Self Care – Adorable White Kitten Plays With Yarn (Youtube Video)

(So, chigau, in the comments, alerted me to something I honestly should have already known. So I’ll be avoiding “cute animal” compilations from now on, sticking either to livestreams or non-compilation videos where the animals are actually playing. The original video here was a compilation of mischievous cats. I did watch it a couple days ago, but apparently wasn’t playing close enough attention. So, I’ve changed the video…)

What do you do and/or enjoy for self care? Let me know in the comments!

Self Care

Starting Friday, January 20, at 7am Eastern Standard Time, I’ll be posting self-care posts every 4 hours from 7am EST to 11pm EST until Monday the 23rd, at which point, starting Tuesday the 24th, I’ll be putting up one self-care post a day at 12pm EST for the foreseeable future.

What will they consist of?

Simple…

-Animated gifs or live videos of cute animals (that will be the bulk of it over the weekend)

-Science documentaries on YouTube

-Episodes of podcasts I listen to that either aren’t political at all or only barely brush politics (The Read will show up somewhat often, as will The Black Guy Who Tips; This Week in Blackness will be an exception that shows up, but only when the show goes off the rails or otherwise is largely humorous; you’ll also hear from Joseph Scrimshaw and what his guests are obsessed with, the Geeks Without God will make a weekly appearance, Katharine Heller and Sally Tamarkin will show up with the Struggle Bus every week, Dr. Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain will expound upon astronomy once a week on Astronomy Cast, as will Ralph, Paul, and Jen on Awesome Astronomy, and you’ll hear from NASACast; I’ll also be sharing Night Vale, Oh No Ross and Carrie, and Inquiring Minds episodes that aren’t political; Katharine Heller will come up again on Tell the Bartender, and Ed Levine will show up interviewing the leaders of food; I’ll also bring SinCast, from the makers of CinemaSins, and you’ll hear from three different Doctor Who podcasts).

-(Coming off of Serious Eats) Food posts. Things like text recipes (most will not be my own as I don’t have the time to come up with recipes that often; though I will rarely post my own recipe or my own twist on a recipe), Buzzfeed’s “Is It Worth It?” series, video recipes (a good bunch from Serious Eats and How to Cake It), and so on… (I will including warnings for vegans if the food posts involve meat, and will also attempt to quickly come up with ways to do a vegan version of the recipe if that’s possible)

-Animal livestreams

-Great Guitar Solos and Astronomy Picture of the Week will continue (only now with the added Self Care title, tag, and category)

-Other stuff that makes me happy

-Suggestions from you: if you have ways you do self-care that I can post about, tell me in the comments on this or any of the posts. I’ll ask at the end of each post.

Every post will simply be called “Self Care” and a title-appropriate short description of what’s in the post.

These posts will not be places for socio-political or religious debates, discussions about the not incoming administration, or anything of that nature. And they most certainly won’t be the place for trolls. The comments will be heavily moderated (assuming anyone comments).

These posts will be safe spaces for healing, jokes, laughter, and virtual hugs. They will be spaces to share more links, animated gifs, images, and whatever else makes you happy (and your shares may be featured in a future self-care post with a credit and link to you).

We all need self-care. I know I need it, and I know that there are so many more who need it way more than I do. So I hope my sharing these things is helpful in some way for all of you.

Astronomy Picture of the Week – The CMB

*opens door* *dusts off cobwebs*

Time to get this started back up, too. And I’m doing that with this ridiculously amazing image. Now… I absolutely had to start this series off with that incredible image of Saturn, but this honestly should have been the next one. Not making this the very next picture was a mistake. But I’m making up for that now…

This is it right here. The oldest light we can see. The baby visible universe. The best evidence for, and the afterglow of, the Big Bang. The Cosmic Microwave Background.

This image is compiled from data collected by PLANCK. If you click on it, it will download a high resolution, 20.70mb TIFF of this same image. Here’s a link to see WMAP’s image, compiled from nine years of WMAP Data.

The Cosmic Microwave Background, as seen by PLANCK.

The Cosmic Microwave Background, as seen by PLANCK.

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Chelsea Manning Will Be Free in May 2017

Y’all probably already know it, but I just want to join the celebration:

President Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence. She is to be released in May 2017.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday overruled his secretary of defense to commute the sentence of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks.

I cannot express in words how happy I am. Chelsea Manning was unjustly imprisoned, and she will finally see the freedom she deserves.

I’ve always supported her, and I will continue to. She deserves it.

Sadly, being the relentless cynic that I am, I have to reign a little bit on the parade…

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The Resistance Manual – a Project by Stay Woke

Because I’m signed up to Campaign Zero, I got an email today from Deray Mckesson. It was to tell subscribers about The Resistance Manual.

To quote from the email:

Today, we launch the Resistance Manual — an open-source platform to collect information/resources to resist Trump’s agenda & to continue making progress towards equity and justice in America.

Explore the manual to learn about the policies the incoming administration plans to pursue, how they’ll impact our communities, and what you can do to stop them through federal, state, and local advocacy.

You can also find and contribute essential readings in resistance, learn and contribute information about policy issues in your state, and view a growing list of tools and organizations that can help to strengthen your advocacy efforts.

The manual will grow over time as more and more people contribute updates, facts and resources to it. As such, we encourage you to contribute important information for others to read.

If you would like to assist us in growing the content within the Resistance Manual, please reply to this e-mail directly.

We also urge you to dial (844)-6-RESIST to tell Congress to support the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and to vote against Jeff Sessions.

Get educated. Get organized. Take Action.

// DeRay, Netta, Brittany, & Sam

P.S. Shout-out to Chi/Donahoe for assisting with Design.

I really don’t have much to add. Please join the wiki, use, and contribute.

I’ve been ignoring the Orange Cheeto Fascist up to now because I simply cannot believe it. And while I was pretending this past presidential election didn’t happen, fucking Jeff Sessions (the man so racist that Strom Thurmond didn’t want him to be a federal judge in Alabama in 1986) was nominated as Attorney General. I cannot express how badly I want him rejected, but I have little to no hope.

The Resistance Manual is a place to gather and collect all of the ways, large and small, we can resist and fight for the next four years. Please join, contribute, and use for your own activism, as I will be for mine.

Thank you.

Great Guitar Solos – Pink Floyd Plays Shine You Crazy Diamond

I hope you have 25 minutes and 33 seconds to spare, because that’s how long this one is. And it has multiple guitar solos, and they are all amazing. But of course they are; it’s David Gilmour.

This one is audio only, so you don’t have to watch anything.

The first guitar solo starts at 2:09 and ends at 3:34. The second guitar solo starts at 5:11 and ends at 6:27. The third guitar solo starts at 7:34 and ends at 8:38. There some amazing little licks during the verses. Then some amazing saxophone solos. The fourth (slide) guitar solo starts at 15:43 and ends at 17:53. After the verses, there’s a really cool synthesizer solo that ends the song.

So turn off the lights, get yourself into some comfortable clothing and/or pajamas, light up a joint, pour a glass of your favorite alcohol to drink neat or on the rocks, take out your favorite picture of Syd Barrett, press play…

… and enjoy!

(It’s funny, but I could fill this series up with nothing but David Gilmour and Jimmy Page… so next week, how’s about some Jimi Hendrix?)