Daily Happiness

Sep. 29th, 2025 07:32 pm
torachan: my glitch character (glitch)
[personal profile] torachan
1. We had homemade nachos for dinner last night and they were so good.

2. I tried to go to the post office this morning, but even though it was a few minutes past when they were supposed to open, the doors were still locked and there were about ten other people outside so I just skipped it and figured I'd try again on the way home from work (this location is just down the street from work, so it's very convenient). Thankfully the second time was the charm, and there was only one person there before me.

3. I seem to have caught Carla's cold after all, but it seems much lighter than what she had. I'm just a little sniffly and stuffed up but don't otherwise feel sick, so I did go in to work today but just stayed masked the whole time I was out so as to not get anyone else sick.

4. Molly has discovered a new way to maximize fur distribution on the towels.

rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
In case I haven't worn you all out nattering about Earthsea yet, here's some more. On Friday when I finished the Cycle I went online, as one does, and discovered that last year there was published a graphic novel edition of A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book in the series. So naturally this weekend I had to run out and buy it and read it all at once. The art was done by Fred Fordham and the project was overseen by Le Guin's son, Theo (she having passed away in 2018). 

Theo, like Le Guin herself, was trepidatious about any visual representation of Earthsea, after decades of white character designs; white, middle-aged actors; and general tom-fuckery when it comes to representing Le Guin's work. It wasn't until Theo saw Fordham's work in To Kill a Mockingbird that he first considered it might be worthwhile to consider a graphic novel adaptation of his mother's work, and so here we are.

Fordham appears to have been the right man for the job--this graphic novel edition of A Wizard of Earthsea captures the characters as Le Guin may have envisioned them when she wrote. Theo in his forward acknowledges that one of the beautiful things about how the characters are described in Le Guin's work--enough to give an idea of their appearance, but also vague enough that readers can all use their own imaginations to some degree--becomes limited when creating an "official" visual representation of those characters. So he considers Fordham's designs just one of many possible looks for these characters, but one that cleaves to his mother's original descriptions. 

His expressions neatly capture the shift in Ged's attitude over his schooling at Roke, from the proud, angry boy who first arrives to the sobered, haunted young man who departs.

Nearly all of the wording in the book is lifted directly from the original novel, which means Le Guin's original hard-hitting dialogue and beautiful descriptions of Earthsea survive to accompany Fordham's gorgeous scenic illustrations. He really captures the moody atmosphere of some of the book's darker moments, while also creating some truly stunning vistas of the ocean, which of course is a considerable part of the world for the characters of Earthsea (who live in an archipelago). I particularly enjoyed some of the rainy scenes--felt just like home here in the PNW!

He also does a great job making Ged and the Lookfar feel small on some of Ged's journeys. Looking at it some of these full-page spreads, you really feel that Ged is just one young wizard on his own in a vast and unknowable world. 

If I had any issues, it's only that some of the palettes run quite dark, so that a few panels can be almost impossible to distinguish unless you're looking at the book directly under a light source, and that there is some occasional visual awkwardness (not sure how to describe this--maybe Fordham used a 3D rendering tool and it shows?)

Overall, I was delighted with this, and I really hope Fordham and Theo press on to do Tombs of Atuan as well--I would love to see Tenar and Atuan rendered as well!

The Iron Marshal

Sep. 29th, 2025 03:33 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
The Iron Marshal by Louis L'Amour

An Irish boy grows up in New York -- and has just landed in Kansas.

Read more... )
ladythmpr: (Default)
[personal profile] ladythmpr posting in [community profile] crafty
Hi all!

October will be here in 2 DAYS! Since 2008, October for me has been National Craft Making Month, or NaCraMaMo for short. NaCraMaMo started as a community on LJ, and I started a new [community profile] nacramamo community on DreamWidth when I moved here in 2017.

In short, during National Craft Making Month in October, you work on a craft every day for a month and post pictures of your work daily in [community profile] nacramamo. [community profile] nacramamo is very free-form; you can work on the same project every day or work on different projects every day. Crafting is also very loosely defined; it's basically anything that you do with your hands that results in a tangible object. For example, I count baking as crafting, but I don't count making dinner as crafting (but you might!)

A lot of people use [community profile] nacramamo as a jumpstart for Halloween projects and Winter holiday gift making.

I'd love to have you join me, giving it your best shot.

Daily Happiness

Sep. 28th, 2025 05:51 pm
torachan: (cartoon me)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Had a pretty chill day today. Mostly just reading and playing Donkey Kong.

2. After having such good success with a couple other local restaurants we'd been meaning to check out for a while, today we decided to check out another one, a pizza place semi-attached to a little Indian market. They have some interesting toppings as well as standard stuff, and the one that caught our eye was paneer pizza. It has mozzarella but also big slices of paneer, plus red onions and jalapeños. The menu says marinara sauce, but it did not taste like regular marinara sauce. All in all it was super tasty. We had meant to just get a slice each and eat there, but it turns out they don't sell by the slice on weekends, so we got a medium pizza and took it home to eat. My stomach could not eat more than three pieces, but my mouth really wanted to finish the whole thing (sadly I do not like leftover pizza, so Carla will be eating the leftovers instead). Definitely will get that again.

3. Look at this little guy!

The School Reader: Second Book

Sep. 28th, 2025 03:27 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
The School Reader: Second Book by Charles Walton Sanders

A book concerned chiefly with reading. Vocabulary words listed before each story, poem, or bit. Interesting for the view of what they used to teach children. Views of science and of character.

Weekly Reading

Sep. 28th, 2025 10:39 am
torachan: tavros from homestuck dressed as pupa pan (pupa pan)
[personal profile] torachan
Currently Reading
European Travel for the Monstrous Gentelwoman
14%. Sequel to The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. This one is very long (over 24 hours in audiobook form) so I'll be at it for a while, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Death at the Fireside Inn
42%. First in a new-to-me historical mystery series, but it's pretty mid so I doubt I'll continue the series.

The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America
8%. Title is self-explanatory. I only read the first chapter so far, but it's interesting. Unfortunately I had to return it to the library, but I immediately put it on hold again and there was no one else waiting for it, so I should have it back soon.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
29%.

Recently Finished
The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science
This was fun. A little on the too wacky side for me, but enjoyable. I'll check out the sequel when it's out.

Lone Women
Highly recommended. I really liked this a lot.

Murder on the Marlow Belle
I don't know why the US release of these books is so far behind the UK release. It's in the same language! But it is, and that's annoying. This was out in January in the UK and only came out in the US this month. The next one is out soon in the UK but I assume I'll have to wait a while to get it here. :(

Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites
We watched someone on youtube talking about one of the dishes in this book and he mentioned that this is where he heard about it. The book sounded interesting, so we ordered it right away. It's only 130 pages and some of the dishes have recipes to make at home, so it's a very quick read. I should look and see if there's something like this for LA.

Kaikai Gigigigigi vol. 1
New series by Uguisu Sachiko. I like all her stuff so of course I bought it. To be honest, it seems very much like a retread of You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead, but I loved that series so I'm down for it. Protag is a very ordinary boy who keeps finding himself at the center of supernatural happenings in his town. Each chapter is basically a stand-alone horror story with a thin overarching plot linking them.

Kubikari vol. 1-4
Short four-volume horror manga that I only finished because it was so short. A group of high school kids go to an old hotel in the middle of nowhere to film something for their social media channel, only to get trapped there while people start dying. The motivations were very flimsy and the whole thing was just not very good, but since it was short I wanted to see how it ended.

Daily Happiness

Sep. 27th, 2025 09:07 pm
torachan: charlotte from bad machinery saying "oh the mysteries of the moth farm" (oh the mysteries of the moth farm)
[personal profile] torachan
1. It was nice and overcast again today. Still very muggy, though. (It even rained a little overnight again.)

2. I beat Donkey Kong Bananza tonight. It's definitely a fun game. Looks like there's a ton of post-game stuff to do, and then there's a (paid, boo) DLC as well. I also want to play Final Fantasy Tactics, which is out at the end of the month, but I'll probably hold off on that and keep playing Donkey Kong for a bit first.

3. The lady at the farmers market had passionfruit bars again. They were soooooo good last week, I was really hoping she'd make them again. And the almond stand was back, so I was able to get my orange almond butter.

4. Jasper's posing for his mall photo.

2025 Disneyland Trip #64 (9/27/25)

Sep. 27th, 2025 06:39 pm
torachan: (Default)
[personal profile] torachan
Since it's been cooler and overcast, we did a late morning/midday trip, which meant the park was at its most crowded, but honestly it wasn't too bad. And the weather was very nice (though still muggy).

Read more... )

Flint

Sep. 27th, 2025 10:54 am
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Flint by Louis L'Amour

A man who left the West, and the fame he won in one shooting, to grow rich in the East, returns to the West.

Read more... )

Daily Happiness

Sep. 26th, 2025 10:16 pm
torachan: karkat from homestuck headdesking (karkat headdesk)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I got tickets to see MCR next October (2026) at the Hollywood Bowl! I didn't realize they were going to be coming back to LA so soon, but [personal profile] gorgeousnerd mentioned it on bluesky the other day so I checked it out and there are three shows here, which went on sale at noon today. I was in the waiting room about fifteen minutes before and then in the queue itself for another ten to fifteen minutes or so. It was surprisingly painless. The last two times I bought tickets for them was much more of a struggle. This time both Carla and I are going, so that will be fun.

2. It was so nice and overcast today (actually rained a bit overnight, but not much) that I took a walk at lunchtime and there was no sun blazing down on me at all, and I was able to do a mile walk without getting sweaty or warm.

3. I interrupted Tuxie mid-groom.

Tucker

Sep. 26th, 2025 10:50 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Tucker by Louis L'Amour

An tale of adventure.

Read more... )
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
That's a wrap, folks! Today I concluded the entirety of the Earthsea Cycle by Ursula Le Guin for the first time. The final book in this series is The Other Wind, but the collected volume I have also includes after that a few short stories by Le Guin set in the Earthsea universe as well as a lecture she gave at Oxford on gender and the Western archtype of a hero. Seemed best to lump these all together for this review.

I was emotional about this book from the start, and I can only imagine it was moreso for those who had been familiar with Ged and Tenar for decades before this book was published. The Earthsea Cycle begins with A Wizard of Earthsea in Ged's childhood, before he's even discovered his propensity for magic, and here at the start of The Other Wind, he is a man in his seventies, puttering about his old master's house and waiting for his wife and daughter to come home. We've gotten to see Ged throughout his life--as a child, apprentice, wizard, archmage, goatherd (take 2), old man--and this continuity and journey really got to me.

At the end of the previous novel, Tehanu, the mantle of hero is passed on narratively from Ged and Tenar to their adopted daughter, Tehanu, but it's here in The Other Wind that Tehanu really comes into herself. Given Tehanu's past trauma, the way she clings to Tenar and Ged makes sense, so it was very rewarding to see her grow into herself here and eventually claim the power she was told by the dragon Kalessin she possesses at the end of Tehanu

As with Tehanu and Tales of Earthsea, women play a much more central role in The Other Wind. Our noble king, Lebannen, who came into his own in the third book of the original trilogy, is really blown hither-and-thither by the women of the book, who are the real plot-movers. Tehanu, the youthful rising power; Tenar, the wizened heroine; Irian, the free woman who's embraced the power Tehanu shares; Seserakh, the foreign princess who brings Kargish knowledge of dragons; these are the real players of the game. The kings and wizards who follow in their wake exist to help them carry out the plot. 

As with all the Earthsea books, Le Guin focuses her fantasy without centering violence. The great plot of The Other Wind essentially boils down to righting an ancient wrong, and it is resolved through shared knowledge and cooperation. On the whole, the book feels quite positive and we leave Earthsea for this final time on a sweet and hopeful note.

The conclusion itself feels perfect: Ged and Tenar on Gont, talking of nothing, in the end. Who else but Le Guin would have concluded her epic fantasy series with her male hero explaining how he'd kept up the house in his wife's absence? The pair go for a walk in the woods, and that's where the overarching plot of Earthsea ends, beautiful in its simplicity. 

If I had a complaint about Le Guin's writing, it's that she sometimes stows key elements of the plot in opaque dialogue between characters, which comes up a little here, but not as much as in Tehanu.

After The Other Wind come a few short stories by Le Guin set in the world of Earthsea. These are fun little tales, none longer than fifteen pages, which have nothing to do with any of the characters we know, until the final one. If you like the worldbuilding of Earthsea, these will be a great addition. The final one, for reasons I won't spoil, had me getting choked up even though I suspect from the opening paragraphs what was happening. 

I had such fun exploring Earthsea and while I wish I had gotten into them when I was younger (because I know how much I would have enjoyed them as a teen!) I'm still glad to have found them now (and I can just envision the daydreams I would have spun about my own female mage OC if I had known about these books then...) I know I'll revisit Earthsea and the adventures of its heroes again, although I'll stick to the paper versions--I've heard nothing good about any of the attempted screen adaptations! It truly feels like this has been a journey, and what an enjoyable one its been.

Daily Happiness

Sep. 25th, 2025 05:50 pm
torachan: a cartoon bear eating a large sausage (magical talking bear prostitute)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I am still mostly waiting for people to get back to me with things, so today was another fairly slow day at work, though I did get started checking one file I was provided. Overall I do feel like we're making really good progress on this.

2. We've entered into some nice overcast weather that's really feeling a bit like fall. I just checked the forecast and it should stay in the low 70s for most of the next week.

3. Gemma enjoying the sun on another, not-overcast day.

Recent Reading: Road to Ruin

Sep. 25th, 2025 04:18 pm
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
I have a job again! \^o^/ This means I am back on the audiobook train and today I wrapped up Road to Ruin by Hana Lee, book 1 of the Magebike Courier duology. This is a low fantasy dystopian novel located in a place called the Mana Wastes, where protagonist Jin works as a courier transporting goods between protected cities. Jin runs a lot of odd jobs for various clients, but her most lucrative by far are Prince Kadrin and Princess Yi-Nereen. Jin has been ferrying love letters between them for three years--while hiding the fact that she's fallen in love with both of them. But everything changes when Yi-Nereen decides to run away and asks Jin to help her.

First, don't let the hokey title put you off. I started this one a bit warily, but it turned out to be quite a lot of fun! The worldbuilding is pretty light, but the novel seems aware of that and doesn't overpromise on that front. What is there serves its purpose well. It's not anything particularly novel, but not every book needs to be.

Jin, Yi-Nereen, and Kadrin are all wonderful protagonists; each of them has a distinct personality, perspective, and motivations, and I really enjoyed all of them. I was rooting for them the whole book and it was great to watch their various interpersonal dynamics unfold. If you're a fan of stories about mutual pining, this one is definitely worth checking out. However, if that's not really your speed, I didn't feel like the book spent too much time harping on about feelings we all suspect or know are requited. The romance element is definitely there, and it's a significant motivator for all three of them, but there's plenty else going on in the book too. 

The book avoids falling prey either to the Charybdis of black-and-white morality where everyone who stands in the way of the protagonists is evil, or to the Scylla of "everyone is friends if we just talk things out," which is a relief after some recent reads. There's definitely a sliding scale of antagonism here, with some characters who are obstacles but not necessarily bad people, and others who run much darker. 

I also enjoyed the presence of the "Road Builders." Jin and her peers inhabit the Mana Wastes, a treacherous desert wasteland where little survives and almost none of it without human intervention. They sustain themselves with "talent"--magical abilities common among humans, but becoming less common by the day--and travel along ravaged roads built by some culture who came before, about which Jin and her peers know very little. These are the "Road Builders" and are, I believe, strongly hinted at to be us. Lee keeps them a pleasant mystery humming in the background of everything else going on.

There were a couple contrivances near the end to aid a dramatic conclusion, but nothing so egregious I wasn't willing to continue to play ball with the book. Similarly, I'm on the fence about where this book leaves the relationship between the main trio, because it feels a little too much like Lee felt it was a necessary hook into book 2, but I'll reserve judgement until I've actually read book 2. And perhaps it's better that everything doesn't wrap up too neatly here. 

On the whole, I had a lot of fun with this book and I will definitely read the next one. 

Jeeves and the Tie That Binds

Sep. 25th, 2025 03:36 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P.G. Wodehouse

The continuing adventures. Spoilers for the earlier works ahead.

Read more... )

Daily Happiness

Sep. 24th, 2025 10:12 pm
torachan: karkat from homestuck looking bored (karkat bored)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Today I had a meeting about one aspect of the upcoming system change that led us to discover something major that IT had totally misunderstood. Me and the other non-IT guy were pretty freaked out about it, especially when the guy leading the meeting kept insisting that this was the way the new system works and there is 100% no way that it could be changed, and also kept insisting that all of us were in the wrong for not having realized this before because of course it works that way, not the way we expected it to work. But in the end it turns out that the system can work the way we need it to work, and also that previous mockups show the fields we need, so I don't know where it went wrong between then, but I'm glad that we discovered this misunderstanding now and can fix it. Very glad that I am working on this project now, too, because there is just too much of a disconnect from the IT side, since none of them understand anything about how a retail operation actually works or what we need the system to do. They just know how the systems work, but not the reason we need them to work a certain way. (And they were supposed to learn more about the workings, but still have not.)

2. We had a nice evening at Disneyland. Especially nice after a stressful afternoon at work!

3. Chloe knows the cutest poses.

2025 Disneyland Trip #63 (9/24/25)

Sep. 24th, 2025 10:02 pm
torachan: aradia from homestuck (aradia)
[personal profile] torachan
We haven't been to the parks for about a week and a half since Carla wasn't feeling well, but since we usually go so frequently it felt like we hadn't been in ages lol.

Read more... )
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Sanders' Rhetorical, or Union Sixth Reader by Charles Walton Sanders

An advanced work of elocution.

Perhaps chiefly useful now for its selections and the light they cast on the era. It has several on the importance of the Union. It boasts of a wide variety, to fit young readers, and it does feature both prose and poetry on many different topics, fiction and non-fiction. I think it has more biographical essays than the earlier books in the series.

(Though it was amusing to read the side note that people used to eat a dish of fried dough known as a doughnut.)

Daily Happiness

Sep. 23rd, 2025 08:50 pm
torachan: my glitch character (glitch)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Got my hair cut this morning. I feel like I just got it cut, but somehow it has been a whole month. As muggy as it's been, I've definitely been feeling it the past few days, even though my hair is very short, even when it's needing a cut. (Sadly, my hair is so thin these days that very short is the only thing I can do that doesn't look terrible.)

2. My afternoon was basically just a string of meetings, but I actually didn't really have much else on the to-do list, since I am still waiting for others to pass things back to me, so that worked out fine.

3. Carla got another couple boxes of the Spider-man blind box lego figures and this time got all the ones we were missing! We still ended up with a ton more dupes, though, so now I am offering these ones as well as these ones if anyone wants. Totally free to anyone in the US, just let me know.

4. Molly loves that top corner of my bed so much. It's her favorite.

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