Kaymyth

Yeah, but my husband drives a manual. Being unable to drive his car is inconvenient, and I really have no excuse aside from lethargy. And the fact that every time he offers it's in a place with actual traffic and I'd be too freaked out about possibly stalling the car in front of people who are trying to Get Somewhere to really relax and focus on learning. What I really need is to find a huge, empty parking lot to practice in until I've got the feel of it down into my muscle memory. Urgh. It's that whole feigned helplessness that would drive me completely 'round the bend. Pretending to be clueless just so someone else will do the work for you is something that aggravates me to an irrational degree.

I think I must know too many librarians. I hear a lot of stories like this, and it's often the same people over and over. If they're just now learning, that's fine, but if they're asking for the same help with the same tasks week after week... But you're quite right. I shouldn't assume that all of them fall into the second group. (Though I do consider it a point of personal shame that I still haven't conquered driving a manual transmission.)

Because you resent having to expend your precious introvert spoons on people who are too dim to handle basic technology.

It was twelve degrees out this morning. Twelve. Fahrenheit. It's not quite to the point where the dog is giving me the "are you kidding me?" look, but I had a hard time coaxing her off of the back porch and onto the grass to do her business. I'm wearing my snow boots, not because it's snowy outside, but because they are the only shoes I have that can possible even pretend to try to keep my feet warm. And my toes still feel a bit cold. I was not built for this weather.

Merging threads is a thing. Merging posts is...well, if it's possible, I can't see how to do it. If you find that you've left something out of a post and feel the need to add it before someone else posts on the thread, you can just edit your current post and type more stuff. It's easy.

There's been considerable speculation for some time now that Hoid's endgame might be to reassemble Adonalsium itself. If that's the case, then acting to recombine Ruin and Preservation would be a very reasonable first step. It's also conceivable that he was trying to find out whether fusing two Shards was even possible.

You're telling me! But really, I'm the same old ginger unicorn; they just hit me with a spike that upgraded my horn. I can now perform neat tricks like moving threads to the proper forum and destroying spambots.

Somebody needs to send 2016 a memo and tell it that it's over its limit for taking awesome people away.

That can often happen at the end of a huge stretch of stress. During the worst of the things, your body goes into overdrive trying to keep itself going. Once you hit the end, everything drops down to rest, including your immune system. I recommend lots of soup and cold meds. Also, some apple cider pouch mix, and add a splash of apple cider vinegar and a healthy dollop of honey; it'll clear your head a bit and soothe your throat.

I can solemnly attest to the high probability that the squirrel was not her doing. (And if you haven't read that story, I think it's still just back on the previous page.) EDIT: My mistake, it's TWO pages back. Things move fast around here.

For me that was this morning. And that's about when I noticed it. I had spotted a button on the top of the forum I hadn't noticed before, and thought it was odd that it looked unfamiliar, and even odder that what it did would just be lying around for anyone to see. It wasn't until I'd posted and actually saw "Moderators" under my picture that I realized what had happened. Then I spent the next couple of hours wondering if I was supposed to say anything about it myself, or if I should wait till someone officially announced, or even whether it was a mistake or something. (In spite of the fact that I'd been told it was going to happen. I know. Having a massive head cold does not do great things for one's logic.) But thanks!

Honestly, I was just waiting to see if anybody noticed. It felt a bit to weird to just say, "Hey, lookit me! Notice anything diiiiifferent?" (I'm not 100% sure when it happened myself. Last night or this morning?) Ha.

That worked. OK, @The Honor Spren, I can read it now, but it might be pushing the Shard's language rules. The filter can't kick in on an image.

Full size comes up very tiny. I can't even zoom in on it. Sorry, Honor Spren, but it's kind of unreadable.

Of course you do. Everybody knows it. You just needed to be reminded of that fact. I mean, seriously, your avatar is clearly jamming to it right now.

Man, I had the same problem. I was reduced to counting characters to get it to fit, but I think I got it. It doesn't help that I am excessively wordy.

I like to view Jak as kind of a Buffalo Bill showman type. He goes out and runs around and does stuff, but the stories are his bread and butter and he's loathe to pass up a good seed of a story when it blows his way. And he's self-aware enough to let Handerwym's annotations add an extra (hilarious) layer to the stories, thus expanding his audience. So there are two types of people who follow the Allomancer Jak stories - the people who have a ridiculous romanticized idea of the Roughs and believe it's all accurate, and the people who think it's all ridiculous bunk and read it for Handerwym's brand of wit. Reality* is then somewhere in between. Adventures happen, Jak (and Handerwym, assuming he exists, and I like to think he does) writes up the embellished version, and they make a mint on the royalties. I imagine that if anyone of note in-universe were to actually meet Jak, he'd play the entire interaction in-character, probably having the time of his life in the process. *I amuse myself by using this word in reference to a fictional world.

YES "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor? Oh, here:

Heh.

Cold medicine. I am le sick. It tastes horrible, but works really well without making my heart race dangerously.

I also agree. This is as amazing as liquid DayQuil is nasty.

Season finale thoughts:

Yeah, I really would have liked to sleep some more.

It's story time! So I'm on my second day of being home sick. I figured I'd sleep in, get some recovering done, that sort of thing. That's what you do when you're sick. At about a quarter after 8, I was woken abruptly by a series of loud, scrabbling BANGS. The first thing my sleep-addled brain thought was, "Oh, crem, someone's trying to break into the house." After a moment's indecision, I rolled out of bed, grabbed a couple of things, and went about checking the security of all of our ingresses. Please feel free to picture this for a moment. Me decked out in my TARDIS robe, sword in hand, prowling the house for intruders. I take comfort in the idea that I'd look so completely ridiculous that it would be a short leap to assuming that I was crazy enough to be dangerous. Add in a blood-curdling battle cry, and I like to flatter myself in thinking that'd be a ticket to Nopesville for most sane humans. But I digress. For, as it turned out, there were no breaches of security. No intruders. And I stood next to the front door, and I heard a new noise. A small one, but insistent, and definitely organic. So I trucked back upstairs and took a peek out the blinds from my bedroom window. And there, in all its little cuddly verminous glory, was a squirrel. Yes, a rusting squirrel. In fact, it was about as upset as I'd ever seen one, clinging to the corner of the porch roof and squawking unhappily. It gazed longingly out at the bush next to our front steps, continuing its cries of distress. And that's when I realized the truth. The little idiot was stuck. I still don't know how exactly it caused all those banging noises. It may have just been as simple as the fact that the attic space is large and echoey and tends to amplify sounds. It could be that a bird of prey took a dive at the thing while it was on the roof and what I heard was its fight for survival. What I do know is that the stupid little monster was clearly unhappy and for a few moments was certain in its squirrelly little heart that the bush decorated in festive bows was its only salvation. I pondered for a moment what to do. Would I need to call animal control or the wildlife service to get the silly thing down? Would they even do such a thing? If I tried to tell them that a squirrel was stuck on my roof no really stop laughing I am rusting serious the thing is the stupidest squirrel in existence STOP LAUGHING DAMMIT. Fortunately, I never had to go to such embarrassing lengths, as the little fuzzball eventually managed to get over his trauma and grow a new neuron or something, cause he finally scrabbled around some more on the roof and eventually disappeared. That's right you little moron, you leave the roof the same way you got onto it in the first place. Via tree branches on the other side. (And during this entire thing, there was never a peep out of Leia. I have learned to accept the fact that my dog is, fundamentally, a coward. She comes from a long line of proud badger-hunters, but she disgraces them all. As much as she likes to bark at and chase the furry creatures outdoors, scary noises outside when she's inside induce hiding. I can but hope she never goes too far in challenging the local bunny mafioso, or things are going to get very Watership Down around here.) Anyway. After all of that, I have found it impossible to go back to sleep. So I'm awake and stuffy. All because of a squirrel.

I thought that with the hard freeze finally hitting this week, I could stop taking my allergy meds. Oh, gods, was I ever wrong. Unless I'm getting sick, which is also a possibility. I don't want to be sick. It's not fun. I do not approve of this.