This has been a month of transitions for the secret cabal of Glibertarians who run the site. Location changes, states of being changes (J.W. has finally had her top surgery and would like to be known as Jedwina going forward), so most of us haven’t done much more reading than rental, tax, medical consent or estate paperwork lately. So if you’ve read something, please fill the howling void left behind and let’s give Jedwina some great suggestions to pick for next month.
jesse.in.mb
Not a whole hell of a lot to be honest. I keep chipping away at “Roadside Picnic,” which makes video games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Metro 2033 make more sense, but I always have a hard time with the cadence of Russian genre fiction (translated to English) that I can’t quite put my finger on. I burned through a bunch of the Nightwatch series by Sergei Vasilievich Lukyanenko a few years back, and while I enjoyed them immensely as fluff sci-fi/fantasy, something about the storytelling tripped me up while reading them. I’ve also been picking away at Aristotle’s Rhetoric which is equal parts interesting and dry. Some of the allusions to classical figures allude me for I am not well educated, but it’s been very neat to read up on the art and science of making good arguments.
Brett L
I re-read most of Nathan Lowell’s Trader’s Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper they’re not super complex books, but kind of easy to get into. Its basically Merchant Marines in Space. Some might find them incredibly boring, but I really like them. I also read Smoke and Summons, kind of a weird, steampunk meets magic book about a woman who is somehow bound to and can be forced to channel a demon. She escapes from her evil magician owner and falls in with a thief who just happens to be the son of the head of the church. It was an interesting read, but obviously part of a much larger work. Written by the woman who wrote the Paper Magician, which, come to think of it is how I would describe that book. Oh, and I re-read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. I wish he’d spent a third less time describing TEOTWAKI and a third more time describing the post-human future. Oh, and a metric fuckton of Microsoft Azure documentation.
Old Man With Candy
As you can imagine, my normally limited reading-for-pleasure time has been more limited than normal. But being sent back to the frigid prairies last week, I had books with me on the airplane, chosen less because of an urge to read them, but what’s tolerable among the few that have been unpacked. It had been decades since I had read the Foundation trilogy and my memories were not as fond as the books’ reputation. I spied Second Foundation among the small pile of available books and grabbed it. It’s readable but… that’s about it. It suffered from every fault I remembered: too stuffed with stilted and unlikely dialog, cardboard characters, predictable plot twists. Meh.
No excuses needed for Frederik Pohl’s The Siege of Eternity, a sequel to The Other End of Time. I think Pohl was incapable of writing a bad book. This isn’t great Pohl, but it is in every way a better book than Second Foundation. And as a libertarian, I enjoy imagining a future where rebellion against government has broken out everywhere, in this case at the instigation of theologically-driven aliens as part of their attempt at conquest.
SugarFree
Backed up to read Charles Stross’ The Delirium Brief before finally reading the newest Laundry Files novel, The Labyrinth Index. Still an enjoyable read, but I think Stross is getting bored with writing the series. Another installment without Bob, this time focusing on his psychobitch ex-girlfriend Mahri and her attempt to deal with the United States version of The Laundry, variously referred to as The Black Chamber or the Nazgûl. Anything more would be spoilers.
It read a wide smattering of short stories about cannibalism and then Shane Stadler’s nasty little foray into torture porn, Exoskeleton. If you’ve been longing for a mash-up of Martyrs, Carrie, and The Boys from Brazil, this is the answer to your prayers…
Mad Scientist
Jason Fagone’s Ingenious is a story about several of the colorful characters competing in the automotive X-prize: 100 MPG (or equivalent, for battery power) in a car that could be mass produced. The author knows almost nothing about cars or engineering, so this is mostly a tale of the teams building the things, and which of their teammates they don’t get along with, who they love, and blah blah blah. The book isn’t long on environmental doom and gloom, but it’s definitely in there. Some of the teams surprise you with a decent finish in the competition despite their duct tape and bubble gum build. Others, attempting to use a Harley-Davidson engine to spin a generator, drop out early with completely unsurprising problems: too loud, too much vibration, and too unreliable. But made in America, so, you know, fuck yeah. Overall the book is an engaging read, but you won’t learn anything about vehicle engineering.
Comments
313 responses to “What Are We Reading – February 2019”
Chickenhawk, Robert Mason’s memoirs of being a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
I am listening to “Faith and Fire” (Warhammer 40k novel, Sisters of Battle) – The story isn’t enough for the length, and the filler isn’t that filling.
I am writing “Prince of the North Tower” (still), “Mechbay Murder” (they finally found the dead body and some sleuthing can go on), and some untitled pieces in the same universe as “Prince of the North Tower” that are supposed to be more general adventure.
I am not currently reading anything.
Still offing through Footes Civil War trilogy, quite detailed, we killed a lot of men for very small gains…..
I misread that as “for very small grains” and thought “well, the rice must flow”
*polite missed two-footer and tap-in golf clap*
REAMDE. I am still in Day 4, which lasts forever.
I have 2 chapters left in A Spendid Exchange. It is getting to modern times and less historical and is less interesting to me.
I am listening to Blueprint for Armageddon Part 6. I got bogged down originally in the last part and never finished, so started it again. Apparently it was 5, not 6, where I stopped, as this one is totally new.
I had never learned much about WWI (public schools!), and that series tore me up. I’ve enjoyed some of his other stuff, but that one hit the sweet spot for me. The description of Passiondale (I have no idea how to actually spell that), is the only time in recent memory I can recall crying.
Passchendaele
What difference, at this point, does it make?
(It’s never gonna stick, but thank you)
No problem!
Passchendaele in indeed a particularly awful story in a war that was just all unimaginable horror all the time.
The most depressing thing about studying The War to end all Wars, is the failure of leadership on all sides to learn from their failures and modify what they did, despite the massive wastes of human life.
I think that affects how much that war is studied, because the same lesson was taught over and over, with nobody learning anything from it. If you study one battle from the first three years of that war, you’ve studied all of the battles from that time period.
Go see They Shall Not Grow Old on a big screen while you still can.
I’ve been meaning to see that! It’s apparently playing at the theater down the street from me. I’ll do it!
Prepare yourself. You’ll be a bit of a weepy mess when you see the duckboards and mud. Especially after listening to Blueprint for Armageddon, you’ll have a better (perhaps too good) of an understanding of what’s going on.
I was trying to get my GF to go, but that was a pretty resounding no from her. I think she’d go catatonic.
Stay through the credits. The interview with Jackson is fascinating.
The man has his own collection of WWI artillery.
It’s hard for me to reconcile my introduction to Peter Jackson as a kid (Dead Alive) with his entire body of work since LotR onwards. He’s a weird dude.
Absolutely. Incredible experience.
That podcast inspired me to make a trip out to Verdun when I was in France last summer. The park is something else. The first has grown back but there’s barely a level spot of ground. That must have been a hell of a lot of artillery.
I’ve read that estimates of the total number of shells fired during Verdun range as high as 60 million. The French had more artillery pieces there, almost 3000, but the Germans had more heavy guns.
“Life Among the Apaches”, written in the1850s, published in 1868. Authored by John C. Cremony, an Indian scout and part time officer the the army. The dialect is of the times and a few words have to be interpreted by context. Cremony was not woke and would not pass the affirmative action test. Could have been used for a screen play in some of the old Westerns I saw in the ’40s.
When Wifey and I first cohabited she had the entire series of Foxfire books. They were tragically lost in the great roofing disaster of September 2003. The money was there, the time was there but Mother Gaia gave no fucks. I tore the roof off and it rained for three weeks.
Still savoring Hitchens Arguably (collection of essays). At first I was rationing it because I thought it might go like A Year in Provence and I didn’t want to devour it. Then I hit a spate of reviews on early 20th century English authors and quite frankly got tired of how all damn clever they were (even if the reviews themselves were interesting, informative and typical Hitch at his best). Also need to get back into McRaven’s Spec Ops – case studies; I got stalled on that one too.
I am having a hard time finding anything I want to read right now…
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – I can understand the appeal of this book. Its a well-written love letter to the kind of worry-free childhood most adults think most children should have. I, on the other hand, was born with the spirit of a 47 year old middle manager. I was never really interested in “shenanigans.” So this love letter wasn’t so lovely for me. But I could see how a well-adjusted normie would like it.
Spellsingers by Sebastien d Castell – This is YA, but that wasn’t readily apparent from the overview page on Libby. I don’t have any interest in YA, so I didn’t make it past the 20 minute mark or so. Incomplete.
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis – Fuck you you nihilistic piece of shit.
Armageddon Bound: Demon Squad Book 1 by Tim Marquitz – I have no idea where I got this audio book from, probably some $1 sale a while ago. Its basically noir + demons and shit. Aka right up my ally, right? This actually manages to be worse than the notebook scrawling of a 14 year old boy with a C+ in English Comp who spends all his time dreaming about losing his dick wet, Also, the author is clearly using oWOD rules for his supernatural shit (including agg damage…) Also, incesty crap, pulled off with, somehow, even more cringyness than rest of the sexually-frustrated, try-hard grimdark that is the rest of the book. I made it about 25% of the way in and just didn’t give a crap about… anything… enough to pick it up again. Ignore.
The Battle of Bretton Woods by Benn Steill – This book may have been the only thing keeping me from putting my head in a bucket of water this month. Its a history of John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White, the two primary movers and shakers at Bretton Woods. Its very good, and contains a lot new insight on Keynes and White both that is the product of new primary research. Keynes is often viewed as being concerned with real-economic influences of the broken-windows of the war, but this clarifies how he was *also* really concerned about monetary influences of going off Sterling. White is put into the proper perspective of the “commie simp or commie diehard” with the use of some new writing the author found. Highly Recommended.
Currently Reading: Walden by Henry David Thoreau – I”m only to the end of the intro, and I’m ready to pull out the “Fuck you you nihilistic piece of shit” card. Incomplete, but on a short leash.
I didn’t fuck up a single tag this month!
Walden is kind of ‘meh’ in my opinion.
I do have a fond memory of it though. I was working as a bouncer at a pub, and in the early part of the night there’s usually very little to do, so I would just sit and read books (it was a cool job). I was reading Walden, and this couple came in, I closed my book and carded them, and the woman says: “Thoreau, that’s awfully heavy reading for the door at Gritty’s” (Gritty McDuff’s is the name of the pub, if you can’t guess). I don’t know if she meant to sound like an elitist bitch telling me to know my place, but she did. I just looked at her and watched as realization crept in and she became embarrassed, followed by her boyfriend ushering her off, appalled.
So that was fun. A lot more fun than anything in Walden anyway.
I stuck my foot in my mouth when I was carded by an old workout buddy. “Dude, I didn’t know you still bounce!” I meant it offhandedly, but he looked pretty deflated.
I don’t know why it’s something to be ashamed of. Maybe it depends where you work. I got free craft beer, got to read a lot, got to socialize with cute waitresses and a million different drunk girls, and made like $20/hr. I got the job through a friend I made in martial arts. He was like 60, had a PHD and still did it on Saturday nights for the easy money and cleavage shots.
Huh. Bouncers are cunts and you guys aren’t. Does not compute.
Well, I found not being a dick to be the more effective strategy, combined with being proactive about letting people know they’re getting close to being booted. There were still plenty of people that thought I was a cunt. I even got bit once!
Make sure you get checked for lycanthropy.
This was almost 10 years ago now.
I’ve been savoring the taste of shredded human flesh ever since!
Wait a minute. Hatesy are you pulling a Dunphy and telling us tall tales?
Sure seems like you are trying to pass off Roadhouse as your life story.
60 year old mentor? Better to be a cooler than a fighter?
No, no, it’s all true! Also, he wasn’t my mentor, he just got me the job. I did have a 60 year old mentor though. Taught a much younger and angrier me how to navigate the world.
And anyone who has bounced has a bunch of stories. Sadly, I’m forgetting a lot of them.
In this particular case, the guy started a fight, I put a bad rear choke on him and he bit me. I took him outside, dumped him on the sidewalk and held him down until his friends got him under control.
I got to go the hospital after my shift for a tetanus shot and antibiotics. Fun stuff.
Fortunately the place I worked door/bounced/bar backed only had trouble when the firemen nearby would come in and get hammered. But by the time they got troublous, they were usually so drunk that you could tip them backward with one finger.
Seconded on being a reasonable and pleasant person getting more done than trying to be all tuff.
The funny thing is, all my fightin happened once I got promoted to bar tender, because the new crop of bouncers were fucking garbage. They didn’t manage the crowd at all, and I was the only one not scared of a fight, so I got picked to ‘fix things’ all the time. I spent a year on the door without having to physically remove a single person. Once I got promoted off the door fights were rare, but suddenly a thing I found myself doing.
Overall though, it was a pretty chill place. We were all really disappointed when the city decided to shut down one of the douche-bag clubs, because we knew they were going to start showing up at our place.
Walden sucked. I never finished it, either.
Izaak Walton’s The Complete Angler is more my speed.
More philosophizin’ than fishin’ if’n I recall kerreckly.
A little of both. Fishin’ as a metaphor for living the good life.
Re Sinclair Lewis: I read Elmer Gantry a few months ago and laughed, but it never ended. He never learned his lesson.
Re Thoreau: He had his mommy to do his laundry and fix him dinner, and his daddy to foot his bills.
“Elmer Gantry” is my favorite Burt movie. Young Shirley Jones – RARRRW!
I’m on my way
He was one good-lookin’ cuss, I’ll tell ya, and I love his voice.
I always get Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair mixed up. Since they both suck, it doesn’t matter
They’re different people?
/Clueless and ill-read.
(light bulb clicks, then winks out)
I get Sinclair Lewis and C.S. Lewis mixed up.
Which one was the #metoo comedian?
Upton Lewis.
But who is Louis Sinclair?
Pretty sure they make sewing machines.
Sinclair Lewis was the boring one.
What about Lewis Upton? I’ve never met anyone who could finish his work.
I was replying to finger’s comment re C.S and Sinclair. Upton Sinclair v Sinclair Lewis was called in the 22nd round and declared no contest due to the complete lack of anything resembling interesting happening.
And I was continuing to drag a head horse joke.
Ummm…….
Leap you know Sinclair Lewis was a native son of Minnesoda. By law, you – as a resident of Minnesoda – cannot throw any shade at him. That principle is why the proggies in the state can rename Lake Calhoun, but can’t touch anything named after Lindberg.
Iain M. Banks “Surface Detail”. Picked it up at a book swap and it reads like I’ve jumped into the middle of a series. Hard to get until about a hundred pages in and then the tetris starts clicking into place. I’ve heard good, disturbing things about this author so I’ll merrily plunge ahead.
Like me some Banks. Don’t know if I’ve read that one.
It seems to be about uploaded consciousness and a virtual battle between galactic civilizations over the idea that Hell should exist in the afterlife that threatens to jump over into real conflict between certain factions. The first 50 pages left a bald spot on the side of my head but it’s settling into place, now.
Banks may be my all-time favourite sci-fi author (and that’s tough to say for a guy that was brought up on Heinlein, Simak, Pohl, LeGuin, etc.). Hated his contemporary stuff, though. The Bridge may have been the worst thing I’ve ever read — made me wanna chew my arm off. And Dead Air was no picnic either.
1. You have a level of technology that can perfectly emulate sentient beings.
2. This same level of technology allows you to create perfect virtual worlds that the emulations created in 1. can exist in.
3. Because of 1. and 2., you can literally place sentient beings in literal hell for all of eternity.
This causes some conflicts.
My favorite of the culture novels.
I’ve been re-reading Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives in preparation for finally buying the third book. Damn near finished reading all 800+ pages of CLR via C# cover to cover over the course of the last few months.
I continue the year+ long process of reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy to my GF before bed, five minutes at a time. We’re halfway through The Two Towers. It’s never going to end.
I really like that series. That is fantasy on a big scale.
The first time I read it, it blew me away. Second time it’s still strong, but something feels a little off.
I think it might be me though. I think I’m starting to hate everything. I tried reading the Expanse and the second book made me want to punch the author. Did not finish.
CLR via C# cover to cover
Jesus, that’s painful, but since only about 20 people in the world have done it, you’re pretty much world-class now.
I’d like to think that this is me now:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19226119
My next choice is either 800 pages on SQL, or much less on embedded design (which I’m comfortable with but always on the lookout for new tricks). I think because I got into tech later in life than most, I’ve got a bit of a complex about catching up. I realized at some point that I’m actually doing pretty okay in terms of skills, but it’s kind of a habit now.
I respect that. I mean, for me, I only climb as high as I need to go to solve the next problem, for the most part. (I made a HUUGE jump in to T3 templates and code generation right before MS automated a shit-ton of that and walked away grumpy that a team of 30-40 smart people leapt way past me in a year or so.)
I really try to focus on fundamental skills & core technologies rather than things that are more prone to change. You never know what’s going to happen, of course, but to give you some idea, my possible next candidates for deep dive:
-Art of Electronics (Been chipping away forever)
-SQL
-TCP/IP
-C++ (jesus god no)
-Javascript (Actually, give me C++)
I don’t think any of those are going anywhere. I’m also trying to spend more time tinkering and less time studying.
SQL. Databases and RDBMS are nearly fundamental to anything you do. Yes, there’s NoSQL, yes things like Hadoop and CosmosDB are becoming more popular, but they’re still niche. If you can really learn SQL, you’ll never not have a job.
Brett, do you do mostly coding or do you do mostly systems analysis? And by analysis, I don’t mean going through existing code, I mean trying to figure out what the fuck the user is trying to accomplish in the first place. My first IT job 30+ years ago was mostly programming but it was beaten into me early on that talking to people who don’t know what they’re talking about would be a more important skill (at least at tat job). I discovered that I didn’t hate people as much as I thought I did. So I wound up similar to you in that I learn what I need to when I need to and don’t worry about learning anything before I’m going to use it.
I’m mostly analysis. I’ve been an “architect” for nearly a decade now, and other than being in the Microsoft stack, I’ve done nearly everything. I was doing all 3 tiers of app development long before they called it “full stack”. So yeah, a lot of my job, especially since the rate of change has gone exponential in the last 2-3 years, is to figure out what the user wants, what our operational and budgetary parameters are, and craft a workable solution.
I think most of it comes from having worked primarily on small teams as a consultant. If you’re basically always billing the customer, then you don’t have the dubious luxury of reading the whole manual. Just skim it and start delivering something of value.
Just skim it and start delivering something of value.
Sounds familiar. I once plowed through an 800+ page book on beginning Javascript in a single weekend just to build a demo for some customers of our consultancy by Monday morning.
I didn’t get much sleep that weekend, but the demo got built and actually worked properly. And from that point on, I got all the Javascript (and HTML) stuff that none of the other partners actually knew.
There’s a lot of bluff and bluster involved in being a consultant, that’s for sure.
“If you’re basically always billing the customer”
Usually I’m asked when negotiating with the customer. My attitude is “we should be billing for the analysis” and the non-IT people in my company don’t get it. So I usually get asked “just give it to me at a blue sky level” and my response is “I need to know WHY they want something first AND how much they’re willing to spend AND how quickly they want delivery. Otherwise we could lose money on this.” Which is usually a sign that sales is being compensated by revenue, not by profitability.
Anyway, that usually requires me to know the industry we’re selling to and the customer’s industry much more than technical know-how (which I also have to know). I can speak both languages as it were, but the tech side is not nearly as interesting to me anymore. The ability to speak and apply “Industry/Data” satisfies me more, but the rate of change over the last few years the lines between Industry/Data and Tech have gotten sharper. And as I look at the job market they either want one or the other and since I can do both they don’t think I’m expert enough in either. But I’ve talked with enough business analysts at customers to know that good business analysts are harder to find than good tech help.
Relevant
But I’ve talked with enough business analysts at customers to know that good business analysts are harder to find than good tech help.
When I was young in this industry, one of my jobs was to go sit at someone’s desk and see how they did something, then work with a more skilled consultant and their manager to understand what actually needed to be done. Apparently, for no reason I can fathom, this is not the done thing anymore. Maybe because BAs aren’t paid enough and the good ones aren’t around to do it.
Seems like the whole 18-month-contract-and-youre-gone thing has encouraged even the best people to not give that much of a shit anymore.
Just skip ahead to the sexy parts.
+1 naked hobbit romp
“Sam was wise in the way of the Frodo, yet Merry in his quest for a Pippin!”
Anybody remember the “excerpt” at the beginning of Bored of the Rings?
I just remember:
“Aaaieee! A Ballhog!”
I laughed for 15 minutes.
Something like
“Do you like what doth see?” The lovely elf-maiden asked Frito as she slowly undressed while caressing his mottled, greasy hair.’
That book was hilarious. I don’t think I’d ever met anyone else who’d read it until TOS/Glibs.
I still have my tattered and battered copy I purchased from the University book store when it came out. One of my college roommates was a bif LoR fan and was aghast on page 1 but was roaring with laughter by page 3.
That and the High School Yearbook parody were genius. (Animal House borrowed from the yearbook.)
Nah, it’s almost over. That’s right before where Gandalf the White realizes what an idiot Gandalf the Grey was, and sends Great Eagles to fly Frodo straight to Mount Doom. The rest of the series is just mop-up action.
Nice
https://mobile.twitter.com/bradleydevlin/status/1098986745595678721
OT: Bob Kraft got busted on 75-100$ rub and tug sting in Tampa.
https://www.tmz.com/2019/02/22/robert-kraft-named-in-prostitution-sting/
WTF is he doing.
*Jupiter Fl
Whatta Country.
What he is doing (is) the fuck
Shoulda invited the whole team and picked up the tab
Rich guys crack me up. There are certainly more discreet ways to take care of business.
What a cheapskate. Were I a billionaire, I’d be knee deep in those $5000 an hour chicks that look like Victoria’s Secret models.
I’d be knee deep in those $5000 an hour chicks
not to judge your kink, but I think you are doing it wrong.
Kraft can afford the ones that ARE Victoria’s Secret models.
And the modern-day puritans will be calling for his head in 3…2..1…
Yeah, we’re all supposed to join in the hatred because a 77-year old widower is hiring a Chinese hooker. Meanwhile, the media is fawning over a candidate whose career’s start was a giift for her services as a mistress.
There is much hyperventilating about “but trafficking!!!” now
Is that why Kraft had to take a $15B write down yesterday?
Ive been still going through a whole host of National Lampoon magazines on-line, from the early 70s to the late 80s.
I had a subscription to Nat-Lamp AND Heavy Metal when I was in high school. My mags would arrive pre-creased and sticky.
As a teen, the Foto Funnies with the boobies were my thing. As an adult, I get a kick out of the Letters FROM the Editors.
That “Kids” issue was a pinnacle, also the “Comix” stand-alone book.
“Pro Golfers on Ludes”!
I loved the old Lampoon from the 70’s and early 80’s. I still have their “Table of Organization of the Federal Government” and have been known to post a copy of it at work.
Also, Foto Funnies was never missed.
From the 1978 Issue:
Sirs:
You light up my wife.
-Pierre Trudeau
Ah yes. “The Engagement Guide” Cute as a button! Fat as a cow. Voluptuous Sex kitten! Mangy old cat. Pixie! Hillbilly. Exotic! Bizarre. Sultry! Swarthy.
There was a DVD set of them 10-15 years ago or so. I wonder where I put mine…
Just started listening to Into the Storm Taylor Anderson’s first book in the Destroyermen series. So far very good.
Continuing to slog through Weber’s Safehold series because I’m stubborn.
Finished off the Longmire series (both book and tv). Actually, that’s a lie, because I opted to forgo the most recent novel, as I’m totally sick of the characters. It must be really hard for these authors who strike gold. I gotta believe they hate them as much a I do by the end, but how do you say no to another Brink’s truck full of cash?
Currently reading Immoral, by Brian Freeman. Surprisingly good cop chasing possible serial killer book, particularly since it’s Freeman’s first. Set in Duluth, too, so that’s pretty fun.
Doing a sort of book club with Spawn 2. She is reading JP’s 12 Rules and we are discussing as she completes chapters. It’s kind of fun.
I’ve had 12 Rules on my bookshelf since it came out. I gotta get around to reading that.
” I gotta believe they hate them as much a I do by the end, but how do you say no to another Brink’s truck full of cash?”
+1 (sort of) Conan Doyle
“Set in Duluth, too, so that’s pretty fun”
.Summertime?
In Duluth?
I don’t think it exists.
I think that getting sick of a series is a phenomenon of ebooks. Getting the next book in a series is so trivial that you burn through one after the other until you get completely sick of them.
In the olden days, it wasn’t so easy to get the next book so you tended to space them out. So when you did get the start the next book you didn’t get so irritated by the first couple chapters being a rehash of the previous book.
I’ve started a new rule for myself that says I can’t read two consecutive books in a series in a row. Life is better because of it.
Yep, I think you’re right in general and last time I whined about it I took your advice and put other books between them. My problem with this particular series was with the implausibility of plot and just overall tiredness of the character. Longmire is a Vietnam vet still sheriffing into his 70’s. Not only that, he’s screwing his hottie deputy and was about to run off alone to Mexico to kill an assassin who had kidnapped his daughter, when I finally tapped out.
It happened to me with the Rebus novels from Ian Rankin. I have been reading (and digging) them for many, many years and waited a year for the last novel. It was screamingly meh and I was sad.
I still think excellent authors, like elite athletes, should go out on top.
Easy for us to say. No one has backed a snowplow full of cash up to our house and asked us to crank out another trite variation of something we have already done before.
Yep. Being obscure makes it easy to make such pronouncements.
Bullshit. That’s, like, 85% of the software development world Jimbo.
Uffda, Leap.
Those people giving me $$$ for my mad coding skillz are doing so because of my looks, not the code I write.
You say hurtful things sometime.
It was more like a kid’s wagon, unfortunately.
Filled with pennies
I think that, too, and I always said I’d stop when I was starting to repeat myself. Well, I repeat myself because I am myself and I can’t remember what I wrote in the last million words I published. Then you have people who really really really want to read your grocery list and then you get another idea and then and then and then…
I’ll stop when I run out of ideas or my antidepressants kill my creative urge, whichever comes first.
I don’t mean stop writing, I mean ending a series before it becomes creaky and stale.
Ohhhh I see. All my books are in the same *universe* but don’t feature the same 2-3 characters all the way through 16 books.
You should link your book site to your handle.
I will, thanks, now that I’ve been here a while. I didn’t want to get whore-y about it.
Look around you. We *like* having whores around. We are like the mob that way, it just doesn’t feel right if something unseemly isn’t going on. (But not like Jesus. He liked tax collectors, and that’s a bridge too far.)
HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
I had a prospective client call me one time and said a lot of irritating and know-it-all things while I was trying to explain ebookworld to him.
He said, “Now, this material may offend you, so if it does, I understand.”
I knew I wasn’t going to take his business by that time and I said, “Dude, I’m a whore. I don’t get offended by people’s material.”
Long pause. “You’re…a…whore…”
“Yep.”
“I don’t think you and I can do business together.”
“That’s what I think, too.” *click*
Also, that was me and Jo Nesbo. His Harry Hole series was getting tired, so I was glad to see he was branching out to something new in MacBeth
Unfortunately MacBeth was so insane that I didn’t finish it. And I almost never stop reading something once I start.
I’ll be finishing Around the World in 80 Days on my flight in a few hours. I have maybe 10 pages left. I enjoy those late 19th century optimistic exploration books, but the sense of grandeur that I thought I remembered from childhood readings of Verne isnt as grand as I remembered. Still good reading, though.
I’m also listening to Chronicles of Narnia on my commutes. Children’s series or no, it’s thoroughly enjoyable.
Looping back to morning thread, some of Niven’s works are basically exploration books, where he creates an odd world and the characters are forced to experience it. The story sometimes lacks, but they are a lot of fun, to me anyway.
Destiny’s Road is a prime example. The Integral Trees, to a lesser extent.
And, of course, Ringworld. Duh.
Someone told me once that Ringworld‘s been optioned for movie treatment. What are they waiting for? It’d probably make a gazillion dollars and the CGI that’s available now should do the actual Ringworld justice . . .
-1 Rip of Halo
/Modern audiences probably
Rip off of Halo. Goddammit!
They are probably waiting for Niven to die so he won’t complain when they fuck it up.
I liked Destiny’s road. A lot of his fans didn’t. It was a good tourist book that allows you to learn about the people, places, and things in his world while solving a mystery.
It really is his formula and it works well.
I like it too, but the prison bit was weak, IMO.
He often says that Louis Wu was a born tourist.
We (family) did Around the World as an audio book on a road trip. Would listen again.
It’s been years, I can’t remember if Fogg barely made it or barely missed it.
He makes it after Passepartout tells him that Fogg forgot he crossed the int’l date line and gained a day.
Spoiler:
both. He thought he missed but then discovered he’d lost a day.
Exploration books? That reminds me…
*pesters cover artist for status on work for “Beyond the Edge of the Map”*
I love the aura of travel in that era – when having a proper handgun was probably still more important than a passport.
There’s no balloon in the book, is there?
Finished “Hiking with Nietzsche” by John Kaag. It is what you would think a philosophy prof with a youthful fascination would write after he starts a family returns to his past. Still the descriptions of the countryside and the Alps is well done.
Re-read Rick Atkinson’s “The Day of Battle” about Sicily and Italy to the liberation of Rome. Still a well done history and a subtle damnation of the lack of imagination and grasp of reality of the Allied high command in Italy. Recommend along with the other two volumes on Africa and Overlord until VE day.
Airplane reading was a pair of Aubrey novels. As always, easy to re-read.
OT – My city’s only Black Sabbath surf-rock tribute band “Children of the Wave” are playing a show at the Legion hall next month. I might dust off my leather and check it out just for shits and giggles.
Black Sabbath surf-rock tribute band
OK, now you’re just having us on.
No shit. If there were a youtube link I’d put here but apparently all they have is a Facebook page and I’m never going back there again *shudders*
True fact – most metal is just Surf Metal + Mommy’s makeup + distortion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVqqWUyDPzA
make that surf rock + makeup + distortion, obvs
+1 Dr. Feelgood
Not Metal. Fags.
*hugs Nikki Sixx protectively from Festus’s wrath*
Anthrax’s Pipline
*PIPELINE*
Anthrax always bored me. I guess i was never a Metal-metal guy at heart. Still loves me some Sabbath, though.
My recent listening history for today includes Death, Ihsahn, Morbid Angel, Rotting Christ, Video Game Piano Players *pulls nervously at collar*, and Vector, so I think my cvvlt cred is on the table.
I was never into Anthrax, and I don’t get the appeal.
Old ’80s Anthrax was fun. They didn’t take themselves seriously.
Me likey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKT0Kz5VGhw&t=73s
13 year old Leap found his dad’s album and novel collection, and he played the shit out of Blue Cheer, BOC, and Sir Lord Baltimore while devouring REH’s Conan. I used to lay on my back with my legs up on the wall so I could feel the bass in my chest.
I’m like half deaf now, but the hours of *WUUUV WUUUV WUUUVUUVUUW* and learning new vocab words like “thews” and “girthy” were probably worth it.
To date, that author is the only person I’ve seen use the term ‘Thews’.
If I was King of Instagram Fitness, I would mandate that #ThewsdayThursday replace #MondayBenchday.
Also, everyone would be commanded to wear either a lion-skin loincloth, or a lion-skin over-one-shoulder singlet. 3-inch wide leather girdles will also be highly encouraged, but not mandatory.
+1 Lifting belt while benching
Judas or go home.
Judas is actually coming here this summer. Mellencamp has a sweet spot for our tiny burgh, too. He’s played here at least twice.
Excellent. I saw them back in ’81. Savoy Brown led for them but I unfortunately missed them.
Somebody a while back suggested Flannery O’Connor short stories. So I brought the book figuring I had 8 hours to kill in the jury duty waiting room.
Needless to say, I was not all that upset when I got selected for voir dire.
But… I like Flannery O’Conner.
Just the combination of those stories while waiting in the criminal court seemed off-putting. Maybe it helped me get dismissed.
Huh. Next time I get summoned, I should show up with a copy of The Trial.
Flannery will get you nowhere.
I dislike Flannery O’Connor because an extraordinarily tedious (and contentious) professor made us read a ton of her work for a freshman lit class. The teacher soured me completely on O’Connor.
I should reread her now that I am not being forced to read it.
Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society
https://www.amazon.com/dp/192976717X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_oxeCCbKW3NJRZ
Great book. Particularly liked the beginning where he says basically “If you’re not willing to ut your grandmother in jail for it shouldn’t be a crime.” Also his dissection of two “similar” crimes – a street mugging and a drug sale and how the differences track throughout the legal system corrupting the whole thing in the case of the drug sale.
Really provided the foundation for my libertarianism.
The author was basically murdered by the state of California with their vindictive prosecution over his use of marijuana to treat a severe medical condition.
I think we have it posted somewhere on the site for free (pdf copy). The author put it out there for free distribution before he died.
I still have a hardback copy I do not lend and two paperback copies I do lend. The pdf is on various devices for travel.
Yeah, it’s also available in .pdf on the web.
I think you’ve brought it up before on this feature – and I made the same comment.
Yes, I’m finding it quite good. The forward by WFB Jr. Talks about states murder of him. Infuriating!
OT
No, I will not quote your project unless you show me the whole scope of the work. If you’re that worried about somebody pirating your very niche nonfiction, then why are you putting it out in ebook? By the way, sir, we have already been through this turnstile, but apparently you don’t remember contacting me in September and declining my services because of my policy. And now your ebook formatter dropped you because he can’t do what you want. Oopsie.
He’s gonna get a PITA surcharge.
/vent
I have neither cookies nor tea to offer you.
And being at work I certainly don’t have any booze.
So I’ll extend my sympathies. I know it’s not much.
And being at work I certainly don’t have any booze.
What sort of madness is this?!?
That’s the UCS I know. All the boring traits of a Mormon with none of the interesting/crazy beliefs that I like hearing about.
No sympathies necessary if he ponies up the cash or goes away. I just don’t want to argue with somebody who’s not paying me.
Cash is always the best way to gauge a client’s true level of interest.
The worse clients are the ones who will then try to argue with you as to why your fee of $$$$ is too much. They always get mad when you reply “If it is so easy and I’m gouging you, why don’t you do it yourself?”
Indeed. I got burnt 3/3 times last year by people who wanted to argue price, and I took them on because I felt sorry for them. Not doing that again.
Pro Tip: If you really want to feel good, raise the price any time they argue.
“My quote is $$”
“What! This is easy, if shouldn’t take you more than a week to do”
“Now my quote is $$$”
“!”
“$$$$”
I’ve seen someone do this once in no-shit, high-stakes negotiation. It was awesome.
Someone told me a long time ago that the person who can walk away from a negotiation is the one with the power. I try to keep this maxim in the front of my mind.
Always good to keep in mind. I had a client once for whom I could
have done a better job if he would have been willing to walk
away. We did alright in the end, but we could have done better.
I try to remember that no matter how much I might think I want
something, it’s really hard to starve in this country, so everything
will work itself out even if this deal doesn’t happen.
Yep. Money talks, etc. It’s always amazing how quickly that must-have-can’t-live-without-it feature suddenly becomes expendable when a price tag is attached to it.
“Hey, if you’ve got a better deal, take it. I’m in business to make money, but other people have other ways. We’ll both get what we want either way.”
Yeah, dealing with people like that can be trying. They expect an answer of their own desire and when it’s not forthcoming they ask the same question, over and over again. I used to work in purchasing and we were constantly stretched between production and sales. Salesman makes an unrealistic promise, production gears up and raw materials have no hope of being on-site for a week. I used to have a little cry-spot at the back of the warehouse. Bah! Face-farts for the lot of them!
I know, right?! I spent quite a bit of time in September answering this guy’s questions. “Dude, I’m serious. I’m not wasting my time trying to guess how complicated your project is, and no, your listing of its features and one half of one chapter is not going to help.”
Does he go by the name Veruca by any chance? Fuck I don’t like people that act that way.
Meh, he’s not the worst by far. He and I are just talking at cross-purposes. He’s terrified of someone stealing his stuff. I’m not going to budge.
Ah. The dog in the manger…
He’s terrified of YOU stealing his stuff?
If so, the obvious answer is “People are more likely to steal your stuff when you purposely try to underpay them.” A lesson learned by working retail for just two weeks.
Not me specifically. Just terrified to let it out of his hands to anybody.
I come across a lot of people like that, and to a certain extent, I really get it.
There’s nothing like waking up to a bunch of Google alerts that only go to sites that have your pirated books on them.
And if the whole world’s singing your songs
And all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours
Is everyone’s from now on
And that’s not wrong or right
But you can struggle with it all you like
You’ll only get uptight
(Jeff Tweedy)
Common mantra amongst writers: “Once you release it into the wild, it’s not yours anymore.”
Common mantra amongst writers: “Once you release it into the wild, it’s not yours anymore.”
and if you get buckets of cash that is acceptable. Less so when all you get is hatemail.
I have never gotten hate mail, but I have gotten some nasty reviews. However, my favorite review was a nasty one of my pirate novel. He gave me 1 star. He also gave O’Brien 1 star and said nasty things about his books.
Look, if I’m on par with Patrick O’Brien, I’m happy.
BTW, I don’t read reviews anymore.
Guess if I ever go to see the scenery, I’ll be sure to stay clear of the city proper. Insufferable.
https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/22/activists-demand-portland-police-disbanded/
Just go to Hongcouver. It’s prettier and you are 50% less likely to step on a human turd.
I can’t believe they held that in a church.
“Police Chief Outlaw”
Really?
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on the history of lever-action rifles and shotguns.
Draw whatever conclusions from that you like.
For some reason, I’ve recently developed a strong desire for one of those lever actions in a big bore pistol round like a .357 or .44 mag.
I’d like to have a Winchester 92 (or a replica thereof) in .45 Colt. I just haven’t found the right one yet.
*shakes magic 8-ball*
Will the company filter allow me to read Animal’s treatise on lever actions at the time of publishing?
*Ask again later*
On that note, I want to lay hands on one of the old 99EG Savage lever=actions in .250-3000…but ‘taint in the budget. Oh well…
I have many of the key pieces of a plot where the narrator ends up fighting alongside an expedition of pirates against an inland priest-king whose supernaturally augmented personal guard are a tad… indescriminate in their slaughter. The problem is, I can’t see the narrator of this piece willingly assisting the pirates.
Also I have the impression that witnessing the way the pirates treat captured noncombatants from sacked settlements would leave psychological scarring that makes many of the intended later, lighter yarns improbable.
Give him a reason.
I’ve been reading up on setting inspiration (pre-colonial subsaharan africa) while letting the thoughts churn in the back of my head for that.
Maybe he has to take a drug that inures him from his basic morals for short periods of time. They fed amphetamines like candy to some of the Wermacht during WWII.
That’s not a bad idea.
Hrmm… the “Twenty Zombi Man”* is liable to have more than a few psychoactive brews in his collection.
*It’s a placeholder title for someone in the wizard/soothsayer/witch doctor role in this region, often habitually dosed with psychoative substances to aid their prophetic abilities.
Re-reading the origins of the zombie mythos gave me an idea of how our poor narrator might end up involved.
It is the Twenty Zombi Man’s prophetic dreams that say they need a pale killer, so he’s most likely to act upon them.
You might solve some of that by making the pirates surprisingly (to your character and readers) business-like.
They might focus their piracy at some oppressive (theft/fraud) baddies that the locals aren’t really crazy about, and so they’ll do their raid and then sort out who’s who, and be generally be benevolent towards the normies. From a business perspective they’re really just buy some goodwill and ability to hide if need be. And avoiding all the expense of fighting more people than they really have to.
Not sure if this is the same as you are saying, but what if the pirates weren’t that bad, they just manufactured their own bad reputation to make things easier?
A significant theme of the story arc is that these pirates are brutal towards innocents, and the narrator eventually turns on them.
Why are they brutal towards innocents? Not arguing – just poking on the solidity of the background. You’ll need for them to have a logical reason to be brutal.
“They’re of [Other tribe who live by farming], weak, and of no consequence.”
So Capitalists, then.
Wait, I thought that was the commies? Or was that Feudalism?
Every -ism, ever.
So are the farmers’ daughters good breeding stock? Do they kill them or take them to breed?
They ‘have their fun’ and enslave any who survive that process.
The narrator could be a somewhat brutal morally neural person too. The turn could be for selfish reasons or some latent morality that surfaces.
The narrator’s a spare noble son with daddy issues who joined the (banned) duellist’s club at university just becuase it would annoy his family. He’s more or less wandering aimlessly in search of adventure.
I feature him as young Clint being chased by Carol Channing.
So a perfect setting for him to start out amoral and self absorbed and have him develop a moral sense through the story, say maybe by him seeing how the pirates treated the captured innocents and then him developing a friendship with one of them after the fact
I’m currently contemplating communication.
I’m not sure how he would know the local languages.
Also I have the impression that witnessing the way the pirates treat captured noncombatants from sacked settlements would leave psychological scarring that makes many of the intended later, lighter yarns improbable.
Not necessarily: he could be some level of psychopath, or merely be more inured to violence than a modern person would be due to living in more brutal times.
I dislike Flannery O’Connor because an extraordinarily tedious (and contentious) professor made us read a ton of her work for a freshman lit class. The teacher soured me completely on O’Connor.
As I recall, I decided Flannery O’Connor sucked based on the tediousness of her writing.
Is there any way to make reader hate an author more than to assign the author’s work to a class?
I love reading, but I disliked lit classes a ton because I hated having to discuss the “meaning” of what I just read.
Moby Dick was a cool book about cool guys who lived a fun life throwing harpoons into whales. Sure their boss sucked, but who cares? Likewise, Huck Finn lived out one of my fantasies of drifting down a river without a care in the world.
Aren’t there a bunch of locks on the Mississippi now?
How far could you really drift without running into
some busybody asking questions about why
you’re sitting in an inner-tube with a Tom Collins
and a smile.
nw gets it.
Non-technical art and literature analysis is always just bullshit, anyway. If I didn’t want to read an assigned book, I’d skim it for a few minutes, then write my report on it. Always got an A doing that. During class discussion I would just make shit up. Teachers and professors would always say that the author’s intent did not matter, so I took them at their word and barfed some nonsense all over them. They loved it.
When I read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as a kid, I thought that (being free and having fun) was the point of the books. The Jim’s slave owners. teachers and parents who beat on them… that was all just shit to avoid so they could have fun.
No sympathies necessary if he ponies up the cash or goes away. I just don’t want to argue with somebody who’s not paying me.
“I don’t know about you, but I put a value on my time. If you really want to talk about this, we’re going to do it on the clock.”
What am I reading this month? I did read all seven of the Expanse
books, but that was last month, I think. This month… documentation
for SQLite, rfcs 5246, 8446, 959, and 3986, plus many parts of the
opengroup’s posix docs. If I ever get my product out the door and
have some time, I’ve been meaning to actually read more books
instead of just reading the internets.
On my list: Asimov’s guide to the bible, which I’ve started
and is pretty good. I’d also like to re-read some of his
fiction, which I really enjoyed in high-school. I don’t know how
well it would hold up.
Reading older science fiction is interesting in that they pretty much
uniformly failed to anticipate how much effectively free global
communicaton would change things. It’s sort of like
how 90% (I made that up) of plotlines from before 2000 would
be instantly solved with a cell phone.
Asimov was, by far, my favorite s-f author when I was a teen. For me, his short fiction-for the most part-has not held up well. Some of his novels I find to still be pretty good.
I reread the Foundation Trilogy a few years ago. It was… not as good as I remembered it.
Pro Tip: If you really want to feel good, raise the price any time they argue.
That’s the inverse of my grandfather’s negotiating tactic.
“I’ll give you $X for your farm (which you are spectacularly failing to make any money off of).”
“Not enough. Go away.”
*goes away, returns later*
“I’ll give you 85% of $X.”
“Go… let me think about it.”
I recently finished “James Madison and the Making of America,” by Kevin R.C. Gutzman, which was a bit of a slog, but shows the political battle lines we fight on have been around a lot longer than we think.
Currently reading “The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power,” by D. Michael Quinn. A lot of inside baseball, but very interesting for the insights given to the upper echelons of church leadership. And what should be a surprise to almost no one, Brigham Young was an authoritarian dick.
I need some lighter reads.
(In a day and age when women wearing makeup was verboten unless you were a whore or an actress…)
“Even an old barn looks better with a new coat of paint.”
–BY, apocryphal
I saw your post last night about roadtripping to Yellowstone. Don’t forget to go to Grand Teton Park (literally next door) and I would highly suggest going into Idaho and checking out Mesa Falls. It’s about an hour from West Yellowstone, but you can get fairly close the upper falls.
Yup, that would be on the itinerary. My mother loved the Grand Tetons and we went as often as they could afford.
Mr. Mojeaux will not camp, though he will do rafting and tubing. We will see how this goes.
Mo, if you get the chance, go by the Mangy Moose in Jackson Hole and have one for me. Fond memories.
*jots down*
Will do!
I haven’t been to Jackson Hole in 30 years, but I loved it back in the day.
Million Dollar Cowboy Bar for the silver dollars encased on the bar.
They might focus their piracy at some oppressive (theft/fraud) baddies that the locals aren’t really crazy about, and so they’ll do their raid and then sort out who’s who, and be generally be benevolent towards the normies. From a business perspective they’re really just buy some goodwill and ability to hide if need be. And avoiding all the expense of fighting more people than they really have to.
Dread Pirate Dillinger.
Too Robin Hood-ey. Tropes must be really hard to avoid for fiction writers.
There are only about 7 plots.
Even the most trite and worn and cliched stories will be engaging if the author’s voice is. Twilight wasn’t popular because it was good. It was popular because Stephenie Meyer spun a good yarn that resonated.
I know what you mean, but I don’t think it would be as interesting as Robin Hood-ey. I’m thinking it’s more “Look, I’m an independent businessman. Trying to build something here in a tough environment. Community relations are very important. And I know it looks like pillaging is fun, and you know what, when you’re a young buck, it kinda is. But go through a difficult year or see some unexpected market changes, and you’ll figure out that a lot of the pillaging you’ve been doing is actually a detriment to the bottom line. You learn to focus.”
Pine Tree – the comptroller in the punch bowl.
“I can observe a piracy operation and tell you the maturity of its leadership team at a glance.”
I just mean that a story about stumbling into a band of pirates with a Captain that talked and operated that way could be more fun than one that used the Robin Hood trope. People respond to incentives. Yarrrrrrr
I have been reading all your posts on glibertarians.com.
As have I.
“They’re of [Other tribe who live by farming], weak, and of no consequence.”
“But we can’t kill them all, because then who’d grow our food for us?”
People who live by slaughter, rapine, and plunder tend not to be the most forward-thinking folks.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS! THE GRAIN SLAVES SHALL HARVEST THE CORN! GO FORTH AND SLAY THE BRUTALS!
I’m reading about stupid people saying stupid things.
“Personally, it was incredibly shocking on day one to see the police department call it a racist and homophobic attack. Their first statement — they exclusively said that, said they’re investigating it as a victim case,” Stafford said, according to Fox News. “As someone that has been investigating these for years in Chicago, that was really unprecedented before.”
“And a lot of the time people in the background were worried they were leaning into this victim part of the story because they didn’t believe him and they wanted to use it against him at the end when they were able to prove that he was lying,” Stafford continued.
“The police were openly confirming and not confirming certain reports and not doing it to other parts of the story, and so, due to the vocal nature in this case, it was really peculiar,” Stafford said. “Chicago has a deep history of openly lying to citizens. This police department did in 2016, openly through their union, support Donald Trump.”
“The central question of this case was, ‘Are Donald Trump supporters out here committing hate crimes?’ And that’s what really sparked a lot of the tension,” Stafford said. “To have a police department that hasn’t been as cooperative as they have been this round, do not openly give information, do openly lie and mishold information in cases and then to know that they…have openly supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election, a lot of activists on the ground are saying, ‘Wait, what’s going on here? Who do we believe out of these two suspect people.’”
In the end, Stafford suggested that even if Smollett were guilty of staging a hoax “hate crime,” he still highlighted a greater truth. “Jussie may have created this whole situation to highlight a reality that is happening every day,” he said. “Our current administration doesn’t support people like him — that are black and queer.”
You might say that it was fake, but accurate. And/or that he started a necessary conversation.
Someone told me a long time ago that the person who can walk away from a negotiation is the one with the power. I try to keep this maxim in the front of my mind.
My (related) philosophy- “Don’t make a threat you’re not willing to follow through on. If you say you’re willing to roll your toolbox out the door, you have to be ready to do just that.”
I’ve gotten myself into a lot of trouble backing up my threats, even when they were bluffs.
/worth it
I’ve handed over the tool at play to more than one boss. “You want it done that way? Feel free.” (I don’t have any friends or recommendations)
I’m willing to bet that collectively, the Glibs have burned whole countries’ worth of bridges.
If you burn the bridge, they can’t chase you.
And if they’ve already crossed, they can’t retreat!
Festus gazes at the Golden Gate, dons welder’s gear and tells his non-existent pal, “Hold my beer!”
Mmmmm-hmmmm.
That’s why I’m a janitor, now.
I thought it was because you clean up nicely.
You cut down a bridge with a welding torch? If so that is an awesome way to screw your life!
“If you can’t walk, you’re not negotiating.” Some other term, but not negotiating. But as The Late Mr. Brooks says, be ready to walk.
Good welders and coders, man. Tell your boss to fuck off on Thursday, show up for work Monday morning. But you have to be good, and you can’t always hire on with the problem boss.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/02/22/new-england-patriots-owner-robert-kraft-charged-with-soliciting-prostitution.html
Heh.
77 years-old and still a whore-monger! At the rate I’m going I’ll be lucky to see 67. They should give this fucker the key to the city.
I’m willing to bet that collectively, the Glibs have burned whole countries’ worth of bridges.
And now this is in my head
Not me, though. Definitely not me.
Not this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgeIINs1TrQ
Not this?
One of my all time favoritest movies.
Crapgame: “So? Make a deal.”
Big Joe: “What kind of a deal?”
Crapgame: “A DEAL deal. Maybe the guy’s a Republican.”
Well fuck. Time seems to have come to a standstill. I need to start my weekend!
I already have.
/works 7 to 3
I used to do that. Now I work in a place where no one will leave until the boss does. Except me. I put in 9 hours every day and go home. I’m the first one in, I’ll be damned if I’m the last to leave. 53 minutes to go.
Wish I could do that, but wife’s classes dont end until 8 so I’m on baby duty till she gets home, and all my engineers are in SV or India.
I loved when I worked 7-3
/works 7 to 3
Here in the One True Time, it’s only 1:38. Get back to work.
I’m in real people time, it’s 3:38.
*nods*
Although it won’t be the one true time in an hour when I fly back to EST
A healthy diet should consist of vegetables, fruits, bobs, and vagene.
Almost forgot. i apologize for going back on topic. I am also reading the two volume official history of the US Army in the Iraq war. Since I received the t-shirts for that one during both the periods covered in the two volumes it is interesting to compare experiences lived with the “official” experience.
Ken Bruen Into The Galway Silence **½ Run of the mill Jack Taylor novel, as Tundra touched on earlier some writers need to learn to end a series, this is the case here, also though he doesn’t hit you over the head with it there are signs of TDS and I’m just tired of the entire political world and want my reading to be free of even passing remarks about Trump or Brexit.
Stuart MacBride The Blood Road **** The exception to the above, book 11 and still entertaining as hell
Joe Abercrombie Before They Are Hanged *** Book two of a sword and sorcery fantasy series, lots of tropes and stock characters but well written
Kevin McCarthy Wolves of Eden ***½ Murder mystery western with an interesting structure. It’s told from two points of view a first-person confession retelling the tale switches off chapters with a more common second-person account following a different character as the story happens
Second-person is actually more rare than first person. That’s the ones where it goes “You walked down the hall, the scent of spilled blood growing stronger. Your footsteps squeaked on the polished marble.”
Damn your nimble fingers.
How else could I have written 80k words in a week if I didn’t type fast?
Can’t tell if driest joke in the world or just obtuse….
Whichever is funnier.
Do you mean third person? “He went, he said, he did…”
Second person is “You went, you said, you did…”
I think he means most of the chapters are in second person…
Dammit, I know that. My excuse should be that I was thinking “third-person account of a second character” But no I’m just dumb, too long since my last English class I guess.
Don’t you just miss gerunds? Every kid in my English class cheated the final exam except for me.
You’re not dumb. It’s an inside-baseball kind of thing.
preference of no person passive voicedness arises. going was, saying was, doing was
Idea for next Glibs piece becomes. A story about a shooting by a stalwart of the thin blue line, entirely in no person passive voice.
OT – Wifey has it in her head that I should take up vaping. She’s decided to go to the shop even though I told her that it’s probably a pretty personal thing. She wants to buy a starter kit. I just want to smoke cigarettes, just the same as I’ve been doing for nigh on 43 years. Any constructive criticism about vapes?
My only input is as someone who has been in the general proximity to people who are vaping.
It is possible for people who are not vaping to smell whatever flavor type you’re using. It’s nowhere as bad as smoke, but for politeness’ sake, don’t do it indoors in a crowd.
“Dear, I don’t want to look like a hipster-douche?”
This is the branch I was scaling. Thanks Bob!
Vapers always look like they are furtively sucking a cock and can’t stand being watched while they do it. Sorta like a cat licking its nethers.
You attach your vape to a mannequin wearing a trenchcoat too?
The internet is magic!