Red Regent

Earlier today I was buying food from a store, and on my way back I was watching this girl, probably around 7 or so, playing with her pet duck. Somehow the young lady taught the thing how to do an odd waddling dance, and fly up and nestle on her shoulder like a a parrot would. Kudos to the kid, she's good with birds apparently.

...we shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and oceans, we shall fight - with growing confidence and growing strength - in the air! We shall defend our island, no matter the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender! And if, for which I do not for a moment believe, that this island - or a large part of it - were subjugated and starving, that our Empire, beyond the sea, armed, and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until in God's good time, the New World with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue, and the liberation of the old. - Excerpt from Winston Churchill (1941)

Y'all really don't want to know what I'm book marking.  The ones on my bookmark bar are harmless.  Here, TvTropes and gmail.  An hand full of comics in their own folder.  Then the weird or scary stuff.

I looked at Scrivener and chose oStorybook. It's written in Java and available for Windows, Linux, and OSX. (When I switched from Windows to Linux as my main OS, I initially just put a symlink in my home directory pointing at the appropriate folder in my old Windows home directory. Didn't even have to copy the files. Everything worked.) It has more features than Scrivener, including built-in timeline tracking. One disadvantage is that the main website for it is in French, and the Google Translate version isn't a really great translation.
Backup is critical - and the biggest threat to your work, the thing you most need backups to protect your work from, is your own fat fingers. Which means you need frequent backups and several of them going back in time. Preferably on an external drive so it also protects you against hardware failures, and/or in the cloud if you're so inclined (I am not, so have no comment on the relative merits of various services). Strongly recommended for this purpose: Linux: BackInTime (it's free) ; Macintosh: Time Machine (you already have it); Windows: Genie Timeline (commercial, there is a free version but I didn't care for the limitations).
I use BackInTime and, for my writing, have it checking for changes every two hours. It keeps every backup for two days, a backup a day for a week, a backup a week for a few months (that actually covers the oldest backup I have), a backup a month for a couple years, and a backup a year for ten years. Other parts of the system are backed up less frequently because they are either less important or less volatile.
Time Machine and BackInTime take advantage of a characteristic of Unix file systems to make every incremental backup look exactly like a full backup - no special software needed, not even a plugin to a file manager - without consuming the requisite space or time. Genie Timeline could do the same thing if it insisted that backups be to an NTFS partition, but it's willing to write to FAT which doesn't have the required characteristic (each directory entry must be a completely unique file - Unix file systems and NTFS allow a single file to have multiple directory entries pointing at it), so it has to track stuff in its own database and use a special Windows Explorer plugin to reconstruct the directory structure on the fly. This means that a Genie Timeline backup is more or less useless on a system that doesn't have the software installed - and getting a new software installation to recognize a pre-existing backup set is a bit of a pain.
 

Have you seen my page on the issue and possible solutions yet?

I have a major multi-volume project going (as if anyone hasn't heard already ). I've edited the living daylights out of book one, put it through a five-person beta team, edited it again, begun putting it back through draft critiques, and in a couple of months I'll be putting it through yet another beta team reading. All of this is going on while I'm working on volume two. The writing never ends.
When I hit a block, I try writing flash fiction or poetry. Pick a feeling or incident and expound upon it for a few hundred words. Don't aim to have it published. Just write it. Be warned, though—it's harder to keep things short than to write long works sometimes.
Another bit of advice: choose your tools well. I chose LibreOffice and a redundant directory structure (involving local drives, Google Drive, and Dropbox) to manage my project (using Total Commander to move/backup files) for my first volume. I've also used a little piece of software called Treepad Business Edition to do outlining. Additionally, I have two laptops running side-by-side: a new one for writing and an old one for displaying critique PDF files.
Speaking of critiques, I STRONGLY recommend you join Scribophile (or a similar online community, but I would recommend Scribophile above the others I've seen). Start critiquing other people's works and learn from what you read. Eventually, people will start critiquing your works. (This will be made easier if you purchase the premium membership.) Hop on and give it a good, hard look. If you buy the premium membership, you'll be able to save your critiques to local files which you can use for editing at any time (see previous paragraph).
Back to choosing tools, give Scrivener a try. I'm using it to write the second volume of my project. Don't let the learning curve scare you away—just go through the supplied tutorial and start writing. You'll start picking up on its more advanced features soon after you start using it. Advantage: it's available for Windows or Mac.
Get yourself a good timeline tracker. Some people use Excel or LibreOffice's Calc. I use a free tool called, appropriately enough, Timeline. I've got events stretching from 2038 to 2089, and I can get as granular as I want (I have one event timed out to the minute). Other people use a program called Aeon Timeline which, while not free, integrates into Scrivener. I have not tried it, but I've heard good words about it.
One last tool that will help you edit your work: Slick Write. It's a free online proofreading tool, with a plugin for LibreOffice. The author is a Scribophile member, and it's well supported (and easily customizable).
Hope this helps.

...we shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and oceans, we shall fight - with growing confidence and growing strength - in the air! We shall defend our island, no matter the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender! And if, for which I do not for a moment believe, that this island - or a large part of it - were subjugated and starving, that our Empire, beyond the sea, armed, and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until in God's good time, the New World with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue, and the liberation of the old. - Excerpt from Winston Churchill (1941)

...we shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and oceans, we shall fight - with growing confidence and growing strength - in the air! We shall defend our island, no matter the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender! And if, for which I do not for a moment believe, that this island - or a large part of it - were subjugated and starving, that our Empire, beyond the sea, armed, and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until in God's good time, the New World with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue, and the liberation of the old. - Excerpt from Winston Churchill (1941)

For me this thread just became self-demonstrating.
"Additional supply depots required."

Mrs. Prof's best friend at work passed away early this morning.
It wasn't unexpected. She'd suffered from lord knows how many problems with her liver and other organs for years. Back when I was in the hospital in 2009, she and her husband advocated for me when Mrs. Prof had to leave town for a few days. The lady had already undergone several operations of her own even then.
The last blow came when her liver shut down on her. It wasn't a quick process—several months have passed since Mrs. Prof found out. Despite this, the lady continued working, almost up to the end. Mrs. Prof knows the exact details and hasn't shared them with me yet.
I need to take my considerable bulk to the local Big & Tall store and obtain at least an appropriate pair of pants tomorrow. For the service (not sure if it's been scheduled yet). She deserves at least that much respect from me, for the moral and mental support she gave me when I nearly died.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Prof is taking it like a trooper. She'd been expecting this, and I think she was actually sort of relieved when she found out the lady's misery had finally come to an end. She's out of the house now, passing out cat food and medications to volunteer feral cat colony managers. I think she's using this to keep her mind off of the situation.
Mrs. Prof did say one thing about it to me that stuck. She's glad the lady didn't pass on our son's 30th birthday. (Mrs. Prof's father passed on the day in between my birthday (Nov. 19) and hers (Nov.21), turning what used to be a day of silliness and levity into a day of remembrance forever.)

 

I was going to go with "You must construct additional pylons!"

You require more Vespene gas!

I must still be tired. My immediate reaction to this was a mental image of immortals flocking to your home trying to mark you with an energy draining spell.

I can finally talk about the new music I wrote! Well, I can talk about it a little bit. That top secret music project I was working on is a group of new songs for the Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour release. It's mentioned on http://dukenukem.com (scroll down and you'll see it - the web site is kind of borked at the moment). The game comes out October 11th. I wrote songs for an entire new episode of the original game—digital this time, not just MIDI.
No, I can't post samples yet. Don't have authorization from Gearbox. I hope you'll like the songs when the game is released, though!

Newsflash ladies and gentlemen.
Someone, still don't know who, has bombed my city of residence. Accounts vary, but it's anywhere from 10 deaths and 60 wounded, to around 30 total casualties. The numbers are irrelevant as this brazen act of terror wishes to inspire fear into the hearts of myself and my countrymen. Sadly for them, we don't do fear, we do LIVID. And the response to this will be swift and brutal I can assure you.
We shall go on to the end. [...], we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. - Winston Churchill, 1940

Newsflash ladies and gentlemen.
Someone, still don't know who, has bombed my city of residence. Accounts vary, but it's anywhere from 10 deaths and 60 wounded, to around 30 total casualties. The numbers are irrelevant as this brazen act of terror wishes to inspire fear into the hearts of myself and my countrymen. Sadly for them, we don't do fear, we do LIVID. And the response to this will be swift and brutal I can assure you.
We shall go on to the end. [...], we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. - Winston Churchill, 1940

A My little pony version of 2nd life/minecraft where I was building submarines with working weapons and space craft.  My mother was telling me my designs would not work because that's not how NASA did it.  Had trouble telling her that Twilight Sparkle had magic.
Back to reading my gun book.  About 50 pages and I was out like a light.  First got to do that old man wakes up in the wee hours of the morning thing

Even if it isn't finished, it still looks pretty nice as-is. Maybe when I finally get a computer that can run it, there'll be more to it than just "Minecraft with space travel."
I wanna name some of the planets using the names from xkcd's Exoplanet Names comics.
Kerbal Space Program is also on my wishlist. And a few Pokemon games, a DS Lite, and a 2DS.

Pork chops and mushroom gravy, with rice.  With out a doubt my favorite childhood meal.  Of course you put the gravy over the rice.  
As a lazy adult, my single pot version of this is making rice with mushroom soup instead of water.  Haven't tried it in the cooker yet, but it's on my list of things to try soonish.

Rice is not a delicacy.  It's a baseline starch on which you build something with.  Potatoes and to a lesser extent wheat fill a similar role.
Rice is flavor neutral, while not bad by itself, it takes any of the other flavours and becomes something more than just a starch.  As it happens, tonight I wanted something sweet, so rice plus sugar plus (too much) vanilla.  Yesterday was rice plus pork plus squash with paprika.  Some times I want sweet, sometimes savory, sometimes plain, and other time spicy as hell.  Rice keeps better than potatoes and with a cooker is pretty close to brain dead easy to make.

JML, message from my wife. And me.

My heartfelt sympathies on the loss of Ashley.  I lost my Hobbes last month, and Sir Patrick a few months before that.  It never gets any easier, but it does get better, if that makes sense.
I had a cat with seizures, in her case she'd suddenly run, until she hit a wall or fell over.  Seizures can be weird manifestations sometimes, and you had no way of knowing that was what was happening to her.  Even if you had guessed, and had brought her to specialists, if she went that fast there was likely nothing they could have done.  Seizures can look awful, but she wasn't aware of what was happening.  It would have been very fast and painless for her.  I hope that's some comfort.  She knew how much you loved her, it's been clear in your posts here!
My remaining cat Mary sends you lots of demanding snuggles (and a bit of lingering brattiness)!

Long ago, I frequented 3 forums; a General Video Game Forum, an Ace Combat Forum, and here. While it's been hit-or-miss most of the time, the one thing I loved about all the forums was this sense of... community. I posted a long time ago somewhere that shared interests are the glue that sticks people together - at least at first. And while at first you kind of need to adjust to the environment, once you get into the swing of things (even just by lurking the comic forums as I do), you start to feel that... sense of catharsis, and that mildly overwhelming-in-a-good-way feeling that here are dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of like-minded individuals around the world just there at the touch of a button. I post about all this here in the sad thread because I feel like with social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter now dominating the discourse, well, the world's moved on. Of the 3 places I used to frequent, this comic forum is the only place left with some of the old community still intact. While I still get that feeling in the new social media (dude, everytime I tweet out #StarCo there's at least 1 or 2 people responding) it's somehow not as fun. Maybe it's partly because people can't do the kind of wild zany things that we can roleplay do here.
Most of all I miss some of the people; of course a few of them are still here (namely Hack, Pharaoh and Zorua), then there are those people I still fondly remember (Heresy, That guy with the Dwemer robot avatar (really sorry I couldn't remember your name, I liked you, man), JJ, Celtic Minstrel, and Lyre Harper in particular, especially Lyre, I was actually really touched when she - around November 2013, checked my old account to see if I was still OK.) To change some lyrics to an old song: 
Some [have left], and some are [staying], in my life, I love them all.

Long ago, I frequented 3 forums; a General Video Game Forum, an Ace Combat Forum, and here. While it's been hit-or-miss most of the time, the one thing I loved about all the forums was this sense of... community. I posted a long time ago somewhere that shared interests are the glue that sticks people together - at least at first. And while at first you kind of need to adjust to the environment, once you get into the swing of things (even just by lurking the comic forums as I do), you start to feel that... sense of catharsis, and that mildly overwhelming-in-a-good-way feeling that here are dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of like-minded individuals around the world just there at the touch of a button. I post about all this here in the sad thread because I feel like with social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter now dominating the discourse, well, the world's moved on. Of the 3 places I used to frequent, this comic forum is the only place left with some of the old community still intact. While I still get that feeling in the new social media (dude, everytime I tweet out #StarCo there's at least 1 or 2 people responding) it's somehow not as fun. Maybe it's partly because people can't do the kind of wild zany things that we can roleplay do here.
Most of all I miss some of the people; of course a few of them are still here (namely Hack, Pharaoh and Zorua), then there are those people I still fondly remember (Heresy, That guy with the Dwemer robot avatar (really sorry I couldn't remember your name, I liked you, man), JJ, Celtic Minstrel, and Lyre Harper in particular, especially Lyre, I was actually really touched when she - around November 2013, checked my old account to see if I was still OK.) To change some lyrics to an old song: 
Some [have left], and some are [staying], in my life, I love them all.