Dorian Hart

syzygy

Marc Iavaroni. Though I was a big Sixers fan in the 80's, so he'll never be obscure in my heart!

I’m a big fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture trilogy. His aliens are as weird, wonderful, and varied as you’d expect if you’ve read his other SF, and as always his prose is top notch.

I know it's very likely that tonight's SotU will be mostly unhinged ranting, grievances, and lies.

But there's a chance it will be > 50% *cleanly* delivered grievances and lies.

In which case, what's the over/under on number of mainstream outlets afterward lauding the president's "change in tone?"

Not shown but implied: character hitting snooze 19 times? (If I were the star of my own movie, that is absolutely how it would go!)

I'm a 56-year-old vanilla-white dude, and I thought the Bad Bunny Super Bowl performance was an absolute delight, beginning to end. I can't even remember the last time I sat and watched an entire halftime show.

(And I was extra happy to learn that couple actually got married as it happened!)

A lamp post along the side of a highway, with a mysterious nozzle-like protrusion near its upper end. The protrusion is circled in red to draw attention to it.

A lamp post along the side of a highway, with a mysterious nozzle-like protrusion near its upper end. The protrusion is circled in red to draw attention to it, along with a pointing arrow and a question mark.

While out driving with with my wife today, we noticed that about one in every 10-20 street lamps on the highway had an odd attachment like a capped nozzle. Do any of my followers know what they are?

Brain: "A ha! I've figured out that person cannot be a criminal."

Finger: [moves to press and evaluate that person as "innocent"]

Brain: "The last word I thought to myself was 'criminal' so I'll select that one."

Finger: [presses "criminal"]

Brain: ...

Brain: ...

Mouth: "Ah, crap."

Love that Sam recently added (or at least called my attention to) more colors and bottom-corner markers. Makes it easier to mark multiple distinct "must-be-opposite" pairs, which (for me) is the most useful thing to keep track of.

Such a clever puzzle design!

...only about 15% of the population voted for him, and I'd guess only a small minority of those would actually check the "Annex Canada" box. The vast majority of us love Canada and Canadians.

Still don't blame you for not wanting to come here though! It's a nightmare.

...and I realize that the MAGA majority saying: "Oh, it's just bluster, Trump being Trump," as opposed to: "That's nuts and terrifying and should make us rethink our support for him" is not exactly comforting.

One last thing: Trump support in the US is VERY regional. Here in Massachusetts...

Oh, trust me, I don't like being stuck here with them either! It's horrifying. At a guess, if you asked all 77 million to check a box: "Really Annex Canada, Yes or No," and they weren't just "vice signalling," I'd guess maybe 5-10 million would click Yes. Still way too many!...

I can't say I blame you, and that's technically true, but I'm pretty sure 77 million people here don't want to take over Canada. Millions voted for the man because their personal financial state was bad, and were so info-siloed that they thought he'd help.

But, yeah, also millions of bigots. Sigh.

All five books of the Heroes of Spira epic fantasy series, arranged on a fluffy white blanket. The books are: - The Ventifact Colossus - The Crosser's Maze - The Greatwood Portal - The Infinite Tower - The Adversary's Hand

Looking for ways to spend your holiday lucre?

I have a finished epic fantasy series featuring flawed but lovable characters going on increasingly perilous adventures, peeling back onion-layers of plot as they quest to save everyone they love.

(Also, all books on KU!)

www.amazon.com/dp/B077LBHV92

We spent a little of our car ride home trying to figure out why you lost, and had no clear idea -- especially given your huge treasure haul, which was the highlight of the evening. Maybe the Loco Engineer isn't as good as it seems? Or you played fewer color-on-color trains? Either way: Great fun!

Dammit Adrian! Stop writing books faster than I can read them!

(I'm at 34 finished, 2 in progress, 9 unstarted. Zeus so help me, I'm fifty-six years old, and if I die before catching up, my ghost will come back to haunt you!)

An image of Sean Connery playing Henry Jones Sr. in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He's looking up and to his left, with a worried expression. His beard is gray and he wears glasses.

A picture of Dorian Hart (me), wearing glasses and smiling. Like Sean Connery in the previous picture, I am bald, wear glasses, and sport a mostly gray beard. I am smiling, and two of my book covers can be seen in the background, though they're not really the point, which is that 56-year-old me looks distressingly similar in age to Indiana Jones's dad in Last Crusade.

My 20-yr-old, while watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, noted that Sean Connery looked a lot like me: bald, glasses, graying beard.

It also turns out I'm about the same age now (56) as Connery was then (57): OLD ENOUGH TO BE INDIANA JONES'S DAD HOW CAN THAT BE POSSIBLE JUST BURY ME ALREADY

Since I can only choose one, you bastard:

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

I will never knowingly use any LLM/AI in my writing process, research, editing, or output. It's both unethical and counterproductive.

The closest I have/will come is when the MS Word red underline squiggle reminds me that I'm incapable of spelling "bureaucracy" correctly on the first try.

Got it in one!

My favorite part about this story is that while it's ostensibly about a weird, awkward adverb (feetfirst), you managed to include an even weirder, more awkward adverb (unlikelily) in your telling. Given your pedigree, I'll assume that was intentional, but either way I salute you!

Thank you so much! I have a kid who's going to love this.

Can you provide a link to where one goes to buy this? My Google-fu has utterly failed me. Thanks!

In the earliest days of the "67" phenomenon, I saw an explanation for it in two unconnected places. It was.. not a traditionally kid-friendly origin, one involving a nearby and more famously meme'd two-digit number.

But since it's hit the mainstream? Never heard that again. Am I imagining things?

Agreed! I am currently [checks actual spreadsheet] 34 books down, 2 in progress, and 9 remaining of his 45 "main" novels and novellas. And that's not including Children of Strife coming out in March. As you say, my goal to read his whole catalog is constantly thwarted by his prolific output!

If your brother is good with WoT-length fantasy epics, my favorite is Adrian Tchaikovsky's 10-book opus Shadows of the Apt. Book #1 is Empire in Black and Gold. The series features fantasy races based on bugs rather than elves/dwarves/goblins/etc. But it's not as creepy-crawly as it sounds!

Hard to know for sure, since 99% of our pizza boxes come from the same local place. But she seems pretty content with all of them. (Toppings don't seem to matter either, if that was your next question!)

And that's not even her original pizza box, which we still have! It's over 8 years old, and sometimes we leave it out for her, even though it's pancake-flat at this point.

Whitby, a fluffy gray cat, is curled up on an old pizza box atop a wooden table.

Whitby the Pizza Box Cat is here to help!

Balance it the same way you'd balance any other system that helps lots of deserving people while allowing a few bad actors to exploit it: Err heavily on the side of helping the deserving. This is just a close cousin of means-testing, and means-testing always does more harm than good.