Mark Carroll's Journal

( Listening to old music )

( Playing more with AI/LLMs. )

( Money is tight. )

It occurred to me to try to remember all fifty states of the US. I thought I would do better, I could recall only forty-seven, my daughter did better and faster. I shan't disclose which I forgot in case a reader wants to try. It was annoying to note those I did forget: a reader here lives in one and I was open to moving to it a few years ago, and I used to work with a couple of people who hail from another.

It was interesting to hear of the flight chaos caused by London Heathrow's power loss, so many flights diverted and passengers ending up all over Western and Central Europe. That must have caused all sorts of problems and taken the airlines quite some effort to recover from.

We had a pet food delivery from Amazon (insert hisses and boos to taste) shortly after half-past seven on a Sunday morning which impressed neither me nor R. At a glance, I failed to find a summary on their website of when they think is reasonable to make residential deliveries but at least we now know that it may happen again.

Recently we had a remarkably foggy day. The morning started off fine then the fog moved in and lingered for the remainder.

I was reminded of my later years of walking to my first primary school. I would arrive by crossing the playground. On the foggiest mornings, from the far side of the playground I could not see the school. As I crossed it, the junior school building would come into view, first its lights then its outline.

In one dream, I was reading a book about how to uncover the government's UFO conspiracy. I awoke just as I was starting the chapter on how to use boats, and the items thereon, in furtherance of the cause.

In the other, I was participating in a battle to resist an(other) alien invasion of Earth. The proximate alien war machine had large barrels that launched powerful shells or somesuch at us. There was a concrete structure with a straight, wide tunnel leading nearer the foe. Observing that the barrels were to the side of the tunnel's far mouth, I wondered if the tunnel could thus shelter our closer approach. However, then I realized that the war machine could move sideways so we would become sitting ducks along the tunnel's inner wall.

I had an odd evening recently in which I watched episodes of Picard (2020) and Twelve Monkeys (2015) and noticed both Terry Matalas writing and Todd Stashwick acting in each. Todd's appeared in plenty of things I've seen and is always welcome, like when I discovered that Michael McKean's in The Diplomat (2023), he gets around too, though Rufus Sewell (whom I've liked since Dark City (1998)) and Keri Russell are already enough of a draw there.

This morning, I caught myself pronouncing lever in the American manner rather than the British. To date, I've spent most of my adult life living in the US. Now that I am in the UK for the foreseeable future, I'm trying to shift back to my prior norms. R. does quite well with switching because they spent their life living in countries that were once American or British colonies and retain some of that legacy.

Update: … and this evening I caught myself saying slaughterhouse instead of abattoir.

With family arriving from the tropics, I had some grocery shopping to do, also some stocking of the car of things like warm coats. With ordering various items for them, bedding and whatnot, I also had plenty of recycling of packaging to do, and the communal trash had previously been overfull, causing me backlog. Last night, after work, I did the shopping then, with living in a top-floor flat, I found it worked well to put on a coat, carry recycling down, leave the coat in the car, then bring more groceries back up, ready to pick up another coat and more trash. Helpfully, there was a substantial piece of cardboard that worked well as a carrier, folded at the bottom, for packing smaller cardboard and whatnot into on the way back down, so that got disposed of on the last trip to the trash.

At one point, upon seeing the DPD van, I paused so that I could be sure to be present if a delivery was coming to me, but no. Of the various couriers bringing me items, the only problems have been with DPD, who seem variously dreadful. Perhaps it's partly a local issue but I'd be glad to know who the courier would be before ordering. Of course, my online ordering coincides poorly with the holiday gift-giving season and postal strikes.

This week I discovered that, from our bedroom, I can look out across the sea and find ships, then look online at live marine traffic maps, with click-through to photographs of ships, and confirm that what I see out of the window matches what I see on the screen. I would still like the life extension and interstellar travel but it's a start.

As my move comes closer, my meals get stranger as I try to use up what remains in the house. For example, breakfast today was Kashmir spinach (with paneer) and wedding soup (which I'll miss).

I have plenty of eggs and thought it time to use some. After all, if I skip this morning's granola, I can postpone opening the new milk for another day, so I instead planned omelette on toast. One thing that didn't initially occur to me was that I usually add a splash of milk when beating the eggs. Instead of that, I added a splash of salsa, which worked nicely. This knowledge isn't much helpful seeing as I am leaving the country soon but I have found myself rather liking the Kroger traditional salsa so I am happy to find excuses to use it. I also have some slices of pepper jack in the refrigerator so I placed one within the omelette when folding it over in serving.

With everything else going on in my life right now, recently I have saved myself some time by eating food that is less healthful but more convenient, though I still typically fast. I am pleasantly surprised to see my weight still drifting downward, mostly reversing my gains during past visits to Europe and Asia. I have been somewhat careful, e.g., I put said three-egg omelette atop one piece of toast rather than two, but I don't feel that I have earned my current luck in weighing 141lb this morning. We shall see if it holds. My exercise options were reduced when they stopped requiring masks in the gym at work.

I did not expect online advertising to suggest, turn your pet into a pillow. I assumed that it was post-mortem taxidermy rather than a punishment but it turns out to be neither, at a glance it seems as if they print the pet's image from a digital photograph onto the material. I wonder if the ambiguity occurred to them, maybe everybody else guesses correctly the first time.