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1) The past two days have been occupied. Yesterday we both had things to deal with after returning home -- plants to be seen to, laundry to be done, mail to be answered, etc.

Aside from completing the roof repair in just a day, maintenance brought us a dehumidifier to run. The first one worked for a while but then started leaking on the floor. We were able to get someone from maintenance just before they left for the day, and after they looked at it they just brought us a new one. ( Read more... )

2) After watching the first half hour of Canada versus Bosnia ( Read more... )

As far as the US versus Paraguay goes, ( Read more... )

Switzerland vs Qatar was interesting to me mostly in how it would affect Canada. ( Read more... )

3) Earlier in the week I saw the Pixar film "Hoppers." I found it a mixed bag. ( Read more... )

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regshoe

Book meme borrowed from

phantomtomato.

General Questions

This week I'm reading: Just finished The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, about which I have mixed feelings. I'm not sure what to start next; options are a femslashy boarding school book, a(nother) non-fiction book on women sailors and Michelle Paver's Wakenhyrst.
My favourite book of all time is: Oh, you know... :)
My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): Best book of the last three months was The Celestial Omnibus by E. M. Forster, and I am pleased to remember I have The Eternal Moment still to read at some point.
The last book I bought was: The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.
The first book I bought with my own money: I do not remember; thinking of my taste around the time I started buying things independently, it may well have been one of the twentieth-century domestic middlebrow-type authors.
The first book I received as a gift: Definitely too long ago for me to remember!
The last book I received as a gift was:

edwardianspinsteraunt surprised me with A Schoolgirl Adventurer: A Story of the '45 by Dorothea Moore, which is a very funny concept. Interested to see if this is the het version of White Cockades which it kind of looks like.
The last book I borrowed from the library: The above-mentioned Wakenhyrst. I live near a county boundary and am therefore fortunate to have access to two local library systems; one of them said it was on the shelves at the branch nearest me, but I couldn't find it there, so I reserved it in the other one.
The book physically closest to me right now: On the floor on either side of my chair are Concise Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Martin Townsend, Paul Waring and Richard Lewington and From Cabin 'Boys' to Captains: 250 Years of Women at Sea by Jo Stanley.
Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic? I don't think so. Books set in bookshops always seem a bit suspiciously cutesy-sounding to me, but perhaps I'm being unfair.

This or that

Physical book or e-book: Physical book for the reading experience. Ebooks are a good way of getting to read obscure out-of-copyright books for free.
Used or new: I know 'second-hand' isn't always strictly accurate (I own some books bearing evidence of having been sold more than once before I bought them, as well as a few old enough to be virtually certain to have had more than one previous owner), but I don't like the term 'used' applied to books. Books aren't tools. Anyway, second-hand.
Fiction or non-fiction: Fiction.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Coffee shop. I will get distracted by natural history at the park.
Paperback or hardcover: My ideal book format is a hardback, but it's a very rare and now virtually extinct type of hardback (I have three perfect examples on my shelves, none much less than a hundred years old, and maybe a dozen 'almost's). I prefer the average paperback to the average hardback.
Romance or Crime: *E. W. Hornung voice* Why not both? ;) (Serious answer, I'm not particularly into either genre, though I occasionally enjoy both gay historical romance and murder mysteries.)

Yes or no

Stream of consciousness? No.
Poetry? Yes to the old-fashioned kind with some structure and metre (one stereotypically says 'the kind that rhymes'; rhyme is good, but I don't need it—I like Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon-style alliterative poetry and Shakespeare's non-rhyming iambic pentameter—I do need metre). No to more modern free verse, which can be very beautiful in its language but which my literal-mindedness struggles to keep up with.
Memoirs? Not really.
Philosophy? I like a bit of philosophy in fiction, and sometimes read sort of philosophical-theological religious books, but not philosophy books as such, no.
Thrillers? Usually no.
Chronicles? Like, the kind of fantasy books that have 'The Chronicles of...' in the series title? Yeah, OK. I have not read the actual Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or anything like that.
Dialogue heavy? All right, but I prefer more narration.

yourlibrarian

1) We were taken mostly off guard when last night our building was hit by a tornado, part of a large damaging storm system than went through several states. From what we'd heard beforehand, the storm wouldn't be much different from many thunderstorms in recent months, although admittedly there had already been several near misses with tornadoes. But as an example, our tornado sirens went off 10 minutes later, after the worst had already passed us. (Other areas were yet to be hit, and the sirens are all linked).

We were warned by an alarming high wind gust, took the best shelter we have at our place (which is not great) and then heard two big bangs. Our local NPR station didn't interrupt the broadcast until five minutes after that and it was an automated NWS alert. By the time our local meteorologist came on, he said the storm was already through the city and on its way to smaller places east of us. Today he said that yesterday will go down as one of the most intense severe weather days he ever covered and he'd lost count of how many large, damaging tornadoes he saw. ( Read more... )

2) The World Cup is back! For readers that don't know, I'm not a sports watcher but the men's and women's Cups are an exception. Although I do enjoy seeing good soccer being played, this is largely a family tradition issue. I don't want to invest the time in following teams and championships, but as exhausting as the quantity of content is for the first few weeks, I can do it every few years.

Things kicked off with Mexico vs South Africa. ( Read more... )

South Korea vs Czechia ( Read more... )

3) Spotify removed thousands of podcasts promoting online prescription drug sales "Spotify told investigators that 94% of the phony podcasts had never been streamed and 99% had fewer than 10 streams, which the platform defines as listening sessions longer than 30 seconds. But a handful had been listened to more widely, including two totaling almost 13,000 streams that directed users to buy the prescription stimulant modafinil online, including with bitcoin."

Poll #34722 Kudos Footer-583

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ysabetwordsmith posting in

followfriday

Got any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".

Current Mood: busy

rugessnome

a reading questionnaire nicked from

phantomtomato