The Game Of Thrones 4K/UHD screencaps gallery will very, very likely be deleted at the beginning of March. So download everything you want on the 28th of February at the latest!
Here’s a tutorial on how to mass download Coppermine album by album.
Author: intothisshadow
Categories Blog Memes & Asks Personal
Friday 5 for February 11: Everything possibly worth knowing about a person
Answers to f.riday5.com today’s questions.
1. Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?
In the mid-80s when I was a kid, I asked Anneli Saaristo, a Finnish singer, for her autograph.
2. What do you think happens when we die?
Nothing at all. We just cease to exist.
3. What’s your favorite action movie?
I can’t decide between The Terminator and The Last Of The Mohicans. One of those two!
4. What’s your favorite smell?
Fresh, still hot from the oven home baked bread/rolls/buns.
5. Exercise: worth it?
Not in my experience. Nope.
Categories Blog Memes & Asks Personal
The Friday Five for 11 February 2022
Image from Pixabay.
I can’t believe it’s Friday already! Where did the week go?! Answers to today’s questions The Friday Five @ Dreamwidth.
1. What’s your favorite candle scent?
Unscented. I don’t burn candles myself so I don’t have much experience with them, but my Mom likes to burn them during December and she likes unscented ones. Sometimes she burns scented ones she was gifted, and I think maybe vanilla or citrus were okay if I remember right (as long as the smell isn’t overpowering). But usually when I’m around she burns unscented ones because many artificial smells are too strong/smelly for me and she’s not a fan either.
2. Do you have an artistic or crafty hobby? What is it?
Yes! Many! I play around in Photoshop making fandom wallpapers but also digital papers and textures. I used to make icons too but haven’t made those in years now. I used to make WinAmp skins, and still make FocusWriter themes. I write fanfic and original fic, I do fluid art with acrylic paints (acrylic pouring) and alcohol inks. I paint with watercolors, both drawings I’ve done myself and color-ins I’ve printed from the internet. I also occasionally do some adult coloring book coloring. I make (simple) notebooks with Tomoe River paper for my fountain pen use, and also do some playing/painting/drawing with fountain pen inks on them. I still bake some, sometimes once a week other times once a month but it’s something I enjoy so I try to do it more often than less. I also keep a log of my illnesses’ symptoms to track them and that’s so boring to do, that I love to pretty every page of that diary with stickers, washi tape and doodles.
3. What’s one weird way you save money on food?
I guess: not eating. I have a lot of trouble with appetite, have been for a decade now… namely I don’t have an appetite, even when I feel hunger. I’m trying to be better about eating (eating regularly, having a proper meal instead of a cookies etc.) but yeah, when I’m even more exhausted than normally and that happens a lot, I tend to skip meals without really noticing it because I just never feel like eating. Everything tastes right, I just never have an appetite. And when I have a proper meal, I usually lose interest in it about halfway through and eating it feels like work. Apparently not having an appetite is a usual feature of Crohn’s Disease, judging from my peer’s experiences. I don’t know that it truly saves money though – the last 14 months I’ve been mainly buying ready-to-heat meals because I’m too exhausted to cook, or don’t feel like cooking. Candies and chocolate, and salty things like potato chips go down easier than proper food and they don’t feel like work because I love the taste, so between those ready meals and the sweets, I propably don’t actually save at all compared to the kind of foods I used to eat before I got sick. Back then I rarely bought ready meals and used to cook my own food. I used to do meal planning and prep for the week ahead, and I miss those times. Now I rarely have spoons enough to that, but when I do I LOVE it that I have something home cooked to eat for the entire week. Because home cooked food so so much better than store-bought ready meals.
4. Do you collect anything weird or unusual?
I’ve always been considered kind of weird since I was a kid just because I have always collected something, although thinking on it I’m not sure if it was actually because what I collected was considered a boy thing. As a kid, it was X-Men, Star Trek and John Carter comics. I also collected sticks and pebbles.
These days I collect fanfic, fountain pens and inks (I actively use them though), and I’m somewhat into paper – I have several notebooks I haven’t yet started using, and several of LotusBluBookArt’s drawing/writing journals that I haven’t started yet. I intend to use them all though! I’m just slow and it might take a decade or two. I also love pretty handmade art journals/books that are for watercoloring and/or mixed media (they’re expensive 50-300 euros or more), but I don’t really own any of those except for one or two thin ones that I’m already using. About a year ago I discevered (MU print-on) stickers and that and washi tape are something I easily could end up buying LOADS of unless I’m careful. I keep pen and stationery things purchases sensible and well within my budget, no matter how much I might want to buy ALL THE THINGS.
5. Do you fear the deep ocean, or does its unknown depths excite you?
I don’t fear the deep ocean itself but when I was a kid, whenever I swam in not!swimming pool and something (a weed under water where I couldn’t see it) would brush against me, I would freak out – as in, fly out of the water to the beach/pier freak out. I haven’t swam in an ocean since I became an adult and I’m 100% sure I would still freak out if a weed touched me under water where I can’t see it. I never thought it was anything other than a seaweed but for some reason it touching me freaks me out, and to tell you the truth, I’d propably freak out even if it was a weed brushing against me in a damn swimming pool. So that’s what I fear, but not the ocean itself. The unknown depths theoretically excite me, in books/movies etc., but in real life I’m not interested in exploring myself.
Health Update – Ajovy
Image from Pixabay.
I’ve now been using Ajovy, the new biological migraine prevention injection, for 6 weeks. I’ve given myself two shots (1 shot every 4 weeks). It’s very easy – it’s a injection pen, so just need to press the pen firmly against my belly or thigh. The needle stings a tiny bit going in but I hardly feel it although I’ve seen other users complaining about it? Maybe I just have had worse pains to deal with so that compared to them the pen is nothing. It certainly is like nothing compared to my migraine (or Crohn’s pains when they were worse).
My neurologist uses the following criterion to categorize migraine pain:
Intensity level #1 – Mild pain, you notice it but it doesn’t stop you from doing anything.
Intensity level #2 – Moderate/severe pain, lessens/stops you entirely from doing things (often mandatory things like work are done because you need money to live, but more voluntary things like seeing friends, cooking yourself or vacuuming can go on a break for weeks/months.
Intensity level #3 – Migraine attack. You can’t do anything but be sick from the pain, and have to rest/puke/be in dark etc. until it goes away.
The good news is that in January I only had 3 actual migraine attacks (level 3) 😀 Compared to 8-9 level 3 attacks a month I had previously, that’s good! Bad news is that it hasn’t improved my daily headache much – I still have a “background” headache every day (levels 1-2), but Ajovy seems to have made it so that the intensity of them varies a lot more now than at least all of 2021. In January, of the non-migraine-attack-days, about half was level 1 and half level 2, while previously the whole of 2021, the background headache was pretty much always at level 2. So now I’m keeping fingers and toes crossed that Ajovy continues to work, and gently wishing that maybe it’ll even keep improving its effects as time goes on. But even if it only stays as-is, it’s still an improvement to what was.
Although I don’t know if it’s enough to be able to work again, I’d have to go into rehabilitation again to see how outside home, full-day commitment even one day a week and the stress of being around noise and other people affect the migraine in this new situation. The last time I tried, even one day a week, I ended up with migraine attacks on 2-3 times a week and on sick leave for a year because migraine got so bad again but then I had no Ajovy which may or may not make a difference. So I’m living exciting times for the next several months and have a little bit of hope again 😀
Also, I just counted today, that the longest time I went, since starting Ajovy, without a migraine attack was 18 days!! I haven’t had that long an interval since the migraine became chronic in 2008!! I had a couple of really bad level 2 days in there, but no attack so it counts!
The neurologist will call me on the 21st of March, and that’s when we’ll see if Ajovy has been effective enough to apply for continuation from KELA. Fingers crossed!
Categories Blog Fountain Pens & Ink
Pottering Around With Fountain Pen Ink
Jinhao X750 Rose Gold, one of my favorite fountain pens. Image by unknown.
One of the first ink samples I ever got was KWZ’s Brown Pink, which all the reviews I’ve seen say is either wet or medium wet. My experience with it is that it’s dry – every pen I’ve ever tried it on, hard starts with it 😥 Even in my trusty Jinhao X750 with an M nib which even my dry inks have loved, and that has worked awesomely with all the other inks I’ve tried it with. But when I put Brown Pink in it, only hard starts and never gets going well.
I’ve read a lot of advice to add some White Lightning by Vanness to improve ink flow. I’d love to try White Lightning, but Vanness is a US shop and while they also have two inks I’m salivating after, shipping from US is crazy expensive and will also require VAT to be paid once the package arrives to Finland, making an already expensive purchase even more so. It’s just not cost effective in any way. So Vanness and White Lightning are right out!
Many also say that you can do the same with Dawn dish soap – well, we don’t have Dawn but from looks of it, it like our Fairy and others like it. I decided to try the only colorless (because I’m not sure if Dish is colorless or yellow like Fairy) liquid dish soap my grocery store does have. I figured even if the experiment fails, nothing would be lost but a about one milliliter of troublesome ink that I’d likely throw out anyway because it just. won’t. work. And if the pen doesn’t like it, well, it’s just a cheap Jinhao X750 so it’s not a huge loss either. I paid like 3,5USD for it and can always buy more if necessary. And dish soap is what can be used to clean out fountain pens too, so it shouldn’t do anything to it.
So the other day I injected some Brown Pink into an empty vial (which I had nicely handy from other already used up ink samples) with a blunt syringe, took a tooth pick and stirred it in the dish soap a couple of times, and then stirred the ink with it well. Then I injected the ink back into the Jinhao converter again with a syringe and low and behold, it started writing after a few seconds! The Jinhao X750 + Brown Pink ink combo work great now, even after a couple of days sitting in the pen, no more hard starts 🙂 I was very close to throwing the ink out so now I’m glad I won’t have to! It’s not a favorite ink as far as color goes and I’m not sure whether the dish soap changes it or anything, but I won’t mind using it all up over time. I might also try the Brown Pink + dish soap procedure with some other pens of mine, just to see if it works for them too.