up to dec 2

Dec. 2nd, 2025 06:22 am
davemerrill: (Default)
[personal profile] davemerrill
We had Myrna and James over for US Thanksgiving (Saturday) here! I wound up with some extra days so I took Thursday and Friday off. It's a good thing, too, because I got my covid/flu shot on Thursday and as is typical with me, twelve to fourteen hours later I was feelin' it. I didn't get past that until Friday night. By Saturday the turkey was in the oven and the sweet potato casserole was warming and the pies had been cooked Friday night. It was a nice evening and we all ate a lot. Sunday Shain wasn't feeling great and is still head-colded up today. I spent the day getting Anime Hell started and am halfway done at this point. Which is good, because there's this week, and then there's next week, and then I get on a plane for Atlanta.

Weekend prior there was a collectible vintage toy show at the RAID gallery on Queen at Roncey, that's Royal Academy of Illustration and Design, one of the schools cranking out talented artists here in Toronto, they have a little cafe and event space in the front of the building and the back is studio spaces. Anyway we got there right as everyone was packing up. The website was pretty vague about times, but I figured they'd be going until at least 4? No sir. Apparently the event started at 10am, which is, like, you want people to be somewhere on a Sunday morning at 10am? I'm not going to be anywhere on Sunday at 10am, sorry. I feel bad for the vendors, they had to be there at 8 or 9, if they came from out of the city that means they're rolling out of bed at 6 or 7am on a weekend. Maybe this is natural behavior? Maybe every Ontario native was raised to get up at the crack of dawn to go out ice fishing or snowmobiling or hunting or whatever?

I dunno, maybe this is a me thing, maybe being a night owl and a late riser puts me working at a tangent to the rest of the city, this city might just have a early to rise vibe that I'll never be in sync with. I will say there's not much to do here after 10pm that doesn't involve drinking beer.

Anyway, we did not buy any overpriced vintage collectibles - the one guy still boothing was mostly selling Funko Pops, so there's that bit of data - but we went next door to West End Comics and pulled some comics out of the $2 bin. See, when you stay open past 4, you make money.

I know Friday the 21st was the library sale we biked across town to; nothing really worth the trip, but it was an interesting experiment to see if I could get from home to Yonge & Bloor via bike in an evening and make it back in time to go to work. Saturday we went out to the outlet mall and I got some new shoes that seem to be working out OK. I still need a new winter coat.

It's December 2, we had some snow last night, it's supposed to be below freezing and occasionally snowing a bit for the next week or so. I'm hoping for a few more mild days before the January freeze sets in. We'll see, I guess.
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

Thanksgiving was once again held at [personal profile] bunnyhugger's parents, in what's looking to be our new tradition. We started out a bit late, which is an old tradition of ours. But, in a big break from tradition, we did not forget any of the things we needed to bring! Except for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, but nobody mentioned our overlooking that tradition.

[personal profile] bunnyhugger upheld the tradition of taking their dog for an extra-special long walk, although this time without me. I was a little torn about this because there was a nice frosting of snow on the ground, and they're planning some dam removal and terrain restoration projects that look likely to close up the small river beside her parents' house, and I don't know how many chances I'll get to see it decorated with new snow.

Instead, I used the time to call my parents, whom I'd owed a call because it had been a long while. Also because it was my mother's birthday coming up. Also, on top of that, because my mother's been sick, enough to get put on antibiotics. By Saturday she was feeling well enough to go to church, which sounds like a great turn except for the family story about how her grandmother walked her way through a blizzard because It Was Bingo Night And She Was Not Missing It, even if nobody at church was picking up the phone and every weather person was saying stay indoors, and she contracted one of those diseases of old people in lousy weather. The lore may be false, but it is instructive.

Anyway we did get to enjoy some good time together, and so very much food. Way too much, and I had to go over and sit with my eyes closed a half-hour or so before being ready for pie. This is doing nothing to help my ongoing failure to lose weight but some days are traditionally exceptions. We ended up with enough leftovers to cover our dinners through to Sunday, and we've still got some caramelized onions, biscuits, and pie left over.

We did discover, Sunday or so, that we had way more cranberry sauce than we thought, so we could have had much more of the glaze that [personal profile] bunnyhugger's father likes so much. She keeps trying to explain to him how easy it is to make, but he mostly makes scrambled eggs and ice cream sundaes, so there's a participation energy gap to overcome.


With these pictures we close off what we thought would be our pre-Nigloland visit, and our long first day in France.

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Another picture into the parking lot and passageway to the Hotel des Pirates and all.


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That, though, we figured to be the true main entrance and it didn't strike us as peculiar yet that the gate to the hotel was closed.


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And then came sheep! Grazing along the side of the park and we assume working at keeping the grass orderly.


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Some more grazing. Around this time [personal profile] bunnyhugger noted something remarkable about them ...


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Those tails! Look how long some of those sheep tails are! Who knew sheep even could have tails, let alone long ones?


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And this sign, we assume, represents the city limits of Dolancourt rather than a warning that the people here are done with the city, although it must be said, in a few short hours we would feel that way about the place.


Trivia: The word ``flaw'' is Scandinavian in origin, and is related to the Swedish flaga, meaning ``flake''. Flaw's earliest recorded meanings in English, before 1400, were as in flakes of snow or sparks of fire, a small thing broken off from or detached. Source: Semantic Antics: How And Why Words Change Meaning, Sol Steinmetz.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 77: The Lost Prince of Effluvia!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

Not really a harbinger of Christmas, but something that usually comes up around Thanksgiving, is MWS's Saturday tournament. This usually happens the Saturday after Thanksgiving but for whatever reason he was better able to time it for the Saturday before. Given the fine but persistent snow the Saturday after Thanksgiving, this turned out well. MWS has inexplicably greater pull with the owners of our local hipster bar than [personal profile] bunnyhugger ever has, and was able to call on special favors such as opening three hours early, and --- for those early hours --- getting the metal-detector screening waived. So it felt a little closer to the way the old days at the place went.

The format was group match play, setting people up in groups of three or four players and assigning ranking points based on the order they finish in the game. The plan was to have as many matches as could be started in the three-and-a-half hour or whatever it was from the start of the first round. This turned out to be five complete rounds. We were not close to a sixth. The top eight finishers after these rounds would go to the A Division finals, and the next eight into the B Division finals.

There were also prizes given away, several at the end of each round. This was done by a couple rounds of luck: first, a random draw to see who won a prize, then, they'd draw a playing card to see which of a dozen prizes they had. Then, if they wanted, they could trade that prize in for one of five Mystery Box prizes --- one with a big grand prize inside, others with pretty good prizes, and a couple with zonk prizes.

Well, dear reader, I had a surprisingly great qualifying. Despite facing SPM, one of the way-too-young-yet-way-too-good kids playing competitively, and FAE in the first round I got second place. In the second round, I managed to put together a third ball rally that let me win Monster Bash. In the third round I came back from nowhere to take second place by a whisker. The fourth round --- the new Star Wars: Fall of the Empire game --- I just flopped on, finishing third place. And then in the last round, Attack From Mars, I started out with a killer ball that made everyone else sit and wait and grow cold and demoralized, finishing off with another first place. This great finish left me in a three-way tie for the last two positions in A, and I got a solid second place on the tiebreaker game so I was in the main playoffs.

Finals, though, there I got to flopping. The games --- picked by SPM, as top seed --- were almost perfect for me; Pulp Fiction, John Wick, and Tron. Pulp Fiction I'd been putting a lot of practice time into, and for some reason I play John Wick well despite having no idea what's going on or why. SPM had a terrible game of Pulp Fiction --- coming very close to rage tilting, must be said --- and I thought I was in good until FAE and DMC both showed me who's boss. John Wick went similarly, except here I leapt way ahead on the first ball and then SPM and then FAE played killer second and third balls. DMC managed to squeeze me out on bonus on the last ball, too, so with a third-place and a last-place finish I was all but finished. Moving on would require a very particular lineup of finishers and a successful tiebreaker, and that didn't happen. I went down to a last-place finish on my old buddy Tron too, with DMC and FAE taking first places.

So it goes; I ended up tied for seventh place with one of the guys in the other group. SPM, despite his first-place finish in qualifying, was also knocked out by this; FAE and DMC would go on to finals. In the end DMC would take second and FAE fourth; a guy from Ohio would grab first place overall, and DOM --- one of the 100-top-ranked players in the world --- would get third.

[personal profile] bunnyhugger had a rotten tournament and was inconsolable. MWS had an okay day, finishing either in third place or first place in four-player groups. He got into the B Division finals, although that because several people ahead of him were --- as top players worldwide --- restricted into playing in A Finals Or Not At All, and didn't make A Finals because I had a freakishly good Attack From Mars. He had a better first round than I did, but was still knocked out. So it goes.


Continuing in pictures, our adventure in seeking out Nigloland, the amusement park:

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Ah, there it is! See, they can't completely hide an amusement park in a tiny village of vineyards and hotels!


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This sign did so much to reassure us when we were walking through a trail that we weren't perfectly sure wasn't trespassing. At least if it is trespassing, they're chill about it.


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And here's the park! This intersection is one we viewed a whole bunch on google street view and apple maps and all as part of judging whether we could get to the park on foot, particularly, for the question of is there a sidewalk leading there?


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As you can see, the answer is: uh, there's space where I guess they figure you're going to be walking on foot? Also there's not a lot of traffic at least.


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And here's some gates! We hypothesized that these would be open during normal hours while the parking lot gates were farther down.


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And there's a parking lot and, I notice now, public toilets. Good.


Trivia: One of the Sanskrit words for 'Thursday' was 'Guruvara', meaning 'Teacher'. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 77: The Lost Prince of Effluvia!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle. Getting Swee'Pea back into the comic strip after a couple years and also giving him another ridiculous little nation for Swee'Pea to be the lost royal family member of.

The Old Religion by Martyn Waites

Nov. 30th, 2025 09:15 pm
[personal profile] quippe
The Blurb On The Back:

Welcome to the dark heart of Cornwall …


The Cornish village of St Petroc is the sort of place where people come to hide. Tom Kilgannon is one such person. An ex-undercover cop, Tom is in the Witness Protection Programme hiding from some very violent people, and St Petroc’s offers him a chance to lice a safe and anonymous life.

Until he meets Lila.


Lila is a seventeen-year-old runaway. When she breaks into Tom’s house she takes more than just his money. His wallet holds everything about his new identity. He also knows that Lila is in danger from the travellers’ commune she’s been living in. Something sinister has been going on there and Lila knows more than she realises.

But to find her he risks not only giving away his location to the gangs he’s hiding from, but also becoming a target for whoever is hunting Lila.


The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Martyn Waites’s novel (the first in a series) marries thriller and folk horror but because there’s so much going on it’s less than the sum of its parts. It has good pacing and there are some creepy moments, but the plot is heavily contrived at times and neither Tom nor Lila quite convince as characters while the antagonist is similarly underdeveloped. It’s not a bad book, I kept turning the pages, but it wasn’t as satisfying a read as I’d hoped.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
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
Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means [staff profile] karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

We're on our first substantial snow of the season today. At least it's looking like it should be substantial. The forecasts had been for something like five and a half inches as of yesterday, although it's been finer and less heavy than that might sound so far. I say this before a freak bit of freezing rain blacks out Lansing for two weeks.

This is the event that got us to finally just about finish winterizing the house, though. While [personal profile] bunnyhugger was getting ready for the appointment to put her snow tires on I went around outside and put the storm windows up on the first floor. There's also one on the second floor, but I'm not getting up on the tall ladder without a spotter. Also this time I managed to change three of the first-floor windows without actually getting on the short ladder; who knew that was an option?

Also I finally got the air conditioners out of the bedroom. The old air conditioner, the one we finally replaced, went into the basement to wait for whenever the Board of Water and Light will have someone over to pick it up; we're getting a credit for replacing a still-working unit with a modern EnergyStar-certified one. The new air conditioner is larger and heavier, so I'd been putting off moving it. I took the mechanism out of the metal box frame, much like it had originally been shipped to us. This wasn't just a quirk of mine. This way, the unit won't be putting its weight on the flimsy plastic curtains that cover the gap between the air conditioner's width and the window's width all winter. Also, it's definitely better to install the air conditioner by putting in the box frame first and then, when that's secure, sliding the very heavy mechanism in place. After I put this away in the attic I realized I still had the screws that lock the mechanism into the frame tucked in my pocket. I should have screwed them back into the mechanism so they couldn't be lost. Instead, I put them in a zip-lock bag with a label identifying what they are and they they're there, and set them on the bookshelf beside the window, so when we can't find them come spring we'll know where they ought to have been.

No telling yet just how much snow we'll have to deal with tomorrow morning, although I've got the snow blower fully gassed up and we trust the spark plugs are still good and whatever. The forecast is for it to stay below freezing for a week at least, which is sure going to make Christmas Tree-chopping next weekend the more fun. But who knows what the weather will actually be that far ahead? We're not even sure how much of the five and a half inches of snow they warned yesterday will actually arrive.


Speaking of arrivals, in my photo roll we've left Paris and are getting to our actual destination so we could enjoy a fun time at Nigloland!

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The train station at Bar sue Aube, the place from which we had to arrange getting a taxi somehow to Dolancourt. It sure looks like any old train station, doesn't it?


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[personal profile] bunnyhugger was not confident that the taxi would actually get to us.


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The street I kept peering down, hoping to see a taxi roll up. It actually came from the street off to the left.


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And now, Dolancourt! Our real destination. We took a walk in the evening, despite our fatigue, to see if we could figure out how to get to the amusement park by foot Monday when it would count.


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This road went back the way the taxi driver took us, and we'd seen a sign for Nigloland from the road, so that seemed like the way to start going.


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And here's the sign! Hotel des Pirates is the park's own hotel and we were mystified that it was impossible to book a room for that night, but that happens. Now we just had to figure where it was; you would think it'd be easy to find the roller coasters and observation tower and giant Ferris wheel in the middle of a tiny town, right?


Trivia: While president, Richard Nixon reportedly had the White House air conditioning turned to maximum so that he could enjoy fireplace fires through the summer. Source: Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air Conditioning, Marsha E Ackermann. H R Haldeman's diaries for the start of August 1971 note the struggle Nixon and valet Manolo Sanchez endured trying to build a fire at the President's study in Camp David.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 76: More Private Lives of a Privateer!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

He Can't Take a Goldfish for a Walk

Nov. 29th, 2025 12:10 am
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

This is not particularly a start to the Christmas season, but it is a coincidentally seasonal event. We had to bring the goldfish in from the pond. At least as many as were willing to be trapped. We don't have a good population estimate but we do suspect we haven't got them all.

We got everything organized later than we really should have; properly, we should have had the basement tanks filled up by the end of September and been trapping all October. But while this year wasn't as warm as 2024's --- when we were still able to trap as late as December --- it was warm enough to stick above freezing and, well, we really only had the basement ready for them around the first week of November. Then into the pond went traps, bated with cat food, and we waited. Unusually, between various things going on, we didn't have time to check the traps for almost a full week. This did allow us a handy haul of almost twenty goldfish at once, including the one we most recognize and will mourn when that bad day comes. We had another solid week of the trap in the pond but retrieved only a couple more fish from that. And now the pond has iced over; it's looking to be at least a week before the temperature is above freezing so we're not likely to have the chance to bring any more in --- unless it's a very warm winter after that, in which case we won't need to bring anybody in.

Always a challenge after the fish are put in the tanks is the ammonia cycle. It takes time for the bacteria in the filters to grow well enough to handle turning all the ammonia the fish produce into nitrites and then nitrates. We do put the filters into the pond outside so they soak up bacteria all summer, but even so, there's always a spike early on and this year was not an exception. It was a high enough spike [personal profile] bunnyhugger was anxious we might need to do emergency water changes, and she stayed up later than she really ought one night trying to hook up an extra water pump, one that actively feeds through a filter and that hosts plants. The filter may or may not have done anything for the ammonia --- while its ammonia dropped to almost zero, like you hope for, so did the ammonia in tanks without pumps --- but the plants hopefully are going to help the nitrate situation. Nitrates just stay in a water tank, unless something scoops them out, which is wither abundant plantlife or water changes.

We'd had a good crop of water lettuce in the pond this year, and I tried bringing in buckets of it with the fish. But we'd also had a freezing snap before I harvested them, and most of them died, so they couldn't do anything useful in our ponds. Maybe the filter-potted plants will be able to do something, although the most we're hoping for is to reduce how often we need to change the water. Mostly, we have five months or so when we hope they'll do okay enough we can bring them back outside.


And now in photos, I'm about to close up the pictures of our layover in Paris; somehow, I didn't take pictures of the Metro or the airport or anything, but I did get photos of ...

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Hey, any interest in a long Mickey Mouse? With a built-in saddle so you can ride? No? Mm?


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How about Popeye on a rocket with handlebars, like a motorcycle? I believe it's the same figure as was hung from the ceiling in the other room.


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And here's a Pluto that you could ride, if you were much smaller and this were the 50s Or Something.


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And now we leave the Musée des Arts Forains. It's really cute how the characters are parade-goers.


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A look straight up at that carousel centaur that opened the day here.


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And here's what the place looks like. Note the busts in the windows, and the mannequin stencils all over the other doors. You can also see the next tour group going into the first room back there.


Trivia: King George III drafted a letter of abdication after Lord North's ministry resigned in 1782, following the recognition that Great Britain could not quash the American rebellion and the difficulty finding an acceptable replacement government. Source: The Diplomacy of the American Revolution, Samuel Flagg Bemis.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 76: More Private Lives of a Privateer!, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle. Also the story that, if I'm not wrong, reintroduced Bluto to the comic strip after a quarter-century away.

Delights from Japan, Pre-ordered

Nov. 28th, 2025 08:52 pm
lovelyangel: http://www.toponeraegunbuster.com/Gunbuster-Support.html (Noriko Watercolor)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
I went and checked – and CDJapan had the new MISAMO album available for pre-order. As usual, there are different versions. Rabid fans will probably order all the versions; that’s not uncommon among ONCE. For me, getting the individual albums is too expensive. I usually get just the DVD package. However, the CD included in that package doesn’t have any of the solo songs, so I also ordered the CD that has those three extra songs. I’m not rabid, but I’m fervent.

It turns out that CDJapan is having a Black Friday sale until 12/2 (or 12/1, here) if you remember to enter the special coupon code. I often forget. So I was pleased that I remembered to enter the code to save 1000 yen (on orders >10000 yen) and enter my rewards points to save 113 yen. I also chose FedEx FICP for delivery as that option has all customs and duties fees paid at time of order – instead of at time of delivery. Minimum fuss for me, please.

And, while my memory is wobbly... I thankfully did remember to pre-order the Gunbuster Sound Collection. There were so many ways to mess up this order. But, anyway – mission complete:

CDJapan Order, Black Friday Sale
CDJapan Order, Black Friday Sale
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

This week in my humor blog: Jimmy Rabbit kind of gets one over on his Mom, Mary Worth gets in a freak hot air balloon accident and is rescued by superpowers, and we see some Beetle Bailey Squirrel Resolution, who put on a great show at the Common Ground Music Festival back in 2018. Here's what you missed:


That done, let's please enjoy a bunch of Musée des Arts Forain pictures, and something you won't see anywhere else! Probably!

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So here was an unexpected surprise: a fairground Popeye on a rocket! We can explain nothing more about that.


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And here's the third carousel, something we never imagined we'd see and that I didn't know existed: a velocipede carousel.


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Docent explaining the velocipede carousel. It's got no motor; it's powered by all the people on bicycles pedalling.


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If you aren't up to pedalling you can ride on the chair instead.


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So the bikes are fixed-gear (they're basically 1890s bicycles, on a track), and the pedals move even if you don't pump; you're directed to stop pedalling altogether if your feet slip off because they will be going fast.


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The docent gives instructions about what we're to do.


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Getting onto the ride. It made a tremendous racket. Unfortunately there was a small group and so everyone fit on a single ride cycle, so I don't have video of what it was like in motion.


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You can see how big the room is, compared to the carousel, in this shot.


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I did my best photographing the velocipede carousel's decoration but I didn't know how to get the good low-light pictures.


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One last shot of this remarkable construction.


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And then there's Popeye on his rocket, whatever that means.


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Some more figures that are definitely licensed figures based on PLuto and a Three Little Pig. I love this look.


Trivia: The United States prohibited the import of lemons from Argentina between 2001 and 2018. Source: Seriously Curious: The Facts and Figures That Turn Our World Upside-Down, Tom Standage. (Argentinian fruit had been quarantined most of the 20th century for fear of spreading pests, and after a trade liberalization American fruit-growers sued on the grounds that this still wasn't protecting American crops enough. After a visit by Obama in 2015 regulators were satisfied that Argentina was keeping export crops pest-free enough.)

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 75: Grand Poobahr of Smoochistan, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Nov. 27th, 2025 12:10 am
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

With the trip to Bronner's and now the Nite Lites 5K kicking off the Christmas season, what did we have to look forward to but the next weekend but kicking off of the Christmas season? This one looks like it might stick, since it's been a tradition of ours since we stopped attending Midwest Fur Fest. I refer to the Silver Bells In The City winter market and electric light parade. Mostly the parade.

We did stop first in the City Hall, for a bathroom break and to get popcorn and hot chocolate. Also to have a look around City Hall for what might be the last time. They finally have not just a deal to replace City Hall with a new structure but have actually broken ground and have things rising from what used to be a dry cleaners. The existing building's supposed to be renovated into a hotel and I guess that'll be nice if it works, but it probably won't be a gathering point and cheap snacks stand for Silver Bells when that happens.

The parade seemed to start even later than usual, although it was not horribly cold or windy so the wait wasn't bad. It was short on the number of marching bands --- nine by my count --- although [personal profile] bunnyhugger had barely got done complaining about how they seem to have dropped the best-band contest when the announcer came on to tell us who won the best-band contest. The bands all looked pretty good, none marching badly enough that [personal profile] bunnyhugger said anything aloud about people being out of step. And there was apparently some coordination between the bands so that there wasn't any repeating of a particular song and I don't think even the medleys overlapped much. The piece I half-remember is the announcer said one of the bands would be playing [ some 60s tune that hasn't got anything to do with Christmas or Thanksgiving or parades or anything ] and then they went and played Margaret Cobb and Bruce Channel's ``Hey! Baby'' instead. (The one with the refrain ``I wanna know // if you'll be my girl'', if that helps narrow it down.) [personal profile] bunnyhugger will surely remember and tell me and I'll feel foolish I forgot. [ Edit: It was ``Twist and Shout''; thanks, love. ]

The tree lighting was done before the community sing, which was anyway two quick songs that nobody sang along to, possibly because I don't know what the second song was but it didn't sound anything like a Christmas song. After that came the drone show, which has been getting a bit more interesting every year but is still basically, y'know, a drone show. For some reason a bunch of the constellations put up were themed to Wicked: For Good. Last year had a bunch of The Wizard of Oz images, in honor of the event's ruby anniversary, so I'm looking forward to this new Wizard of Oz Universe theme they've picked up for the thing. I'm a Hungry Tiger fan.

After the fireworks we went to the shopping village, which had expanded from past years by having grease trucks farther east than it'd had before. We got some veggie falafels from a truck just moments before it closed down. [personal profile] bunnyhugger also got a jar of garlic-flavored cooking oil from a place that we worked out has to be operating out of the neighborhood center a couple blocks from us. We've had it in a few bowls of ramen and it does add a very nice touch.

After all that --- and by then the village was closing up, as it always seems to do just as we've gotten there --- we went back to the state tree to get some photos of it up-close. We were just admiring how they don't seem to need the sort of complex wooden tresle they used to have for these trees; it just stood straight. And then [personal profile] bunnyhugger overheard some kids asking what that thing was and that it was a rabbit. She was expecting a wild rabbit had somehow stuck around the capital grounds through the crowd and noise and fireworks. The truth was maybe more amazing.

It was a domesticated rabbit, one on a leash, hopping around a little bit and sniffing around and eating the occasional leaf or blade of grass. An angora, which their owner explained was why they were so chill. Angora rabbits have to spend about fifteen hours a day being held in a lap and groomed, so they're used to contact --- and many people came up asking if it was safe to pet them --- and being restrained by things like leashes. We were amazed, and delighted, to meet a rabbit like this but also couldn't help imagining, gads, one excited dog and it's an awful day. The owner did say a quick bit about sometimes dogs are trouble but I guess she's confident in being able to gather the rabbit up fast. Oh also the rabbit is nine years old, which is outright old; they're doing very well getting around for being such a senior rabbit.

I won't be surprised if we never see that rabbit again, but it was wonderful encountering them at all. Made for a great way to send off the introduction to the Christmas season.


This time at the Musée I got pictures of nothing with a carousel in it. Yet is this entry still tagged 'carousels'? I don't know, it depends if I remember when scheduling this to post.

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Some fairground-style attractions here now, including totally legitimate artwork of three of the caballeros and whoever Douce is.


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The docent explains something about the ball-throwing gallery here.


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Here's the figures that you would throw balls at,


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Display of some of the ball-rolling tables with a scenic backgrop to give it a period appearance.


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Something we did not get to see demonstrated, tragically: a fairground ride that gives you just a little push up and then slide back down. I feel like we saw something like this at Rye Playland ages ago but couldn't swear to it.


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And, probably from a carousel, a pig-shaped mount to ride in.


Trivia: Five miles of beachfront in Russian-occupied Crimea was stripped down to clay foundation and the sand sold on the black market. Source: The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, Vin Beiser.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 75: Grand Poobahr of Smoochistan, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

No Beaver Moon

Nov. 26th, 2025 05:37 pm
yourlibrarian: Horario Under Hat look (HORN-HorarioUnderHat-timescout)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian posting in [community profile] common_nature


Was on the lookout the night it was supposed to appear, but there was a lot of cloud cover in the east, and I saw no moon at all that Thursday night.

However we did have a great sunset.

Read more... )
[personal profile] quippe
The Blurb On The Back:

Ecstasy in London.
Crack in Los Angeles.
LSD in Tokyo.
Heroin in Sofia.
Cocaine in Medellín.
Bounty hunting in Manila.
Opium in Tehran.

This is your next fix.

This is Dopeworld.


DOPEWORLD is a bold and eye-opening exploration into the world of drugs. Taking us on an unforgettable journey around the world, we trace the emergence of psychoactive substances and our relationships with them. Exploring the murky criminal underworld, the author has unparalleled access to drug lords, cartel leaders, hitmen and government officials.

This is a deeply personal journey into the heartland of the war on drugs and the devastating effect it’s having on humanity.


The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Niko Vorobyov is a freelance journalist and author who has a conviction for possession with intent to supply. This is a readable if glib exploration of the drug world, offering a history to modern day drug policy and the development of various narcotic substances that’s too heavy with moral equivalence and too lacking in personal reflection to be a truly informative read about the subject.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

With the visit to Bronner's kicking off the Christmas season, what did we have to look forward to the next weekend but kicking of the Christmas season? Here it was at the Nite Lites show of so very many light fixtures at the Michigan International Speedway, down in Michigan's Brooklyn. In past years we've taken up driving through it, usually around Twelfth Night.

But before they open up to cars driving through they do a 5K, either a run or a walk as you like. I finally took [personal profile] bunnyhugger's invitation to do the 5K with her and signed up for the race, although too late to get a T-shirt or hoodie. All I would get is the official badge of entry, a foam crown of reindeer horns donated by Brooklyn Plastics and that will someday be something we have to throw out. Or turn into support for other projects; [personal profile] bunnyhugger thought this would be a good foam to use to keep costume masks from being to uncomfortable on the nose. And then moments before leaving for it [personal profile] bunnyhugger discovered she hadn't signed up yet, and she worried that there wouldn't be time for her to sign up on the spot.

There was time, though. The run/walk turns out to be very laid back, with on-the-spot signup maybe two lines long. The event is untimed, and you don't even get a number or anything, just the foam antlers mentioned above and you really only have to wear them to start.

The walk starts at a point that's midway through the course, as you see it driving through, but a point near the grandstands. Also a point where we got to see just how mid-century the styling of the support buildings of the raceway are; so much of it looks like a 1958 motel in ways that charmed us. It's almost worth visiting the place for the architecture alone.

Five kilometers is a pretty good walk, but not one that I'd normally need over an hour for. But this walk ended up not quite an hour and a half since it's so easy to stop and photograph things. So, in like eight months or so check in for a lot of pictures of sea serpents or the Twelve Days Of Christmas or an outline of Michigan with a Santa cap on the Thumb. But it'll save me feeling quite the same impulse to photograph everything when we get to driving through late in the upcoming Christmas season.


Now, for a couple more pictures from the Musée, and its wonders of carousel rides and fairground games:

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Another carousel centaur! I don't know if this is a Boer War figure.


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But here's the organ, all set for someone to start a waltz.


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Near the organ was this sculpture of a horse with rider, pretty intimidating to stare up at.


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And here's the second carousel! The horses look about like what you might see on any ride but what's that to the right?


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Yes: it's a rowboat, that rocks back and forth as you go around. I'm a little sorry we didn't get a ride on that.


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The docent showing something about one of the horses. Mostly I was getting a picture of the boat here, though.


Trivia: The 26th of November, 1963, was President Lyndon Johnson's first working day in the White House as President. He met with John F Kennedy's congressional liaison (Lawrence F O'Brien) and signed two bills which Congress had passed the 21st of November, after Kennedy left for Dallas. Source: From Failing Hands: The Story of Presidential Succession, John D Feerick.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 75: Grand Poobahr of Smoochistan, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Delights from Japan

Nov. 25th, 2025 04:17 pm
lovelyangel: Sana Fridge Interview Teaser (Sana Fridge)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
Yesterday I was shopping in the Nike Company Store, as I wanted to check out the new Nike Pegasus Premium shoes, and I was surprised by some music that started coming over the overhead sound system.

I was thinking that’s TWICE! And a recent song... maybe “Strategy”? Then, a moment later... ah, no! It’s “Do not touch” by MISAMO! Amazing! I could never have imagined a MISAMO song being played in a store in the United States.

(Admittedly, Nike works hard to keep up with current trends, especially in music. Their store music is on point, moreso than most places. Vibes are pretty important in sales.)

Last Friday, MISAMO announced their first full album, Play, would be released on February 4, 2026. MISAMO continues to up their momentum (somehow, in spite of being in the middle of a TWICE World Tour).

Tangentially related, today CDJapan notified me of the reissue of the Sound Collection of Gunbuster. I have the first two Gunbuster CD releases, but I don’t have this third release. The content of this 3-disc set has a big overlap with the first two CDs, but there is some material which is on neither. I was eager to place the preorder... but...

I realized the release date for the Gunbuster CD set, January 28, 2026 – just a few days before the MISAMO album release. The MISAMO Play album is not yet available for preorder. If I wait until it is, I can order the Gunbuster and MISAMO releases at the same time, and get them in a single shipment (coincidentally in time for Angel’s Month). I am now waiting... waiting...

Listen to Those Wondrous Bells

Nov. 25th, 2025 12:10 am
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

We've made a tradition of going to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland for [personal profile] bunnyhugger's birthday. This year, her birthday was a Wednesday, with the weekend before occupied by a pinball tournament in Grand Rapids and our disappointing Closing Day at Cedar Point, and the Saturday afterward occupied by another pinball tournament, so late as the next Sunday was, it was go then or not at all.

A more substantial break from tradition is we didn't eat just when we arrived, because it was way too crowded. Instead we went shopping for a pre-lit Christmas tree, something for our bedroom. The idea here being that we always have a hard time finding a real live tree that's the right size --- like, five, five-and-a-half-foot --- to put up there. With the artificial trees we found there's not actually much choice in the five, five-and-a-half-foot range we wanted. But the state of artificial trees has improved remarkably since the 1980s, when my family had a couple of trees that wished they could be cell phone towers.

After a bunch of looking around and discovering that you can switch the LED lights to different patterns, including some that are definitely too irritating to use in a bedroom, we picked out and bought one! Or at least, we got the order slip that we would, at the end of the day, bring to the register and then go to the pickup window for. It's a modest-sized box, one that our rabbit chinned several times before I took it up to the bedroom, so I guess it's her tree now.

This got our visit to Bronner's off on the ``wrong'' side of the big Christmas complex. We spent the day going around it in a more scrambled version than usual and, you know, that felt pretty good. We did spend a little time looking for a customizable mouse ornament, since we have four mice as pets this year, and the strangest thing is we couldn't find one. We did get a custom ornament for [personal profile] bunnyhugger's father's dog, and then we realized that her mother has a cat, why don't we get something for her? Again we didn't find a customizable cat ornament that really worked.

We had got off to a late start, part of why we arrived at Bronner's in time to see the lunch rush at the snack counter. Yet somehow we felt like we did have about the right amount of time to spend wandering around in the teaser to the Christmas season. We would go on after this to the Cheese House and get possibly too much in cheese spreads and blocks (there are ones we haven't opened yet, two weeks afterward), and then to a rare restaurant meal in town. Made for a nice Sunday and even got done early enough we didn't technically close out any of the three places. That never happens.


In photos, I'm still on our layover in Paris on the first day of our trip but, y'know, how often are you going to see things like this? So please pardon the occasional boring photo because we're soon going to be up on things you won't believe.

P1080636.jpeg

Now we're moving into the second of the big exhibit halls. The door here has an archway that looks like a carousel's scenery panels above it, though I don't know if they really were.


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Little stand outside the venue with the promise of information pamphlets, though my recollection is we were roped off from this.


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The astronaut suit was, I believe, constructed a couple years ago for publicity and tied to the anniversary of the French launching of a cat into space.


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Close-up of the angel-like figure ready to clobber you with a wreath.


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And, farther off down the hall, I hope this all needs no explanation because I don't remember that we got one for the fairy-wing gown or the mannequin legs dressed for a can-can.


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Around this time I noticed there was a nice silhouetted view of the courtyard.


Trivia: Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa's 1770 order that all houses be given numbers specified that the numbers were to be red in Vienna, black everywhere else in the Empire, and in Arabic numerals, except for Jewish persons' homes, which would be in Roman numerals. Source: The Address Book: What Street Adresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, Deirdre Mask.

Currently Reading: The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, Kevin Baker.

austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

Couple weeks ago I went to donate platelets. I've fallen into doing that this year, and it's kind of nice. It takes a couple hours, but they set up the TV for you to watch something and it's let me catch up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 some. Plus there's an almost unsettling number of gifts given for donating.

What takes a couple hours is that they can only remove the whole blood from you, so they do that, filter out the platelets, and return the rest to your other arm. And when I went to do that the start of this month, I had a curious failure. The needle in my left arm, taking out blood, was doing fune, but the needle in my right just wasn't making contact. The saline they were trying to inject wouldn't get into my vein and it just produced a small bruise. They tried a couple times but couldn't succeed. So I went home with a failed donation.

Thing is you can donate platelets in principle every week, and especially when there's nothing but the need for my elbow to heal up, and I went back in last Monday. Since I'd had the failure last time I figured the thing to do was draw blood out from my right arm and put the filtered blood back in my left, and give things the chance to balance. Getting the return needle in went just fine; apparently my left arm is really good for this stuff. But the right arm? They could figure where there were two veins either of which were viable but they bent off in weird directions, apparently, and while they finally got a needle into one of them, they also picked up some debris material so that none of the blood could get into the needle rather than make another bruise. The other vein might have been workable but it was too close to the already-present damage so there wasn't any using it. So that's two failures in a row and I'm plum out of arms to try donating with.

They did give me the Red Cross Pac-Man socks that are the gift for people donating platelets through to December 7th, though, which is kind.


More pictures here from the Musée des Arts Forains from our layover in Paris:

P1080617.jpeg

Swan-boat chariot on the the carousel with the fine steps. You can see hooks that I guess were once for reins, like a swan would let you get away with reins. That or it needs readers.


P1080618.jpeg

And a sheep, another rare animal for carousels.


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Couple of figures on balconies that, it turns out, would move and 'sing' along to a massive organ, making this part of a huge mechanical performance.


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More of the mechanism, part of a show that we got to see.


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And a comic foreground, ready for you to poke your head into.


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Looking back again at the carousel. You can see the sides of other chariots hug on the walls in the background.


Trivia: Shortly before accepting the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the quantum-mechanical model of atomic structure, Niels Bohr received a telegram from György Hevesy and Dirk Coster, who had just isolated the element hafnium on their first attempt, sifting through zirconium which Bohr's model predicted would have the not-yet-discovered element's closest chemical analogue. Bohr announced the discovery at his acceptance speech. Source: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements, Sam Kean.

Currently Reading: The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, Kevin Baker.

Library Update #22: Blown Apart

Nov. 23rd, 2025 03:29 pm
lovelyangel: (Aoi Startled)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
Halfway through Sorting of Office/Art Supplies
Halfway through Sorting of Office/Art Supplies
iPhone 13 mini photo

In this situation, the only solution is to blow everything up and reassemble pieces. The photo above is actually after a lot of sorting and reorganization has been done, and organized items are put away. But obviously there’s still a lot of work to do.

In opening all the boxes at the same time and moving items onto the table, I learned I had two sets of four rolls of double-sided tape... and then found two giant rolls of double-sided tape. (Yes, I use a lot of double-sided tape.) Now they’re all in one place, and I won’t be tempted to buy another roll.

I had 5 + 1 + 1 boxes of 5000 Swingline staples (plus a small box). One of those boxes was from J.K.Gill when I was young and was on sale for 69¢, originally $1.25. I’ve never finished one box, and it’s clear I’ll never need 7 full boxes of staples. At least four boxes are in the giveaway pile. So is an extra stapler – and a third Scotch tape dispenser. (I think that dispenser is the one I kept at work. The extra pair of scissors I kept at work is also in this surplus pile.)

I’ll continue to separate the necessities from the collectables (e.g., Nyanko Burger stationery) from the Don’t Need This Stuff Anymore clutter. I’m aggressively cutting back so that I don’t fill up my storage. I was really worried about storage for a while, but I’m less freaked out as items are falling into place. We’ll see how it goes.

Checkmate In Berlin by Giles Milton

Nov. 23rd, 2025 09:35 pm
[personal profile] quippe
The Blurb On The Back:

Berlin was in ruins when Soviet forces fought their way towards the Reichstag in the spring of 1945.


Berlin’s fate had been sealed four months earlier at the Yalta Conference. The city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up between the victorious powers - British, American, French and Soviet. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution; in reality, it fired the starting gun for the Cold War.

Rival systems, rival ideologies and rival personalities ensured that Berlin became an explosive battleground. The ruins of this once-great city were soon awash with spies, gangsters and black-marketeers, all of whom sought to profit from the disarray.

For the next four years, a handful of charismatic but flawed individuals - British, American and Soviet - fought an intensely personal battle over the future of Germany, Europe and the entire free world.


The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Giles Milton is a writer and best-selling historian. This very readable and informative book explores Berlin between 1945 and 1950 sets out how the agreement between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference set the seeds for the Berlin Blockade and the Cold War. Extensively footnoted and drawing on personal papers from Colonel Frank Howley it’s particularly good on the specifics of governing and everyday life in post-war Berlin.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
austin_dern: Inspired by Krazy Kat, of kourse. (Default)
[personal profile] austin_dern

Today I was busy until past 10 pm attending a pinball tournament and then having dinner so please, instead, enjoy a double dose of Musée des Arts Forains pictures.

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More of pinball's ancestors here, with bagatelles where you try to shoot a ball around the obstacles.


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And isn't that a fun obstacle, shooting through the legs of a jester-y type?


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One of the attractions was a big roller-ball-racing game, dating all the way back to the 1970s (whimper). Everyone got a chance to roll balls in one of two races.


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The docent explains the rules. [personal profile] bunnyhugger would come within a whisker of winning. When I got my turn, I was in no danger of winning.


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Another picture of the floor here in the first building. On the left is a gondola like you'd find on a salon carousel.


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Seeing the promise of The Original Marvelous Mechanicals put us in mind of Marvin's, of course.


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Cat figure on one of the carousels we got to ride. This was on a multi-level carousel that went very slowly but, as you can see from the floor, looked almost oppressively deluxe.


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Looking over [personal profile] bunnyhugger's shoulder at the mermaid serving as a central figure. You can see a woman sitting on a mere bench reading the guide pamphlet.


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We've been on a couple carousels with more than one level before, such as at Denver's Lakeside Park, but few with steps that look like they belong in an early-20th-century luxury hotel.


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Out the door we saw the occasional cat walking by.


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A look at the central platform and the inner ring of benches.


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A game, here, your classic toss-the-ball-in-the-mouth game. I think there's something French people would recognize about these figures, but I don't.


Trivia: The gold-colored United States dollar coin issued from 1999 was made of 88.5% copper, alloyed with zinc (6%), manganese (3.5%), and nickel (2%), with each coin costing about 13 cents to make. Source: Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements, John Emsley. By the time of the book's writing (the book is copyright 2001, so this can't have been later than mid-2000) about fifty had been minted for every person in the United States.

Currently Reading: The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, Kevin Baker. I really am enjoying this read a lot. I'm just finding so little time to read.

Missing Person by Sarah Lotz

Nov. 22nd, 2025 05:01 pm
[personal profile] quippe
The Blurb On The Back:

Missing-linc.com comprises a group of misfit sleuths scattered across the States. Their macabre passion is giving names to the unidentified dead. When Ellie Caine starts investigating the corpse known as the Boy in the Dress, the Boy’s killer decides to join the group. The closer they get to the truth, the closer he will get to them.

The Boy was Teddy Ryan. He was meant to have been killed in a car crash in the west of Ireland in 1989. Only he wasn’t. There is no grave in Galway and Teddy was writing letters from New York a year after he supposedly died. But one night he met a man in a Minnesota bar and vanished off the face of the earth.

Teddy’s nephew, Shaun, is no hero, but he is determined to solve the thirty-year-old mystery. He joins forces with the disparate members of Missing-linc to hunt down the killer. The only problem: the killer will be with them every step of the way …


The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Sarah Lotz’s standalone thriller makes the most of its original hook in that you know who the killer is from very early on so although the main story turns both on other characters discovering the truth, it’s given emotional depth by the slow reveal of family secrets and has strong themes of identity and trust. Although the ending didn’t fully work for me, I would read more about these characters and am interested in reading Lotz’s other work.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

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