Hello! Here's a few links to start things off:
- Trees hold their breath during wildfires - I think we all knew trees "breathed" carbon dioxide in and oxygen out but did you know they could stop the respiration process? Researchers happened to find this out when their study area was engulfed by wildfire smoke.
- Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates - Ants are pretty amazing. These Florida carpenter ants will amputate another ant's leg but only if the injury is in a spot where the ant is likely to heal.
- What the internet looked like in 1994, according to 15 webpages born that year - neat article on early websites, the start of e-commerce and some firsts like first webportal, banner ads and webcams.
So, update on the meal delivery experiment. At first it was really great not having to think about cooking and just grabbing something from the fridge. But after a few weeks I just thought, you know, I think I'm getting tired of this! The food was still good and I still wasn't cooking so I'm not sure what my issue is. I hear about people who have to eat out a lot (because they're travelling for work or on a trip) who say they get tired of restaurant meals and I could never comprehend that. Someone else is cooking and doing the dishes! But you know, I get it now! I put my delivery service on pause although I'll still get a box this week. Next weekend, though, I'm going to have to start thinking about cooking again!
I'm usually pretty much of a homebody. But sometimes I do go out and do things. This weekend I went to an event held by the local Humanist Group. Every second Saturday they get together to crochet mats for people sleeping outdoors using plastic bags as the yarn. (OK , gotta admit, my first time at this even was last September - it took me this long to go back! Why? I kept forgetting the day or something happened where I just wasn't feeling it.) I don't do crochet (except for single endless chains - got to work on making rows!) but I will happily make the plastic yarn (plarn) until the cows come home. It was really nice! Not many people showed up for this session which the event organizers said was normal. Attendance always varies. But I was there making plarn, there was a newcomer who dove into crocheting mats, another person was making loops out of the plastic bags that you then use to tie together to make the plarn and one man was using a braiding technique with the bags instead of crocheting which made a thicker style mat. Every one was so friendly and there was low key chatting going on and it was just a lovely time. I am really going to try to make this a monthly thing for me. If this idea intrigues you, here's a video that does a really good job of explaining both how to make plarn and then crochet it into a mat.
I played Guild Wars again with my son this weekend. He came over and we set up our lap tops in the dining room. We are going through the training area and only have a couple more quests to complete before we're ready to move on. My character is an elementalist/monk who seems to be dressed rather inappropriately for battle. As with any game, I'm having trouble keeping room in my inventory. I hate getting rid of stuff because you never know when you might need it later! And then I end up ditching stuff I should have kept and keeping worthless stuff that I was convinced was going to come in handy at some point. What I need are MORE INVENTORY SLOTS so I don't have to keep making these hard decisions.
I've also been playing my Cattails:Wildwood Story game. I defeated the first Dark Ruins! I'm pretty proud of that. I enjoy the game but I really just want to run around collecting things and doing stuff. Instead, I'm the leader of my colony and I have to keep an eye on colony resources and also gift the colony cats things so their friendship levels go up. And I have to keep on gifting them, otherwise the friendship goes down! And let me tell you, some of these cats have expensive tastes. #LeadershipProblems It's a cute little game. I didn't realize it until recently but this and the previous game in the series are an homage to Warrior Cats, which I never got into (probably because I was an adult and out of the target demographic when they came out) but I have been hearing a lot about lately.
Usually I do sections for what I'm reading/watching/listening to but there's not a whole lot to say about that this week. I'm still reading Tad Williams' Shadowmarch series. I'm almost done with the third book, Shadowrise, and will probably be buying the 4th and last in the series, Shadowheart, today. These are beefy books - the one I'm reading now is almost 600 pages. I feel like I haven't been reading a lot but it's just that I've been reading a lot of one book. As far as TV, I'm still doling out episodes of Slow Horses and I have one more episode of My Life is Murder which I'm hoarding.
I think that's about it for this week except to say that, if I manage to edit things correctly, this blog will now have an RSS feed! The link should be up at the top with the rest of the navigation.