Books Received, June 28 — July 4
Jul. 5th, 2025 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Four works new to me. One is SF, two fantasy, and the magazine (which I have not yet looked inside) likely both. Two of the novels are series novels, one does not seem to me.
Books Received, June 28 — July 4
Poll #33326 Books Received, June 28 — July 4
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5
Which of these look interesting?
View Answers
FIYAH No. 35: Black Isekai published by FIYAH Literary Magazine (July 2025)
3 (60.0%)
Aces Full edited by George R. R. Martin (November 2025)
0 (0.0%)
Only Spell Deep by Ava Morgyn (March 2026)
0 (0.0%)
The Damned by Harper L. Woods (October 2025)
0 (0.0%)
Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)
Cats!
4 (80.0%)
Strange dreams
Jul. 5th, 2025 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I practically never remember my dreams, but I remember part of last night's dream. Not enough to reconstruct any sort of plot summary, but enough to remember that it contained the following elements:
- Heavy metal music
- Low-quality animatronic dinosaurs
- Luchador wrestling
- Male menstrual cramps
- Asshole bosses
- The importance of proper pronunciation
Aurendor D&D: Summary for 7/4 Game (Evening Session)
Jul. 5th, 2025 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
In tonight's game,
( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )
And that's where we left off and will be picking up tomorrow.
And that's where we left off and will be picking up tomorrow.
Daily Happiness
Jul. 4th, 2025 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
1. I had a pretty relaxing day today. Aside from walking up to the store this morning for pie crust and salad stuff, I did not go anywhere and just chilled at home.
2. I got some of the rhubarb I chopped up and froze a few weeks ago out of the freezer and made another pie. There's still four bags (I didn't divide it that way on purpose but it turns out two bags is exactly enough for one pie).
3. Ollie is such a cutie pie.

2. I got some of the rhubarb I chopped up and froze a few weeks ago out of the freezer and made another pie. There's still four bags (I didn't divide it that way on purpose but it turns out two bags is exactly enough for one pie).
3. Ollie is such a cutie pie.

Weekly Reading
Jul. 4th, 2025 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Currently Reading
Murder at the Patel Motel
39%. This is not actually a book, so much as an audio drama. It's an Audible Original and comes free with membership, so I decided to try it out. Turns out the author and voice of the main character is the guy who played Jack's assistant on 30 Rock. I loved him in that! And I'm liking this "book" a lot so far.
Just Happy to Be Here
11%. YA about a South Asian trans girl's experience at a mostly white all girls' high school. It's all right so far.
Sister Outsider
No progress.
Riding the Rails
48%.
Recently Finished
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
I felt like this took ages to finish, but it was a good read. Very interesting stuff.
A Terrible Nasty Business
I really want more books in this series.
Sou Iu Ie no Ko no Hanashi vol. 1
New series from Shimura Takako following three characters who were raised in the same new religion (the religion in the story is not any real one, just based on others), marking them as different from the majority of the population, which is not actively religious. I like pretty much everything by Shimura Takako, so I'm curious to see where this goes.
Tsumetakute Yawaraka vol. 5
Hatsukoi no Tsugi vol. 2
Murder at the Patel Motel
39%. This is not actually a book, so much as an audio drama. It's an Audible Original and comes free with membership, so I decided to try it out. Turns out the author and voice of the main character is the guy who played Jack's assistant on 30 Rock. I loved him in that! And I'm liking this "book" a lot so far.
Just Happy to Be Here
11%. YA about a South Asian trans girl's experience at a mostly white all girls' high school. It's all right so far.
Sister Outsider
No progress.
Riding the Rails
48%.
Recently Finished
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
I felt like this took ages to finish, but it was a good read. Very interesting stuff.
A Terrible Nasty Business
I really want more books in this series.
Sou Iu Ie no Ko no Hanashi vol. 1
New series from Shimura Takako following three characters who were raised in the same new religion (the religion in the story is not any real one, just based on others), marking them as different from the majority of the population, which is not actively religious. I like pretty much everything by Shimura Takako, so I'm curious to see where this goes.
Tsumetakute Yawaraka vol. 5
Hatsukoi no Tsugi vol. 2
Aurendor D&D: Summary for 7/4 Game (Afternoon Session)
Jul. 4th, 2025 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
In this afternoon's game,
( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )
And that's where we left off and will be picking up later tonight.
And that's where we left off and will be picking up later tonight.
2025 Disneyland Trip #47 (7/3/25)
Jul. 4th, 2025 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This was another last minute decision. With the lower level keyholders blocked out for summer there's almost always same-day availability, so might as well take advantage of it.
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Jul. 4th, 2025 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I have been reading poetry this evening, just skimming, just casual but good and wow such a long time since I've done this. So here's a poem. Source poetry foundation
The Magnificent Frigatebird,
by Ada Limón
is it okay not to look out this window, but to look out another?
A mentor once said, You can't start a poem with a man looking
out a window. Too many men looking out a window.
What about a woman? Today is a haunting. One last orange
on the counter: it is a dead fruit. We swallow dead things.
Once, in Rio near Leblon, large seabirds soared over the vast
South Atlantic Ocean. I had never seen them before.
Eight-foot wingspan and gigantic in their confident gliding, black,
with a red neck like a wound or a hidden treasure. Or both.
When I looked it up, I learned it was the Magnificent Frigatebird.
It sounded like that enormity of a bird had named itself.
What a pleasure to say, I am Magnificent. And, too, they traveled as a team,
so I wondered if they named each other. Generously tapping
one another's deeply forked tail or their plumage, glistening with salt air,
their gular sacs saying, You are Magnificent. You are also Magnificent.
It makes me want to give all my loves the adjectives they deserve:
You are Resplendent. You are Radiant. You are Sublime.
I am far away from tropical waters. I have no skills for flight or wings
to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself. But from here,
I can still imagine rapture, a glorious caught fish in the mouth of a bird.
Idle Friday post that turned out to be half about Pokemon Go
Jul. 4th, 2025 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
At the start of the month I entertained the fleeting thought of trying to post every day in July, especially with
sunshine_revival (in which I have in no way participated) going on, but. Well. *gestures at current date* And as we all know, something-something-only-perfect-results-matter, etc. etc. etc.
But here. It's Friday. The world is terrifying, but at least for this moment the sun is out. I spent most of my workday in a style guide meeting, which was genuinely pretty fun; tonight we're seeing Ginny and Kas because this week it's better for them than our usual Saturday hangout.
Tomorrow the (very) wee farmers' market that's only a few blocks away is getting underway for the season. I have ambitions of actually rolling out of bed and walking over in hopes of strawberries, even though tomorrow and Sunday are also Eevee community day in Pokemon Go, so I'm also hoping to leave the house those afternoons. Leaving the house twice in one day is not exactly a thing that happens often, and as a result, the prospect of it is exhausting. ^^; But here's hoping!
There's been zero doubt for a long time now that my only actual investment in Pokemon Go is the pursuit of shinies, and community days are the best chance to get shinies of a given critter, and Eevee, see, has EIGHT possible evolutions, so if there's any faint hope of ever having a full set of shinies of those, well, it's this weekend.
(I can't remember if I've said here that this is a crystalized perfect demonstration of why it's really, really good that I don't gamble. I'm usually pleased when I catch a new-to-me Pokemon, but it's pretty minor. But rather than setting the game aside, since it mostly hasn't resulted in me actually getting outside and walking much more than I had been, the hope of catching a shiny critter keeps me opening it back up. Nobody get me into slot machines, okay? [That sounds facetious, but I mean it very seriously.])
That's all I've got right now. Stay well, friends.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
But here. It's Friday. The world is terrifying, but at least for this moment the sun is out. I spent most of my workday in a style guide meeting, which was genuinely pretty fun; tonight we're seeing Ginny and Kas because this week it's better for them than our usual Saturday hangout.
Tomorrow the (very) wee farmers' market that's only a few blocks away is getting underway for the season. I have ambitions of actually rolling out of bed and walking over in hopes of strawberries, even though tomorrow and Sunday are also Eevee community day in Pokemon Go, so I'm also hoping to leave the house those afternoons. Leaving the house twice in one day is not exactly a thing that happens often, and as a result, the prospect of it is exhausting. ^^; But here's hoping!
There's been zero doubt for a long time now that my only actual investment in Pokemon Go is the pursuit of shinies, and community days are the best chance to get shinies of a given critter, and Eevee, see, has EIGHT possible evolutions, so if there's any faint hope of ever having a full set of shinies of those, well, it's this weekend.
(I can't remember if I've said here that this is a crystalized perfect demonstration of why it's really, really good that I don't gamble. I'm usually pleased when I catch a new-to-me Pokemon, but it's pretty minor. But rather than setting the game aside, since it mostly hasn't resulted in me actually getting outside and walking much more than I had been, the hope of catching a shiny critter keeps me opening it back up. Nobody get me into slot machines, okay? [That sounds facetious, but I mean it very seriously.])
That's all I've got right now. Stay well, friends.
Top posts of 6/2025 at Crazy Eddie's Motie News
Jul. 4th, 2025 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Crazy Eddie's Motie News earned a record 492,163 page views thanks to my Vietnamese and Brazilian readers and 11 comments on 30 posts during the 30 days of June 2025.
( Most read, commented on, shared, and liked posts of Crazy Eddie's Motie News last month behind the cut. )
monopolylogue
Jul. 4th, 2025 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
monopolylogue (mon-uh-POL-i-log) - n., a performance in which one person plays multiple characters.
Often, especially, all of them. Not a new coinage (which is from mono-, one + poly-, many + -logue, talk) as it dates to 1819, used in a playbill advertising a performance by Charles Mathews. Charles Dickens would, on reading tours, perform monopolylogues of his own works.
—L.
Often, especially, all of them. Not a new coinage (which is from mono-, one + poly-, many + -logue, talk) as it dates to 1819, used in a playbill advertising a performance by Charles Mathews. Charles Dickens would, on reading tours, perform monopolylogues of his own works.
—L.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Jul. 4th, 2025 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Ninety years after her grandmother's family was stalked by a witch, international student Minerva Contrera's studies land her in a similar position.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Daily Happiness
Jul. 3rd, 2025 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
1. Three day weekend! I'm looking forward to relaxing and not doing much.
2. I had two interviews today and both of them stood me up, but the good thing is that I was doing them from home, so I hadn't gone out of my way for them and wasn't particularly inconvenienced.
3. We decided to go to Disneyland for dinner. Had a lovely time, though it was a bit more trafficy both going and coming than I would prefer.
4. Suspicious Gemma.

2. I had two interviews today and both of them stood me up, but the good thing is that I was doing them from home, so I hadn't gone out of my way for them and wasn't particularly inconvenienced.
3. We decided to go to Disneyland for dinner. Had a lovely time, though it was a bit more trafficy both going and coming than I would prefer.
4. Suspicious Gemma.

Every time I run something
Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I embrace new tools. In Fabula Ultima, for example, the order in which characters go in combat varies. I found it hard to keep track of who'd gone, so I went out and got poker chips and little round labels. Now, I can just toss the chips representing characters into a bowl once they've gone. Order!
OK, except it turns out I can't tell blue from green under the ceiling light in the room where I DM and the names on the labels need to be bigger.
OK, except it turns out I can't tell blue from green under the ceiling light in the room where I DM and the names on the labels need to be bigger.
Blight (Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen
Jul. 3rd, 2025 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Director of the nation formerly known as Canada Quinn Atherton is determined to deliver much mass murder as it takes to achieve peace, order, good government. Why do so many ingrates object?
Blight(Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen