O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

The Sphynx

the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.

Stubb’s Supper

[…] yet there is no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them [sharks] in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm-whale, moored by night to a whale-ship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about /

no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.

Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object—that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from him in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash—aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and […]

For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way.

Surmises

God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.

Moby-Dick, The Chart

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

Highlighting the speaker who stood in front of the Surprise mayor and told him to consider what the Mayor of Ohrdruf must’ve thought before he died by suicide: “He might have thought ‘how is this my fault I had no jurisdiction over this’ maybe he said ‘this site was not subject to local zoning.’”

Strong chins create good times
Good times create weak chins
Weak chins create based poasters

cooked

… keeping a busy schedule and is still a little backlogged, though be patient, schmuck, you’re at the top of the list, it’ll be your turn before you know it.”

Shadow Ticket

Zdeněk’s left arm turns out to be a modified ZB-26 Czech light machine gun, with the magazine built into his shoulder. “This is one of the maby earthly variants of Azrael, the Angel of Death,” he informs Csongor, “a Jew less forgiving than some you may have hoped to come across, who has been…

In solidarity with today's ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA blackout, MinnMax is donating $1 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for every share of this Bluesky post for the next hour.

Jarvis, show me the refs bank accounts

fwiw I think “monthly” is frequent enough for people to notice.

Otoh, there is the social contagion effect. I saw many posts on my city’s subreddit over the summer about electricity prices. Even if they don’t really track their own pricing ppl talk about it which matters for perception

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon

The guy with the auger isn’t too happy. “Dammit, you dynamite hounds,” he screams, “this is sinful, don’t you know the Angler’s Creed forbids this kind of thing?”

“Missouri Synod Lutheran, myself,” Hicks in a shaky voice he almost doesn’t recognize.

to cover most of Milwaukee, then returning in a downpour of Friday-night supper ingredients which a sudden crowd have showed up with buckets, bags, and hats to collect.

KA-BOOM. And then some. Addressing every bone in Hicks’s body, including the one just under his hat. A colorful and earsplitting fountain of ice, blood, silt, factory waste, and pieces of perch, pike, whitefish, and two or three varieties of trout meanwhile hurtling skyward, the echo racketing away

As luck would have it, an ice fisherman happens to’ve just augured a hole. “Mind if I—“ Hicks sliding the festive holiday parcel in, stomping it under the ice as far as he can, “thanks, you’re a real sport,” turning and heading for shore, motioning everybody to keep clear, whereupon—

Taylor Otwell on X: "“Oh cool what’s your license plate mean?” Well little buddy that’s a French word for “good fucking code” https://t.co/SYMVBICr1e" / X “Oh cool what’s your license plate mean?” Well little buddy that’s a French word for “good fucking code” https://t.co/SYMVBICr1e

x.com/taylorotwell...

It is a terrible thing, this kindness that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change.

The Left Hand of Darkness

He was a hard, shrewd, jovial politician, whose acts of kindness served his interest and whose interest was himself. His type is panhuman. I had met him on Earth, and on Hain, and on Ollul. I expect to meet him in Hell.

Genly Ai, The Left Hand of Darkness

A cancellation email from Hulu

Intermediate tracks (Kansas being a liked track) are seen as the most competitive in NASCAR atm but for a non-oval understander they can be a little bit hard to watch

NASCAR races on superspeedways (Daytona, Talladega, etc) have visually striking racing because they’re close the whole time and wrecks are huge.

Short tracks (Richmond, Martinsville, Iowa, etc. anything 1 mile or less) have more jostling and leaders moving through traffic