Online friendship

Jul. 11th, 2025 08:42 am
fennectik: Tired of your BS (Disdain)
[personal profile] fennectik posting in [community profile] bullying_begone
If someone online who has claimed to be your friend and be by your side agreeing to anything you've said and acting supportive, then suddenly they would turn your back on you and try hard to harass you after a fallout saying things like "everything that happened to you was your fault" all because you had said fallout with that person who claimed to be your friend from the beginning and even siding with those who had hurt and bullied you in an attempt to hurt you as well, then that person was never your friend to begin with.

Old Bay Seasoning

Jul. 11th, 2025 05:09 pm
lynn82md: (cupcake)
[personal profile] lynn82md
I review Old Bay Seasoning from McCormick that is based in my native Maryland

McCormick is not sponsoring this vid

The Friday Five for 11 July 2025

Jul. 11th, 2025 12:59 am
anais_pf: (Default)
[personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
This week's questions were suggested by [livejournal.com profile] silent_r_infork

1. What was the most sick that you've ever been?

2. What disease are you afraid of getting?

3. Are you a big baby when it comes to taking medicine/shots for your illnesses?

4. Is going to the doctor really THAT bad?

5. Would you have the flu twice a month if you were paid $1,000 for having it?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

Summer, Food and Youth

Jul. 9th, 2025 07:15 pm
author_by_night: (From Pexels)
[personal profile] author_by_night
Based on a sunshine_revival prompt, and a conversation I had with [personal profile] elizalavelle . Some names and minor details have been changed to preserve anonymity.

Icy Pops

I'm at a cousin's baseball game. Five years old. 

My aunt hands me a ice pop, blue because blue ice pops are the best, and I slurp while watching the game. My cousin hits a home run; perhaps amped up by the sugar, I cry, "go Callie!"

Callie smiles and waves.


Ice Cream Sandwich

I grab an ice cream sandwich from the fridge, and go outside to read. Reading's my favorite pasttime.

But I'm reading more than eating, and soon the ice cream drips. I grab a napkin, but some of it's already landed on one of the pages.

The stain goes on to remind me of that simple day.


Chocolate

By sheer coincidence, Cora and I move into the same neighborhood within the same three months. Naturally, we become fast friends. 

 We decide the best way to introduce ourselves is to walk around offering people chocolate from a jumbo pack. Which is exactly what we do. Hardly anyone takes us up on it, so we eat the rest.


Mashed Food

I spend my summers working at a senior living facility. One of my duties is serving our participants food.

Mashed potatoes. Mashed broccoli. Gravy. All in small blue trays. One for Marco, who can only speak Italian; one for Patricia, who is restless until she sings; one for Nettie, who loves singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Enjoy. 


Frappucino

Starbucks is the closest thing my friends and I have to a hangout. We don't go often; but when we do, we know our orders. I always get the Caramel Frappuccino. Iced, of course. 

We sit outside Barnes & Noble, me wanting to buy books but not daring tell my friends. They're not readers. We talk about our hopes for next school year. Our plans for our lives after school. Jill wants to study biology. Cora wants to become a singer. I'm not sure what I want. 

I suck back the last of my Frappe and throw it out as we head back to Jill's car, wondering if we'll always meet here in the summer, or if the future has other plans.



Pickles and Cheezies

I often stay with my grandmother a few weeks out of the summer. She lives in a small bungalow and serves me pickles in a tiny dish. They're always delicious. I talk to her about high school, and she tells me about her high school days, how she met the grandfather I never knew.

At night, we're less healthy. My grandmother loves Seinfeld, so we watch it on her old TV. She in her rocking chair, me on her bed. We always pour cheezies and watch Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer do one terrible thing after the other.


Popsicles

It's a hot summer day, so after a bit of tanning, Cora and I sit in her room. The fan whirrs loudly over us. A copy of Seventeen is on the floor, waiting to be opened.

We split the grape popsicle as we read the advice column to each other, napkins in hand because the popsicle is faster than we are. When we finish, we read each other the jokes. They're so bad, they're good. 

 They're among the last vestiges of our childhood.
 

Media Post

Jul. 6th, 2025 08:09 am
inchoatewords: a drawn caricature of the journal user, a brown-haired woman with glasses in a blue shirt, smiling at the viewer (Default)
[personal profile] inchoatewords
Movies: Sinners is now on Max/HBO/whatever we're calling it these days, so we watched that last night. A rewatch for Scott, as he saw it in the theatre; I don't go to the movies much these days (spoiled to pause and such) and also, I wasn't sure how gory it was going to be. There's obviously some due to the nature of the movie, but nothing beyond what I could handle.

I thought it was a very well-done movie. Diverse casting is important, so while obviously Black and white folks lived in Mississippi during that time, so did Native American and Asian folks, so it was good to see that recognized. The music was really good; I had not heard of Miles Caton before, but that VOICE - I hope we see more great things from him. (I know this was his first movie, but I also had not heard of him as a musician, either; more's the pity). Michael B. Jordan playing two roles in this movie was great - I know eye candy is not the point here, but it is a bonus (that man is hot, what can I say?)

The end was a little at sea, I think, but overall, I'm really glad that I watched it and I thought it was a interesting take on the vampire genre.

Television/Streaming: last episode of these series of Taskmaster. Will miss them. As I've said every week, they were a fun group.

Books: I finished The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, the second Flavia de Luce novel. Flavia in any other book I think would annoy me to no end, but here she is endearing. I can't explain it. It does take a bit to get to the mystery here, but honestly, I feel like in these books the mystery is secondary to the characters' interactions with each other and Bishop's Lacey as a whole. I will pick up the third one.

I tried picking up various versions of the travels of Ibn Batuta, which has been on my list for a while, but one was super old, so wouldn't have any footnotes on what the modern names of the countries or cities are, and the other, also on Hoopla, had footnotes that weren't linked properly (so when you clicked on them, they took you to the title page). Maddening. I have given up. Hah.

I am now reading The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings for book club. We really thought her debut novel, Lakewood, was well done, so we're excited for this one, which is about witches.

Games: haven't been out much so my Pikmin are languishing a bit. Need to plant some flowers today.

Played some more Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe; am trying to unlock all the levels.

Mostly it's been Virtue's Last Reward, of which I've gotten one of the "official" endings so far. Also have hit some game overs (you lose and are stuck forever) and two that are "to be continued . . . " which I suppose I can go back to after gleaning other information. What I like about this sequel over its predecessor is that you don't have to replay rooms you already played, and you can see the options you already have chosen from the decision tree and can jump back through those at any time if need be. You do occasionally get information that is repeated, especially in the early part of a playthrough - however, you can also fast-forward through the dialogue, which is also helpful.

There was one glitch I found last night, however; normally, you can save right when you get into a room, which is what I was intending to do before dinner and pick up escaping it later. However, the "save" option was greyed out, so I had to play through the entire thing before it would let me save. Very annoying.

Playing it in a world that recently went through a pandemic does hit a little different (the game was released in 2012, and you are playing in the "future" of 2028).

I also started Witchy Life Story on PC, which was part of a cozy bundle of games I got a year or two ago. You play a teen witch who visits the village of Floria to help them with their annual festival (your grandma was going to go, but she sent you instead, I'm guessing to prove yourself). You make potions and interact with villagers. You have a crow familiar that brings you shiny things. It's cute. You can also pick your pronouns and there are some bigger body types to choose from when you create your character.

Sunshine revival Challenge: Love

Jul. 5th, 2025 10:15 am
author_by_night: (I really need a new userpic)
[personal profile] author_by_night
  The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.

I posted about this on tumblr, but I've said in the past that I don't really care about romantic storylines. Except I've come to realize, that's not true at all. There have been a lot of pairings I've loved, both in canon and in fanfiction. (Sometimes more in one than the other.)

Since this is meant to be a positive entry, I'll focus on what I love in my romantic pairings. I love seeing two people working together - perhaps in the sense that they're coworkers or have intersecting jobs, perhaps in the sense that they have a common mission, be it something major or minor. I love when the story is less about whether or not they'll be together, and more about what happens once they are. I love seeing them connect with one another's friends and family. I love seeing them help each other be their best selves. I love when conflict isn't about whether or not they "truly" love each other, but how new information or a miscommunication has - temporarily - rocked the boat. I love physicality. The way they hug and kiss, the way they move together, in a natural tandem.

Don't get me wrong - I'm here for some UST and other things you often see. I love a little drama. :P I just prefer all of that as the starting point, and I lose interest if it drags out for too long.  I love even more when none of that happens, and the couple just... comes into being. 

The Friday Five for 4 July 2025

Jul. 3rd, 2025 03:27 pm
anais_pf: (Default)
[personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
This week's questions were suggested by [livejournal.com profile] lord_azurewave

1. Who is your best friend?

2. Why did you become friends?

3. How did you meet?

4. Why have you stayed friends?

5. How long (realistically) do you think you'll be friends?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

Four New Vids

Jul. 1st, 2025 10:45 pm
lynn82md: (cupcake)
[personal profile] lynn82md
My daughter and I review Sweet Peach from Spirit of Sweden. Do we like it? Watch and see!

Spirit of Sweden isn't sponsoring this vid



Vid 2: Hot Pepper Läxerol )

Vid 3: Battle of the Lactase Supplements )

Vid 4: Go Well )

No matter how I try

Jun. 24th, 2025 03:11 am
fennectik: Upset (upset)
[personal profile] fennectik posting in [community profile] bullying_begone
Seems no matter how hard I try to nove on, every other instance my brain continues to make me remember the times horrid individuals would bully me online and how far they would go to in crossing the line and how it affected me in the long run.

What bothers me the most is how these assholes would make an expectable of it, enjoying it while they would get away with doing such underhanded things to me, and how they would think little of it, telling me to "get over it" among other petty things adding insult to such demise.

I feel nothing but contempt for these bullies for ruining my life and leaving me as an emotional wreck who tries in copping with my own.

Rebuilding journal search again

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

Media Post

Jun. 29th, 2025 11:14 am
inchoatewords: a drawn caricature of the journal user, a brown-haired woman with glasses in a blue shirt, smiling at the viewer (Default)
[personal profile] inchoatewords
Movies: None.

Television/Streaming: Watched Episode 4 of Buffy, "Teacher's Pet." That's the one with the substitute teacher who turns into a praying mantis and she invites Xander to her house to work on a "project," which, ew, was bad enough without the Monster of the Week bit added into it. Willow calls Xander's house and his mom apparently knows he went to the teacher's house to do this project, but did no one find this odd? Scott said, It was a different time. The episode aired in 1997, we knew at least about Mary Kay Letourneau (although, now that I looked up when she was actually ARRESTED for her crimes, it was in March 1997, the same month that these Buffy episodes were airing. So maybe it was a more "innocent" time, at least for the public). Anyway, that aside, the episode was okay. Xander is annoying, as always; and obviously, what teen boy who finds his teacher hot wouldn't be flattered by that attention? But still, he irritates me.

Penultimate episode of Taskmaster. I will be sad to see this crew go. I say this every week, but it's true. Jason and Stevie are very funny working together, and I love how Jason has gotten former contestants to do things for him. I need ALL the outtakes from this season; I'm sure they're hilarious.

Books: I finished Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz. I quite enjoyed her breathless retellings of various locations and LA folks, even though I don't recognize some of them. I want to read some of her other books.

I also read North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud. I don't remember how this got on my list. One of the stories in the book (The Crevasse) was kind of familiar, so maybe it was posted somewhere and I read it and then added the collection to my TBR. That was the one story I liked, except for the animal death in it. It had a lot of atmosphere in the old Lovecraftian tradition.

The rest of the stories were - I'm just gonna copy from my Goodreads:
The good: what little there is of it. At first, it was interesting to see a collection, written by a man, where many of the men are garbage. Yeah, you get 'em, I thought.
[ . . .]
The bad: all of the women are garbage, too. Now, some fan is gonna come on this and say, You missed the point. All of the humans are the real monsters (with the exception of one of the stories where there IS an actual lake monster). But between that and the white supremacist story (S.S.), where only the Black characters speak in dialect, I'm side-eying Ballingrud here a bit. The stories are set in New Orleans; you're telling me the white kid they're trying to recruit for the Neo-Nazi gang doesn't speak in some sort of dialect, too? Come on, man.

There is also a lot of animal death across these stories, and one suicide (method is described, as it is part of the story).

Anyway, I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of his work.


So many folks singing this guy's praises and maybe I just don't get it . . .

Currently reading The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, the second Flavia de Luce mystery by Alan Bradley.

Gaming: a bit of Pikmin Bloom, but I haven't been outside walking much lately, as it's too hot. I downloaded Steam so that I could get some of my games back on the laptop, and I played some Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe, which I've obviously had for a LONG time (I think it came out in 2013?). Sometimes they have free games and this might have been one of them. It's like Tetris, but you play a little 2D creature that has to shoot the blocks as they come down and there are other pitfalls. So, short levels because once you die, you have to start again, but quite engrossing; I kept playing levels for over an hour yesterday.

Later in the evening, I finally fired up Virtue's Last Reward, the second Zero Escape game, for the 3DS. I had purchased it a while ago from eBay, received it, checked that it worked, and then promptly forgot about it, hah. I played 2.5 hours last night though and I'm going to pick it up again later.

Steam has a bit sale right now, until July 10. Stardew Valley is 7 bucks and change. I'm debating whether I should buy it . . .
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