Today’s film is a little more ad-riddled than I could wish, but it’s worth the pain. We, by which I mean the Common North American Lummox (of which vast herds roam wild across the whole continent, wherever there’s life-sustaining air conditioners), don’t often get to consider an early cultural contact from the non-European side of the fence.
Speaking of learning how to deal with a new culture, notice that there is now a link to a whole new Inks page. I, a mighty bull Lummox, have successfully negotiated with my newly-arrived computer to process scans to a point where they more or less match previous output. I may get the slightly more daunting prospect of photograph manipulation sorted out this weekend!
A quick film today, and probably uninteresting to nineteen of every twenty of you who look in here, but I’ve never been able to grip the flow of this event in the various fictional accounts I’ve read, so I found this both diverting and useful.
I suspect it doesn’t apply so well to the version of the event in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but that’s OK. Also, I realize the anniversary of the event was yesterday, and for the American element of my audience today has a significance all its own; I didn’t feel qualified to dabble in the latter, and I am in a mood to contemplate the overthrow of a tyrant.
I think henceforth we might take it was given that Monday’s are unproductive, thanks to the thing I mentioned at the end of last month. It wasn’t an issue last week because, as it was a new thing, I forgot about it entirely until the next day. For the foreseeable future, though, Mondays are going to be opposed to writing.
It’s probably both. My idea of a dream-house is a little more late Victorian in shape and rather less… extensive… but it certainly contains the sort of high-efficiency guts the thing in this video exemplifies.
I can’t help but wonder at the name of the house, though… I hope it’s not a Wilkie Collins reference.
†Two pages? Two?!In a whole week? Well, not really. That’s two pages today, while the rest of the week was spent trying to build up enthusiasm for any of the stories in the idea hopper.
I’m not particularly happy with that. I am absolutely putting it down to work stress; the volume of work has somehow kept rising throughout the COVID period. There’s supposed to be a slack tide in the middle of the month, damn it!
I was also dilatory on my Magic Brain Pills a couple of weeks back, and have perceived maybe not the black dog itself but certainly the smell of its cold, damp fur. A better effort at periodic swallowing since should see the chemistry back where I’d like it.
I was thinking of putting up some socially conscious material today, because what’s going on across North America is very damn important and I haven’t mentioned any of it here.
BUT
I haven’t mentioned any of it here because I’ve been attending to it elsewhere. I have a sufficiency of privilege that I am able to withdraw when it becomes too much to bear, keeping this space as one of my redoubts. Frankly, watching a 75 year old man getting what might be a fatal head injury and then be studiously ignored by those who gave it to him… yeah. I need a little break, and I suspect others do too.
Thus, a retreat into childhood.
I bless him for using butter rather than margarine. I don’t know that I’d brown it, though, and that seemed like an awful lot of salt. I do absolutely agree that making marshmallow is over the top (and, to be honest, it’s sort of like playing with lava– I want to make treats, not engage in the less fun aspects of glass-blowing).
‡ A note not about the ink, but about the absence of a link to a profile. My new computer arrived!
Yay!
I still can’t update the site effectively!
Ya… wait, what?
It’s the sort of thing that will rise up like a patch of cursed bog to confront you when you don’t replace your computer for a decade or so. That program you like? The one that you’re very familiar with?
Yes, that’s right. It’s not compatible with the new OS. One of the reasons for that is, as you’ll discover when you go looking, that the company behind the program stopped offering software at some point in the past three years or so, and now make sensor hardware.
This is deeply inconvenient when the program is question is the one that you… or rather I, have been processing all my images through. Cleaning them up, Trying, despite appearances, to get them to be consistent in tone and brightness. Editing out moles and other blemishes on the otherwise smooth skin of my models.
Which means that I have to both find a replacement and figure out it works before I can add yet more images to my image-rich site. And also resist the urge to play World of Warships, which is something the new computer can offer, unlike the previous one. I’m leaning towards something in the GIMP direction, and not just because that’s an unkind nickname I hung on my brother when I was about eight.
† This is a much more satisfactory title than “Ancestral Curse”. Trust me.
What's up at Ravens March. 