accessibility_fail | Member Posts

It's hump day! We're almost halfway through the week! Hopefully, today will be a little bit quieter at work. We were very busy yesterday, and they kept me jumping. My new title is "Schedule Jenga Master." Sometimes, we get cancellations on a schedule, but they're not consecutive. But a lot of the STAT orders we have are for longer MRIs. So when that's the case, I go in and figure out which patients I need to move to open up more time. And then I look at the schedule and see where I can move them to. It can either be "Can you come in half an hour early, or "hey I see your scheduled and we have an appointment sooner/closer to your home, and we thought of you. I've gotten very good at making it seem like we're doing the patient a favor, when really I'm just opening up this slot for other people.

I've been given access to the STAT list, so I can see who I can get in, when I have an open slot. So that's fun. I know Josh and Amanda are still working on getting some sort of promotion for me, so I don't feel like they're exploiting me. It's just another brick in building a case for our big boss. They've been very conspicuous about telling said boss when I help out. They're included on just about every email that they send to me.

Tattoo has reached the slight scabby phase. When I put my lotion on, I can feel the bumps under my hand. It's still looking good, so it doesn't look like my skin rejected too much of the brown, which Ronie said can be a problem. Brown sometimes doesn't like to stick. Soon it will be in the itchy phase. Looking forward to that.

About 4 weeks ago, I had commissioned a necklace to go with my ring for the vow renewal ceremony, and it is finally winging it's way to me. DHL says it'll come today, but I'm really not expecting it til tomorrow. It turned out really well.

It's exactly what I wanted- 1/4 of a tennis necklace. I'm hoping my sister's earrings are done soon. I'm not thinking they're going to come before Christmas, but we'll see!

I wish there was a 24 hour stimulant. The Azstarys works so fucking well during the day. I'm calm, the world doesn't feel like sandpaper against my nerves. It's like being a functional human. But then around 7pm, it cuts out and I get anxious again. It's annoying as fuck, since I *know* there's a remedy. But doctors are very touchy about stimulants, so I doubt I could get a Ritalin chaser.

Yet again, I was annoyed with my family and doctors on behalf of baby-me. I struggled so much and have spent my entire life just as an anxious, strange and angry child, and all it fucking took was a stimulant and I'd have felt normal. ADHD is so badly underdiagnosed in girls, and it sucks.

And now, I shall go forth and get myself together. The Azstarys is kicking in and I'm ready to get my ass in gear. Everyone have a superb Wednesday!

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

archersangel

this is a 4-book series that is a sequel to her The Seven Realms series (also 4 books)that i read several years ago. both series are YA fantasy.
i was reluctant to start these books because i was afraid i would not like them as much as the other books. i did like them, with some exceptions that i will get into in the spoiler section.

this series is set 25-30 years (there's a time jump) after the first books. there has been another war going on because a prince (now king) of another realm was mad that the woman who became queen in the last series had rejected him for marriage. he's had his brother killed to become king and has subjugated the other realms & he can't conqueror the queendom because it is 90% mountains and his army is really only good on flat land.

in the first series you could possibly handwave their ages and consider the main characters to be 20-22, but you can't do that in this series because they mention ages a lot. and it's Young Adult (which i rarely read), so all of the main, and most of the secondary, characters are teens.

( all kinds of spoilers )

there's more LGBT+ representation in these books in the first series (if that's what you're looking for in YA fantasy). in that one 2 very minor female characters are in a relationship. they get a brief mention in one of the these books, but in this series there are two young men that briefly spent time together & spend about 95% of the later books separated and yearning for each other.
there might be a transgender character too. the wizards/mages are referred to with he/him (it was the same in the first series too) but one is she/her. i probably should not speculate, if it's not what the author intended. but they are the only wizard/mage that i can recall being referred to with she/her.

Current Mood: accomplished

chanter1944

I'm late in realizing the fact, but yep, this comm is up and running again! I need to get my own wishlist posted over there.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Antioch OTR radio stream

kaberett

Item the first: the 1972 Harvard University Press Treatise of Man, translated by Thomas Steele Hall. This translation is quoted by two of the other books I'm working with, Pain: the science of suffering by Patrick Wall (1999), and The Painful Truth by Monty Lyman (2021). It is also an edition that, as I understand it, contains a facsimile of the first French edition (1664, itself a translation of the Latin published in 1662). My French is not up to reading actual seventeenth-century philosophy, but being able to spot-check a couple of paragraphs will be Useful For My Argument.

Item the second: Descartes: Key Philosophical Writings, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (1997). This doesn't contain Treatise on Man, but it's the translation of Meditations on First Philosophy that's quoted in The Story of Pain by Joanna Bourke (2014).

Meanwhile the Descartes essay, thus far composed primarily but not solely of quotations from other works, has somehow made it north of 4500 words. I think it might even be starting to make an argument.

( Read more... )

I am resisting the urge to try to turn this into a Proper Survey Of Popular Books On Pain, because that sounds like a lot of work that will probably involve reading a bunch of philosophers I find profoundly irritating, and also THIS IS A TOTAL DISTRACTION from the ACTUAL WORK I AM TRYING TO DO. But it's a distraction that is getting me writing, so I'll take it.

sasha_feather

I realized today that a lot of my friends don't know about what I've gone through this year.

Last year in June I moved back to Minnesota to look after my dad. My mom was in the hospital for a month and then moved to a nursing home with sudden-onset dementia (B1 deficiency) secondary to cancer.

I intended to support them temporarily but decided to make it a more permanent move to support them and their many animals. I struggled and kept expecting other family members to step up, but they did not.

I was hospitalized in May 2025 after a seizure. (Two seizures in 3 years means a new diagnosis of epilepsy.) I am missing about a week or 2 of memories from directly after that experience, so I don't know for sure what happened. I was busy looking after my dad and the animals, and then coordinating a move for my parents into assisted living, which I mostly did myself, While recovering from a seizure, with a broken rib.

I don't know why-- again, I don't remember (likely from medication side effects), but no one from the family came to help me directly after the seizure. My dad (who has dementia) and I did it alone. I'm angry about it and need people to know.

I supported my family for a year and half and did not receive any funds, no salary, very little emotional or logistical help from my brother, his wife, or his 4 healthy teenage kids. There is a wider extended family and they didn't show up either. We got some occasional visits but it wasn't enough.

Since moving my parents into assisted living, I have continued to support them in many ways, including looking after their farm and animals, again with no funds.

This week I asked my brother to help me advocate with my dad, to get me some money. He said no. He believes we should sell the farm (where I am now living). He made no mention of any provisions for me.

I'm obviously very upset, but the anger is at least helping me communicate about what is happening. I am reaching out to friends and various family members and trying to raise the alarm to protect myself.

I am safe for the time being but it is not the best idea for me to be living alone. I had intended to find roommates to come live here with me, but there are some barriers, including me not being the property owner, and the house being a bit of a mess. My next step is to directly talk to my parents about this situation. They both have dementia but I think they are capable of understanding my position.

I am currently unsure what the best course of action is moving forward. But I at least want folks to know what is going on. It's been very helpful to talk on the phone with friends who are affirming to me that this is a fucked up way to be treated. It's been a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that my family is exploiting me.

Warm thoughts, mail, messages are all helpful.

jesse_the_k

...here's an excellent use-case: feed your strong passphrase text as a prompt to an image generator

from the passphrase string "fabulous tattoo Harvey", Reddit user u/waydomatic and ChatGPT made ( this cheerful example )

The LLM thinks Harvey is a muscular white guy wearing a skimpy purple Speedo; arms, shoulder and upper chest covered in rose tattoos. He flexes his right arm and flashes a big white smile under his handlebar mustache. Of course he's wearing a rose crown.

Saving the generated image would certainly be more secure than writing down the password.

althea_valara

Boy am I late with this...

I did a LOT of knitting in a very short timeframe in November, and TBH it pooped me out and I think I'm still recovering. BUT! I successfully knitted a pair of legwarmers to wear to the A New World concert! Here they are:

A pair of cabled legwarmers. Yes, one's bigger than the other.

A pair of cabled legwarmers. Yes, one's bigger than the other.

[Image Description: A pair of knitted legwarmers. They are Aran colored (think natural undyed yarn) and feature a folded ribbed cuff at top, with lazy cables on the body and an intricate cable at the back. One is larger than the other.]

So yeah, this pattern comes in small and large sizes. Small wouldn't fit me, but large was TOO big. I altered the pattern some for my first one, taking some stitches out to make it smaller. Well, I finished it and tried it on and nope, too big. So for the second I took even MORE stitches out of the pattern. This one felt like it fit well, but as soon as I started walking, it drooped.

I didn't have time to reknit them, so I made do with them as is, and used elastic headbands under the cuff to keep them up. That worked well! Also, I shortened the pattern because in the pattern pic, the lower edge was dragging on the ground and I didn't like that. Unfortunately, I shortened it TOO much. I might unpick the bind off and knit them a bit longer, but for now, they work. And no, I am likely not going to reknit the too big one. TOO MUCH WORK.

I also made progress on a hoodie!
Central Park Hoodie November 2025 Progress

Central Park Hoodie November 2025 Progress

[Image Description: a sleeve in progress for a knitted hoodie. It's mostly gray in color and features deep ribbing at the cuff. A center cable panel runs up the middle, in teal.]

At the beginning of the month, I had one cable cross done. Now I have two. So not much progress, but hey, progress is progress.

I also did some work on the Versailles Scarf, a small true lace knitted scarf. I wanted to finish this for the concert as well, but decided the legwarmers were more important. It'd be nice to get this done for Christmas, but with the lack of crafting I've been doing so far this month, it's not gonna happen.

FOLKS! I had a cat for 20 minutes!
A photo of a calico kitty who visited our house for about 20 minutes.

[Image Description: A photo of a calico kitty visited our house for a bit.]

She came up to our patio door before the snow hit, when it was still decent out, and we decided to let her in for a bit, once we closed the bedroom doors. I, of course, was enamored. Mom less so. Being a cat, she did cat things, like scratching at an area rug (mom yelled at her, poor thing, but I can't really fault mom for that) and jumping on the kitchen table to try to get to our Christmas cactus. I kept a close eye on her the entire time she was in the house, so when I saw you going for the plant, I gently picked her up and deposited her back on the floor, because well, I don't know if those plants are safe for cats.

She was inquisitive and explored a lot, and liked to rub against legs. At one point, she was in our living room and started trotting towards the kitchen, so I called out to mom to let her know she was headed mom's way. Unfortunately mom was distracted and didn't hear me, and the cat, being friendly, came up behind her and rubbed her legs and mom almost tripped on her. :(

We considered calling an animal shelter, but due to her friendliness, decided to just let her back outside. Not before she jumped on the table AGAIN, though. I tried to grab her to deposit her back on the floor, but she jumped on the back of one of our chairs, and well, the chair tipped over.

Which means mom has declared NO CATS. :( I had really hoped she'd come around and we could, like, adopt a senior kitty, and my older sister made noise about us doing just that at Thanksgiving, but I don't think mom would be happy with a cat. Alas. But at least I had one for 20 minutes.

Current Mood: cold

beanside

First up, hey congrats, you survived Monday!

My monday was considerably more boring than the weekend. I pretty much only did work. Which was fine, busy, but not unpleasantly slow. I spent a good chunk of the day grabbing open slots and finding candidates for them. It's been a challenge, with lots of MRIs and no slots. I got two diagnostic mammos plus a kiddo in yesterday, which was nice.

My order arruved yesterday. I liked Yoda's portrait so much that I had ordered one for Boodle. It turned out adorable.

I immediately put her up and now she and Yoda bookend the TV. I love them.

I have a mystery package coming from China. I'm thinking it's my necklace, but it's coming from a technology company, so I have no clue. That's supposed to be here tomorrow.

I looked at my usual apps and discovered that we are at 149 days until the cruise! I know that's still 5 months, but it's creeping up.

I'm continuing to do research on our hotels. Or post-research, since I booked them before I really did in depth research. I'm watching videos of them and seeing how people's stays went. I'm actually excited about staying at both of them, but especially the one before the cruise. I look at our excursions and I just cant believe that this trip is real. It seems like such a fairy tale cruise. First class flight from Baltimore to Seattle. Pickup from airport in a luxury SUV and tour Seattle for 4 hours. Then, a lovely drive to Vancouver, and to the five star (boggle) hotel for two nights. 5 star? I felt out of place in a 4 star, the one time we did it! I don't know what a 5 star is like! We have a lovely day of exploring Vancouver, then the next morning we hop on the ship.

I really hope I like cruising after all this build up. I'm looking forward to sitting back in the chair and just watching the scenery unfold.

It's early in the season for too much wildlife, so probably no bears, too far south for moose. Hopefully we'll find some whales and maybe some seals and definitely bald eagles.

I just want everything to run smoothly. I think I've accounted for all the probabilities. My sister's passport has been approved, and should be here soon. Jess and I are good. I think the BIL has his in processing. It's starting to feel like it might happen.

I hope that I and everyone have a good time. I want things that I schedule to be good for people. Normally that's just Jess that I worry about. But this is going to be two more people! If it's like Disney, that lasted until we walked through the gates of Epcot on the first day. After that, I let it go. But for pre-planning, I'm awesome. This trip is my special interest, and I will make sure that everyone enjoys it.

My only real concern is how the sofa bed will be for my sister and BIL. I just want that to be okay for them, and the rest is good. I just want things to be fun.

Okay, time to get myself together and maybe shower. We'll see. I hope everyone has an amazing Tuesday!

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

julian

Once my mom got from the hospital to a rehab facility, she got a lot more There. (I mean, still has dementia, so not *that* there, but conscious and coherent.)

And, turns out, what actually actually happened, contrary to my last post, is that she sort of did have a stroke, but not really. A former stroke, in essence.

( Medical details and muttering, but nothing gross. )

My dad is like, "I don't need help myself! So why should the light housekeeping people come just for me!" so I'm going to call him tomorrow and basically go, "They can help arrange the house for when mom comes home," which is, after all, true. But they can also help 89-year-old *him*, too. Cough.

All in all, I dislike this phase of things.

davidgillon

I haven't been able to bring myself to actually read the new US National Security Strategy, but according to reports the highlights from the European perspective appear to be:

Adoption of the White Supremacist "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory as official US Government policy.

The US must therefore divorce itself from Europe because some European states might become non-White* majority in the future. (I think the appropriate description for this triumph of logic is utterly barking, the EU states average 5-15% non-EU born citizens, and that includes Brits nowadays, the only exception is Liechtenstein, and that has a population of 40,000, plus the whole international banking and financial services hub thing going on).

Apparently the US has to protect Europe against 'civilizational erosion' by working to undermine the EU and further the Far Right, because protecting your population against racial hatred is contrary to the sacred principle of free speech.

Meanwhile, South of the Border, they're reinstating the Monroe Doctrine because apparently the South American states need an American guardian to tell them who they can have relations with.

As I said, I'm sorry, but WTAF?!?

* They don't actually say 'non-white', but they're fooling no one.

Current Mood: WTAF?!?
Current Location: Mankind's Last, Best Hope

pauraque

Life is hectic, so let's do a quick one!

phone screenshot shows a 4x5 grid of people represented by emojis, labeled with names and professions, stating logic clues such as row 3 is the only row with exactly 3 innocents

phone screenshot shows a 4x5 grid of people represented by emojis, labeled with names and professions, stating logic clues such as row 3 is the only row with exactly 3 innocents

Clues By Sam is a logic game where you have to deduce who is a criminal and who is innocent in a grid of 20 people. Everyone tells the truth (i.e. criminals don't lie) and people's professions aren't hints (i.e. "sleuths" and "cops" can be innocents or criminals). Random guessing is not allowed; the game will only let you convict or exonerate someone if the clues you've uncovered give enough information to be certain.

I am not super great at this kind of formal logic puzzle, but I'm trying to get better, and I think this is a good one for people who are learning. The daily puzzles get harder throughout the week (Monday is the easiest) and if you're stuck you can get hints that highlight which clues you should focus on. There are options for better colorblind visibility but I'm not sure if the game is compatible with screenreaders or not.

The game is free to play in your browser, but there are also two puzzle packs you can buy. If you sign up for the dev's email newsletter, there are also some free extra puzzles in there. Thanks to

sineala for the recommendation!

beanside

Greetings from Baltimore! Rather unfairly, it's Monday again, and I must go back to work. It's going to continue to be busy until Jan 2, when it should slow down a touch. How is everyone doing?

Yesterday was a fun, albeit odd morning. We got to the con early and got better, if not good parking. We parked by the photo and panel location, which was still a good 1/3 of a mile to the con. Then, we hiked to the autograph and dealer building to do some shopping.

I finally got a picture of the bag I got yesterday! This is the cute horror icon bag's fabric.

Today shopped around a bit. There was a chocolate vendor that we hit for little truffle bars, which we'd tried on Saturday. So we got 10 of those. They're about 2 1/2" x 3/4" little bars that are pretty freaking amazing. We got a bunch of flavors, none of which do we remember what they are, so every bite is a mystery. A tasty, tasty mystery.

Then, we stopped by an artist's booth and picked up a couple of prints. One for us, one for my sister and one for us. I did not take a picture of the one for my sister, but it's up on the artist's site, called "Be Wary the Silent Night." It's a huge kitty loooming our of a winter forest.

Ours is called "Together in the Malestrom 2021." It's a gorgeous painting of two horned figures standing on a precipice in front of a beautiful raging cloud.

I also got my sister a Snoopy magnet since she did watch the puppy for the weekend. We're sharing the chocolate.

Then, we got a drink, a big insulated mug into wich we put a delicious butterscotch cream soda. We could have had free refills, but we never got around to it.

Then, it was down to the other location, except it wasn't. The local church does services at the Event Center that the panels and pictures were in. And they were having a service. So, we got to stand outside for about 45 min, in a parking lot before we were let in. Once inside, we got to listen to the preacher rant for another 30 min while we waited for our photo op. It did not sound like the kind of church I would enjoy. Eventually, we got our picture with the voice actors for Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Megatron (Frank Welker). I got a handshake/clasp from Frank Welker. There was rumors that this was going to be Peter Cullen's last con, as he is 84, so I'm glad we got them now.

The Transformers' panel was supposed to start at 12, but we got done at 11:15, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the megachurch was going to go over. There seemed to be some animosity with the con. So we left before the panel and headed for home. We would have been waiting in the cold again for them to finish up. We were strictly allowed in the building for the photo ops, and they had a narrow roped off area that we were allowed to walk in. We did convince them to let us get coffee from the stand just outside the roped area before we left. There were a couple of churchgoer's at the shop, and they kind of gave us the big sneer as we walked up.

The coffee was themed and amazing. Jess got the Bumblebee, which was honey and cinnamon and really good. I got the Freddy, which was a mocha with a pinkfoam on top follwed by more chocolate sauce and topped with glittery iridescent black sugar that did not look unlike Freddy's blade. I wanted to drive immediately back and get the recipe, I swear.

Apparently the preacher was in the parking lot yesterday ranting about the con being evil. He got into a heated argument with a dude dressed up as the lead singer for Ghost, in full Satanic Pope regalia. I'm sorry I missed that.

A quick stop at a kitch place called Hillbilly's for lunch and we were winging our way home. We pulled in at 4:03, which was nice, because it meant no driving in the dark.

The rest of the night was quiet--Chinese food and a quick walk for Yoda and we were in bed by 9. I had a little trouble sleeping, so I went to sleep around midnight.

Today, I'm achy and a bit tired, but I'm so happy we went. It was a lot of fun, and I fulfilled some of my childhood dreams. Everyone was super nice and made if a fun experience. Absolutely no regrets.

I told

poisontaster that this is my year of yes. If I see something that I want to do? Yes, lets do it. If there's something Jess wants to do? Yes, absolutely. We've got a lot planned in the next six months, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other stuff we can get into along the way!

And now, it's time go go forth and think about getting ready for work. First day of leggings directly on the tattoo, so we'll see how that goes. It's healing well, and has hit the itchy stage. But if you touch it, it's still tender. So that stage is fun. Okay, time to go forth and get dressed. Everyone have the very best Monday!

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

ysobel

We're on the final boss fight of the campaign. Said boss is hovering over a deep pit -- bad for melee, unless they have some form of flight.

My character rolls the highest initiative.

She is a L20 owlin monk. She has flight. She also has a) 70 feet of movement per turn, and b) magic items (and a feat) that gives extra damage for distance moved in a straight line just before the attack. Oh, and a potion that does bonus

First roll hit a nat 20.

Rolling 20 means damage dice are doubled; if you would normally do 2d6, on a crit you roll 4d6. Between the damage roll (doubled), the extra monk ability I always like to throw in (also doubled, plus poison for a round), and the bonus damage for straight lines (doubled), I did 119 points of damage.

I also have a feat that says if I get a critical hit, all attacks against that creature have advantage until my next turn.

So... a pretty good start.

I love this character.

(...I got a crit the next turn too.)

kaberett

(Last week's also now exists and is no longer a placeholder!)

Reading. Pain, Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen. I want to be very, very clear: unless you are specifically researching attitudes and beliefs in pain clinics in early 2020s England, or similar, do not read this book. There are bad history and no references, appalling opinions on patients (), quite possibly the worst hyphenation choice I have ever seen, stunning omissions and misrepresentations of pain science, and It's Weird That It Happened Twice soup metaphors. Fuller review (or at least annotated bibliography entry) to follow, maybe.

Some further progress on Florencia Clifford's Feeding Orchids to the Slugs ("Tales from a Zen kitchen"), which I acquired from Oxfam in a moment of weakness primarily for EYB purposes at a point when it was extremely discounted. It is primarily a somewhat disjointed memoir for which I am not the target audience, but hey, Books To Go Back In The Charity Shop Pile but that I wouldn't actually hate reading were exactly the goal, so that's a victory. Mostly. I'm a little over halfway through it, sticking book darts on pages that contain recipes for easier reference when I go back through on the actual indexing pass.

I absolutely needed something that was not going to make me furious and furthermore that was not going to be demanding, and there's a new one in the series, so I have now reread several Scalzi: Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades completed, The Lost Colony in progress.

I've also had a very quick flick through the mentions of Descartes in Joanna Bourke's The Story of Pain, which is my next Pain Book. She does better than everyone else I've read, but I still think she's misinterpreting Treatise on Man. (Why do I have strongly-held opinions on Descartes now. CAN I NOT.)

Playing. ( Inkulinati, Monument Valley )

Cooking. SOUP.

smitten kitchen's braised chickpeas with zucchini and pesto, two batches thereof, because I had promised A burrata to go with and then (1) the supermarket was out of it and (2) the opened part-pack of feta wound up doing two days quite comfortably, so the second batch was required For Burrata Purposes.

I have also established that the pistachio croissant strata works very well in one of the loaf tins if you scale it down to 50% quantities because there were only 3 discount croissants at the supermarket (... because you had to wait and watch the person who got there JUST ahead of you taking Most Of Them...), which also conveniently used up the dregs of the cream that I had in the fridge.

Eating. Tagine out the freezer (thank you past Alex). Relatively fresh dried apple. A very plain lunch at Teras in Seydikemer, which was apparently the magic my digestive system needed to settle itself down! And I am very much enjoying my dark chocolate raspberry stars. :)

davidgillon

I was parked at the end of the London-bound platform at Chatham yesterday evening, waiting to catch the train into St Pancras, along with the passenger assistance guy with the ramp. As we're standing there the train to London Victoria heads out, and then we chatted for a minute before hearing an announcement about my train being delayed, despite it being at Gillingham station, which is only a couple of minutes away.

We're just wondering what the issue could be when a train pulls into our platform, but heading coastbound. Passenger Assistance guy's eyes bugged-out and he mutters something and then turns to repeat it to me: "I've worked here for forty years, and I've never seen a coastbound train come into this platform! Excuse me while I go and find out what's happening."

Turns out he still hadn't seen one, it wasn't a coastbound train, it was the Victoria train reversing back. Apparently a freight train had broken down alongside the platform at Rochester (two minutes up the line London-bound) and they'd sent the Victoria train back to Chatham to wait while they got things sorted out.

We were only delayed 20 minutes, which wasn't too bad because I was still five minutes early for meeting the university crowd for pre-Christmas drinks. And as we're now using the Betjeman Arms inside St Pancras station it was much more convenient for me than our get togethers used to be as I now just wheel from one end of StP to the other and don't need to haul myself and the chair down to Ye Old Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street. (We swapped pubs a couple of years back to make things simpler for me, but this is the first time I've been able to get there since, OTOH it also makes things easier for another two out of the five of us).

We'd booked a table, and because they were using their dining room for a Christmas party we were put in 'the study', so effectively had our own wood-panelled private dining room for the night. Very swish! (As well as the big dining room and a big bar they also have an 'outside' patio area looking out across the Eurostar platforms, the place must be doing a bomb). Given how crowded it was at the bar when we arrived (I only maimed one ankle, and we'd told him to move), I let one of my friends get the beers in sight unseen, which is how I ended up drinking 'Hazy Pale'. You know how some wheat beers are slightly hazy? Well this is a bit like that, but hazy to the point of being completely opaque. Not something I'd drunk before, but would definitely drink again. Though I might have paced myself a bit differently if I'd known it was 5% ABV.

The food was mostly good - I thought the mushrooms on toasted sourdough was a bit bland, but the fish and chips I had were done to perfection, and the other choices around the table - chicken pie, Cumberland sausage and Lancashire Hot Pot - all got the ex-Lancastrian seal of approval.

I packed in at 9:30 in the hope of catching the 9:50, as my neck had suddenly decided to become very unhappy, only to discover when I got to the platform that there isn't a 9:50 anymore, so I had to wait on the platform for about 40 minutes until the 10:20 arrived. Fortunately it was a fairly amiable crowd, I was even offered a beer by the guy sitting next to me - 'No thanks, I've had quite enough already'. There were one or two sparkly party frocks and jackets wandering past in the crowd, but style points had to go to the woman wearing the Snow White dress and tweed hacking jacket, both of them adorned with large cardboard and tinfoil stars.

Into Chatham by 11, in bed and asleep by 11:30!

Current Mood: Tired
Current Location: Surprisingly warmish

beanside

Greetings again from Monroeville as we start the last day of our Comic Con odyssey.

Yesterday was super fun, but exhausting. First up, Comic Con is deeply confusing for new people. There were multiple times that we were standing around trying to figure out where to go. We got there in the end, because the staff were really knowledgeable and good. We got in a bit early, thanks to our three day pass, and walked around the dealers room. We got Jess an adorable Mothman shirt, as they'd forgotten to bring a second shirt and tried some amazing chocolate, that I may get some of today. Then, we got a tote bag with adorable chibi horror icons on it to carry our shirt and coats in. The autograph area was so stuffed and claustrophobic that we didn't really check it out much.

Once we figured out that the photos were in a different building, we headed down early. Probably a good thing, since they'd decided to combine the Session 1 & 2 photos for Fredddy Vs. Jason. We hung out until they called us for that, and then got into a long queue. And stood and waited. And waited. Which, I had been warned was the name of the game for Comic Con. But whoo, once the line started moving, it went at a good clip. They obviously had this down to a science.

As I said, our first photo was Freddy VS Jason, with Robert Englund (with iconic glove) and Ken Kirtzinger (in full Jason costume). We finally get to the room and get the go ahead to go forth. Jess and I had talked about who wanted to stand next to whom. They requested Freddy, which was fine with me, so I made a beeline for Jason. He said hello, and I turned to face the camera, cognizant of the need to be quick. He moved behind me and held my shoulder to guide me into place, and then told me that he was going to lay the fake machete on my neck.

Apparently, Robert Englund, who seemed to be having an excellent time, just kind of spun Jess into a chokehold and laid the claws on, like it was a dance move to him. (They loved it.) I started to open my mouth like I was shocked, and they took the picture, so I look a bit dorky, but I'm happy with it. Jess looks like they're having a blast.

Next up, we picked up our picture, and went to grab a water, and wait for our next photo.

Finally they called the Beauty and the Beast duo, and may I just say, there was SO much estrogen in that line. I saw maybe 5 guys (and of course one nonbinary person, who was standing next to me.)

We didn't have to wait for long before we were ushered in, and holy shit, that was Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. I said hello, and might have stuttered that I loved his work, and then he put his arm around me, and I looked at the camera. Damn, he smells good, and his sweater was super soft.

May I just say here that Linda Hamilton is an utter delight? She's a tactile person, so she was rubbing Jess' back during and after the photo, and was just SO sweet.

This was the picture with people with great voices. Seriously, like being wrapped in warm flannel. I was really happy with the picture, too.

Immediately after we got the picture, we got in line for the Terminator 1 duo, with Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. That line did not last long either, and we were soon ushered in.

Jess stood in front of Michael, who was...okay. Nice enough, but no real impression made. Just seemed to be getting through it.

Linda made up for it, greeting us warmly and immediately pulling me into a one armed hug. I also got back rubs and when we were done and I was moving away, she grabbed my hand and gave it a little squeeze. My inner baby queer was deeply satisfied.

After that, I was so sore and starving, so we left for the night. I'm sure the Terminator 2 panel was awesome, but I was dragging, so we headed out to grab lunch.

We went to a local chain called Dad's Pub and Grub which was excellent. They had beer battered french fries with cheese sauce and bacon that were amazing. I had a brisket pizza that was also really good, but I couldn't finish it. Jess says their gyro was likewise tasty. Solid A-.

Then we went back to the hotel and laid down until we ordered dinner. This was from a place called Khalil's. Food was good, but nothing amazing. My dolmas were a little too lemony for me. B- average.

Today, we shall go forth, do our Transformers Picture, maybe also do the panel and then head home. There's a little place called Hillbilly's that we passed on the way up that looked interesting.

I'm hoping to be home by about 5:30-6pm, but we'll see.

And now, it is time to put on pants and get ready for another morning of hotel breakfast. The coffee is good, though. Everyone have a stellar Sunday!