Shaleesh

I was working at this media store where I rode out the beginning of the pandemic and my transition, it was a weird time all around. Not the worst by any means but still retail.

There was this one dude who walked up to me when I was running cash, looked me in the eyes, then down to my tits, then down to my nametag, then back at my eyes and did the sign of the cross. He would later come in on a regular basis to use our restrooms and go to every section, display, and employee that he found objectionable to shake his head and then do the sign of the cross. I had the unfortunate habit of always being there when he came in. He found me objectionable. That guy didn't piss me off as much as the one dude who started laughing at me as soon as he walked up to my register. That was honestly the first time in my life that I felt rage and indignation over how others treated me for my gender identity, before then I just assumed that I somehow deserved it.

I have a gazillion stories but the full realization that the company I worked for profited off the dissemination of material that called for the abuse of women, children and minorities was a moment for me. Of course we couldn't send those books back or anything because of the freeze peaches policies the company has. That, and the not-insignificant share of income reactionary and "christian" material represented.

As much as I want TiK ToK by Kesha to be a recognizable tune in half a millenia I know that's not happening. Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode is one of the most covered songs of the past 50 years so that very well may become immortalized through diffusion alone. There's a couple dozen jazz standards that could have that kind of staying power as well, especially considering their ubiquity in performance repitoires and books of sheet music.

Aeons ago this dude I went to highschool with transitioned (like, in highschool) and for years now I've been like "goddamn that was the ballsiest dude I ever met." I managed to meet up with him for the first time since then and it went well! Hes still a cool dude, he told me my voice was nice and he was very suprised to find our my tits are not augmented in any way. So that was quite poggersome indeed.

This Substack article has some more information on this. This is an article from last October about the same lawsuit It looks like the county commissioner meetings begin with a prayer led by a local religious leader and the lawsuit alleges shady goings-on because the religious leaders who have been selected recently just so happen to support the far-right organization founded by one of the commissioners. It also appears that the pastor in question started a pride festival and this started beef between him and this commissioner. I love local politics, I hope they get his ass.

I love silly mods like the googly eyes mod for Darkest Dungeon and the smiling leader portraits mod for Hearts of Iron 4. Those are truly one of the best genre of mods.

MC Tammer's NIF bashed weapons pack for Fallout 3 and New Vegas is totally awesome. Theres a gazillion guns of all sorts including a lot of non-lethals, it adds some extra attatchments and ammo types too. All of the weapon models are made up of parts of weapon models from the games themselves so they actually match the aesthetic pretty well. Highly reccomend the mod itself since its well integrated with the game with NPCs selling and carrying the new guns. One of the custom vendors (which are all optional) is a stereotype of russian people (think FPS Russia but hes a gunsmith) and that was kinda cringe at times.

I might snag something else before the sale is over, but I got a DLC for 100% Orange Juice, The Excavation of Hobs Barrow, and Heaven Will Be Mine. I've been trying to get more into the games that are storytelling experiences rather than more time consuming stuff.

I'm no expert but it's possible that the tank had already been abandoned after something else disabled it and what they're doing is rendering the tank unsalvageable. Similar tactics have been used elsewhere, if you've ever seen the footage coming out of Ukraine where a drone operator drops an explosive inside of an apparently empty tank then that's the same thing going on.

I think Drowning Deep succeeds at horror if you have related phobias. Deep water, submerged objects, and being on boats all scare the shit out of me so I was sweating the whole time lol.

I wish my dad didn't throw out my cassettes when he decided to go all in on music streaming, I'm pretty sure he tossed some of my CDs too but I can't be certain. I used to have some Depeche Mode and Blues Traveler that I listened to in my first car back in the early 2010's. Regarding the 4k UHD blu rays, haven't looked into it too much but I'm pretty sure that my PS3 can't play those.

I can definitely say that the rest are pretty good, if not better in some ways. I can't say anything about the plot without spoiling but Harrow the Ninth is partially written in second person, like "you did this" and "you felt that" and it can be really offputting but once you figure out why those chapters are written that way it's a really cool twist on the story. Nona the Ninth is also good! I haven't finished it though, it has a very different tone from the other two books.

Regarding audiobooks/regular books I can make a reccomendation.

Gideon the Ninth is a very fun peice of space fantasy that has a great mix of humor, worldbuilding, characters, intrigue, and drama.

Every few generations the greatest necromancer and the greatest swordfighter from each of the nine planets are summoned to an ancient palace to uncover the mysteries that are contained within. Gideon the Ninth is the story of one of those events, told from the perspective of the person who is by far the least qualified to be there. The main character is a lesbian, and there are a couple of other gay characters as well and it takes place in a world where being gay is NBD. The author, Tamsyn Muir, is a lesbian.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (a pseudonym for Senan Mcguire) is a suspensful cryptid horror story about a bisexual marine biologist that seeks the truth of what happened to her sister, who was attacked by mermaids.

A little bit Jurassic Park a little bit Atlantis: The Lost Empire and a little bit X Files. It's at times very tense, a little goofy and always pretty nerdy (to be clear its a "scientific journals and cosplay" nerdy rather than "bazinga and funko pops" kind of nerdy). Overall the story is a romp and I read it in like three days.

(Sorry for the word vomit, I wanted to talk about a couple of my favorite books)

Addendum:

In Into the Drowning Deep there are a pair of deaf characters. I am not deaf and I can't judge whether or not those characters (written by an author who is also not deaf) are good portrayals. However I want to mention this because those two characters, and the scenes from their perspectives were some of my favorite parts of the novel.

I cleaned and redid my audiovisual setup today. It had been collecting dust for years and I finally got up and did something about it, now that I have the tape deck inregrated it feels much more complete than it did before. At this point the only thing I'm missing is a VHS player, otherwise I can play just about any of the more popular media formats aside from what I just mentioned and some of the really high end Blu-rays.