My Tumblr move
It’s been a while since I had to leave Tumblr so I suppose it’s time to evaluate the move.
A little background info for those who missed the drama:
When I found out that Yahoo was buying Tumblr, I immediately turned to my old friend WordPress. And fortunately, WordPress was up to the challenge of transferring all my posts from Tumblr. In the end, I chose to only keep using my own photos, not all the cute and funny and informative reblogs I’d accumulated over the years. Instead, I started two new blogs to post all the interesting new articles and other pages I find on the internet.
I still miss the wonderful Tumblr community, but not surprisingly, since I’ve been using WordPress longer than Tumblr, I feel right at home here. The blog platform is just as good, if not better than Tumblr’s, but the community components, if I can refer to them that way, are a little more limited – there’s Like and Reblog, but not much more. Well, there’s also a very nice profile page, that I might start working on a bit more. What I really miss is the people, though I am beginning to make new friends on WordPress.com.
Now I only hope that my Tumblr user info wasn’t handed over to Yahoo when they took over. I left in a hurry to avoid that, but I suppose I’ll never know.
Out and about
Today we went on a little outing. We were going up to our cottage to meet an inspector from the insurance company. However, when we were about to change buses, the man called and said he’d had a cancellation and was just a few minutes away from the cottage. Since we weren’t there, he went up anyway. It seems our house isn’t the sort of building that can be easily accessed to be approved for the higher insurance (no basement/cellar) so we said we wouldn’t bother about it. He gave us some advice about the exterior of the house and left. That meant we didn’t need to go, after all. So we didn’t get on the next bus and stayed in the town we were in, to do a bit of shopping.
Unfortunately, the shop we wanted, the one with the delicious Belgian chocolate, wasn’t there anymore and we don’t know if’s been moved or just closed down. Then we went on to the big mall where we can usually get some special vegan foods. Some of those weren’t available either, but we did get some plus some fresh vegetables. And some other stuff we needed. On the way back to the bus stop we were caught by the rain so we waited and before the bus was due to arrive the rain had stopped. That happened twice before we were back at the house. It rained and we were under some kind of cover, which was lucky.
We were also (hopefully) able to advice a foreign visitor (who didn’t speak Swedish and almost no English) about which bus to take.
A funny detail: each time we got on the bus, the driver asked if I was an adult. The age limit has changed several times over the years, so I wasn’t sure if they meant was I under 16, under 19 or under 26. It turns out that they were talking about under 19. So apparently I look about 18. 🙂
A bit of whining
I had to go back to the clinic to do a test again. Usually, when that happens, I don’t have to pay for the second visit, but this time I did. It wasn’t all that expensive so it wasn’t so bad, but I sort of felt cheated. Especially since I actually had (or might have) a problem. As far as problems go, this one doesn’t seem to be so serious, but it’s still making me nervous, because I also have another, bigger problem, that I don’t seem to be able to do anything about. Again, some people might not think this is much of a problem, but to me it is. A really big problem. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, other what than I’m already doing, so I’m just going to try and forget about that for the time being.
Another thing that’s bothering me is that my DVD rental club that I’ve been in for a couple of years is closing down. This is the club that has made it possible for me to watch all the movies and tv series everyone else seems to be able to get, but not my family. Most people will just move on to other similar services, but we checked it out and found that most of our series and movies won’t be available anywhere else. And we only have about three weeks to go until the old club closes down. That doesn’t give us a lot of time to finish our series. Still, we’ve signed up for a couple of free trials to watch what we can on other services and we’ll make the most of these three weeks or so that we have left in the first club. But it really bothers me. It’s so unfair. Just because my sister and I belong to a minority group when it comes to our choice of tv series and movies to watch, our days of watching our favorite tv series and movies are over. Even if things are slowly getting better again on Swedish national tv, there’s still so much we miss. Even when it comes to American and English tv series, we’ll miss out on a lot, and when it comes to stuff from other countries (i e Sweden, France etc) we’ll probably miss out on everything. Still, on the bright side, we’ll be able to watch the few tv series we will get to watch all at once. And we’ll get to see some Classic Dr Who! At least that’s something.
Sigh. Alright, end of whining for now. Sorry about that.
The Fairy tale meme
Taken from katemacetak’s Livejournal.
Snow White: Do you consider yourself pretty? Name the part of your body you think is the most beautiful!
No. Not ugly either. Just plain. My hair is probably quite nice, and maybe my eyes.
Cinderella: What is your shoe size?
Big. 40 (7)
Sleeping Beauty: How many hours do you sleep each night?
Not sure. Not enough. I’m always tired. But then I probably need more than most people.
Little Red Riding Hood: What is your favorite food?
Vegetables, especially avocados and kale.
The Frog Prince: What do you find disgusting?
Body fluids and tissues. Dead bodies. Certain people’s mentalities. But not frogs and toads…
Jack and the Beanstalk: What plants are in your room?
None, but in the house, several, including Hoyas, Monsteras and Geraniums.
Puss in Boots: Do you have a pet? Do you want one?
My family and I have dogs and cats and will probably always have them. I used to have rabbits, guinea pigs and cockatiels and I’d like to have some of those again some day, but it’s difficult, so I’m not sure if/when that will be.
Rumpelstiltskin: What is the meaning of your url?
Ruby is my birthstone, and Crimson Corundum is another word for ruby.
The Little Mermaid: Can you sing?
No.
Pinocchio: What is your greatest wish?
To have children.
Peter Pan: What is your (mental) age?
On a good day, somewhere between 12 and 24. LOL. On a bad day: about 900 years of misery, sorrow and disillusionment.
The Star Money: What is your most prized possession?
I love my books, but I think I’ll mention my very cool Vegetarian Leather (Dr Martens) boots. 🙂
Beauty/Belle: What is your favorite book?
What a difficult question. I have to pick just one? I suppose I’ll choose either Gregory Frost’s Shadowbridge or Garth Nix’s Sabriel (and the rest of that series). But I have so many favorites.
Classics: Jane Austen’s Persuasian, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.
Fantasy: One of the ones I mentioned above or Frances Hardinge’s YA book The Lost Conspiracy. But really, it’s impossible to pick just one or even few.
Mysteries: Either Eliot Pattison’s excellent mysteries set in Tibet (especially the later books) or Barbara Nadel’s equally excellent mysteries set in Turkey. Or Jean-François Parot’s also excellent historic mysteries about Nicolas LeFloch, set in pre-revolution France.
Non-fiction: too many to mention, but definitely something about history and/or languages. Or… (LOL – I just can’t stop) Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
Missing Tumblr
I’m already missing Tumblr, even though I’ve just left. Although I’ve been a little fed up with all the reblogs, I do miss seeing all those fanpics on my dashboard. Where will I get my fandom fix now? Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy the fic recs I get on Livejournal, but I need photos too. WordPress doesn’t have them. Soup doesn’t either, but it should. It’s just as easy to share images and videos on Soup as it is on Tumblr. In fact, it’s easy on WordPress too, but I realize that isn’t the best place to look for copyrighted images.
Another thing I miss are the wonderful book blogs with book quotes and cartoons about books and reading.
Finally, I miss the food porn. All those yummy vegan dishes. Can I just have that on Soup?
Why, oh why, did Yahoo have to buy Tumblr? Of course, this misery is the perfect distraction from life’s greater sorrows, so there’s that, I suppose. Alright, never mind. As long as I can have a few fanpics (come on, Livejournal and Dreamwidth, help me out here), some book-related images (thanks, Booklikes!) and just a little vegan food porn (WordPress, Livejournal, Bleat…?)
Fastmail
I have had a fastmail.fm account for years and for most of that time it’s been excellent.
However, since the site changed, I have received spam email in previously unimaginable amounts. Incidentally, I have an old upgraded account – I paid a one time fee to upgrade. This type of upgrade no longer exist. Now, I may be paranoid but I seem to detect an ulterior motive here, on the site’s part: “Don’t upgrade to one of our current account levels and be drenched in spam!”
I used to love this email account, although it didn’t have much storage space. Now I hate it. I’m going to have to let it go, even though I once paid for an upgrade. I hate that too, but I can’t stand being treated this way.
Bye, bye Fastmail. I’m sure your current owners will be glad to see me go.
No more snow!
At last! The snow has melted so I can finally go for proper walks. I was so tired of the snow and ice, and although this isn’t nearly as pretty to look at, it’s a lot easier to walk on. Apparently, there will be some more snow today, but according to the weather report it will “quickly turn to rain”. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for that, but even more that the weather will dry up.
Unfortunately, the railway has been undermined and yesterday a train nearly fell off the track. Actually, it would have if some brave man hadn’t run on the track and met the train and waved at them to stop. Unbelievable! It’s going to be a while until the track has been repaired so for now, no one can get in or out of town by train. Though to tell the truth, I don’t know who dares to go by train these days. Nothing works as it should.
I just remembered…
My dad had to call and talk to the school authorities so I could have veggie food in school instead of what they served the other students. I had forgotten about that, but this morning, my mom talked to one of her friends on the phone and mentioned it. That reminded me of how dad used to help me when I really needed it. Not the little things, every day, but important stuff. I miss him so much. Things started to go really wrong for us when we lost him.
New glasses + haircut
I thought I’d post a pic of me in my new glasses with my new haircut.
Creepy
Yesterday afternoon/early evening as it was beginning to get dark, I went out for a walk. After a while, I noticed that I was being followed. By a green plastic bag! LOL. It was filled with air so it was almost like a balloon and it rolled along behind me for a while. I kept looking over my shoulder because it looked a little odd but after a moment it just stopped and lay there. Odd.
