Tag: meme & asks


Jul 12, 2024
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intothisshadow

The Friday Five for 12 July 2024

The Friday Five for 12 July 2024

Answers to today’s questions over at thefridayfive @ DW

1. Are you good at fixing things?

I’m good at fixing and upgrading computers and laptops. I’m also pretty good at software problem solving, or figuring out how to do some thing on the computer that I want to do – such as make screencaps from 4K HDR videos, or way back when, figuring out how to deinterlace DVDs with minimal loss of quality while screencapping them.

I can also muddle through simple repairs on my clothes – fix holes in socks and shorten pants but that’s about it. I’m also hampered by not owning a sewing machine so things like shortening pants always require a lot of planning because I have to go over to my Mom’s to use hers and I only have to do it like once every 5 years so I’ve always forgotten most of it, so it’s not routine or even very familiar process to me. As far as clothes repairs go… the operative word is muddle!

One of the reasons I can’t try and learn to fix things is that I don’t have the proper tools. A big reason why I can do the computer stuff is that I only needed to buy a few small screw drivers that didn’t cost a lot. All the tools like a sewing machine or a drilling machine with all their required parts cost hundreds of euros that I either don’t have, or am reluctant to use my little tax return on them just because I might need one like once every four years. I’ve heard that libraries have sewing machines to loan now (or is it that you can go use one in the library?)  and that’s interesting, and possibly good option. But if they’re as heavy as my Mom’s, you’d need a car to transport it – it’s too heavy to transport by bus. And I don’t have a car. So that’s a minus. But it’s something I’ve kept in mind for the next time I’ll need a sewing machine.

2. What kinds of things can you fix?

I’ve upgraded RAM, hard drives and SSD drives to my laptops. When I had a desktop computers, I did all those plus also added cd-rom drives, dvd-drives and secondary hard drives to my setup. I wanted to upgrade the mother board on my next-to-last desktop computer too but that would have meant upgrading all the other parts as well and getting a new chassis and I wasn’t entirely sure I would know to choose parts that all played well together; I didn’t have quite that much knowledge/experience. So I ended up just buying a brand new desktop instead because the old one was starting to be too slow to easily run my programs such as Photoshop.

3. Is there anyone in your family who is good at fixing things?

I’m not sure but I think my Dad was – he was good in math and spatial thinking, I think is the word, and he built some few furniture for our camping needs. I think being able to build things like that probably meant he could fix them as well! And in the 1980s our family’s car was a Lada – I do remember Dad doing everything the car needed himself as far as he could but that was something everyone did because cars back then were built in a way that you could do much yourself. Oh, and Dad was a welder so I’m sure he could have fixed a lot of things!

My Mom’s SO is also good at math and spatial thinking – until recently, he literally always had some project under work! He’d build a brand new thing or fix a thing needed fixing, such as a sliding door that refused to slide smoothly. For me, when I had a mouse problem, he took up the floor of kitchen cabinet where the trash bin etc. is because the mice came up from somewhere under there, and did… stuff… there that blocked the mice from coming in. It’s been about 20 years and the fix is still working! He also built a sturdy, wide wooden step for my back door – the drop to ground was too high without so built one in a day! Until recently, Mom’s SO always needed to have a project either in planning stages or actually under work – it is actually one of the reasons why they have never lived in a apartment building because he couldn’t have projects there and he’d go stir-crazy. It’s also one of the reasons why they had a summer cottage for many years – the SO could always have a project to improve it, and they both loved growing potatoes, carrots, onions etc. and having a lot of different berry bushes the products of which they’d either make into a juice or freeze for the winter. The SO is now 84 and has been diagnosed in early stages of dementia, and while he still likes to do stuff, he tires too easily to do like before and has to rest a lot.

4. Has anyone ever taught you how to fix things?

A little, I guess. I taught all the computer stuff to myself. But I know the sewing etc. classes at school had to teach us how to mend clothes but I don’t actually remember any of it. I mean I know some things, but I can’t remember where/who I learned them from? I know Mom taught me how to shorten my pants.

I really wish my Dad had been alive when I moved on my own. He would have taught me things like drilling a hole in the wall to hang things etc. He was a good and patient teacher (he taught me math because the match teachers failed me at school once we went beyond the fundamental arithmetic operations). Mom’s SO is good at building and fixing things, but he doesn’t really like to teach and also he speaks unclearly – I only started to understand everything he was saying after he retired and started to be at home much more than until then so I saw much more of him and my ears could get used to his way of speaking (he worked a three-shift job a couple of towns away and was away at work at least half of each month altogether and those years I wouldn’t even see him every month depending on how his schedule was). And anyway, our relationship isn’t one I could have asked him to teach me.

5. What was the last thing that broke in your home?

The last thing I remember for sure, was the washing machine a couple of years ago. It was 25 years old already so we didn’t even think about fixing it but bought a new one outright.

I guess one of the last things to “break” is the lock nest in my bedroom door. One of the screws has a tendency to become loose and stay in place just by a thread or two. I screwed it back in, like I always do.



Jul 5, 2024
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intothisshadow

Friday 5 for July 4: No intersection

Today’s questions over at f.riday5.com

 

1. When did you last read a physical issue of a magazine?

It’s a toss up between a newspaper in the library two weeks ago or the customer magazine my local grocery chain releases every month. One or the other.

2. If someone were going through your wardrobe, which item or items would give the person a good idea of your age?

No idea. My clothes are all pretty much timeless and general because I don’t follow trends or styles or anything. And I don’t care about clothing or fashion to guess what might tell what other people about my age – my likes and dislikes, yes, but not my age. I also think it depends on that other person’s interest in clothing and fashion as well!

3. What is your favorite song released in 2024?

I… don’t know if I’ve even heard a single song released this year! I certainly don’t know the release years of the songs I listen to… mostly I just remember “this is from my childhood, this is from around 2010 and I it heard in The Vampire Diaries first, The Piano movies was made in early/mid-90s. this singer was active in the 1970s…

What I can do is give you my favorite song from all the ones I’ve discovered this year: Night Of The Dancing Flame by Róisin Murphy. I discovered that one last week from Evil episode 4×06 How to Dance in Three Easy Steps and I LOVE it.

Also saw this on YouTube and loved it:

4. What non-food item did you last put in a zippered plastic bag?

Non-food… I can’t think of one. I don’t use zippered plastic bags (I don’t think they’re a thing here) but freezer bags and such are closed with a knot or a clip. Either way, I don’t remember! I use them a lot for food items, but it’s been too long to remember what the last non-food item was!

5. You may know that in Japan there are cafes where you can play with bunnies, cats, hedgehogs, reptiles, owls, and many other kinds of animals. Assuming one hundred percent good faith, which would mean the animals’ safety and mental health are completely assured and the animals are rescues, making it unsafe for them to be released back into the wild, which animal cafe (whether it exists now or not) would you most like to spend time in?

Dog cafe, definitely! I like dogs a lot, and if I could look after a dog the way they should be taken care of, I would have one! So I’d definitely go to a dog cafe.

But I’d also like to go to a bunny or a cat cafe, just because I’ve never have interactions with them in real life… no one I’ve ever known has had a bunny, and a few had cats but cats disappeared whenever there were visitors around, so I never got to interact with one.

So I’d check out a bunny and a cat cafe, too!

I’ve heard that there are at least one or two cat cafes in Finland, but whenever I hear one mentioned, it’s always in a bad way – abuse, breeding etc. Just a week or two there was a minor scandal about a cat cafe chain where lots of outright abuse and just bad habitat situation took place.



Jun 14, 2024
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intothisshadow

The Friday Five For June 14

 

Friday 5 for June 14: A Wrinkle in Time – http://f.riday5.com/2024/06/14/friday-5-for-june-14-a-wrinkle-in-time/

1. When have you refused to do what (seemingly or actually) everyone else was doing?

I can’t remember actual details anymore, but when I was in my 20s, I absolutely refused to go into bars/night clubs no matter the occasion. Once when I was around 13-14, my school class organized a disco as a class celebration, complete with colored flashing lights and darkness and loud music. I totally refused to go into our class room while that thing was happening, and sat it out far far away in the hallway for the hour it lasted. (I… didn’t actually mind – I hated school and didn’t really care for the other kids and my friend was in the other class so it wasn’t like I was missing anything or anyone I liked! I had a book and I read and that was a far more pleasant activity than what school ever did. If they had asked me… I’d much rather the school day had ended an hour earlier that day than have some disco party.)

All of these refusals I did because loud music and flashing lights in darkness always trigger a migraine attack and always have, even when I was a kid or a teenager. Participating would’ve been pure suffering.

2. When have your faults been helpful?

Can’t remember.

3. Have you called anyone Uncle or Aunt who wasn’t related to you or married to a relative?

I’ve never ever called anyone Uncle or Aunt. I call all my Mom’s and my Dad’s brothers and sisters by their first names.

Actually now that I think of it, I don’t think anyone in my family calls anyone Ancle or Aunt but by their first names (or nick name if that’s what the person uses). The only person I’ve called something other than first name is my Mom’s mother – she was mamma or Alli-mamma (her name was Alli, and mamma is one of the Finnish words for grandma)

4. When did you last reread a book?

I reread books all the time! I checked my list of books read this year, and turns out I haven’t reread one so far this year – too many news ones coming from the library reservations all the time!

To answer the question: last year but I’m not sure which month exactly because I don’t record that information but it would’ve been in the last two or three months of the year judging by its place on the list. The book was the Finnish language edition of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun, and the I read the first time in the 1980s and this was the second time. Because I felt like reading Agatha Christie again and Mom wanted to get rid of some of her books and I took that one.

5. Honestly, if there is a battle between good and evil, which do you think is ahead?

Evil, sadly since the current far right goverment got into power last year.

 

The Friday Five for 14 June 2024 – https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/126858.html

1. What is the oldest object you own?

I’m not sure – a lot of my stuff are very old! I brought over many of the kitchen table and chairs, bed frame, utensils, plates and glasses from when we divided my childhood home stuffs when Mom and her SO moved in together in 1995 and then again when I moved into my own home in 1998 and we sold my childhood home. The kitchen table and chair and the bed frame my Mom bought sometime after Dad’s death so those things are about 32 years old. The plates and forks/butter knives even older than that because we had them when I was a kid as far back as I can remember. They might be anywhere from 1960s to early 1980s. I’ve never wanted replace them because their design is better than any of the newer ones I could have bought (my Mom jokingly complains that her and SO’s are much worse – they kept his when they moved in together and that she regrets letting me have them LOL). I also got a set of new forks and butter knives that were popular for free with some order or another years ago and they are terribly clumsy and unattractive. The ancient forks and butter knives and the plates all sit in hand so much better, and the soup plates particularly are great – when you carry them are much less likely to spill from while carrying them around full of hot soup than the newer soup plates I’ve been forced to use at work and friends etc.

2. What object have you owned the longest?

The same things listed in the previous question. But if I answer for an object that I’ve actually bought myself for myself… some book most likely. Some I bought as a teenager in the very late 1980s or early 1990s. No idea which of the books is oldest own, but it’s probably one of the Dean R. Koontz ones.

3. What is the newest object you own?

I think the newest notable object is the Lamy Studio Rose I bought in February when it was 25% off? I can’t think of anything newer that isn’t like tiny paper clips or food or meds or something like that.

4. Who is your oldest living relative?

Both grandparents are dead on both my Mom’s and Dad’s sides so I think it’s Mom’s SO, I guess significant others are considered relatives? At least of the ones I know well, it’s him. We’re not in close touch with relatives (my Mom has tried but it never took really and she’s given up) and I don’t know their exact ages on the various significant others/expanded family side.

5. Who is your youngest living relative?

No idea! Like I said above, we don’t keep in touch much and while I know my cousins have children, some of whom are now young adults and might have kids of their own now too since the last I heard from them.



Jun 7, 2024
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intothisshadow

Friday 5 for June 7: Aural examination

Friday 5 for June 7: Aural examination

Answers to today’s questions at f.riday5.com 😀 

1. What kinds of non-music sounds do you like falling asleep to?

I prefer the quiet sounds of my neighborhood. The sounds normal to the area I’m living are such as a bus or a car or a motorcycle driving past every now and then, people pulling suitcases when coming home or leaving for a long distance travel, high heals clacking sometimes, elevator door clicking shut, some quiet or normal voice conversation while passing by my bedroom window… those are all okay and don’t bother me at all. But sounds like neighbors having a party with loud music or drunkards, usually teenagers or people in the 20s by their voices and music choices. Those things tend to wake me and/or prevent me from falling asleep. There are no bars etc. in the immediate vicinity – just homes and very few businesses most of which are home businesses such as hair dressers. There’s also no pass through traffic – if you come here, it’s because you live here or have come to visit friends/family. It’s usually quiet at night in my neighborhood.

2. Besides alarms, what sounds do you associate with a particular time of day?

Always and forever: when I watch a Miami Vice episode and the opening credits come on, it is Saturday night and time is about 20 minutes past 10pm. Because that was the day and timeslot in the mid-80s when Miami Vice originally aired here. It in actuality might be 1pm on a Wednesday but it does not matter – by brain and bones say it is Saturday and 20 minutes past 10pm whenever Miami Vice opening credits video comes on the telly.

I don’t usually hear this anymore but – the 12pm test of the general alarm system (that’s to be used in the event of a huge disaster/war/bad event etc.) that happens on the first working Monday of every month. This is an alarm technically, but I’ve never heard it used for actually alarming so far – only the test run for as long as I’ve lived here in my current neighborhood. For 20+ years now! I never heard it anywhere else I’ve lived. First several years that I lived here, I heard it every time – even if I was asleep I’d wake up to it. Now? I don’t notice it almost at all anymore! Sometimes only if I’m outside at exatcly 12pm when it’s tested, but if I’m inside I just don’t notice it it!

I don’t associate any other sounds with particular times of day.

3. What sounds (of any type), unliked by most people, do you like?

I don’t think I have a like like that? I don’t like to have sound on in general, most of the time, since my migraine went chronic in 2008. And even before that, I only really liked my own music on and preferred silence to most other stuff. But I used to be able to tolerate random sounds better than now when the sounds can actually make my head pound if they’re loud enough and go on long enough. I’ve always been sensitive to sound, just like my eyes have always been sensitive to light.

4. In your downtime at home, what is usually the predominant sound?

Now: silence.

Before chronic migraine: my music. I used to always have my music on, and would very rarely turn it off when I really, really, really needed to or wanted to concentrate. Most often I turned it off during school years, when I had to read for the exams. Otherwise I always had my music on in the background.

5. How do you feel about the sound of your own voice?

When I’m speaking, it’s okay. Although sometimes I think it feels and sounds like like I might run out of voice in the middle of a sentence/word. I have sometimes thought it might behoove to get some training in using my voice and speaking – certainly would arrange for some if I wanted to participate in something like politics where I’d need to speak, or needed more flowing speaking ability for work.

When I listed to a recording of myself, I sound a complete stranger.



May 31, 2024
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intothisshadow

The Friday Five for 31 May 2024: Three Things

The Friday Five for 31 May 2024: Three Things

Today’s questions at thefridayfive@Dreamwidth

1. What are three things you refuse to live without?

1 – My medications. Because not taking my medications will lead to dire consequences where Crohn’s Disease is considered likely within a year or two. And if I don’t take my migraine medications, awful terrible pain as soon as 24 hours but no later than 2-3 days.

2 – Fan during hot days (heat wave in English). I didn’t used to own a fan, until I bought my current fan about 10-12 years ago, maybe? Honestly I don’t know how I survived the summers without a fan! Now I know that the moment my fan breaks down, I’ll be buying a new one! It really does help that much! I even sometimes need to use during winter.

3 – Books! Or at least stories. I can’t imagine life without books/stories to read.

2. What are your three favorite items of clothing?

1 – My 4 beach dresses that I bought just to use at home during hot days (heat wave days but it’s not much of a wave anymore like it used to be but constant stretch of helle or heat wave days). They made of soft, comfortable fabric and of colors and patterns I like very much. They’re knee-length and have string shoulder straps and I’d love to wear them everywhere but I don’t like showing my underwear (industrial strength bras) to random strangers.

2 – My bras. I need industrial strength bras and if I don’t wear a bra, my back starts to hurt within an hour or two as well as developing heat/sweat rash under by breasts. In addition, being without a bra is just simply horribly uncomfortable even if it’s not hurting. So bras are definitely a favorite item clothing even though it’s entirely out of necessity.

3 – I had trouble thinking of a 3rd one because I don’t get much attached to clothing and the beach dresses described above are the only exception that I can truly call favorites… but… a summer hat! Makes being in the sun a little more bearable by giving some shade to my face, eyes and neck.

3. What are your three favorite books?

I don’t have singular favorite books that stand above all the others no matter what genre they are. More like I have some favorites in a few genres and they tend to change sometimes depending on my mood and what new books I have read. But here’s some that have remain on the favorite lists for a long while:

Scifi favorites: The Expanse book series by James S. A. Corey and Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. These two revealed to me that I can love modern scifi in novel format very much! I’ve never enjoyed reading classic older scifi such as Asimov or Herbert or Le Guin and and didn’t care for the more modern ones either that I found either and for a long time it felt like that only what’s in my libraries so I stopped looking at some point and just watched all the scifi tv and movies I could get my hands on. Then I came across Seveneves, then started watching The Expanse tv series and read those books and then started to look at what the readers of those properties had also liked and found some newer hard scifi (in English) that I liked.

Scifi/paranormal/supernatural/speculative fiction: Whispers, Lightning and House of Thunder all by Dean R. Koontz. Koontz used to write really good books!

4. What are three things you’d grab if you had to evacuate your house quickly?

1 – my medications

2 – my phone & laptop (these are practically always by each other when I’m home so I’d try to grab them both at the same time)

3 – my important papers, although I might forget these or not have time or can’t get to them because of where they are located.

5. What are your three favorite songs or musical works?

I have so many songs and scores I love but I think I listen to these the most:

1 – Love Song by Ofra Haza. Just so beautiful!

2 – Shared by the score for the Star Trek TOS episode Amok Time and the score for the movie The Last of the Mohicans score, specifically the parts composed by Trevor Jones. Also a lot of the various covers made of those tracks, particularly cover by Shamrock Redheads

3 – Shared by The Leftovers score by Max Richter and The Piano movie score.