bluegreen17 | Reading

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

aurumcalendula reported last month that a set of Wiseguy DVDs had a non-working disc. And apparently Warner Bros DVDs made in 2006-2008 will all stop working. Earlier laser disc recordings also had similar issues.

Do you have a lot of DVDs? How long have you been collecting them? Have you run into problems with them? Is it important for you to preserve particular shows?

springsodas posting in

addme

Name: Soda (she/her)

Age: Late 20s

I mostly post about: Artwork, writing, character design and development, whatever shows and/or games I'm currently invested in, the various happenings in my life, any thoughts, feelings, and other ramblings that come to mind

My hobbies are: Illustration, writing, gaming, streaming, collecting comics, merchandise, plushies (I have too many), and stationary

My fandoms are: Main is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003, IDW, and Splintered Fate), casual enjoyer of Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog; I also enjoy a number of various anime, cartoons, comics/manga, and video games that I may mention from time to time.

I'm looking to meet people who: While no specific person comes to mind, as long you're kind and considerate, I'm happy to chat even if our interests don't line up.

My posting schedule tends to be: A bit sporadic, but I usually manage to get one or two posts in a week

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: I prefer to interact with users who are at least 20 or older and will avoid interacting with minors. Not tolerant of bigotry in any form (racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc.) I do, unfortunately, have quite a few major squicks on the fannish front, so if you're posting things like adult/minor pairings and/or incest, I'm going to politely keep my distance.

Before adding me, you should know: I prefer to keep my journal SFW out of personal preference. Neurodivergent (autistic), highly anxious to the point I sometimes delete posts for whatever reason, although I'm trying to be braver about posting my opinions even if they lean more towards the negative and come off as a bit whiny/complainy.

Current Mood: curious

jesse_the_k

My favorite Apple-oriented publication celebrates 36 years and 1800 issues this month. Their well-moderated forum talk.tidbits.com provides excellent tech support for thorny issues. This week I learned about a super-cool article for us old graphic geeks:

How a poster that morphed Hokusai’s Great Wave into The Wave of the Future, showing its original woodblock changing into bitmaps then raytracing was actually created by hand, because in 1981 it would have been too expensive to do it digitally.

ripplestitch posting in

addme

I made this account in 2022 but abandoned it for a while. I feel very new to this! It took me five minutes just to work out how to join and post here 🙃

Name: June, they/them

Age: 30s!

I mostly post about: My knitting and other craft pursuits, my health (it’s kind of bad, guys) in terms of life updates usually, and my solo rpg games, so far. If I talk about food I’ll make it filterable when I work out… how.

I hope I’ll expand as I get a wider social circle. It’s weird to blog at myself.

My hobbies are: Knitting, writing, solo RPG games, cross-stitch, birdwatching (sort of, I most sit by a window while chilling and watch the birds fight over the bird feeder) paper flowers. I’m currently largely housebound, my hobbies are Indoors Things at the moment. When I AM outside in The Beast (my powerchair) I’ll probably spam pictures of the sky and urban pigeons.

My fandoms are: Star Trek (though I’m SO behind on everything new. I watched half of discovery and nothing else since), Dragon Age, Mass Effect. Flight Rising! Terry Pratchett, The Foreigner Series. I don’t spend a huge amount of time posting about those, these days, though.

I’m looking to meet people who are: Kind, open-minded.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Racism, LGBTQ+phobia, Islamophobia, ableism, fatphobia—you get the gist, I hope. If you consider yourself to be ‘a Conservative’ we will probably not get along, let’s save ourselves the bother.

No under 18s, please!

fredhechinger posting in

addme

Name: Eddie

Age: 35

I mostly post about: My life, my cat, Fred Hechinger, Joseph Quinn and different movies/TV. I also write fic/poetry.

My hobbies are: writing, drawing, witchcraft/magick, listening to music, watching TV, and watching movies. Travel, if I had that money.

My fandoms are: Fred Hechinger, Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things, and whatever things are on the back burner. I'm very multifandom.

I'm looking to meet people who: are super cool and chill. Somebody who I can talk to and laugh with, and exchange journal comments with.

My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Close-mindedness. Rudeness.

Before adding me, you should know: I ship "problematic" things. I'm of a time where it was 'ship and let ship' and all was for fun. If you've got an issue with it, please don't add me.

No minors, please. I'm in my thirties, and I post about adult things.

flwyd

The day before I left on a road trip last month I booked my hostel in Cape Town. When I arrived today they asked my name, scanned my passport, let me put my bags in storage, and said to come back at 3pm to check in. I went on a lovely aimless wander through town and returned to the desk. I wasn't on the list of people checking in today. The attendant poked through his computer and said I'd reserved in March, but the email they sent bounced and the number I registered isn't on WhatsApp[1]. I looked at the event I'd created in Google Calendar and saw I'd written "Check email or call to confirm." I'd assumed they were going to send an email during South African working hours, then promptly forgot about this TODO item during a week on the road. Oops.

Fortunately, traveling to Cape Town is more like my memories of Central America and not like modern Amsterdam, at least in shoulder season. I was able to find another hostel with an open room for a week just four blocks away. As expected, dragging my three heavy bags along the sidewalk was workable but not a lot of fun.

Speaking of my three heavy bags, before I bought my Turkish Airlines ticket I noticed their baggage page said carry-on bags are limited to 8kg. I'd never seen or heard of a carryon getting weighed, and it sounded like something a budget airline like Frontier or Spirit would do, not a flag carrier set on making Istanbul one of the busiest airports in the world. A quick Internet search found some Reddit threads with anecdata of cabin luggage not getting weighed, so I bought the ticket and mostly forgot about this limit. When I arrived at DEN (3 hours early, thankfully) the Star Alliance agent told me to weigh my carry-on first. Uh-oh. My clever packing plan had been to put my whole portable ham radio backpack in a wheelie bag, plus a change of underwear and some card games and small electronics in a big pocket. I knew this would be way more than 8kg because I'd tested the backpack radio kit on a short walk and it's heavy. (I have a lighter option, but I'm worried I'll need 45 watts to get my signal somewhere with enough hams to chase me for the magical 10 QSOs POTA target.) Fortunately there are luggage scales around the corner from the check-in counter, so I spent 45 minutes experimentally moving about 23 lbs from one suitcase to my two checked bags (each with about 5 lbs of spare weight) and my backpack, which has a width-expanding zipper. The next agent cheerfully weighed my exactly-8kg bag and checked my two exactly-50kg bags and handed me a baggage tag for my backpack without visually inspecting that it was clearly too big to fit under an airplane seat. As soon as I was out of eyesight I moved my camera bag, card games, and pockets full of granola bars back to the carry-on, knowing the gate agents have better things to do than weigh everyone's bags before they get on the plane.

I'm now going to be super aware of any objects I acquire on this trip. I'll obviously eat all the snacks, and gifting a lot of metal buttons will clear up some weight. But I'm also going to receive gifts, plus my AfrikaBurn shirt and hat. Hopefully my last lodging has a bathroom scale… or the CPT ticket agents are more chill.

8 kilograms is remarkably light for a carry-on. I was down to a mostly-empty backpack, a medical infejection pen, a folder with a dozen pieces of paper, and a fluffy pillow. I don't think I've ever had a bag this light on a plane, except my return trip from China when I put an erhu in a cardboard box in the bin. My empty suitcase probably weighs a kilo on its own. The rest of the flight experience was fine, but needing to leave a big void in my carry-on makes me not want to fly Turkish again. My lithium batteries aren't allowed in checked bags, so it makes no sense to require me to put them under the seat in a backpack while packing bulky light items like pillows in a hard-to-reach spot. Judging by the amount of space in the overhead bins they made a lot of money on extra bag fees, though perhaps they lost out on selling extra freight space.

[1] In much of the world, WhatsApp has largely replaced the open phone system because Wi-Fi and mobile data are cheaper than SMS, particularly internationally.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: Long Street Hostel
Current Music: DJ mix in the bar

feurioo posting in

tv_talk

Assortment of black and white speech bubbles

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?

glowingfish posting in

addme

I made a post in this community at the beginning of 2025, and now, we are getting close to the middle of 2026, so maybe I should post again.

I don't see a specific reason to use the template, as this will be quick...

46, Male, United States, I post once or twice a week on average. I don't have any contentious beliefs or opinions, and my journal is mostly personal notes, with a few thoughts maybe about the world and culture. I am not heavily into any of the "fandoms", but might make a comment or two on related things.

I don't really have any specific "types" I am looking to follow on here, although journals that are too contentious and difficult might not be what I am looking for. Adult content is okay, as long as it is not totally pornographic, and also behind a cut. I am looking to build up a community in general.

jo posting in

tv_talk

Noah Wyle gave a really interesting (and long!) interview to GQ. The original is paywalled so I've provided an archived link.

WARNING: It contains spoilers for the season 2 finale, so if you've not watched it yet, or are only part-way through season 2 or whatever, proceed at your own risk.

This one section really caught my attention (does not contain spoilers):

“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience."

I hadn't even noticed that there's no music! And it is true that The Pitt is one of the shows that I pay full attention to while watching -- never occurred to me that the absence of music might be partly behind that.

juushika

( Wow Juu that's a lot of themed books; any particular reason? )

Reading these as research makes me an ungracious reader, focused on utility over craft. So I'm shoving these together, with apologies. Recording names as they appear on covers, also with apologies.

Title: Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Author: Cathy Park Hong
Narrator: Cathy Park Hong
Published: Random House Audio, 2020
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 567,855
Text Number: 2149
Read Because: as above; audiobook through the Multnomah County Library & listened while repainting the new (read: last year's remodeled) trim in the bathroom to match the rest of the trim in the bathroom (the remodel guys cut corners) (did the effort of paint patching and tediously doing the most finicky painting work imaginable to alter the trim by one (1) shade and level of gloss pay off? you bet your ass it did; bathroom looks great now)
Review: This starts broad, which isn't the same thing as generalized, and then moves local, to specific case studies from the author's personal life and otherwise; all circling themes of marginalized experience with specific conditional privileges and social expectations, "minor feelings" as a mirror to racist mircoaggressions. Compelling, selfish, pretentious, righteously ungrateful—I found this useful in its limited capacity; the narrowing perspective is indicative, the limitations and bias borne of one private life even when the intent is intersectional.

Title: The Best We Could Do
Author: Thi Bui
Published: Abrams ComicArts, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 568,185
Text Number: 2150
Read Because: as above, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Starting in the present, then cycling backwards: a generational memoir of a family of Taiwanese refugees. In the introduction, the author discusses turning this into a graphic novel in order to make the narrative more accessible; a good call. I like the faces but don't think this is doing anything especially interesting with the medium, and the panels fall apart in action sequences, particularly the boat journey; but accessible, that it is, human and emotive and less talky than it would be as straight text, effectively nesting narrations, allowing interview and first person account to exist immediately and in conversation, the graphic novel's brevity forcing the syntheses to be short and intense. "This—not any particular part of Vietnamese culture—is my inheritance: the inexplicable need and extraordinary ability to run when shit hits the fan."

(This is where I learned about the Chinese occupation of northern Vietnam, 1945–1946; the author's paternal grandmother immigrated from Vietnam to China when the Chinese withdrew, which is a detail I'm borrowing from the other side.)

Title: The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Niú péng zá yì, Memories of the Cowshed)
Author: Ji Xianlin
Translator: Chenxing Jiang
Published: New York Review Books, 2016 (1998)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 215
Total Page Count: 568,400
Text Number: 2151
Read Because: as above, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Minus the inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust*, I appreciate Zha Jianying's introduction: a little useful context, but, moreso, contextualizing the tone, which is sardonic and dismissive even when recounting intimate suffering and humiliation, a distinctive coping mechanism that I keep finding in survivor testimony of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Between the introductions and the afterword, this is a slight, repetitive text; I don't mind, as the repetition helps it sink in, a private horror of limited scope set within a cultural travesty so large it all but defies comprehension.

( * )

Title: Red Scarf Girl
Author: Ji-li Jiang
Published: HarperTrophy, 2010 (1997)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 285
Total Page Count: 568,685
Text Number: 2152
Read Because: as above, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This achieves its aims of exploring the malleable, manipulated overlap of being a young girl at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution; it's what I needed to read to internalize the social forces at play. Propaganda, conformity, and shame are a potent combination, and the resulting persistent anxiety sits alongside the quiet mundanity of daily life. The particularly limited scope and middle grade voice/audience is constraining, but I'm not reading this in isolation so I don't care.

Title: Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
Author: Tania Branigan
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 568,990
Text Number: 2153
Read Because: as above, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I came to this with specific questions raised by Chinese Cultural Revolution memoirs and Wikipedia, and one by one found all answered. Doubtless this isn't the only book on the subject that could do so, but I was particularly curious about the Revolution's long shadow, so appreciate that focus here. The balance of human interest to history and cultural trend is off, the history delivered piecemeal and the larger trends promised mostly on the basis of "just trust me." This invites a contrarian impulse to contest the author's personal judgments of each human interest story's authenticity and validity; a counterproductive impulse, when the Revolution was defined by destabilization and complicity, when victim and perpetrator so often shifted and overlapped. But the general thrust is towards that nuance, discomforted by answers which are authentic in their inadequacy:

( Quotes. )

Current Music: Pretty Saro - Munly J Munly

flwyd

In a few hours I'll be on an airplane en route to Cape Town for AfrikaBurn, South Africa's regional Burning Man event. On the way back I'll be taking a couple weeks in Benelux so I can get in my Burning Man ranger training in Amsterdam and check out some old art and old crafts in the Low Countries. You can vicariously view my adventures in this shared photo album, and I'll try to post here a time or two.

My parents spent three months backpacking in Europe in 1972, and have been telling stories about the trip for over 50 years. Not only would they not be physically able to take that same trip now, many of the experiences they had are no longer available: 2020s Europe is a very different place than 1970s Europe.

As I've been preparing for this trip I've been recalling the trip Molly and I took to Guatemala and Honduras in 2009. Besides buying round-trip plane tickets and reading the Lonely Planet, we hadn't made any plans for our nine week trip. The first night we planned out a route with approximate times in each town. We'd get off the bus in a new place and walk to a LP-recommended hostel and say "Hi, we'd like a room for a few nights." Cell phones were abundant, but smartphones hadn't yet made much headway in Latin America, so everything was very face-to-face. Every week or so we'd check in at an Internet café or the shared computer in a hostel to check email and share a rambling travelogue with friends.

Fast forward a decade and a half, and travel planning is way more front-loaded. Every detail of a trip can be booked online in advance, though I've tried to only book things that I'll be very upset if I don't have, like lodging and tickets to key destinations. Today you can't just show up to the Rijksmuseum, buy a ticket, and check out the paintings. You need to book a specific time slot, several days in advance. If you're not feeling well, or it's a beautiful day and you'd rather go to the beach, too bad: you won't be able to go to the museum tomorrow. I had to put together a spreadsheet with two activities per day for two weeks in Benelux, two months in advance. I made sure to leave a couple open spots for spontaneity.

In 2009 Molly said "As long as you've got your passport and your toothbrush you're good to go." Smartphones have now become the other key travel item. Visiting a museum? Show the QR code on your phone. Need a taxi? Order an Uber on your phone. Buying food? Tap to pay on your phone. If my phone gets stolen, I'm not even sure I'll be able to find a desktop computer so I can organize a response. (This scenario is why I don't have two-factor on my GMail account: I want to go from "everything was stolen" to "I can send an email for help.") Molly and my late-20s travel instincts of carefully guarding a debit card and occasionally withdrawing cash at a secure bank ATM is going to feel awkward in Europe where websites keep telling me they don't even accept cash.

As I age, I also seem to acquire stuff that I need to carry around. In 2009 I brought a regular backpack and a hand bag of clothes; Molly just had a regular backpack. (I had a DSLR camera and socks, neither of which Molly brought.) When I packed my bags this week I discovered that my mental packing on the big suitcase was spot on, but it was way over the 50 pound limit. So now I'll be dragging three suitcases and a backpack over cobbled streets in old cities. One for camping and sleeping gear at AfrikaBurn, one for clothes and useful items, one for ham radio gear. The backpack's still got a DSLR, because even though smartphones have become our key digital items, travel photos with a proper camera body and lens just feel different.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: Element Hall for a few more minutes
Current Music: getting ready for gqom

feurioo posting in

tv_talk

Watch on YouTube

College dropout and aspiring writer, Margo (Elle Fanning), is the daughter of an ex-Hooter’s waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) and ex-pro wrestler (Nick Offerman). After an affair with her junior college English professor leaves her pregnant, Margo turns to OnlyFans to support herself. Reconnecting with her estranged father, who shares wisdom gleaned from his wrestling, Margo achieves remarkable success. This David E. Kelley series also stars Marcia Gay Harden, Greg Kinnear, Michael Angarano, Rico Nasty, and Lindsey Normington.

Now on Apple TV.

yourlibrarian posting in

tv_talk

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

The

3weeks4dreamwidth event is gearing up again, running from April 25 to May 15. Organizers are collecting ideas for events that can be held at different communities. You can see last year's kickoff post for more information.

Have any of you participated before? How do you think

tv_talk might contribute to celebrating Dreamwidth’s 17th year?

jesse_the_k

I attended minoanmiss’s online memorial yesterday afternoon. It was strengthening to share our sorrow. Witnessing the depth of our online connections bolstered my resilience. The children she co-raised loved her and knew her. I’ll link to the recording when it’s public.

~~One mourner~~ werpiper worked in public health for 40 years, and made it very clear that

minoanmiss had asymptomatic COVID which caused her death
that wasn’t documented in the hospital record and there’s almost zero chance to change that
many people are still dying due to COVID, which is systematically not being reported
continuing to mask is a fundamental contribution we can make to the health of our communities

The full text is at archiveofourown.org/works/82932386

There were lovely stories and slides and recipes — a poem and a song in the cut.

( Every Land and Acts of Creation )

ETA 21 April 26 to add in werpiper's pseud and text

denise posting in

dw_maintenance

I keep forgetting to post about this: we've been troubleshooting the "missing notifications" problem for the past few days. (Well, I say "we", really I mean Mark and Robby; I'm just the amanuensis.) It's been one of those annoying loops of "find a logical explanation for what could be causing the problem, fix that thing, observe that the problem gets better for some people but doesn't go away completely, go back to step one and start again", sigh.

Mark is hauling out the heavy debugging ordinance to try to find the root cause. Once he's done building all the extra logging tools he needs, he'll comment to this entry. After he does, if you find a comment that should have gone to your inbox and sent an email notification but didn't, leave him a link to the comment that should have sent the notification, as long as the comment itself was made after Mark says he's collecting them. (I'd wait and post this after he gets the debug code in but I need to go to sleep and he's not sure how long it will take!)

We're sorry about the hassle! Irregular/sporadic issues like this are really hard to troubleshoot because it's impossible to know if they're fixed or if they're just not happening while you're looking. With luck, this will give us enough information to figure out the root cause for real this time.

feurioo posting in

tv_talk

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?

feurioo posting in

tv_talk

Watch on YouTube

This is either his big break or his last shot. An actor in London (Riz Ahmed) suffers an existential crisis while auditioning for the role of James Bond. Now on Prime Video.

shehiemal posting in

addme

Name: Rhi, rhymes with sea, she/her

Age: early 30s

I mostly post about: Probably mostly books I read, music, fandom, and for the foreseeable future my much-planned writing project of noir biofuturistic middle-aged vampire lesbian erotica

My hobbies are: Writing, reading, music, being in nature (not "hiking" because I'm disabled but ykwim), watching video game letsplays

My fandoms are: Arthuriana, Skyrim, Baldur's Gate 3, Dragon Age (the first two), Homer, Dracula, Nero Wolfe, TTRPGs in general, a lot of random books

I'm looking to meet people who: I might gravitate toward accounts that also post about books, or post fandom meta...post about music...but I like hearing from people who have interests different from mine, too, as long as everyone's on a similar page on humans respecting each other as covered in the dealbreakers question :p

My posting schedule tends to be: Probably less than once a day and more than once a week

When I add people, my dealbreakers are:
My journal is 18+ only.
Bigotry including but not limited to racism, transphobia, ablism, sexism, or religious intolerance (including weirdos who hate atheists).
Strongly believing there is such a thing as "good art" and "bad art." Using "sees nuance" to mean "agrees with me."

Before adding me, you should know: I also have an Intro post here

feurioo posting in

tv_talk

Watch on YouTube

Now on Netflix.

Two directionless siblings are blackmailed into the world of organized crime. Starring Dan Levy, Taylor Ortega, Laurie Metcalf.

Profile

bluegreen17

February 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
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15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28

Page Summary

yourlibrarian in tv_talk - TV Tuesday: Long Term Preservation
springsodas in addme - New AddMe for Spring 2026!
jesse_the_k - boost: Hand-drawn Digital Artwork
ripplestitch in addme - Hi!!
fredhechinger in addme - Hello, it's me.
flwyd - When traveling, always check the fine print
feurioo in tv_talk - Speak Up Saturday
glowingfish in addme - I have been on here for over a year, so time to add more friends!
jo in tv_talk - Attention Pitt Fans! Interview with Noah Wyle
juushika - Book Reviews: Minor Feelings, The Best We Could Do, The Cowshed, Red Scarf Girl, Red Memory
flwyd - You don't just visit a place, you visit a time
feurioo in tv_talk - Margo's Got Money Troubles Trailer
yourlibrarian in tv_talk - TV Tuesday: Gathering Ideas
jesse_the_k - Strength within Sorrow: minoanmiss’s Online Memorial
denise in dw_maintenance - The case of the missing notifications
feurioo in tv_talk - Speak Up Saturday
feurioo in tv_talk - Bait Trailer
shehiemal in addme - (no subject)
feurioo in tv_talk - Big Mistakes Trailer

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life's rich pageant

Reading

TV Tuesday: Long Term Preservation

New AddMe for Spring 2026!

boost: Hand-drawn Digital Artwork

Hi!!

Hello, it's me.

When traveling, always check the fine print

Speak Up Saturday

I have been on here for over a year, so time to add more friends!

Attention Pitt Fans! Interview with Noah Wyle

Book Reviews: Minor Feelings, The Best We Could Do, The Cowshed, Red Scarf Girl, Red Memory

You don't just visit a place, you visit a time

Margo's Got Money Troubles Trailer

TV Tuesday: Gathering Ideas

Strength within Sorrow: minoanmiss’s Online Memorial

The case of the missing notifications

Speak Up Saturday

Bait Trailer

(no subject)

Big Mistakes Trailer

Profile

February 2026

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