conuly

On the other, probably I shouldn't have that much cheese and sour cream in one sitting.

But they're so tasty guys!

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From TED To PERNOCTATED, Scrabble’s Best Player Knows No Limits

I haven't played Scrabble since I was a young teen. Between Mommy and Jenn there was no chance of winning! And no, that is not like my sister refusing to play Mario Kart against me, because a full Grand Prix on Mario Kart only takes about a quarter hour, but Scrabble goes on forever. So it's totally different, and Jenn, you should play Mario Kart against me someday soon. I'll let you lap me first!

Wait, I had a point, and that point wasn't about playing Mario Kart. Oh, right. This article is fascinating and I wonder if anybody's tried to get him to play Scrabble while hooked up to an MRI.

1. Holy crap, I forgot how slow I walk without the correct mods updated!
2. I also forgot how everybody looks without DSV.
3. Also, is it mod interference that's keeping forage from spawning or a natural bug? Oh, man, I do not want to figure this out on my own.

Only on day one, I will likely have more thoughts later, things that might be spoilers.

March 19!

I'm very excited.

It's been years, but I just haven't been in the mood. Haven't baked much either.

But everybody likes gumbo. My gumbo is delicious, that's why! It's just always such a production. The roux alone is a solid 45 minutes or more of stirring! (And with a dedicated spoon, because if I'm going to spend 45 minutes making roux I'm damn sure going to make a little extra to eat with sugar, which means no mixing it up with the spoon I'm using on the trinity! Actually, there's an idea, I use roux enough - light rouxes, usually, because who has the time? - that I should make a whole big batch at once and freeze it in portions. But then what would I snack on as I cook?)

I mean, they'd absolutely work better* than asking teachers to police this, but I completely get that nobody's going to do it, just like nobody's going to do gun control.

But now I'm invested. It's weird how that works, isn't it? I didn't really care, other than that this was the umpteenth "oh, wow, what can we do about this intractable problem**!" article this month, but now I kinda do!

* Better to stop kids from texting in class. They wouldn't do anything to prevent them from listening to or watching anything they'd previously downloaded. Faraday cages prevent signals from going in or out, but if your cell phone is in your bag and your bag is next to you then the bluetooth signal can get from your phone to your earbud easy-peasy. To stop that you'd need to require kids to put their phones in RFID blocking bags or somesuch. Or you could use a jammer, but all such technology is illegal, has been for nearly 100 years, and comes with a pretty hefty fine and potential jail time. Teachers aren't paid enough for that, and you aren't either.

** Illicit cell phone usage in class. The parental angle was new.

Don't text your kid at school for no damn reason, folks!

If you want that much daily contact with your child - homeschool!

But on another note, every time I see an article about schools having trouble enforcing no-phone policies I keep thinking this: every teen shoplifter knows you can make a simple faraday cage for your tagged goods by lining a bag with aluminum foil. Then you can smuggle your whatever-it-is past the door and not get stopped with a beep. This same principle is why cell service inside elevators sucks - those things are made of metal and it blocks everything.

So, on that note, it should not be impossible to retrofit your school from top to bottom to make cell service too shitty to be worthwhile... and so long as you're using passive methods then it's all legal! (This may also be an option if you're a teacher in a single classroom and expected to decorate. Who says you can't decorate with metal? Line your classroom with cookie tins, guys! Who doesn't want a shiny classroom that, coincidentally, has the worst cell and wifi service in the state?)

Edit: I just googled, and faraday paints and wallpaper are things you can buy. As always, I believe functional engineering solutions are superior than behavioral ones. If you make it so that kids can't text in class then you will no longer have to spend energy trying to stop them from doing it. So, while this might actually not be feasible for a teacher, any school which is really irritated by this should consider trying to find the funding to redo their paint. In my experience, all schools are badly overdue for a paint job anyway. Shove a metal grid over the windows and you will be good to go.

The guys who were doing the shower glass screwed up at first and had to get new glass that'd fit. And then when they came the second time, a week later - it was still the wrong size! But this time too big, so they just cut it down properly in the street, apparently.

And now we have a shower and a toilet and it echoes loudly and it would've been so helpful if we'd done this before my mother died, but we didn't. She also would've liked the birdfeeders, but we didn't do that earlier either. But the point of all this is that we're set for when we get old and need help, or else the next time I twist an ankle or my hips or knees decide they hate me or whatever.

But what are we going to do with the bathtub? It cannot live in our yard. And apparently vintage cast iron tubs can sell from anywhere from $300 - $5000 which is an enormous spread and monumentally unhelpful to know. How are we supposed to make plans when that's the options? Like, if it's a $300 tub, forget it, we'll put it on the curb and post something on the internet in case people want it, but if it's a $5000 tub we'll put in the legwork and call around antique stores and whatever. But we don't want to do that if it's not going to pan out.

Uh, does anybody here in the NYC area suddenly want a tub? You'll have to get vintage fixtures, I guess, but it's otherwise in great shape.

Also, one of the glass guys is from Trenton, NJ and apparently the Trenton accent sounds to me like a Southern accent. Is it supposed to sound like a Southern accent? Does it sound like that to everybody or is that just me? (Or him?)

Orthodox Easter date has nothing to do with Passover.

It's the first number in the FAQ.

this is a weirdo year in which (Western) Easter is early and Passover (and, perforce, Orthodox Easter) is late.

Actually I'm not entirely sure which Orthodox churches have determined that Easter must fall after Passover. Is it all of them? Or only some of them? Well, whichever ones they are, they're having their Easter in May!

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So much rain. I made the birds fend for themselves. It was really wet out there!

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Which seems to have, as its cooking element, simply taken a hodgepodge of menu items from around the world. I'm not actually sure how they picked these, but I am certain I'd like a real world cookbook!

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But I left the woodpecker suet feeder out there and when I peeked out the window I saw our yard swarming with starlings going at the spilled seed from the day before and one intrepid squirrel trying to get at the suet feeder! I guess that limb is a bit strong than the one that was holding the other suet feeder.

I moved it over to the other limb, the one the squirrels think is too bendy for their taste, but I can see I'll want to get a baffle. Speaking of which, the woodpeckers were a bit put out at the fact that their special suet feeder the other birds mostly don't like was moved. They'll figure it out.

I don't know what was up with the starlings, though. Mostly we've only had one or two, or sometimes three of them. To see so many on a day I hadn't put out seed was certainly startling! And today we were back to hardly any.

(I really want to get a squirrel feeder, but I'll want to put it away from my birdfeeders and I haven't figured out a decent spot yet. I have to clear the yard now that it's warmer, get rid of construction debris. Maybe that'll give me time to think.)

and the answer was that I was posting on my phone and it's kinda a hassle, but now I have a different reason to make a poll on the word tisane.



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Even if you don't have Netflix.

We have the graphic novel but somehow I have not yet gotten around to watching the movie. I should do that.

Well, until they suddenly spooked and fluttered away, flapping their wings right in my face. I've always liked mourning doves, but they're very clumsy and slow birds.

We've also been visited again by our mockingbird, who has spent some time jumping down to the tray feeder and then reconsidering and perching back at the top of the tree. The cardinals finally figured out the tray feeder, so maybe the mockingbird will as well.

Last time Jenn didn't get a chance to see it before it flew off and commented that she doesn't even know what mockingbirds look like, so here is the Audubon page on them. I tried to find a video of a mockingbird in flight but I couldn't find one I liked very much. The best one was clearly taken from far away and so you could still barely see what you were looking at. Edit: the videos in the photo gallery here will have to do.

but it flew away as I came to the window!

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You'd think a middle grade portal fantasy with multiple color illustrations - but not a graphic novel! - would be easy to find.

and the correct way to clear the stolen tag off an item in the Nintendo Switch version of Skyrim is to put it into a drawer in Breezehome and have a companion (but not a housecarl, if google is to be believed) empty the entire drawer. You can then get the sword you forgot to get before leaving the Blades' new stronghold marked as not stolen, which is convenient when you feel morally opposed to killing the dragon on the mountain. You wouldn't think I had morals in this game, would you? Well, I do! And sometimes they're inconvenient! Like, do I want to kill Grelod the Kind? It's a bit of a hassle and I got lost multiple times* trying to find the Orphanage, not to mention the little boy's house! But I did it anyway, because of my morals. She had it coming.

I did at least have a chance to recruit three followers to the Blades before they cut me off. I decided on Erandur and Mjoll, because I think they'd like that lifestyle, and also Ralis because it's the only thing that can even begin to atone for his actions. Probably I should've just killed him when I had the chance. Or better yet, dragged him to Boethiah's altar, but I think I can find somebody who deserves it even more.

* I'm never quite sure if I get lost so much in video games because they're confusingly laid out or because of the whole agnosia that afflicts me IRL, but... yeah, I'm very lostable wherever I am.

He was pretty chill about the whole thing, so yes, I did fulfill his final request to off the guy who took out a hit on his life. Then, since I was in the area anyway, I gave a little girl some goldfish. That's life, I guess - some days you're killing for fun and/or profit and others you're bringing aquatic animals to their new forever homes!

I continue to be charmed by how sweet the remaining members of the Brotherhood are to each other. Sure, they're remorseless killers for hire, but they also dug me out of the ashes of their home with their bare hands when all evidence suggested that I'd died and the Brotherhood was finished.

Also, in other game news, I got the Nightingale Armor! I was disappointed, when I got the Deathbrand Armor, to find that it does not make my in-game butt look amazing. It makes everybody else's butts look amazing, but at the start of the game I couldn't pass up the chance to be a cat and now my tail gets in the way of my amazing, amazing Deathbrand Armor ass. However, I've now been mollified by the revelation that everybody looks good in the Nightingale Armor! It really accentuates the muscles. Or the curves, or both, just whatever you've got.

I do like mockingbirds, I like how they flash white when they fly.

I'd even like their singing if they weren't all so overly enamored with car alarms. I just don't get the appeal. You're a brilliantly smart bird, you can memorize dozens and scores and even hundreds of songs, and you've decided to rattle off your entire repertoire of car alarms every night? Apparently so!

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