What a handsome Torontonian!

Super fierce in his war helm!

I watch them too. And there’s another similar channel of a single young (American, I think?) woman who’s doing the same thing. And again, the locals are very welcoming - I suspect this depends on whether the newcomers are making an effort to integrate, learn the language, etc.

Professional fundraiser, having worked in non-profit my entire career (and my university degree was in a social sciences field). I wouldn’t call myself technically proficient, but I’m technically savvy - I was an early adopter of the internet as a teen, and have been online in some form or another since the mid-90s. Fuck spez.

I want good icing, not that awful shortening-based shit you get on most commercial cakes. And to be honest, I mostly only want good cake too (ie, homemade or from a bougie bakery).

Yeah, I watch anything I want to see at home, in my comfy entertainment room. The last movie I saw in theatres was in late 2021, I think? And that was at a local, independently owned theatre. The big corporate ones are so ridiculously overpriced these days.

I don’t necessarily object to longer films, but my small-to-begin-with-and-now-middle-aged bladder sure does. Bring back intermissions!

Yeah, this is pretty much my standard now too. I was in hospital for a day surgery recently and was more than a little taken aback at the fact that I was one of the only people masking.

A wise choice, it’s a time-suck for sure.

Dwarf Fortress, been playing it off and on for many years now. I happily bought the steam version when it came out!

Excellent log, my dog gives it four out of four paws straight up on the air. Because he’s lying on his back like a dead cockroach under my desk right now.

I roasted a big batch of veg (zucchini, mushrooms, onion) on the weekend to go with some roasted chicken legs. I poured the chicken drippings over the veg when everything was cooked. I still had some of it left after finishing the chicken, so I added a few cherry tomatoes and heated it all up in a pan, then tossed in some cooked fusilli and pasta water. Finished it with grated Parmesan. It was delicious!

There is a real threat of harm to various minority groups living in red states. Hell, there’s a real threat of harm to women who can fall pregnant living in red states. I’d certainly not want to live there if my accidentally falling pregnant (which would likely be ectopic in my case) would result in a very high chance of my death.

Only one colleague has ever directly asked me if it was a Ghibli background - and she’s a very cool chick!

Sorry 😬

• Canada

It’s the serious eats deep dish dough for me, baked off in a cast iron pan. It’s perfect, and can double as a focaccia dough!

A nice risotto - it takes a bit of time, but the basic recipe is super simple. Get a pot of about 5 or so cups of stock (chicken veggie, whatever) simmering on the stove. In a big pan, sauté a diced onion with olive oil, add a bit of minced garlic, then toss in about a cup and a half of arborio rice (or another short grain rice) and get it all coated in the oil. You can add half a cup of white wine now if you like, or just slowly start adding in a stock, one ladleful at a time. Keep stirring, don’t walk away! This takes some time, but as the stock gets absorbed the rice releases its starch and gets super creamy. Taste test to know when it’s done. Season with salt and pepper, and serve with some parmesan cheese grated over the top (ideally from an actual block of parm, which would likely be the most expensive part of this dish).

You can add various veggies in - I like adding mushrooms or blanched asparagus. It’s great as a side dish, but also works as a main.

Right now I’m using this as my lock screen and this as my background on my tablet.

I always use Ghibli landscape images on all my devices, and rotate through them frequently. I pull from a few Imgur galleries: this one for my phone and tablet, and this one for my laptop dual screen setups.

I really appreciate that media (even if it’s pandering, whatever) is starting to show a much wider variety of romantic relationships. Representation is important, and seeing the gentle courtship between Burt and Irving was incredibly sweet.

I’ve been gardening now since the first year of the pandemic, and I will absolutely never grow enough to sustain myself. Perhaps on an acreage, if that was my full time job? If I was lucky? But it’s a LOT of work to grow food at a sustainable level, and that’s not even counting how one goes about processing and preserving it, saving seeds for next year, ensuring there’s enough to last till the first harvest next year.

Garden for the pleasure of it, and enjoy those small pleasures. I successfully over-wintered all my strawberries (in Canada! In a raised bed!) and they’re producing like mad this spring. I certainly couldn’t live off them, and perhaps they won’t make it to next year, but I’m enjoying eating the berries right now.

(And you may already know this, but I found that hand-fertilizing the silks was really successful when I grew a small plot of corn!)