queenlua | Network

I mention a few recurring topics, probably because I still haven't properly addressed them. For instance, ( I remain overweight and unfit. )

I also need to get back to writing code in Haskell and in Rust. Quite how and when this happens, I am not sure. I do need ( to sort out my personal computing. )

R. is thinking about when and how we move to live somewhere else. For a couple more years yet, high school catchment area remains quite a constraint, though I can look around ( for where we might move to someday. )

marthawells

Some good news:

Both Queen Demon and the Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute anthology, made it on the Locus Recommended Reading List:

https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-recommended-reading/

with a lot of other excellent books and stories, including a new section for translated works.

You can also vote on the list for the Locus Awards. Anybody can vote here with an email address: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com/ though they have you fill out a demographic survey first with how many books you read per year, etc.

Of course a lot of great work did not end up on the list, like I was surprised not to see The Witch Roads and The Nameless Land duology by Kate Elliott, which I thought was excellent.

mtbc

The weather forecast for this weekend wasn't great but we got to walk our dog L. a little around the neighbourhood today, which is something. We avoided the parks, they will be muddy. He's still too reactive when seeing other dogs at a distance.

Now we're back home, the Winter Olympics makes for pleasant background on the television. R. heated a roast chicken we found discounted in the local Tesco Express. I should sort and file some accumulated routine mail, and perhaps we'll be able to give L. a decent walk again tomorrow.

mtbc

I always seem to be living outside the US at times when being present could perhaps allow me to do the most good as a white English-speaking not-MAGA US citizen. It has been tremendously encouraging to learn what good people are doing there and disappointing how little coverage it gets in the news here. The history generator's settings keep tending alarmingly toward interesting times as the administration finds new ways to harm people.

Here's hoping that the Democrats retain something of a spine over reforming ICE. It was interesting to read some suggestion that, even before all this, the Federal law enforcement community had often seen ICE more as cosplayers than competent.

ehyde

The fun development at our house recently is that we got a 3d printer for Christmas! We had been thinking of getting the kids a Nintendo Switch because there are a few games they've been interested in that aren't available for PC but Jeff and I were not ... excited ... about the prospect of litigating turn-taking between three kids and one device. At pretty much the last minute I was thinking about how eldest really likes playing with the 3d printed dragons her friend made her and idly wondered how much printers go for these days and lo and behold, there are models that cost less than a nintendo switch! So we pivoted to that plan and it's been great. So many articulated dragons. Jeff's been printing minis to play some combat games with the kids and I've been printing some bookbinding tools too. Along with various just, helpful gadgets! I have a lamp with a switch that's really hard to turn in a circle so I designed a cap for it that sticks out wider on the sides and it just snapped right on and works great! I'm still figuring out various 3d modeling software, I've tried OpenSCAD, Autocad Fusion, and TinkerCad (I'm also learning Blender against my will because Eldest is interested in some more artistic sculpting and it's a tricky program for a 9yo to figure out on her own). Not sure which I like best yet but I am having a lot of fun.

A couple of weeks ago we got a massive amount of snow and it hasn't really gotten above freezing since, so we still have a massive amount of snow. The kids got two whole snow days out of it and they're using "by the time the snow melts" as a timeline for their current computer gaming goal (getting into space in Factorio). I am enjoying the snow a little less (my boots have holes. Any recs for not-too-expensive snow boots for wide feet?)

I mentioned before that I had picked up the Guardian drama again, well, I convinced Jeff to watch it with me (apparently "it's a bit cheesy and kind of reminds me of early seasons of BTVS" was a convincing rec) so we re-started from the beginning. Forgot to mention it was based on a danmei but he figured that out for himself at episode 8. We're now up to episode 12 which is *almost* where I left off.

pauraque

The splash screen of this game credits California Dreams, a familiar publishing label used by Logical Design Works for many of their home computer releases in the '80s and early '90s. As a kid I assumed these games were made in my home state of California, but nope. Almost all of them were developed in Poland by P.Z. Karen Co., a studio that primarily produced games for the Western market. (Another interesting title they developed was 1991's Solidarność ["Solidarity"], "a political simulation of the Polish underground freedom movement that culminated in the Solidarity trade union in 1980", which I have never played, though I am a little tempted.)

rectangular well with a wireframe grid has begun to fill with colorful tetris pieces as a wireframe piece waits to be dropped from the top

rectangular well with a wireframe grid has begun to fill with colorful tetris pieces as a wireframe piece waits to be dropped from the top

But today we're talking about Blockout. It's 3D Tetris. Instead of a side view, you're looking down into a well into which you must drop the wireframe pieces. In addition to using the arrow keys to move the pieces, you also get six rotation keys (clockwise and counterclockwise around three different axes of rotation). The rest of the gameplay is just as you'd expect; if you manage to fill a layer of the well, that layer disappears like a Tetris row, etc.

( I did have the DOS version of this game as a kid, but what I mainly remember is watching my mom play it. )

Blockout is free to download or play in your browser if you want to find out if your spatial reasoning abilities are more like mine or more like my mom's.

oursin

That was a week that felt a bit odd, which may have been quite a bit down to my not sleeping as well as have latterly been doing.

Also not getting out for accustomed daily walk as often as usual because RAIN.

Somewhat stunned by phonecall from friend with whom I am collaborating on various projects who has recently had some rather devastating health news.

Resumption of contact with two other friends: one of whom I had contacted after receiving what turned out to be, as I had suspected, spam email from her hacked account.

Having the February blahs, pretty much.

profiterole_reads

Blue Lock the Movie: Episode Nagi was a lot of fun!

Of course I was excited that they dedicated a whole movie to my OTP, Reo/Nagi! <3 There were also some nice Isagi/Bachira scenes.

It's available on Crunchyroll (new to me, but it's been available to the high-tier subscribers for a long time).

lightbird posting in

halfamoon

Title/Link: Cold Feet
Fandom: Quantum leap
Character(s): Donna Elesee, Verbena (Bena) Beeks (and appearances by Sam Beckett and Al Calavicci)
Rating: Teen and Up
Prompt: The Lover
Summary: Donna gets cold feet.

badly_knitted posting in

drabble_zone

This week's challenge is:

Childhood Hero

Reminder of Rules

Entries should be 100, 200, or 300 words exactly, excluding titles and headers.
Please place the body of your entry behind a cut.
Tag with the appropriate Challenge, Fandom, Type, and Ratings tags. If a tag for your fandom doesn't exist, leave a request on the Tag Request post and I'll create the tags you need. You can request as many fandom tags as you want.
You don't need to use the challenge word or phrase in your drabble, though you can if you like.
Each challenge ends when the new challenge is posted, but if you're a few days late that's still fine.

NEW RULE: DOUBLE AND TRIPLE DRABBLES ARE ALSO ACCEPTED ;)

Have fun!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

Lost in Lualand

Network

Broken record of recurrent thoughts

Locus List

A simple day

Vive la Résistance

3d printing! and other life stuff

Blockout (1989)

Deep blankness is the real thing strange

Blue Lock the Movie: Episode Nagi

Day 7: Fic Self-Rec - Quantum Leap - Donna Elesee, Verbena (Bena) Beeks

Challenge # 488: Childhood Hero

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