The Good News Thread: I'm So Excited! And I Just Can't Hide It!

[Sunbird she/her]

@Delightful Aww, thanks! You've been plenty busy with wedding planning lately, so I'm not surprised if a few things here on the Shard escaped your notice.

[Delightful]

2 hours ago, Sunbird said:

@Delightful Aww, thanks! You've been plenty busy with wedding planning lately, so I'm not surprised if a few things here on the Shard escaped your notice.

Ive kinda sorta quit my job and its complicated but basically today for the first time in I don't know how long I was busy all morning and a lot of the afternoon, and then I came home and relaxed and had a perfectly normal evening. I still have a ton to do but the normalcy was just so danged nice. No stupid work hours to muck everything up!!

[Oversleep]

3 hours ago, Delightful said:

I still have a ton to do but the normalcy was just so danged nice.

I read that as

3 hours ago, Delightful said:

I still have a ton to do but the allomancy was just so danged nice.

I know there's no such thing as "too much Cosmere" but I think I need to switch my interests for a time and go dig in Selish WoBs.

[Sunbird she/her]

7 hours ago, Delightful said:

Ive kinda sorta quit my job and its complicated but basically today for the first time in I don't know how long I was busy all morning and a lot of the afternoon, and then I came home and relaxed and had a perfectly normal evening. I still have a ton to do but the normalcy was just so danged nice. No stupid work hours to muck everything up!!

I'm glad to hear you don't have to deal with that mega-stress anymore. It sounded like it was making you totally miserable.

[Silverblade5 he/him]

A friend and coworker recently announced that he was quiting smoking.

[Sunbird she/her]

15 minutes ago, Silverblade5 said:

A friend and coworker recently announced that he was quiting smoking.

Good for him!!!

[AngelEy3 he/him]

7 hours ago, Delightful said:

Ive kinda sorta quit my job and its complicated but basically today for the first time in I don't know how long I was busy all morning and a lot of the afternoon, and then I came home and relaxed and had a perfectly normal evening. I still have a ton to do but the normalcy was just so danged nice. No stupid work hours to muck everything up!!

Quitting a toxic job is a wonderful feeling! I did it after 7 years as a corrections officer. I work in a group home now for half my old pay, but I couldn't be happier, and being nice to people is so much easier on the spirit than being a fascist was. 

[Sunbird she/her]

I found a family of crows on campus this week and got some decent photos of them. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really like crows. They're super smart and social, and these ones were playing with each other, bouncing around on the lawn and playing tag. It was pretty cute and funny to watch.

(4 photos in the spoiler)

Spoiler

^ That's one of the adults. The youngsters kept coming over to pester him (her?) and making whiny "feed me" caws. XD

^ I'm not entirely sure whether that one's an adult or a juvenile. The fledglings start out with blue eyes when they leave the nest, but their eyes eventually darken to black as they get older.

^ Pretty sure that one's a juvenile. I really liked his (her?) pose in this picture, like he's strutting down a catwalk in a fashion show.

Looking for something tasty in the grass.

 

[Calderis he/him]

9 minutes ago, Sunbird said:

I found a family of crows on campus this week and got some decent photos of them. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really like crows. They're super smart and social, and these ones were playing with each other, bouncing around on the lawn and playing tag. It was pretty cute and funny to watch.

(4 photos in the spoiler)

  Hide contents

^ That's one of the adults. The youngsters kept coming over to pester him (her?) and making whiny "feed me" caws. XD

^ I'm not entirely sure whether that one's an adult or a juvenile. The fledglings start out with blue eyes when they leave the nest, but their eyes eventually darken to black as they get older.

^ Pretty sure that one's a juvenile. I really liked his (her?) pose in this picture, like he's strutting down a catwalk in a fashion show.

Looking for something tasty in the grass.

 

Crows are awesome and anyone who says otherwise is birdist. 

I had some friends as a kid who had a pet crow. I was young enough not to wonder exactly how that happened, but it's wings weren't clipped or anything. 

It just hung around and flew to follow us playing. Crows are really smart. It was the coolest pet ever. 

[Sunbird she/her]

2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Crows are awesome and anyone who says otherwise is birdist. 

I had some friends as a kid who had a pet crow. I was young enough not to wonder exactly how that happened, but it's wings weren't clipped or anything. 

It just hung around and flew to follow us playing. Crows are really smart. It was the coolest pet ever. 

That's so cool! My grandpa grew up on a farm and told me about a magpie (in the same familiy as crows, Corvidae) that was friendly enough with people to come and accept treats from them. It also loved to tease the farm cats. It would sit on a fence and say, "Heeeeere, kitty kitty kitty," and the cats would come running and then look around, baffled, when there was no human calling them and offering food. And the magpie would just sit there and laugh.

Also, studies have found that crows are capable of recognizing individual humans by their faces, remembering those faces, and holding grudges against people who harass them.

[A Budgie she/her]

Yeah um...us Aussies dislike magpies, and for a kinda good reason...
Crows are okay, but I like parrots better.

[AngelEy3 he/him]

4 hours ago, Sunbird said:

I found a family of crows on campus this week and got some decent photos of them. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really like crows. They're super smart and social, and these ones were playing with each other, bouncing around on the lawn and playing tag. It was pretty cute and funny to watch.

(4 photos in the spoiler)

  Hide contents

^ That's one of the adults. The youngsters kept coming over to pester him (her?) and making whiny "feed me" caws. XD

^ I'm not entirely sure whether that one's an adult or a juvenile. The fledglings start out with blue eyes when they leave the nest, but their eyes eventually darken to black as they get older.

^ Pretty sure that one's a juvenile. I really liked his (her?) pose in this picture, like he's strutting down a catwalk in a fashion show.

Looking for something tasty in the grass.

 

You have to be kidding me... Lol, I was thinking that I wanted to ask you about trying to get some crow or raven pics cause they are way cooler and more majestic than what one thinks at first thought. But I didn't say anything cause I didn't want to be that guy.

Also, I'm out of upvotes again. You might be able to get some residual energy from looking towards @Ammanas or @Calderis though cause that's where they all went again today. 

[Calderis he/him]

7 hours ago, AngelEy3 said:

Also, I'm out of upvotes again. You might be able to get some residual energy from looking towards @Ammanas or @Calderis though cause that's where they all went again today. 

I already gave what I can. 

[Queen Elsa Steelheart she/her]

I just hit 3500 subs on my youtube channel!!!!  

[Sunbird she/her]

19 hours ago, AngelEy3 said:

You have to be kidding me... Lol, I was thinking that I wanted to ask you about trying to get some crow or raven pics cause they are way cooler and more majestic than what one thinks at first thought. But I didn't say anything cause I didn't want to be that guy.

Hahahaha. I wouldn't've minded being asked, but for the most part I can't get photos of specific kinds of birds on demand. I can visit places that have the habitat they like and bring my camera along, but actually finding the particular bird and having it cooperate enough for photos is very much hit and miss. Some birds are just really hard to photograph because they're tiny and hyperactive and don't sit still for more than a second, and others are difficult to photo because they're super shy and fly away as soon as you look at them, let alone point the camera their direction. XD These crows were very cooperative yesterday, though. I'm glad the photos made you happy.

[+Extesian he/him]

@Sunbird one of my favourite travel moments was seeing several hundred thousand puffins in the Arctic Circle, off the Norwegian north coast. That was a Braize to photograph though – with a decent zoom you could be lucky enough to get a nicely framed shot but then you miss the awesomeness of an endless swarm of them. Wide angle, and all you can see is thousands of little black dots in the ocean. Below is the only remotely decent one I got.  My point is…I love puffins.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Extesian

[Sunbird she/her]

@Extesian SQUEEEE! I'm so jealous! I love puffins too, and I've never seen one in the wild, only in zoos and aquariums and so on. I also find it utterly adorable that the babies are called pufflings. Is that not the cutest thing ever??

[+Extesian he/him]

6 minutes ago, Sunbird said:

@Extesian SQUEEEE! I'm so jealous! I love puffins too, and I've never seen one in the wild, only in zoos and aquariums and so on. I also find it utterly adorable that the babies are called pufflings. Is that not the cutest thing ever??

Yeah they're so perfect, I went to Iceland at the wrong time to see them but immediately booked the puffin excursion when I was on a cruise of the fjords. I mean, it's a toucan that catches fish. Too good. And I love how they all leave for migration on exactly the same day every year.  

Hehe and yeah pufflings is even better than the name for baby echidnas - puggles

Edit - and I've attached a photo of a puggle. I was extraordinarily lucky to get up close with the first puggle born in Perth zoo in years, and 3 months before they publicly announced its existence

Edited July 21, 2017 by Extesian

[Calderis he/him]

10 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Yeah they're so perfect, I went to Iceland at the wrong time to see them but immediately booked the puffin excursion when I was on a cruise of the fjords. I mean, it's a toucan that catches fish. Too good. And I love how they all leave for migration on exactly the same day every year.  

Hehe and yeah pufflings is even better than the name for baby echidnas - puggles

Edit - and I've attached a photo of a puggle. I was extraordinarily lucky to get up close with the first puggle born in Perth zoo in years, and 3 months before they publicly announced its existence

All I can think right now is that Knuckles was a weird looking baby. 

[Sunbird she/her]

26 minutes ago, Extesian said:

I mean, it's a toucan that catches fish.

Best puffin description ever!

[Claincy he/him]

(Firstly a side note: they're working on more Stargate! )

Time for another dwarvenforge build! =D

So this one was actually built by a couple of my players (my family in this case, we finally got around to playing again while on holiday). Then I just altered what I had planned to fit the map It was an interesting experiment, one I shall do again in the future.

 

(not the best quality photo's but oh well)

 

Edited July 21, 2017 by Claincy

[A Budgie she/her]

3 hours ago, Extesian said:

Perth zoo

wait wait wait
You're in Perth? So am I! That's surprising...I thought most of the Australian Sharders were more in Sydney...

[+Extesian he/him]

Just now, A Budgie said:

wait wait wait
You're in Perth? So am I! That's surprising...I thought most of the Australian Sharders were more in Sydney...

I'm from Perth but I've lived in Canberra for the last 10 years (well, the part of it I've been in Australia). But I was back there for 3 months late last year to spend time with family before moving back to Canberra (I'd been living in Prague), which was when I went to the zoo

[Delightful]

4 hours ago, Extesian said:

@Sunbird one of my favourite travel moments was seeing several hundred thousand puffins in the Arctic Circle, off the Norwegian north coast. That was a Braize to photograph though – with a decent zoom you could be lucky enough to get a nicely framed shot but then you miss the awesomeness of an endless swarm of them. Wide angle, and all you can see is thousands of little black dots in the ocean. Below is the only remotely decent one I got.  My point is…I love puffins.

Theres a place in Aus called Phillip Island where you can watch fairy penguins come in from the sea in the morning and they are the definition of adorable. I don't think youre allowed to photograph though. 

[+Extesian he/him]

2 minutes ago, Delightful said:

Theres a place in Aus called Phillip Island where you can watch fairy penguins come in from the sea in the morning and they are the definition of adorable. I don't think youre allowed to photograph though. 

 Yeah I really want to go there next time I'm in Melbourne, though they put in huge stadium-style seating and I've heard it's not very intimate any more. But I still must, fairy penguins (or, as I think of them, the Fae) are so sweet My girlfriend will love it either way, ain't no penguins in the Czech Republic!