What You've Done Today...or yesterday...or what you are doing RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!

[Gorth]

On 12/12/2025 at 10:41 PM, Malcador said:

But said I would recommend people work here 

You need professional help

[ShadySands]

They put in a few continuous flow intersections on the route I usually take to pick up my daughter from preschool/daycare. I know I'm dumb but I don't see how it's that much of an improvement, if it even is.  There's now extra stop lights to allow for traffic to cross to the wrong side so now I stop a few blocks back instead of at the intersection. Progess!

[Gfted1]

I used a new roundabout a while ago and almost flipped my car into a ditch. Whats up with those things?

[LadyCrimson]

I spent $60 on a pair (smaller, larger) of "titanium" food cutting boards, because they were on "sale" (Amazon). And popular. They're metal on one side, some solid "wheat grass" material on the other. Probably a fool parting with their money, but I've been meaning to get something besides the plastics I've always bought/used for years - because these days every time I use a plastic one, I'm thinking about how I'm probably scraping plastic bits into my food.

Probably too late for me in that regard, my generation tended to love plastic/non-stick everything haha, but eh. Maybe at least non-plastic ones will make the daily thought go away. Or I'll start wondering if I'm scraping metal into my food. And no, I don't like wood cutting boards.

[Bartimaeus]

good news: scary tibetan death mask bartimaeus is finally gone

bad news: back on that louise brooks crap again

tangent: i hate circle avatars, they're so much harder to get right compared to square avatars, LC's avatar accurately captures how I feel trying to make circle avatars

Edited December 31, 2025 by Bartimaeus

[Gromnir]

On 12/23/2025 at 2:42 AM, LadyCrimson said:

I spent $60 on a pair (smaller, larger) of "titanium" food cutting boards, because they were on "sale" (Amazon). And popular. They're metal on one side, some solid "wheat grass" material on the other. Probably a fool parting with their money, but I've been meaning to get something besides the plastics I've always bought/used for years - because these days every time I use a plastic one, I'm thinking about how I'm probably scraping plastic bits into my food.

Probably too late for me in that regard, my generation tended to love plastic/non-stick everything haha, but eh. Maybe at least non-plastic ones will make the daily thought go away. Or I'll start wondering if I'm scraping metal into my food. And no, I don't like wood cutting boards.

the harder your cutting surface, the quicker your knives will become dull. am not aware o' a common cutting board material which will dull your blades faster than titanium. metal cutting boards o' any type are annoyingly loud and the surface also tends to be slick to the point o' being dangerous. regardless, the biggest drawback to titanium is the speed with which they will dull your knives.

a thick ( at least 1.5 ") wood board (teak, maple and walnut are all excellent materials... am personal a fan o' teak,) is probable the best all round option, but if you do not like wood, that narrows the field considerable. 

composite and bamboo or other grass boards is not great in our opinion, but japanese rubber boards are an interesting alternative as they do not suffer from the microplastic issue and will not warp when exposed to the heat of a dishwasher the way some plastic boards do... not that am ever personal using the dishwasher to clean a cutting board. rubber boards is also thinner and lighter than wood boards, although they tend to be a smidge thicker than plastic boards as they are manufactured with a rigid wood or composite core. it is worth noting that japanese boards are better suited for japanese knives as 'posed to western a chef knife style which relies on rocking as much as slicing, but they are a nice compromise if you absolute refuse to go with a wood board.

our recollection is that japanese rubber boards tend to be more expensive than wood boards o' the same size, but as an alternative to plastic, they are worth considering.

@Bartimaeus

louise brooks were a tragic enough figure that am thinking the tibetan death mask is less disconcerting by comparison.

curious, whenever we think o' louise brooks, am first recollecting sally bowles from fosse's cabaret

am knowing bartimaeus is not a fan o' musicals, but louise brooks were the inspiration for sally bowles.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited December 31, 2025 by Gromnir

[Sarex]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

good news: scary tibetan death mask bartimaeus is finally gone

bad news: back on that louise brooks crap again

tangent: i hate circle avatars, they're so much harder to get right compared to square avatars, LC's avatar accurately captures how I feel trying to make circle avatars

The circle cutoff takes the picture to another level.

[Bartimaeus]

6 hours ago, Gromnir said:

the harder your cutting surface, the quicker your knives will become dull. am not aware o' a common cutting board material which will dull your blades faster than titanium. metal cutting boards o' any type are annoyingly loud and the surface also tends to be slick to the point o' being dangerous. regardless, the biggest drawback to titanium is the speed with which they will dull your knives.

a thick ( at least 1.5 ") wood board (teak, maple and walnut are all excellent materials... am personal a fan o' teak,) is probable the best all round option, but if you do not like wood, that narrows the field considerable. 

composite and bamboo or other grass boards is not great in our opinion, but japanese rubber boards are an interesting alternative as they do not suffer from the microplastic issue and will not warp when exposed to the heat of a dishwasher the way some plastic boards do... not that am ever personal using the dishwasher to clean a cutting board. rubber boards is also thinner and lighter than wood boards, although they tend to be a smidge thicker than plastic boards as they are manufactured with a rigid wood or composite core. it is worth noting that japanese boards are better suited for japanese knives as 'posed to western a chef knife style which relies on rocking as much as slicing, but they are a nice compromise if you absolute refuse to go with a wood board.

our recollection is that japanese rubber boards tend to be more expensive than wood boards o' the same size, but as an alternative to plastic, they are worth considering.

@Bartimaeus

louise brooks were a tragic enough figure that am thinking the tibetan death mask is less disconcerting by comparison.

curious, whenever we think o' louise brooks, am first recollecting sally bowles from fosse's cabaret

am knowing bartimaeus is not a fan o' musicals, but louise brooks were the inspiration for sally bowles.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Actually, that's very apropos, because this past summer...

I'm funny about musicals: either they're they're great and wonderful...or they're the worst thing I've ever seen in my whole life. I do like my musicals to be more on the diegetic side broadly speaking, and Cabaret is one of the very few 100% diegetic musical movies that I know of, which makes its musical numbers quite lovely (albeit completely insane) to me. Combine that with the lead being loosely based off of Louise Brooks and it's difficult not to automatically like it. It's unfortunate that I don't have any of the two or three quotes from her book as a signature that I had for years right now... I might have to bring them back for the occasion.

I've seen Louise Brooks' "A Girl in Every Port", "Beggars of Life", "Diary of a Lost Girl", "God's Gift to Women", "It's the Old Army Game", "Miss Europe", "Now We're in the Air", "Pandora's Box", "The Canary Murder Case", "The Show Off", and "Windy Riley Goes Hollywood", and despite the fact that most of them are somewhere between bad and terrible (with the major exceptions of the German Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, and to a much lesser extent the American Beggars of Life and French Miss Europe which are alright and at least kind of interesting), they are not terrible because of Louise Brooks and I would love to uncover more of her lost, forgotten, and probably awful movies. I know there are more out there, but they can unfortunately be quite difficult to get a hold of by way of either legal or illegal means.

Not that I'm like...some kind of Louise Brooks turbonerd or superfan or anything...

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

The circle cutoff takes the picture to another level.

It's always a toss-up whether I want to zoom out and get proper framing of the face with the drawback of being too small...or to just get memey with it. I chose memey this time, but I might change my mind later.

Edited December 31, 2025 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

On 12/15/2025 at 10:58 AM, Gorth said:

You need professional help

People have been telling me this for about 30 years, I shall not relent!

[ShadySands]

Spent all day fighting with my AI agents and not in a cool Matrix way. The only bright side is that our jobs are safe for now.

Happy New Year!!!!!

Edited Thursday at 10:29 AM by ShadySands

[Sarex]

Happy new year!

[Raithe]

Enjoy the New Year folks