Darkoshi

That Tumblr has all kinds of neat images, but I like this one best.

Qiao has four framed prints of birds (ducks, turkey, etc.) painted by Raymond Stokes Soubeyroux.

They've been hanging on the wall in my current bedroom for at least ten years, I think. I was the one who hung them up there.

One of the four prints depicts a pair of bobwhite quail. The female painted quail looks just like the one I saw in my yard last week (though I had no recollection of the painting then). So it was with surprise and amusement that I noticed it on the wall the other day. If it were not for the word "Quail" written at the bottom of the print catching my eye, I probably still would be oblivious to it.

Why did the Messages app on this phone update itself, changing how all the emojis look? I rarely select to update it due to things like this. But maybe I did unwisely select it last time, sigh. And then a few days later it finally applies the changes.

Now I see (what I suspected before but did not know for sure) that the emojis I send aren't necessarily what the other person receives.

Dang, I sent a picture of a giraffe from the side, showing its long neck. Now my phone shows it as only a picture of a giraffe's head, head-on. Totally NOT equivalent! ::SMH::

Update, later that day:
I didn't change anything, but now the emojis are back to how they were before. Weird.

August:
I took a week of vacation.
I watched the Peacemaker series on HBO Max, and enjoyed it. That show has the best title sequence / music.


September:
I got a new phone.
I drove to Myrtle Beach with my mom, for a half-vacation half-work week.


October:
I visited an Arts & Music festival and browsed the art.

I went to the SC Pride Festival and got to see a performance by Sheila E.. A nice thing about these public outdoor events here is how close up you can get to the stage and performers, if you want, compared to a concert with assigned seating.

I got my flu shot and bivalent Covid booster on the same day, one in each arm.

Wyze treasure hunt! It affected me, oddly, remotely. I wish I had time to describe the feels.

Halloween: I put up decorations and lights. I replaced the net fabric from my ghosties with a different fabric less likely to entrap flying insects. The new fabric is thicker and heavier, so I cut it into strips to make it look better. Turned out quite well; I was very pleased. I gave out treats. There were 13 trick-or-treaters.


November:
I early-voted the Friday before; stood in line for an hour. But I was relieved to get it done with.

These dandelion heads growing in my yard looked like they'd make good brushes.

The bottles of red and green ink are practically ancient. A part of the ink had separated out into a thick semi-solid layer inside the bottles.

Whew, is it hot outside. Upper 90s, but with the humidity and in the direct sun it feels like in the 100s.

Qiao hired tree cutters to take care of the fallen tree as well as another dead tree that hadn't fallen. They finished it all, including grinding the stumps and removing the debris, in under 5 hours. It's a good thing they started early when it was still overcast and not as hot.

I will need to do some more fence repair before I can let the dogs loose again. But it's too hot now; maybe this evening. Although the forecast says it will still be 90 degrees, feeling like 96, at 9pm.

My mom is going to a free outdoor concert this evening. Phew. Hot, hot, hot.

Apparently Fort Jackson doesn't do their annual 4th of July Torchlight Tattoo and Fireworks anymore*. I didn't go often... I'm not into patriotic stuff, but the cannon blasts and fireworks, and cheering for the states and territories in the union was fun. Except for the parts where I worried that the fireworks would misfire and hurt someone.

I am still doing my work-work for the day. Learning to write JUnit tests, using Mockito. I feel somewhat ambivalent about their usefulness. In my experience, they only test what you already know works, and when they break it's not usually because the code got broken, but rather because the test code or test data became outdated.

Qiao's back yard now smells like my mom's oil paints used to. Or rather, the turpentine she used to clean the paint off the brushes. I like the scent, knowing that it is only pine.

I had a small set of oil paints when I was younger. And a small bottle of orange-scented turpentine. The orange didn't mask the turpentine smell at all; it just morphed it into a different strong overpowering and astringent scent.

Oil paints didn't appeal to me much. Too long to dry. Too hard to clean. Too messy. Not very suited to my style of abstract art. Me, not talented enough to paint realistic images very well. Although one time I copy-painted a portrait of my mom and brother from two photographs, and it turned out fairly well.

Turpentine smell makes me think of the Mediterranean too.

Whaddya know: orange terpene is made from orange trees and can be used as a substitute for turpentine. But I still think that the one I had back then was orange-scented pine turpentine. One made from orange tree extracts would probably have smelled better, like one of those citrus-based cleaners.

..

*A web search shows that 2017's Torchlight Tattoo event was cancelled due to the year-long centennial celebration that finished up that year. 2018's event was cancelled due to the "Victory Week" celebration in June of that year. But nothing at all is mentioned anywhere about it this year, which seems odd to me, considering that per those pages, "The Torchlight Tattoo is typically one of the most popular July Fourth events in the Midlands. Before last year, Fort Jackson hosted July Fourth celebrations each year in recent memory".
Per a family friend, Fort Jackson is not doing the July event at all anymore, instead having fireworks as part of their annual June celebration, the aforementioned "Victory Week".

A mobile I put together at work over the years, bit by bit. And changed bit by bit. With paperclips, staples, bug bash bugs, gifts from co-workers, and more.



URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0ctPusLJhM

The CD balanced in the middle was the latest addition, with the small ladybug and glass drop riding on it. In the past, the small ladybug was in a different place.

Omg. Large decorative toilet seat stickers?!
"Religious Figure on Grunge Backdrop Idol Meditation Boho Holy Print ...for Young Mens"

At first I thought the design was one of those Greek iconographic images of Jesus.

Well, ok. If someone was particularly bored with a plain-looking or ugly toilet, I could see them using some of the other available patterns/prints. But this one? Actually, I think this is the best of the bunch, especially in amusement value.

It was listed in the Amazon search results for "Dance to a Holy Man", an album by The Silencers, which unfortunately isn't available there in MP3 format. I was looking for their original release of Bulletproof Heart. But it's ok, as a live version is available, from their A Night of Electric Silence album.

..

SCORPION Safety Harness w/attached 6ft. Tubular Lanyard on back ... Is it just me, or do those product images have a distinctly BDSM appeal? Look at the bulge on that mannequin! The product reviews suggest no such thing.

My inner aesthete wasn't satisfied with the last photo, so.

I have discovered that the cloth paintings I made a long time ago glow fantastically under UV / black light, due to the fluorescent paints I used.




The 2nd one can be seen under regular light here.