(no subject)

Mar. 24th, 2026 08:14 pm
thawrecka: (Default)
[personal profile] thawrecka
In my rewatch I reached my favourite ever episode of Prince of Tennis -- the one where Kaidoh gets amnesia from a tennis ball to the head, and starts to act like a cat. Cured, of course, by another tennis ball to the end.

It's brilliant, amazing, just as good as I remembered. I laughed just as hard tonight as I did 20 years ago!

Big Movies

Mar. 24th, 2026 04:31 pm
scaramouche: Kerry Ellis as Meat from We Will Rock You, arms in the air jubilantly (meat goes yay!)
[personal profile] scaramouche
While I was away for Eid I got into a mini-Bollywood marathon watching old movies on streaming, and I had SUCH a fun time. The movies I watched:

Khabi Khabie (1976)
Netflix's summary: "Years after they're forced by their families to marry other people, a poet and his true love must come to terms with their past".

I was bamboozled by that summary, falsely assuming that said poet and his true love would get back together! After poking around a bit, this movie seems to be part of a mini-movement of movies in that era that explored emotional and/or physical infidelity, though this movie is "only" of the emotional infidelity front and is actually really thoughtful because no one's a villain, and it delves into the complications of romantic and familial bonds, and how love and our expectations of love change over time. I also really liked that, when one of the characters is adopted, the movie made sure to show that her adopted parents are "real" parents, and do not become secondary when said character finds her birth mother. The 1970s style with its emotional shorthands and broad drama really worked for me in this case because it was balanced with a grounded emotional core. As a side bonus, I don't think I've ever watched a movie that had both Shashi and Rishi Kapoor in main roles, which was fun.


Anjaam (1994)
Netflix's summary: "A wealthy industrialist's dangerous obsession with a flight attendant destroys her world, until she takes matters into her own hands to exact revenge."

This doesn't even start ominously the way Darr does, and instead uses rom-com tropes some have described as "slap-slap-kiss" except in this case there's no "kiss" reward for the man, because his pushy behaviour is used to show his sense of entitlement and his refusal to take "no" for an answer is bad, actually! The tonal shift wasn't abrupt per se because there was build-up, but when the movie turned to outright violence I kind blinked dazedly in ye meme of "well, that escalated quickly". My parents only caught glimpses of this as I was watching it, and were super confused because they kept assuming that Shah Rukh was the hero/romantic lead, and he's, uh... not. Very not. Satisfying turn for the female lead, satisfying revenge arc, satisfying ending for the characters. Madhuri Dixit wasn't among my fav Bollywood actresses growing up, but I'm really appreciating her depth and range now.


Aaina (1993)
Netflix's summary: "When a woman leaves her fiance to pursue her dreams of stardom, her sister steps in to marry him. But what happens when the bride returns?"

About half an hour into this movie I realized that I'd seen it before, when I was younger and specifically during those formative years, because boy oh boy some iddy tropes I still find super delicious today are in full technicolour in this movie. I do laugh that this movie wants us to believe that Juhi Chawla is the "plain" second sister, but she's so good at playing the arc of a self-conscious woman who'd been raised to believe that familial respect means always letting her older sister bully her, and eventually learning to stand up for herself for herself (as opposed to fighting purely for the sake of a man). Although her character is in love with Jackie Shroff's character from the start, the movie fully acknowledges how messed up it is that she has to be his replacement bride, and she is the one who sets boundaries for their new marriage. The melodrama and big gestures of Amrita Singh are SO delicious and OTT as she tries to sabotage their marriage, and the machinations of the movie are not "reasonable" or "realistic" -- they are indulgent and cruel and wonderful, and I love it. I hadn't seen anything of Jackie Shroff's for years and years, so watching this movie was a journey from "yeah, I remember how charming he is now" to "he is the most handsome Bollywood actor in the WORLD" (/hyperbole)

Feathering the Nest

Mar. 24th, 2026 12:53 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer  is hosting Feathering the Nest.  This one is always about fluff and comfort.  Leave prompts, get ficlets!
petra: Carrie Fisher dipping Mark Hamill circa 1977 (Carrie F & Mark H - Dancing)
[personal profile] petra
Love for a dollar (1167 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cosmo Brown/Don Lockwood/Kathy Selden
Characters: Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown, Kathy Selden
Additional Tags: Gift Fic, Domestic Disputes, Domestic Fluff, Polyamory Negotiations, Happy Ending
Summary:

When R. F. recognizes Cosmo's genius and gives him a raise, he wants to pay rent. Don and Kathy have opinions about this.



Read more... )

one works, the other doesn't

Mar. 23rd, 2026 10:11 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
I went into the Social Security office this morning. As I didn't have an appointment, I had to wait an hour and a half to be seen. (During which I got a lot of reading done.) But when I was seen, the man didn't try to tell me that I could have gotten my 1099 form online. He just took my ID, confirmed my name and address on their system, and grabbed the form from the printer. Out and done in two minutes, and I didn't have to wait for it to arrive in the mail.

Meanwhile the "check engine" light came on in my car. This has happened before. It's usually a phantom alert from an emission control system; at least, the shop was unable to find anything when I asked them to take a detailed look. On another occasion, the same shop just plugged in a reader device and read off that it was the same thing. I asked them to cancel the alert and was on my way.
So I stopped into that shop to ask them to do that, and the guy was a different guy than the one I had before, and he wanted to argue with me. He wanted to take the car in for several days to run a full diagnostic (something which I didn't need; the body shop had done that last week). I asked him just to tell me what the alert said, and we'd figure out what to do next then. If it was the same phantom alert, just cancel it and I'll be on my way. But no, this guy was determined. He told me I was trying to dictate their work. That was pure projection on his part. He was trying to dictate to me, that I should leave my car for days just to find out what the alert said. He got very huffy about it.
I left. I'm not going back there again, not with customer service that rude, condescending, and dictatorial. I went to an auto parts store which can't fix anything, but which will gratis plug their device in and tell you what the alert says. Sure enough, it was the phantom. I thanked them, and I'll let it be until my next servicing.

Daily Happiness

Mar. 23rd, 2026 07:59 pm
torachan: karkat from homestuck headdesking (karkat headdesk)
[personal profile] torachan
1. The only big thing I had on my work to-do list today was a meeting, but that was online anyway, so I decided to work from home. I really didn't have a lot of smaller things that needed to get done, either, so it was a pretty chill day.

And the meeting itself was very informative. It was with some people from our store in Guam, who are already using the system we'll be switching to, and I wanted to get an idea of how they're doing some of the things that seem impossible, and it turns out they just aren't lol. So I'm going to see if it would be possible for us to do something similar rather than to try and force our workflow into the mold that IT is insisting on.

2. It was actually chilly today! We closed windows and almost considered turning on the heater. The high was still in the high 70s, but that was just like a brief spike in the late afternoon. So weird. :-/ I'll take it over the constant heat of last week, though.

3. I finished up a puzzle today. This one turned out to be more difficult than I was anticipating, but it was fun to do. And I really love the illustration.



4. One nice thing about working from home is that I can snuggle Jasper when he wants to be snuggled, and he really wanted to be snuggled this morning.

i would; would you?

Mar. 23rd, 2026 06:25 pm
katarik: DC Comics: Major Slade Wilson and Captain Adeline Kane, text but I can make you better (Default)
[personal profile] katarik
On the flight back out of JFK, they had Singin' in the Rain, so obviously I thought immediately of [personal profile] petra and watched it.

I continue to find public humiliation incredibly squicky and was therefore pleased that it had captions, so I could just take off headphones and watch the captions as I glanced up and thus not miss much of the story (primarily around Lina Lamont, who is a hideously awful coworker and also genuinely in a difficult position).

Don and Cosmo are just. Such a delight. I'm so sad that these folks did not have the delightful time making this movie that their performance implies they did.

Kathy/Don/Cosmo forever, oh yes, the internet was so correct.

Picked up right away.

Mar. 23rd, 2026 08:12 pm
hannah: (Travel - fooish_icons)
[personal profile] hannah
This last Friday afternoon, I held my hand out and a ladybug landed on me. All I'd seen was a tiny bit of movement coming my way, and in holding my hand out, I gave a ladybug a place to sit a moment. Yesterday, I got sunburned from walking around under early cherry blossoms on an absolutely gorgeous late March day. I'm still sore and a little itchy, and I'll be wearing high-necked clothes for a while. There was boba tea, and three different bakeries, and pizza and tacos and a lot of fandom talk with the friend I was staying with - making the other laugh was something we both tried to do a fair amount of, in a game where both sides come out ahead of where they started.

The train got me there early, and got me back a little late. I gave my friend excuse to take me to some of her favorite places, and reason to visit a few more. The both of us stepped away from our regular lives for a while in a mutually beneficial relationship, and now the prospect of the real world looms for tomorrow morning. There was a lot of freedom to be found in basically cutting myself off from the internet - the extent to what I could do on a practical level was check email. My phone wasn't connected to a wifi network, so I couldn't get anything but plain text messages, and it was a surprise to see how many non-text messages I'd missed when I got back to my place.

Bread Furst, Rose Ave, Un Je Ne Sais Quoi, Comet Ping Pong, 801, Spot of Tea, various Smithsonian cafeterias, my friend's kitchen. Various Smithsonian museums, the tidal basin and its various memorials, the circle at Dupont Circle, Metro stations, my friend's apartment. Her roommate and her two cats. A short walk along an urban trail that took us to the Ann and Donald Brown House, which I knew looked impressive enough to be worth talking about. A lot of time with nothing to do and no reason to worry about that. Some TV watched, some movies, not much writing but a good deal of reading and talking. She'll be leaving Washington DC soon, possibly to another coast, possibly somewhere still reasonably close by. I'm glad I got to visit her before she left, when I could still do it by train and be home well before bedtime when it was over.
[syndicated profile] scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

Today I was ordering a panini from the local sandwich joint, when I saw behind the counter that they had individually packaged slices of bacon. Though I have tried many a cured meat throughout the years, including dubious meat sticks, I have never seen individually packaged, fully cooked, flavored bacon. Of course, I knew I had to try every flavor they had available, especially since they were only a buck a piece.

Check these bad boys out:

Four individually packaged pieces of fully cooked bacon, each in their respectively colored packages based on the flavor.

These bacons come to us from Riff’s Smokehouse, creator of hot sauces and bacon, apparently. Here we have four out of their five flavors, as the fifth flavor was not available to me.

Each piece is 110 calories, and has 5g of protein per slice. When selecting my pieces, I actually rifled through the shop’s selection a good bit to find some sizeable pieces, as slice sizes were not all that consistent, funny enough. There were some skinny mini pieces of bacon! So, if you find these in the wild, find yourself a thicc slice.

Thankfully, you can see through the back to the full picture of what you’re getting into:

The four packages of bacon, flipped over so you can see each piece in its entirety through the clear plastic.

Anyways, the package says to microwave them for 5 seconds, but I figured most people who are buying these “on-the-go” bacons will not have immediate access to a microwave, so I actually tasted each piece right out the package first, and then microwaved them and tried them all again. Science!

I started with the Sweet flavor. The bacon was sort of stiff, like a bit hard to chew through. It was a little sweet but not as sweet as I would’ve imagined the flavor “Sweet” to be. Definitely not overwhelming if you’re not the biggest fan of overly sweet meats. After microwaving it for five seconds, it didn’t seem all that warm, so I microwaved it for another five (ten total, for those counting along at home), and promptly burned my mouth on the literally sizzling piece of meat. So, don’t do ten seconds.

For the Sweet & Spicy flavor, it was actually a little bit tougher than the previous piece. Reminded me a lot more of something like a jerky. Jerky-esque, if you will. Initially, I didn’t think it was spicy at all. It just had sort of a more savory, smoky flavor, but after microwaving it it actually got more of a kick to it, leaving a touch of heat in the back of my throat.

For the Red Curry, I was sure this one would be spicier than the rest, but it was oddly sweet. The spices involved gave it a nice complexity that the regular “Sweet” didn’t have to it. This piece had a really good texture with lots of fattiness throughout (I like chewy, fattier bacon). After microwaving it, it crisped up just a little bit and tasted even better warm.

Finally, for the Raspberry Chipotle, I once again expected heat what with chipotle being in the name. No heat came, but it had an excellent raspberry flavor that wasn’t artificial tasting or too overwhelming. This piece had a nice, softer texture and was the thickest cut out of all the pieces I’d had. This was my favorite of the four.

If you go on Riff’s website, you can buy a variety pack of all five flavors, with three pieces of each, for a little less than $33. This comes out to about $2.15 a slice. If you commit to just one flavor, you get 12 pieces for $23 bucks, which comes out to $1.91 a slice. So, pick your poison! I’d go for the variety pack, because variety is the spice of life. If you get it and try the fifth flavor I didn’t get to, let me know how it is.

Are you a crispy bacon or chewy bacon person? Do you like maple syrup with your bacon? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

[personal profile] tcampbell1000 posting in [community profile] scans_daily


As should be obvious, I love the JLI work of Keith Giffen and his scripting collaborators like J.M. DeMatteis, so I feel a little treasonous saying this about a story by neither Giffen nor DeMatteis. But I have to speak truth. The lead story here, by Mark Waid and Mike McKone, is my favorite JLI story. Full stop.

If only the JLU cartoon had adapted this one. )

Lake Lewisia #1373

Mar. 23rd, 2026 05:00 pm
scrubjayspeaks: Town sign for (fictional) Lake Lewisia, showing icons of mountains and a lake with the letter L (Lake Lewisia)
[personal profile] scrubjayspeaks
To protest the rise in both systemic plagiarism and poor reading comprehension, books have been unprinting themselves. Whole shelves have been found with their pages blanked, while dust jackets and spines sport slogans such as “citation needed” and “summarize this.” While a list of demands has been published, negotiating experts are taking their time before responding, as careless misinterpretation of the terms at this moment could prove disastrous.

---

LL#1373

Communities

Mar. 23rd, 2026 06:50 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Myth of Mobility: Why Faster Cities Often Leave People Behind

When cities measure mobility by speed, they often make everyday life harder to reach.

In many large urban areas, particularly those built during the late twentieth century, everyday necessities have been separated from residential life. Homes are clustered in residential zones while shops, restaurants, libraries, and workplaces are placed far away along commercial corridors or in large retail centers. The result is a city where nearly every basic activity requires driving. On paper, this appears to increase mobility. In reality, it often reduces it.

For people who cannot drive easily, such as older adults, children, individuals with disabilities, or those who cannot afford a car, the distance between daily needs becomes a barrier. Even for those who can drive, environments designed for cars are not always designed for people. Vast parking lots, wide arterial roads, and enormous retail spaces can be physically exhausting and psychologically overwhelming to navigate. True mobility should not be measured only by how fast people can travel, but by how easily they can reach the things they need.

this and -- that

Mar. 23rd, 2026 06:49 pm
chazzbanner: (Glacier)
[personal profile] chazzbanner
Weather:
Remember we got a foot of snow a week ago? A few days ago it was 74F/23.3C, and I went for walk wearing no jacket. Yesterday it was so breezy that the windchill was below freezing. In other words, March is March in Minnesota. :-)

Here are two 'best of' lists I gleaned from Word in Your Tear, no particular random order:

Bridges:
Hey Julie, Fountains of Wayne
We Can Work It Out, The Beatles
Mayor of Simpleton, XTC
Feed the Birds - soundtrack to Mary Poppins
Nothing Matters, Last Dinner Party

Saxophone solos:
Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, Duke Ellington
Money, Pink Floyd
Young Americans, David Bowie
Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen
Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty
Careless Whisper, George Michael

Notes from the blokes: they felt Feed the Birds had the most glorious bridvge, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra solo was the greatest.

The story of that solo is pretty amazing, it comes from a live album. Ah! - I see a quote on the web: "Probably the most important fifteen minutes in the entire history of jazz." The recording as made at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Ellington and his orchestra were thought rather passé at the time, and this performance/recording (with this solo) changed all that. The Duke said to his tenor sax player (Paul Gonsalves) "go out there and play as long as you like." :-)

So, go listen, already

PS, Feed the Birds makes me tear up, and according to YT comments I'm not the only one :-). And the bridge is beautiful.

ETA Here's an interesting page about the famous 'woman who danced' at this concert - quite the story

-
[syndicated profile] wtfjht_feed

Posted by Matt Kiser

Day 1889

Today in one sentence: Trump delayed his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants for five days, claiming the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive” talks on a “complete and total” resolution of the war; Tehran, however, denied that there were any direct or indirect negotiations, calling it fake news, market manipulation, and “psychological warfare”; Trump deployed ICE officers to more than a dozen U.S. airports to help with TSA staffing shortages during the partial DHS shutdown; and the Supreme Court appears likely to limit mail-in voting in federal elections.


1/ Trump delayed his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants for five days, claiming the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive” talks on a “complete and total” resolution of the war. Tehran, however, denied that there were any direct or indirect negotiations, calling it fake news, market manipulation, and “psychological warfare.” Nevertheless, Trump said Iran “wants to settle” the war and “very much” wants a deal, and that the two sides had “major points of agreement,” including reopening the Strait of Hormuz, banning Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon, and removing its enriched uranium. Trump also suggested that any deal would amount to a “very serious form of regime change.” (NBC News / Bloomberg / NPR / Washington Post / Politico / CNBC / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Reuters / Axios / ABC News)

2/ Trump deployed ICE officers to more than a dozen U.S. airports to help with TSA staffing shortages during the partial DHS shutdown. Trump said the officers were meant to ease delays, but suggested he could send the National Guard next, while airports and administration officials said ICE was not screening passengers and no arrests had been reported. The move came after more than 400 TSA officers quit and about 3,450 called out on Sunday as the partial shutdown has forced TSA workers to keep working without pay. Trump and congressional Republicans have insisted on fully funding DHS, including ICE and CBP. Democrats, however, have pushed to pay for TSA while leaving ICE and CBP unfunded, demanding new limits on ICE tactics, including clearer identification, mask restrictions, and tighter rules for forced home entries. Trump, meanwhile, said he wouldn’t support a DHS funding deal unless it also included the Republican SAVE America Act, saying Congress should “lump everything together as one, and VOTE!!!” (New York Times / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CNBC)

  • The Senate voted 54-37 to advance Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security, putting him on track for final confirmation this week. Mullin would replace Kristi Noem. (Axios / Politico)

3/ The Supreme Court appears likely to limit mail-in voting in federal elections. The case could force Mississippi and at least 13 other states to stop counting ballots mailed by Election Day but received later. At issue is a Mississippi law that allows absentee ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days after Election Day and were postmarked by then. The Republican National Committee argued that federal law requires both submission and receipt by Election Day. Justice Samuel Alito said late-counted ballots can undermine “confidence in election outcomes” and create an “appearance of fraud,” while Justice Neil Gorsuch called it “a contradiction” to say ballots must be cast by Election Day, but need only be mailed by then. But Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned whether that logic could also threaten early voting. A ruling is expected by late June. (NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / CNN / CNBC / Associated Press / Politico)

The 2026 midterms are in 225 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 960 days.


✏️ Notables.

  1. A federal judge ruled that the Pentagon’s policy of restricting press access violated the First Amendment. Judge Paul Friedman said the rules let the Pentagon revoke journalists’ credentials as “security risks” under vague standards and banned reporters from seeking information from military employees who were not authorized to speak publicly. (New York Times)

  2. Voice of America journalists sued Trump administration officials, alleging they tried to turn the federally funded news outlet into a pro-Trump “mouthpiece.” The complaint named Kari Lake and other U.S. Agency for Global Media officials, saying they pushed for favorable coverage of Trump, censored or suppressed reporting they didn’t want aired, and pressured staff to show “loyalty” or risk losing their jobs. (NPR / New York Times)

  3. The Interior Department agreed to pay about $1 billion to abandon two planned offshore wind projects. Instead, they’ll redirect the money to U.S. oil and gas investments. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the money had been tied up in what he called “expensive, weather dependent offshore wind.” (Washington Post)

  4. A far-right activist who spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud and now leads FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery claimed that he was involuntarily “teleported” to a Waffle House. Gregg Phillips made the claims on multiple podcasts. “Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips said on one podcast. “It was real.” FEMA, meanwhile, said the comments were taken out of context or reflected private, informal, and “somewhat spiritual” discussions made before his current role. (CNN / The Guardian)

  5. Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who later led the special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, died Friday at 81. He spent 22 months investigating Trump’s campaign and Russia, concluding that Russia interfered in the election and that Trump’s campaign had multiple contacts with Russians, but there was “insufficient evidence” to establish a criminal conspiracy. Mueller’s office also chose not to charge Trump with obstruction of justice out of “fairness concerns,” because “a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional process for addressing presidential misconduct.” However, Mueller, citing numerous legal constraints in his report, declined to exonerate Trump, writing: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.” Trump, meanwhile, responded: “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” (MS Now / Reuters / Politico / Associated Press)



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Science

Mar. 23rd, 2026 05:23 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This floating time crystal breaks Newton’s third law of motion

A simple setup of sound-levitated beads has revealed a bizarre new time crystal that breaks physics rules—and could reshape future technology.

Scientists have created a new kind of time crystal using sound waves to levitate tiny beads in mid-air. These particles interact in a one-sided, unbalanced way, breaking the usual rules of motion and creating a steady, repeating rhythm. The system is surprisingly simple yet reveals complex physics with big implications. It could help advance quantum computing and deepen our understanding of biological timing systems.



Aaaaaand all of us from the Torn World shared world are going O_O >_< O_O

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