Status Updates

Safe rooms were becoming more common for awhile, but more often than not, people wind up putting a trap door in to access the crawl space. Shelters elsewhere open for watches, and when I was a kid, we went to the basement even for severe thunderstorm warnings. That city has become so backwards it’s embarrassing, and that was before they shut down the public transportation system.

In the alley, we tend to get desensitized to tornadoes happening in nearby communities—we sometimes spend entire days under a tornado watch with nothing coming of it—but when you have one carving through your backyard, it’s a different story. The news outlets, by the way, finally confirmed the one Monday night/Tuesday morning as an an EF-1. It was nasty enough to bend billboard supports down to the ground, strip trees, wreck roofs, and fuck shit up, but weak enough for the damage to be relatively minimal. Today, I spent god only knows how long sitting on the floor in the closet shaking like a leaf, and it seems to have missed us.

The current outbreak, described in this news article, has spawned over 60 tornadoes across several states since Monday. I’m trying to stay away from the news right now because it’s traumatizing.

Thanks for being patient right now. I know I sound like a broken record. PTSD sucks balls and it can just go straight to the pit.

Don’t fret, it’s perfectly good to be sending support hugs/vibes through the chat here, to give the morale support to our fellow AFF’ers. 

My area… prone to the occasional hurricane, and it’s big news when an EF-0 pops off shingles to a barn roof.  Your area…  sounds like the pasttime is playing ping-pong with the EF-2/3 tornados in the game.

Sending big hugs to Ghost and Cold and the furbabies…   

It’s hard to feel in the writing mood when so much is going on, and most of it is less than great.  I certainly know what that’s like.  I’m sure your creativity will return when things settle down again.

@Desiderius Price that doesn’t typically work for me, unfortunately. I did, however, viciously tear up some invasive weeds earlier this week. That said, shit kinda hit the fan yesterday. It might take awhile to clean it all up. 

@Ghost-of-a-Chance wish it did… can be very gratifying to send a tornado to your characters, see how they cope with it

Thanks. 🙂

Belated happy birthday!

Thanks. 🙂

Have an extra helping of cake, @pittwitch  🍰

Thank you dear Wench.  It has been LOVELY!

An even belateder happy birthday from me!

It wasn’t a tremendously big earthquake as these things go, but for our area, it was enough to be felt. The initial quake felt somewhat like being on a ship, to be honest. Everything moved just enough to make you think you needed to get your sea legs. There was one aftershock, in the evening, that was similar, but most of the aftershocks weren’t noticeable. And fortunately, there was very minor damage closer to the epicenter, and no deaths.

This was actually my third earthquake in NYC. The first one was in 1985, and that one rattled the glassware. It was only 4.0, but the epicenter was closer to the city. There was one in 2011, and we didn’t even feel that one. We were actually at the pool, and someone saw it on Facebook.  

I’m happy to stick with one earthquake!  And hopefully that’ll be the last one for you.

April 5^th… would’ve been on my way to watch the eclipse (yes, headed out early)

They don't call 'em feeder tanks for nuthin'. 

Given how my Potter fanfic is developing, I’m having to lean in heavily onto google maps, which is why I’m picking up on more of these details.

Et tu?

Can’t ask for a better end, dying surrounded by friends

I hear you. It’s been surreal here today.

I’ll try turning it off and on again, see if that helps.

My physics professor used to say, when something wasn’t working, that we should hit it. Fifty percent of the time, that would fix whatever was broken, and the other fifty percent of the time? Well, it was broken anyway and giving it a good thumping would make you feel better.  

Aw, the good old “percussive persuasion” @BronxWench?

Been reading up… and there’s authors deleting their stories due to the proverbial game of whack-a-mole, which AO3 makes this easier too with PDF downloading.  AFAICT, the etsy/book-binding is like charging HUNDRED or more bucks for printed/bound copies of particular fanfictions, acting as the publisher.   Yeah, this is pissing the writers off.

Rightfully so!  I was offended as a reader – you, oh bottom feeders, are jeopardizing our “harmless” entertainment.  Go away!

In our defense, downloaded from AFF is not easy.  As a writer, I tried with one of my stories to take a red pen to it.  NO DICE.

Getting high-priced lawyers involved is how you get the new rules around Star Trek fan-films (15 minutes max, no episodes, etc...), or the rights holder goes Anne Rice and prohibits all fanfiction with cease & desist orders.  Anybody rich enough to counter with lawsuits is also well off enough to negotiate authorized derivative works, leaving the average fanfic writer high & dry.  Hope those bottom feeders suffer from papercuts, lots and lots of vicious papercuts.

Dragons are fun, and easy to fast-BBQ anything! 

Well, they're more than meets the eye. 

Short story is hearing the pow and losing power, there was a squirrel in a frozen dive off the power pole.

One of my favorite songs is, 'How do you like me now!?' Rest in peace Toby.

We’re bringing back Wicker Man Wednesdays. 

Good.  I could be persuaded to stop off for some hotdogs and marshmallows!