#10 Days in November

[card-of-the-day]

Today's Card Is: Giratina V

[chic-a-gigot]

L'Art et la mode, no. 45, vol. 38, 10 novembre 1917, Paris. A la comédie-française: L'Autre Danger. Dessin de Meignoz. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Mme Bartet.

Robe en mousseline blanche sur fond de satin rose, garnie de broderie d'argent.

White muslin dress on a pink satin background, trimmed with silver embroidery.

—

Mlle Robinne.

Robe en satin "vert Empire", brodée "argent"; tunique de tulle "vert Empire"; roses rouges et girandole de perles sur les bras.

"Empire green" satin dress, embroidered "silver"; "Empire green" tulle tunic; red roses and pearl garland on the arms.

—

Mlle Maille.

Robe en satin "rose ancien", garnie de broderie "vieux rouge" et "or".

“Old pink” satin dress, trimmed with “old red” and “gold” embroidery.

[typelikeagirl]

[felassan]

r/dragonage (Reddit) post titled "Jeff Grubb: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf scheduled to release in late 2024." Post text: "Dreadwolf to be shown this summer and planned release later this year, Bioware is internally confident on the release date. Anything could change of course." Source: [link] Clip: [link] "Credit to: u/IcePopsicleDragon for posting this in r/GamingLeaksAndRumours."

[source]

In episode 339 of Game Mess Decides, Jeff Grubb had the following to say on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf's possible/rumored release window [transcript]:

Question from chat: “Hi Jeff and Mike, when will Dragon Age 4 be shown and released?” Jeff: “Yeah, I mean, I expect it will probably pop up this summer. I don’t know when it’ll be shown is the real answer, that’s the, let’s get that out, I don’t know when it will be shown. I assume it will be shown sometime this summer. Could happen at any time though. It will be released this year [2024], last I heard. That is, and they’re pretty confident about that, doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee, could slip, but right now, internally, they expect to release it later this year, which is why I took it in Fantasy Critic”.

[source (timestamp 35 mins 20 secs), clipped version]

(there were no more mentions of Dragon Age or BioWare during the episode)

[cypherdecypher]

Animal of the Day!

Green Salamander (Aneides aeneus)

(Photo by Matthew L. Niemiller)

Conservation Status- Near Threatened 

Habitat- Appalachian Mountains

Size (Weight/Length)- 12 cm

Diet- Insects

Cool Facts- Like many species of salamander, the green salamander is extremely habitat-specific. They need an undergrowth covered in thick moss to keep their skin moist and even then they rarely leave their rocky crevice homes. Every so often, the green salamander will take a trip up a tree to find a hollow or crack to hang out in. The less sunlight, the better. They are the only salamanders in North America to have green pigment in their skin. A prehensile tail aids the tiny dudes in climbing over a mega sized world, even fallen logs pose a monumental effort. Male green salamanders are seen as one of the most aggressive salamanders. They are highly territorial towards other males, taking toes and even tails from their opponent.

Rating- 13/10 (Hibernate in the winter and return with the first rain of spring.)

[floridaboiler]

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy…

With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most With a crew and good captain well seasoned

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms When they left fully loaded for Cleveland And later that night when the ship's bell rang Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound And a wave broke over the railing And every man knew, as the captain did too, T'was the witch of November come stealin'

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait When the gales of November came slashin' When afternoon came it was freezin' rain In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin' Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said Fellas, it's been good to know ya

The captain wired in he had water comin' in And the good ship and crew were in peril And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does any one know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours? The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay If they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er

They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains are the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters…

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings In the rooms of her ice-water mansion Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams The islands and bays are for sportsmen And farther below Lake Ontario Takes in what Lake Erie can send her And the iron boats go as the mariners all know With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed, In the maritime sailors' cathedral The church bell chimed. It rang twenty-nine times. For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee Superior, they said, never gives up her dead When the gales of November come early…

~ “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot

Image: “Every Man Knew” by David Conklin

[daily-bipper-brainrot]

[wiiildflowerrr]

10 November 2018

Back to the days when they used to dress as if they were all going to the same event.

[kitkatstu-dies]

Productivity 10/100 [11/12/2024]

Last micro lab for the year!! My TA said I was really good at microscopy :)

Made a big dent in my micro essay. I'm most likely going to finish it by Thursday!

Allergy appointment -> starting immunotherapy sometime in December (or maybe January depending on the timeline)

Got my professor to write a letter of rec for me (meeting with him tomorrow to talk about it more)

Finished more physiology/lab stuff & made a micro lab final quizlet

[novella-november]

Need some motivation to write ? 4TheWords has a community challenge to fight as many Karit between November 14th and November 18th, and depending on how many are defeated, the whole site earns different rewards!

It's a monster that has a word goal of 350 words in 25 minutes :)

[card-of-the-day]

Today's Card Is: Banette

[chic-a-gigot]

L'Art et la mode, no. 45, vol. 21, 10 novembre 1900, Paris. Costume de chasse en drap "chevreuil". Bibliothèque nationale de France

Costume de chasse en drap "chevreuil". Boléro très court sur une haute ceinture en caoutchouc. Col de velours. Manches demi-longues laissant dépasser les manches d’une chemisette blanche. Guêtres de grosse toile boutonnées sur le devant de la jambe. Petit tricorne de feutre taupé.

Hunting costume in "deer" cloth. Very short bolero on a high rubber belt. Velvet collar. Half-long sleeves leaving the sleeves of a white shirt showing. Gaiters of thick canvas buttoned on the front of the leg. Small tricorn of taupe felt.

[greendayauthority]

Green Day On This Day: 10 November 2024

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: October Wrap-Up.

Gr8 news: I am no longer very far behind on my NaNo prep reading!! I had to drop JUST LIKE HOME (reread) and HOUSE OF LEAVES, but I got through the rest of my Haunted House and/or Aliens and/or Parasite/Fungus TBR. Here they all are!

Photos and/or reviews linked:

SHRIEK - ★★★★ I think SHRIEK Is my favorite volume of the Ambergris trilogy, taken as a whole--the one-way conversation Duncan was having with Janice was a really neat narrative choice, and then the reveal in the Afterword's Afterword was, in true VanderMeer fashion, mind-blowing.

FINCH - ★★★★ I was actually surprised by how much I liked this one. It helped me figure out a LOT about what kinds of power dynamics I enjoy in borderline-dystopian fiction, and what intrigues me most about limited agency. It wrapped the story up almost too neatly, for a VanderMeer, but I did still have a good time and blitzed through it quickly. Given this one and SHRIEK, I'm counting the Whole Series as a Four-Star read--I'd like to reread it someday, now that I know what's going on.

LEECH - ★★★★★ (reread) STILL ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVES, OFFICIALLY!! It's very gothic and heavy and fucked up, but it does FASCINATING things with POV, and worldbuilding, and storytelling frameworks. PLEASE check the content warnings, but if none of those are hard no's for you, definitely pick this one up. I suspect anyone for whom Animorphs was a Formative Influence will adore this (but so far my sample size is really only 1)--please prove me right.

A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES - ★★★½ This was fun! Not my favorite Kingfisher (that award still goes to HOLLOW PLACES), but I had a good time--I laughed, I squealed over vultures, I blasted through pages to get to the end.

STARLING HOUSE - ★★★★ Alix E. Harrow always manages to write exactly my catnip, somehow. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I'm constantly finding connections to my own writing projects in her work, and STARLING HOUSE was no exception! I liked that this one was more modern, and the sibling dynamic was precious, and I love weird sentient houses where space is more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule. I'll probably reread this one for Driscoll purposes!

WOODWORM - ★★★½ So much rage in such a tiny volume, and I was Absolutely Here For It. I don't tend to read much lit fic, but I do try to read a lot in translation, and I thought this one did very cool stuff with Spanish--the prose felt natural in English, but I loved the linguistic details the translators left in Spanish and how much depth that added. I feel like this one might be a good fit for Carmen Maria Machado fans, too.

HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE - ★★★ Call this a low 3, from me. It was Fine, I guess. I liked what he did with the act structure (labeling parts as stages of grief was very cool), and I liked the family dynamics and history, but a lot of the humor didn't land for me (I got a few sensible chuckles, but a bunch of it wasn't funny), and the "oh this author is A Man, huh" moments made me roll my eyes (seriously: Who thinks about their ~breasts~ when an angry taxidermied squirrel is clawing down your shirt?? No One With Breasts, Mr. Dude). This book did at least teach me that I'm not really interested in gore (it's just boring, unlike body horror, my beloved). I might still pick up HORRORSTOR, but I probably won't look into most of his other stuff, if this one is indicative of his general style. Meh.

THE ART OF EXCESS - No rating (didn't read the whole thing). At the end of ALWAYS COMING HOME, Richard Powers mentioned this book as the reason he finally committed to ALWAYS, so I was curious what this Tom Leclair dude had to say about it back in 1989. I had a heck of a time tracking down a copy (it's very out of print, and my local library had to source it from the Library of Congress for me), but I didn't want to buy it to read just the preface/intro/epilogue, because I haven't read any of the other texts he analyzes. Leclair's style was very readable, and I was intrigued by his framework, but I found some of his conclusions eye-rolly, given his sample size. I posted this one because I think Library of Congress books are fun, but I didn't add it to my Goodreads.

BLACK TIDE - ★★★½ This one had me rolling my eyes in the first couple chapters, and I was afraid I wasn't going to like it, but once Fucked Up Shit Started Happening, the momentum really picked up and didn't stop--I blitzed through it way past my bedtime on a school night. It was fucked up and weird and tense and bloody pull-no-punches horror, but it ALSO made me laugh, and I loved our two fuck-ups surviving the apocalypse together. NOTE: Dogs (and Gulls) Are Not Safe, and the cast is small enough that it matters a lot :( if you can't stomach animal harm/death, skip this.

A HALF-BUILT GARDEN - 81/338 pages read; will report back. Enjoying it so far! Glad I put it on my NaNo prep reading list, though not quite for the reasons I planned--the reflections on motherhood as well as parenting outside the binary have been interesting, so far (and that's relevant for my own haunted house endeavors!). A much gentler ride than BLACK TIDE, and the immersive tech reminds me of Murderbot's world, just Earthbound.

Overall! Fabulous month for reading! Anytime I think "wow I need A Break™ from writing or life," this is the type of reading I mean--where I can spend a couple weeks annihilating books within a day to Refill the Words Reservoir.

Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~

Historically, I have been Very Bad™ about assigning things Star Ratings, because it's so Vibes Heavy for me and therefore Contingent Upon my Whims. I am refining this as I figure out my wrap up posts (epiphany of last month: I don't like that stars are Odd, because that makes three the midpoint and things are rarely so truly mid for me)(I have hacked my way around this with a ½). Here is, generally, how I conceptualize stars:

★ - This was Bad. I would actively recommend that you do NOT read this one, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not worth the slog. Save Yourself, It's Too Late For Me. Book goes in the garbage (donate bin).

★★ - This was Not Good. I would not recommend it, but it wasn't a total waste or wash--something in here held my interest/kept my attention/sparked some joy. I will not be rereading this ever. Save Yourself (Or Join Me In Suffering, That Seems Like A Cool Bonding Activity).

★★★ - This was Good/Fine/Okay/Meh. I don't care about this enough to recommend it one way or another. Perfectly serviceable book, held my interest, I probably enjoyed myself (or at least didn't actively loathe the reading). I don't have especially strong feelings. You probably don't need to save yourself from this one--if it sounds like your jam, give it a shot! Just didn't resonate with me particularly powerfully. I probably won't reread this unless I'm after something in particular.

★★★½ - I liked this! I'll probably recommend it if I know it matches someone's vibes or specific requests, but I didn't commit to a star rating on Goodreads. More likely to reread, but not guaranteed.

★★★★ - I really enjoyed this!! I would recommend it (sometimes with caveats about content warnings or such--I tend to like weird fucked up funny shit, and I don't have many hard readerly NO's). Not a perfect book for me by any means, but Very Good. This is something I would reread! Join me!!

★★★★★ - I LOVED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, IT REWIRED MY BRAIN, WILL RECOMMEND TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION (content warning caveats still apply--see 4-star disclaimer). Excellent book, I'll reread it regularly, I'll buy copies for all my friends, I'll try to convince all of Booklr to read it, PLEASE join me!!

[d1rtypuppy]

day 10 of no nut november

week 1 of nnn was not TOO bad, but i’m starting to get pretty pent up tbh :-(( woke up hard as a rock this morning and a few days ago. it’s so hard to keep my hands off when i’m practically aching for it. i’m still staying strong, though!!

also, i was showering the other day and realized my tdick is definitely a bit bigger than when i started the month! so that was a nice surprise/reward of a bit of gender euphoria to end off the first week of nnn.

hrt is just so fucking great!!! :-D i’m 3 1/2 months on testosterone tomorrow. i’m growing a lot more hair on my legs and my little mustache is starting to be pretty noticeable, along with the fact i’ve started growing some chin hairs. my voice is way deeper. i just feel SO much more at home in my body!

anyways, i hope you guys are doing well. please take care of yourselves. drink water, go have a snack. get some rest and take a break from doomscrolling if you catch yourself doing it :3

p.s. thanks for everyone who decided and voted for me to do this. it’s so much fun to torture myself, and it makes it better for me to deny myself knowing someone else made that decision for me. :-)

[floridaboiler]

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a Great Lakes freighter built by Great Lakes Engineering Works of Ecorse, Michigan, and launched on June 7, 1958. Here are the detailed specifications and description of the ship: length overall: 729 feet length between perpendiculars: 711 feet breadth molded: 75 feet depth molded to spar deck amidship: 39 feet draft (designed summer draft): 26 feet, 6.5 inches gross tonnage: 13,632 tons deadweight capacity: 25,891 gross tons service speed: 16 mph power: 7,500 shaft horsepower engine manufacturer: Westinghouse Electric Corporation registry number: US 277437 hull number: 301 The Edmund Fitzgerald was designed to carry taconite iron ore pellets from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to steel mills in the Great Lakes region. The ship was noted for its luxurious interior, including deep pile carpeting, tiled bathrooms, leather swivel chairs in the guest lounge, and two guest staterooms for passengers. It featured advanced nautical equipment for its time, including a large galley and a fully stocked pantry. On November 10, 1975, the ship sank in a severe storm on Lake Superior, approximately 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. All 29 crew members perished, and the exact cause of the sinking remains unknown, though it is speculated that the ship may have suffered from structural failure, topside damage, or grounding on a shoal. The wreck was located in deep water, split into two large pieces. The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald led to changes in Great Lakes shipping regulations, including mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems, increased freeboard, and more frequent inspections of vessels.