Hey typography afficiandos. Is FIFA using the ugliest font since TF Spermo? Wonder what they paid the designer. Enough to offset shame by 2 expansion points?

I'm so old school. I keep believing that when I click "Search," the cursor will appear in a search box, ready for input. And I'm irked every time I have to click again. More irked when I can't tell if the search box came alive after I clicked it. What do they teach in UI school these days?

Woad is an actual word.

“The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote.” hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-s...

Went to the ocean; found the nude beach and swim hole for a flock of #pelicans

PSA because I'm tired of this 🧵

this is such a great encapsulation of what the various factions of the reactionary right want. i might add that they envision themselves as slave masters and the rest of us, in one way or another, as their slaves. betterdonkey.substack.com/p/the-vra-wa...

The sad reality is that Xi publicly, and repeatedly, insulted Trump and insulted the USA. From giving Trump a shorter chair to citing the Thucydides Trap of a waning power going to war with a rising one, Xi broadcast that China is now in control. Trump is too dim-witted to understand.

It's righteous that Lucinda Williams is on the nyt best living songwriters list (else they'd embarrass themselves). But Dave Alvin isn't. I'm perplexed, coz I have exquisite taste in songwriters. His absence damages the quality of their list.

I finished Platform Decay. Now what do I do with the rest of my life?

Listening to music while swapping winter clothes for summer. "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" plays, and I think, oh, time to flip the album. As if I were time traveling.

Passed my beta draft to trusted readers last night. Now checking email as if I were awaiting response from a submissions editor. After all this time, I'm still like...12?

It should have kept on being spelled tyger in English.

BREAKING: A conservative court packed with Trump-appointed judges just ruled to ROLL BACK access to the abortion pill. This is a page straight out of extremist Republicans’ anti-abortion playbook. Let me be clear: the abortion pill is safe and effective. We must fight back.

While writing I fell into an hour-long intense emotional craving for a friend, gone 5 years now. That’s not like me. But turns out, I’d played Lucinda Williams’ ‘Something About What Happens When We Talk’ in the background. “Lucinda often does like that to you,” my dinner partner said.

Should I stick with #filing... Everything every character is doing grates on me...like, in what world is it ok for people to do or think like this? Will it ever be funny like the tone (but not the moral[s]) indicates?

You have to read this. It's insane. Like All the President's Men on steroids.

A #pursuitofjade observation: The camera loves Xie Zheng even more than Fan Chang Yu does. In fact, the camera does more than half of ZLH’s job on a regular basis.

Cherry blossoms blowing in a gusty Seattle wind like we're in a drama but with no ML, no swords. And my hands are freezing.

My #pursuitofjade comment (no spoiler!) that I don't want to bury in replies: a major theme driving the plot is "don't do things to protect a capable woman that she didn't ask you to do; it will not work out well for you" (repeat every ep, every new situation)

Who burns bodies in the heart of a military camp? Who sets off on a march without supplies or shelter? Who forges perfect blades but forgets to give them to intended beneficiary? Why so many production/continuity probs in 1 ep?

I made the very adult decision not to drink tea after 7pm, even though a brand-new box of lapsang souchong is calling my name. And I finished the research for the chapter I will write tomorrow (how to raise goats with no capital investment). Such a day!

I am here to advocate for #aboutlove. First, if you like romance, this isn’t it—instead, watch #loveBetweenLines or #TheBestThing. About Love focuses on issues related to ‘love’ that I haven’t seen in contemporary #cdrama stories (about which the MDL synopsis seems unaware). [long] 1/6

Oh gawd (Applies for everything I've read so far today)

A picture is with 1k words. So where did the tradition of adding 20 unreadable hashtags come from? Esp. with no alt text? (I'm not saying I hate it. But I dislike it immensely.)

Some of you might be able to help with this. A survey on Reading Chinese Wuxia (Martial Arts) Fiction in English: app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/arts/readi...

“The presumption created by the surrounding evidence is that this war could very well be about (1) subverting US democracy, (2) enriching the president, or both. These presumptions, while not proof, provide solid lines of inquiry as we learn more about the war.” snyder.substack.com/p/why-attack...

The real story is that foreign govts try to "interfere" all the time. In 2020 and 2024 we had mechanisms to catch them, call them out, & mitigate damage. Now, those mechanims are gone & the Trump admin would prefer to exploit "foreign interference" to justify a federal take-over of elections.

Compulsively read The Verifiers and The Rivals over the past 3 days, leaving me with 15 minutes of not knowing what next to do with my life, then flooded with a burning desire to write. Jane Pek is my new secret crush.

Since we are losing review space left, right and centre, and Goodreads is making that worse, I'm now going to be doing regular romance review roundups on my blog. Get recs here! Share your own! kjcharleswriter.com/2026/02/25/r...

I read the news today. Hooo boy. I learned that I have sat in a room with (& had my work life negatively affected by) a man who met his mistress through Jeffrey Epstein. (And I likely can't read this post coz E is a muted word )

I wrote a romance* centered on an alt[dot]country idol despairing over fans' usenet discussions about which way he tucked. Here I am, 1.5 decades later, soberly engaged in a discussion over why xz's clothes don't fit. What happened that got me here?** (*9 Volt Heart) (**cql)

btw, #thejudgereturns gets sorted in the "revenge drama' pile, but it's not a revenge story. It's redemption/justice restored. And fear not, (reverse spoiler) the time-travel trope doesn't crash and destroy the story at the end.

Love seeing snippets from #asmalltownremedy ... But did they hire one of the most beautiful men in the world and then dress him in clothes 2+ sizes too big?

'By using words well, writers strengthen their souls... And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.’ — Ursula K. Le Guin youtube.com/shorts/ePEpI...

At the end of each cycle. My new dryer plays the opening bars of Fur Elise, causing 30 seconds of 7th grade piano recital panic. And like all pestiferous appliances: no way to turn it off permanently.

This guy is out here in early February (!) crying his heart out for female companionship. Alas, little guy, Seattle doesn't have that for you.

Is the kdrama #thejudgereturns getting anyone's attention? I'm a sucker for every legal drama, & I came for #JiSung yet I find the story's persistent moral dilemma intriguing: How evil can you be while redeeming your previous evil life? Also, ML's white sox & too-short trousers = hilarious choice.

Esquire's "The Most Stylish Men in Music" in such a sad statement on "style" in (mostly) the U.S. Maybe two steps beyond sad.

One pleasure of #swordsintoploughshares is seeing Zhao Yun Lan in one of his pre-#Guardian incarnations.

Watching #SwordsIntoPlowshares feels like when I took a 400-level biochem class without any 200-level chemistry (I had a crush on the microbiology prof*). I've read the PPT slides. I’m dedicated to doing the work. I can recognize the players (it was hard at first). But this #cdrama feels so fated.

Street art memorializing Alex Pretti in Seattle. Per r/Seattle, it was painted on a building facing Swedish Hospital in the First Hill neighborhood www.reddit.com/r/nursing/co...

The Senate bill is rooted in the idea that we just need to get BP/ICE "back to" only terrorizing people we deem worthy of being terrorized, and not White people. The exact problematic understanding people have been trying to warn against... While a lot of White people insisted that concern was silly

Disappointing to see people on here talking about their ideal ICE/CBP reforms. It is a terrorism organization that is conducting terror campaigns. Abolish. At minimum. That's it.

#swordsintoplowshares has offset my impulse to rewatch #nif ... now why didn't I wait until more episodes were out? dang withholding streaming services playing in loco parentis ... as if I have no self-control. #cdrama

Knowledgeable #cdrama people, pls help me out. Is a drama like #swordsintoplowshares that uses actual dynastic events subject to extra scrutiny for historic accuracy to get its broadcast license?

The seagulls are circling, not yet settling. There's some kind of bat signal that calls *every* gull in Seattle to the stadium as soon as the crowd empties. The siren call of dropped french fries!

A long-time friend left the world on Friday via medically-assisted suicide, after 2 years of cancer treatments with declining odds, from 4% to 0.1%. She chose to leave with sufficient faculties to experience her own death. I’m proud of her & grateful WA state passed such laws years ago. Tribute: 1/6

My neighborhood is preparing for siege, but it's just "overexcited fans" descending. Gates&guards in place, fire guys & gendarmes moving in. Don't know when the antisniper cop takes his place on our rooftop. And I forgot to buy breakfast food yesterday. Wish me luck as I venture onto the street.