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Wait...The Worst Possible US Disaster Just Got EVEN WORSE?!? (Cascadia Megaquake)

Every once in a while, I see a more realistic extrapolation of the dangers in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, compared to the usual drastic underestimations.  This video looks at some chain-reaction problems such as wildfires and chemical spills that can cause secondary waves of casualties.

You can read my thread about the Big One, but bear in mind that Terramagne-America has much better disaster preparedness than here, and local-America's scenario would be much worse.

These are the setting and content notes for "Beautiful, Damn Hard, Increasingly Useful."

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This poem came out of the July 15, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by bairnsidhe and siliconshaman. It also fills the "Cool Water" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the Kraken thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It follows "But an Empty Shell" ($280) -- which, oops, hasn't been sponsored and posted yet.

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While out running errands today, we stopped at Smoothie King. My partner Doug got the Island Impact as is: Pineapples, Mangoes, Papaya Juice Blend, Apple Pineapple Juice Blend, Protein Blend. I added vanilla frozen yogurt to mine. These things cost as much as we usually spend at a sit-down restaurant. But. You get what you pay for. It is indeed a meal's worth of healthy produce plus protein. It's also the best smoothie I have ever put in my mouth.

20 minutes later: Why am I suddenly wide awake and fizzing with energy? Is this what coffee feels like to normal people?

... oh right, also a big cup of life energy from all that fresh fruit.

I really do want to try their Gut Boost probiotic add-in some time, and hopefully that won't overload me on life energy.  Maybe take a closer look at some of their other options too.  There are a lot of options you can add once you find a base combination that you like, although some things (like the protein powder) that are usually add-ins are in the original combos.

Today is mostly cloudy, humid, and hot.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/16/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I'm hearing thunder and dark clouds are overhead.

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "anything goes." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

Note that our internet connection has been bad for well over a month. Sometimes it's down completely, other times things like Dreamwidth and searches won't run. So I'm losing a lot of work time and may only have access for half a day or less. Given this limitation, there's a higher chance of actually getting things written for prompts that use characters, settings, etc. that are already established.

Two poems recently attracted attention with regards to extending their story arcs, so anyone can ask for a followup to these:
"Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" -- Victor is displeased with Ghenadie shirking work assigned as fines.
"An Interest in the Affairs of Your Government" -- Frank the Crank accidentally gets elected to the City Council in Mercedes.

Stuck for ideas? You can find prompts by ...
* browsing planned poems for Aquariana and the Maldives, The Big One, Broken Angels, Calliope and Vagary, Officer Pink and Turq, Pips and Joshua, or Shiv. (Some of these I've already done, so they're not all up to date, but others I haven't done yet.)
* browsing my Serial Poetry page for favorite threads or characters.
* browsing my QUILTBAG list, Romantic Orientations in My Characters, Sexual Orientations in My Characters, Gender Identities in My Characters, or My Characters with Disabilities for favorites.
* naming a poetic form you'd like to see written.
* picking a prompt from my current bingo cards: Western Bingo Card 7-1-25
* picking some from the Bingo Generator prompt lists.
* looking up fun tropes on Fanlore.
* choosing an unusual word.
* plugging a favorite topic into your search engine and choosing a picture that looks interesting.
* anything short. I could especially use short poems today as other prompts are likely to run long.
* standalone ideas, if you're a fan of that rather than series.

What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "anything goes." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things of any type. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )