Day 68: Out at a park for a picnic and evening performance of Romeo and Juliet by GreenStage, one of the Seattle-area Shakespeare in the park companies.
Year 50 Day 67
Day 67: A treasure of ours — a vintage pachinko machine that my wife inherited from her grandfather, who brought it back from when he was stationed overseas with the Navy. We’re not sure of the exact age (somewhere between the ’50s and the ’70s), but it was mounted in a wall of her grandparents’ house when she was growing up, and got lots of play from all the grandchildren. She inherited it a few years ago, we spent some time cleaning it up, and now it’s mounted in a wall of our basement. The mechanics work decently, though some of the bumpers have degraded and could use replacing, and someday I’d love to see if I can get the electronics working too. But even if that never happens, it’s fun to take a few shots when we walk by.
🎥 Missing Link
We realized after seeing the Laika exhibit at MoPOP that there were two films we hadn’t seen yet, so we watched this one today. It’s a fun film, quite cute, and had us snickering pretty regularly. Nothing amazing story wise, but the artistry and craftsmanship of Laika’s work is always worth watching (and fun to see things on screen that we’d just seen on exhibit).
📚 Mere Anarchy by Mike W. Barr et al.
32/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Originally published as six eBook novellas, this series tracks a single plot line — a natural disaster on a non-Federation planet and the resulting aftermath and recovery — through decades, from just before TOS’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to just after the intro of Star Trek: Generations. It makes for a neat look both at the Federation’s long-term approach to working with non-aligned planets (after all, how often have we seen an adventure and then never heard of the planet or culture again?), and how the core TOS crew evolve over the years. This is helped by each novella being written by an author specifically chosen for their expertise in a particular era of Trek history. Definitely one of the stronger Trek omnibus stories I’ve read.
Year 50 Day 66
Day 66: My wife and I hopped on the light rail (for the first time since the pandemic hit) and went up to the Seattle Center today. We got some (mediocre) food (the Armory’s food options just don’t really work for us), sat for about an hour watching people play in the fountain, and then went to MoPOP to see the Laika exhibit (and, of course, the SF, Fantasy, and Horror sections; we skipped the music stuff, because there are only so many times I can feign interest in Nirvana memorabilia (that is, it was interesting the first time, but those exhibits aren’t as engaging on repeat visits)). I took a fair number of photos, but used my “real” camera for most of them, so they’re not ready to go yet. Eventually!
Year 50 Day 65
Day 65: A few 80° days will really make you appreciate both air conditioning and having a job that doesn’t require pants. (Don’t get me wrong — you have to wear something. But kilts are perfectly acceptable.)
Threadless
It took less than 24 hours for me to delete the Threads app from my phone.
Hate groups Libs of TikTok, Moms for Liberty, Gays Against Groomers, and PragerU are already on Threads and harassing people. Apparently PragerU even already has a blue “verified” checkmark.
I’ve updated my bio there to say that I’m not using the service, and put up a post similar to this one telling people why I’m leaving and where to find me.
It had already given me a bad first impression, as there is only one feed and it’s all an algorithmic constant stream of crap from obnoxious randos and (so, so many) brands, with no way to filter it out to just the people you actually want to follow or get a chronological view of posts.
And there’s no way to add alt text to images, so accessibility is obviously an afterthought, at best.
Threads does not get my recommendation. If you choose to explore, good luck and stay safe.
Year 50 Day 64
Day 64: Whether because of the heat, the drone from the air conditioner, or just pure orneriness, I was having trouble sleeping, when I suddenly realized I’d forgotten the day’s photo! Turns out a green nightlight in the restroom makes for a nice moody (if a little goofy) late-night photo opportunity.
Liberty and Justice For All
With everything going on, and particularly with recent SCOTUS decisions and That Fucking Guy still being, yet again, the GOP’s front runner, I see no particular reason to celebrate where we are as a country right now.
But my hopepunk determination to not just wish that things were better, but to continue to fight to make them so, goddammit, prevails.
We can be better than this. It’s not easy — not now, not in the past, and not anytime soon — but we can keep fighting for ourselves, for each other, and for those who don’t even know we’re fighting for them. (And “fighting” is different for everyone. Pick your battles, and pick battles and methods that work for you.)
Original image by TJDPoetry on Instagram.
(I’ve been seeing this image go around Facebook, and really like it, but noticed that the image showed signs of degradation, and was uncredited other than the signature in the image. So I went looking to find a better quality image file and to give a credit link back to the artist.)
Year 50 Day 63
Day 63: We’re not really much for the patriotic thing, especially these days (I try to be hopeful about the future, but don’t quite feel like celebrating the present). However, we do like a nice meal out in our pretty little backyard with a small fire going.