Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 09:33 pm
Kumas is homes ands verys verys tireds. Girls and bears has beens ups evers soooos longs. Bears nots sures bears likes this flyings. Is ever sooooos noisys, ands nots muchs funs.

Bears is goings tos gets girls tos sleeps lots.
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 04:43 pm
I just got this year's covid booster, as a walk-in at CVS. I'm glad I called first, because the CVS closest to our house doesn't have the vaccine; the one where I get most of my prescriptions does.

The pharmacist asked me if I wanted to get the flu vaccine at the same time, so I told her I'm waiting, on my doctor's advice. The actual injection was faster than I expected and didn't hurt much, so that's good.

The pharmacist gave me a coupon for $10 off a $20 purchase (with the usual list of exclusions). Kitchen trash bags were on the shopping list, so I picked those up, then added a box of envelopes and a bottle of dish soap to get the total up to $20. I got home and saw we may have too much dish soap, given limited storage space, but we will use it.
Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 09:09 am


If not friend, why friend-shaped?

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 05:09 am
According to United Airlines and FlightTracker, Lisa and [personal profile] travelswithkuma are (as I write this) just heading out over the North Atlantic with a projected route passing over Iceland, Greenland, and Canada on their way to SFO, where they will have four hours to clear Immigration and Customs, re-clear Terrorization, and then board the short flight to Reno. They should arrive around 7:45 PM tonight, and I'll be there to collect them, take them home, help them get their stuff into their cave, and leave them to hibernate for as long as possible.
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Monday, September 15th, 2025 06:51 pm
This is a bundle of the Dread Laironomicon, a system-neutral sourcebook from Raging Swan Press, with "the dread companion", a guide to sources for things in this supplement in other books from the same publisher. Basically, it describes a hundred locations for monsters, with surroundings etc., via a LOT of tables.

https://bundleofholding.com/promo/list/key/Hideaways

  


This REALLY isn't something I would want to use - it's basically aimed at dungeon-bashing and not much else - and to be honest I don't think I'd be very interested even if I was still playing these games. It's cheap and worth having if you really have no time to prepare for a game, but even when I was playing a lot of D&D I made very little use of this sort of thing, individual design works better for me.
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Monday, September 15th, 2025 02:17 pm


100 lair entries in two succinct pages apiece, from Aboleth's Sunken Lair to Wyvern's Nest.

Bundle of Holding: Dread Laironomicon
Monday, September 15th, 2025 10:17 am
2014: Creationism is banned in British schools, the first same sex marriages in the UK are conducted, and Canadian Mark Carney helps the UK navigate challenging times. What ever happened to Carney, anyway?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 68


Which 2014 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
65 (95.6%)

God's War by Kameron Hurley
24 (35.3%)

Nexus by Ramez Naam
10 (14.7%)

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest
5 (7.4%)

The Disestablishment of Paradise by Phillip Mann
1 (1.5%)

The Machine by James Smythe
3 (4.4%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2014 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
God's War by Kameron Hurley

Nexus by Ramez Naam
The Adjacent by Christopher Priest
The Disestablishment of Paradise by Phillip Mann
The Machine by James Smythe
Sunday, September 14th, 2025 06:38 pm
So, yesterday, the wheelchair ramp on the Rt 8 bus I was on developed a bug. Or the system that detects if it is deployed did. The ramp retracted correctly but the bus thought it had not, and would not move.

Ha ha! I pick my routes to maximize alternatives in case of break-downs. I just disembarked and talked over to the LRT. Which, I discovered, was having a minor service delay.

My contingency plans can handle two delays, but not three. Good for me there were just the two. It did mean I was only a little early for work.

On the way home, just after I disembarked from the LRT, an SUV cut the LRT off so the SUV could reach the parking lot ten seconds earlier. If the train had not stopped, I'd have had to stick around, both as a witness and because the accident would blocked the sidewalk between me and the stop I needed to get to.

Less than five minutes after the LRT near-miss, three SUVs tried to turn into the same lane at the same time. I don't think they hit each other but there was a short discussion between the drivers before they all left. I'd have had to stick around for that as well, because it would have blocked the route my bus uses.
Sunday, September 14th, 2025 08:57 am


Bureau of Sabotage agent Jorj X. McKie is assigned a legal and ethical trap: a planet of victims, who, whether rescued or left to their impending doom, present a danger to the ConSentiency.

The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency, volume 2) by Frank Herbert
Saturday, September 13th, 2025 09:06 am


Six works new to me: two fantasy (one a roleplaying game), four science fiction. The roleplaying game is part of a series but otherwise, they all seem to be stand-alone.

Books Received, September 6 — September 12


Poll #33608 Books Received, September 6 — September 12
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 46


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent (October 2025)
8 (17.4%)

Outlaw Planet by M.R. Carey (November 2025)
20 (43.5%)

Champions of Chaos by Calum Colins, et al
1 (2.2%)

Slow Gods by Claire North (November 2025)
24 (52.2%)

The Divine Gardener’s Handbook: Or What to Do if Your Girlfriend Accidentally Turns Off the Sun by Eli Snow (August 2026)
22 (47.8%)

Death Engine Protocol: Better Dying Through Science by Margret A. Treiber (April 2025)
13 (28.3%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
30 (65.2%)

Friday, September 12th, 2025 02:18 pm
Inspired by talking with a newly-hatched Jewish trans woman.

Tikkun



Each of these pains
Is the jagged edge
Of a cracked
Vessel

You are not separate
From a wounded
Creation
The light you find
In your own curves
Is also divine

To become holy
Is
To become whole.
Friday, September 12th, 2025 06:22 pm
I've been thinking about the "Dad's Dragons" RPG thing, and by chance I found a pack of cards in a charity shop today - each card has a teeny reproduction of a WW2 poster on it, e.g. the classic "Be like dad - keep mum". About 40 are relevant to Britain at the beginning of WW2, the rest are on similar American themes.

My idea is to give each player three cards, and let them play one if the situation seems relevant, with a -1 or -2 modifier on the difficulty of whatever they're doing; -1 for a bit relevant, -2 for very relevant.

I paid a couple of pounds for them - if anyone else wants a set they were sold by British Heritage ltd. - looks like they're no longer in production, but there is someone selling them on eBay (for a lot more) if anyone wants to know what they're like:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145239451112

There are probably other ways to get similar images e.g. from art books such as these:

https://www.tgjonesonline.co.uk/Product/Slocombe-Richard/British-Posters-of-the-Second-World-War/8659133

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/365369778921

Just bought the second of these since it's pretty cheap.

Update 15th September - the second book has arrived and is VERY good and remarkably cheap, new A4-format paperback with 20 pages of intro and 45 pages of colour posters for £3.67, definitely worth having for scene setting for anything set in WW2 Britain.
Friday, September 12th, 2025 06:17 pm
Todays whens kumas was ons trains, conductors persons cames ands tolds girls thats littles bears needs tickets. Bears trieds tos tells trains persons thats bears rides frees. Girls saids wes coulds buys as tickets, buts conductors walkeds aways. bears nots understands.
Friday, September 12th, 2025 09:12 am


I'd been posting reviews to LiveJournal since April of 2014 but on September 12, 2014, James Nicoll Reviews went live, with a review of Robert A. Heinlein's Between Planets.
Friday, September 12th, 2025 08:57 am


It's time for Bo to leave doomed San Francisco behind... just as soon as she completes one final task.

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan
Thursday, September 11th, 2025 03:35 pm


11 sourcebooks that range across the shattered Earth of the Rifts tabletop roleplaying game from Palladium Books.

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Worlds 1




More World Books for the cross-dimensional tabletop roleplaying game

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Land and Sea (from 2022)
Thursday, September 11th, 2025 02:50 pm
[personal profile] siderea points out that you probably have >a href="https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1882720.html">"at least one underlying condition" for which the covid vaccine is (still) recommended by the US government, because most people do: the list includes being overweight, high blood pressure, depression, former smokers, and "physical inactivity." She speculates that the list may have been drafted to be as inclusive as possible, by someone who didn't have the authority to say "just give it to everyone."

The current official announcements, widely echoed, sounds as though most people can't get the vaccine, because the FDA is now being run by anti-vaxxers. That is almost certainly not an accident: if you think you can't have the vaccine, you won't ask for it.

Siderea also points out that even if you aren't on that list, a doctor can prescribe this, or almost any approved medication, to anyone they think it's appropriate for. In other contexts, this is what they mean by "off-label" use of a drug.

Note, however, that this may affect whether you have to pay for the vaccine yourself, rather than it being covered by insurance.

It has been pointed out elsewhere that you can always lie to them: nobody has a complete list of former smokers, for example.
Thursday, September 11th, 2025 06:08 pm
The final Rifts bundle this week, completing the run of all of the world books etc. for the system. This is another repeated bundle, previously offered last year.

COALITION WARS
   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025Coalition



last time I said "The new collection is material that was originally published in 2000-2002 - at a quick glance it looks like the interdimensional war that's at the core of this system hotted up to 11, and possibly mainly of interest to players who like a LOT of combat in their adventures." Not really much I can add to that.

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