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There's more evidence that the shingles vaccine reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease: two more natural experiments (in which people were offered the vaccine based on date of birth or where they lived). One of them comparED the older Zostavax vaccine with the newer Shingrix: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-on-the-shingles-vaccineagain

As the blogger, Eric Topol says, "If this vaccine was a drug and reduced Alzheimer’s by 20%, it would be considered a major breakthrough for helping to prevent the disease! But as a vaccine, it hasn't reached any sense of being a blockbuster"

jadelennox

Gandalf was a chickenshit with no self-control who could have prevented the massive death toll at Pelennor Fields. Take the ring, kill the baddie, jump into Mount Doom before it has a chance to corrupt you. But nooooo, it's way more fun to have a grey-Maia/fire-Maia punch-up in a bottomless pit in order to emerge in a gleam of backlighting and inspirational music riding a glowing horsey like a tween girl's puberty dreams, than it is to take the ring, zap in, punch the eyeball Maia in his dumb eyeball, and then jump into the lava.

lb_lee

This is a very brief selection from a much larger 1988 book I found in a free box, Brazilian Women Speak: Contemporary Life Stories. It is a life story from a woman involved with Brazilian spiritualism (more specifically, umbanda). The book is still miraculously in print, and there is a screen-readable version for the print-disabled on archive.org.

Citation: Patai, Daphne. “ÂNGELA: ‘In Spiritualism There’s Real Equality.’” In Brazilian Women Speak: Contemporary Life Stories, 109-110, 120-125, 364-365. New Brunswick: Rutgers,1988.

( Book selection about the orix�s possessing and incorporating into people involved in the umbanda religion. �ngela herself hasn't been possessed, but it's nevertheless and everyday part of her religious life. )

magid

It was a boxed share today, but I got curious about weight, so got out the kitchen scale.

almost 8.5 pounds of carrots
5 pounds of purple-top turnips
4 pounds of watermelon radishes
2 1-lb bags of spinach
a bag of MiTerra corn tortillas (alas, no hechsher)
a jar of roasted chili salsa, by Kitchen Garden (ditto), so I swapped the two of them for 6 more pounds of purple-top turnips (I have a big carrot backlog, and didn’t think I’d get through more radishes or spinach. Plus? My backpack was already full of roots.)

First thoughts: radish-carrot slaw/salad, perhaps with some of the purple daikon I still have. Savory carrot kugel. Some kind of saute with carrots and spinach. Mashed tatties and neeps, possibly with spinach (and sauted mushrooms if I get some mushrooms). Carrots and spinach in ramen. Roasted roots with grain (farro?) bowls, dressed miso-sesame-ginger-garlic mixture.

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: excited

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: pleased

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: tired

siderea

Hey, Americans! Do you live around or south of the Mason-Dixon line? If so, your weather report for later this week is shaping up to be a bit exciting. Looks like Actual Winter will be visiting places that historically have been poorly prepared for this sort of thing, i.e. TX, the South, and the mid-Atlantic.

(Also eventually the NE, but a forecast of a few feet of snow is threatening us with a good time.)

H/t to the RyanHallYall YT channel. He's a well-reputed amateur, but his report is congruent with what I'm seeing in conventional weather reports:

Watch on YouTube

https://youtube.com/shorts/nh4JEVGWfFU

Good luck and remember running a charcoal grill in your living room is a dumb way to die.

siderea

I found this intriguing. YouTuber KnittingCultLady, who is an Air Force veteran and author about two books on military culture from the standpoint of cults(!), put out this rather frustrated video clarifying how members of the military respond to illegal orders. The tl;dr is they will follow orders of ambiguous legality, and refuse to follow orders of obvious illegality, and what is obviously illegal may not be what civilians think.

2026 Jan 18: KnittingCultLady on YT: Some Examples of Recent Malicious Compliance from the Military, ALSO Listen Carefully To My Words:

Watch on YouTube

She doesn't put it this way, but it sounds from what she says that what makes something obviously illegal is that it resulted in a courtmartial or other nigh-universal condemnation when tried previously. Orders that are for doing things that are war crimes by the letter of the law but which did not result in prosecution or other negative consequences for the perpetrators when done in the past do not trigger the sense that they are illegal, e.g. if it was okay for Bush to seize Noriega, then clearly it must be legal for Trump to seize Maduro.

sovay

In an all-time record for my minimal presence in fandom, I am now participating in my third year of

threesentenceficathon. I have written four fills to date and taken the rare step of transferring all of them to AO3. Once again all selections are obviously me.

Current Music: Dry Cleaning, "Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)"

mindstalk

Dunno if I'm over flu yet; since my supply of tests that can actually detect my levels ia apparently irreplacable, I'm conserving them. Feel good.

Got out, took train to Enoshima station, thinking of walking around. But there's a monorail I'd found on the map, and its station was right there -- on the 5th floor, not 2nd or 3rd like usual. I went up, found a terrace that should have a good view of Fuji, but it was cloudy.

( Read more... )

sovay

My plans to sleep out a recovery from Arisia were somewhat complicated by the move-in of the new upstairs neighbors and the resonating chamber of feet and furniture our bedroom immediately downstairs of this process necessarily turned into, but the snow remains beautifully fallen and is not even supposed to rain back into immediate slush or, worse, spring.

I am re-reading Kathryn M. Drennan's To Dream in the City of Sorrows (1997) for the first time since it came out and had completely forgotten the introduction by J. Michael Straczynski in which he designates it the first fully canonical novel in the Babylon 5 tie-in line. Despite the volumes of Harlan Ellison I was tracking down in used book stores and reading at the time—his credit as creative consultant was a point in the show's favor—it was not until years later that I caught since how much of his nonfiction voice had been adopted by JMS. "How difficult a task was this? Job would've packed it in, Hercules would've retired, and Orpheus would've decided that his days spent in Hades weren't really that bad."

The Post-Meridian Radio Players have now opened auditions for their spring show: Jeeves & Wooster: Hijinks and Shenanigans. I am seriously considering throwing myself on a slot for the genderswapped adaptation. It would be something of an exercise if I went for it; most of my performance skills do not translate into straight acting and I am frankly missing the facility with accents specified in the sides or I'd be able to code-switch out of being asked all the time where mine's really from. There was an intrusion here from Tiny Wittgenstein which has since been deleted. But even if it's just the hangover from Arisia, I have not auditioned for anything since 2019 and so long as I could decouple the experience from actually landing a part, it suddenly looked as though it might be fun.

Indeed, I had never heard of hickory oil. I am not however thrilled by the prospect of trading off maple syrup.

Current Music: Dry Cleaning, "Hit My Head All Day"

sorcyress

I left off Satureve, I think? lots of very late dancing, which felt very good???

So Sunday continued my pattern of very leisurely late wakeup time (Arisia is one of the only times of year I just straight up guilt-free get to run my sleep schedule the way I actually want to). I got my stuff transferred from the one room to the other, and then had just enough time to hit up the art show before my goat check shift. But first.......Mount Arisia!

On Saturday,

mindways decided to try a speed run (apparently aided by wearing his very speedy pants) during the climb time, and managed to get the thirteen floors in a truly staggering time. I know that I'm not necessarily in nearly as good shape as him, was not wearing speedy pants (in fact, at that point I was wearing a lovely-but-heavy suede skirt), and critically, am quite a bit shorter. I didn't run it. I just decided "okay, if I was going to walk up these stairs like I meant it, what would I score?"

I was not quite a minute slower, but I am _very happy_ with my 2:15 ascension. A bit over ten seconds per floor when *not* running? Yeah, I'll definitely take that, and if we're in the same hotel in 2028, I think I'll have to at least try and beat that. I don't know if I have the stamina to full run up the whole thing, but gosh, wouldn't it be fun to try?

Having not made it up to the art show earlier, I had the vague disappointment of seeing several pieces I would consider buying, if they hadn't already sold. I think that's perfect in some ways, because it meant I got to admire them, and feel happy the artist is being paid, but not have to spend the money myself. It also meant I had a little more buffer to buy needless pretties in the dealer's hall instead, which I'm honestly quite happy about. (shockingly, I did resist the EXTREMELY LARGE d20s. Like, a size for putting on the desk and pondering. And _gorgeous_ too, too often the big ones are just kinda chintzy.)

Goat check was nice, then off to check my texts and send massive congratudolances to Tuesday upon hearing that The Providence Bureau of Invest-Egg-Ations, after placing second the last two years, has won the 2026 Mystery Hunt! Am I gonna get to see this particular sweetie ever in the upcoming year? Probably not, but I'm real happy for them regardless!

I wandered a bit and dealers halled a bit and eventually wound up eating food and hanging out with mom in their room until it was time for us to head to the masquerade. Mom always works as the backstage pirate, and I often work with them. It was...fine. Mom was lovely and the costumers were lovely and Antonia is an absolute bangup MC, and I don't think the audience could tell any of the particularly rough spots (except of course that the judges took forever, because they always do.)

Post Masque I did some lobbyconning. jere7my and I went and got Toast, and then eventually Tuesday showed up and they and I went to get more Toast. I am very pleased that by my last round of the evening, they had more cookie butter, so I could get my favourite combination.

Tues and I wandered a bit, including playing Lost Cities in person, where I did about as badly as I have ever played --I scored a total of one point. Just _brutally_ unlucky with the cards! Tuesday had like, 150 points to make up for it.

Off to bed went we, and that was that.

Monday morn was going to start lazy, but when I checked my phone, I saw a somewhat urgent message from LB saying that they'll were feeling sick and could I put a sign on their table until they could figure out how to get their supplies back. I sailed downstairs to the dealers hall and blatantly ignored the "this space is not open for another forty minutes" sign entirely. I can't summon the authority of I Am Supposed To Be Here everywhere, but I _definitely_ can at sci-fi cons. Do you _know_ who I _am_? I'm the child of Greykell and Richard, this place is in my blood!

I gathered LB's things for them, and was very pleased to see their box exactly fit in my (really, Rey's) rolly crate. So that was trivial to bring home, and I'll swing it by their place later this week. It is good to be able to help my friends and community!

Tuesday and I ate breakfast and got ready for our respective tasks --I had one last goat check shift, which was incredibly slow --apparently the snow scared people out of coming for just Monday?-- and she was off to the wrapup for hunt. I helped clean up and that was that, everything else about the con was lazing about deliciously.

More photos to come later. I hope you are having a good time of things. I hope tomorrow works out well for the all of us.

~Sor
MOOP!

lb_lee

Mori: since I wasn’t going to be much good for anything else today, I decided to make bone broth, since it takes a gazillion hours and requires nothing but you sitting to make sure it don’t catch fire. You just take your bones and various veggie odds’n’ends (I had about a chicken and a half worth of bones, plus carrot stubs, a onion, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns), pour water over ‘em, and simmer for a million years. I been simmering that shit for going on seven hours now; the recipe I got said up to twelve but no way can I stay up to 2AM for that.

It’s still pretty weak, but it’s all my body wants and I swear this is the most delicious shit I done ever put in my mouth. My body is ENTHUSIASTIC about it, and it been enthusiastic about jack fucking shit today.

I AM NEVER NOT MAKING BONE BROTH EVER AGAIN.

Current Mood: hungry
Crossposts: https://lb-lee.insanejournal.com/8109.html

kitewithfish

I am post- Arisia 2026* and I have come out of it with book recs and it was fascinating and I’m so so interested in sharing them with you and I’m tiiiired.

Some books and things that were mentioned in the panels I went to!

Moonwise Greer Gilman (out of print, may be on the internet archive) but part of a series that the author hopes to continue (I sense publisher problems)

Gillian Daniels is getting a book out! Jenny Will Eat You Now

Noble Train of Artillery

Carol Berg The Spirit Lens

Kingdoms of the Elfin by Sylvia Townsend

Out of the Dark David Weber

The Glass Pearls Emeric Pressburger – the panel that recommended this was interesting, as one of them mentioned that this book is full of the author’s memoirs of his youth in Hungary before he fled the Nazis and lost his family, disguised in the story as memories stolen from a Jewish victim of a Nazi war criminal. Pressburg was also a writer for film and some of them seem engaging.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (movie)

There is no Antimemetics Division qntm

BLIT (short story) by David Langford in Different Kinds of Darkness

Dark is better Gemma Files

The Moment of Change Rose Lemberg (one story in particular but I didn’t actually log it with the title of the book)

Andrea Hairston – The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays (This sounded very funny)

Jane Yolen Wizard Hall

Elisha Barber by E C Ambrose (also publishes as E Chris Ambrose)

Virconium M John Harrison

M.R James – various ghost stories

Rosemary Kirstein – Steerswoman

The Stones are Hatching Geraldine ……

Cemetery of Forgotten Books - Wikipedia

Library of the Unwritten Aj Hackworth

The Book of Joan Lidia Yukanovitch

Wearing the Lion – john Wiswell (however, did not enjoy Someone You Can Build a Nest in, but it showed promising elements)

Nothing in the Basement – Romie Stott

Press Enter John Varley

Tony Tulathimutte – Rejection

Brent Weeks The Way of Shadows

Christopher Moore A Dirty Job

St Joan of the Stockyards – Bertolt Brecht

*Arisia is ongoing, but I am not.

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: determined

minoanmiss

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adrian_turtle

I know this seems like a petty thing, in these parlous times, but I am having a hard time finding bookends. We are finally, finally getting all the books out of storage and sorted and on shelves and they might almost fit if we have enough bookends. (If you're going to do part of a shelf as 2 rows of paperbacks, that needs at least 1 bookend to keep the last ones from falling into the larger books that are going as single rows.)

Where can I find plain metal bookends, like the kind they use in libraries? I do NOT want to get them from Amazon, for political reasons. Neither do I want to get them from Target. Once, I might have tried Home Depot, but it turns out that they are cooperating with ICE in deeply distressing ways so I don't want to do business with them either. Etsy is generally recommended as an alternative to Amazon, but they just have decorative standalone bookends. Some of them are really pretty but they are too bulky for this purpose.

lb_lee

Woke up with a sore throat. So mad. Trying to figure out how to get my wares without exposing other people to my germs, which the snow outside is not simplifying.

UGH.

EDIT: logistics sorted! Thank you, Arisia friends! T_T you are the best!

Crossposts: https://lb-lee.insanejournal.com/7854.html

sorcyress

It's Sunday of Arisia!

I didn't post yesterday because I was busy Having Fun (tm) so here's the things I did yesterday and today! And then my goal is, I guess, by the end of the week to make a lovely highly annotated clothing entry where I babble and post you lots of pictures of how cute I am.

Yesterday I got dressed and ready and headed off to a shift at Goat Check. Despite mom very nearly running the thing for like eight years now, I've never actually formally worked there. But it was good to have a little structure in my life, and so I had shifts yesterday and today, and I have a short one tomorrow. Both days so far have been a very nice balance where there's never been more than one person in line at once, but also there's never been more than about ten minutes without someone coming by to check in or out their coat.

Had lots of lovely conversations along the way, with friendly Kevin (who is here from Pittsburgh and plays DnD with the wife of an SCD friend of mine) and K***** (whose name I can't remember and am big mad about because they're very cool, but hopefully I will get to see them again at YTS!) and Thrantar and BDan and whoever else stopped by. Turns out to be a good gig!

On Saturday, I zooped straight out of Goat Check and went to the Renaissance Dance that Justin dC was running. He is a fine MC and a very good convention-level teacher, and so it's always a nice joy to watch him cope with the chaos. I mostly didn't dance this time, because I wanted to work on my knitting a bit, and also because he had a very full dance floor with several good supporting dancers around. This was also good because my friend Dax wandered by, and we had a good conversation catching up with each other about the last several years!

I slunk out to go get changed and prepare for the Night Market, a first-time Arisia event that seems to have gone very successfully. It was a "stuff swap" --no money to exchange hands, but little trinkets and crafts encouraged to be given to each other. Very kid friendly, but also a nice air of mystery amongst the adults. I had a box of beautiful vintage gloves from when mom was regularly finding them on the super cheap at estate sales for me --I'd been meaning to give much of the box away for aaaaages now, and so it was a lovely accomplishment to find a corner and array them in front of me (I also had "wee beasties" --rubber dinosaurs and other little toys that I've gathered throughout my adventures for those with hands bigger than most of the gloves). I received some ICE whistles and shiny rocks and a cute little pentacle and a couple dinosaurs and some lovely prints/photos and for a few people who wanted gloves but didn't have trinkets, I traded them for Words they liked.

This is how I met aforementioned unremembered K*****, who was doing wandering calligraphy and was willing to trade a pair of gloves for a little card reading "Good Girls Aren't Here". After a series of entertaining "made-sense-at-the-time" decisions, they later wrote me for free "Patellas are not for hitting". It was very satisfying!

The market wound down, the children went scampering off with their prizes, and I declared myself very satisfied to have emptied about 2/3rds the box of gloves! Back to the room for the third outfit of the day, and down to the dance hall for the only DJ Dirge set we got this year.

I danced for most of all the time from tenPM until he shut us down a bit after 2am. He was adorably sniffly as he gave a goodbye spiel, a "I'll keep coming back to Arisia as long as they have me, but man this place feels like home" and I, at least, also teared up with happy joy. It's at least my third year in a row closing out that dance, and it feels so so good for my heart to do so. Fuck but dancing like an idiot late into the night is the thing that heals what ails me. And I appreciate the con environment so much for being completely chill and safe to like...shed shoes and socks and coat and outer shirt and just be able to dance very comfortable.

Somewhere amidst the rest of it, jere7my and I did make it up to House of Toast, so that was a good part of Saturevening as well. And now, not to do spoiler alerts, it's quite late on Sunday and I have a Tuesday who is settling into bed and I wish to settle alongside her. More about how the rest of today went later.

~Sor
MOOP!

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good news: health

In this essay I will

ÂNGELA: "In Spiritualism There’s Real Equality"

Winter share, 7 of 11

Actual good news!

Edible Art

I wish

PSA: US, pay attention to weather [US, meteo]

An explanation of US military perspective and behavior re illegal orders [mil/US, Ω]

Does everybody know he's a ghost?

Enoshima - Monorail - Ofuna

Life, a series of memorials and signals

Arisia Sunday and Monday!

BONE BROTTTTHHHH!!!

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Stop Massport ICE Flights Campaign

Trump being shushed by Dr King

bookends

Missing Monday Arisia

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