Brinens and Things

1. What is the best book you have ever read? Why did you like it?

*Ever*, I'm not sure.

The cached answer from back when I was often asked my favourite book is "Ella Enchanted". It's got tons of loophole exploitation! And people getting mind-controlled into being happy about their situation! And a *genuine* happy ending!


2. What is your favorite kind of weather? Why?

About 12°C, sunny, light breeze, leaves crunching under your feet, ragweed season over.

I can go outside, enjoy the fresh air, wear a turtleneck *and* my favourite jacket and be neither too warm nor too cold.


3. If you had $100,000, how would you spend it?

You know what, it *is* about time I wrote down the List. It'll help me make sure I'm keeping track of it all, compared to just having it in my head.

(all figures in CAD, translated where necessary)

i. Very extensive roof repairs (~$6,500 - $11,000, depending on quality and haggling)

ii. Partial dentures for Dad (~$2,000)

iii. One-month, three-person emergency fund (Brother has a full-time job and partially separate finances: he can take care of himself) ($3,750)

iv. Laptop for Mom (current laptop barely functions as a personal computer (plus it's hampering her ad-mining) but would make a fine prosthetic brain for the TV; current TV prosthetic brain barely functions as such but would make a fine short-term emergency spare) (~$400)

v. Three-month, three-person emergency fund ($7,500 if you already have a one-month)

vi. Dental checkups for me and Mom (~$350)

vii. Extensive porch repairs and handrail installation (don't have a price quote on this yet, maybe a few thousand)

viii. ~5- to 7-year-old Toyota Prius V (by far the most fuel-efficient of [non-luxury car models capable of driving 100mi to New York, fitting $800 of groceries inside, then driving 100mi back]) (~$14,000)

ix. [classified] ($3,700)

x. Six-month, three-person emergency fund ($11,250 if you already have a three-month)

xi. Fill out rest of RRSP (~$3,200)

xii. Replace upstairs hallway carpet (much of which is covered in permanent dog-urine stains), probably also have to replace parts of the floor underneath as some spots are suspiciously squishy (don't have a price quote on this yet)

xiii. New coat of paint for parts of house requiring protective paint coating (don't have a price quote on this yet)

xiv. Ask Dad if there are any other house repairs I've overlooked (don't have a price quote on this yet)

...let's see, what I am up to now? Around 60 - 70k? And the original 100k was probably meant to be USD, so I've still got about half left.

If I had 65k lying around because of extra *income*, I'd say that's enough for it to be worth my while to hire a U.S. tax specialist to fill out the Qualified Electing Fund paperwork on a bunch of VGRO. (The nice thing about those all-in-one funds is you only have to fill out one set of QEF paperwork (per year) for your entire portfolio.) But this is a lump sum, which means we're still bleeding money underneath (albeit less than before, what with the non-beater car), which means we're likely to need that 65k in the next five years, which means no stock market. I'll just add it to the same carefully-optimised† savings account as the emergency fund. (Between that and the emergency fund, it's over $200/month in interest!)


4. Did you ever meet a famous person?

Well, there's a surprisingly decent chance I've run into Justin Bieber at some point and not realised...

I mean, in general, I don't expect that I'd notice if someone I was meeting was famous. Didn't even realise for a while that the person I was chatting with in some blog comment threads a few years back was Ursula Vernon, and I can't blame prosopagnosia for that one.


5. Were you ever in a helicopter, limousine, racecar, hot-air balloon, submarine, horse-drawn carriage?

Only horse-drawn carriages.

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†About 2.8 - 3.3% interest, depending on which promotions are going on at the moment.

I have been variously busy and sick, so here is a longer linkspam to catch up.

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Comments on my own posts:

[none this time]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by buckykingofmemes; response is to sigmaleph) Zeugma; Tumblr silently fails to display certain formatting under even more circumstances than previously believed.

[cw: cannibalism, fantasy racism] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by oligopsony) Thought of another thing to say about the ghoul worldbuilding.

[cw: poverty] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by theopjones) In which I continue to have feels about Vimes Boot Theory.

[Wordpress; Wayback] (OP by Ozy Brennan; response is to Aapje) Canada can't make up its collective mind about which date format to use.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by ms-demeanor; response is to rustingbridges) Apparently the business-laptop market became very weird about two years ago, which suggests I have about three to five years before the laptop market I interact with becomes very weird. We'll see. (Maybe the businesspeople on the front lines will take the brunt of it?)

(Also, apparently there are people who *don't* get their personal laptops from the used business-laptop market? There are laptops that are specifically *made* to be personal laptops? Like, I guess I was vaguely aware that this was a thing, but this post--though mostly about business computers--brings it home a little more.)

[cw: discussion of infohazards (but without saying what they are)] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by somnulencelogencia) When someone tells you you're better off not knowing something because it will scar you for life, they're usually right. (To help you make an informed decision about whether to read *this* post: OP specifies which story the infohazard they're talking about is found in (no link, but enough to easily google it), while I do not; I have read the story OP refers to, and the infohazard there canonically *cannot* break the fourth wall.)

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by sigmaleph) Podcasts and video-game grinding go great together. Podcasts and sufficiently-simple archiving tasks go fairly well together too.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by thedarlingone) Various responses to the responses to some ask memes I sent; the longest bit is about the relationship between temperature and type of clothing worn (and how this relationship seems to often be a lot weaker in other people than it is in me).

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by prosopanonymous; response is to rustingbridges) The evolutionary origins of prosopagnosia. Addendum here.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by thedarlingone) In which I help track down a link to a translation/joke-explainer. (Some pretty good fic recs in here too.)

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Links:

[Atlantic; Wayback] (by Ed Yong) Fetal nurse sharks swim around within their mother's wombs (yes, there are multiple wombs), and have even been known to poke their heads out.

[Financial Times; Wayback] (by David Smith; h/t Matt Levine) The life of a professional yacht deliverer.

[cw: amnesia] [TextFiles; Wayback] (by Jason Scott) Happy 10th birthday to the Archive Team! (Note: this is the 10-year-old post proposing its creation.)

[Wordpress; Wayback] (by Martin Gregory) Professional trash-picker comes across a collection of photographs from the mid 19th to early 20th centuries, showcases them on his blog. Some neat glimpses into the past here.