conuly | Recent Entries

I directed them towards the ngram viewer, but it kept bugging me, and with a little bit of fiddling and searching I worked out that if you're on a computer you can still see the number of results if you click "tools" under the search bar. So now we know!

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It's a nicer place - and a lot less busy! - than the other one, even if I did have to take a long bus ride to get there and then cross Hylan. They need to put a sign on their front door, the one that's locked, saying that the main entrance is around the corner. I mean, I figured it out, but....

I gotta say, I'm a little weirded out that they asked me to just confirm my SSN. What if I remembered it wrong? Oh god, what if I did misremember it? I've had it memorized literally since before my father died, when I was a kid, but I always worry that I memorized it wrong and I've been switching up two specific digits this entire time. Normally I'd just check, but as my card is misplaced that's obviously not a thing I can do.

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I'm not under the impression that any of these have picked up much steam as of yet, but, well, there's one way to do that.

The Majority Project: 1M Postcards to Congress

Just Passing Along | Project Mail Storm

Postcards to SCOTUS and Congress

And, of course, if you need some ideas of what to complain about, you can start here. There's also no law stopping you from sending mail and making a phone call.

and somehow or another I still can never recall the plot. I'm not even sure if the problem is that I never understand the plot as I read it or if the problem is that I understand it just fine but forget it immediately thereafter.

And yes, I've read Deep Secret. It's not as helpful as it ought to be. Anyway, just boasting, because that makes this an even better find than usual!

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I saw a truck today with writing on the upper corners.

On the upper left corner it said:

Gourmet Chips
And Pretzel's

and on the upper right corner it said:

Healthy Foods
And Drink's

So... what, exactly, did that person think the apostrophe is for?

Also, don't want this getting lost: My credit union is asking us all to contact our congresscritters. Honestly, maybe I should buy a book of postcards. Of course, my handwriting is terrible....

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Or, rather, a list of lists. There will likely be some overlap.

Newsweek

IAmerica

Mobilize

Fiftyfiftyone

The NYC Bar protest

A different NYC protest

Please share!

So, confetti and champagne all around?

Although, for some inexplicable reason many of them straight up refuse to say "picture book" and will instead talk themselves into circles describing picture books instead.

Anyway, for what probably is a more explainable reason, lots of them falter when trying to describe what the artwork looks like. They'll either say "It's sorta like a cross between X and Y" or they'll say "It's weird/unusual/unique", which is a completely useless statement.

I've got a few standard questions I ask when I'm trying to get them to actually be clear, but I'm wondering if anybody has any other suggestions that might be helpful. ( Shoving mine under a cut so as not to influence people's thoughts unduly )

Also, don't want this getting buried in links: Compilation of Protests and Actions Against the UK Supreme Court

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I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

*****

Link

1. I love this time of year. Specifically, I love looking in other people's yards, shaking my head, and saying "Tsk. Those people really need to divide their daffodils."

2. The daffodils I divided last year have all come up, though several are sulking and refusing to bloom. I get it.

3. My neighbor on the corner who grows a banana tree in his yard every year (we never get bananas, it's not warm enough for that) has several patches of daffodils on the tree lawn and also some traffic cones that National Grid or whoever left there last time they dug up the street. The other day I passed by and realized that one of those cones was right over a patch of daffodils struggling valiantly to clear the top! I moved the cone and the poor things flopped over, easily twice as tall in the leaves as any daffodil ought to be. Oh well.

Clicky!

Also, I meant to say re: the utilities that you are all the best and I absolutely love you :)

(Still need to call National Grid and still don't wanna.)

Watch on YouTube

And they make you show up in person for an interview after, so I made my appointment for today, very carefully in Manhattan because that's easier for me to get to than the office on Staten Island.

I don't know for sure if it's their screw-up or mine, but my appointment did not go through. Judging from the conversation I had with the guard, plus the ones I overheard, this is not an uncommon problem. I tried to reschedule, but the best I could do is tomorrow - at fucking Hylan Boulevard, exactly where I did not want to go.

At least I can take consolation in the fact that I handled the situation with good grace. When I showed up, there was one woman in the whole crowd of people complaining about it, very loudly, about how obviously she made an appointment because how else would she even know the office was here, she made it in Manhattan on purpose, she lives in Jersey, and on and on and on, and she was still complaining when I'd given up on convincing the system to let me reschedule for the same office, thanked the guard for his advice to screenshot the confirmation screen right away, and left.

I don't see what she thought all that complaining was going to do. If I'd thought asking them to squeeze me in would work I would have tried that, but I guess that, having already wasted half her day, she thought the best option was to waste the rest of it as well.

and applied for a shitton of jobs. The worst they can do is call me a dipshit, and they probably wouldn't do that to my face. I think? Seems like a waste of time to call somebody up and say "You're terrible, how could you think we'd consider you?"

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And what if I had simply passed you by,
your false skins gathering light in a basket,
those skins of unpolished copper,
would you have lived more greatly?

Now you are free of that metallic coating,
a broken hull of parchment,
the dried petals of a lily—
those who have not loved you
will not know differently.

But you are green fading into yellow—
how deceptive you have been.

Once I played the cithara,
fingers chafing against each note.
Once I worked the loom,
cast the shuttle through the warp.
Once I scrubbed the tiles
deep in the tub of Alejandro.
Now I try to deciper you.

Beyond the village, within a cloud
of wild cacao and tamarind,
they chant your tale, how you,
most common of your kind,
make the great warrior-men cry
but a woman can unravel you.

****

Link

Why is she like this.

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That's insane for NYC April, right?

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I believe it is a brown thrasher. Google says they're not frequent feeder birds, but they like mealworms and I put out dried mealworms, so that'd do it.

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And I gotta say, it really is pissing me off that only only do they not use the same translation all down the list, but they don't even consistently say which translations they're using. I don't even care which translation they use, but the stylistic whiplash is enough to give anybody a headache.

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(It was every bit as ridiculous as I thought it would be.)

And that led me to this thread and the corresponding subthread where he really just gets into it with me, for no fucking reason, on the subject of "no mass produced book series marketed towards children would depict homosexuality in 1997-2007. No publisher would take it on".

This is a factually untrue statement, and I have the booklists to prove it. I'm not saying these books were necessarily available to every kid who might reasonably have wanted to read them, but to say they didn't exist at all? I bought some of them from Scholastic book forms! Bruce Coville? He's a big name! The Skull of Truth came out in 1997! Norma Klein? She's a big name! People absolutely heard of her who read realistic YA fiction. Francesca Lia Block? I never read her, but I had heard about her, I knew people who read her books, I knew her books touched on homosexuality. But here he is, arguing with me about it! Why are we arguing about something so absurd?

At least I figured out why this is bugging me, and if I get another reply I will tell him. When he claims that these books did not exist, that no mainstream publisher would have printed any of them, that no mainstream bookseller would have stocked them in the children's or teens sections, he's buying into the bullshit queerphobic narrative that before X date, everything was hunky-dory and those people either a. didn't exist or b. were happily closeted.

In the a version of this narrative, things were better then, and it is all this publicity that makes people think they're LGBTQ. In the b version, things are immeasurably better now and all those LGBTQ people should just stfu already and be grateful. And key to either version is erasing the proof that it's just not true*.

And part of that proof is juvenile fiction published by mainstream publishers in the dark days of the 20th century that involve LGBTQ themes.

FFS, it's like another flavor of "Women didn't write sci-fi until yesterday" and yes we did. Don't fucking devalue their very real difficulties in getting published and staying published by saying they didn't exist at all.

(And if you're about to tell me that I grew up in a socially progressive part of the country, I know! But according to his claims, so did he, with a liberal family and a bookseller uncle to boot. If he never heard of a single YA book with LGBTQ themes at that age, I imagine that must be because he didn't ask anybody or look very hard. I didn't ask anybody or look very hard either, and I still bumped into them just, like, on the shelves! Neither of us was growing up in a Fundiegelical hellhole, so.)

Note: I would've asked him if he'd ever heard of Heather Has Two Mommies, but that turns out to have been printed by an indie publisher after all. I never woulda thunkit after all the press it got!

* It is measurably better now in some aspects. The important thing is that the past does not just get uniformly more queerphobic the further back you go, and in a way that maps perfectly onto modern bigotry.

Again, if anybody has more info, please share!

Some information here at Bluesky

If anybody has more links, please share!

Jenn's plan to self-set-up her own balanced billing + a random screwup with autopay that she didn't realize until we were in the hole + having to help a friend get out of an abusive relationship = omg.

I'm pretty sure that they legally can't actually shut us off until May 15th, and once we get the tax refund we can pay the entire past due bills... but there's no promise we will get that refund by that date, and I would be surprised if we do. I don't want to go a week without lights and hot water, or a fridge and stove.

I'm reasonably certain that if we pay even half the past due now, we can talk them into waiting for that refund. The entire total is something like $6k... I'm a little scared to look again, honestly. I just sorta glanced at the bills in horror.

I've got paypal and venmo, which is posted here, or if you can't see that and can and want to help out you can PM me. We can absolutely pay back (or forward!) as soon as that refund comes in. I know how much the refund is, it will cover these bills.

(I've also been sitting on posting this for a few days, so I better get it out before I chicken out again!)

It's certainly too late for his really adult siblings to escape that toxic hellscape that is their family, and even if they did they're not likely to become substantially better people as a result, but he's E's age, I think. So every once in a while I remember I'm rooting for him to just get out. Young adults can change a lot the first few years of being adults.

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"Said gave".

As in "He said gave consent for the procedure" or "My professor said gave me an F".

A search for this was productive, if mildly frustrating - there's a lot of other reasons for those words to appear next to each other, but it definitely does seem to appear in the sense I saw more often than you'd expect for a speaker error.

You can see some examples at the following places:

Also, it does not matter if they said gave consent in the past for the same action. Consent is about the here-and-now.

An attorney (or firm) can be relieved of the duties owed to previously clients is said give consent (in writing) to do so. (This one is so odd I'm not sure it isn't an error.)

Nebraska's Matt Rhule said gave an update on the status of Dylan Raiola....

My instructor said gave me an F

Dr. David Persse said gave an update on what wastewater showed

Poll #32990

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 60

View Respondents

"Said gave"

View Answers

Totally unremarkable
0 (0.0%)

Somewhat interesting
8 (13.3%)

OMGWTF?
52 (86.7%)

Of course, there's always the possibility that these are all just disfluencies, but it doesn't seem likely...?

then they definitely didn't survive.

And sometimes they definitely did.

And sometimes it's not clear which, and omg the anxiety over this is stressing me out so much that I may need to stop reading if it's not cleared up soon. It's an unfinished fic, so I can't just skip to the end like I normally would, and I can't figure out how to ask "Listen, how are you doing this?" without sounding a bit demanding.

But I'm ridiculous stressed over this.

On the plus side, it's distracting me from how stressed I am about the real world, so there's that! Maybe I should keep reading anyway....

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So, at the end of the book, did they just decide to leave some other random world in the hands of a murderous adolescent? I guess they figured it was officially Not Their Problem, but all the same, that's some interesting decision making there! I mean, they did tell her that her lackeys were only pretending to carry out her orders, but all the same, it's hardly better.

Of course, these are the same grown men who decided to shove a magical spycam in said adolescent girl's bedroom mirror and then watch it themselves. However evil she is, that's still super skeevy. You can't tell me that was the best way to monitor her. It's the only thing in the book that can make me feel bad for Gwendolyn. Not very bad, but she does have the makings of a legitimate grievance here. A single legitimate grievance, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

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Also you can predict world economic health based on tomato paste reserves. Tomato paste goes into EVERYTHING. If there’s a dip in reserves or costs start to fluctuate bad things lie ahead.

Link to thread

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( Some links )

Though my success rate for phrases is very mixed.

Today I tried looking up the earliest citation of "get over yourself", and no dice - but I did find an amusing reddit post at /r/Englishlearning asking "What does get over yourself mean? People on reddit always tell me to do that."

(Some of the commenters valiantly went back through this poster's history to explain in better detail why people always say that to them, but they didn't exactly seem receptive to the feedback. Damn, though, like, lots of people don't like me, but I still can't honestly say the whole world "always" tells me to get over myself!)

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Somebody has snuck plot into my porn. Having all the wrong feels, guys.

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I can't find our 2023 tax returns. I was sure we filed, but... where is the documentary evidence? Did I file them and forget to email around everybody so we'd all have a copy? And if so, where is my copy?

I'm still 95% sure we filed but... how do I find out if we filed? Do I have to call the IRS? Ugh, that's gonna be a fun way to spend the weekend before tax day!

in this audiodrama I'm listening to.

Is "usedta could" a feature of Upper Midwestern, specifically Minnesota, speech? I thought you didn't much hear that sort of double modal* outside the South.

* Used to is sort of a modal, but I refuse to use the phrase "quasimodal" and, having learned it, I also refuse to use any other phrase because honestly, nothing can top that.

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I’d like to assume
from my April birthday,
I quickened the womb
on the 4th of July.

If you suffered as I
a sternly fought tendency
to endless dependency
you’d know why.

***

Link

I have tariffed
the penguins
that are on
Heard Island

and which
you were probably
assuming
did not export goods

forgive me
they were taking advantage of us
so cunning
and so cold

Link

Also

And, more seriously, but I don't want it to get lost in the double cut tag: Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Actions

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( It's not all terrible today! )

but some of them are more fixed than others. A few of them are updating every day... but those updates are from months ago? Years ago? Not today, anyway - if you click the links you can prove it!

First, have some penguins

And now, today's news....

Hmph.

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As usual, it's not to anybody's real benefit - the comments pages load slower, you can't view the archives unless you pay up, and the jury-rigged RSS feeds have all broken (they broke their own RSS feeds a while back). Hopefully that last, at least, will mostly fix itself - I can't live without my daily Calvin and Hobbes, now with added Spanish!

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Watch on YouTube

2. (With respect to Norman Colp)

Overcast
So wet
Still dystopian?
Better yet
Why worry?
Why the rain?
Go tomorrow
Protest again*

* well, again-ish

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand;
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

***

_Link

but I couldn't find an umbrella, so I made the decision not to walk in intermittently moderate rain down to the boat in order to get to Bryant Park or anywhere else.

Instead, I sent some pointed emails to my congresscritters. There will be other protests, hopefully in more clement weather.

1. Tomorrow's protest - is it gonna rain? How bad will it rain? Why do I never know where an umbrella is?

2. Gocomics RSS feeds. For this, I can say that Comicsrss has emailed me back to let me know they're working on a fix but it might take a while.

So, best of luck.

There's movement in the court case around the 60,000 ballots at issue in the state supreme court case, and it looks like some voters will have 15 days to potentially fix their problem and maybe get their vote counted.

More info

This website should let people find out if their ballot is affected, and describe potential next steps

Right in the afternoon when these protests are supposed to be happening.

This is what I call poor planning. I blame the weather gods. Who even elected those drizzly clowns anyway? Not me!

Clicky

We've been a bit back and forth with the weather, haven't we? One day sunny, one day rainy.

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Which is a pity, because I have to get up on time ~~tomorrow~~ today.

Welp, guess I'll go to bed super early at the end of the day instead!

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Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

****

_Link