Promiseland

[Fetian]

Seeing Leslie Nielsen in a serious role is wild

[Fetian]

I'm watching Columbo and he's popped up in an episode

[erikavonkaiser]

A couple nights ago I started reading Blindness.

I read this many years ago! I liked it when I was a teenager but I think I would like it less, now. Could've done without--

(this is referencing when they're still in the quarantine asylum, so not a spoiler if you're past that)

the asylum devolving into being run by like one "actually" blind dude and a bunch of rapists

[Fetian]

A couple nights ago I started reading Blindness.

I read this many years ago! I liked it when I was a teenager but I think I would like it less, now. Could've done without--

(this is referencing when they're still in the quarantine asylum, so not a spoiler if you're past that)

the asylum devolving into being run by like one "actually" blind dude and a bunch of rapists

Yeah, that whole thing was a bit much for me -- I think it would have worked better with a less distant narrator, because the whole time I was very 'Well I for one would not put up with this' and annoyed that 200-someodd other people were just going along with being robbed and raped by 17-ish guys even if one of them had a gun, but if I had a better feel for their hunger and exhaustion I might have gotten it better. But on the other hand fuck that.

Thankfully that part is much shorter than it could have been, I'm already outside the asylum and back in the town, now

[Fetian]

I'm weak and a coward but I hope above all else that I have the moral fortitude to not send someone off to be raped, regardless of circumstances

[Fetian]

Oh wow, as of yesterday I've been learning Japanese for a year

[Fetian]

Pain continues. It's not getting worse, at least, but it's staying pretty bad.

Kitten plans have been pushed back again, mostly because we have a lot going on this weekend (unless the above prevents it) and I don't want to add a kitten to all of it, but also because I want more time to get laundry &c done when Charlie isn't here anymore

Speaking of, Charlie is visiting for a week, leaving again this coming Sunday

If I'm able, Sara is hosting a get-together at her place on Saturday, and then on Sunday ash and I want to get ice cream for Sor's birthday

 
Duolingo had a major content update for some (most? all?) of its languages that has functionally completely wiped progress by rearranging all the lessons and introducing a bunch of words much earlier, so I can't just skip ahead on it. It's also finally completely gotten rid of the discussion pages, and that honestly has me considering abandoning the app entirely because that was the only way to actually understand what you're learning

Went looking at the reddit and apparently they're planning on eventually rolling out some kind of replacement, that has them removing discussions entirely for some users (here). My money is on it being the ChatGPT stuff they've also been toying with -- instead of getting information from actual speakers of the language, just ask a robot that may or may not be hallucinating its answer.

 
Speaking of Japanese, I've finally settled on a way to learn kanji that I think will work for me -- whenever I come up on a kanji I don't know in a lesson, I spend 10 minutes drilling that kanji and that context by writing it over and over and saying whichever reading is appropriate for that context out loud. This will severely slow down my learning because I don't want to do too many of that in a row, so if I come up on another one too soon I just stop the lesson for then, but that should be less of a problem as I go on (and run into fewer unfamiliar kanji)

I also am giving a different flashcard system a try -- I've been meh on anki but couldn't find one that worked any better for me, but jpdb has pre-made decks specifically based on vocabulary in a given media, so you can learn stuff with an intent to read/watch/listen/play a thing you're already interested in. I of course have subscribed to a digimon deck. It's also got some other features that I think will work better for me -- we'll see how it all goes

And to buff up on grammar points I'm thinking about reading the Genki I textbook, but I'm unsure if I'll follow through on that. Reading a textbook on a computer is a bit,

 
Okay, I'm going to go lay down for a while and hope my pains stop

[Fetian]

I did also find, a while ago, a website that hosts anime episodes with built-in learning features that looked really interesting, but I bounced off of it when it translated その as "the", because I know that Japanese doesn't have articles, except that it came up in jpdb as well (I was also attempting to use digimon for the anime site, and the show starts with "その年の夏は地球全体がおかしかった…" ('that summer, something strange happened all around the world...', roughly)). I looked into it and it seems that その can be used as 'the', sort of? This is a grammar point that's making sense to me but that I can't explain it myself. It's just another one of those things that makes language so complicated -- "Japanese doesn't have definite articles, except this one, sometimes, kind of,"

(And also another one that functions in basically the same way but with a slightly different meaning)

Anyway! I might try the anime site again now that I know it was I who was wrong, definitely it's the only place I've found that has digimon in Japanese with Japanese subtitles so I'll be using it to watch it even without the learning features, but I'll be going through these flashcard lessons for a while first

[Fetian]

Also also also ash got me that birdfeeder/bath I was looking at and it arrived yesterday! No mice (or squirrels) have shown up to investigate it yet, and I also haven't seen any birds at it yet. Fingers crossed the former can't get up to it and the latter like it

[Fetian]

I need someone to pull me over a taffy hook and stretch out my spine