A jaunt to town

3 Sep 2025 11:07 am
melagan: Coffee cup with Atlantis in the rising steam (Default)
[personal profile] melagan
Yay, I finally accomplished a task I've put off for a year. A trip to drop off a few items at the local Goodwill. The hold up has been carrying stuff down three flights of stairs. As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as I'd expected it to be. A very nice young man unloaded everything for me when I got there (one of the perks to dropping stuff off at Goodwill).

Now I have closet space!

Other accomplishment of note. I finally managed to write a story for [community profile] whatif_au bi-monthly prompt. It's always a goal, just one I have a hard time making. It just happened to fit the prompt for [community profile] sga_saturday too which was a bonus.



Heaven and Hell (2294 words) by melagan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Heaven & Hell, Angel/Demon Relationship, Pre-Slash, Friendship, Fluff
Summary:

Rodney is a demon stuck in Hell. The last thing he expects is to see an angel slouching in the doorway.



Now if I could just figure out what to write for [community profile] trope_of_the_month's coffee shop prompt.

The only coffee shop AU I've ever written is:
Moon Base Four

*sigh* Hardly your typical Coffee Shop AU. I don't know if I can or want to do 'typical'. It doesn't seem to be my style. :)

10 random facts about me meme

3 Sep 2025 02:39 pm
mific: (Gold mandala)
[personal profile] mific
Snaffled from various friends. Some of the following eccentric behaviour is only possible as I live alone. :)


1) I briefly got my hair done peroxide blond in my twenties. Proof. But mostly I dyed it auburn using henna. Chemists (pharmacies) in NZ used to stock packages of powdered henna back then - it was the seventies!

2) By chance, I have a lot of Nepali restaurants nearby - 3 or 4 within takeaway range. I love the chicken momos best (steamed Tibetan dumplings served with a romesco-chilli sauce). Yum.

3) I have a side table by my main armchair that's like a restaurant table set-up. It has a titanium spork (my main cutlery item), tissues, a kids' jewellery organiser full of tea bags, a long-stemmed sundae spoon, a small serrated kitchen knife, a cruet set with balsamic vinegar and garlic-infused olive oil, a pink-salt shaker, and jars/bottles of mango chutney, peanut butter, maple syrup, store-bought lemon juice, promite, and apricot compote. It cuts down on traipsing to and fro to the kitchen for stuff.

4) Since moving into my flat 2-3 years ago, I sussed out the ceramic cooktop but haven't been able to figure out the main oven controls. The landlord couldn't either. Haven't been able to intuit the electronic controls or find info online, so I use a toaster-oven instead, which works fine.

5) I have mild sleep apnoea that doesn't bother me as long as I sleep on my side. That's what my tricky right hip and left knee prefer, anyway.

6) I got fed up with bed-making, stuffing duvet covers, and getting tangled in layers of bedding many years ago. I just use one thinnish faux fur blanket (leopardskin pattern of course) with a faux-flannel backing. It's lightweight but surprisingly warm and I only need to add one extra light blanket a few times in mid-winter. So my bedding is a flannel sheet on the mattress and then the blanket. It's like being a Neolithic person using just a fur spread for bedding, but with more microfibres. I make the bed once a week before Fionna comes to clean my flat, and my elderly washing machine can just manage the blanket as a single load.

7) I haven't worn any shoes except crocs for over 20 years. Auckland's warm enough for that to be comfortable, and all "normal" shoes pinch my feet. I go barefoot inside, only rarely resorting to slippers on especially cold nights.

8) I've lived with one or more cats all my life until several years ago. I miss having a cat friend, but when someone recently offered me a nice adult boy they were trying to find a home for, I had to say no. There's a busy road only a stone's throw away and the neighbours drive up and down the driveway a few feet from my front door every day, so it wouldn't be safe. The flat's not set up for an indoors cat - the back door to the garage has no screen and it'd be way too hot in summer to keep it closed. But mainly, I no longer feel able to cope with the regular round of vet visits, emergencies etc. that come with caring for a cat. I'll make do with feeding the sparrows, and my duck visitors.

9) My first boyfriend when I was 17 was Dave, from a smallish town in Illinois. He was in my English class - an exchange student at my high school. We taught each other to play chess (badly) and sometimes actually did play it before Mum got home from work, but "playing chess" was mostly a euphemism for making out.

10) In my twenties to thirties I had a series of Morris Minor cars as they were cheap and I liked their quirkiness. Kiwis are good at repairing cars with NZ being harder to import to and local DIY culture, so you could get fixed-up Morris Minors fairly easily. I drove my last one from Christchurch up to Auckland when I returned from working overseas. I'd painted it with red, maroon, and gold swirls in the seventies, then in Auckland I sanded it off and repainted it bright yellow, with the chrome all done in black. Here's a cartoon I did of it back in the day.

yellow morris minor from front, black trim, woman driving it.

(no subject)

2 Sep 2025 07:21 am
logans_girl2001: (Default)
[personal profile] logans_girl2001
Plans for the weekend:
Laundry and work on my story
What got done:
Laundry. And all of it is put away. Yes, even the clothes I don't put in the dryer.

I not only worked on my story, I finished it! And I edited it (thank you, Grammerly!) and posted it. I also completed the second to last story in this series, edited it, and posted it. And posted the last story in this series (I had completed and edited it months ago).

What got me over the hump was that I finally figured out why it seemed to be fighting me. See, I had written stories that come after the one I've been working on.

There are a total of six stories in this series. I wrote the first story several years ago. Then I wrote what is now the third and fourth stories. Then I got the idea for what is the second story (the one that has been giving me problems all summer). So how the characters are in the one that I was fighting is not how they are in the third, fourth, and sixth ones.

So the problem was that I was trying to make Character A be the cruel asshole they become in a story from before they become cruel and heartless. Once I allowed Character A to be the loving, supportive partner they were when this story took place, it flowed fairly easily.

Saturday I took my first dose of Mounjaro 5mg. The side effects were minimal until today. Because I stayed up until nearly 2am Monday (good thing it was a holiday here in the US) working on those stories, I chose to not get up and walk. I decided that I would today, though.

But, of course, my body had other plans.

I woke up around midnight and could not find a comfortable position so got up. And immediately started feeling queasy. I fell back asleep around 2am and when my alarm went off at 5am, my body was like, 'nope, not today'. Then around 6am the feeling that I was in immediate danger of puking had increased to dangerous levels. So I got up.

This feeling continued for so long that I had to take my morning meds one pill at a time because I was afraid that all of them hitting my stomach with the amount of water required to swallow them all would just come right back up.

I'm feeling somewhat better now. Although I have a bit of a headache and I'm slightly dizzy (I do suffer from vertigo).

I have yet to see any good side effects of this drug and I'm not sure the bad ones are worth it. I have an appointment with my doctor next week so we'll see what she has to say.

I was just about to tell y'all about how much today is going to suck because an app I need to do my job wasn't working when I decided to try it again. And it opened like it's supposed to. So, that's good.

Code deploy happening shortly

31 Aug 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

elayna: (McShep Shameless Fan)
[personal profile] elayna
I spent the weekend at a performing arts camp where most of the people were in their 30s (to the best of my limited ability to estimate) and it made me realize how much Stargate hasn’t continued as a franchise known to the public like Star Trek and Star Wars.

The camp literature said to wear clothes that we didn’t mind getting dirty, so I brought 3 Stargate Atlantis shirts, figuring they were 22-24 years old, I'd look fannish but I wouldn't cry if something happened.

My first 'huh' was being introduced to one of the camp directors who looked around 35 and he asked who was on my shirt. "Stargate," I replied, which received only blankness. "It’s a show, like Star Trek," was an explanation that didn't help much. He was likely a kid in elementary school when Stargate SG-1 was on, so could have seen it but clearly didn’t. IIRC, it had started on HBO and moved to syndication so might not have had the widest audience.

Then Sunday morning having breakfast with two women, also I think in the 30s, and one woman was suddenly, "Bob! Bob is on your shirt!" And yes, it was a season 5 shirt, and she knew Robert Picardo from other shows, and sorta vaguely thought he’d been president on Stargate, right? So I explained his role, and then since we were looking at my shirt, pointed out Jewel Staite, who the other woman loved from some kids show that she’d been on. These were fannish people, we’d already talked about conventions, but there was very little recognition of Stargate.

I realize now I should have pointed out that Aquaman was also on my shirt, to see if they knew Jason Momoa had worked with Bob and Jewel. Possibly not. They may only know him as Aquaman.

Thinking more, I realize all the random times I’ve been in stores where there is a variety of designs, card stores or socks or whatever, there often are Star Trek or Star Wars options. Not Stargate!

Poor Stargate! A couple of years ago, there had been reports of a reboot coming from TPTB of the original movie. I was a bit ambivalent about it, as the plan seemed to wipe out SG-1 and Atlantis, which would be heart breaking. Now I hope it does happen, whatever brings the franchise back to life! I wrote a lot of McShep, I’d love to see new interest in the shows. Or at least awareness!

Age Verification

29 Aug 2025 08:19 pm
popkin16: (john surprised)
[personal profile] popkin16
I went to a bar & grill with some friends on Wednesday. It was really great getting to just hang out and chat with them 💜 I ordered an AMAZING strawberry margarita - I was surprised I liked it so much, given I'm sensitive to the taste of alcohol and I don't care for the taste usually. The server did a triple take when she saw my ID though. 

She asked to see my ID, so I handed it over. She looked at it, looked at me, looked at my ID again.

Her: No

Me: Yep.

She looks at it again, and then back to me.

Her: No way.

Me: Yep, I'm 36.

Her: Damn girl, good for you!!

It made me laugh, which I needed after struggling with the post-squee blues. I'll enjoy that reaction while I get it 😂

Sinners art & other stuff

29 Aug 2025 09:41 pm
mific: (art supplies)
[personal profile] mific
There's a bunch of challenge stuff I should be working on but I had to finish a big Sinners artwork that grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
It's finally done and on AO3 & tumblr: just for a few hours... we was free

Also I podficced a story for Summer Podfic Swap Behind the Shadows (What We Do In the Shadows movie fandom). Perfect for my accent! :D

Upcheering tumblr posts:
- Firefox and Windows
- play that funky music
- modern art

A short story rec - Eleven Numbers by Lee Child. It's free on Amazon Prime right now, if you can access that. It's bloody good, and a masterclass in short story writing. No CW I can think of.

And signalboosting this post by [personal profile] machinistm - two fanvids based on Bohemian Like You - a new Murderbot one (Kuwadora), and a classic SGA one (astolat) - they're especially good viewed in series. TW: lots of fast cuts in both.

(no subject)

26 Aug 2025 07:28 am
logans_girl2001: (Default)
[personal profile] logans_girl2001
After I called my apartment office and went feral on the woman who answered, the maintenance man I really like came and spent a couple of hours fixing my AC. And it works so well that I have the temp set at 80.

When I showed him out, the door wouldn't close so I had to call the office back. I apologized for my crash out and explained about the door. I told her it could wait because I'm not going anywhere until Friday (I take the trash out once a week and get the mail since the mailboxes are right next to the dumpster) and then Saturday/Sunday for groceries. She said she'd send someone back that afternoon.

The same maintenance guy showed up and spent ANOTHER two hours banging on my door. I thought the problem was that the door frame had shifted with the foundation due to the heat (it's Texas and it happens every summer to almost every house but especially older ones). But the problem is the threshold had warped from age and water (I mean, these apartments are at least fifty years old). He got that fixed and started putting up some weather stripping (something I have asked for in the past).

When he was done he asked about my other requests (I guess he didn't want to have to come back yesterday?). I told him that pest control was supposed to come by while he was fixing the AC but by the time I had enough energy points to call, the office was either already closed or in the process of closing. I'm going to call when they open this morning.

He also asked about my shower. I took him to show him the rusted shower surround and how the door sticks. He also asked about the shower head (something I hadn't thought to request a replacement for) and said he'd come back to give me a new one. I told him I just want a new surround, I don't care about the color of the metal (I really don't) I just want one that's not rusted and peeling and I want a door that won't be so difficult to open that I worry about not being able to get out after I bathe.

I had ordered my Mounjaro refill Saturday and realized late yesterday (I think it was after 6) that I had not received notice that it was being filled or that it was ready. So I went to my Walgreens app to see what was going on only to find a message (not sure why I didn't get a text) that said there was an issue filling it. I called the pharmacy and the lady who I talked to said she wasn't sure why I got that message. She submitted it and told me that my price will be $0.00! I'm wondering if this means I hit my deducible? I mean, my Eliquis was also $0.00 this month. But surely my deducible is more than a few hundred dollars? I know my medical deducible is either $3000 or $6000 but I don't know what my prescription deducible is. But since I only pay $10 for my Eliquis and paid $25 for my Mounjaro last month, I don't see how I could have. But I don't really care.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

(no subject)

25 Aug 2025 08:05 am
logans_girl2001: (Default)
[personal profile] logans_girl2001
My plans for my week's vacation:
Clean my apartment and finish work on my story
What got done:
I managed to get some work done on my story. I woke up last Monday feeling sick. After a week of no symptoms, I was annoyed that they were back during my week off work.

I had a dentist appointment Wednesday and it looks like I might need a root canal. Boo. :-(

I was also supposed to have an eye doctor appointment but there was some miscommunication about where her office is. Last time I visited her she was inside Walmart near my parents. She has now moved to inside Sam's about 15 minutes away from the Walmart. I received a reminder text that said 'next to Sam's Club'. To me that means they were in the Walmart that was next to the Sam's. But obviously not. We didn't get this sorted until after I was about halfway home. I'll have to reschedule.

Thursday, I woke up with a wet cough and feeling like I had slept on the floor. Friday I wasn't feeling much better.

Saturday, I went grocery shopping and then went to mail back my tax return to the IRS. Only to find the post office is closed on Saturdays. So, I went to the UPS store.

Around 3 Saturday, I noticed that it was getting warm in my apartment and it felt like hot air was blowing from my fan. Around 4, I went to the bathroom (I have to pass the thermostat)and it said it was 84! I was confused and made sure that the air was on, that it was set to 78 and that the fan was on auto. At 9 (I have free electricity from 9pm to 6am) I turned the air down to 50. It took until after 10 for it to start going down. Finally around midnight the temp had dropped to 75 so I turned the air back up to 78.

The AC kicked on around 8am Sunday and has not shut off since. Not even overnight when I had the air down to 50. It is currently 83 in my apartment. At this moment in time, it is cooler outside than inside.

I seriously thought that a broken HVAC was considered an emergency but I guess not since maintenance has not come to fix it. With my heart issues, I cannot be in this apartment with it this hot!

They also keep closing my request for pest control. I have ants and roaches.

I had also sent a request to have my shower stall replaced. They have also closed that one.

I will be calling the office when my manager has us stop keying and I will be demanding someone come fix my AC today and that pest control also come spray today and that someone comes to at least measure for a new shower surround by the end of the week.

I had been planning on walking starting today but with how hot it is, I haven't been sleeping so decided I should probably not try while sleep deprived.

Profile

bluespirit: (Default)
Bluespirit

Tags

November 2019

M T W T F S S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728 2930 

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags