No Update Today

Nothing to report, so silly stuff after the fold.

Visual Oddities

I'm pretty good at spotting things that are out-of-place in photos or drawings. I'm not perfect at it, but I generally can spot the anomaly pretty well. I'm curious, how good are you are seeing the out-of-place thing? In the first four images, find the panda. In the final image, find the dog. If you feel like it, leave a comment (here or on Facebook) to indicate how difficult you found them. I found 1-3 easy, 4 mildly difficult, and 5 mostly easy.

Click Each Image To Make It Bigger

1. Find the Panda

2. Find the Panda

3. Find the Panda

4. Find the Panda

5. Find the Duplo Dog

Haircuts and Life

A week or so ago Eric and I drove out to our usual place to get haircuts, the Sunnyside Beauty Academy. There was a note on the door that said the owner was retiring and the academy would no longer be giving haircuts to the public. Much disheartened, we went home without haircuts.

A couple of days ago I noticed my hair was in my eyes. All the time. It was driving me bonkers. I used a hair band to hold it back, but that turned out to annoy me even more. Then I read about record temperatures about to hit our area, with possible highs up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and decided I needed a haircut NOW. Last night I got to the point that I was seriously (and not for the first time) considering cutting as much off as possible then using Eric's shaver to clear the rest.

We needed a new place to get haircuts. I'm not inclined to be stylish - I just want short hair. And the women in this town literally ALL have long hair, and don't want to cut short. So I thought about a place I went to many years ago to get a photo of a child's first haircut, and suggested to Eric we try Fred's Barbershop. I checked the hours online, and off we went.

When we drove up, the place looked abandoned and I was a little worried until Eric pointed out that a) the barbershop pole was spinning, b) the open sign was out and c) it's Monday morning. Oh, right. We walked up and just before Eric could put his hand on the door, it opened. The gentleman behind the door was none other than Fred himself, who I remembered taking a photo of for that assignment at the paper. Sure enough, my photo was posted in the shop, with my credit on it and everything. I took the photo in September 2011 - not long after I started as a reporter.

I asked him if he was up to cutting my hair, and he asked - with a little trepidation - what sort of style I wanted. I told him I wanted a typical guy's haircut, and he said it would be fine. "It's all hair, right?" He admitted he hadn't cut a woman's hair in years, but he had no problem once we got started. And I love the cut. It's perfect for me. Short, even all the way across, above the ears. Just what I always want and hardly ever get.

Eric then got his cut, not as short as he might have since school only starts in another month or so. We were delighted and, frankly, I think we've found our new place to go. His son and grandson also cut hair, and if they learned from him I'm not afraid to get my hair cut by them.

Ok, I promised a photo of my new haircut when I got it (if only to let people know I didn't go for Eleven's look on Stranger Things). I took a few photos and all of them were awful, but here's a couple that I can tolerate (barely) other people seeing:

Hubby and I both got haircuts this morning.

It's nice and short!

My hair has always been a cause of stress for me. I never liked it long, and I hated bowl cuts that my dad gave us when we were children. I don't like fancy - my cowlicks make that pointless in most cases. I just want something I can wash, towel dry, comb and go. This is just what I want.

Ok, moving on to another topic... Below the fold: Fires and Boxed shipments (with Inkwell photos)

Getting Back to "Normal"

I've moved my computer set up into the room I originally claimed when we first moved into this house. I put up my computer desk, but didn't spend much time in here, and eventually it became the room where we tossed stuff we needed to get out of the way. Over the last few days I've cleared out a place and moved in a chair and some tables so I can use the room as it was meant to be used again. Today I put up a couple of my Aquaman posters.

Unfortunately, the computer desk itself is still covered in piles of "stuff" - as is every other horizontal surface. I've set myself a very low threshold goal of getting one single item off a desk or table and to "where it belongs" each day. I know if I try to do too much, I overload, so hopefully this will be enough to get me started. Hopefully I'll do more than one item, but I don't want to push it.

Inkwell has been banned from this room pretty much his entire life, and has spent a great deal of time exploring it. I had tossed a couple of pillows on the floor and noticed he made a nest out of them for a few hours today. He also has been attempting to safely get into the window, but because there was too much junk in front of it, he gave up. I'm working on cleaning a path for him.

I've got to get back to regular writing again, and I have started up my 750 Words account to try to get the daily minimum in. I also want to catch up on my comic book and Fortean Times reviews, but that will take a great deal of time, especially since I also want to read more of the kind of stories I like, which I did a lot of thanks to the Hugo voting, but I'd like to get some of the reading done in the year the works are actually published. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. At the moment, I'm using Rocket Stack Rank to get some suggestions.

Being out of town for more than a week, I barely played DC Universe Online, and I found I barely missed it. I believe it got me through the worst of my depression, so I don't regret it, but I'm definitely cutting back on it now.

I logged into the Worldcon 75 Hugo ballot again today - and again made a number of changes. I have no idea how the final voting will go, but I'm really excited about the results and I'm hoping the ceremony is lovely this year. I would love to go to San Jose for next year's Worldcon, but that would require both Eric and I getting better employment. We'll just have to wait and see.

Tomorrow, if I have the energy between job search efforts, I shall attempt to review some short story or something. I would love feedback on my reviews - are they useful at all? Too short? Too spoilery? Do you prefer reviews with analysis and comparisons, or do you like my capsule stuff?

Ok, that's enough for tonight. See you all online tomorrow.

Some Photos

Sidewalk art I captured on the Fourth of July.

The feedback board at the restaurant Eric and I ate lunch at today.

My first ever doughnut from Top Pot.

Eric's doughnut, with a bite already gone before I could get the phone out.

Thoughts

My mind is all over the place today, so I'm not sure what to write.

Time...

I blacked out the name of my friend because the post was marked to friends only...

Christmas Thoughts

The blank page stares up at me...

I really don't have much to say. It's been a long day. Eric and I have watched a bit of TV together. Inkwell threw up to give us a Christmas present.

I played a couple of video games - The Room, Fallout (the original) and DC Universe Online.

Now we're watching a "It's a Wonderful Life", which is both good and bad. When George is having his worst moments, I really empathize with him. Sometimes it all becomes overwhelming, and that evil Potter saying "you're worth more dead than alive" was a moment that makes me want to smack someone.

I'm also annoyed by the fact that the worst thing that could've happened to Mary is that she became a librarian. *I* wanna be a librarian.

I need chocolate.

Various freewritten thoughts

I'm just going to write, I don't know what will come out... read at your own risk.

Ug.

I shouldn't have promised myself I would post something every day...

Thoughts

Some pointless thoughts after the jump...

I Don't Wanna Write Today

I'm not feeling it. Usually I had to force myself through the block and write regardless, then hopefully have enough time to edit whatever I produced into something worth reading. But I don't have to do that anymore, do I? Until I get another job, I can simply not write when I'm not in the mood, which is somewhat rare.

750 Words

I've started using 750 Words again, and I'm going to try to keep my streak going. It was a little bit impossible when I was writing multiple stories for the newspaper every day to get myself to write for myself. I'm not sure why. For the last few days I've dabbled in some fiction ideas that have been floating in my head, including what I hope will be an MR James types horror tale... although as my first effort, it's bound to stink. But it's really fun to write for myself again.

It's still the morning, so I'm not sure why I'm blogging, except that I need to keep moving forward, and this is the way I move forward. I write.

Every day that goes by I realize how much the job was draining me and killing me, literally. I feel so much better now it's not even funny. The only problem is that now I have to worry about health insurance and money to get through the summer, which is a pain on every level. I'm fantasizing about winning the lottery or having someone pay off the mortgage, but as pleasant as those fantasies are, they don't help me solve the heart of the problem. I'll need to work out how to solve that before I go much further.

At least I'm getting some cleaning done around the house.

If I had the gumption, I'd go do a little grocery shopping today, too. But I'm feeling extremely hermit-y right now. Gotta go through my alone time. I needed this so badly I didn't realize how much I needed it. Time for myself. Time to be introverted.

I don't think I'm making much sense. That's ok. Hopefully when I go back to read this in a year or so, I'll understand where I was today and learn from it.

We have irrigation out here in this desert: that's how the local farmers grow hops and grapes and keep the cows watered. This is literally the land of beer, wine and milk. But it would be nothing but volcanic ash blowing through scrub brush if not for the water coming from the mountains. Everyone who lives in this area helps pay for the irrigation, whether they have access to it or not. The house Eric and I bought happens to have access to it, for our tiny lot.

The irrigation water comes from a box in the back yard. Originally, I thought it was just a regular concrete box with a pipe leading into it. You connect your hose to the pipe, turn on the water, and irrigate your yard. Easy-peasy. However, I think the box is actually made of metal, and last year I think some sort of critter burrowed into it, because the irrigation box filled with dirt. This is the best explanation I can come up with for why it filled with dirt, but I don't know for sure if I'm right.

All I know for sure is that we've had to dig out the pipe and the switch several times, and it's really annoying.

I tried to dig it out again this morning before watering the sunflowers, but I didn't get as far as I wanted to get. I feel like I took out a ton of dirt, but I only made a slight dent in the amount in the box. It's turned to mud, because the line from the pipe is leaking. That's not fun at all. When I reached one of the walls and tapped against it, it felt like it was buckled. I'm going to have to excavate it completely before I know for sure. I wish I could hire someone to come out here and put in a pipe and switch that are above ground so even if the box fills we can still use it, and so I don't have to bend over to turn it on.

Inkwell was extremely interested in the glove and the spade once I came back in the house, sniffing them thoroughly. He really wants to go out into the back yard. He really wants to get at the bees.

I had a window open yesterday, I think. Inkwell was next to the screen, staring at the yard, when he started barking and hitting the screen. I came over and discovered he was tracking a bee, which was clearly as interested in Inkwell as Inkwell was in it. Inkwell was going to rip off the screen to get at it, so I seized the cat and held him to calm him down. The bee took off, Inkwell complained about being held, and I decided to keep a slightly closer eye on the cat while he's in the windows.

Well, that's enough for the moment. I should get back to posting links and being my usual obnoxious self soon enough, I hope.

Some moments...

Driving home from a neighboring city I looked at the sky and swear the moon looked like it had been badly photoshopped into the sky... I could even see the spots where the blur tool was used to try to blend it into the sky. Then I noticed a star/planet in the sky that appeared to be on top of the clouds. Clearly another bad photoshop job!

Earlier today we heard a call come over the scanner and listened, since we sometimes run out ambulance chasing. It was a call from the fire district requesting police help in stopping a car on the freeway that was apparently on fire. The car was a red Outback (I think) with several people in it and flames coming from under it. We heard several officers setting themselves up to stop the car if they spotted a flaming red car... but nothing. None of them spotted it, and when they headed back along the freeway no one saw it. Perhaps it was a false alarm.

It's over... sort of...

The occupation of a peaceful bird sanctuary is finally over after the final hold-out surrendered this morning, but not after some truly fraught and surreal moments. I made the mistake of trying to listen to some of it, since the tweets about it didn't make any sense. I quickly figured out why they didn't make sense. Because the people talking were total nutters.

I listened as a young man, the last hold-out, was talked down to by some ultra-conservative jerkwads who nearly managed to talk him into killing himself by putting on a lesson of what not to say to a suicidal person before an FBI investigator finally managed to wrest the conversation away from them and back into the realm of sanity. The talk ranged from Biblical references, to prison rape, to pizza and marijuana, to UFOs and nuclear leaks. In short, the kid was completely delusional by the end. It sounded like a lack of sleep combined with being surrounded by nutcases and hearing only their points of view. When you are stuck in a bubble like that, it's not good for you.

The next step will be the authorities examining the bird sanctuary as a crime scene. As several references were made to the thing being booby-trapped, I suspect law enforcement will move slowly and carefully in some places. Once it's been determined how much damage the bozos did, then they can be charged for cleaning up the mess and with any other crimes discovered. I hope they didn't do too much damage to archaeological sites, but I fear they may have, based on their own videos of "building roads" in sensitive areas.

I hope the folks that need mental health assistance get the help they need, and I hope the rest of them spend a long, long time occupying a federal building before they are released... if ever.

Tiny Linkdump

Matrix patch notes.

Nineteen covers to Doctor Who: The Four Doctors #1.

I'm so glad Inkwell hasn't discovered the button.

It took me a moment to get it.

Cats have always licked themselves.

It really is the Berenstain Bears.

Were Dorothy Parker's ashes kept in a filing cabinet for two decades?

Almost another statistic.

Nonsense

I very much feel like saying some four-letter words.

Jazz. Hair. Wick. Gulf. Fray. Junk. Idol. Hazy. Jinx. Grim. Warn. Zinc. Quiz. Pint. Tuft. Jabs. Pier. Dirt. Buzz. Jump. Fuse. Curl. Seam. Trod. Malt. Blob. Weld. Romp. Vast. Glib. Alas. Daft. Yarn. Exit. Vile. Knot. Urge. Lull. Oath. Numb. Lurk. Wane. Gasp. Slow. Clue. Rune. Mope. Amen.

Attitudes sure have changed...

Via.

I wish I had something to say

But this is one of those days that I can't even process what has happened, and I'm not sure I want to process it. I have a mega-headache forming and I think I'm going to go to bed and hope I wake up and today was a dream or something. We'll just have to see. I don't know if I can handle any more from this week. It's killing me.

Morning Thoughts

So, I took a nap when I got home yesterday only to have a cat on my face about 6 p.m. letting me know that he needed his dinner. The nap helped, however... I feel much better today.

This is probably the best way ever to announce a snow closure:

And, grumpy Laura says: people who don't vaccinate their children because of stupid, non-scientific reasons should not be allowed to put those disease-carriers in school. This dad agrees, as his son cannot be vaccinated for genuine medical reasons and the 7 percent exception rate at his local school puts his child in terrible danger. Parents who are unreasonably fearful of vaccines due to Googling anti-vax sites should not be allowed to put children of intelligent parents who actually understand science in danger.

Not sure I'm cool with stooping to their level, but a gay lawmaker is sick of the hypocrisy and has threatened to out fellow lawmakers' affairs to point out that they don't actually sanctify marriage as much as they claim.