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shadowkatI was in a good mood when the day started, only to have it turn sour on me as it evolved. I did take a walk though, see previous entry.
I won't bore you with all the gory details. Work is boring me at the moment, but it is at least non-stressful and for the most part pleasant, unlike last year which was boring, stressful and unpleasant. So, let's be grateful for small mercies. Also having been unemployed, I'm always grateful for employment. There are worse jobs, and I'm good at this one and it utilizes my analytical and writing/communication/legal skills for the most part. I'm doing a lot more math than I'd like - but such is life. Some things are unavoidable. The boredom has to do with too many of the same edits. Parts of my job were given to incompetent people, and I'm now editing work that I used to do outright - the irony is not lost on me.
Each day, every day, of this week, actually - for reasons I don't quite understand? The local news has been reporting on hit and runs in various portions of Brooklyn. Almost as if they are tracking hit and runs across the borough? And all the hit and runs happen in the wee hours of the morning. Usually between 1 am and 4:30 am. Why people are wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning, I've no idea. It's not the safest time to be wandering about. For one thing - it's dark outside. There's no one really out there. And people tend to be more reckless at that time. Either driving drunk, speeding, or half asleep. Also people wandering about are probably drunk or not quite awake? The first one was a 70 year old man hit by a 70 year old man, who stayed with him (so no not a hit and run). I felt sorry for the 70 year old man. The next was a 90 year old man hit by a moped and killed. The third was a kid hit another moped. The fourth was two teens, both killed, and that was a hit and run at 4:30 am in the morning in Sunset Park.
I just wanted the weather and the road and rail report. I did not want to know about various hit and runs around the area. They also feel the need to tell me about various shootings around the area, in places I never venture in and never would need to. No wonder people think the city is unsafe. Frigging media.
That didn't put me in a bad mood. Other things did. But, I started out in a good mood - because there were good news items posted on Threads. I'm posting beneath the cut.
1. Trump backed off of defunding FEMA indefinitely. (Gee I wonder why? LOL!)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/us/politics/trump-fema-texas-flood.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/11/trump-fema-texas-floods/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyiaEsnHiJE
2. Youtube is cracking down on AI created content on its service.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/youtube-prepares-crackdown-on-mass-produced-and-repetitive-videos-as-concern-over-ai-slop-grows/
https://www.cined.com/youtube-set-to-crack-down-on-ai-slop-with-monetization-policy-update/
3. ICE lawyers are resigning.
https://www.newsweek.com/ice-employee-quits-had-make-moral-decision-2097370
Gave me hope. Might not give others hope. I find human beings frustrating.
Does anyone else? It can't just be me?
**
In other news? I finally finished Remarkably Bright Creatures by
Shelby Van Pelt
This is a book about a 70 year old woman who works as a janitor in an aquarium who befriends an octopus. Through a series of events, the octopus manages to solve the mystery of her missing son.
I figured it out early on. Although I got confused for a bit, and this story plods. It took forever to finish it. I found the characters annoying, not quirky or charming - and that may have been the problem?
It was rec'd in various places as a feel-good, comfort, happy, and humorous read. I couldn't figure out why until the last ten pages. You know those stories where the writer works extra hard to keep the characters from finding out crucial information, and keeps placing obstacles in their path - to the point in which you either want to smack the characters or the writer? That's this book.
I felt for the octopus. He was dealing with remarkably dense creatures.
I also felt the writer working to get out of various plot corners she'd written herself into and using various ways to try to bring characters together or keep them apart. The story drug in various places. And there was a lot of whiny navel gazing.
Reading T Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead now. We'll see if I stick with it. Kingfisher's writing style appeals to me more than Van Pelt's. (This may be why I get stuff from Amazon and on the Kindle - I like non-mainstream writers better than mainstream traditionally published and highly marketed ones? Although What Moves the Dead made it into book stores.) I also like Kingfisher's quirky characters better. They are less whiny and more real, also Kingfisher's plots feel organic to the characters and not as contrived. I think she's a better writer. But mileage may vary on that front, it always does.
Off to bed, and perchance to sleep and dream of flowers and boats and happy things. Unlikely, my subconscious is stubbornly in nightmare mode. It likes to ponder all my worries and anxieties and concerns through my dreams.
I won't bore you with all the gory details. Work is boring me at the moment, but it is at least non-stressful and for the most part pleasant, unlike last year which was boring, stressful and unpleasant. So, let's be grateful for small mercies. Also having been unemployed, I'm always grateful for employment. There are worse jobs, and I'm good at this one and it utilizes my analytical and writing/communication/legal skills for the most part. I'm doing a lot more math than I'd like - but such is life. Some things are unavoidable. The boredom has to do with too many of the same edits. Parts of my job were given to incompetent people, and I'm now editing work that I used to do outright - the irony is not lost on me.
Each day, every day, of this week, actually - for reasons I don't quite understand? The local news has been reporting on hit and runs in various portions of Brooklyn. Almost as if they are tracking hit and runs across the borough? And all the hit and runs happen in the wee hours of the morning. Usually between 1 am and 4:30 am. Why people are wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning, I've no idea. It's not the safest time to be wandering about. For one thing - it's dark outside. There's no one really out there. And people tend to be more reckless at that time. Either driving drunk, speeding, or half asleep. Also people wandering about are probably drunk or not quite awake? The first one was a 70 year old man hit by a 70 year old man, who stayed with him (so no not a hit and run). I felt sorry for the 70 year old man. The next was a 90 year old man hit by a moped and killed. The third was a kid hit another moped. The fourth was two teens, both killed, and that was a hit and run at 4:30 am in the morning in Sunset Park.
I just wanted the weather and the road and rail report. I did not want to know about various hit and runs around the area. They also feel the need to tell me about various shootings around the area, in places I never venture in and never would need to. No wonder people think the city is unsafe. Frigging media.
That didn't put me in a bad mood. Other things did. But, I started out in a good mood - because there were good news items posted on Threads. I'm posting beneath the cut.
1. Trump backed off of defunding FEMA indefinitely. (Gee I wonder why? LOL!)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/us/politics/trump-fema-texas-flood.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/11/trump-fema-texas-floods/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyiaEsnHiJE
2. Youtube is cracking down on AI created content on its service.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/youtube-prepares-crackdown-on-mass-produced-and-repetitive-videos-as-concern-over-ai-slop-grows/
https://www.cined.com/youtube-set-to-crack-down-on-ai-slop-with-monetization-policy-update/
3. ICE lawyers are resigning.
https://www.newsweek.com/ice-employee-quits-had-make-moral-decision-2097370
Gave me hope. Might not give others hope. I find human beings frustrating.
Does anyone else? It can't just be me?
**
In other news? I finally finished Remarkably Bright Creatures by
Shelby Van Pelt
This is a book about a 70 year old woman who works as a janitor in an aquarium who befriends an octopus. Through a series of events, the octopus manages to solve the mystery of her missing son.
I figured it out early on. Although I got confused for a bit, and this story plods. It took forever to finish it. I found the characters annoying, not quirky or charming - and that may have been the problem?
It was rec'd in various places as a feel-good, comfort, happy, and humorous read. I couldn't figure out why until the last ten pages. You know those stories where the writer works extra hard to keep the characters from finding out crucial information, and keeps placing obstacles in their path - to the point in which you either want to smack the characters or the writer? That's this book.
I felt for the octopus. He was dealing with remarkably dense creatures.
I also felt the writer working to get out of various plot corners she'd written herself into and using various ways to try to bring characters together or keep them apart. The story drug in various places. And there was a lot of whiny navel gazing.
Reading T Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead now. We'll see if I stick with it. Kingfisher's writing style appeals to me more than Van Pelt's. (This may be why I get stuff from Amazon and on the Kindle - I like non-mainstream writers better than mainstream traditionally published and highly marketed ones? Although What Moves the Dead made it into book stores.) I also like Kingfisher's quirky characters better. They are less whiny and more real, also Kingfisher's plots feel organic to the characters and not as contrived. I think she's a better writer. But mileage may vary on that front, it always does.
Off to bed, and perchance to sleep and dream of flowers and boats and happy things. Unlikely, my subconscious is stubbornly in nightmare mode. It likes to ponder all my worries and anxieties and concerns through my dreams.