Last year I reached 43k… It was really hard.
I am so closed to be done with the translation (give or take 10k words). I just want to be done with it. At this point, I’m continuing more out of sheer frustration and spite 
A good advice I was given is : During Nano, just write. Don’t edit. This is December’s problem.
AWESOME!
I really hope it’ll snow here later in winter. I want to make a snowman too.
I’m organising a workshop on the philosophy of time, and I was looking at a serious list of things I not only needed to book/buy (train tickets, hotels, coffee & tea, lunch, restaurant) but also needed to find out how to get reimbursed for. I had been mentally preparing for a lot of hassle. So I asked our office manager about the reimbursement. And she answered: “Don’t worry, I’ll do all of that for you! Need some restaurant recommendations? Would you like me to make some posters to put up in the halls?”
I’m blurring this one, because it’s gross. If you are squeamish, move along.
A coyote killed a deer in our yard and we were really bummed out about having to deal with this dead deer. But then 50 buzzards showed up and 24 hours later, no deer. Just a few bones. You may not think this is awesome, but it is! First, we didn’t have to deal with a big dead body, and second, I love buzzards.
I discovered that there’s some webpages for something called the IFMUD while poking around on Welbourn’s Twitter- (I was digging through it’s FAQ pages) it seems pretty cool! No idea if it’s still active, but it appeals to the same curiosity that was pleasantly surprised by the sort of oldschool concept of forums kicking around still, so I’m pencilling it into my diary as something to explore this weekend after I’ve finished up the assignment due before midnight tonight (don’t worry, just on a brief study break… And in a good spot for handing it in on time!) As a little treat to look forward to. 
They are definitely still alive and well; was just on IFMUD last night. If you’re looking for something interesting, they should be having a ClubFloyd meeting on Sunday at 2pm EST, although I recommend you pop in to familiarize yourself with the format beforehand.
Super cool! It’s always exciting to stumble across cool little corners of the internet like that. Yeah- I was peeking through the FAQ, and it seems like there’s quite a bit to wrap your head around: but it’ll be fun to explore! Not sure if I’ll make it to this Sunday, but good to know that there is a regular group running around on there!
Finished that assignment with plenty of time to troubleshoot and adjust! Lovely. Also, timed the baking of some delicious brownies to enjoy as a little treat after the fact! Hurray!
I sent in a paper I’d been stressing over for a while, and then went and played Tomb Raider until 1am because I lost track of time. It’s a good feeling, being able to lose track of time and not immediately panic over what’s not getting done.
Ooooh, do you have a recipe?
Unfortunately, not much besides the base recipe that I freestyled off of- which is just the generic boxed brownie mix off of the back of Betty Crocker’s packaging. I take a fairly intuitive (see: disastrously whimsical) approach to baking: and I never really do keep track of the substitutions beyond going off of touch and feel and appearance, but it nearly always works out well in the end. I can say that adding a splash more oil and powder sugared up coconut and smashed up toffee candy bits and chocolate chips was a delicious decision!
I can however, share a recipe I quite like making: it’s this one, except I find that if you listen to the instructions about how many bananas to use, it comes out quite dry- so I usually double the bananas (of course, that depends on how many errant ripe ones we have around the house) and just kind of add as much butter as I feel like adding in.
The little one loves chocolate, so I’ll also either throw in about a cup of chocolate chips or chop up a chocolate bar (milk chocolate for the little guy, but I imagine a darker chocolate would be delicious too) and either we split the sugar into being half the amount it calls for in white and half in brown, or fully brown sugar (though I do have to adjust the amount of flour I add so it’s not all entirely goop if I do that.) The texture does become much less ‘easily packable into a school lunch bag’ if you swap things up, but its dense and rich and delicious, so who cares if you get a little messy eating it? LOL. Plus, I like to brush the top liberally with butter after it’s come out of the oven (with a pastry brush) and sprinkling it with chunky salt.
You can also fill a muffin tin with this mix (we often do so with my little brother, since he loves to help mix and portion) and then bake mini banana bread loafs so it’s much easier to deal with dividing it up- we use a heart shaped tin, and normally he’ll push in extra chocolate chips into a smiley face as well- they melt a bit terrifyingly, but it’s quite fun. I would use a cupcake baking recipe for the time in the oven if you go that route- but honestly, you kind of get used to knowing when they’re done when everything smells deliciously banana bread-y and a toothpick poked in comes out clean.
yummy! If you want to make the chocolate taste more chocolaty: add some vanilla extract and a bit of expresso powder.
Had someone show me that I’ve been drinking packet hot chocolate wrong my entire life. They added a tablespoon of cocoa powder before adding the hot water and milk. Sooooo much better, and only 10 additional calories for the tbsp of cocoa powder.
Found a silly, fun little gamejam run by someone off of the forums, because someone else whose writing I admire was posting about it into the blue ether. Tumblr’s latest blorbo strikes again…
OMG this trend is so wild. I was so sure this was an actual thing happening, not just shitposting. Are you thinking of submitting something?
I was really confused when some poetry and aesthetic bloggers I follow started posting like, those really lovely photoshopped cinematic still reels they do for movies sometimes, because surely the aesthetic bloggers wouldn’t be in on the bit? Turns out they are, and it’s hilarious. Loving the collective canon the dashboard is coming up with at lightning speed for this fictional movie. I was jokingly considering entering something, but I’m not sure!
It’s run by me actually
Had one of those glorious hazes where you hit the zone and come back to yourself, hours later, having hammered out some creative odds and ends you’re quite pleased with. Scribbled down some concrete plans to finish this off. Will probably reread a bunch of Lemony Snicket quotes as a nightcap.
Only just noticed how confusingly I wrote that- I meant it like, as someone I know from the forums! No one’s ever pointed out how ambiguous that sounds to me before, cheers, I’d have never noticed otherwise.