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Current Mood: a little bit genghis khan
Current Music: I don't want you to get it on with nobody else but me

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Small joy and a rec

Less exciting by a long shot than yesterday's Huntington treatment news, but I was feeling extremely icky today and then Genghis Khan by Miike Snow came on in the café where I stopped for lunch, and it made me chair dance.

I didn't link the official video. I linked a shot-for-shot remake from Phineas and Ferb, a tv show about which I know approximately nothing not found in the vid. And I ship it anyway.

Current Mood: oh humans yay
Current Music: You gotta have heart and music

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science

Science: Treatment developed for Huntington's Disease

BBC article.

Bring tissues if you, like me, are susceptible to Really Good News.

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Star Wars Fic and Meta - From All The Spaces Between Times - Chapter 56

Title: From All The Spaces Between Times
Chapter: The Greatest Desire Is To Be In the Dream of Another
Author:

elrhiarhodan /

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Star Wars, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars — Obi Wan Kenobi (TV), Star Wars — Jedi Apprentice Books
Characters Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Watto, Quinlan Vos, Padmé Amidala, Sabé, Darth Maul, Yoda, Mace Windu, Adi Gallia, Quinlan Vos, Professor Huyang, The Force, Plo Koon, Vokara Che, Siri Tachi, Aayla Secura, Bant Eerin, Bruck Chun, Xanatos du Crion, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Hego Damask II | Darth Plagueis, Komari Vosa, Bail Prestor Organa, Bail Antilles Prestor, Rael Averross, Nim Piana, Ahsoka Tano, Sifo-Dyas, Reva Sevander, Lene Kostana (mentioned) Original Characters, Other Characters To Be Added
Pairings: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon Jinn (yes, we’re arrived)
Word Count: ~ 6300 this chapter
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None

Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi has never known it, but he has always been the Force’s Champion, destined to suffer infinite sadness in defense of the Light. On his last turn on the wheel, responsibility for The Chosen One, the false child of prophecy, had been thrust upon him with no warning, and Darkness held the upper hand.

But this time, the Force has marshaled its power and will protect its Champion until the time is right, no matter how long Obi-Wan has to wait and how much he has to suffer.

Or,

Obi-Wan is reborn as a twelve-year old.

He wakes up on a slavers’ ship, with all of his prior life’s memories intact, and he’s bound for Tatooine with a Force-inhibitor collar around his neck, a bomb implanted in his spine, and no way of knowing what state of the Galaxy is in.

Just another day in the life of the Force’s Champion.

Chapter Summary: The location of Ilum, the source of a Jedi’s kyber, is one of the greatest greatest secrets of the Order. So why is there a strange little ship on the landing pad right by the Ilum Temple?

And who is this woman and her cat, who rushes out to greet Obi-Wan like a long-lost friend?

From All The Spaces Between Times — The Greatest Desire Is To Be In the Dream of Another (On AO3)

( Meta — The Greatest Desire Is To Be In the Dream of Another )

Current Mood: busy

Off to Constrict

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FIC: Historian's room (Tempestuous Tours)

Most of the official documents of the Koretian government are locked away or in active use, but the outer chamber of the historian's room boasts a magnificent chart of the bloodlines of the previous rulers of Koretia. You will see that there are two main bloodlines; both were cut off by wartime casualties, although the last surviving direct descendant of the second line died surprisingly recently. See the section of this book on Valouse for more details.

The Jackal's previous bloodline is unknown, but the Koretian ruler has established a new bloodline by selecting a young kinsman as his heir. The kinsmanship is dually established through a wardship and through a blood-brotherhood of an earlier generation.

[Translator's note: With his usual reticence, the Ambassador fails to cite plainly his own connection to Koretia's royal line. That connection is mentioned often in Empty Dagger Hand.]

Guarded good news

My boss has pulled off a miracle, and found some funding. My job (and FlyBase) is safe for the next year.

We're still waiting to find out whether the grant is reinstated. Our Cambridge UK site (also safe for a year) will have to do some scrambling, as current government policies have cut off international funding for grants.

We've lost a lot of people at Harvard; a retired curator who was doing a few hours a week, our New Mexico curator, and one of our sysadmins were let go at the end of August (plus we'd laid off the senior curator and senior developer just before the current nightmare). Our project manager was let go by Harvard a couple of weeks ago. The other remaining curator and one of our two developers are leaving in mid-October, as they are feeling too burned out and traumatized to keep going, so they've accepted layoff. We're left with one curator (me), one developer, and one (.6 FTE) sysadmin.

Cambridge and Indiana aren't (yet) losing people. There's three full-time developers at IU, and a lot of curators (no devs) at Cambridge, half of whom were not funded under the main FlyBase grant.

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: You'd better watch out

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yuletide

Yuletide nominations

I have made my nominations:
Slow Horses (TV)
The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Galavant (TV)
Doctrine of Labyrinths - Sarah Monette
InCryptid - Seanan McGuire

The nomination coordination spreadsheet is here if you want to see what other people who know the spreadsheet exists have nominated.

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(no subject)

I've largely spent the weekend on painkillers, after my arm pain kept me up for too much of Friday night/very early Saturday. Though that did mean I saw plenty of the Skate to Milano. I particularly enjoyed my introduction to Karina Akopova & Nikita Rakhmanin in the wee hours of the morning, as well as the short that ultimately got Donovan Carrillo to the Olympics. Though this morning I slept through almost everything, getting up just in time to see most of Carrillo's free skate struggle, sigh in relief along with everyone else when he qualified anyway, and then get reintroduced to Petr Gumenik, who has seemingly grown dangerously handsome since I watched him last. Of course there's no point lamenting the two Russian skaters making the Olympics once they and the Belarussian skaters were allowed to try for it; you knew they would. I was glad to see this morning that Kyrylo Marsak had also made it in. Though given the tiny margins between qualifying and not in both men and ice dance...well, it was already bad they took a berth away from all the events, but that just made it worse.
I also finished Act I in my Gale origin run last night. I haven't been blogging about that one the way I did my first playthrough, but I did put up some screenshots.

Current Mood: melancholy

On grief.

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(no subject)

My sister finally came over, if only because she really wanted to get us both to Kaiser and get us both vaccinated for the year before RFK went and made that harder today. That, at least, got accomplished. The poor nurses were obliged to tell me the Covid shot hadn't been approved for people my age, but being presented as my mom's caretaker got them to quickly agree I should get it anyway. I got my flu shot, too, and currently my shoulders are taking turns throbbing a bit, but it's been worse.
We were also hoping to order a new stove, and finally put in for the switch to Fios. But for the latter things went weird, with us being told we had to create a separate Verizon account from the one we're currently getting our landline through, and then being told we couldn't because the email (mom's) was in use. We made the account under my email instead but even then it wouldn't behave itself. So we have given up for the day. Ever since I learned it probably won't even fix our internet problems, I have gotten very tired of all of this. We ended up not ordering the stove either, because apparently I now need to decide which one of the candidates we looked at I prefer. I don't really see much difference.
Next up is actually mom helping my sister by paying off her credit card debts, since that'll make her life post-layoff much more manageable. I'm not sure when any of that is happening, though.

Current Mood: sorry wrong icon
Current Music: It's the bloody Surprise!

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holidays

Give you joy of the day

I can't celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day without remembering the time Talk Like Stephen Maturin Day was proposed as an alternative on Making Light, which was probably the best thing to ever happen to that website.

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Star Wars Fic and Meta - From All The Spaces Between Times - Chapter 55

Title: From All The Spaces Between Times
Chapter: Chapter 55 — The Search For Answers Turns My Life Into a Dance
Author:

elrhiarhodan /

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Star Wars, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars — Obi Wan Kenobi (TV), Star Wars — Jedi Apprentice Books
Characters Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Watto, Quinlan Vos, Padmé Amidala, Sabé, Darth Maul, Yoda, Mace Windu, Adi Gallia, Quinlan Vos, Professor Huyang, The Force, Plo Koon, Vokara Che, Siri Tachi, Aayla Secura, Bant Eerin, Bruck Chun, Xanatos du Crion, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Hego Damask II | Darth Plagueis, Komari Vosa, Bail Prestor Organa, Bail Antilles Prestor, Rael Averross, Nim Piana, Ahsoka Tano, Sifo-Dyas, Reva Sevander, Lene Kostana (mentioned) Original Characters, Other Characters To Be Added
Pairings: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon Jinn (yes, we’re arrived)
Word Count: ~ 6100 this chapter
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None

Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi has never known it, but he has always been the Force’s Champion, destined to suffer infinite sadness in defense of the Light. On his last turn on the wheel, responsibility for The Chosen One, the false child of prophecy, had been thrust upon him with no warning, and Darkness held the upper hand.

But this time, the Force has marshaled its power and will protect its Champion until the time is right, no matter how long Obi-Wan has to wait and how much he has to suffer.

Or,

Obi-Wan is reborn as a twelve-year old.

He wakes up on a slavers’ ship, with all of his prior life’s memories intact, and he’s bound for Tatooine with a Force-inhibitor collar around his neck, a bomb implanted in his spine, and no way of knowing what state of the Galaxy is in.

Just another day in the life of the Force’s Champion.

Chapter Summary: Obi-Wan goes to Ilum for a second time in this lifetime, and the journey is amusing, if just for his master's fond memories of his own trips leading groups of tiny Initiates..

From All The Spaces Between Times — Chapter 55 — The Search For Answers Turns My Life Into a Dance (On AO3)

( Meta — Chapter 55 — The Search For Answers Turns My Life Into a Dance )

Current Mood: silly

WANT.

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(no subject)

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Robert Redford

I admit, when I'm watching a movie I really enjoy, I'm usually absorbing without thinking ahead. So I was totally flabbergasted when the Winter Soldier showed up at Pierce's house and was taking orders from him. In retrospect, it seems obvious that they wouldn't have hired someone of Robert Redford's caliber to just be an upright lead bureaucrat type, he must be there for a significant twist. But that was a great 'omg!' moment for me.

Redford was one of the greats, and one of the most significant actors of my childhood. Looking at dates, I think Jeremiah Johnson was probably the first movie of his I saw, though all I remember is he looked fabulous as a mountain man. Then The Way We Were and The Sting... and somewhere in there I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on TV, being devastated by that ending. Three Days of the Condo and The Electric Horseman...I only saw All the President's Men within the last 10 years or so. That was weirdly fascinating just for how much the technology of journalism has changed.

I don't know much about his personal life, but he had an amazing career and did so many worthwhile things and lived to a pretty darned good age... we were lucky to have him and the body of work he created. RIP, Robert Redford, you will be missed.

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FIC: The High Court (Tempestuous Tours)

OTHER PUBLIC PORTIONS OF THE ROYAL PALACE

The High Court

The rest of the Koretian palace is more easily accessed than the royal residence, rewarding visitors with many hours' worth of sights. I can only touch here upon a few of the more popular places to visit.

A visit to Koretia's High Court is the goal of most visitors. Here Koretia's ruler holds important court cases. In the moment of judgment, he transforms into his godly form. Thus the High Court doubles as a place of worship for most Koretians.

A tip: Although the Jackal considerately wears a mask to hide the most terrifying features of his transformation (which the mask itself barely hints at), it is still wise not to look directly upon the Jackal at his moment of judgment. A few sidelong glances are reasonable enough; the Jackal does not – as one rumor insists – strike down anyone who sees him in divine form. But looking for too long at the Jackal in judgment can have unfortunate effects on viewers. For this reason, a healing woman remains in attendance to assist any visitors who may pass out.

In olden times, court cases were heard privately by Koretia's Kings. The current court, like all of the palace except for the royal residence, was built by Emor during its occupation of Koretia from 961 to 976. During that period, the palace served as the home for the dominion governor, and the court was used by him for trials. A memorial to the Koretians who are thought to have been innocent when they were executed or tortured to death upon the governor's orders has been placed near the entrance of the court. The memorial was paid for by the Chara, at the time that he freed Koretia. It is believed that the Chara had his late father were unaware during that time period of the crimes being committed by the governor in the name of the Chara.

[Translator's note: The Chara's discovery of his governor's offenses is described in Blood Vow and Law of Vengeance.]

(no subject)

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Things one doesn't want to find out just before one's colonoscopy

I'm apparently insensitive to propofol, so I got to have my procedure awake.

Whatever the pre-propofol drug was did mildly sedate me, so it wasn't so bad. And I was able to banter with the anesthesiology nurse and the gastroenterologist the whole time.

Good news! The preliminary lab report says the ridiculously large collection of polyps are tubular adenomas, which are benign growths.