damerell

This seems like the place to ask - archiveofourown users, if you have a preferred tool for blocking specific tags, what is it, please?

(I know not everyone posting AI slop is marking it as such, but it's a start...)

I have not read Dreamwidth for... some time, mostly because of the issue where you feel bad about not having done a thing so you don't want to think about it and don't do it (now return to feeling bad about not doing it) but circumstances make it easier today so, er, hello, and this is me avoiding a hundred non sequitur comments saying "oh good, you're not dead", it applies to anyone who's likely to read this, sort of thing.

For the last week I have been riding fixed gear. For maybe twenty years I have been toting around a frame with a metaphorical label "fixie?" attached to it, so go me, swift progress on that project.

So far, I've got from "how the hell do you get your left foot into the toeclip?" to being able to do it at slow speed (still not ideal). I have stopped muttering "do not coast" to myself all the time.

I have not actually had a prang, although I've had one pretty good go at it - a ped did the "will I cross, won't I cross" thing, I slowed to a crawl; with a freewheel you can coast right pedal down, out of the saddle, left foot free, stop any time you like; when it became clear I'd have to stop I was still in the saddle at an awkward point in the pedal cycle and nearly fell over sideways. I've also managed to unship both feet downhill once (there's not much you can do then except wait until you come to a halt and start over).

I have yet to master going around very tight corners or stopping with the pedals always in the right place.

The quote above is from the great Henri Desgrange in 1902; the full version is "I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer? We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear!". Amusingly, I am 47.

I have dice. I have dice in a multitude of shapes [1] and colours. But something that's been bothering me for a while [2] is... are they any good?

( I demand more randomness )

[1] Six.
[2] Thirty-five years.
[3] I have no idea if this would be obnoxious or helpful in practice but it seems worth giving it a go.

There once was a ship in a canal,
And the name of the ship was a bit banal.
The wind blew hard, her bow digged in,
Oh, my TEU, oh.

Soon may the JCB come,
To dig the clay that sticks like gum,
One day when the tugboat is done,
We'll take our leave and go.

She had not hit the bank before,
But fuses popped and round she wore,
The captain called all hands and swore,
"Oh balls we cannot go."

Soon may the JCB come (etc)

I've been dreaming more recently. The usual round of anxiety dreams and vaguely plausible scenarios. This may not be a good sign, given the sleep/madness relationship.

I found http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=9349#9349 (only the first three comments are pertinent) and http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1207 (only the first two) interesting.

Eight port enthusiasts decanted a 45yo magnum of port five ways, from pouring it by eye until the sediment appears then filtering it to deliberately sloshing the sediment around then pouring it through a coffee filter. Vexingly, they didn't do the resulting drink test blind (although they did agree that "If any claim that any two can be distinguished, and that isn’t the general consensus, that person will be sent from the room and his/her glasses shuffled"), but it's still interesting to read that they felt that "the decanting method makes, at most, very little difference", even if you do something (the sloshing) which is supposedly a definite no-no.

ceb and I watched Gance's magnificent 1927 silent _Napoleon_ over the weekend, and it struck me midway through that of course dog cinema is still in black and white. The big innovation in dog cinema was "smellies", with the tragic attendant discovery that some of the stars of the anosmic screen actually smelled of lavender or something equally insufficiently stinky. Before smellies, dog cinemas employed half a dozen specially trained farting dogs on highly specific diets who generated all the smells on demand; the steam-powered scratch-and-sniff smell roll organ was not a success.

I've come up with a silly idea; the "boring AU" fanfic.

I'll go first. In the first episode of Boring Cabin Pressure, there is a delay on arrival at Fitton, but since the aircraft is not unusually heavy with high fuel consumption and Martin's meticulous walkround meant the cargo hold heating was turned off, there is plenty of time to hold.

Martin has no reason to feel his authority is being undermined by Douglas's vast experience, but instead relishes the opportunity to learn from it and to make use of it - as in the next episode, where Douglas's tact and diplomacy deals with an angry smoker.

MJN continues to turn a modest profit and can easily afford insurance against things like bird strikes, not that they ever suffer so dramatic a problem.

The series ends with a heartwarming episode where a routine inspection of the wiring conduits reveals that Carolyn's ex-husband has hidden filthy magazines in them; everyone has a laugh at his expense.

It struck me I should probably link my lockdown boardgame project here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2406498/welcome-blunderdome-tragedy-least-16-parts

Updated with fresh comedy deaths, er, when I feel like it. Sorry.