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crankyotter.bsky.social
Cranky Otter
@crankyotter.bsky.social
440 followers 200 following 2.1K posts
Distractible disabled engineer seeks distractions. Reader. Not actually an otter.

#inclusive #diverse #gender #bias
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crankyotter.bsky.social
If you’re in KC or SF, or spring for delivery, Christopher Elbow chocolates have their Halloween flavors available

They look & taste great!
Box of 18 chocolate truffles in halloween colors like pumpkin orange and zombie green, but, like artsy. This year’s coffin candy is printed as a mummy. One large head truffle and 10 flat square body wrap truffles. Posed with a silver skull. 💀 Classic monster images on 4 square truffles with 4 halloween colored domed truffles.
October 5, 2025 at 7:21 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Your mods need to recognize that power is a vector, not a scalar. Actions taken towards a disadvantaged group by a more powerful group are not morally equivalent to the reverse.
“Academic wheel of privilege” created for academics but widely applicable. Show elements of power dynamics in 4 tiers around a circle whose spokes are made up from elements of power like: wealth, living conditions, housing, caregiving, education, childhood, race, health, gender & sexuality. Common forms of abuse and tactics of power and control that the powerful use against the marginalized. Presented in a wheel format, from www.theduluthmodel.com
October 5, 2025 at 5:16 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Working on organizing & reducing clutter. It’s possible my soy sauce packets are too old.
crystallized soy sauce salt with one facet reflecting sunlight glare crystallized soy sauce salt. Translucent with some brown. Haven’t risked rinsing it to see if it’s surface or incorporated brown. Definitely cubic basic structure.
October 5, 2025 at 3:58 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Please advise!
- Do I need to remove these mushrooms from my yard before letting the dog back out there?

We had a lot of soaking rain last week and these popped up *today* along roots from a removed tree.

They were too small for me to notice from the deck this morning (I did not look closely).
Screenshot of 3-5 kinds of wild mushrooms or toadstools found in my yard I wore gloves when uprooting the ones that show the bottom gills. Some mushrooms have broad white caps with greige centers, most are large clusters of small round caps of medium brown, a few are dense white fat stalks with a spongy texture. There may or may not be different kinds of brown caps. Large, broad white mushrooms with a greige (grey-beige) mandala pattern. Deep yellow white gills, narrow round stem. Round except where some smaller ones are squished together. The uprooted one is next to near black rotting one. Dense spongy white mushroom with vague shaping. Completely enclosed some stalks of grads. fairly small. almost missed them, and would have if they weren’t under some stray dig kibble. I thought maul the kibble was growing mold, but nope. These came up under it without enclosing it like they did the grass. The most common toadstool type. multiple clusters of many small, medium brown caps. leggy and have gills, not shown.
October 1, 2025 at 11:40 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
When I was in 3rd grade we got to draw pictures on a computer by typing in each pixel manually to toggle them on.

Ba da bing, ba da boom & a digital native 3rd grader built a 1m 45s intense video game level on setting: max ADHD

incredible stuff, honestly
Young Black boy’s hands holding a tablet to play a visually chaotic & intense, high paced “bounce or fly thru obstacles” game that he constructed. Says “this is so easy!” then hits high score at 68% done same framing now a spaceship tootles past stars and toothy monsters heading up over an incline. same frame but now with a neon lava dungeon same framing but with walking robot scuttling toward some level up port in vivid orange and pink.
October 1, 2025 at 1:28 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
My black lab with sticky uppy ears is 10 & going grey. Specifically that one white spot on top of her snoot and her rear most tail hair
Very shiny black sof curled up on a less black sheet on my chair. In addition to the aforementioned lone white hairs she has a white blaze on her chest & a greying muzzle.
September 28, 2025 at 5:57 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Popcorn stitch is 5 DCs joined at the top. I did it thusly:

Sc, ch2
[YO, pull loop thru picot, pull thru 2 st, leave remaining loops on hook] X4

when 5 loops are on the hook, pull yarn thru all 5, then slip stitch closed & pull tight for good measure.
A false color image of the spike proteins showing globs up top of a post with a bit of a base cupped underneath the blobs (hence the single crochets around the top of the post). There are various and sundry spots of things on the spikes and between them that have not (yet?) made it onto my crocheted covid.
September 23, 2025 at 8:24 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
I crocheted a Sars-CoV-2 (Covid) virus. Yes, I chose clashing colors on purpose. LMK if adding a nose or eyebrows or other virus details seems necessary
A bright neon green ball loosely covered with dark red “spikes”, pillars with a trefoil at the ends. There’s a frowning red mouth & 2 green plastic eyes that make it look alarmed more than menacing.
September 23, 2025 at 7:56 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
I’m sorry, what?

This anti-drug narrative is such transparent bullshit but it has been held up as truth by the media for my entire life.

We must be worried about shipping corridors to the Gulf of Mexico for our oil & sundry im-/ex-ports again.
A map of Cuba/Caribbean area of the Gulf of Mexico showing the extremely limited passageways to get US shipping from the Mississippi river delta to the Atlantic ocean. if Cuba or the Caribbean islands get stroppy & start charging transit fees, US businessmen will lose a % of their wealth and the US government won’t allow that. So our navy goes there to make sure we never pay transit fees, we use that money to fund a big navy instead.
September 13, 2025 at 6:14 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Met the new house cleaner today. She’s young. After admiring my silver plated sporks she was so excited to point out my other weird spoon. “I just learned about those! It’s a grapefruit spoon! I’ve never had grapefruit.”

*blink*.gif

I’d spent the afternoon making candied grapefruit peel.
Glossy, shiny closeup of translucent orange blobs on foil. Glossy, shiny translucent orange strips on foil. Some of the strips are less glossy & more brown. They were microwaved an additional 30 seconds. The peel, which started as one continuous piece 🤗, in a pile in pyrex, starting to look a tad brown in places while the dregs of sugar syrup is bubbling in the pile. It was boiled 3X before boiling in sugar water.
September 12, 2025 at 1:42 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
I like shining shoes, but told a friend I could dye their shoes green.

Bought new hobby supplies. I got a rainbow of options & some classic colors with all the prep & finish supplies. 🤗

Here’s everything swatched. Dye in squares, paint on edges/letters.
Left leather prewashed.
A lineup of Angelus brand leather products surrounding 2 leather swatch pads with 16 squares of color. The top where I did a bunch of labeling & painted letters badly looks a mess, but in the grid it’s a solid effort by me to test all my relevant products. The saddle soap shown is what I used to prep the left pad. I used the right pad, stamped, as is with a bit of deglazing done to the right halves of dye squares. Closeup of Leather dye & paint swatches on saddle-soap cleaned leather on the left, & stamped leather pad on the right left as is except for using the deglazer on the right half of each dye patch square (on both pads). Tried 4 greens, 2 blues, 4 browns, yellow, red, pink, black, & neutral, against a control square. On the pre-cleaned leather the colors are vibrant and pretty and distinct. All the colors are exactly what one would hope to get if picking that color name, except maybe gold which is a lighter brown. On the shiny leather the colors get a bit muddy and aren’t as distinct from each other and the deglazing areas are visible. I also swiped various gloss vs satin vs leather balm finish coats one each across each row of squares and tried some paints on the edges near similar or complimentary colors. It looks a mess except Vachetta which matches the leather color so exactly it’s hard to see. It turns out you can just buy the red paint for shoe soles if you want to fake having expensive shoes, or need touch ups of genuinely expensive red soled shoes.
September 9, 2025 at 2:30 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Ironically, if it reeks later, I’m out here getting a mango lassi because I’m running the ozone generator at home to remove an odor.

This little bit of plant debris was on my roof when I left. It’s still there after 15 miles. I am left pondering more minor mysteries.
The roof of a dark red car reflecting the sunset and patchy clouds- except where there’s a tiny broken seed pod resting on a tiny spot of its round edge, not dislodged at all by freeway driving or dog’s head out the window driving.
August 29, 2025 at 1:28 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Here’s the pic I aimed for. That scallop & asparagus plate was thrown together of a Monday evening as something “easy”.

She also likes cauliflower “steak”

Anyway, the doctors think they should eat better.
A rectangular plate with asparagus, scallops, and mashed potatoes with a side salad in a clear bowl and a drink in a floating mug that was a gift from me. Some manner of barbecued meat, cranberry relish, slabs of caramelized cauliflower and some long green veg cut shorter. The pearl handled steak knife is on the edge of the plate.
August 25, 2025 at 6:24 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
More mom food. I got sidetracked by thanksgiving being pretty but check out the stuffed flowers!
The white wine was zhuzhed up with pomegranate pips at a formally set table for thanksgiving. A delightful tray of stuffed flowers mom made for her “Edible weeds and flowers” class. Orange and yellow blooms (lily & squash blossom, iirc) with a white filling. The aforementioned panekoeken but with a mix of store bought fruit made into a light sauce, some powdered sugar, and thick sliced bzcon The thanksgiving fare on my playe. turkey leg, beans, dressing, a slab of sweet potato because we don’t like sweet potato casseroles, cranberry relish, and a part greens part fruit salad. It’s all very aesthetic despite my best efforts. Delicious too.
August 25, 2025 at 6:12 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
This is *average* fare at my parents house. If you’re looking at any of it thinking it looks mid, that’s because I was “helping”. Mom is great a plating. I am comically bad at making food look good.
Pineapple raspberry dragonfruit fruit salad, with decoratively spaced raspberries. Steak (pork?) with a side of squash plus caesar salad that might have artichoke hearts in it. There’s a dark blob on the plate that could be a mushroom but i don’t remember & my eyes aren’t cooperating. steak salad with kale and puffed chex as croutons. Yes mom puffed the chex herself. Technically they might be a rice thing she gets from an asian market but it looks like chex. The salad had lots of veggies tho. and steak from the grill. mixed fruit plate with whipped cream. Blueberry, nectarines, dragonfruit & pineapple.
August 25, 2025 at 5:57 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
My watermelon is crunchy but not very tasty. Let’s see if I can improve on that.
Slabs of watermelon fit into a takeout container then sliced into strips. Containers of Malic acid, Lime Powder, & Tajín (yes, also with lime) show off what I’m trying all at once, it’s all lightly sprinkled on the top layer. My maple leaf/wheat stalk Beware of Chicken mug is photobombing from behind.
August 16, 2025 at 3:37 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Jasmine Guillory being interviewed by Cathy Maxwell.

JG is yet another lawyer who writes romance 🥰
Big thanks to MCPL in KCMO for Romance GenreCon & authors of varying fame who participate.
2 ladies sitting center stage are Jasmine Guillory being interviewed by Cathy Maxwell. On Romance Genre Con auditorium stage. Lighting is aggressively purple & pink.
August 9, 2025 at 3:21 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
ADHD looks like setting a timer to see how long it takes your kettle to brew while watching a youtube review of an electric kettle while making dinner then watching camper reviews even tho you’re too ill to go camping and the teapot has been used & cleaned when you check the timer:
Stopwatch readout of 3 hours, 12 minuets 33.65 seconds. The kettle usually boils in less than 8 minutes.
July 30, 2025 at 5:12 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
My go-to. I only have a couple varieties of tomatoes I can eat raw (supersweet 60s & 100s) but when I find them I do this salad. A little fresh lime doesn’t hurt.

(I pre-cook my 🌽 in the microwave and heat or eat cold as needed.)
ingredients for salad with precooked chicken, 1 small cucumber 1/3-1/2 ear of corn, 1/3-1/2 avocado, cherry tomatoes from the Japanese hydroponics ladies at the Thousand Oaks farmers market, & Honey Mustard dressing.
July 23, 2025 at 4:57 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
OMG I found my dog chilling out in this posture and I can’t believe she stayed still long enough for a picture. Sweetie that’s adorable but what are you doing.
Shiny black dog witg sticky uppy ears has her front paws bent backwards, under, and out. It’s so ridiculous looking and cute.
July 22, 2025 at 6:03 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
I found a bottle of gin in my basement.

Now if you asked me about my favorite liquor, I would not say “gin”. But I drink tonic as a tonic so I wind up gin adjacent pretty often.

And now my liquor stash is half gin. I have 3 bottles of craft gin 😖
A cabinet shelf with 8 bottles of liquor, 1 fruit wine, a box of cans of Fever Tree less-sugar tonic, and pressurized gas for displacing oxygen in open bottles. Aside from the Templeton Rye, random Lychee drink, versace branded amaretto & KC Royals Jim Beam, I have basic Tanqueray gin, Tanqueray Rangpur Lime gin, Devil’s Spit gin from Texas and Supernova gin from KC.
July 21, 2025 at 5:31 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
We had an extreme heat warning today. It wasn’t *that* bad if I didn’t move but I did enjoy returning to the AC after my Texas raised dog spent an hour or so running around in the midday sun. (She likes me being outside with her.)
A very back dog with sticky uppy ears and gracefully crossed front paws is laying on a deck. This is only done after chasing squirrels all over.
July 20, 2025 at 6:49 AM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Minehaha falls remains impressive
A waterfall with heavy, fast flow, kicking up plumes of water when it lands in the small pool eroded out of layers of sandstone
July 15, 2025 at 11:31 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
Dog tax
A quite black dog with greying bits, that looks annoyed, lounging on a green leather couch. She looked contented before the phone came out for the picture.
July 14, 2025 at 11:23 PM
crankyotter.bsky.social
BLACK RASPBERRIES are RIPE in MN!!!

I’m in linen & slip ons, not biking leathers & cleats, so I only ate a few but let me know if you like to forage. There are lots but the curb kinda falls off quickly.
Cluster of mostly ripe black raspberries with 3 red ripening ones behind. Forgive me, I have eaten the ripe ones.
July 11, 2025 at 4:53 PM