dewline | Entries tagged with random chatter

Still here, getting work done that I'm getting paid for. It's confusing at times, yes...and even so.

Good riddance to Scott Adams.

Good night, and good luck to you.

Current Mood: sleepy

I've since gotten the digital subscription to the Toronto Star underway. So that's solved.

Not sure what else to discuss at the moment, so maybe this is an "open mic" posting...?

My mother got her first vaccine dose this morning. I count this as good news.

Downloading this family of fonts as I type this entry. You might be interested, if your brain runs to Art Deco/1920's-1930's influences...and if you're on a tight budget.

Listening to two-year-old podcasts of the Weekly Typographic right now.

More later.

Current Mood: satisfied

Okay, writing workshop went okay yesterday afternoon. Last night's architecture/urbanism discussion centering on Black involvement in architecture, design, urban (re)development, etc. was useful in seeing how equity principles can be made reality, as well as giving the wider public a look at projects being made reality right now.

This morning? I've started some laundry, gotten started on today's job search work, and planning to hope-scroll and doom-scroll through today's news as it evolves. Seems like we've got some hot stuff breaking on the exoplanet front.

NGTS-14Ab:

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-neptune-sized-exoplanet-ngts-survey.html

TOI-561b:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/world/super-earth-star-milky-way-scn-trnd/index.html

KOI-5Ab:

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-planet-koi-5ab-orbits-triple-star-skewed.html

Oh, and the count at exoplanet.eu as of today? 4404, split up between 3250 systems.

More on various topics later.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home-for-now
Current Music: The Current on CBC Radio

1. So there's this café on Somerset West that I've visited once and would like to revisit at some point after things re-settle enough and I have a steady day-job again. Apt613 published a profile on their reopening process that got my attention.

2. Some opinions held by neighbours across the city to consider re: how to finance...police or public safety or whatever we end up calling the service from now on. And to what ends.

3. Photography as Food Bank fundraiser during the Time of Pandemic.

4. The Four-Day Work Week may be a reality for more people from now on. Taylor Blewett at Postmedia Ottawa (AKA the Ottawa Citizen) reports on one company's leaning into that direction. I suspect it's not going to be a thing every employer can or should do, but it might be helpful in some ways.

5. Yes, I'm still job-hunting. And doing laundry. More later.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home

I think I've been saying too much on Twitter and Facebook of late.

Not sure what else TO say today/tonight.

See you tomorrow.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Home

As of this moment?

Employment: I've checked the job boards at Ottawa City Hall, and am working my way through the job alerts I'm subscribed to via Indeed, Workopolis, Jobilico and the federal job bank. My "job search diary" spreadsheet is now at...a very large number of pages.

Listening to The House on Radio One.

Keeping an eye on what little chatter there is on my favourite Delphi Forums groups these days. I'm not surprised that Facebook took their lunch. Saddened, but not surprised.

Got another mile in on the exercise bike this morning, and I expect to do some vacuuming later. Bank stuff after that, which means travelling because up to now I haven't done the online banking thing.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: The House on CBC Radio

Snowing outside at the moment. I have writing workshop tonight, and an Eye Institute checkup tomorrow morning...which precluded a mental health/housing/job search appointment for the same morning. Not much more to say than that right now.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Q on CBC Radio

Noting that today, whilst walking around my neighbourhood on a shopping errands and doing yard work, I've spotted bees, a cricket(!) and...possibly a millipede. Are they the ones with "fur" coats?

On the matter of exoplanets around nearby stars:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-second-planet-for-beta-pictoris

(Did I remove "Beta Pictoris" from my list of tags? No, I didn't!)

Current "confirmed" count as of 20 August 2019 at exoplanet.eu, FYI: 4107. Ninety more worlds confirmed in the space of about three months.

And a physicist may have useful data on how to mess with hatemongers online:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/22/online-hate-extremism-physics-science

Current Mood: busy

...around the noon hour here in Ottawa-Gatineau, we're still under severe thunderstorm watch as of this blog entry's writing. Probably of precipitation is forecast at 70 %. So, there's that.

Lunch is done, of course, and I'm back at checking job boards, and looking at news service websites.

And I've got two more Garth Ennis things to avoid. Both Punisher-related, of course, one of which will return also to his version of Nick Fury Sr., so...additional motive to avoid. I get that Ennis has a fan base. I used to enjoy the DCU title Hitman, after all.

But him and Marvel...no. Doesn't work for me.

Current Mood: busy

Since they've been forecast for Ottawa-Gatineau this morning...

Meanwhile, the writing workshop last night was fun and well-attended. We had a six-word story-writing challenge, poetry was also committed, and some long-form fiction too.

Still wrapping my brain around the news breaking last night about the Sony-Disney Spider-Man movie revenue-sharing spat.

Job search continues as well.

Current Mood: busy

...from watching Avengers: Endgame yesterday. From reading the news of shootings at yet another shul, and of white supremacists who hope to turn Canada towards picking up where we rightly stopped Germany from going any further. From thoughts of newly-found (but present for millions - or billions - of years) exoplanets.

I'm awake. And I couldn't really sleep in the first place.

Current Mood: indescribable

Okay, I've downloaded an update for Gaia Sky to my "new"-ish MacBook (not-Pro), along with an expanded star catalogue (2 % downloaded so far as I type these words) because I'm still interested in playing the "mapping our Galaxy" game to whatever degree I can as a science-fiction nerd and non-astronomer. I read and watch too much space opera to be able to not give a damn or a blessing about this stuff at this point in life.

Getting some laundry done because it's Sunday, so why not?

Did some snack shopping too because it's Grey Cup weekend, and since Saskatchewan isn't playing, I get to cheer for Ottawa with as clean a conscience as I can given that chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a real problem for everyone who's going to be on the field. I hope everyone gets away with playing more safely than they used to today.

More later...

Current Mood: busy

Right now, it's late on Sunday night. I watched "Kerblam!" on Doctor Who, which was okay-filler material. Liked the bit with the fez. I've had my first inhaler dose in a few months, and I feel like I botched the post-dosage mouth-rinse. I also have the sense that there's something I meant to do today, but forgot to deal with rather than chose to not deal with.

That sense of unfinished stuff you can't identify by name is annoying, isn't it?

Current Mood: discontent

That's when I expect to see Infinity War.

Just a reminder.

Been re-reading Caliban's War over the weekend since watching "Assured Destruction" on The Expanse. Different stories for different media, right?

Current Mood: exhausted

I might find out today or tomorrow if my current contract is renewed/extended. Or maybe next week. But that current contract ends at close of business tomorrow if my employer and their client can't get the paperwork squared away fast enough. The previous renewal/extension was enough of a surprise in its timing. As in the morning of the day after.

Ah well...

Yes, I'm still worrying about how long my country has left as a free (enough) nation.

I watched neither 60 Minutes nor the Juno Awards last night. Sorry about that.

Given the changes in local weather and climate expected this week, I think I need to track down a new spring jacket.

No problems needing attention from the dentist until at least September, I'm pleased to note.

So...that's my oversharing for this morning.

Current Mood: Not fully awake

1. Just saw the new Defenders trailer. I like it.

2. A scientist at U of Maryland is watching the activism of post-2016 Americans. I note the following paragraphs with interest, echoing Marvel's "#itsallconnected" promotional hashtag:

"(Dana) Fisher noted that protesters' motivations at recent marches were unlike anything she'd seen before. Whenever she surveys demonstrators, she allows them to check off their reasons for protesting from a list of causes: “Women's rights,” “Environment,” “Racial justice,” “Equality,” “Peace,” “Labor,” “Religion.” Typically, protesters will tend to pick the same, single motivation: the environment at a climate march, LGBTQ rights at a pride parade.

But at recent marches, “I asked about the issues that mobilized them, and they were just like, 'All of them. Across the board, I’m here because of all of them,' ” Fisher said."

3. Two more from Heather Mallick that I like: one on the value of taxes, and the other on snakes. Not the kind that

mcwetboy is comfortable with, either.

4. More later. Maybe a hopeful rant about Star Trek: Discovery doing location shoots in Ottawa some day? (I can dream of it, can't it?)

Current Mood: tired

Tried to nail down some further resources for mental self-care.
Got a haircut.
Checked in with several friends.
Applied for a half-dozen jobs (so far today).
Did continuing battle with bigots in the comments sections of several articles hosted on iPolitics-dot-ca.
Got some shopping done.

A productive day. So far.

I'm listening to a guy complain about a squirrel stealing broccoli from his garden at the ByMUG meeting right now, speaking of what he's done to avenge the theft. "Avenge" is strictly my choice of verb for it, mind you. It entertains me to listen to such things, as well as family misadventures in an Israeli desert, discussions of various software compatible with more recent iterations of Mac OS X and on and on it goes.

I'm on warrenellis' "Orbital Operations" mailing list, and from there, I read this interview on tor.com about life on the Internet of today. Disturbing, yet hopeful. Maybe we - as a species - manage to salvage enough of whatever else is trying to survive us living on this planet, maybe not.

Last night, I rummaged through YouTube and found that The Agenda's people salvaged a 1976 interview from The Education of Mike McManus with the late Mel Hurtig. It's a bit of video history archeology in action there, dating back to when a kid in grade school in Saskatchewan wouldn't have a hope in Heaven or Hell of seeing a TVOntario show without some expensive intervention from either CBC or the local school board or public library. VHS and Beta were just starting their fight at the time, I think, right?

More as it occurs to me.

Current Mood: restless

Ten weeks to go.

We've almost gotten a bit of everything this week in terms of local weather, although the snow seems to have been unenthusiastic about showing up. This being mid-March, perhaps we should not be surprised by that.

More later, as it's too early in the morning and not enough time before I leave for the office to chat much.

Current Mood: blah

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On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Dwight Williams, Storyteller

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On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Entries tagged with random chatter

Checking In - 27 Feb 2023

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Mid-January 2021

Some Stuff Rattling in My Brain This Morning

Diversions

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Wildlife, Exoplanets, Undermining Online Hate

Despite the skies clearing...

Waiting on the Thunderstorms

Still, my mind is afire...

Getting stuff done - 25 Nov 2018

Uncertainty

Next Weekend

Random Stuff

Some Less-Than-Random Notes

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Vengeance for Broccoli

Week Four Done

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