Open gathering and chat post!

[capri0mni]

(Consider this journal entry properly bedecked).

This "Christmas season" is hard on everyone -- even those who enjoy & celebrate it can find it exhausting. And for those of us who don't -- or can't -- celebrate it (for whatever reason) it can be especially isolating -- particularly for those of us whose primary social connections happen through these here Interwebs.

So:

I'm posting this entry as an open discussion/chat thread, so that we have a place to chat and commune through the comment threads.

Come sip a warm (or cool, depending on your season) spiced beverage of your choosing, and grab a plate full of virtual goodies.

I'll be checking back in frequently over the next 72 hours or so.

Welcome! Welcome!

Edited to add:

I also can't forget (or, rather, I can, but should not) that today is also the first day of Hanukkah. So have a video that ysabetwordsmith posted a couple of years ago:

Watch on YouTube

Because I also know many are over saturated with Christmas songs, by now...

Comments

[randomling]

Hello hello!

It is Christmas Eve. I was woken up Very Early by dad and brother-in-law talking right outside my room. I then spent the next six hours zombie-ing in bed.

Now I'm up, I've managed to eat and do my daily dose of language studying, and I'm watching a Gilmore Girls and trying to make Minecraft not be crashy anymore.

How are you doing? ♥

[capri0mni]

Oh, pretty good... I took a shower this morning while my hard drive defragmented (day before yesterday, my sound driver decided not to work any more, so I had to do a system restore back to October 1 -- since then, my computer's clock has been insisting that Greenwich Mean Time is an hour earlier than it actually is, so I had to reset my clock to one timezone further east, and my C: drive was 4% fragmented -- but all the fragments were right at the beginning of the drive, so moving my mouse from one side of the screen to the other was causing a low memory fault).

But everything seems to be working again. :-)

Watcha building in Minecraft?

[randomling]

I'm so glad that things are working again!

So far, I'm reinstalling Java in the attempt to make Minecraft work. If it does start working again, I'm gonna find a Great Big Space and build a Great Big Castle, I think. I haven't played Minecraft seriously for ages, I hear there are Many New Things to play with!

[capri0mni]

I haven't played Minecraft ever, actually. But I know enough of the memes to know what it is (probably).

Have fun!

[alatefeline]

Thank you so much. I needed to drop in for a few moments. *sips hot drink*

[capri0mni]

My pleasure!

What's yours?

Whatcha drinking?

(IRL, I'm debating whether it's too late in the day [1 pm] for another cocoa with coffee [probably is]

[jesse_the_k]

But is a coffee-less cocoa sill possible?

We have appealing piles of snow, and shortly BB, who's known me since I was 17, will be stopping by for lunch. This is good.

Hidden Figures is opening in my town tomorrow, and I think I'll be able to see t next week.


Urself?

Conversation starter #1

[capri0mni]

What's your favorite word play game?

Do you think we can adapt it for playing here, in the comment thread?

large coffee and small problems

[alatefeline]

Coffee with milk, oranges, a candy-cane. Need to put together some real food soon, and then go wrap things.

I need to learn how to host things (as an intovert!) in self-defense.

(dotdotdot for relatives and holiday stress)

...

...

...

Right now I'm feeling glad and grateful with a side-order of worried, because an old family friend dropped by with her partner and we had a good chat, but with some things unsaid. (I'm at my parent's house for the holidays, along with my sister; we're all pretty okay with each other, no major traumatic history, but there is still occasional friction which has serious layers because it's evolved over our entire lives.)

Earlier, I was feeling frazzled and wrong-footed and panicky, plus guilty and awkward, with an awkward wedge of gratitude in there somewhere. I lit a candle in my room for personal spiritual purposes, but my mother had previously asked me not to, and someone came in and took the candle at some point after I fell asleep, and it weirded me out and now I remember why I lived with a locked door as a teenager even though I like and trust my family, because they don't know how to talk to me instead of just...assuming they know what's what. Then before that, I was feeling so cozy...and before that, oh, I don't even know.

And now we're debating eggnog recipes and what to use up out of the fridge. *facepalm* My mother will never, ever, ever believe that if there is leftover cream, I will drink it in my coffee and this is not a problem. Nor that planning and picking recipes to use things up now mean one shouldn't be trying to save enough eggs to still have some of those on hand to maybe use later.

I just. *flails*

[alatefeline]

Fun! I hope you can make some great big awesome.

Sorry about the tech issues you and capriuni both seem to be having.

New gamestuffs, yay!

[capri0mni]

Raining here...

Audrey will be going out to spend Christmas eve with her mother and what family hasn't moved away since last year. And then, tomorrow, she'll be accepting an invitation to a friend's for dinner.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the Doctor Who Christmas Special being available to watch on Amazon Video tomorrow (The first Doctor Who since last Christmas)...

Yes, coffee-less cocoa is still possible, and I may still indulge...

[alatefeline]

Hooray for snow outside and cozy inside and friends and fun plans!

Clearly, all possible combinations of coffee and cocoa and other hot drinks that blend well with those should be tried, separately and in combination, until one arrives at The Ultimate Holiday Beverage.

(This was a hobby of mine at one point, in fact...I may pick it back up again.)

Re: large coffee and small problems

[jesse_the_k]

Families know just how to push our buttons because they installed them.

Leftover cream can go so many places. Mmm real eggnog sounds delicious.

Re: large coffee and small problems

[capri0mni]

Wait... why didn't your mother want you to light a candle in your room (fire safety fears or something else)?

I'm never comfortable with candles for me, personally. But I wouldn't ask someone not to light one for themselves...

Yeah... cooking and relatives.

This is where the proverb: "Too many cooks spoil the broth" comes from...

*empathies"

BTW, my aide is an introvert; one thing she says is: People often say that Introverts should 'get out more.'; what about telling the extroverts to Stay Home!!! ;-)

[jesse_the_k]

I'm thrilled you can watch Dr Who Xmas special on Christmas Day.

Wait, Dr Who is no longer an ongoing series?

Re: large coffee and small problems

[capri0mni]

Families know just how to push our buttons because they installed them.

Lol!!

[capri0mni]

Well, no... it will be available for streaming day after tomorrow (I thought today was tomorrow a little while ago, too).

No, it's a still ongoing series, but what with the Summer Olympics, and the Eurovision song contest, and such, the normal schedule would have preempted so much, Stephen Moffat decided to just postpone it for a year, especially since he's stepping down as exec. producer after this season.

Re: Conversation starter #1

[alatefeline]

Oooh! Oooh!

I like a lot of word games. Among them are Scrabble, Boggle, Bananagrams and so on. There are manymany online options for these. But for playing right here in a comment thread, one of the old verbal or scratch pad travel games might be best...hmmm...

Well, there is one-word-at-a-time storytelling, that's an old car trip game. Comment with one word at a time with dotdotdot, and when you think the sentence is done, comment with a punctuation mark. (Explanation here: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/5-word-related-car-games-for-your-next-road-trip/ ) There isn't a win condition to the basic form of the game, but a possible group objective is to make the longest possible grammatical sentence that makes sense and stays on topic, without repeating a word.

I'll start us off with a header and the first comment. if anyone wants to play.

Topic: travel mishaps (unless anyone objects)
First word to use: Once...

Re: Conversation starter #1

[alatefeline]

Once...

[capri0mni]

Yes -- impromptu confectionery is one of my hobbies.

Off the top of my head, I'd steer away from coffee and apple cider, though... just on a hunch.

Oh! You know what I like? Gingersnaps lightly dusted on the bottom with unsweetened cocoa powder -- it starts out bitter, but then, as you chew, the cocoa blends in with the sugar and spices.

Re: Conversation starter #1

[capri0mni]

she

Re: One word storytelling

[alatefeline]

Oh, PS, since we have an indefinite number of participants, it's fine to drop by over and over, just let two other people go in between each comment by the same person, unless things seem to be stalling out. And capriuni is in charge and can change the rules.

[capri0mni]

I also can't forget (or, rather, I can, but should not) that today is also the first day of Hanukkah. So have a video that ysabetwordsmith posted a couple of years ago:



Because I also know many are over saturated with Christmas songs, by now...

[jesse_the_k]

Ahhh. Now I see. I hope the next exec producer is very different from Mr Moffat, who I don't trust as a participant in Sherlock fandom. He seems overfond of the "reboot," Aka "I don't care about n decades of canon.

Re: Conversation starter #1

[jesse_the_k]

Found...