.

I peeled off the net, spread fresh soil, and tacked down the net in the second section of the septic garden.

My partner Doug is currently outside mowing the house yard.




.

This post talks about measuring the mass of neutrinos.

Read Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, a 2011 YA novel I'd originally read in high school but that I a. had completely forgotten about and b. don't?? think?? I'd ever realized was by the Daniel Handler, better known for his writing as Lemony Snicket, until recently stumbling across a copy in a used bookstore. (I was not re-read-curious enough to buy the second-hand copy, but I found it on Libby.) The tl;dr plot is that a teenage girl unravels the threads of a short-lived relationship through the objects she'd collected during it: bottle caps, ticket stubs, etc. (Illustrated, which is a fun touch.) I can see what appealed to teenage!me - not a big reader of YA even when I was the target audience - about this book, which is that it's sort of endearingly pretentious: main character Minerva "Min" Green is obsessed with old and/or foreign films, and her narration is full of references to (fictional) movies and actors; the novel opens at her best friend's "bitter sixteen" party; the narrative voice has a very circa-2010s Tumblr Poetry vibe, addressed to "you", i.e., the boy Min is breaking up with. On the other hand, it is a teenage romance novel from 2011, which reminded me why I was, and am, not particularly into romance novels and also that 2011 was actually quite a while ago. (It also occurred to me, this time, that this can't possibly be set in 2011: there is exactly one reference to Min having a cell phone, but no one texts, she and her boyfriend have late-night calls over their landline home phones, and the internet does not appear to exist.)

On reflection, I wonder whether this was an intentional exercise in writing from the point of view of a character who would be the manic pixie dream girl love interest in a different story? Her love interest is a fondly baffled jock who says things like "I don't know any girls like you" and doesn't really get why it's important to her that the old woman they see at the cinema is maybe, possibly the actress in the film they just saw but goes along with the idea of throwing her (the actress) an eighty-ninth birthday party. ( Spoilers? ) There's a whole bit at the end about how she's not actually arty or interesting, she's just herself, a flawed and normal person; honestly, I'm not sure if that weighs for or against this theory.

The Last of Us: I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch this ep yet. If you’ve seen it, please tell me how gutted I am going to be by it.


Leverage: Redemption: Good ep! ( spoilers )



Murderbot: Good ep! ( spoilers )

For those who have go-to versions of common things like, say, meatloaf or brownies or curried chickpeas, how many recipes do you try before settling on one? Is there a point when you say "THIS. THIS is my [x]", or do you sometimes try new versions even when you have one you love? (Possibly this is a "once you've actually cooked a lot, you can look at a recipe and have a fairly good idea of what the different seasonings might add up to"?)

(I didn't help enough with any of the meals under the cuts to tag this post with YKYC, alas.)

---

( meatloaf! (well, meatloaves) )

---

( belated notes on a batch of black beans a month ago )

Title. A stray sheet of paper from two years ago/last year with dreams written on it.

There was one I posted here that went like this:

A film of [Conrad Veidt] was discovered. Joy! It wasn't Der Januskopf, or Satanas, but a secret third thing — (a made-up film). Imagine, if you will, Baroudi from Bella Donna, but only looks-wise. Personality-wise, Connie's unnamed character was a hero, trying to save his lover from the villain, who wanted to kill her. It was set in India.

Yeah, dreamt this one on the day I finished The Indian Tomb (haven't even watched Bella Donna yet; been too sick to do anything that requires more than 5% brainpower).

Run-of-the-mill stuff. Watching movies that don't exist is a common theme in my dreamland.

Well, besides the fact I have been subjected to Bella Donna since then, the sheet of paper contains more details. Connie's character was British. The film was like The Wizard of Oz: the film is in black and white until we reach India, then it's tinted. This bit is very important and I wonder why I didn't write it in the OG post. There may have been swordfights, but no Basil Rathbone (sad).

Taking the Yet Another Indian Film aside, there was one with Torsten, another with Oberaertz and yet another one with Erik at the beach. I will not get into details about them.

More dreams (straight from the original scribbles):

A new film is discovered, yet another in which Connie plays a good twin and a bad twin. Good twin is the clean-shaven one, the bad twin the the bearded one, interesting. Bad twin was a murderer, I think. It was a muddy mess of a film, all I remember was the final confrontation between the two brothers. After waking up, all I could think was Christopher Lee's "I know it might not be a good movie, but he will be."

What The Thief of Bagdad really needed was a series of direct-to-DVD sequels (ala Aladdin and other Disney flicks), all starring Jaffar. They were so low-budget. So bad. Kept watching them through my fingers. Poor Connie had the worst fake moustache and was stuck in the desert?? But somehow is plan was coming together??

It's Kurt and Paul's wedding. Yeah, the sad gay violinists. Honestly, it was very sweet. The venue had some nice wooden furniture, bright yellow wallpaper, flowers everywhere. They were so happy. So happy. But, because even this dream had to turn bizarro, when I played the guitar, it turned to clay in my hands.

CANON: Star Treks (AOS) - Stark Trek (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Beyond
CHARACTERS: Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (Simon Pegg).
ADDITIONAL INFO: 125 Icons.
CREDIT TO: inkonic


HERE @ inkonic

Matthias is in Berlin, for reasons that will resonate if you’re a fan of specific sports teams (a character trait that passed me by), but is also just something straight out of an underdog Hollywood sports movie. He’s been a fan of his local football (soccer) team for his whole life — unless you know Germany and German football well you won’t have heard of the city or the team — which is generally pretty thankless. Comparably, they’re not a very good team, and yo-yo back and forth between the first, second and third divisions.

This year they are in the third division which is like only a few steps above being amateurs. But the third division also competes with the higher division teams for the cup (although normally in practice the lower division teams get knocked out early on by better teams), and this year, for some bizarre reason, his team beat the then-highest first division team in the cup quarter final. (To translate this to your own context, think of any competitive thing you can think of, and imagine a semi amateur person/team beating the best professional person/team in that event, that’s how unlikely this was.)

Everyone thought it was just a fluke, but then they won their semi final as well, so now they’re competing in the cup final in Berlin today. If they win this they get to compete at European level next year against all the more famous European teams you might have heard of, while still only being in the second division (since they were promoted due to also doing well within their third division competition, but you can’t be promoted from third to first division). It’s very unlikely they win today, but if they do, Matthias always said he would go to their first ever European game, no matter where it was (so, have fun going to Baku, I guess).

He's currently hanging out in Berlin with his sister and nephew, and waiting to meet up with their other friends, having travelled — since it was bizarrely cheaper and more convenient — via Poznan in Poland (where he stayed with another of our friends overnight) and an early train from Poznan to Berlin this morning.

Another nice thing that's happening alongside all this is that the local MP from their home region — knowing that lots of families would be in Berlin for the game — arranged to give a free tour of the German parliamentary building for a bunch of children who were there for the game, including our nephew.

The whole thing is quite surreal.

 

Justice for Jeong Yiwon doesn't always mean following the rules. Working as a civil rights attorney in corruption-laden Russia, he needs to be bold enough to fight against a system where rich businessmen and mob-backed politicians have carte blanche to do whatever they want.

Ceaser Aleksandrovich Sergeyev is sophisticated, refined, angelic in his beauty—and one of the most feared men in Russia. Known as the Czar and heir to the Sergeyev Crime Syndicate, no one gets close to him, and human life is nothing more than a means to an end.

After a chance encounter with Yiwon, Ceaser is intrigued, and when the two cross paths once again, Ceaser resolves to have more. Unlucky for him, Yiwon hates the mafia, and Ceaser's obsession is nothing more than a nuisance.

That is until Ceaser offers Yiwon a way to take down one of the city's most crooked officials in a seemingly unwinnable case. Now Yiwon has to decide how much he'll indulge Ceaser and his little games to win his trial.

But what happens when Ceaser's obsession evolves beyond mere lust? And how can Yiwon reconcile with the inexplicable draw he feels to a man so evil?

My Rate: 8 (amzn.to/4jlNRkC)

Like many manhwa, Roses and Champagne is exagerated, not only in the body shape but also in the story. Nevertheless, it's also very funny, more a comedy than dark, despite dealing with Russia mafia. I was smiling more time with this one than if I was reading a comedy piece. I like how Caesar was tunneling all his effort on making Yiwon fall for him hard and fast, and that he didn't stop in front of anything to reach his goal. Not really liked the fact their first sex encounter was non-con (or at least not at first), and that Caesar jumped to his own conclusion making Yiwon the bad man there. That is probably something that can turn off people reading this one, but trust me, it's just a glitch in a otherwise funny piece.

I had a funny memory today. When I was a child and teenager in the 1970s and 80s, a number of people told me there were two actors called Lewis Collins. One who played Gavin in The Cuckoo Waltz and one who played Bodie in The Professionals. They were not the same person, they just happened to have the same name.

So I wonder if a lot of people thought this in the 70s and 80s? And that was why they only saw Lewis as Bodie and didn't realize his broad range as an actor? I am talking about people who were casual viewers of the shows and not dedicated fans, who of course realised there was only one Lewis. If people were only vaguely interested in The Cuckoo Waltz and The Professionals, they would just accept that there were two actors with the same name.

And of course the shows had totally different audiences! Cuckoo was a light hearted comedy, Professionals was a fast moving crime drama- why would viewers make the connection between these 'two different actors'?

Especially as back then, we weren't drowning in information as we are in the 21st Century. Information was hard to find in the 1970s and 80s, it was only in the daily newspaper, magazines etc. People couldn't just 'Google an actor' like we can now days.

Lewis certainly looked and acted totally differently as Gavin to how he did as Bodie, so the confusion is understandable. They didn't look like they were the same person!

(This is a test of the Emergency Alert System daily posting.)

I hit Walmart and Price Chopper while I was downtown yesterday. (The Walmart stop was to get a different wrist brace to try as the one I purchased previously I think would work better while I’m actually using my laptop rather than sleeping.) I hit Stewart’s (for gas and milk) and the library (to return a book) on the way home.

I did two loads of laundry, a load in the dishwasher, and paid a bill online. I baked chicken for the dogs' meals and made corned beef for supper. (It was awful. The corn beef tasted odd – enough that Pip was okay with me tossing the leftovers because he didn’t want to eat any more of it – and even the boiled potatoes went funky. The potato came off the skin and turned to mush, basically. I have no idea what happened.

Fun stuff! I watched the current ep of Leverage: Redemption and some recorded HGTV programs, took a nap (I’m blaming the weather for how many naps I’ve had to take lately), and read some fanfic. I also talked to my mom on the phone before my shower. (We generally talk every night, just telling each other about our days, no matter how little we did or how boring they were. *g*)

Temps started out at 42.3(F) and reached 53.8. It rained all day, though it was mostly drizzles and sprinkles. Still enough to make it impossible to do anything. Plus the overcast sky is soooo depressing.

Will today be better? As the Magic-8 Ball says, Don't count on it.

ETA: It was my niece L's birthday! She turned 35.