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https://xkcd.com/3194/

Some surfaces may seem difficult to glue. But if you research the materials, find tables of what adhesives work on them, and prepare your surfaces carefully, you can fail to glue them in a fun NEW way that fills your house with dangerous vapors.

https://xkcd.com/3194/

oursin

What I read

Finished Dream Count - not quite up to her earlier works? all being a bit of the moment (starting in lockdown and so on)? Will see what comes out in discussion.

Mick Herron, Clown Town (Slough House, #9) (2025) possibly getting that series-dip effect a bit? And was I really supposed to be flashing on the Marx Brothers' stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera during one particularly fraught episode?

Matt Lodder, Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art (2024), which was very impressive (and copiously illustrated) and one guesses a bit of a passion project*. Interesting that there is a recurrent theme of tattooing coming out from being a subcultural thing among lowlives: when the story in fact is that they were the ones for whom body art would be being recorded for identification, in muster-rolls or prison records etc, and people of more genteel status would not be In The Record as being inked unless for some unusual particular reason. And that its being/becoming a fashionable thing has cycled around or maybe always been there. Also fascinating the links between tattooers and the development of a subculture/s.

*Yes, we would like to see what he's got portrayed....

I intermitted this with JD Robb, Framed in Death (In Death, #61), which had come down to the (nostalgic) price of old mass-market paperbacks (now defunct). Not one of the stronger entries, yet again, serial killer with very specific modus.

On the go

Eve Babitz, I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz (2019) collection of her journalism, 1975-1997.

Up next

Well, I don't suppose that the books from local history society - which I have now been informed are available and can be purchased - will arrive very shortly, so dunno.

rachelmanija

A Bad Idea comic by Matt Kindt, Ramon Villalobos and Tamra Bonvillain. A swords and sorcery parody/pastiche about a group of badass, backstabbing, greedy, terrible people tasked with saving a peaceful city from invaders. I picked this up based on the art, which is spectacular - I especially love the unusual color palette.

Unfortunately, the story is both cliched and kind of edgelord, and I didn't care about any of the characters. Also, the art is extremely gory - the panel above is mild. So I won't be continuing this series, but I may look into what else Ramon Villalobos, the artist, has done.

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: curious

duckprintspress

1. What are you currently reading?

Sort of nothing. Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault is waiting until I can re-borrow it from Libby, and I'm of course picking through 盗墓笔记 vol. 2 and I'm one day behind (I'm aiming for a page a day and I started on the 1st, but I've only finished 13 pages, mostly because I was too busy this morning and while I read MOST of a page, I didn't finish). I probably won't bother mentioning DMBJ every week considering that at this rate I'll finish in like September or October so... yeah.

2. What have you recently finished reading?

Lout of Count's Family vol. 6 by Yu Ryeo-Han: unsurprisingly I motored through this. I just want Cale to collapse in a pool of his own blood once before all the volumes of the book are over. Is that too much to ask???
Delicious in Dungeon vol. 7 to 14 by Ryoko Kui: finished my "now I own it, Imma reread" read-through. Still love it. Zero regrets on purchasing the box set, especially because once I started reading it, my daughter (who is 7) binge-watched the show, wanted more, and is now reading the manga too lol. I warned her that there's some graphic stuff in the later volumes (like [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS])
Firefly Wedding vol. 1 by Oreco Tachibana: I have absolutely no idea how this m/f historical Japan thing ended up on my TBR? Maybe I thought it was m/m? anyway, once I had it I figured I might as well read it. It was... interesting? I'm gonna give it one more volume but I'm not terribly enthusiastic about it. It is at least more interesting than a lot of shoujo is to me these days.
Yona of the Dawn vol. 21 by Mizuho Kusanagi
A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow vol. 3 by Makoto Hagino: modern gl. This volume was soooooooo slow that I'm not sure I'll keep going if the pacing doesn't pick up at least a little.
Nirvana in Fire manhua vol. 1 and 2 by Hai Yan: I reread vol. 1 before reading vol. 2. The art continues to be lovely. I'm not sure the story would be followable to anyone not already familiar with it, tho.
The Way of the Househusband vol. 12 by Kousuke Oono: I read these out of order cause the order doesn't matter at all; I've now read 1 to 14 and am caught up! with the next volume coming out next Tuesday, lol.

3. What will you read next?

Novels: I'm vending four days this week (Fri - Mon) and will have a fair amount of time at my booth doing nothing, so I'm gonna bring four books: The City We Make and The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin, and Don't You Like Me vol. 1 and 2 by Lv Tian Yi.

Physical graphic novels/manga: nothing from the library right now, and nothing from my own pile that I intend to read this week (next up, whenever I do it, are the four volumes of the Link Click cinemanhua.

Libby loans: I've got two due in the next week, so definitely them - Fragtime: The Complete Manga Collection by Sato and Kase-San and Yamada vol. 3 by Hiromi Takashima.

senmut

sweettartheart your gift arrived on Yena's birthday and we are both so excited! Thank you!

thewayne

Very interesting article in The Guardian. When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, we had glass bottles, tin and aluminum cans. But the petroleum industry knew that they could make plastic out of what they were extracting, and suddenly we had this huge outlay of plastic crap: PROFITS! Now glass bottles are almost only seen in alcohol containers, largely the same with aluminum cans. Plastic is everywhere and it's hard to drive for a day without seeing a grocery bag in or blowing across the street. We eat microplastics, we breathe microplastics, they're everywhere.

We've been told that our bodies are simply full of microplastics. Some pay $8,000+ to do through dialysis like those with failed kidneys go through to supposedly rid their bodies of microplastics.

Now there's questions being raised.

From The Guardian article: "...micro- and nanoplastic particles are tiny and at the limit of today’s analytical techniques, especially in human tissue. There is no suggestion of malpractice, but researchers told the Guardian of their concern that the race to publish results, in some cases by groups with limited analytical expertise, has led to rushed results and routine scientific checks sometimes being overlooked.

The Guardian has identified seven studies that have been challenged by researchers publishing criticism in the respective journals, while a recent analysis listed 18 studies that it said had not considered that some human tissue can produce measurements easily confused with the signal given by common plastics."

Another very telling excerpt: “Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising” was the shocking headline reporting a widely covered study in February. The analysis, published in a top-tier journal and covered by the Guardian, said there was a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024.

However, by November, the study had been challenged by a group of scientists with the publication of a “Matters arising” letter in the journal. In the formal, diplomatic language of scientific publishing, the scientists said: “The study as reported appears to face methodological challenges, such as limited contamination controls and lack of validation steps, which may affect the reliability of the reported concentrations.”

One of the team behind the letter was blunt. “The brain microplastic paper is a joke,” said Dr Dušan Materić, at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. “Fat is known to make false-positives for polyethylene. The brain has [approximately] 60% fat.” Materić and his colleagues suggested rising obesity levels could be an alternative explanation for the trend reported in the study.

Materić said: “That paper is really bad, and it is very explainable why it is wrong.” He thinks there are serious doubts over “more than half of the very high impact papers” reporting microplastics in biological tissue."

False positives mimicking polyethylene. Contamination control problems. Interesting. I run into a similar thing when I get certain types of bloodwork done: my quantities are below the calibration level of the equipment. I might have certain types of antibodies, but they can't be easily detected, therefor they are functionally zero. But if we don't know how much microplastic is building up in people or animals, how can we know how much of a threat it is? It's easy to say that anything greater than zero is not good, but we commonly are exposed to air pollution and environmental pollutants that are greater than zero and live with minimal or no health problems. Of course, there are others living in areas with greater levels of pollution, or people with greater health risks, where it is a problem.

And that's the problem: we just don't know.

Which obviously doesn't mean that we can ignore the problem. Plastics is a scourge, and it may be a major problem. Medical instrumentation improves every year, so we will begin to know. We do know that there are rising trends in mental health impairment as we get older. And also in the young: I read yesterday about a 24 y/o in the UK who just died of frontal-temporal lobe dementia, youngest documented case yet of someone dying of dementia. Maybe it's related to plastics, maybe not. We don't know.

In today's world we're increasingly forced to live fast. And in many cases it seems like dying young is becoming a result. And no corpse is good-looking - it's still a corpse.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt

https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/01/14/004231/doubt-cast-on-discovery-of-microplastics-throughout-human-body

duckprintspress

Starting today, and running through Wednesday, January 28th, we’re raising funds to publish the third and last book of the Twinned trilogy by Tris Lawrence! Whether you backed the campaigns for books 1 and 2, or you’re just hearing about these books for the first time from this post, now is a great time to get one book, get two books, or get the whole trilogy so you can read the full story!

People with Talent—Mages, Dreamwalkers, shapechangers, and others—have always lived among mankind. Their existence was hidden until ten years ago, when the world was abruptly introduced to the existence of these secret magic users after a young gymnast spontaneously teleported during the Olympics. This event heralded the start of the Emergence; whereas, once, Talents were close-kept secrets that ran in family lines, now everyone knew that there were people with incredible abilities in communities all over the world.

The Emergence wrought changes at every level of society.

At Pine Hills University, a small liberal-arts college in Upstate New York, these changes have been pronounced, as the University has taken the lead in studying Talent academically: encouraging Talented students to apply, hiring Talented faculty, and debuting Talent-related curricula, minors, and majors.

This is the milieu against which the events of the Twinned trilogy unfold. Ten years has been just long enough for the young, Talented students of Pine Hills University to think they know where they fit in the world—but there are many changes yet to come…

For this campaign, we’re also making some fun Pine Hills University merchandise—the crest of the fictional university as an enamel pin, a car back-window sticker, and one of our signature dux in a PHU-colored varsity jacket.

Oh and – these books are hella queer! The main character is a gay aro man, the lead of the second is asexual biromantic and has a trans twin brother, and book 3 features an established m/m relationship between the leads. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; lots of the side characters are also LGBTQIA+.

Visit our Kickstarter campaign page and learn all the details, read the book blurbs and excerpts, see the merch, get to know Tris Lawrence, and more!

amaebi

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lydamorehouse

Image: albino loon (one of which has been spotted near Minnesota) melting ICE with LASER EYES by Cat Saint-Croix.

I have to say that I also really love the outpouring of art that has been happening.

Speaking of art, last night I happened to see that a group of my Hamline-Midway neighbors were gathering at a random street corner to sing. The idea was just to gather in a low-risk way so that some very little children could join. Also, in hopes that if there were neighbors nearby in hiding from the gestapo, they could hear our voices. The temps are dropping here, so there weren't very many of us. Probably a dozen? But we stood together in a circle and raised our voices and sang old protest songs, some hymns, and even one pop song ("Lean on Me.")

Did it stop ICE? No. Was it extremely cathartic? Fully. Did I heal my soul a little? Yes, it helped.

In my effort to do SOMETHING every day, I'm hoping to join one of the pedestrian bridge brigades today. It's at an awkward time for me (right when I need to get Shawn from work), but, if nothing else, I might spend some time making a poster or two.

It's funny because we are absolutely a metro area under seige, but it is also fully possible to go through your day and not see anything? My grocery stores are open--even Shanghai market. Shawn is going to work. Mason is applying to law schools, going over to his uncle's to do handiperson work... life is kind of going on, while also very much NOT for so many of us.

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/01/14/the-likht-ensemble-at-the-leah-posluns-theatre/

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: hopeful

just_ann_now

We did NOT get up to 60 degrees this weekend, though we did get up to the mid-50's and some welcome rain. Temperatures have been dropping all week, though, and we can expect more seasonal weather the next few days.

What I Noped Out of This Week

A Deadly Education, I let it sit for 24 hours, picked it up again, and put it down after half a page. Then I tried another Set in a College or University thing, I can't even remember what it was, and THEN I finally got smart and ditched that bingo square altogether. Plenty of options for substitutions/wild cards, so no loss at all.

What I Just Finished Reading (Highlights)

Several short things, not very memorable, and then on a cold rainy Saturday, The Frozen River, which was absolutely worth the long wait. Very reminiscent of Outlander, not the time-travel bits but the long-married-couple-still-besotted-with-each-other, so refreshing to read. Also fascinating that this was based on actual diaries of an eighteenth-century midwife. There are major plot elements of sexual violence, patriarchy, and gaslighting, but the female characters are so strong and vivid. Highly recommend. For A to Z Authors.

What I Am Currently Reading

I probably shouldn't have picked up The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro, so soon after The Frozen River, because it's once again features a sexual predator, emotionally and financially manipulative. It's also (so far, I'm at 41%) not very impressed by Amelia Earhart's actual flying abilities, focusing more on the fact that she was young and pretty(ish) and easily pushed into the limelight by her manager/lover/husband. It will be interesting to see if the author discusses improvement in her flying skill. (Edit: She did.)So far it seems the book is focusing on what a jerkass George Putnam was. For A to Z Titles.

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. Just the kind of meaty historical fiction I adore. For A to Z Titles.

What I Am Reading Next

Sing Like a Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water, by Amorina Kingdon. Because who wouldn't want to know?

Question of the Day: Fiction, Nonfiction, Both, Neither?

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: ashamed

mallorys_camera

One of my favorite poems is W.H. Auden's Musée des Beaux Arts.

That's the one that begins: About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters... And goes on to use the image of the torturer's horse as a metaphor for the Universe's benign indifference.

It's another way of saying "What it boils down to is putting one’s feelings on a special plane; most unwise, if you come to think of it. Because the bitter but true fact is that the only person who cares about one’s own feelings is ONE," which is one of my favorite quotations and comes from Jessica Mitford.

Auden's poem is a refutation of narrative exceptionalism. I've found it very comforting as the U.S. continues to disintegrate along a track with obvious parallels to Nazi Germany: Yes, this is happening here, but there are other places where it is not happening.

In fact, it wouldn't even be happening in my own personal here if I just stopped paying attention to the news cycle.

That's very tempting!

It's not as though I can actually do anything about what's going on. And what's going on is really, really upsetting.

Although I suppose that's the same thing that the Germans thought in the last flickering days of the Weimar Republic.

Bearing witness is important. But so, so, so, so draining.

###

In other news:

Finished Chapter 4. It's dark. I'm actually kinda proud of myself for seguing from frothy opening chapters into something that dark. It also contains a fair amount of dialogue that makes little sense, but has the conversational rhythm I could hear echoing in my head. First draft, first draft, first draft! I can instill sense when I do the second draft.

At this point, I'm thinking the finished novel will have 17 chapters. It has been taking me around a month to write each single chapter, which means I can anticipate completion in January 2027—assuming I live that long.

To celebrate, I went off to the gym & increased both the number and the weight of my strength-maintaining reps. So, this morning I'm a little sore. But in a good way.

luthien

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.

( My three things )

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

badly_knitted posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Return Of The Living Socks
Fandom: Torchwood
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Sock.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 842
Summary: Out on a Rift retrieval in Bute Park, Ianto encounters an alien creature he had hoped never to see again.
Spoilers: Nada.
Warnings: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 503: Sock.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or any of the characters.

( Return Of The Living Socks... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

tamaranth

2026/008: The Brightness Between Us — Eliot Schrefer

I will live in these current moments as fully as possible. Then I will be gone. Ambrose will be gone. ... It arrives. The brightness between us. [p. 387]

Sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, which I read and liked a lot last year: I have many^many books in my TBR, but needed something instantly engaging and positive to counter world news, so bought this and dived in.

Read no further if you haven't read the first book!

( Read more... )