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Comments
Anyhows, a spider keeps making a spiderweb in a place I often go through and I keep getting spiderweb over my hair whenever I go through it. Also the spider is larger than any I've seen, I wonder if I should kill it lest it turns out to be dangerous.
I don't actually get what the point of trying to weigh a Pokémon Booster, since the game is all about using multiples of a card, and a lot of the most useful cards are just normal ones and you need to get a bunch of doubles of them. Plus, anything super hyper special foil is usually limited to one per deck or even one of that type of card per deck. It'd be a reckless (and bad) strategy to try and structure a deck like that.
I guess if you want to collect only the special cards in a series it makes a bit more sense, but outside of that it just seems weird.
But do whatever. Assuming you're in an urban area, it's unlikely to be an endangered species anyhow.
Anyhows, it seems to have moved its web to a nearby brush and I can't find the spider itself anymore. Maybe it's better if I let it live. I don't think there are dangerous spiders here* and it can hunt flies or something, though I wanted to take a picture of it at least.
* Google told me a nest of black widows was found a couple years ago, but that's all I've heard.
And not all orb-weavers are colorful; they're a huge group of spider species.
Microplastics, which flood into the oceans via our love of scrub-type cosmetics and detergents, have also secretly been permeating our soil via industrial grade fertilizers. The actual fertilizer bits are wrapped in tiny plastic shells which are then left in the soil for like... ever.
Speaking of plastic waste, the current trend in children's toys being blind-packaged items has led to a looooot of plastic waste post opening (yes, even more than usual). The worst offenders have to be Party Popteenies, who come in a hard plastic can with lots of moving parts that is basically useless/unrecyclable once the spring mechanism is used once, ever.
Then again the market leaders (L.O.L. Surprise) just released a line with gigantic can containers that are also practically useless once opened up (not to mention the number of tiny plastic bags they come with).
For reference, the Mystery Hunt is a puzzlehunt (with attached excuse-plot elements) that's run every January during Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, where teams from around the world solve tons of puzzles, mainly online but a few on the MIT campus. I'm part of a mostly-online team and we're always welcoming new members. No experience or commitment necessary!
Reply here letting me know you're interested and I'll PM you an invite link to our team's Slack chat.
As I found out from the one time I participated, I'm no good with puzzles like this, especially in rapid succession.
For example, did you know that Greek Austerity Hero (and them prompt villain once people were people and played the 'we'll change the people in power and then riot against the power we elected anyways*' card) Alexis Tsipras has survived two entire no-confidence votes that were put forward because of a naming war between Greece and Macedonia?
I just started tuning out updates about him. They're generally just about him doing something stupid or outrageous anyway. It's really not that interesting.
It has been raining for literally three days.
Also how is the whole "Japan and Russia have a dispute over some islands and therefore WWII is officially not 100% over" debacle still a thing.
I just heard about the TempleOS guy (tl;dr: man was on a divinely appointed mission to create God's operating system). I think I should be grateful that my occasionally slow and unreliable brain is nonetheless functional.
Also:
Good point.
One of the main 'reasons' I try to keep up with everything is that via a giant leap of logic I think I might one day maybe be on a general knowledge TV game show and I'll need to know stuff. Why I think it'll be geopolitics themed, I have no idea.
Always a good start.
Apparently like 1,200+ private jets will be flying to Davos this week, where one of the purported main themes is protecting the environment.
Toy fair starts on February 2nd but I think I already know everything I need to know about toys in Q1/2 2019 already. Usually toy fair reveals are for nerdier brands that pay attention to such things, none of which I care for.
Well, I just got a phone call asking me to be part of a feature on it. For a real trade magazine. A continent-wide trade magazine.
It feels slightly surreal.
Also, I have a story about students these days. At this point I won't tell you exactly what happened, but I can describe it pretty well on an example. Suppose you tell someone to define, say, mass, and they start speaking of a religious ritual. (Don't dwell too long on it, it's just an example.) I acknowledge that some words have multiple meanings, but the context of the engineering course they're in should clue them onto the right answer. First time it was hilarious, after a few more I started doubting myself. I mean, they don't look that level of stupid, do they? And if so, well, I guess they must have assumed we were being tricky with them.
Yeah, it is.
Maybe it's a coping mechanism when they don't know what the answer is but also don't want to leave a blank space. But even I, a person who has not studied physics for about 6/7 years now (and probably even some kid in primary school) know at least a little bit about mass.
They're either messing with you (sorry) or some sort of weird religious thing is going on.
As much as I am loyal to CDJapan's eBook service, it's quite annoying/jarring that the home page features a carousel that is 3/5 ads of scantily clad Japanese women. It's really dumb that I'm so loyal, since BOOK☆WALKER has lots more available to me.
The only thing they don't have is seiyuu magazines and even then CDJ's offerings are constantly thinning.
As for the mass thing, it sounds like an attempt at getting partial points with a correct-but-irrelevant answer.
TIL one can use VLC media player to download Youtube videos.
I've tried the VLC thing but it never works out for me.
Going to the bank always makes me feel old. I have to admit that whilst I was there I did think of it as 'adulting'. Very millennial, I guess.
Meanwhile, Toy Fair
starts tomorrow! Woo!Turns out Toy Fair is well into the month. About two weekends away ;-;
Like right now I'm trying really hard not to just hunker down and start working on a story I've already written three entire arcs of from the beginning. I love the version I wrote, it was [kay about to wax marketing lyrical now] inspired by the concept of "mystery"x"healing story"x"upper-class drama".
But as I read through my characters backstories it's as if I'm doing math with things. I divide some things and what used to be two characters become one. I add to others and a character who kind of disappears in the middle now gets top billing. In the end, the "healing story" bit works if I want to do one thing, but if I want to do another, by writing a single arc (with a short first sub-arc) I can highlight the characters but make it a bit darker. In the end, my main theme becomes self-mandated loneliness.
Oh also something that works really well is forgetting the trappings of the setting to focus on who the characters are and what they're meant to do and what type of (not exact specific) endgames you have for them, and then build around that.
It didn't help that I spent two hours yesterday browsing through Amazon like it was a catalogue. Which, I guess, it is. Does anybody else miss tree-killing catalogues with that terrible magazine paper? A friend once gave me a gigantic one for Christmas. Yes, his present was a catalogue. We were young at the time.
It was pretty outdated when I got it but I looked through that thing obsessively for at least a year.
I'm trying to write without using too many parentheses and I'm not sure it's working.
Yep, apparently he (?) likes to be called "Hercules". Got three so far. I do kinda hope they were guilty, because then, well, their deaths would mean at least something rather than nothing at all.
Linky: https://www.thedailystar.net/country/news/bangladesh-rapist-found-murdered-jhalakathi-note-1696075
Oh fashion.
You really need to stop trying to sell artistic representations of blackface. This is the second thing this year with weird blackfacey connotations after Prada's weird bags.
Like does there really need to be a giant "Don't put weird-shaped red lips on a black human shape" sign in every atelier?