Ramblings of a Conuly

conuly — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 01:40:40 GMT

If you modded LiveJournal communities back in the day, please consider archiving them to Dreamwidth NOW. So much 2000s internet history lives there, and if LJ falls off the internet (as it very well might, depending on how things go in Russia in the near future), links will break and vast amounts of it will be lost. Wayback Machine only captures public posts; a Dreamwidth import can pull in locked posts and comments, and allow people to view them by joining the comm.

Link for assistance if you don't want to do this yourself

So LJ has unilaterally stopped accepting crossposts from DW

conuly — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 19:03:39 GMT

Which is why you haven't seen anything from me in a while.

Unrelatedly - or maybe not, I don't know - Russia is engaged in a war, perhaps you've heard of it. So there's been an uptick in people posting in friending comms over on DW because they're giving up on LJ.

If you want to follow me, I'm still on DW as I've been, same username.

Otherwise, please do pass this link around in case you know people who are contemplating making a move: https://friending-memes.dreamwidth.org/1083.html

Welp, finally taking a break from family time (aka stardew with Jenn)

conuly — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 02:55:42 GMT

to do the three sentence ficathon.

I should NOT have put this off a week. Wish me luck. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3229199.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Well, if nothing else I can clear out some of these tabs before I go to bed

conuly — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 06:36:08 GMT

Ladybower Reservoir's overflowing 'plug holes' attract photographers

Female dolphins have a clitoris much like humans do

‘I’d keep it on the down low’: the secret life of a super-recogniser

Outdoor Cats Are Using $500 Starlink Satellite Dishes as Self-Heating Beds

Citizen scientists discover planet the size of Jupiter that NASA algorithms missed

How A.I. Conquered Poker

After rain burst, California salmon reclaim old spawning grounds

China's births fall in 2021, as workforce shrinks

Epstein-Barr virus may be leading cause of multiple sclerosis

Voting Rights Isn’t Just a Black Issue

Other Countries Have Gates That Would Have Prevented NYC’s Subway Killing

Kenyan vigilantes taking on avocado gangs

‘It’s ugly out there’: Rail thefts leave tracks littered with pilfered packages

How the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world

Russia moves more troops westward amid Ukraine tensions

Guantánamo Notebook

What the Omicron Wave Looks Like at One Brooklyn E.R. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3229063.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Jenn got me playing Stardew Valley with her

conuly — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 05:30:08 GMT

And it's eaten up a lot of my time, not just from the things I promised myself I'd do (keep up with my email, clear out last year's prompt list) but from the things I actually have to do (call various doctors and get various things straightened out, meal plan).

So come the morning - that's Thursday morning, apparently - I'm going to sit down and seriously handle all this stuff I'm supposed to freaking have handled. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3228427.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Flurries!

conuly — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 21:37:33 GMT

Flurries! There are flurries!

That's the very best sort of snow when you're the one who has to shovel.

Light and breezy and it doesn't stick and it certainly doesn't become slush. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3228404.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Well, looks like I am well and truly behind on finishing the last few pages of last year's

conuly — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 16:52:17 GMT

three sentence ficathon. I'd better update my list now. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3228127.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

After eating my way through much of a five pound bag of Andes mints

conuly — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 00:07:36 GMT

And knowing there's another five pound bag waiting, I think I can say that there is, in fact, such a thing as enough Andes mints.

This is as surprising to me as it is to you.

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Yes, this is an article about ranch dressing

Hey Tough Guy! Get Comfortable With Masks

NYC Street Photographer Captures the Magical Moments That Happen When We’re Not Looking

She’s a thrift store detective of sorts — she buys mementos and returns them to their rightful owners, free of charge

Lion Bones Are Popping Up in Some Very Unexpected Places

The Gritty, Underground Network Bringing Japan’s Arcades to the US

Sometimes, Life Stinks. So He Invented the Nasal Ranger.

White Shoes, WASPs and Law Firms

The Black Arts Movement and the politics of emancipation.

‘Tenants have no choice’: Racism in urban planning fuels high rate of Black fire deaths

The con artist who sold rich investors a fake country

Taliban rule through the eyes of four women in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan's heavily patriarchal society, bacha posh, Dari for "dressed as a boy," is the one tradition allowing girls access to the freer male world.

The Soldiers Came Home Sick. The Government Denied It Was Responsible.

The Invisible Violence of Carceral Food

Ranting man takes hostages at Texas synagogue This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3227783.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

DW friending meme

conuly — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 16:51:47 GMT

https://jjhunter.dreamwidth.org/544749.html This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3227634.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Ugh, gotta go to the city today

conuly — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 13:57:29 GMT

It'll be fun!

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Star Trek has tractor beams. So do we.

President Grant’s Memorial Flowers Have Survived for 136 Years

What the heck is a frost quake?

Why Skinny Skyscrapers Are So Loud (And How To Quiet Them)

“Do you wanna build a snow-lion?”: Fun with snow in medieval China

I used to work in flight simulation developing terrain and we got so many bug tickets that the world had weird things that people didn't expect and they wanted fixed

Trickster, Traitor, Dummy, Doll

“Everything is content”: Inside the daily grind of one of India’s biggest influencer families

More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation.

‘Nothing Will Be the Same’: A Prison Town Weighs a Future Without a Prison

Has reality caught up to the “Murder Police”?

'The most intense violation of my life': A beloved camp, a lost boy and the lifelong impact of child sexual trauma

The Data Are Pointing to One Major Driver of America’s Murder Spike

Illegal Amazon gold seeps into supply chains This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3227222.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Ugh we have to call a plumber to fix a pipe from the furnace

conuly — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 18:25:12 GMT

It's actually the same pipe I have patched before, but it actually stayed patched all last year and so I forgot about it. I'm sick of mending it haphazardly, it needed to be replaced years ago. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3227133.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

conuly — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 17:48:50 GMT

The night is darkening round me

By Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43711/the-night-is-darkening-round-me This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3226677.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

I decided on Juliette, because I like that name.

conuly — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 16:12:55 GMT

Also, I forgot to tell you the best part of this pig.

When I first got it her, I took her right away to show Eva. And as I'm holding out my hand, Moonpie super casually leans over and licks her, right on the nose! And then a couple more times for good measure, like my little pig was a treat and if she just took a bite I'd let her eat the whole thing. She was wrong on both counts. Then Eva licked her too, but I expected that. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3226572.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

I couldn't get my pig to make bubbles when I tried

conuly — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 20:42:11 GMT

But today - bubbles!

I have no idea what I did differently.

Three sentence ficathon is coming soon. I have got to deal with those leftover prompts that have been hanging over my head since last year, and no comments from the peanut gallery! You can bet I will be making some tea pet related comments this year. I usually do my prompts totally anonymously because I get weird anxiety around people knowing what I like, but for this, I'll make an exception.

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1940s Streets of Chicago Captured through the Eyes of a Young Photographer

Noblewoman’s tomb reveals new secrets of ancient Rome’s highly durable concrete

‘They got the lot’: the mystery of the biggest bank heist in Australia’s history

These homes are off-grid and climate resilient. They’re also built out of trash.

The Ghost Wolves of Galveston Island

Surprise! The Pandemic Has Made People More Science Literate

Super poo: the emerging science of stool transplants and designer gut bacteria

When the Taliban came after Afghanistan's judges, a daring escape plan was hatched

The secret deportations: how Britain betrayed the Chinese men who served the country in the war

Plastic production just keeps expanding, and now is becoming a driving cause of climate change.

A Laredo plant that sterilizes medical equipment spews cancer-causing pollution on schoolchildren

6 in 10 Americans say U.S. democracy is in crisis as the 'Big Lie' takes root

Omicron explosion spurs nationwide breakdown of services

They Were the Pandemic’s Perfect Victims

The Pandemic Brought Our Family’s Harasser Out Of Retirement. Here’s How We Finally Caught Him.

Analysis: Bad timing: Kazakhstan intervention presents unwelcome distraction for Putin This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3226136.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Still haven't named the pig.

conuly — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 08:41:58 GMT

I think I'm looking for people names, probably unisex or female-coded.

Although "Puddles" is cute. Still, I had a dog "Pebbles" when I was a kid and it just seems too similar.

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Soldier’s WWII letter to his mother delivered after 76 years (To his widow, his mother having died)

'Real-life Lassie': Dog leads New Hampshire police to her injured owner following crash

Treasure trove of 2,000 fossils reveals life in Australia's prehistoric rainforest before it turned into desert

I giggled

At This Armenian Restaurant, the Ovens Are Satellite Dishes

Architectural Masterpieces in Cork

Girl receives letter from Windsor Castle after dressing up as the Queen with her corgis

Vintage pictures of bizarre vending machines you never knew existed, 1920-1960

For more than half a century, the people of Easter Island lived under an oppressive colonial regime. Then a schoolteacher sparked an unlikely revolution.

Billionaire’s looted art still on display at Israel Museum

The Western megadrought is revealing America's 'lost national park'

More than 40 percent of Americans live in counties hit by climate disasters in 2021

Malcolm X Biography Donation Rejected by Tennessee Prison

How decades of problems converged the night Champlain Towers fell

Study links Covid-19 vaccination to small increase in menstrual cycle length, but experts say it's no cause for concern

Schools sticking with in-person learning scramble for subs

Spiral graph to show Covid-19 cases

Omicron is inundating a health-care system that was already buckling under the cumulative toll of every previous surge.

Hospitalizations skyrocket in kids too young for COVID shots

In Ethiopia war, new abuse charges turn spotlight on Tigrayan former rulers This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3226054.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

All 3 white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery are sentenced to life in prison

conuly — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 02:10:28 GMT

Two without chance of parole.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1070618256/ahmaud-arbery-killers-sentence

Let's be clear. In general I'm not in favor of life in prison, particularly without chance of parole, for many of the same reasons I'm not in favor of the death penalty plus the added bonus reason that the US prison system takes even worse care of geriatric prisoners than the rest of them.

It's not a sentence to toss around lightly, and should be reserved for people who have committed particularly heinous crimes and have a high likelihood of reoffending.

Well, these three committed a particularly heinous crime due to their deplorable beliefs, and judging from their behavior and words since then my gut feeling is that they probably would have a high likelihood of reoffending if given the chance.

So I will enjoy my sense of justice unhindered by any vague sense that the sentence is generally wrong, because in their particular case it really isn't. All that's left is for me to wish I could see the look on their faces when it finally sinks in that they are really, truly, 100% going to suffer the consequences of their decision to engage in cold-blooded murder. (I don't think, based on their words, that it really has yet.) This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3225753.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Look at my new tea pig!

conuly — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 16:43:37 GMT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_pet

Anyway, this was supposed to be a Christmas present, but it was late. Happily, it arrived just in time for Little Christmas instead.

Now I only need to name it. Suggestions appreciated. Please note I have already considered and rejected all obvious names from popular culture. This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3225502.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

After booster:

conuly — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 07:37:09 GMT

Arm aches. Lymph node in armpit swollen. Throat scratchy. Head aches, possibly because I didn't eat or drink anything while sleeping all day. Eyes itch.

I'm also generally itchy all over, but that predates the shot.

Ugh.

Still better than covid, probably. I guess. (I have a hard time taking future potential misery seriously when my throat and arm hurt now. I'm aware this is a mistake in my thinking, thanks.) This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3225050.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

conuly — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 03:46:06 GMT

All-fandoms-welcome fanfic & podfic exchangeFocus on characters who're at least one of WOMEN, JEWISH, or PERSECUTED BY EVIL VIZIERS2022 Signups: 2-9 January!Find us on Dreamwidth and the Archive of Our Own! This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3224675.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Getting my booster on the third.

conuly — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 08:23:08 GMT

I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna. I don't wanna!

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Shoot That Invisible Ball! How A Top Wheelchair Player Keeps Up Her Game In Lockdown

Inside California Alligator Farm where kids could ride and play with alligators, 1920s (WTF)

The ‘Rock Food’ Feast That Looks Good Enough to Eat

Belyana: Russia’s Giant Wooden Boats

10 of the Most Bizarre Retro Doll Features

The Lock-Picker, the Lockmaker, and the Odyssey to Expose a Major Security Flaw

The One-Eyed African Queen Who Defeated the Roman Empire

How Do Saudis Celebrate Christmas? Quietly, but Less So.

Some school librarians fed up with book bans are organizing and fighting back

The whitest specialty: As medicine strives to close its diversity gaps, one field remains a stubborn outlier (Those comments go exactly where you expect)

They Lost Three Daughters to Sickle Cell. Can They Save a Fourth?

Utah billionaire leaves Mormon church, donates $600,000 to LGBTQ group (Which is about the same as you or me donating $3, but still, good for him)

The Problem With the Myers-Briggs Personality Test

As thousands attempt to cross the Belarus-Poland border seeking asylum in Europe, local activists are trying to help

A Rogue Climber Running From the Law Was Fleeing His Own Trauma

Capitol rioters’ tears, remorse don’t spare them from jail

How Paid Experts Help Exonerate Police After Deaths in Custody

‘Our house was gone, it was sea and sand’: life on the vanishing coasts – in pictures

Child grooms are often overlooked in the fight to stop child marriage

Behind the Violence at Rikers, Decades of Mismanagement and Dysfunction

How a bloody land feud in Honduras is stoking migrant flight to U.S.

The mob killing of a factory manager in Pakistan comes amid surge in anti-blasphemy violence

Hundreds of Afghans denied humanitarian entry into US

The Human Toll of America’s Air Wars This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3224413.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Middle grade books I have recently read

conuly — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 21:25:44 GMT

I seem to have gotten into a bit of a situation on the NYPL app, because every book recommends me to two or three others, and if you add that to the ones I already was interested in reading it's a veritable flood of middle grade and YA fantasy. (And sometimes not fantasy.)

It's really amazing how little crossover there is between the "also recommended" and the books I see people talking about in my own corner of kidlit readers.

It's also amazing how incredibly different this is from my childhood. The endlessly huge library in Robin McKinley's Beauty was my dream world. I read fast, we never could keep a library card (or rather, we could never remember to return the books, so same diff), I had no friends, and so I always needed more books to read. Sure, I could happily read the same book a dozen times in a row, but sooner or later you want something new.

A world in which I could find as many books as I like literally at the touch of my fingertips - unbelievable. (And yet, weirdly, there are still bizarre gaps. But that's another complaint for another day.)

Ember is a dragon. She is, as far as anybody knows, the very last fire dragon - and luckily, what most people know is that fire dragons are extinct entirely. She would be too, but her adoptive father is incredibly softhearted, and when he saw a baby dragon with its slaughtered mother he didn't think "Good thing, this vicious monster would kill me in a heartbeat!" like any normal person but "Oh, no, poor baby!" and cast a spell to hide this baby dragon as a baby human and raise her as his adoptive daughter.

Due to her inconveniently impossible to hide wings (they can be made invisible, but they're still there) and her bad habit of bursting into flames at random moments, she's never been to school. Eventually she ships herself off to her distant aunt's research station in Antarctica in order to keep from catching fire, and the plot kicks off.

There is a lot of plot. Shockingly, she's not the very last fire dragon entirely. Also shockingly, ice dragons have cities and speak Middle English. (The Middle English was actually shocking.) They are not the monsters in this book. Most of the plot involves stopping an ice dragon hunt, and hopefully ALL such hunts in the future.

Very readable. There's an asshole prince with a heart of gold and a hidden pain, and who doesn't love that? But then, weirdly, the afterword is all "Unfortunately, the hunting of endangered species is a problem today" and, while that's not false it's a bit of a weird note when the whole point of the book is that dragons are not wild unreasoning beasts but people. Like, that's a weird way to frame this, isn't it? It's weird. Made me a little iffy on the whole book that isn't afterword.

There's a lot of room for a sequel, wherein presumably we'll find more fire dragons. Nobody is ever really the last of their kind, after all, not in fictionland.

****

This one reminded me so much of Wait Till Helen Comes. If that's what you're looking for in a book, that's what you'll get.

It is more than a little irksome that the ending pretends things are resolved when they're not. Both pairs of sisters, ghostly and alive, reconcile... but the living sisters reconcile by the younger one taking a minute to see her older sister's point of view, and there's no real hint that the older one will or should do the same for her. Moreover, their interpersonal problems can be laid soundly at their parents' feet, who blatantly favor the older girl (or rather, her skating) over the younger. It certainly is convenient that their other child doesn't have any interests that aren't portable or scheduled! This is not going to be fixed through ghostly intervention, and both sisters suffer from it. But maybe that's the point. The ghost sisters don't seem interested in reconciling with their parents either. They've got each other and their ghost dog, that's enough.

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This is a Little Women retelling - contemporary setting, Muslim characters.

I actually never have made it through Little Women! But from what I've read of the book, this seems to very neatly and clearly stop before the often-bundled-in sequels start - nobody's old enough to get married but clearly the (equivalent of) Jo/Laurie shipping is strong, and while the Beth analog did have a serious illness she's in recovery and we're explicitly told she has a great prognosis.

It seemed... honestly, it seemed a little incomplete. Not short in a sense that "okay, maybe it's not that long" but... kinda like space in between the chapters wasn't filled out as much as I would expect? IDK. It's entirely possible that this would be better appreciated by a Little Women fan.

****

Pretty standard middle grade magic school. Did some interesting things with characterization, though... but honestly, it just raises more questions and I'm not sure we'll get answers. Some people wiggled out of responsibility entirely for their role in the events preceding the plot. Room for a sequel, but it can stand without one. (Kinda wanna see a sequel.)

Crossposted to books This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3224169.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Happy New Year

conuly — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 18:44:04 GMT

Fingers crossed! This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3224039.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

I hope all my noisy neighbors blow off fingers

conuly — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 09:21:52 GMT

and then drop dead, and wake up in the afterlife in the shape of scared dogs.

Fireworks are illegal, jerkfaces! This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3223750.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Apparently the city's doing NYE at Times Square this year

conuly — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 09:20:31 GMT

It's not very cold this year at all, but it still does not change my opinion that going to Times Square to stand around and shiver with a bunch of strangers for hours and hours on end, in a place that really has insufficient toilets, is just a bad idea. It did not magically become a good idea with the addition of exciting new covid varieties.

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The residents of Yarn Stash Cabinet are concerned about their crafter’s holiday knitting plans.

The Centuries-Old Plays Helping to Revitalize a Once-Lost Language

Once a Janitor, Now the Bar Mitzvah Photography King of Montreal

'You've won your weight in oysters!' - note in shells stops thieves

Ethical non-monogamy: the rise of multi-partner relationships

Stonehenge: History and Restoration through old photographs, 1880-1960

Stones as Medium, Beach as Canvas

World’s vast networks of underground fungi to be mapped for first time

The Single-Staircase Radicals Have a Good Point

Kidnapped as a Boy, This Man’s Hand-Drawn Map of Home Helped Him Find His Mom

Solar recycling is broken, but there’s a plan to fix it

The Quest to Trap Carbon in Stone—and Beat Climate Change

Black-owned hospice seeks to bring greater ease in dying to Black families

The Completely Bonkers History of the Bathroom Scale

A Plan Forms in Mexico: Help Americans Get Abortions (This is embarrassing)

This village was a book capital. What happens when people stop buying so many books?

“Meet a Jew”

The Next Disaster Coming to the Great Plains

The rising threat to businesses in 2022? Water.

Trash for rice: Bali recycling scheme gives families pandemic lifeline

Here's what it's like inside the Chicago-area factory aiming to end US overreliance on Asia's PPE production

Intimate portraits of a hospital COVID unit from a photojournalist-turned-nurse

Can COVID-19 alter your personality? Here's what brain research shows.

Rising child hospitalizations loom large over US Covid-19 response

States send kids to foster care and their parents the bill — often one too big to pay

Parents selling children shows desperation of Afghanistan

China warns of "drastic measures" if Taiwan provokes on independence

As Russia gears up to invade Ukraine, the West faces a choice This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3223321.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

Kerfluffle at CVS yesterday

conuly — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 03:23:06 GMT

Their system is not really set up to accept passport cards as identification. This has not previously been a problem because most of their cashiers know the workaround, and even if I bump into one who doesn't, they can usually ask somebody else.

(Apparently the workaround is to enter it like a driver's license, and now I know!)

Yesterday I hit the bad luck jackpot. Several irritated minutes later, wherein we all barely refrained from snapping at each other (do not blame me, irritated pharmacists, blame your shitty computer interface!) we resolved it. But ugh, ugh, ugh.

Do you think it's a CVS-in-particular interface or something general that's shipped out to everybody? I want to know where to direct my complaints for the best chance of getting results. Honestly, if the workaround "enter it as a driver's license" works then it should be trivial to have that slot say "driver's license or passport card". This entry was originally posted at https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3223167.html. If you can, please comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.