sir_guinglain

The meme that goes "what a week/Captain, it's Wednesday"?

I basically said both parts of that myself today, in a meeting with an equally tired and frazzled colleague.

And it was only much later that I realized.

It isn't even Wednesday today. It's only Tuesday.

First thing tomorrow morning I have my PIP assessment. It's for a review from 2024 of a decision made in 2021. So much has happened. Looking over my descriptions from both these documents tonight, I am overwhelmed.

After the assessment, I will rush in to avpresentation for a webinar with a couple of colleagues (which is actually way more stressful than doing it myself). As long as the DWP's (expensive outsourced) assessors don't keep me waiting an arbitrary amount of time for it as one of their little games, something they are known to do.

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ableism,
work

Lovely is waking to proofs of the next "Miscellany" volume from the Scottish History Society, including my own piece - full annotated transcript plus accompanying essay - about a historical poem about events at the Melrose court in 1682. Very much looking forward to seeing the finished volume in print.

I studied the Melrose local court records for the dissertation portion of my taught MPhil history degree at Dundee, 2001-3. I only discovered this poem lurking hidden in the depths of the Edinburgh national archives afterwards. And was rather stunned, because it correlates closely with the history as recorded conventionally, while providing a totally fresh take on it. All including a vitriolic character assassination of the newly appointed judge! It took me ages to transcribe the 17th century handwriting - definitely at my limits. But got there, and then ended up sending in a proposal for an edited transcript + essay for the Scottish History Society. Which was accepted. That was 6+ years ago. It's taken a long time to get to print. But nearly there now!

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Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.

( Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

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From our local bookshop, and a rare books seller in East Lothian.

I already have a fuller more original Scots play script for the 16th century play. But hoped that the slightly modernised/simplified version might be more suitable for my needs (including IF game design ...). Martin borrowed it for me from the uni library last week, and after a quick peek to be sure it was what I needed I could then confidently buy my own copy for longer-term use.

I love the Alice books. And collect playing cards. This is a new (last week) release of this deck. Plus a bonus fun book. We couldn't pick them up in person from the local bookshop on Friday - they needed to be ordered in. So I got them delivered, and they arrived in the post today.

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The way my voice now resonates in my body feels better to me than I ever thought it could.

I was thinking of this this morning because I talked with a fellow trans dude about singing over the weekend; him dealing with changes to his range made me ponder how I've been kinda avoiding trying to find what my singing might be like?

I know voice training and documenting changes, in speaking and singing, is a Thing for a lot of trans people but the notion gave me big anxiety so I've stayed away from it.

Today I am carefully singing along with the radio (in the sense that I am doing it with care, rather than just finding myself doing so while I am working or whatever) and I don't really care how I sound but I love how it feels.

I said this on fedi and was charmed to have one of my dadliest friends (who we call Other Erik because he's another Erik) say

I hope you never lose that joy! For my part, I still love the feeling and I’ve had a mature low “adult” voice for over 30 years. I find myself humming low-range tunes to myself rather frequently just for the feeling of it in my chest.

It's nice to know it can stay fun for that long!

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We did our Inca Trail holiday with Explore! who (out of necessity as I understand it) subcontracted to a local tour company. At some point something went wrong with getting permits for the trail. The story we were told was that the local agent forgot to apply for our permits, but several other people in the group had had permits delayed, so we concluded that there had been a more general permit mix-up which was simplified for our consumption as "forgot to apply for your permits". The up-shot of all this was that instead of travelling as part of a group of ten walkers with a guide, cook and porters it was just the two of us with a guide, cook and porters, setting out a day after everyone else with the aim of catching up with them at Machu Picchu. This was a mixed blessing, we got a lot more time with our guide and didn't have to worry that we were slowing anyone down, on the other hand it felt like an awful lot of staff for just us and even though our guide as very good at leaving us alone for various stretches, or sending us off on our own to explore things, it was quite intense.

( Photos and more under the cut! )

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I had a fun time tonight watching D play a very silly round of Hardspace: Shipbreaker, which then got surprisingly stressful and harrowing for a game about taking spaceships apart, and then had an eventful and actually sweet cutscene.

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Hope. Blood. No Kings.

Our day started far too early, at least as far our aging bodies were concerned, but we had a mission. We headed from our home, our sign in the trunk, picked up our friend Rose, and headed to Evanston's downtown Fountain Square for that No Kings rally. It was lively, peaceful, filled with chants and a happy amount of music. It felt good to be there, and I held our sign up as high as I could (and hoped that I didn't block the view of too many people behind me.) I felt so energized by everyone around me, and by everyone across the country who turned out like we did.

Estimates of attendance at Evanston's rally was around 1,000 and Chicago's was estimated at about 75,000. Add the various other suburbs' rallies to Chicago, and that number jumps to close to 100,000. At the end of the day, it appears that the vast majority of national rallies were peaceful; LA's various police organizations appear to have become violent, as did police in Seattle and Portland, although protestors in the latter appear to have been more violent than they should have been.

And then we got home, and the first thing I saw when I turned on my laptop was the news out of Minnesota. Two Democratic state legislators shot; one killed along with her husband, the other injured along with his wife. And the apparent murderer is, based on what news reports have compiled, a Trump supporter - with a list of other potential targets, including pro-reproductive healthcare activists and Democrats - and probably a Christofascist because of course he would be.

As of 7:36 p.m. Chicago time, the POS hasn't been captured. I hope he chooses neither self-inflicted suicide, nor suicide by cop. I hope he's caught, given the full benefit of American law, and, if a jury of his peers finds him guilty of two murders and two attempted murders, that he spends the rest of his miserable life forgotten behind bars.

But let's not speak of him; let's remember those he killed and injured. And let's look at the number of people across the country who attended "No Kings" rallies - my rough and very incomplete estimates stand at well over half a million; others are estimating several million. The Washington "I Wish I was Kim Jong Un" parade? According to the AP, it appeared to fall very short of the 200,000 predicted earlier. Good.

Now I'm going to finish eating a piece of chocolate, and go hang with the Couch Crew over on Discord.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Glenn Kirschner "Justice Matters"

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Some musings from me about this.

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Ever since D's girlfriend broke her leg while roller skating last weekend, my ankle has been sore, something it hardly ever does any more and I've done nothing physical (like walk a lot) to cause it.

So I have tried yelling "Shut up, this is clearly psychosomatic! You're fine!" at it. Repeatedly.

Disappointingly, this doesn't seem to be working. (I didn't really expect it to. I'm just saying it woulda been nice if it did, is all!)

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On an ice hockey camp in Slaný, near Prague. I flew out on Thursday afternoon with two friends from Kodiaks. We arrived at the rink hotel in time to check in, have a little walk down to the nearby supermarket and get food, and settle in for the night. For reasons the three of us were all sharing a dormitory room the first night, and we decided the perfect film to watch over our picnic dinner was Inside Out 2 - also set at a 3-day hockey camp. I hadn't seen it before, though the other two had, and I enjoyed it very much.

Friday morning was pretty relaxed; a fourth Kodiak joined us after leaving home at awful-o-clock in the morning, and we were moved into the nicer ensuite twin rooms in pairs for the rest of the camp. We met in the dressing room at 1pm, were on ice at 2pm and again at 6pm, with a stickhandling session in between. Then dinner at 8 and falling into bed not long after.

It's excellent coaching, I'm being pushed well out of my comfort zone and the balance of drill and rest in each session and between sessions is just right. I hit my "cannot actually skate any more" limit about 3 minutes before the end of the last ice session.

Today will be two ice sessions at either end of the day, with video review (argh), optional swim+spa (yes!), and stickhandling again in between. My muscles this morning are making themselves known but I'm not exhausted. All is good. Time to go get changed.

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ice hockey,
travel

We’re very proud that Martin’s PhD supervisor, Ursula Martin, has been upgraded from a CBE to a DBE in the King’s Birthday Honours. Ursula was an excellent supervisor for Martin, patient and encouraging. She was also a huge help to me, both as an undergraduate computer science student at St Andrews - having a female CS Prof in the early 1990s was gobsmacking for me - but also after I had to drop out of my CS PhD, and more recently.

Thoroughly deserved, and especially good to see given that some of her achievements as a female groundbreaker in CS have at times been overlooked by male colleagues.

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A Plateosaurus skeleton. Image stolen from The Great Dinosaur Discoveries by Darren Naish.

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fossil friday

We were in Broughty Ferry today. Aced my latest eye test. A little bit more short sighted, so going to get new glasses this time. But, best of all, still no glaucoma or cataracts, despite 28 years of permanent daily steroids. So very relieved. Called into the uni library to return a book and pick up another. Then home. We have fresh strawberries from Balhungie Berry Farm in Monifieth, spotted and nabbed from the Love Your Planet shop in Broughty Ferry. Where we also bought a bag of Sacred Grounds coffee beans, a new variety for me to try. Also sat outside a local cafe/deli, drinking chilled milkshakes. So good. But, yes, eyes good.

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Yesss ... Suck It, Cheeto!

I needed this. A judge told That Man that he was being an illegal POS in two separate ways. Even though I'm perfectly aware that this administration's playbook is "Ignore the courts," I know this one is probably like a cockleburr under his saddle.

As I said, suck it.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Woo Sung "Forget Forever"

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Today for work, I saw someone spell fisticuffs as "fisty cuffs" and a) that is adorable and b) it also makes me realize what a strange word fisticuffs is!

So naturally I looked it up.

c. 1600, fisty cuffes, from fist (n.) + cuff (n.) "a blow", with the form perhaps in imitation of handiwork.

Well! That's such a boring etymology, but... nice to see the spelling returned to something more like the original!

I said this on fedi and a friend's response has been delighting me ever since:

I always misread it as fishticuffs, so always had an image in my head of some kind of betta fish boxing, complete with gloves over fins

That made me giggle. They're an artist so I asked if they would draw this some time. I am wondering how a fish gets boxing gloves on its fins...

Tags:

language,
whimsy

Onto another Fourth Doctor audio. So much about this one gives me joy. And what a guest cast.

( spoilers re some dialogue )

We're going into Broughty Ferry for my eye test tomorrow, and will be taking tons of Big Finish audios to Oxfams. Which is why I've been trying to get through some more of my backlog this week.

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Some icons of The Rani which have been languishing on my hard drive since there was only one of her. I guess I need to make some more...

Kate O'Mara as the Rani, dressed as Mel. Face and lots of permed red h air.