Read a book, read a book, read a motherfuckin’ book.
Old Man With Candy
I always have a geek book at hand, and this past month, my constant companion has been Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications mostly because I have suddenly been given a new role at work which requires some of this expertise, and there’s not much opportunity to fake it. I was immediately and uncomfortably made aware of how much physical chemistry I have forgotten in the mmmmph years since I was in college. Well, at least I remembered the Nernst equation.
A discussion with SugarFree got me to pick up my copy of The Eyre Affair, the first of the Thursday Next series. I bought this the last time I was in England visiting my favorite author- he and I went book shopping and he urged me to give Jasper Fforde a try. He was right. Delightful mix of surrealism, science fiction, alternate history, and literary geekiness, sort of a Douglas Adams with better writing.
SugarFree
I’ve been on a horror kick. I re-read The Tommyknockers for the first time since it first came out. It remains one of the more interesting failures of Stephen King’s long career. The basic premise is sound and portions of the book are fantastic but–like much King’s work–it needed an editor, a very heavy-handed editor. It could lose a hundred or so pages and be a masterpiece for it. The TV miniseries is a rather dreary affair, hampered by poor casting and bad special effects.
I read a dozen or so King short stories afterward as a palate cleanser–most of Night Shift and parts of Skeleton Crew–and watched all the TV and movie adaptations where they have been made. The only thing I really have to say is that Linda Hamilton might be wearing the least erotic pair of shorts ever produced for the female body in 1984’s The Children of the Corn.
I read Nick Cutter’s first two books, The Troop and The Deep. The Troop is an effective and nasty little piece of splattercore, so efficient and complete that I cannot understand how it isn’t a movie yet (it even acknowledges a structural debt to Carrie that a movie adaptation could ignore.) The Deep is more ambitious, but I found it a little too derivative to be truly enjoyable, mashing up Solaris, Event Horizon, Sphere, The Abyss and any number of demonic possession stories to surface to an ambiguous ending.
Finally, I read The Soldier, the first book in a new trilogy by Neal Asher, set once again in his sprawling Polity Universe. It is his usual sort of meth-freak out science fiction overdrive that you either adore or hate. The new trilogy is picking up my favorite narrative thread of his work and my least favorite narrative thread and tying them together into an interstitial tale that doesn’t quite break his continuity but does manage to whack it in the knee with a length of pipe a few times. I’m along for the ride, though, Neal.
Riven
I have really been slacking. The only books I’ve read this month were the childhood books I incidentally read while unpacking the last three boxes my parents were very graciously still storing for me in their garage. I kid you not when I say that my sister and I read this edition of Mother Goose to pieces. It was already well-loved by the time I “inherited” it from my sister, who is only five years my senior. If you are looking for a good book for a very young child, look no further. The illustrations are beautiful and are more than enough to capture the imagination of a child who can’t read yet. And it’s a great book for a kid to grow in to because the rhymes are simple and easy to read.
Other notable childhood mentions are: Mooncake, Dinotopia (The World Beneath), Four Little Kittens, and The Poky Little Puppy. So, if you want to raise a crazy little libertarian chick, there’s a few ideas. Don’t forget to include plenty of Berenstain Bears (just be sure you pronounce it correctly), and go ahead and throw in some age-occasionally-appropriate spooky stories like Goosebumps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Eyes of the Dragon, and (one of my favorites) The Iron Dragon’s Daughter.
mexican sharpshooter
Yesterday, I read the Very Hungry Caterpillar to my son. Its a classic coming of age tale of a caterpillar coming to terms with a body shaming public that refuses to accept his outward appearance. They simply do not understand the caterpillar and drives him to seek refuge in food as a coping mechanism. The joke however is on society, as the caterpillar shelters himself away from the world, and shows them all what he becomes.
SP
Lots of mindless reading this month while on the road to and from Montana, most of which doesn’t deserve mentioning, so I won’t.
Sorta enjoyed the latest Agent Pendergast book, City of Endless Night, but it seemed much weaker than previous works in the series. As usual, I knew the identity of the villain as soon as xe was introduced.
I’ve started Robert Dugoni’s David Sloane series. I’m only a bit into book 1, The Jury Master, so haven’t quite formed an opinion yet. I am not generally a huge fan of lawyer novels (or lawyers, with a couple notable exceptions), but this seems less wrapped up in the legal story lines than most in the genre.
In audio, I’m currently listening to The Final Cut by Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison. It has two narrators, Renee Raudman and MacLeod Andrews, neither of whom I’ve heard before. I like it so far, but I’m not that far into it since I only allow myself to listen to books when on solo roadtrips or as a reward while cleaning (of which I’ve not been doing much!).
Brett L
I toted along the first book in the Kvothe Series (I think its officially called the Kingkiller Chronicles, but since the author has spent seven years NOT RELEASING THE BOOK WHERE A KING GETS KILLED, I’m just going with the the name of the main character) to the beach to re-read. And then I read the 2nd volume and then I read the final oh wait, no. Rothfuss and GRRM are still having that contest about who gives less of a fuck about finishing his series. I read the Racing Weight book on the advice of Deadhead in the Glibfit series. I started the plan but then bombed out. Will attempt a restart on Sunday.
Finally, I have been listening to Jordon Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos on and off. I won’t say it changed my life, although I appreciate his perspective on some things. It’s like listening to the reverse version of a preacher who uses science and psychology. Or maybe it like taking an ethics class from a Jesuit? I don’t know how else to describe Dr. Peterson’s somewhat unique insistence on the Bible as a central allegory to our current civilization, while fully acknowledging an embracing FW Nietzsche’s critique of religion. What comes through clearly on the audiobook of Dr. Peterson reading his own book is that he believes what he wrote. I am glad to have listened to it, even if I’m not going to choose to clean my room, today.
jesse.in.mb
Recently had some flights and managed to put away quite a bit this month. The Dark Monk (A Hangman’s Daughter Tale Book 2) by Oliver Pötzsch: I enjoyed this one (I wrote about the first book in March) although there’s some minor element of the passing that I find off-putting, but not so off-putting I won’t read the next book. Finding Camlann: A Novel by Sean Pidgeon: frumpy archaeologist and a pretty Welsh linguist with turbulent personal relationships with other people investigate rumors of Arthurian legend and find each other. Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir by Cinelle Barnes makes me appreciate my…uh…problematic parents much more. While some part of me wonders if it suffers from some of the issues associated with I, Rigoberta Menchu, the story she tells is riveting.
Web Dominatrix
I haven’t been reading much this month since I’ve been so busy, but I just ordered (yet again) a copy of The Enneagram Made Easy. This book is my go to for all things Enneagram and really helps me understand myself better and those around me.
I’ve had to order it again because I keep giving it away to people when I realise they’ve never read it because it really is that useful and interesting.
Not Adahn
I primarily read RPG manuals for entertainment these days. I like them. They have worldbuilding, a peek at how things work backstage (which is something I like) and they can be read in whatever chunks of time I have without interrupting a narrative flow. This month:
Star Wars: The Role Playing Game, by West End Games. This came out in 1987, so if you want to know how Star Wars geeks thought about how the SW universe worked back in the day (with input from the studios that still had Jedi fresh in their mind), here’s your answer. TL;DR: George Lucas retcons every goddamned thing. Also interesting is looking back and seeing how sacred canon used to be. Unlike today, where every game designer puts his personal self-insert fanfic headcanon into the games they work on (Did you know that all elves in D&D are trans now?) this book treats the movies as inviolable fact. There are only two Jedi masters left, and no, you character can’t meet them. Which really sucks if you want to play a Jedi as the game allows that there might be a few minor Jedi that escaped the purges, but without real training, your character is going to be crippled. But having Obi-Wan or Yoda meet another potential student would completely fuck the storyline so it’s disallowed.
Ars Magica 3rd Edition, by Wizards of the Coast. Is there any company that has done more to destroy the gaming industry than WOTC? They make one massively successful game, buy up everyone else, then it turns out that they’re not very good designers, they just got lucky once. This piece of crap follows in that tradition. I have a copy of the first edition of Ars Magica (by Lion Rampant games) and like everyone else loved the setting, the concepts behind the game, the alien medievalism, and found the mechanics a bit baffling when they weren’t clear but clunky. This book is literally five times the thickness of the first one, but completely fails at being any more clarifying. It guts the medieval mindset for a modern one and slathers on all sorts of 1990’s-era White Wolf emo crap and d10 rolling. In fact, this is so much a WW game, I had to double check to make sure it was WOTC. Unless WOTC bought WW which could very well have happened. And it became an even less-playable game. In fact, with the mutli-character concept, most of the playing is done solo filling out spreadsheets (which would be an excellent use of downtime between gaming sessions) except that it requires everyone in the group to be there watching you fill out your spreadsheet and approving your choices. Who would actually want to play this? Nobody. Which is why they made advancing your character so freakishly impossible — nobody is going to play this twice so those rules don’t matter. If you want to play an actual “I’m a wizard, I can do everything” game, you’ll need to get a copy of Mage: The Ascension.
Comments
307 responses to “What Are We Reading – June 2018”
Rothfuss and GRRM are still having that contest about who gives less of a fuck about finishing his series.
I liked the first one. I’m not buying any more until the last one is published.
I primarily read RPG manuals for entertainment these days.
Back when I was gaming, I did the same thing, for the same reasons.
Holy shit. My first first. Woo-hoo!
You always remember your first time.
So, lots of shame, embarrassment and tears and/or blood?
I’ve never read any GoT, nor seen any of the shows. I did, however, just watch these three episodes of South Park, however.
Sorry. Remove whichever one “however” you see fit.
I’ve read both of these series, and have been waiting years, and years.
I’m honestly starting to worry I may die of old age before these fucks publish it, and I’m younger than them…
I’m a bit pissed at Rothfuss getting a cameo in Girl Genius.
I don’t know what that means, but I assume either Girl Genius is going to be delayed several decades or The Kingkiller Chronicle just got set back another year or two.
Is there any company that has done more to destroy the gaming industry than WOTC?
If you stick to pen and paper only? White Wolf.
Magic: The Gathering at least paid the bills of game stores for a long time (still does for many, but luckily German boardgames came along to help diversify).
White Wolf did nothing but inject awful ideas into RPGs that we still haven’t gotten rid of, on design, worldbuilding, tone and rules levels.
Really? It’s been a million years since I played a WW game, but I liked Mage and Changeling and Werewolf. I never got into the Vampire game or any of the others.
Mage was great, Changling was interesting even if you could never get it to work at the table.
But Werewolf and especially Vampire were a magnet for shitty people to learn shitty habits for the hobby. And it sold order of magnitude more than Mage, Changling, and Orpheus. It was absolutely poison for the industry, along with Unknown Armies.
Changeling Mind’s Eye Theater was great though! Especially playing as a satyr grump.
I thought the purpose of RPGs was to be something other than yourself?
When you are HM in real life, what’s the need?
I’m the guy who makes all his video game avatars “me”.
So Chaotic Neutral Mages, who ignore the desperate pleas of prophecy to go in search of properly thicc candidates for your magic twerking school?
Huh. Interesting. I’ve been out of “the scene” for pretty much 20 years so I haven’t heard the hate.
For my money the best RPG system ever was Champions. That’s right. Champions. Now who wants to fight about it?
*Quietly sets down Savage Worlds book and draws sabre*
VtM was awesome. That and Hol. 🙂
Werewolf sucked balls.
VTM was great, and helped break players break out of the mechanics of gaming and get into actual role-playing, at least in the groups I played in.
A bunch of stuff for classes I’m taking on international political economy that aren’t very interesting, but most recently “The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Vol. 2”.
Just about wrapping up the Great Poul Anderson reread with Flandry’s Legacy (Baen Books’s name for the collection, not one given by Anderson), in hopes that I will stop being lazy and get an article out of it (although it may as well be two, one on Nicholas Van Rijn the merchant-prince, one on Dominic Flandy, space Bond before there was Bond)
mmmmph years
MMMMPH. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Roman numerals representing geologic time.
I primarily read RPG manuals for entertainment these days.
Me too! Small world.
I’ve been reading various state code sections pertaining to the definition of “motor vehicle dealer”. If anyone has a rope handy, or a cup of hemlock, I’d be grateful.
Insomnia sucks. Except for reading.
On SP’s recommendation I started – and finished – the David Loogan series by Harry Dolan.
Excellent stories with the occasional overly-complex plot twist, it’s a perfect summer mystery series. Thanks, SP!
I also finished the first two books in the Ravenwood Mysteries by Sabrina Flynn.
Set in turn of the century San Francisco, the writing is top notch, the characters are compelling and the stories are clever. Highly recommended.
Finally, I just got Jordan Peterson’s 12 rules, so I will tackle that this weekend to see what all the fuss is about.
Insomnia sucks. Except for reading.
Usually reading helps. I’ve had a few sleepless nights over the last two weeks and reading sometimes helped.
Oh, the Ravenwood books look good. And the first two are even Kindle Unlimited. Thanks, Tundra.
I was _just_ eyeing Kindle Unlimited, since I’m itching to power through the (2 dozen?) Inspector Rebus books – how “unlimited” is it? Can you tell if something is on there w/o being a member?
Doesn’t look like the Rebus books are available on Kindle Unlimited. It’s pretty limited from my point of view, but my wide likes it ’cause its full of the fantasy stuff she likes.
Try your local library. You can get kindle books through them as well. They lock when time is up.
This. A lot of the Rebus novels are available through my local library.
I take advantage of the local library; while they did have Rebus #1, they don’t have #2. Looking closer it looks like they have all but four of the Rebus novels available, for some reason.
I’ll also use the library for the next Laundry Files novel – Stross has gotten too uneven to be in the ‘automatic-buy’ list anymore.
WARNING! DANGER!
I have come to learn that approximately 95% of Kindle Unlimited books are actually poorly written harem erotica.
Oh shit, I thought it was just the early choices I made guided me into some sort of Machine Learning cul de sac.
It could be both. But who am I to judge after Cronin’s Key?
I read a dozen or so King short stories afterward as a palate cleanser–most of Night Shift and parts of Skeleton Crew,
I think King’s short stories are consistently good.
Star Wars: The Role Playing Game, by West End Games.
I remember playing this game. I liked it.
I have the third edition of Ars Magica. It’s been so long since I read the book that I don’t remember much of it. I remember I had some plans for running a game using it, but those plans went nowhere.
For my reading: I am still reading Skennerton’s “The Lee-Enfield Story”. I just bought a bunch of gun books to add to my to-read queue. They are the third edition of Skennerton’s book and a bunch of books on Mausers.
My character for an SW-WEG same was a Rodian pimp. I miss that guy.
My character was an old-salt trader/smuggler. Like Han Solo, only boring except for one thing. The GM decided his Star Wars game would include a few elements of Marvel superhero comics. Select characters had superpowers. He decided my character would be one of them. I couldn’t think of a power that fit the character, so the GM decided my character’s powers would be “Omnipotence” and “Omniscience”, except they would be subject to normal ability rolls. Failures were amusing.
@Spud and Tres Cool
I know it’s tradition to jump straight to the comments, but would it kill you to actually read my articles from time to time? 🙂
You can’t expect me to remember something I read that long ago.
I will need to put even more thicc women pictures in my articles to bind them in your consciousness, I see.
What I said was that there are more slaves in the world today than in the entire 400 years of the western slave trade. Of course there are a lot more people in the world today but when you’re comparing a current number versus a number spanning four centuries, it still raises eyebrows.
Tried to read City of Golden Shadow. Hard no. Just not that interesting. This is the second time I’ve picked this book up and it just did nothing for me. Verdict: Meh
The Bloody Crown of Conan. Hells. Yes. Howard is an absolute master story teller. Before Goku, before Superman, Conan was the power fantasy of every young teenage boy. Still the best. Verdict: Go read it now.
Brief Cases. Jim Butcher repackaging a bunch of already-published short stories + 1 new one. Because he know’s we are sluts and will buy a whole book for just that one. I liked it. No Shame. Verdict: For fans only.
Thrawn. It was.. fine. It suffered from comparison with the original Thrawn trilogy. So to me it was kind of a let down. Verdict: Pass if you liked Old Thrawn. pass if you didn’t like Old Thrawn.
Magician Impossible. Kind of YA, without the YA tropes that I really hate (aka two love interests that are both as bland as stale bread, female protagonists with bangs in their eyes, etc). The characters actually had a little bit of personality, which is often missing from YA. But I still didn’t give a shit about the mcguffin. Lots of structural problems with this book. The X-men style introduction to power / danger room / shoved into action before really read is such a well worn trope and it takes up over half the book. Didn’t finish, but 12 year old Leaper might have enjoyed it more. Must be why it’s YA. Verdict: You must be this
tallshort to ride.Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s masterful. The audiobook is read by a skilled narrates. There are like a dozen quotes that I want to get printed on a shirt or a poster or something. I’ve always loved CS Lewis, and this informs a lot of his style. Wish I would have read it two decades ago, but I don’t think teenage leap could have been convinced to real dig into it the way it should be. Verdict: All the Yesses.
Phew someone else did mini reviews too
Keep em coming. Just enough to add to one’s reading list. Not enough to really spoil it. Best part of these posts. As you can see, I need to work hard to keep the hopper full.
Howard’s Conan was published before Superman by 1 whole year. Though you could argue that Superman really didn’t enter the public consciousness as we know him until he was picked up by DC in ’38. So, that would make it six years. I’m pretty sure our grandfathers had arguments about who would beat whom in a fight between Superman and Conan (precipitated by Conan bedding Lois Lane, of course).
I agree. I thought Zahn played up the “Thrawn basically has Asperger’s” trope too much. I was also expecting Pryce to play a much bigger role as Thrawn’s mentor in the art of playing politics.
I’ll go farther and say that Superman wasn’t in competition with Conan for this bit of headspace until the 80’s. Up through the 70’s Superman was aimed at prepubescent boys. It wasn’t till John Byrne’s post-crisis Superman that he became targeted at teenagers. Before then, it was all about Jimmy Olsen turning into a fish-boy or the Legion of Superheros coming to whisk Superboy away to the fantasy-future. Those are stories directed at 8 year olds and don’t compete with Conan’s mighty thews or pulsating man-parts.
Fair enough.
Oh, fuck no. Run, do not walk, away from that. Fuck you, Tad Williams! Fuck you sideways! I went through all those goddamn doorstops you published (page counts: 770, 634, 720, 922), and _that_ was the big reveal at the end?!? So stupid, fuck you.
What I’m trying to say is, I did not enjoy that series and I don’t think you will either.
Fun fact: when I hit the big reveal in the final book, which is a ridiculous, out of nowhere deus ex machina, I literally threw the book across the room. I have never been that mad at writing before or since.
*calms down slightly*
TBF, there’s plenty of interesting things in the series, enough to keep me going; but not enough to justify that terrible ending.
+1 Dorothy Parker review
The Conan stories are excellent, although as Stephen King said, if anybody else tried to write like Howard, it probably wouldn’t work.
I’m pretty sure I read The Iron Dragon’s Daughter when I was 10 or 11. Isn’t there a lot of fucking and murder in it?
You’re thinking of the LitErotica parody piece “In The Dragon’s Daughter”
Yes. There really is. I mean to reread it sometime here shortly to see just how inapropes it was for 1st/2nd grade Riven.
She’s in an orphanage run by a pedophile at one point, right? And she tries to murder him by, like, burning his fingernail clippings in a voodoo ceremony or whatever, but it just makes his hands itch or something? And then at some point she’s like some kind of sexy slut-assassin.
Yeah, I should reread it too. It sounds like something I should not have been allowed to read.
It’s funny to me that we both remember that specific part of the book–ineffectively burning the pedos fingernail clippings. I think she ends the book as the sexy slut-assassin but ultimately decides that she shouldn’t have been, in hindsight.
I’m thinking I only got away with reading that because my mom had probably gotten it from the science fiction book club, read it, and then stuck it on a shelf and forgot what it was really about. She likely wasn’t even aware that I was reading it since I had a different “dragon” book every other week.
Someone said they were going to tackle Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. How is it?
Negroni how did Rothbard’s The Progressive Era turn out?
I read a lot as I am on paternity leave this month
Sword of Destiny and Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski I recently finished playing 150 hours of Witcher 3. I really enjoyed the characters, world, and monster lore. I don’t have the time or a fancy computer to play the previous two Witcher games. SoD is the second short story collection that precedes the Ciri saga that begins with Blood of Elves. I am really looking forward to continuing to read this series.
Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. I don’t think DKR lived up to the hype. Miller introduced the grittier Batman that kid/people that were introduced to Batman in the 1990s or after are familiar with. The Harvey Dent plot was kind of weird and the conclusion unfulfilling. The mutant plot line was weird. The Joker and Superman plots were good.
Nimona is a graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson. Nimona, is a shapeshifter that joins the local “registered villain”. Quite enjoyable. It was cute and a little off the beaten path.
The Gigantic Beard that Was Evil by Stephen Collins. Another graphic novel. It has that Roald Dahl peculiarity. But I found it to be kind of meh.
Biting the Hand that Feeds Us by Baylen Linnekin Linnekin notes the contributions of big government and big food to food waste and terrible food laws and outcomes. I think more liberty with our food is an easy sell to anyone, and this book helps to reinforce that.
Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Tom Woods had Hari on several months ago. He is a journalist, so he wanted to put human stories to the drug war (but this is supplemented with plenty of data). This book pairs well with Carl Hart’s book High Price. Hari’s investigation of the approaches to drug use in Vancouver, Switzerland, and Portugal were much appreciated.
Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle I read this at the recommendation of a few Glibs. It is an in-depth portrayal of an alien invasion from pre-invasion/discovery to attack to Earth’s defense, which makes it different than most invasion stories I am familiar with. I found it enjoyable, although I wish some parts were cut out.
Graphic Canon Vol 2 edited by Russ Kick I am not the target audience for this book, but I thought graphic novelization of some classics might make them more approachable to me. Except it’s mainly full of poems and short stories from classic lit, and any novels graphical form is only an excerpt or chapter. Graphic Canon of Children’s Lit edited by Russ Kick was more enjoyable for me. Most of the stories are told in full. Both canon had a mainly great artists, although there were a few that sucked or their presentation was unreadable as they tried to be “clever”.
Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson mentioned by SF a while ago. The first and final short stories in the collection are the best of the four.
Andy Weir enters his sophmore slump with Artemis. A heist book on the moon. The Martian was a far superior read.
I wasn’t impressed with Footfall. It included too much stuff that was done better elsewhere.
Not the best Niven/Pournelle combo, but I still enjoyed it. For a similar feel/story line try Lucifer’s Hammer.
Of course, they didn’t write anything together that tops The Mote in God’s Eye.
I am not sure if I have mentioned this before (probably on TOS), but like Niven did with Man/Kzin Wars, I would like to see a series of novella length stories on the Adventures of Renner and Bury. They would be set between Mote and Gripping Hand, and similar in length/style to part 1 of The Gripping Hand.
I bet there are a ton of great story ideas for that setting.
I think “Lucifer’s Hammer” is in my “to-read” queue.
I liked “Inferno”. I rank it up there with “The Mote in God’s Eye”, but “Mote” is the better book.
I agree. When I read it, I told my dad that it felt like they just wanted to recreate Lucifer’s Hammer.
But it had elephant aliens!
Witcher 3 is the greatest video game ever made. Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine should be every studio’s model for DLC. Respectable length, a new (and beautiful) environment. New game mechanics. They’re the best part of the game.
Rothbard’s Progressive Era is slooooooooooow. It is truly boring as fuck. I’m still slogging through it because I’m teaching a class right now that covers the period and hearing Rothbard’s take is a nice alternative to all the commie fucktards that dominate the market. There’s some solid analysis, but there’s also way too much detail including more names to remember than War and Peace.
All of this. Damn, that’s a mighty fine game with excellent expansions.
Someday I hope to finally play Cyberpunk 2077. I’ll likely be horribly let down after all the hype and expectation but after Witcher 3 they are the holy grail game studio.
Ok, that was my suspicion that TPE would be boring. Thanks for the heads up
I keep thinking I need to gear up and get back into gaming, but now that I don’t have a “gaming hole” in my day, I just can’t see when I would do it.
Sad fact: I enjoy watching videogame trailers on YouTube.
After a little introspection and looking over my journal, my wife and I discovered that my periods of “I don’t have a video game to play” coincided with the emergence of some minor bipolar symptoms. So somehow I convinced my wife that getting a half hour of video games in a day is an important part of my mental hygiene (and it truth it might be).
Gotta make time for whats important…
Interesting…
I would think you, of all people, would understand that some things are just good for your soul, HM. 😉
I manage my ADHD without meds. I can’t slow down my brain, so providing it with arbitrarily complex strategic frameworks gives it something to crunch on in the down times. When I don’t have that grist for the mill, that’s why hypomanic symptoms start up.
I understand other similarly situated people tend to turn to drugs, sleeping with prostitutes, and other risk taking behavior. But I went straight to the hard stuff – first persons shooters, woodworking, and 350 year old Christian allegories.
I can’t slow down my brain, so providing it with arbitrarily complex strategic frameworks gives it something to crunch on in the down times.
Interesting. I think my job does that for me. Although sufficient quantities of ethanol slow down my brain quite agreeably, as well.
Ethanol doesn’t slow me down, it just lowers my inhibitions. Given that I’ve developed an inhibition to opening the flood gates on whatever system it is I’m thinking about… we’ll I’m either a highly entertaining person to speak or incredibly boring depending on who you ask.
I basically unleash my inner type A nerd. I had a really fascinating conversation with my cousin’s fiance. She was a teenage model that recently got out of the business (and a legit 10 who is smarter than she is hot), and we spent an hour talking about my pet theory that ubiquitous porn changed the gatekeepers in the female-attractiveness industry from women to men. This has had the result of expanding the range of “what the magazines tell us is beauty,” which has been a net positive for young and impressionable women.
You know who else I’ve talked to about this IRL? Fucking no one. Makes me sound like a perv.
It is definitely an interesting conversation to have with your cousin’s fiance. 😉
“Biting the Hand that Feeds Us by Baylen Linnekin Linnekin notes the contributions of big government and big food to food waste and terrible food laws and outcomes. I think more liberty with our food is an easy sell to anyone, and this book helps to reinforce that.”
I’ll have to pick that up.
“Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle I read this at the recommendation of a few Glibs. It is an in-depth portrayal of an alien invasion from pre-invasion/discovery to attack to Earth’s defense, which makes it different than most invasion stories I am familiar with. I found it enjoyable, although I wish some parts were cut out.”
Love the books they did together. Footfall, Lucifers Hammer, Oath of Fealty, and Fallen Angels are old favorites of mine as well.
“Andy Weir enters his sophmore slump with Artemis. A heist book on the moon. The Martian was a far superior read.”
It was enjoyable but not as good as The Martian. I think the issue was that Weir could really get into Watney’s head a lot better than he could the chick in Artemis. I think her name was Jazz?
Lucifer’s Hammer probably did more to feed my nascent libertarian prepper fetish than anything else in my childhood.
Plus how many books out there feature a biker gang raping a girls scout troop to death who are then murdered by a boy scout troop who hook up with the survivors for some underage “scout jamboree”?
Ok I’ll have to check Lucifer’s Hammer out
SPOIILER
One of the bits I enjoyed was how they illustrate the dramatic fall in Hamner’s status, first illustrated by him going to his well stocked observatory only to discover that it’s been taken over by some locals who politely but firmly intend to steal his supplies and equipment. Then he ends up begging for a space in the Stronghold. Before the comet fell he was rich as hell and people were always currying favor with him. Now his money is worthless and he has no usable skills.
“It was enjoyable but not as good as The Martian. I think the issue was that Weir could really get into Watney’s head a lot better than he could the chick in Artemis. I think her name was Jazz?”
Yes her name is Jazz. Not all sophmore slumps are terrible just not as good as the first venture. Artemis was good. No regrets reading it. But I am not gonna go crazy suggesting it like I would the Martian
Would like to hear more about Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. I’ve read her Return of the Soldier, and I’m on the fence on that one.
I loved it to pieces. I laughed and cringed many times reading it – she certainly nailed down the people and places she met. I grew up in Yugoslavia decades after her book and still I recognized behaviors she described. On the other hand, a lot of stuff is about her philosophy, and she may be seeing Manichean influences where there aren’t any.
It’s a travelogue, so it is handy to have a map to see where she’s going, and quick trip to Wikipedia to see places she’s describing (e.g. I never even heard of door to Trogir cathedral, which she uses as a springboard to meditate on dualism).
I could recognize a few of the people she interacts with, and was very pleased I guessed the identity of her guide. She clearly has a lot of affection for him, but he was a way cooler dude than presented in the book.
She is often being accused of being pro-Serb, and she is a bit, but if you make it all the way to the end, her most devastating critique is against the Serbian foundational myth, the Grey Falcon of the title (“if given a choice of winning a battle to gain a kingdom on the Earth, or losing it to gain The Kingdom of Heaven, you choose defeat”).
I agree with you on Artemis. He just reaches too far. The basic premise works but he tacks on too many things to make the heroine more heroine”ish”.
Had a long drive last week, so I fired up an audio book – John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, military history book. Pretty sure it was his first book; even though it came out in the ’70s. The first section is skippable unless you really want to nerd out on historiography – its about why battles are very hard to write historical accounts of, and why military historians (and others) suck at it.
He does three battles in the book – Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. I’m almost through Waterloo. Very interesting accounts of these battles, but what I really enjoy is just the quality of the prose. He has that gift that well-educated Englishmen of past generations had for just writing wonderfully (when scoffing at the brand of military history that focuses on Great Generals, he notes that it is too easy to fall into hero worship if you are a typical professor with “academic timidity and a suburban physique”).
I’ve read/listened to other books of his, and they are uniformly excellent.
Right on. Keegan is great and The Face of Battle is a classic for a reason
Big Keegan fan here. Always a good read even if you don’t buy his conclusions. The Price of Admiralty I especially like, because sea power is generally something I don’t read much about.
One of the few books of his I haven’t read. *heads over to Amazon*
I’m back. I would say, if you only read one of his books, A History of Warfare is the one to read.
The Mask of Command was his best.
Meant to say “even though it came out in the 70’s, like a good history book it is not dated in the least”.
I read ‘Knots and Crosses’ , the first Inspector Rebus novel based on recommendations here. I liked it enough I will continue – #2 already downloaded, just in time for two weeks of vacation.
Finally finished off ‘Kill Team’, Galaxy’s Edge #3. I don’t think I’ll continue with these.
Just started re-reading ‘Witchy Eye’ by D.J. Butler – the sequel just came out (and I’ve grabbed it), but want to re-read the first before the second. ISTR being really taken with the world-building with this. Alt-fantasy Appalachia in 1815, ruled over by the Emperor Thomas Penn.
I may also try to finish up ‘Site Reliability Engineering’ on the plane (a.k.a., “The SRE book”). The essays have all been illuminating, crystallizing a lot of thoughts I’ve had over the years.
I liked it enough I will continue – #2 already downloaded, just in time for two weeks of vacation.
Awesome. My sister recently started them and is digging them as well. Good vacation books.
Huh. I’m loving the hell out of the Galaxy’s Edge series. I’m in the middle of reading Requiem For Medusa, which is the latest and is a Tyrus Rechs stand alone. What aren’t you liking about the series?
I liked the first one a ton, straight-up mil sci-fi. The tone shift to the second one threw me, then I figured the two authors must be trading off, so I went with the third with higher hopes but it wasn’t a return to tone – the ‘Kill Team’ was really secondary to ‘Tom’. It was fine, just didn’t find it all that engaging.
I’m not a Star Wars fanboi, so that may be why it’s not really firing me up.
Ohhh, yeah, ‘Tom’. The series really varies in focus and tone. It’s sort of…they have this SW with the serial numbers filed off setting and the big story line and some of it is really good mil-sf, and others are more horror or espionage or action or whatever. So that makes sense.
Too bad. For me, switching in genre (mil-fic -> rogues and scoundrels -> spies) really worked well. And it’s a bit broader than SW, but I don’t think you got to Orks with Muslim coat of paint, or Necrons.
Maybe try preview of the next book (Attack of the Shadows), since it involves actual beginning of the Galactic Civil War. More Legion, we get to see some starfighter pilots, and what Solus was building up in secret. On the other hand, Prisma and her guardians make a return.
My wife is obsessed. She listens to a podcast about the Ennegram a lot too
I got halfway through Black Privilege by Charlamagne Tha God before the damn audiobook returned itself to the library. Any book that can move from Pringles can sized dicks to handling adversity while you climb the socioeconomic ladder is good enough for me.
I’m reading Mavericks by Craig Alanson. Im picky about my sci-fi, but I keep coming back to this series. It’s better written than most, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
What is wrong with chaos?
Hail Eris!
All Hail Discordia!
/eats a hot dog
No bun, of course
What? That’s blasphemy! Eating it with the bun on a Friday is the only way to offend five religions at once!
The number of cards that had to be banned/restricted shows that they werent good designers even on their first big success.
I don’t know man. Garfield created the most (financially) important genre of gaming out of whole cloth. Roborally is a masterpiece in an existing format. Netrunner is serious refinement on the genre he invented.
That kind of like saying the Beatles weren’t that good because a few of their songs are a little repetitive.
I was probably overly harsh, but come on, even though it was the initial release, who thought Black Lotus or the Moxes were a good idea? If you are going to have a zero cost Artifact, it should be something like Ornithopter, which was brilliant. Absolutely worthless on its own, but lots of fun in combos.
Nobody really grocked the power curve until a few years later, so noone knew that accelerating mana was fraught with danger. Card and time advantage are nebulous properties that it takes a lot of experience to unearth and understand. They are like third or fourth order effects. The fact that they are strong doesn’t make them easy to surface ex nihilo.
Actually, Black Lotus and Moxes were obviously overpowered from the very beginning. It took a while to figure out all the crazy first time kills you could pull off with them or some of the time shifting cards.
It took about 5 seconds for someone to figure out Black Lotus/Mountain/Channel/Fireball/Game over.
Just about finished with The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories. I think I read it earlier in a different title. No matter, still enjoyable, particularly for short periods of reading given the short length of each one.
Starting reading the Kindle samples of Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business and Alan Taylor’s American Colonies: The Settling of North America, both by recommendations here. First one moves quickly and I’ll probably pick up the full version. Second, quite good & learning a lot from it, but suffers from the current academic culture.
On deck right now: Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (after RAH & Job: A Comedy of Justice), the Reginald Perrin Omnibus, & whichever Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason) I’m up to.
I just finished Rebel Yell and loved it. Made a second attempt at Road to Serfdom and gave up. Starting Farnham’s Freehold today.
God, I hope this is true. As much as I disagree with Trump’s moronic trade war, if this is the outcome, then all is forgiven.
I am not terribly well versed on the arcana of the WTO agreements. Why would pulling out be a good thing (Catholic ladies say Heeeyyy)?
Two reasons in my book:
1.) The WTO was founded in the principles of Keynesian economics in the wake of Bretton Woods, in which global trade was seen as something too important to just be left without central “oversight”.
2.) Like the UN, the WTO depends on its constituent members to act honorably. As such it has no teeth. Trump is correct that the U.S. gets screwed in IP protection because the WTO really has no meaningful way to enforce IP treaties. So we play by the “rules” and the developing world, and China, don’t.
Yeah I’m not sure what is less libertarian: honest and simple tariffs, or nebulous, byzantine, corrupt “free trade” agreements with all manner of sweetheart deals, carve outs, exemptions, subsidies, etc.
Sounds like one of them strategical leaks, designed to get people off their asses and doing something he wants to prevent “OMG, that crazy bastard will tear down another piece of the One World Order!!!!eleventy”.
RPG Manuals- ah, reminds me of years gone by reading Robotech & Rifts.
My first RPG was TMNT by Palladium. We then added Ninjas and Superspies and let our existing characters just add a class from that. Then we added Robotech. I had a Mutant Ram that knew Dim Mak and piloted a Valkyrie. God that was fun. Needless to say we made the transition to Rifts with enthusiasm.
I liked the early Rifts sourcebooks, but they got a bit over the top later on.
Waterfall Insurance was asking about history books on the last thread. I rec’d The Killer Angels by Peter Shaara, even though it’s fiction. I haven’t read it recently, but it’s one of the most compelling books relating to a historical event I can recall ever reading.
That right there is an excellent read. I second this recommendation.
Agreed
Seconded, Shaara’s son does a good job picking up where his dad left. The one about WWI was very good.
Or fourthed, I guess.
And for the nerds out there… **casts gaze up-thread**
Joss Whedon has cited this book as the original inspiration for that sci-fi/western/dramedy we all love so much: Firefly
Especial homage was paid to the book in the final episode: Objects in Space.
I thought that was about Summer Glau’s feet.
I would say her feet are their own character… and, really, the whole show is an homage to her feet.
Then it’s even more of a shame it was cancelled.
https://www.wikifeet.com/Summer_Glau#&gid=1&pid=1
Sounds good I just got a gift card so I think I will order it.
Whiskey!
https://blog.distiller.com/experimental-barrels/
The Broom of the System by DFW.
Everything you’d expect from DFW; funny, insightful, philosophical and capturing the conundrums of human nature with frightening accuracy.
“Everything you’d expect from DFW”
Mainly I expect that there’s no way in hell I could actually finish it.
#infinitejestsucks
I’m going to skate over your hate speech hashtag and let you know that BotS is about a quarter the length and a lot less dense.
But does he still engage in 1000 word rambling digressions to pretentiously expound on trite freshman philosophy enlightenment? Cause that’s mainly what I expect out of him.
Your hate criminal wrongthink has triggered me. I need my emotional support blankie.
I’m thinking of getting an emotional support wolverine. It’s small enough to fit on an airplane, yet fierce enough to dismember anyone who might annoy me.
Go with a honey badger. I hear they don’t give a shit.
Yes ^this^. I can’t read him, I’ll damage my eyes rolling them.
Hey! This is super off topic for this thread here, but I just wanted to wish you the best of luck in your online dating adventures!
Mr. Riven and I met on OKCupid. Some of the folks around here might remember seeing my openly hostile profile there, but I can’t complain about the results. Just represent yourself honestly and you’ll find someone who is all about you.
“openly hostile profile”
AFTER COITUS I WILL BURN YOU TO A CRISP WITH MY PSYCHIC RAY OF DEATH
How is that not like every woman?
The honesty.
Some of them have the courtesy to just emasculate you with garden shears instead.
I remember seeing that profile when you linked it. I don’t remember it being openly hostile.
I just assume all women online are just Ashley Madison employees at this point.
@DEG Maybe it was just more hostile on paper (in my opinion) than I would ever be in person.
I forget the exact verbiage, but it did start off with something like, “I probably don’t want to talk to you or get to know you. Yeah, I’m sure you’re great and it’s only everyone else who sucks, but be forewarned that if you message me, I probably won’t message you back.”
So… Tundra’s right–I was plenty honest. And, to his credit, Mr. Riven read that and was like, ‘My kind of woman.’
And that’s what I mean when I say, really, be yourself. Someone will come along and think you’re just the bee’s knees.
Check out Riven the PUA, with all the negging.
That’s good advice. Be honest, that way you’ll get someone that likes you for you. Have a little patience, I’m sure you’ll find the right one.
“Be honest, that way you’ll get someone that likes you for you.”
I recognize the words as English but in this configuration they can’t possibly mean anything.
When did we change topics to Neal Stephenson?
I red Infinite Jest when it came out and enjoyed it. I went back and re-read it a couple of years ago, and still enjoy it. I like those long, rambling digressions. It’s one of the reasons I like Neal Stephenson.
Anyway, the one oddity with Infinite Jest. I swear to god I remember it having a scene in it about a guy going into a bathroom, using the urinal then using paper towels to wipe his penis because he was unfamiliar with why there would be paper towels in a bathroom and another character (the bathroom attendant) assuming that one had a venereal disease because of it. Only it wasn’t in there and I would love to know if there is another DFW book that has such a scene or if i simply had some sort of precognition of reading SugarFree.
I don’t remember that scene, but it’s entirely possible it could be in there (considering that book describes every set of circumstances that could ever happen in the universe).
You should try Broom of the System.
Thanks, downloading it now for vacay.
What I expect from DFW is gates that change on short notice, and a lack of edible food anywhere but the international terminal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsGHdGXg0vE
Sometimes I’m too meta for my own good.
“I’m in VIP
i got the bottle service
come on over
baby don’t be nervous”
I assumed it was intentional parody at that point.
When everyone is a “suspected white supremacist” there is no way to tell.
oh wait. That’s Tariq Nasheed?
Ok, it IS parody. Or rather, exactly the same as his series of books on “How to live the pimp life”
*of course* his music is going to sound like a Zapp cover band.
There was also this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59GVr-Arjcs
I’m starting to gather that he’s sort of a black “Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay”
he basically plays a character, and he doesn’t get out of character. like “Dice”, a lot of people don’t get it, and like him because they think its real. over time, he’s actually being ‘the character’ far more than being any real-version of himself, and its not really parody anymore, its just this contrived persona.
I don’t really understand the White Supremacist reference tho
He’s constantly labeling people “suspected white supremacist”. For example:
https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1010615484880904192
If you searched his twitter feed for that exact phrase, your computer would catch fire.
OT and the kind of question I could only ask here:
Since I know it’s only penis-owning individuals here; what is the deal with guys that unbuckle their belts, unbutton, unzip and all but completely take off their pants to use the urinal? I wear boxers with button flies and always just unzip my pants fly to do the deed. What reason is there for practically getting undressed to use the damn urinal? Go in a stall!
Pants? What are these pants of which you speak?
this^ My shorts are so baggy they look like a Kilt
Let me specify:
Whatever lower body covering you choose to wear given that it has a zip fly to enable penile extraction for micturition.
I only wear Briefs in the Winter, but yes I unbutton and unzip my fly to Micturate, more accurate for me…
I like to air out my junk and lift my ball sack off of my taint for the fresh air.
Especially during the Texas summer.
It is also an aid to the shake without a dribble.
There’s an underwear for that…
pants, too
~~~The Edit Faerie adds https to re-sucralize your link~~~
I’ll take “Things you can only read on Glibertarians.com”, for 400, Alex
I don’t trust anyone that doesn’t follow the incredibly rigid rules for urinal use that most men seem to be born with.
You can read all about it in my upcoming book, 12 Rules for Bathrooms: An Antidote to Accidentally Looking at or Touching Someone’s Penis.
‘Accidentally’ touching at the urinal?
Sure.
No, but get a dozen drunk guys at a trough designed for no more than 10, with halftime ending in 30 seconds, and bad stuff can happen man. Bad. Stuff.
This is why I need to start wearing a catheter.
Relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpJDTNCNr5E
* gags *
I really, really, really hope he got something out of that beyond some incurable disease.
Some dongs need more space to maneuver than others?
CORRECT!
I would assume it’s the opposite. If your piece is shorter than average, it wouldn’t reach through the multiple layers of fabric to have a clear shot.
I mean you’d be getting into micropeen territory at that point,
It’s also going to depend heavily on the type of clothes you’re wearing. If I have a button fly and a belt on I’m gonna undo or loosen the belt, undo the top 2-3 buttons and pull my dick out over the top of my underwear. Zipper fly and boxers I’m using the well-aligned fly holes and a zipper fly and briefs it’s going to depend on the celestial alignment of all available parts. If my dong were particularly pendulous and I had to go fishing for it through my fly, that might also change my mental math.
I agree with this. Some of my boxer briefs have a fly that necessitates a Houdini straightjacket escape. Simpler to undo the belt and execute an over the top release.
Thanks for keeping it weird, Q!
Like I said, the kind of question I can only ask here.
“Zipper fly and boxers I’m using the well-aligned fly holes”
This is my standard setup about 95% of the time unless I’m wearing gym shorts.
“fishing for it through my fly”
That’s half the fun!
I’m mostly in boxer briefs (I don’t know when I stopped preferring boxers, but it happened), unless I’m doing something sweaty or traveling, at which point I’m wearing Ex-Officio boxers. I love the material , but their boxer briefs get a bit grabby with the leg hair, so I prefer the boxers.
Wow, those are some pricey boxers! I’m such a (((cheap ass))) I just stock up on whatever’s cheapest at Walmart.
Very classy
Yeah, and they’re more expensive than when I first started buying them, but they last forever (I’ve had pairs for years and haven’t had any elastic give out or seams tear), take forever to smell funky and can be hand-washed and dried effectively, so they make for great ultra-light travel companions.
I usually wait until someone has them on deep discount and pick up a pair or two as I go.
I need to start putting my junk in more expensive things; therefore I will buy a pair for science.
Yeah, they’re great – I grabbed a bunch when I went to Italy 4 years ago and they’re going strong. Packing them for Hawaii as I write this (well, I _should_ be packing…)
Big fan of the Duluth Trading Armachillo boxer briefs.
This reminds me of something circulating on the web many years ago. It was a game with a row of urinals, and there would be different arrangements of urinals occupied (none, one guy at the third from the left, etc.). You picked which urinal you would use IRL. As I recall, all men always chose the same urinal for any given setup. Women were more random, and rarely got the “right” one.
I go for the unbutton and unzip so I can straighten, tuck, reassemble as needed.
And so I can avoid this. The quick zip is always a danger.
Seconded, when I’m dressed for work. Also, when I wear those damn buttonfly jeans I bought accidentally.
Lost a bet one time, and had to drop trou, all the way, every time I used the urinal for a week. The very first day, I walked into the bathroom, dropped everything below the waist, and started to do my thing when the three-star General in charge of the whole shebang walked in.
He hesitated for a moment, then stepped up to the next open urinal and muttered, “Seems a little excessive…”
I pinched of the stream, pulled up my pants, did a cursory washing of my hands and hurried out the door. Said, “Have a nice day, sir,” then prayed a silent prayer that he was too embarrassed to notice my face.
Seems a little excessive…
“Sir, I lost a bet, sir, and I never welch on a bet!” *finish pissing, give a parade ground turn to the General, salute, reassemble pants, and march to the sink*
Sometimes, you need some air.
Or a good scratching.
Their mothers hate them?
Well, see it takes two hands to handle a whopper.
https://acidcow.com/pics/20100719/girls_eating_hot_dogs_02.jpg
Well since you ask, I unzip (or unbutton) the fly, reach in, pull the elastic of my under-britches down, and then grab the old John Thomas and let her rip.
There’s a dude on our floor that uses the urinal with his pants around his ankles.
Is his last name Stoch?
I have orphans handle this for me. Female orphans because I’m a pervert, not gay.
Currently reading “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” which is a big meh or duh, I’m not 100% sure yet. It features a lot of quotes from the Center for Science in the Public interest, so I’m leaning meh.
Some recent reads (one per post to avoid the hold): Ian Buruma, Year Zero: A History of 1945
Green, Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899
And, I’m about a third of the way through Beevor: Click Stalingrad and it is excellent so far.
If that campaign interests you I can recommend “Enemy at the Gates” by Craig. Donot confuse the cheesy B movie with the book. Like Cornelius Ryan, Craig interviewed scores of participants and weaves together an narrative from the Theater to individual level.
Panic in Year Zero!
I’ve spent the past two days neck deep in getting a major change approved because of surprise maintenance.
Other then that, in the past month, I’ve finally read the first book of the Magician’s series (after getting the girlfriend to watch the show). The book makes the characters even more broken and terrible then the show.
That was a miserable book written by a miserable person. One of the only books I regret reading.
I enjoyed the first book – read before the show. If you didn’t like this one, don’t even think about reading the rest of the series – yikes!
I’m about half way through the second book… I have a bit of a completionist streak. It takes a lot for me to stop reading a series, especially one that’s only three books. I’ll probably finish the three books. The only author I think may be darker was John Barnes.
Try Jim Thompson.
Funny, I was just looking at him today – he wrote ‘The Grifters’ which, as discussed, is a dark movie (and, presumably, a dark book).
I saw that – it’s what made me think of him. I read just about everything he wrote when I was in college. He’s more intelligent than the average “pulp” writer, but his books are never slow. (At least, I don’t recall any). I found one or two of his endings a bit unsatisfying, but out of 20-some odd books, that’s still a pretty good hit ratio.
I like those books. There are no protagonists. Everyone sucks. And yet, the books are still interesting and fun.
I watched the show though the first and second season (maybe?), then realized I hated every single one of them.
Hot, though.
“TRUMP SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO CHOOSE A LIFETIME APPOINTEE WHILE HE IS UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION. FULL STOP.”
https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1012204061817491456
Take a pill, already.
Headline: Count Potato Dies After Volunteering to Try and Fuck the Crazy Out of Alyssa Milano
There are worse ways to go.
Embrace of the Vapid
Sweet: just make sure every president from now on is under investigation for their full term. Eventually there’ll be no more SCOTUS.
Hell, apply the same thing to Congress re: making laws and we could really have something here!
But you should totally be able to run for president tho. And that’s completely logical
“Yesterday, I read the Very Hungry Caterpillar to my son.”
Funny kind of related indoctrination story. My 3 year old was watching “Goldie and Bear” the other day. The episode was about three knights who show up in the world and start enforcing all sorts of rules to prevent characters from hurting themselves or others. Anyways long story short they convince the knights there is risk in everything and strict enforcement of rules isn’t good for the people. Libertarian propaganda!
There’s libertarian propaganda in a lot of kids shows.
Except for Thomas and Paw Patrol, which are inherently fascist.
To give a moose a muffin is quite an indictment of the welfare state.
Oddly, a key plot point in many Thomas episodes involves trains that aren’t able to run on time.
Since I don’t see any Afternoon links, this is funny, a Shot gun Funnel, in Reverse,
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2018/06/29/come-on-nbc-news-journos-explanation-of-how-a-shotgun-works-sends-heads-crashing-to-desks-again/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
This isn’t the exact words I would use to describe it, however it isn’t completely inaccurate given her audience probably has no idea what choke means in this context.
As much as I disagree with Trump’s moronic trade war, if this is the outcome, then all is forgiven.
If we can somehow chisel away the phony substitution of “managed trade” for free trade, I’d see it as a win.
Everybody who refers to TPP as a “free trade agreement” should be flogged on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial.
But it says free right there!
I’m still working my way through 1001 Nights. Didn’t get much reading on my road trip, still only at Night 224.
Here’s an example of some of the poetry and bawdiness of the stories:
(A princess disguised as a man is trying to seduce her repatriated lover)
… Hobbit
*lights Jesse signal*
The penis smooth and round was made with anus best to match it
Had it been made for cunnis’ sake it had been formed like a hatchet!
At least SOMEONE gets it.
And someone gives it, or so I’m told.
Obviously the entire document* isn’t weed (Bhang) and butt sex (no Mexicans to be found) but I chose these couplets as examples of Burton’s style. His wasn’t the first translation but it was the first to include the scandalous (to the Victorians) language. It was originally limited to something like 100 copies by subscription only. No publisher would touch them for public sale.
The rhyming pattern of the original Arabic or Persian would have been lost in the translation to English. Burton had to make the couplet rhyme while maintaining the flavor of the original quip. Some poems will go on rhyming for a dozen stanzas. It really was a brilliant piece of work.
BN
*Ten volumes of 800-900 pages each, with footnotes and three supplemental volumes
A watch implies a watchmaker.
Just started rereading Jim Butcher’s the Aeronaut’s Windlass, which is steampunk mixed with military fantasy and a goodly dash of Horatio Hornblower, or maybe Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin stories. Leap, if you haven’t tried this one, I highly recommend it. Finishing Nassim Taleb’s Skin in the Game on the recommendation of several of us Glibs. It’s well worth the effort and points up the lack of commitment in many people, especially politicians. Next up on the reading list is a biography of a good Mizzoura boy, John J. Pershing.
I enjoyed that far more than I thought I would. Eagerly looking forward to the sequel.
I have read it. It was a nice simple read (which is a compliment, not a knock). Just have to work to turn off the part of the brain that keeps saying that women in a muscle-powered military = nope. Should have made that magic-crystal using ability unique to the female sex, then…
Sigh, see what I mean.
But yeah, I hopeful that Butcher develops it into a good series. The world needs more fun little reads that actually get published on schedule.
This story defies any witty preface I could put here.
https://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/06/28/farting-unicorn-legal-battle-elon-musk/
Speaking of copyrights….
“Senate Judiciary Committee approves music licensing bill that will extend protection for sound recordings as much as 144 years old. Disappointing. ”
https://twitter.com/marklemley/status/1012432492744224768
Good luck ever freeing Mickey.
Let me try.
So Musk is fully aware that electric cars are a scam. I am shocked.
That guy’s got an uphill battle getting Musk to pay for using his art. Musk was successful in getting his name added as a founder of Tesla motors through the courts, despite not being an actual founder.
You have to give Jim Acosta credit. Day in, day out, the President tells him how much of a douche he is on live TV… Jim Acosta to Trump: ‘Will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people?’
Jimbo is #triggered
ACOSTA: Mr. President, will you stop calling the media the enemy of the people?
TRUMP: Stop acting like the enemy of the people, and I’ll consider it.
Bingo. Don’t like being called an asshole? Stop being an asshole.
Sounds like you need to hear the tale of the scorpion & the frog again.
I spent a goodly amount of time reading the maintenance manual for Hem brand horizontal band saw. When I first went to the machine, I determined there was a PCB on it that wasnt doing what it was supposed to be doing and I told the department head to get me one of those boards from the manufacturer.
He wasnt satisfies with that, so I spent a few hours going through the book and following the procedures there in to prove to the guy that what I said was correct.
He ended up calling in a service tech from the company he bought the machine from. The tech told him he would have to acquire the same part that I had told him about hours earlier.
Oh well.
Sounds like you won’t be there forever, if that’s how much they respect your abilities,
/Fucking insulting….
I normally would be pissed, but this was a machine in the QA lab and the manager I was dealing with doesn’t know me all. He also really wanted this to be some sort of quick fix that didnt require the machine to be down for a day or two while parts were ordered.
I kinda understand and I dont have to work for this guy 99.9 percent of the time. No water off my back.
Yeah, if any of my equipment is down the question “have you contacted the manufacturer?” WILL be coming my way.
“Tess Holliday’s Health Is None of Your Business”
https://www.self.com/story/tess-holliday
Neither is that Miss Piggy tattoo.
I hate that she’s been a model for Modcloth.
Before I RTFA, did they mention how she basically stole money from a bunch of people trying to support a cause on her behalf?
Nope, it’s pretty much a glowing hagiography.
I didn’t give a shit about Tess Holliday before this article.
I still don’t give a shit about Tess Holliday.
“Tess Holliday’s Health Is None of Your Business”
Until she falls on top of you.
This view, which I agree with, is opposed by the idea that healthcare should be socialized.
Anthrocon is next weekend! Who’s up for some yiffing?
I accidentally ended up at the Biggest Little Fur Con a few years ago. I was passing through Reno on my Paul Bunyan challenge and my roommate and I stopped for lunch with her brother and my aunt who both happen to live out that way. Someone mentioned it was going on and everyone’s eyes twinkled with the incipient knowledge that we’d be going there instead of me getting on the road forever chasing the next Bunyan.
Jesse: *looks around, sees what people are thinking* Absolutely not, I don’t want to drive over Mt. Lassen in a rented Fiat at night.
*Three people sad-puppy-dog eye at Jesse*
Jesse: I hate you all, let’s go
“accidentally”
Whatever, sometimes the road you’re on leads to a Reno furcon.
me getting on the road forever chasing the next Bunyan
I sense there is more to this, but am strangely reluctant to ask.
Finished up Ralph Peters’ five spot novels about the Civil War. The guy can write what appears to be an authentic battle scene. Remember the b.s war movies of the 50s where a guy would get hit and fall over, no blood or gore? I’m afraid that colored a lot of testosterone-fueled teenagers who signed up to go to Nam and ended up sorely shocked.
Ralph Peters can turn a decent phrase, but the man is a fucking idiot war-hawk.
He was fun back when he was writing WWIII novels and columns at the end of Army Times. Then he got retired and seemed to develop the sand in his clit to a full blown chip.
I wondered whether there’d be a #MeToo outing of Rothfuss, cuz at this point it’s like he’s only in the industry to bang groupies.
Man arrested for trying to kill Ajit Pai’s family, apparently because the dude was mad about net neutrality.
In the interest of fairness, it looks like that is just saying that he sent some threatening emails. He didn’t, you know, show up with a gun at a baseball game and open fire with bad aim, which is what I was thinking until I read the link.
I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like there were threats, but no attempts. Still crazy.
Which side is the fascists, again?
“I tried to ask the president if he would stop calling us the enemy of the people,” Acosta said in the tweet.
Stuff like this always reminds me of this, from Thurber’s If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox:
General somebody or other: Did you tell President Lincoln I’m an idiot?
Grant: No. I thought he knew.
Well, drat. I decided to build an adapter to mount my X-Y drill press vise on my little drill press. Laid it out, cut some pieces, drilled some holes, buzzed a superfluous set of mounting ears off because they were in the way. Now I’m stuck, because I need four 1/2″ carriage bolts to bolt the angle iron frame rails to the base of the drill press so I can measure the crosspieces accurately, and I have none in stock. I guess I’ll have to swing by the hardware store on the way to the bar.
Based on a recommendation from this group I recently finished “Empire of the Summer Moon”. It was a good read and I was impressed by the Comanche. Any tribe that can kick the Apaches earns my respect.
Ralph Peters did a good job on his first novel, “Red Army”. It was published in 1989 shortly before the Warsaw Pact imploded and is a “history” off WWIII from the Soviet soldier perspective. He follows a unit attacking across northern West Germany.
I have an almost 11 hour layover in LAX coming up. I am trying to find the right history tome to read while I “enjoy” that experience.
Just, Postwar
Fuck: Judt, Postwar
Responding to trolls with concern trolling, with steaming side order of ad hominem:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2018/jun/28/neil-hamilton-ukip-supergroup-supremacist-a-team-infowars-breitbart
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/06/ukip-s-turn-alt-right-warning-sign-we-need-fight-back
tl;dr: If you are engaged to a tranny, make excruciatingly long YouTube videos, or often yell in front of a map, then you are literally Hitler.
Relevant:
https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2018/06/29/think-need-refresher-definition-extremist/
I finally finished “Meditations” by the Big Man Marcus Aurelius.
It wasn’t as good as expected, but more of an interesting look into his mind. Base don it, I would say his philosophy has a lot in common with Libertarianism, though he doesn’t quite get there…
Going to read a book on baby self feeding next that I thought I had way more time to get to.
I just started “Meditations”. I’m not far enough into it to have an opinion yet.
I think I found a guy for Tulip:
https://twitter.com/getFuckinHype/status/1012572736319713281
I love that I can’t tell if this is a Bad Lip Reading clip or him actually saying this.
Explaining Postmodernism by Hicks…. still…
Hitler’s Children, the Baader Meinhof Gang… still….
All of it very illuminating though.
Guns of August, this has been a good read, if not a depressing read to know how much the Great War was avoidable.
“Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck”
Katherine Krueger, News Editor
https://splinternews.com/fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-1827178920
From the comments: “If there was any doubt that we are now living in 1935 Nazi Germany this week’s SCOTUS headlines should clear that up.”
Everyone involved in politics today is an idiot, or two idiots.
“Pranking The White House to send a call through to Air Force One to speak to the POTUS while pretending to be a government official should be against the law.”
That doesn’t sound that idiotic.
Sure, but you would think they might be smart enough to authenticate a caller….never mind.
So they were looking to be mocked, but even the explanation is dumb, ‘Pranking’ someone, even the President, isn’t/shouldn’t be a crime. If you can get through to the most powerful man in the world on your brazen bullshittery more power to you, you should be heralded not ass raped.
Yeah ok
Literally.
“‘Ode to Joy’ has an odious history. Let’s give Beethoven’s most overplayed symphony a rest
Adolf Hitler adored the Ninth Symphony. Musicians waiting for their deaths in Nazi concentration camps were ordered to play it, metaphorically twisting its closing call to universal brotherhood and joy into a terrifying, sneering parody of all that strives for light in a human soul.
More than four decades later, Leonard Bernstein conducted several performances to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, substituting the word “freedom” for “joy” in Friedrich Schiller’s 1785 poem to which Beethoven’s movement was set. And Emmanuel Macron chose this music as the backdrop for his victory speech after winning the French presidential election last year.
Western classical music usually thinks of itself as being apolitical. But the Ninth is political. Beethoven saw it as political when he wrote it in the early 1820s. And his fellow Germans, looking for a sense of identity, embraced it with fervour.
Beethoven’s Ninth became the musical flag of Germanness at a time when nationalism was a growing force in all of Europe. It also became a Romantic monument to the artist (Beethoven, in this case) as a special creature worthy of special treatment.
Franco-Argentine scholar Esteban Buch analyzed these intersections and the good-evil paradox in an insightful book, Beethoven’s Ninth: A Political History. Buch argued that the Ninth was the right piece of music at the right time — socially, politically and aesthetically.
But from today’s perspective we know that unilateral calls to world brotherhood in joy have a flip side, which is tyranny. We appreciate now more than ever that joy is accessible to everyone only if some people are taking antidepressants.
We live in a time no more peaceful than Beethoven’s. Our conflicts today pit the great traditions and ways of thinking of the 19th century against a (hopefully) freer, more spontaneous, more shared, more inclusive 21st century.
We have the 19th-century ideal of strength in unity — expressed in the “Ode to Joy” — scraping up uneasily against a 21st-century ideal of strength in diversity. The change in perspective makes some people afraid and angry. It makes others hopeful and optimistic.
Until we see whether we can achieve a paradigm shift or whether we fall back into something like the genocidal chaos of the mid-20th century, I think we should press pause on Beethoven’s Ninth.”
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/opinion/2018/06/26/ode-to-joy-has-an-odious-history-lets-give-beethovens-most-overplayed-symphony-a-rest.html
I agree, let’s switch to 1812 Overture!
(No one tell the author where the motif for the finale comes from…)
Also, from the preamble:
Yeah, I wonder in which direction they will lean.
Hint one: It’s Toronto Star.
Hint two: It’s also known as Toronto Tsar.
I once saw Concentus Musicus Wien perform Beethoven’s Ninth in the Great Hall of the Musikverein. It was an amazing performance. Terauds can go fuck himself.
Deconstructionist asshole
“Western classical music usually thinks of itself as being apolitical.”
Music doesn’t think of itself at all. It’s music.
If I deconstructed the political leanings of every musician/composer, there would be nothing to enjoy.
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was part of the Die Hard soundtrack. Die Hard was awesome. No, we may not pause on “Ode to Joy.”
Adolf Hitler adored the Ninth Symphony.
He also liked dogs. LETS KILL ALL THE DOGS!
Regarding the morning links and the Ron Jeremy article – is it just me or is the Hedgehog slowing morphing into Carlos Santana as he ages?
Man arrested for threatening Ajit Pai’s family over net neutrality repeal:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-arrested-on-charges-of-threatening-to-kill-fcc-chairmans-family/
With the daily outrages I had forgotten how outrageously outraged the lefties had gotten over that.