Philobiblist

Jan. 2nd, 2026 04:35 pm
jazzy_dave: (Default)
[personal profile] jazzy_dave
Having read 72 books last year, you can definitely call me a philobiblist, which is a person who loves or has a deep affection for books and reading. This term is used to describe someone who treasures books not just for their informational value but also for their physical form, historical significance, and literary quality. That does sum me up neatly and succinctly.

So, as we are now in 2026, I have already started my next two books. The challenge is the same, the target of 80.

Musical Hopping

Jan. 2nd, 2026 04:27 pm
jazzy_dave: (Default)
[personal profile] jazzy_dave
Listening to some goth rock music followed by some opera music is just one of my quirks. I suppose I am a perfervid music lover who can switch genres at a whim. Perhaps not a whim, but juxtaposed to that, a desire to appreciate styles of music, and a journey to learn and gain knowledge.

I first listened to that goth music collection - all five CDs of it - and now listening to Verdi's Nabucco.


Giuseppe Verdi - Piero Cappuccilli, Placido Domingo, Evgeny Nesterenko, Ghena Dimitrova, Lucia Valentini Terrani, Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin & Orchester Der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Giuseppe Sinopoli - Nabucco for sale

Silhouettes & Statues (A Gothic Revolution 1978 - 1986), Primary, 1 of 13

The possible idea of losing LJ makes me shudder. I really do not want to be on just DW - which I have reserved for my book reviews. Only time will tell.
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
Interesting:

2025 Dec 31: DwarkeshPatel YT fea. Sarah Paine: Human Rights Killed Communism - Sarah Paine:



BTW, that's Sarah C. M. Paine, until very recently the William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy and the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, both, at the US Naval War College. She's an incredibly interesting speaker. Recommended.

(Dwarkesh Patel is this random dude who mistakenly thinks he's a podcaster and keeps trying to have other guests, but in actuality was put on Earth to bring Paine to the masses. He's got something like 14 hours of her up on his channel.)

First snow of Winter

Jan. 2nd, 2026 10:01 am
cmcmck: (Default)
[personal profile] cmcmck
There was snow overnight. Just a couple of inches which wasn't forecast.

It is forecast for the next few days, however.

It clearly caught the council out as no gritting has been done.

A few pics from the house first thing:





And from the back:



I notice a few new people from LJ have asked me to friend. Can I please ask that you read my intro post at the top of my blog and if you're cool with what you find there, I'll open up for you. I keep things f-locked apart from my photos for privacy reasons but am always happy to meet new people and I do have good translation software if you aren't happy in English.









(no subject)

Jan. 1st, 2026 05:56 pm
ravena_kade: (Default)
[personal profile] ravena_kade
Dad was supposed to have a special MRI yesterday for the clots in head, but they gave him all his heart meds at the exact same time and his blood pressure hit the floor. As a result they would not let him get the MRI and the window closed. The also figured that they dehydrated him so they gave him 2 bags of fluid.

Today was the holiday so the special MRI was not running. They said that they would keep him until tomorrow for the MRI. If they cannot fit him in they will discharge him and just book an appointment for that MRI.

On Tuesday he has an appointment to meet a man with one of the heart pumps. I have also found a group on FB fr people and caregivers of people who have LVads. I have been compiling a list of questions that I hope won't be too invasive.

Yesterday I met with a social worker who has invited me to a support group for caregivers. I would like that.

I have decided that this year I will meal prep food for Dad and just reheat. I need to eat better myself, but to eat healthy for me it has to taste good. I need more veggies and the thing with Dad's diet change for the heart pump is that I have to watch how much vitamin K he as as it causes clotting and many of my favorite veggies are high in Vitamin K.

My mother's obituary

Jan. 1st, 2026 05:45 pm
fbhjr: (Cottage)
[personal profile] fbhjr
I think my cousin Dianne (!) wrote this:
https://www.folsomfuneral.com/obituaries/mary-hunt

I was asked the spelling of my sister's name and the kind of degree my mother got in school.
Not sure where the rest came from.

Rabbit Rabbit

Jan. 1st, 2026 12:22 pm
brickhousewench: (plot bunny)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
Rabbit Rabbit and Happy New Year!

2025 was a dumpster fire of epic proportions. Here's hoping that 2026 is a better year for all of us.

I've given up on making New Year's Resolutions, but the past couple of years have had goals or intentions. Not sure what I want to try to focus on this year, other than taking better care of myself, trying to be less stressed, and trying to get more writing done for myself (vs. the job stuff).

(no subject)

Jan. 1st, 2026 08:33 am
disneydream06: (Disney Birthday)
[personal profile] disneydream06
A little DW birdie tells me it's somebody's special day...

So I am sending out...

*~*~*~*~*GREAT BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISHES*~*~*~*~*

To my friend, [personal profile] pigshitpoet.

I hope you have great day. :)


Disney 3

Happy New Year.....

Jan. 1st, 2026 08:22 am
disneydream06: (Disney New Year)
[personal profile] disneydream06
I would like to wish all my friends a very happy new year and wish the best for all of you.....


Be Kind 13

Slow Cooker Collard Greens

Jan. 1st, 2026 06:55 am
nverland: (Cooking)
[personal profile] nverland posting in [community profile] recipecommunity
image host

Slow Cooker Collard Greens
Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 8 hrs Total Time 8 hrs 10 mins Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 Meaty Smoked Ham Hocks, or smoked turkey wings, legs, necks
1 lg Onion, chopped
4 cloves Garlic, minced
1 lb Collard Greens, cleaned & chopped
1 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
½ teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes, optional
5-6 cups Chicken Broth, low sodium
1-2 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV)
1 teaspoon Sugar*
Garnish
Hot Sauce

Instructions
Add the ham hocks, onion, garlic, collards, seasoned salt, red pepper flakes, and broth to a 6 qt or larger slow cooker.

Cook on Low for 8-10 hours, or High for 5-6 hours, stirring once halfway through, and again an hour before serving.

Remove the ham hock (or other meat) and remove the meat from the bone. Then add the meat back in to the slow cooker. Stir.

Add the ACV and sugar. Stir, then taste and adjust salt or other seasoning.

Serve with some hot sauce, and corn bread or biscuits to sop up the pot likker (liquor).

Recipe Notes
You can also use Bacon, or a leftover meaty ham bone.

Be sure to remove the rib in the center of each leaf as those are tough and too fibrous.
*The greens can sometimes be a little bitter. Sugar helps with this, as does a little salt and/or lemon juice.
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Привет and welcome to our new Russian friends from LiveJournal! We are happy to offer you a new home. We will not require identification for you to post or comment. We also do not cooperate with Russian government requests for any information about your account unless they go through a United States court first. (And it hasn't happened in 16 years!)

Importing your journal from ЖЖ may be slow. There are a lot of you, with many posts and comments, and we have to limit how fast we download your information from ЖЖ so they don't block us. Please be patient! We have been watching and fixing errors, and we will go back to doing that after the holiday is over.

I am very sorry that we can't translate the site into Russian or offer support in Russian. We are a much, much smaller company than LiveJournal is, and my high school Russian classes were a very long time ago :) But at least we aren't owned by Sberbank!

С Новым Годом, and welcome home!

EDIT: Большое спасибо всем за помощь друг другу в комментариях! Я ценю каждого, кто предоставляет нашим новым соседям информацию, понятную им без необходимости искать её в Google. :) И спасибо вам за терпение к моему русскому переводу с помощью Google Translate! Прошло уже много-много лет со школьных времен!

Thank you also to everyone who's been giving our new neighbors a warm welcome. I love you all ❤️

brickhousewench: (shopping)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
OK, so this is a totally random thing I’ve done this vacation, solely because I had plenty of time to waste. This feels a little silly to admit, but I have a favorite place setting; probably just a single fork, one or two spoons, and a knife, no idea where they came from. I could have stolen it from my parents when I moved out. I could have stolen it from one of my many housemates when I was in college. The Wasband could have stolen it from his parents. Who knows? Anywhoo, I just really like the shapes of all of the pieces, the shape of the fork, the shapes of both the teaspoons and the soup spoons. The weight of the butter knife. And a while back I got it into my noggin to try to find more of them.

This was a couple of months ago, and I got as far as digging the pieces out of the silverware drawer, finding the name “Wallace Stainless” stamped on the back, and doing a little bit of googling. I found the company, but wasn’t surprised to find that whatever the pattern is, it was no longer available. It looks vaguely mid-century modern/1950s to me, so I figured it was probably discontinued. I spent a little bit of time poking around on Google, but without a name for the pattern, I didn’t spend too much time on it.

But last week, I decided to give it another try. I went on Replacements Ltd.’s site and scrolled through the thirty four pages of results for Wallace Stainless, and finally found the pattern. It doesn’t even have a name, just a number. So pretty sure this was the sort of everyday flatware that you bought at Monkey Ward or Sears, or maybe even traded in Green Stamps at the grocery store for. But now that I had a pattern number, I could look for it on Etsy and eBay. And I now have a 20 more pieces of the pattern headed my way. So that was a nice little Christmas present to myself. More of my favorite cutlery.

2025

Dec. 31st, 2025 05:53 pm

Book Reading.....

Dec. 31st, 2025 10:50 am
disneydream06: (Disney Books)
[personal profile] disneydream06
I read 12 more books this year than last year...

Book List 2025
January
1. Cher The Memoir Part One by Cher
2. Bits and Pieces My Mother, My Brother, and Me by Whoopi Goldberg
February
3. Southern Fried Sass... By Ginger Minj
4. The Plot Is Murder by V. M. Burns
March
5. Reflection A Twisted Tale by Elizabeth Lim
6. All Fudged Up by Nancy Coco
April
7. Prince of Thorns & Nightmares by Linsey Miller
8. Only Murders in the Abbey by Beth Cowen Erskine
9. Never Never A Tale of Captain Hook by Serena Valentine
May
10. The Burden by Mary Westmacott(Agatha Christie)
11. Bed-Knob and Broomstick by Mary Norton
12. Absent in the Spring by Mary Westmacott(A. Christie)
June
13. The Greatest Nobodies of History by Adrian Bliss
14. So This Is Love: A Twisted Tale by Elizabeth Lim
15. Murder at the Marina by Ellen Jacobson
16. His Coffee Shop Crush by Elle Waters
July
17. Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir by Pat Benatar and Patsi Bale Cox
18. Detour by Talia Carmichael
19. What Once Was Mine: A Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell
August
20. The Gentleman and the Spy by Neil S. Plakcy
21. The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede
22. Found: Powertools: The Shields by Jayne Rylon
23. A Daddy For Christmas: Brighton by T.L. Travis
September
24. Lives of the Circus Animals by Christopher Bram
25. Bodies in the Boatyard by Ellen Jacobson
October
26. Wiseguys and the White House: Gangsters, Presidents, and The Deals They Made by Erik Dezenhall
27. Groucho Marx: Master Detective by Ron Goulart
28. Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
29. The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald
November
30. 1984 by George Orwell
31. A Christmas Carol
December
32. The Art of Winnie the Pooh: How E.H. Shepard Illustrated an Icon by James Campbell
33. 12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas by Natasha Bache
34. Saint Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters
35. Cold Hearted: A Tale of the Wicked Stepmother by Serena Valentino

Jollof Rice With Black-Eyed Peas

Dec. 31st, 2025 04:16 am
nverland: (Cooking)
[personal profile] nverland posting in [community profile] recipecommunity
image host

Jollof Rice With Black-Eyed Peas
Servings: 6 to 8 (makes 7 cups of vegetables and 5 1/2 cups of rice) Total time: 45 mins

Ingredients

One (14.5- or 15-ounce) can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted, with their juices
Water
2 cups uncooked brown basmati rice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups (12 ounces) chopped yellow onion
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced or finely grated
1 cup (6 ounces) chopped carrots
2 cups (9 ounces) chopped green cabbage
2 tablespoons tomato paste, preferably double-concentrated
1 3/4 cups homemade or canned no-salt-added black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed (from one 15-ounce can)
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, plus more for optional garnish
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for serving (optional)
Fine salt, for serving (optional)

Steps

1. Drain the tomatoes in a fine-mesh strainer set over a large measuring cup. Add water as needed to total 4 cups, then transfer the liquid to a large saucepan. Add the rice, set the saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, stir and cook, uncovered, until the rice is tender and has absorbed the liquid, 30 to 35 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat until simmering. Add the onion and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the carrots and cabbage, tomato paste, drained tomatoes, black-eyed peas, turmeric, thyme and crushed red pepper flakes. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the mixture is thoroughly warmed through, about 4 minutes.

3. Divide the rice among individual plates or transfer to a serving bowl. Spoon the vegetable mixture on top. Sprinkle with parsley, more thyme and salt, if desired, and serve.
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
"...but it turns out, mining is fun."

2025 Dec 26: Engineer Everything (user Engineer.Everything-i5g) on YT: Shall I go still deeper? #engineering #Minecraft #tunnel #mining #constr...

(no subject)

Dec. 30th, 2025 06:44 pm
ravena_kade: (Default)
[personal profile] ravena_kade
Dad has been really board. He is down to 173 pounds. I could use that diet plan.

Dad when I went up to eat lunch with him he tells me that he has blood clots behind the eyes. A vascular doc comes in to ask question. The will try and schedule a special MRI (not a regular one as Dad has a pacemaker). This could rule out his candidacy for the LVad. At 2:30 the inserted the cardiac catheter.

When I came home a Doctor called. He sounded like he was 12 years old. His conversation led me to believe that Dad's numbers were so low that if he went home he would die. That Dad still had a lot of fluid around his heart and that he would need the catheter in for 4 or 5 days. I ended up having a panic attack while I was texting an out of state friend. I called DQ as I needed to un panic and she came over. Oh boy. I was too upset to sleep.

Today I go in and I see Dad for lunch. He said that they were taking out the Cath today and that once he had that MRI he could go home. Ummm... gee that's not what the young doctor said. I told him what was said.

I get a call at 2 asking if I could go back to Dad's room as a person from the LVad group was there. I go in and see that they did remove the catheter and a woman had an LVad machine out and was letting Dad play with it. She explained everything and showed hum how durable the device was. She ran through all the errors. She also said that if it stopped working Dad would not die as his heart still works, but just is very weak. Dad asked a ton of questions. They told him he could drive and go back to work after 8 to 10 weeks. Not sure what his choice will be.
jazzy_dave: (books n tea)
[personal profile] jazzy_dave
James Kaplan "3 Shades of Blue:Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans & The Lost Empire of Cool" (Canongate)




I was expecting this to be more about the making of Kind of Blue, which should be a desert island disk for pretty much everyone, but those two recording sessions get only a few pages here.

It's actually a triple biography of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans, although Miles (who, after all, lived a lot longer and was responsible for bringing the other two together) gets most of the space. The author combines lots of sources to try to tell the story coherently, but especially in the case of Davis, it is hard to sort fact from fiction. Just as he took credit for others' compositions, Davis also had a truth optional approach to remembering his own life. Mostly he comes across as a very unlikable character--yet--during the author's own interview with Davis many years before he had any idea about writing this book, Davis charmed him. And there are anecdote after anecdote in the book about good things Davis did for people, such as his mentorship of Wallace Roney. Of course, all this is interspersed with Davis's addiction to heroin, cocaine, Heinekin bee, you name it. Likewise, Coltrane and Evans were serious drug users, a habit Coltrane managed to finally kick, only to die at age 40 of hepatitis and cancer. Evans was an even worse addict, who only managed to kick drugs for a few years before returning to them for the last few years of his short--but not so short as Coltrane--life.

Miles struggled on, constantly trying to keep up with the times, leading to the creation of jazz fusion and the incorporation of electric instruments into his music, exemplified by the best-selling Bitches Brew album. Despite the book's length, however, much of it seems sketchy and there's a lot left out. Miles great In A Silent Way album gets hardly a mention, and it would have been nice to see the author's reportage on Miles final recordings, including his version of Cyndi Lauper's Time after Time!

Still, this is recommended, and it will point you to some great recordings that you can easily stream, or better still, purcahse as a CD or vinyl. At times this seems more like a well-done compilation (sort of like the tape-splicing to create Bitches Brew) that it does an original biography, but it reads well, informs quite a bit, and tries to stick to the facts or when that can't be done, at least provide perspectives on all sides of a story.

A good read overall.
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