Blunders, Eight-stringed Ukuleles and Random Winged Insects: Voran's blog

[Voran]

I know my position looks terrible but I managed to get him to run out of time thinking.

 

[Voran]

My username is Arabic. It literally means 'die of your rage'. Roughly the Arabic equivalent of 'die mad about it'. I saw the phrase somewhere and just had to grab it before someone else did.

 

[ripock]

Dude! you can totally do this. I used to run 6K's all the time. I never came in first, but I never came in last...and I was just a casual runner. Someone, like you, with focus and intensity, should be able to own the course.

 

[ripock]

My username is Arabic. It literally means 'die of your rage'. Roughly the Arabic equivalent of 'die mad about it'. I saw the phrase somewhere and just had to grab it before someone else did.

it reminds of something I read 40 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita: you aren't punished for your anger; you are punished with your anger.

 

[Voran]

it reminds of something I read 40 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita: you aren't punished for your anger; you are punished with your anger.

Depends what you do with it.

It can be great motivation to get stuff done.

It's only bad for you if you endlessly ruminate.

 

[Voran]

I am the Dark Queen of Dirty Flagging

 

[Voran]

oh my god the blunderitis. I am so fried I just gave away all my heavy pieces. One or two more then Imma go to bed. I can't sustain that high powered berserker mode forever.

 

[Voran]

Ok the hyperbullet arena is over. No more for now. The reptile in me is quick and deadly but she is tired and wants to go chill under a heat lamp.

 

[Voran]

I think Imma have a new rule where I set an alarm and every 20 minutes get up from the computer. My lower back is feeling a bit mangled.

 

[Voran]

Ok I'm feeling better for a heavy workout. That's good. Clearly nothing is medically wrong; I'm just tightly cramped up from too much sitting hunched over a computer.

 

[ploverwing]

Ok I'm feeling better for a heavy workout. That's good. Clearly nothing is medically wrong; I'm just tightly cramped up from too much sitting hunched over a computer.

Yeah sitting at a computer is crippling. Good plan.

 

[Voran]

Yeah my recent long puzzles sessions came at a price. Just tension though. No serious issues anywhere. New rule is no sitting for more than 20 minutes uninterrupted unless I'm playing a blitz arena.

 

[Voran]

Some tradcon nutcase on Twitter said 'women don't create - they destroy'.

I know that was supposed to be an insult, but that gave me a mild adrenaline rush and put me in a good mood. I feel powerful.

 

[Voran]

I decided to go back to a journaling concept I came up with once that I called a 'giving myself credit journal'.

I find the concept of gratitude journals a bit much. I agree that there's a place for gratitude otherwise you get billionaires who feel oppressed at the idea of paying even a small morsel of tax.

I'm not into gratitude. I find there's something a bit judgemental about it. It seems built on the idea that we are wrong or bad for having the normal range of emotions and that the only acceptable emotion is gratitude. I don't like that much. It's perfectly normal to be tired or stressed or angry. It's perfectly normal that after a long workday with an annoying colleague people feel tired or fed up rather than grateful to not be starving Africans.

I also dislike the idea of being grateful for achievements I worked for. It implies I got handed them for nothing. I didn't get handed the chess game I won today. I worked very hard at calculating correctly and not leaving out things like tempos and escape squares. Proud? Sure. Grateful? No.

But a giving-oneself-credit journal is something I find great for keeping motivation up when working on difficult things. You wrote a few paragraphs of a novella instead of nothing at all? Go you. Small things add up. You solved 1 advanced annihilation of defense puzzle? Yaaaay. You earned those things. Be proud. It just seems healthier than gratitude because gratitude has a definite element of self deprecation.

 

[SkeeterAB]

I had a fun thing happen today. My computer randomly showed me a little icon of a cassowary.

No...seriously. Look at the search bar! Look at its heavy body and rigid crest - that is not a turkey.

They're a favorite species of mine despite being flightless. Gotta love and respect a 6ft bird with a mohawk.

View attachment 171272

I love cassowaries. They are scary gorgeous and just plain scary.

 

[SkeeterAB]

LOL an amusing experience I just had.

I heard a repetitive knocking sound upstairs. Great, I think. I am home alone, and there is an intruder. Just great. I love being female.

I decide to just accept that there's something odd going on and go upstairs to investigate. I have quick reflexes at least from all the ultrabullet. It's not impossible I could just grab a heavy object and hit an intruder over the head.

It was a seagull, yall. A friendly, nosey seagull asking to be let in the window.

I don't know what snacks to give him. Cat food maybe?

Maybe he is friends with the one who pecks my office window at work? He is loud and determined

 

[Voran]

I love cassowaries. They are scary gorgeous and just plain scary.

Metoometoometooooo. Gotta love me a 6ft bird with a mohawk.

Also females are bigger and dominant but not in the grotesquely sadistic way that female spiders are. They just dump the eggs on the males and zip off into the forestry to live their best life. I think that's ideal

 

[TimWilson]

Allow me to introduce you to The Cinerous Vulture! Definitely take this full screen to get the entire impact.

 

[ploverwing]

Allow me to introduce you to The Cinerous Vulture! Definitely take this full screen to get the entire impact.

That was AWESOME!! I love vultures. There was a great presentation at our local raptor rescue/recovery/education centre about vultures, and how they're such an incredibly important niche in the ecosystem, yet vilified and destroyed outright because people are disgusted by them. Clean up crews are pretty darned important, folks. We have turkey vultures here, and I just love it when I see them ba-dooping along the ground like this. It's not common, we usually see them soaring on the thermals (which they look absolutely magnificent doing, suck it bald eagles, lol).

Oh and Voran, since it's got the word "poop" in it, they poop on their legs as a thermoregulation mechanism that also sterilizes their scales.

 

[Voran]

Ooh thanks for bringing this subject up.

I have a certain reverence for species that are seen as gross but are actually really useful members of ecosystems. Vultures are a bit ugly...but are probably a big factor in preventing disease because they strip carcasses so no decaying remains.

Same reason I push myself to trap spiders in a glass and toss them outside rather than kill them. I've smushed a few in a fit of panic but will never do so on purpose. If I see them coming I corral them and let them out the back door.