Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: May 2026

  • TWIL: Scents

    I know former smokers turn to food, and (per my late brother) recovering alcoholics turn to Altoids and baby carrots. Now I see from this Huffington Post article that some GLP1 weight-loss shot users turn to smells now that tastes aren’t as gratifying. I personally have not had that experience, but I haven’t tried a…

  • Review: Etoile

    I am horribly late to the game with this Etoile show on Amazon Prime. A friend at work recommended it last year as I dismissed it for a month. I watched the first few minutes of bitchy ballet people and thought, “This sounds like Gilmore Girls. Gary liked that show. Gary will like this.” Then…

  • Neck cream update from Science Girl

    I have a short update on the Lancome Cream cage match science experiment outlined at the end of this post here. Briefly, the right side of my neck has benefited from application of the supposedly magical RIDICULOUSLY Pricey Lancome Skin Cream for the last four weeks, while the left half has been left to wither.…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 5/28/2026

    Previous floating buffalo: This is the progress: This pass started here: He was originally: Really tickled with that one. That one’s done.

  • Minor blog tweak

    My recent memory concerns have made me miss the Typepad feature where one can skip from post to post in chronological order. So that’s out there now. You have to click the title of a post to get to individual post mode, and then the links to the next and previous posts are above the…

  • Opera Review: The Pirates of Penzance

    Well, that was fun. Hilarious and fun. Much spinning of pirate ships, and swordplay, and girls chasing butterflies and flying kites. (It only dragged a bit when the Constables got a little bit tedious. (But they are the Constables and are meant to be tedious, and even sound tedious. I don’t know how you would…

  • Pre-opera: The Pirates of Penzance

    Where we ate: We ate again at Madrina, where we were just a year ago. The waitress spoke of their “new” chef, whom they hired in January 2025. Perhaps he wasn’t in the groove last spring, because the food was even better this time. The arancini were perfect — in particular the temperatures were perfect:…

  • TWIL: How to identify the debris on your driveway

    I woke up Wednesday to this nonsense on my driveway. A little pattern of pellets bisecting the driveway. I’ve been trying to expand the way I use AI when possible, so I uploaded that photo to ChatGPT and said “What is this nonsense?” In summary, it said, “deer poop.” You’ll get a deer who poops…

  • Royal news puts a spin on an inappropriate conversation

    People Magazine has a tale of a recent exchange between Prince William and a “cheeky” elderly resident of a care home, Dot. This makes me sad because obviously I’m going to grow up to be the “cheeky” elderly resident flirting with the random prince. Prince William: “I’ve been to your room, Dot.” Dot: “Would you like…

  • Pretty good second act from SpaceX

    The redesigned SpaceX Starship heavy rocket got off the ground and seems to have done everything right (including blowing up in a deliberate ball of fire at the end). In space entertainment news, a new show similar to For All Mankind called Star City starts next week, but it’s the space race from the alternative…