R.I.P. Ellie the dog

Content warning: Pet death. Mary Anne and Kevin had to put their dog Ellie to sleep yesterday. I’ve known Ellie since she arrived in M and K’s lives in 2006 or so. She wasn’t my dog, but she and I got along very well for most of that time. (Her name was really Elinor, but […]

Life update: social and productive

Some what-I’ve-been-up-to updates: Last week was extremely social for me. As usual, all of the socializing was lovely, but the total added up to being kind of exhausting. Mary Anne was in town for a couple of days; I spent some time with Kam; I went on a walk at Shoreline with a friend; I […]

Productive day

Had a nicely productive day today. For example: Checked off over 20 items on my task list—usually these days I get through about 10 in a given day. (Most of today’s items were either small things or incremental-progress-on-ongoing-projects things, but all of them were good things to get done.) Prepared for cleaners, including getting enough […]

Stack Exchange moderators on strike over AI-related issues

A bunch of Stack Exchange moderators have gone on strike because the company is telling them not to moderate AI-generated posts. There are a bunch of complicated and nuanced aspects to the situation. Here’s my understanding of what’s going on, but I’m not an expert (and I’m biased toward believing the moderators): AI-generated material often […]

Racial covenants

Two 2021 articles about racial covenants and attempts to remove them. Background: In many places across the US, many many homes still have racial covenants, specifying that (for example) they can be sold only to white people. Those covenants are unenforceable, and have been since 1948. But they’re still listed on deeds and CC&Rs, and […]

Yay for Wingspan on BGA!

The boardgame Wingspan is available in electronic form on various platforms. Unfortunately, I find two of those platforms deeply frustrating to use. Fortunately, a third one turns out to be a pleasure to use. Over the past year or two, I’ve tried to play Wingspan on iPad and in Steam. Nearly every time I’ve done […]

Some life updates

Here are a bunch of assorted updates about what I’ve been up to. (No advice, please.) Got my second Shingrix shot and my second Hepatitis B shot yesterday. Had no ill effects for about 24 hours; then this afternoon I got a headache and some general-body acheyness and started feeling a little chilly. Not bad, […]

I now have a rice cooker!

My latest acquisition: a rice cooker! (No advice, please.) It occurred to me a couple months ago that I like rice, but that I only eat it with takeout food, because I don’t like making it. My parents taught me how to make rice when I was a kid. (Using the knuckle method for measuring […]

Incremental-progress projects

Even more than usual, I’m finding lately that it works well for me to take a big project that involves doing the same type of thing many times, and break it up into little chunks, and do one piece every day or two. (No advice on any of this, please.) That kind of incremental-progress is […]

My first shoehorn

I have a pair of shoes that’s a little bit difficult to slip on—the shoes fit well when they’re on, but it takes a little work to get there. So it occurred to me that what I needed was a shoehorn. (No advice needed.) A couple weeks ago, I went to a grocery store, and […]

BoardSpace

BoardSpace is another site for playing boardgames online. Overall, I don’t like it as much as Boardgame Arena, but it has its advantages. Some notes about BoardSpace: Design/layout looks like something from the ’90s. Has about a hundred games. Focused primarily (but not exclusively) on abstract strategy games. Has a downloadable app that you use […]