Pandemic LifeJust had my Covid booster.
Previous poll reviewIn
the Oxford comma poll, 44.4% of respondents have firm opinions, 34.9% have moderate preferences, and 6.3% are officially neutral. (I worded the poll badly, because actually what I have is a firm preference, which is to weed out unnecessary commas for cleaner prose. Yes, I realise I used an Oxford comma above. ;-p) The "always use it!" contingent makes up 39.7% of respondents, while 15.9% said "only use it when necessary!"
In ticky-boxes, 39.7% of respondents selected "buying a random bargain bin product, imprinting on it, and spending the rest of your life trying to track down replacements", and I'm very glad it's not just me. I recently bought 18 toothbrushes online, which should theoretically keep me going until I'm 60. Naturally, hugs won the ticky-boxes, with 69.8%. Thank you for your votes!! ♥
ReadingI can't remember what prompted me to, but I listened to the audiobook of
The Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan, read by Mary Jane Wells, and loved it all over again. (Last time I read it in ebook.) It's a British historical het romance with leads of Chinese descent, and they and their supporting cast are delightful.
I've now started the next in the series,
The Marquis Who Mustn't, in ebook. (It's the first ebook I've bought in ages. I'm proud to say that, after some technical hitches, I managed to load a Kobo book onto my Kindle, so that'll be my plan from now on.)
While waiting to see if my Covid jab would importune me, I was allowed to go hang out in the library for the 15 minutes. I not only picked up my reserve, but also two random contemporary romance novels and a Japanese coffee shop book with cats. Given my recent rate of (not) reading hard-copy books, I should clearly not be allowed to browse.
KdramasStill going on
One Spring Night. It's finally picking up. The cast is amazing, and they have excellent chemistry, which is what's been keeping me watching. The plot is, in essence, woman dumps her long-term high-status boyfriend for someone nicer of lower status; everyone has a hard time accepting this, especially the long-term boyfriend. Personally, I'm like, "The new guy is Jung Hae-in! Look at his smile!! How could you not??" Anyway, it felt like they were all having the same conversations over and over for seven episodes, which got a bit wearying, but hopefully the latest developments will stay developed. (FTR, this drama feels like an obvious descendant of
Something in the Rain, with many of the same cast but (thankfully) no subplot about workplace sexual harassment. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this one will stick the landing better!)
Other TVWatching our way through the extended edition of
Lord of the Rings, plus many of the extras. What a blast from the past! Frodo actually made me tear up at the end of
Fellowship. We're on the second disk of
Fellowship extras.
Also, still,
The Pitt and
SurrealEstate, and my sister and I started season 4 of
Fringe. (I would totally watch this show if it were always Olivia and Lincoln as partners. Who even needs Peter? ;-p)
Audio entertainmentLetters from an American,
The Shit They Don't Tell You About Writing,
Runaway Country with Alex Wagner (part of Crooked Media), and a whole bunch of episodes of
Better Offline, including "Openclaw with David Gerard" (as recced by
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sabotabby), four short, angry episodes titled "AI Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble", and a fantastic rant with Cal Newport about AI reporting (spoiler: the vast majority of it is hype), which also, towards the end, explained (in words small enough for me to understand) how AIs are made/trained. Highly rec. I'm now working my way through
Better Offline's series "The Enshittifinancial Crisis" and greatly appreciating his invective.
Online lifeThe Guardian slo-mo rewatch is still my happy place.
Writing/making thingsI've been working on the same
Yuletide New Year's Resolutions treat for, like, forever. It's only a couple of thousand words, it's just taking a while to come together. That's okay. I've also been noodling at a post about adverbs in speech tags for
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fan_writers, but there's too much to say; I need to rein it in.
Still intermittently practising drawing. Telling myself that one day I'll be able to do expressions and poses. That would be nice.
Life/health/mental state things( Grumbling, feat. local politics )CatsHalle keeps bringing cicadas into the house and crunching them, nom nom nom.
GoalsI wrote a list of goals for the year and have not looked at it since. La la la.
Good thingsPodcasts, kdramas, DVDs, audiobooks, media generally. Fandom and Guardian specifically. Sunshine again, yay! My roof did not blow off. Andrew and Halle and friends and biking out to meet someone for lunch.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44
Which fourth walls are important to you?
View Answersthe one-way glass that stops TPTB seeing fannish activity
30 (68.2%)
the one-way glass that stops fans from seeing how the show/BSO/sausage gets made
6 (13.6%)
the wibbly-wobby physics-defying thing that means celebs and fans exist in separate universes that just happen to occupy the same space-time
27 (61.4%)
the one that stops celebs/TPTB from seeing us on the internet
24 (54.5%)
the one that shields fandom from public/media attention
29 (65.9%)
other fourth walls
2 (4.5%)
I love ALL the walls
9 (20.5%)
no! smash them all!
1 (2.3%)
ticky-box full of swooshy cloudscapes forming punctuation marks
23 (52.3%)
ticky-box full of reading in hard copy
19 (43.2%)
ticky-box full of chinchillas chilling their chins all over the place
22 (50.0%)
ticky-box full of ballooooooons and golden sparkles
24 (54.5%)
ticky-box full of hugs
34 (77.3%)
