kbal

Holiday Skyrim binge initiated.

It's going to be a long time before I level up enough to start Dac0da. Best of the newly added mods to make a difference in the early game so far:

Passive Mudcrabs Controller Walk Run Toggle Cast Spells As Lesser Powers

Revel in the joy of our grand tax holiday! There will be no sales tax on thousands of items, to boost your solstice spending power! Video games, so long as you don't buy them the normal way. Some beverages, depending on size and ingredients. Pencil crayons, if they're bought as part of a package that contains blue ones. What spectacular benevolence!

NPCs keep the outfit even after uninstalling SPID or mods that distributed those outfits.

Oh damn, THAT was the problem with SPID 7.2RC1? I'm okay with that. I'm not one to uninstall things and not expect problems. According to tonight's test results that's the version that successfully distributes outfits that get equipped (unlike the previous version) and doesn't crash (unlike the newer RC builds.) It's no longer available on nexus but you can find it on github.

The snow today is perfect for making an igloo.

The local grocery store does delivery! This improves my life somewhat. They take orders by email, which are relayed to a man employed by the store to pick the orders and drive the van. No shitty big-data rent-seeking middlemen involved. It's pretty good.

I've learned that the reason why the brand of honey I've been buying is so good is that it's unfiltered and unpasteurized. It gives me a vague sense of unease as I wonder if there's some good reason why so many producers of the stuff do filter and pasteurize it even though it tastes this much better when you don't.

I mentioned, whimsically, that it was a personal failing of mine that I hadn't persisted for a single day being constantly aware of every breath, inhaling and exhaling. She reacted with horror at the idea of doing such a thing, imagining it possible only if every breath was difficult and painful. I easily dismissed her reaction as a misunderstanding, but perhaps I shouldn't have. Simple awareness can incite many feelings.

Week 8 of my campaign of diet and exercise: I think my body is building up a tolerance to wheat bran.

I stopped the whistling tea kettle from doing it's whistle this morning, to avoid disturbing the deer that were hanging around on the other side of the kitchen window. Showing such deference to wildlife makes me feel like I'm being slightly stupid, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.

Isn't this body meant to be suffused with ancient biological wisdom or something? I know losing weight is hard, but come on, just because I didn't ride a bicycle since seven days ago does not mean we don't need those leg muscles any more. There's plenty of fat left. Look, it's that flabby bit right there. Use that up first.

I've added flax seeds to my diet, maybe that will help.

The TL/DR is this: The allegation that David Pugliese is a Russian asset has floated around Ottawa for about a decade — often with various degrees of evidence behind it. It was in recent years that these documents, which appear to be real and which were furnished by Kyiv, were sent to Canadian intelligence agencies and were seriously investigated. While Pugliese has proved himself to be a willing customer for Russian disinformation, and while I believe he hasn’t appropriately disclosed his relationship with the Russian embassy, the idea that he is a paid agent of the Russian government is probably false.

But recent Kremlin influence operations have blurred the lines between asset and useful idiot. They invite us to, as I said repeatedly during my statement at committee, get serious.

If I had a way to capture the feeling of looking at the sky, I would put it here.