mrissa | Network

We weren't planning a mid-week trip but Carla came down to Gardena with me today so we could go to lunch and she could do some shopping while I was at work, and she semi-jokingly suggested going to Disneyland for dinner afterwards, and when I checked there was full availability for both parks, so since we were already halfway there I figured why not?

( Read more... )

calimac

A discussion elsewhere of the death of Scott Adams led to a consideration of how culturally ubiquitous Dilbert was in its heyday, however astonishing that may seem to those who only know it in its sad decline.

It's one of a series of strips that have held that status, with a new one close to waiting in the wings when the previous honoree begins to fade away.

I'm not sure how culturally ubiquitous early strips now honored as pioneers were - like The Yellow Kid (1895-98) and Krazy Kat (1913-44). The earliest one that I expect hit that status was Little Orphan Annie, which premiered in 1924, followed by Popeye the Sailor Man (first appeared in Thimble Theatre 1929). Those two are still cultural touchstones today, and I suspect they were heavily popular at the time; certainly Popeye soon made the jump to animated cartoons.

The next one I know about was Barnaby by Crockett Johnson (later of Harold and the Purple Crayon fame). This strip about a little boy and his louche fairy godfather Mr. O'Malley had a short run (1942-52) and is now pretty much forgotten except among those who've collected reprint volumes of it. But it was a big hit among commentators and SF fans, at least: the Berkeley SF club, founded in 1949 and still around when I joined in the late '70s, adapted its name - the Elves', Gnomes', and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder and Marching Society ("Little Men" for short) - from the name of Mr. O'Malley's social club in the strip.

Barnaby kind of puttered off in its later years, and allegiance switched to Pogo by Walt Kelly, which started in 1948 and quickly became very popular, not least for its wicked political commentary, with characters like Simple J. Malarkey, a parody of Joe McCarthy. Kelly wrote songs for the strip which were published and recorded, both originals and his still-famous fractured Christmas carol lyrics, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie."

Pogo had its several-year run as the cultural ubiquity and then faded a bit into the background, to be replaced by the biggest cultural powerhouse of them all, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, which started in 1950 but took a few years to hit its stride. But during the 1960s, at least, it pervaded American culture to an extent hard to believe if you didn't experience it. And its pervasiveness popped up spontaneously from outside sources. There were books about it (this one, from 1965, was a collection of Christian sermons using the strip as textual illustrations, and this unlikely thing became a bestseller); there were songs (I first heard this one sung by the kids on the bus to camp in 1966 and I still know all the lyrics); NASA even named manned spacecraft after Peanuts characters.

But the strip faded from cultural intensity quickly after 1970, despite having another 30 years to run during which it maintained its prominence on the comics page. The cultural hit of the 1970s was undoubtedly Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau, which began in 1970. Plotted more like a soap opera than any of its predecessors, Doonesbury was even more explicit politically than Pogo. (This one, among others, won Trudeau the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.)

Doonesbury took a hiatus in 1983-4 and then rebooted itself; it was still popular, but the torch of cultural ubiquity quickly passed to Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, which ran 1985-95; uniquely among these creators, Watterson stopped the strip before he could run out of steam. And then Dilbert, which began in 1989 and had built up its renown by the time Calvin and Hobbes signed off.

Dilbert started to fade by the mid-2000s. Since then, I dunno - newspaper strips as a cultural icon have faded with the fall of print. In my circles, maybe xkcd by Randall Munroe, which came along in a very timely fashion in 2005, but I'm not sure how commonly-known it is generally, and it's not even a strip in the traditional fashion. But that's where I think we are now.

olivermoss

Watch on YouTube

New Album coming? Free DL of old album? Collab T-shirt with Homestarr Runner???

sorcyress

It's the cold and dark of winter and I made the daily challenge on my discord be "Screaming", because it's sorta how everything has felt. In revenge, I had to have an annoying conversation with my boss about some (uncompensated, non-contract) responsibilities I hold have been slipping, and had one of my cabinets literally collapse in the middle of proctoring a serious standardized test. It was very dramatic, luckily it was just me and one student to be very badly startled.

Also luckily, my anti-Nemesis (comrade? buddy? hero?) was able to quickly swing by, and as he always does, he made my life demonstrably better. Huzzah! Now, when can we have a building that doesn't use the cheapest possible materials? We have not been present long enough for things to be literally falling apart.

Before the mild disaster, I managed to do a bunch of what my therapist yesterday called "productive avoidance". Genuinely good things! Things that need done! I checked some serious stuff off my todo list! None of it was the stuff that's the highest priority right now, which not surprisingly, is also the stuff that's stressing me out right now. Maybe tomorrow I will finally do some grading? Hahahah oh god.

I dunno man, it's the cold and dark of winter and also it's the cold and dark of fascism. I should probably be texting a lot more often with my sister who's currently in a city overrun by government thugs. I hope she's okay. I hope she stays okay. I hope we all stay okay. That's not just sisters, I hope we all stay okay.

***

I wrote all the above during the department meeting, when I was still kinda sad and frustrated, but then Geometry PLC was quite good, and Clayton and I were able to walk home together and that was _excellent_. It's always pretty good, it's so _so_ valuable to have people I genuinely like to work with, but this time was also especially fun because he was filling me in his theory that Moby Dick is just an anime. It's very charming when he gets into things like that!

This evening has been...not terrible? Not amazing. Played a lot of video games, which is sometimes very good, and sometimes very avoidant. It wanted to be the really big push for packing for Arisia, since tomorrow night is dance class and I will be less inclined to do any packing work then. I did a non-zero amount of packing! It's nowhere near complete, but it was good progress! I also, critically, did all the laundry, so I'm actually set _up_ to do more good packing tomorrow.

And I helped Rey buzz her hair short which was quite fun --I always like a chance to play with the clippers! And I washed all the dishes, which is good --I've been only an intermittent dish fairy these past few weeks, so it felt good to do it proper.

I still need to update my dailies list, which I'm trying to pay better attention to this year than last. I think I sussed out it was ~130 days that I actually logged things last year? Which is...not great. I'd like to do better this year, I'd like to see if I can at least get 2/3rds of the days gone. Using Habitica too, helps. Having the double things to log is actually quite nice, they scratch similar but not-quite-the-same itches.

I hope you are well and happy and stay that way.

~Sor
MOOP!

landofnowhere

The Devourers, Annie Vivanti Chartres. I've been getting into the archives of Emily E Hogstad's blog The Song of the Lark recently, which has some really good deep dives into forgotten woman in music -- after reading The Devourer and the Devoured about child prodigy Vivian Chartres and her mother, ex-prodigy poet Annie Vivanti, who wrote this semi-autobiographical novel about a poet mother of a violin prodigy: as Hogstad says, "One gets the impression that three-quarters of the novel is, in fact, a memoir. But which three-quarters? ". The writing in this novel is really good, and I generally enjoyed the panoramic family saga aspects, but ultimately the worldview and the thesis that geniuses destroy everyone around them is just too depressing. Also the novel has an interesting combination of realism in its setting (which spans Europe and New York) and a plot which defies the laws of probability. Some racism, including a few uses of the n-word (though no characters on color are portrayed) lots of not-very-examined classism, and the Italian characters lean into unflattering stereotypes sometimes. I have mixed feelings about this novel but unreservedly recommend the essay I linked above, which has some of the better quotes quotes.

Rooftoppers, Katherine Rundell. Read because of

skygiants' review which sums it up pretty well. I too would have adored this book at age 10! This pairs interestingly with The Devourers in terms of setting and theme, but ultimately it's not trying to do serious social commentary, it's trying to have an adventure with fun hijinks.

mecurtin

Purrcy and I woke up together and he was *super* adorable and loving and everything a cat should be in the morning.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby sits fuzzily on red blankets, eyes closed blissfully. His paws are stretched over the edge of the bed to tread lightly in the air, a bit of petting hand is just visible at the edge of the picture.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby sits fuzzily on red blankets, eyes closed blissfully. His paws are stretched over the edge of the bed to tread lightly in the air, a bit of petting hand is just visible at the edge of the picture.

My list of 2026 books continues!

#5 A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, re-read.

Really 4.5 stars, rounded up. It's got so many things I love: bio-based tech, the struggle against the human tendency to bend at the knee, disaster bisexual protagonist! But the big plot revelation undercuts the point Bennett is trying to make, because

spoiler

the super-cunning antagonist is actual royal, when real royalty is mid. You can't raise someone to be super-smart unless you can pick parents who are above average and then have them raised by people who can give them intellectual cultural capital.

The struggle Din has, between feeling that only fighting at the Wall matters versus "mere" Justice work, seems to me odd because I'm so used to thinking of justice work as being part of a very large, nationwide, group effort. As it must be! the efforts of Ana (who Din is starting to see clearly) to Watch the Watchmen will only be effective if the potentially corrupt curb stay their hands *knowing* they may be watched. You can't police every action, you *have* to get people to police themselves.

In any event, this is a super thoughtful work in a thoughtful series, not just a Nero Wolf-like mystery but also an ongoing exploration of how human beings can create a society where "you are the empire".

This latest re-read was prompted by KJ Charles' goodreads review, which notes "there's something really odd about the use of exclamation marks in Ana's dialogue, I swear to God it's a reference to something that I can't put my finger on, this is driving me nuts". I re-read paying close attention, nothing came to mind at first. I now wonder if Ana gets some of her verbal tics from Bertha Cool, of Rex Stout's Cool & Lam series. "Fry me for an oyster!"

#6 To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, re-read to get ready for sequel coming out Jan. 27.

This time I savored the Uncleftish Beholding quality of the science, as Blackgoose enjoys herself building a world that never had Christianity, to spread Latin & Greek as the language of learning through Europe. In fact I don't think it has had Islam, either, the Kindah seem to be talking about a god of fire like Zoroastrianism, maybe? So I think maybe this is a world with no Judaism nor any of its descendants, which is a BIG change, all right.

The thing about the world-building that really nags at me is that I know more about living on Nantucket, her "Mack Island", than she does -- my knowledge mostly coming from long experience with Block Island, another of the glacial remnants off southern New England. On the map, "Mack Is." is Nantucket, "Nack Is." is Martha's Vineyard -- which she has given a completely implausible coal mine, for AU reasons. People seem to be able to canoe between them easily, even in winter, which ... no. That's not possible, the waters are too rough, and in winter they're MUCH too cold. Even today, Block Is., the Vineyard, Nantucket will have winter days when the ferry can't run because the weather is too bad. Nantucket has the worst weather because it's the most exposed, and that means it had the worst corn harvests.

Blackgoose is a member of the Seaconck Wampanoag Tribe, who are trying to reconnect with their heritage ... but who don't, for historical reasons that are 100% NOT their fault, have the continuity of experience that other Native writers are bringing (Stephen Graham Jones, Darcie Little Badger, Caskey Russell).

#7 Grave Expectations, by Alice Bell
A humorous mystery where i actually laughed so hard at one slapstick scene Beth worried about the noise I was making! The protagonist is a mess, whiny, & needs to get a handle on her smoking & drinking, but being perpetually haunted by the ghost of your best friend and too English to actually track down what killed her (ugh, *feelings*) is at least comprehensible. She's an amateur detective who is actually amateurish, and that makes her much more believable.

#8 Displeasure Island by Alice Bell. Second in the series. It's cute enough, I'm not sure the mystery holds together, but at least by the end Claire is starting to become less whiny so I have great hopes for the future.

I have now found the perfect way to insert spoilers: using the details HTML tag! Description and examples at W3 schools here.

My explainer: in the below, replace square brackets with pointy ones to turn into code:

[details][summary]spoiler[/summary]Here's where you write all the spoilery stuff.[/details]

Cool, eh?

marycatelli

gywomod posting in

getyourwordsout

Today is the ABSOLUTELY LAST DAY to make your pledge for

getyourwordsout 2026. We will not accept any pledges or membership requests made after January 15—no excuses or exceptions. You MUST PLEDGE to be a member. (If you are listed on the 2026 Writers list, you’re good to go.)

PLEDGE! REQUEST MEMBERSHIP! PLEDGE!

Have you pledged?
Read the Pledges & Requirements post before committing to your writing goals for the year & then fill out the GYWO 2026 Pledge Form (linked at the post!)

Have you requested to join the Dreamwidth community?
Request to Join

Have you confirmed your pledge was processed?
Check the 2026 Writers list

After today you cannot make ANY further changes to your pledge or membership, so it's also the last day for second guessing and switching pledges.

If you're not sure if pledging has ended, a post announcing "Membership Closed" will be posted. You may pledge until that post goes up and the GYWO 2026 Pledge Form is deactivated on Jan 16.

gelliaclodiana

Reading: I finished Trollope's The Warden and started Barchester Towers. It's been a while since I reread the Barchester books; I reread (some of) the Palliser novels pretty regularly but not these. My problem is that I did not remember how much I disliked Slope and everything about him, including how Trollope talks about him. Will I keep reading? Probably, but right now I feel like this is a book without any characters that I am particularly fond of, and that's not a great way to be embarking on a long novel. I know that Mr Slope will eventually meet his downfall but I'm not sure I want to hang around with these people long enough to see it come.

Watching: I subscribed to HBO Max when I re-subscribed to Disney (in order to watch the new Percy Jackson season with Spartacus) and have this finally been able to watch The Pitt. I am up to episode 5 of season 1 nd am really enjoying it! The characters are great, the medical plotlines are compelling and moving, and I feel like having the whole season take place on a single day gives everyone and everything a chance to breathe. In fact I'm going to watch a couple more episodes now.

james_davis_nicoll

My Outgunned game is a spy thriller of sorts. I thought it would be fun to skip the usual "characters start together, get briefed, plot their mission together" and so on, I'd start with three of the five breaking into an apartment. They are 14-year-old Diane Dean (the driver), 18-year-old Concordia Butterstein (unsanctioned intrusion and asset acquisition expert) and 70-year-old Jethro Winthrop (the smooth talking fellow who hired the other two because they offered the best value for price)

( Read more... )

petra

The other day, I posted If you wanna know if he loves you so, a 150-word story about a boy meeting his soulmate(s)(?).

I included discussion questions in the first comment because I had recently had a Tumblr conversation with

teland where I linked her to someone floating the possibility of discussion questions on fanfiction with the implication that the questions, and responses, would be AI slop.

She responded by writing discussion questions for her seminal DC Comics identity porn story, A clarification of range, written before we called it "identity porn" and long before the term got diluted into "X doesn't know Y's secret identity... yet!" which is more properly, if less catchily, (if I do say so myself) anagnorisis.

If you have any knowledge or inquisitiveness whatsoever about DC Comics, run, do not walk, to read or reread that story. I still laugh about it regularly, and I have to remind myself it's not canon. I read it before I read any of Young Justice or the relevant Teen Titans, and it built foundational parts of my characterization.

Here are

teland's questions:
( Students! Did you know 'The End' is just the beginning? Follow along with me, and the story will never die! )

My response was:

Tonight’s homework: Read Whither Kelvin Trillion, Wither the Republic (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Explicit, the one in which one character writes filthy limericks about everyone else in canon worth boinking and a few who aren’t.)

Pre-reading: Given your knowledge of the author, speculate on the pairings.

( Discussion Questions )

Té and I had a good laugh about it.

Then we got talking about soulmates as a trope, and I wrote the story linked at the top with discussion questions.

sanguinity's comment threw me bodily to the floor, convulsed with giggles of joy. It's considerably longer than the drabble-and-a-half I wrote and shows an attention to detail I cannot but applaud.

I may have broken kayfabe in my response. Can you blame me?

See, sometimes a good grade in commenting is normal to want and possible to achieve. I definitely got a good grade on the story and questions, so it's only fair.

But it's not a perfect grade, due

sanguinity having good enough taste not to have watched the Star Wars prequels. Gotta deduct points for not reading the deeply silly text.

Current Mood: blissed out
Current Music: Duel of the Fates

petrea_mitchell

Second plea deal coming for the Gen Con heist. The longest-running story I have followed for this newsletter is nearly over! Well, except the 2023 Hugo saga is probably going to beat it for longevity later this year.

snowynight

Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

I don't have known allergy nor nasty side effects to medication I have taken. This makes my life easier.
I can take pills without drinking water. It's handy when no water is available.
My mind often comes up with ideas that entertains me.

lycomingst

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

The category(ies) you choose are up to you. You can give top 10 Fics you read last year, the top 10 songs to create to, the top 10 guest stars on your favorite show, top 10 characters in your favorite book series, top 10... well, you get the idea.

So I watch a lot of Brit tv and these are 10 actors that I delight in coming across in a show. In no particular order.

( Read more... )

stepnix

Wormgame uses spell components as the limiting factor for its spellcasting, which is a clever way to do spellslots without using the phrase "spell slots," but you mostly get the spell ingredients on the surface, not in the dungeon. The monster harvesting system is for alchemy, different thing, doesn't do spells. But! that one "spell components are the reason wizards dungeon crawl" post i saw was compelling to me, so now i'm imagining a megadungeon setup where "hey you found a vein of Sorcerer's Sulfur, you can harvest enough for one cast of Fireball every time you pass this floor" is part of regular dungeon exploration "new component cache discovered" on the event table, "your old cache has been raided by rival adventurers," etc. I'm also imagining "add a renewable component cache to the mapped dungeon" as a potential level-up option for wizards, or "you can now repurpose one component as another" idk i think there's juice here

cathrowan

I got fitted with my first pair of hearing aids a month ago. Some of my friends complain about theirs. I'm having an excellent experience and am so glad this technology exists. I had no idea how bad my high-frequency hearing loss was until it was compensated for. Our dishwasher makes a soft chime when you press a button! Who knew? (Not me.)

Current Mood: pleased

questionable_content_feed

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5744

The Older, Wiser Sister

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5744

house_wren

Today I made baked apples from a recipe that appeared recently in The Guardian. In addition to nuts, dried fruit, lemon, and other ordinary things, it included tahini. The flavor was complex and surprising. Delicious, also.

Yesterday it was 50 degrees (F) and all the snow melted.

For almost 2 months I have been going to physical therapy and have done the exercises regularly for over six weeks. This is remarkable for me; I usually get distracted and stop.

I've never had a feeling of safety. For years I tried to find it, create it, etc. Some things happened that were unfortunate and any progress towards feeling safe evaporated. Happy to say I do have a good therapist. Thank heavens. Because the feeling of DREAD that I have is stifling.

Sometimes in the winter, when I pull my car out of the garage, a mouse, which has been hiding in the underside, will jump to the ground and run away over the snow. This time it was brown with a white tummy. One time it was a mama mouse complete with nursing babies.

Life is weird.

yourlibrarian posting in

everykindofcraft

I wanted something a little rough looking to go with this because the octopus is so shiny. Didn't have anything that fit the bill which was the right size, and I wanted to make this a bit longer of a necklace. So I used groups of metal bead ends along with some blue E beads for the ocean angle.

( Read more... )

shadowkat

Catching up on the January Question a Day Meme:

11. The first National State lottery in England was drawn in 1569. The first prize was £5,000, and other prizes included tapestries and high-quality linen cloth. How much does it cost to enter where you live (and have you ever bought a ticket)?

A couple of things? It wasn't initially successful in the US. the First National Lottery in the US which took place on November 18, 1776 was a colossal failure.

"On November 18, 1776, the First Continental Congress enacted a national lottery designed to complete with state and local lotteries at the time. The reason for getting in the lottery game was a simple yet important one for delegates of the thirteen colonies: help fund the costly Revolutionary War."

( And it's well complicated? )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotteries_in_the_United_States

12. In 1948, the first Supermarket in the UK opened - the Co-op, the country’s first permanent self-service store, in East London’s Manor Park. Do you use one specific supermarket to buy groceries, and do they have a loyalty card scheme you belong to? How does it work?

"Chain grocery retailing was a phenomenon that took off around the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States, with the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (1859) and other small, regional players. Grocery stores of this era tended to be small (generally less than a thousand square feet) and also focused on only one aspect of food retailing. Grocers (and most of the chains fell into this camp) sold what is known as “dry grocery” items, or canned goods and other non-perishable staples. Butchers and greengrocers (produce vendors) were completely separate entities, although they tended to cluster together for convenience’s sake."

Although it is debated and most think it was Piggly Wiggly in Memphis in 1916.

A Quick History of the American Supermarket.

Yes. I usually go to Met Fresh, before that Food Town. And yes, they have the loyalty card scheme - Food Town gives you a free chicken, when you collect enough points. Met Fresh gives you a percentage off - but theirs requires putting in the number in a separate slot, and it doesn't always work. Foodtown, you just tell the cashier your number or they scan a card.

13. January is the best time to see the bright gas giant planet Jupiter in the sky – have you ever seen it?

Yes. But a long time ago, and not in NYC. Too much light pollution.

14. Mark Antony was born today in Rome in 83BCE. Have you ever seen “Cleopatra” starring Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Mark Antony?

Yes, it's a horrible movie. I also read the Court case in a Contract's Law course in law school - where Twentieth Century Fox sued Burton and Taylor for misbehavior on the set and damages for delaying production.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/239/913/2379197/

It got settled. The court case isn't about the lawsuit - it's about jurisdiction and whether it should be settled by New York State or Federal Court.

The movie is just bad. I couldn't get through it. They fell in love during it - resulting in delays.

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mrissa

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Page Summary

torachan - 2026 Disneyland Trip #3 (1/14/26)
calimac - ubiquitous comic strips
olivermoss - They Might Be... Giants?
sorcyress - (no subject)
landofnowhere - wednesday books has edwardian girl musicians with unconventional upbringings
mecurtin - Purrcy; This week in books
marycatelli - Sam has been standing at this window all day but still can’t think of anything to proclaim.
gywomod in getyourwordsout - Last Day for GYWO 2026 Pledges
gelliaclodiana - reading and watching
james_davis_nicoll - Outgunned 1
petra - Discussion questions on fanfiction and what can happen if you try them out
petrea_mitchell - SMOF News, volume 5, issue 21
snowynight - Snowflake Challenge #7
lycomingst - (no subject)
stepnix - and another worm
cathrowan - Bionic ears
questionable_content_feed - The Older, Wiser Sister
house_wren - hazard light
yourlibrarian in everykindofcraft - Octopus and Quarter Moon
shadowkat - January Question A Day Meme

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Page generated Jan. 18th, 2026 07:23 pm

Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

The stories are made up, but the problems are real.

Network

2026 Disneyland Trip #3 (1/14/26)

ubiquitous comic strips

They Might Be... Giants?

(no subject)

wednesday books has edwardian girl musicians with unconventional upbringings

Purrcy; This week in books

Sam has been standing at this window all day but still can’t think of anything to proclaim.

Admin Post: Last Day for GYWO 2026 Pledges

reading and watching

Outgunned 1

Discussion questions on fanfiction and what can happen if you try them out

SMOF News, volume 5, issue 21

Snowflake Challenge #7

(no subject)

and another worm

Bionic ears

The Older, Wiser Sister

hazard light

Octopus and Quarter Moon

January Question A Day Meme

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January 2026

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