A Roaring Dawn

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements. 😉

I was scrolling through Twitter the other night when I happened upon this tweet: 

This reminds me of something a profoundly deaf friend said to me about the first time he got cochlear implants (as a young adult). Apparently one of the first things he signed after getting them was “Wait!? The sun is silent??”

— Stu K (@portcullisnyett) June 22, 2020

And it got me thinking... 

What if the sun did make a sound that we could hear? 

(And yes, I know, it does but because of the vacuum of space... [see this article])

Squid Woes

Middle nephew's birthday is about a week after the twins'. Like the twins, middle nephew (AKA Rambo) got a card and a "free choice" for what he wanted. Unlike the twins, I did not get his request right away. 

I mailed off the twins' gifts. My brother sent back a video of them opening them along with a video of the twins' requests. That were not what my sister-in-law had texted me... 

via GIPHY

But in both the gift opening and request video, Rambo's request was the same. He wanted a squid. 

I did not know squids were a thing. But considering how many patterns I found, apparently squids are a thing. 

I found a cute squid pattern. It took me about a day to make... 

...and I realized it was way too small. 

It's cute. But considering how long he's waited for his choice, how big his little brothers' gifts were, and the degree of difficulty of making this, I knew it wasn't going to cut it. 

So, I went in search of another pattern. 

I found Hubble the Squid. The pattern was 26 pages long. And... 

...it made a squid of about the right dimensions (and labor involved). 

Okay, then. Just for comparison sake... 

And now I'm done with nephews birthdays for this year. (Niece still hasn't given me her request, but that's another story.) 

In case you were wondering, the twins requested a Kracken and a dragon that breathes fire (and the fire can be pulled out of the belly of the dragon). They're seven. 

Although, they seemed to like the shark and the Spinosaurus. And I can get a head start on Christmas. There's this really cool Kracken beanie I've been dying for an excuse to try. As for a fire breathing dragon, well, dragon I can do, but I have no idea how to make it fire breathing. (If any of you have seen a pattern for that, send me the link, will ya?)

How Many Disney Movies Have You Seen?

I keep a few lists on my computer. They're kind of a contingency plan for the blog. There are times when I have a lot going on, like during the school year. If I run across something, like a quiz, that I like, I'll save it to the list. 

Most of the quizzes on the list are from Sporcle, so as I was staying away from those quizzes, I didn't really peruse the list. Until last week. And that's when I found a quiz buried at the end of the list that led to this week's "quiz". It's more of a list, really. But it's perfect for a Friday. 

How Many Disney Movies Have You Seen?

I've seen 31% (171 of 564). I think. 

Some of those movies look awfully familiar, but I can't be sure if I've seen them or not. Did I see that as a small child? If I have a pretty good idea of the plot, I figured I'd seen it. But there were a couple that might have been seen that I didn't recall enough to definitely say I'd seen it. 

And, a bunch of the more recent ones looked familiar just because I'd seen them advertised. I know a couple of them I only saw because I showed them to various classes. Then some were of the "did I see this or not?" variety. (Plus two of them are currently sitting on my DVR, waiting to be watched. I did not count those.)

I figure the false positives and false negatives probably cancel each other out. 

This may take you a bit of time, so I totally get it if you wish to skip this. But if you do try it out, I'm curious as to how many you've seen.

The Wrong Site

Since Darla brought it up... 

Pretty much nothing happened last week in my little corner of the world. (The world at large was figuratively on fire, but it's been that way for a while now. Besides, you all already know this.) Which means it's a #ThrowbackThursday. 

I'm reposting the post from May 9, 2019. Darla's comment last week: "...I'd probably end up in the wrong school based on some substitute teacher's regular rounds in our state," reminded me of the day that *ahem* I ended up at the wrong school...

Considering how long I've been subbing, I'm surprised I haven't had this issue before.

I had called ahead a couple weeks prior for this assignment. "Mrs. Jones" at "school A". I've covered Cindy Jones' class several times, so I knew what I was in for. (Cindy Jones' room is pictured above.)

It was a pretty good morning, and I managed to get there fairly early. I went to check in.

"You're at [school B] today for [Rebecca Jones]."

Erm.

I was told "school A".

A couple things were working in my favor. I was running early. And "school B" starts a half hour later than "school A".

I got to "school B" easily and checked in. It was a bit of mentally changing gears. Cindy Jones teaches English. Rebecca Jones teaches intro to health careers.

I blame the sub caller. She's new. As in, she's had the job for about a month. Mistakes happen.

(I did actually get a chance to chide her for this. She called me for a gig for the next day. I mean, I wasn't going to call her just to give her a hard time about the mixing up of the schools.)

Survival in the Sky

There's a treasure trove of programming on YouTube. Many shows I remember fondly have ended up there. On subbing-free Wednesdays, I'll present a random video that I loved back in the day. Some of these may not have aged all that well. If you have some time, come on and take a trip down memory lane with me.

I'm not a big disaster junkie. I don't like seeing things about people getting hurt. But, I found myself glued to the show Survival in the Sky when it aired on TLC back in the '90s. 

It was a show about plane crashes. But its focus was on the investigations afterward and what the industry learned from each disaster. 

I suppose that's what I liked about it. It was a puzzle. What happened? Why did it happen? How did the industry make sure it didn't happen again? 

For today, I have the first episode here. If you search YouTube, you'll find the other parts as well. 

Infinite Playlist

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements. 😉

What if "they" are using the music you listen to as a way to control you?

Four Row Curse

I finished the baby blanket! 

I mentioned this before here and here. It's to be a gift for my landlady's great-grandson, due in July. (She liked the yarn I used for the scarf for the Christmas present to my SIL, and she asked me to knit her a baby blanket.) 

She bought the yarn. She picked out the pattern. She told me how big she wanted it. 

It was pretty straightforward. It was a simple enough pattern. I got sidetracked with other projects, but then I got back to it. 

However, I had one big issue with it. Every time I sat down to work on it, I could only get four rows done at a time. 

It was a strange sort of curse. Some nights four rows was all I could rightly expect to have time to do. The rows are long (94 stitches). This takes a bit of time. 

But there were other evenings where I blocked out a lot of time to work on it. I put a movie on the TV. I had nothing else to distract me. 

Still, something would happen, or I'd get distracted, and by the time it was bedtime, I had only accomplished four rows. 

Ah well. Even four rows at a time is enough to finish the thing after a while. The last night I worked on it, I only had three rows to do. (And an edging.) 

It's another finished project for my Ravelry projects page.