omg, this article  makes so much sense. A few weeks ago, my local supermarket converted to a “Woolworths Metro” store, and I had no idea what the implications of that were, except that they stopped stocking some stuff I actually want and need (cooking ingredients, mainly) in favour of expanding their range of potato chips. Now I see why they’ve done this:

[W]hile Woolworths supermarkets are subject to a flat pricing system — which means all products except fresh produce are sold at the same price wherever you are in the country — the same does not apply to Metros.

Worked up the nerve to post the prologue of my novel to Scribophile  for critiques 😅 I can’t lie – it’s daunting! – but I also know something like this is THE next step that I need to take. Really, what it needs is a full beta read, but one step at a time!

I wish there was a federated, ActivityPub-based LiveJournal. I know there’s stuff like write.as  but it’s not really what I’m envisioning. What I basically want is a blog, where I can make occasional friends-only posts (not private or password-protected posts), and take advantage of ActivityPub for authenticating my friends. A Dreamwidth-like distinction between true “friends” and more distant “subscribers” wouldn’t go amiss, either. And “access list” posting, if you only want certain subsets of your friends to see.

Maybe this is something for which one could look to Bonfire ? I mean, its ideas about “Circles” are pretty similar to what I’m thinking of. It’s still a bit more “social media” and less “journal/blog” than I’m thinking, but I guess this blog is already like that anyway… 😅 Maybe I should make an account on their test instance and play around.

Not really pleased with how today’s scene is going. I feel like I had good ideas for it two weeks ago, but I didn’t write it then, because I still hadn’t finished the previous scenes 😖 Now I’m scrambling a bit – “Oh, this bit of dialogue was in it, right?” and it just doesn’t feel cohesive. In future I need to take notes, no matter how much I think I’m “just about” to reach a scene, anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with one of my Idist friends, and I was venting about one of my brothers-in-law, who is insufferable. They asked me, “In English, do you also say ‘brother-in-law’ for those men who think they know everything, but in fact they just parrot what they hear, mostly antiquated, masculinist ideas? In Spain we call such men ‘cuñados’, even when they’re not literally our brothers-in-law…”

And I was like, “omg no, I’ve never heard that in English, but that’s brilliant. I love it!” It is a perfect description of this brother-in-law, that’s for sure. Clearly, insufferable brothers-in-law are a phenomenon that transcends borders.

Overheard Vivian sniggering behind me; turned around and asked him what was so funny. He showed me this meme… I guess it’s good to know what a positive political impact I’ve made on him, over all these years 😇

So, recently I’ve been rereading old journal entries, which is always playing with fire a bit, but this time I decided to try this new thing where I ONLY read the fuckin’ hilarious entries (and the sexy ones, after a certain point) and none of the traumatic ones and oh my god, this way is so much better. There’s so much shit I completely forgot about. Why is it always the bad memories that stick in your mind, and never the good ones! Feeling a bit of nostalgic sorrow now, but still, this has been good fun.

Gidget says I’m not allowed to get up and brew my morning coffee today… only cuddles, no coffee 😠

The only thing I don’t like about the song “Julia Take Your Man Home”  is that the line I could’ve sworn is “…and some guy he keeps saying is middle class” is apparently “…and some guy he keeps saying is made of glass”. The line is a million times funnier if you assume he’s singing “middle class”. Or am I the only one who spent all of uni hanging out with people who denounced the middle class at every turn?

Follow-up, 12 Feb: imo the next-most hilarious line from “Julia Take Your Man Home” is this one:

When I asked him if he needed to go home,
He said, “the beating heart of a lonely man is nothing but an unheard descrescendo”

Haven’t we all been there, too? That friend who, when you ask him a simple, straightforward question with an easy answer, instead drunkenly comes back with an impenetrable wall of waffle, and you have to be like, “What you just said didn’t mean anything. You just strung words together,” and then he insists that it DID mean something and it’s just YOU with an intellect insufficiently great to understand his grand pronouncements, leaving you to go, “OK. Have fun with that!” Ahh, uni days.