Entry tags:
Fiction
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podcath gifted me with a podfic of A Life Less Invulnerable (Smallville, Clark/Lex)!( gay porn, Daniel Abraham, Ken MacLeod, graphic novel about GMOs, Mira Grant )
podcath gifted me with a podfic of A Life Less Invulnerable (Smallville, Clark/Lex)!( gay porn, Daniel Abraham, Ken MacLeod, graphic novel about GMOs, Mira Grant )
Entry tags:
Fiction reviews
Non-sequels this time; sequels to come: ( Jones, Sterling, Kaye, Robinson, Banks, MacLeod, Guilfoile )
Entry tags:
Why I love my car - and reviews
O my Honda Civic Hybrid -- I love you because when I took ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misterrivkat to the airport for his trip to Iceland, we left DC at 4:15 and I spent until around 6:30 navigating the usual, moderately awful DC-area rush hour in DC, Maryland, DC again and then Virginia.
And I got over 45 miles per gallon.
Admittedly, this is a notable result, and I probably won't get that for the whole tank. But it still makes me unreasonably happy.
( Book reviews: Coben, Rusch, Robinson, Kellerman, Briggs, Stross, MacLeod, Butler )
misterrivkat to the airport for his trip to Iceland, we left DC at 4:15 and I spent until around 6:30 navigating the usual, moderately awful DC-area rush hour in DC, Maryland, DC again and then Virginia.And I got over 45 miles per gallon.
Admittedly, this is a notable result, and I probably won't get that for the whole tank. But it still makes me unreasonably happy.
( Book reviews: Coben, Rusch, Robinson, Kellerman, Briggs, Stross, MacLeod, Butler )
Entry tags:
Thanks, cicadas and fiction
Many, many thanks for all the Evil Overlord suggestions thus far. Please feel free to leave more, if you think of them.
Cicada update: almost all dead. The sound is like an electric hum, like having your ear pressed to a generator the size of a house – though with more dying every minute, maybe the generator is now only TV-sized. There are so many, coating trees and grass and cars and doors, that it reminds me of that Star Trek: TOS episode, "The Omega Glory," the one with the Yangs and the Kohms – "They sacrificed hundreds just to draw us out into the open. And then, they came, and they came. We killed *thousands*, and still they came!," the bad captain Tracey says. I don't know how the species survives, given that the individual cicadas get themselves killed in every possible way, from flying into doors to landing on pools of water and drowning. They are profligate with their lives, that's for sure. Perhaps they only become stupid after they've mated and laid eggs. A friend of mine says their existence is proof that there is no God, but maybe they're just proof that God has an inordinate fondness for cicadas.
( Lots and lots and lots of fiction and a dab of comics and poetry )
Cicada update: almost all dead. The sound is like an electric hum, like having your ear pressed to a generator the size of a house – though with more dying every minute, maybe the generator is now only TV-sized. There are so many, coating trees and grass and cars and doors, that it reminds me of that Star Trek: TOS episode, "The Omega Glory," the one with the Yangs and the Kohms – "They sacrificed hundreds just to draw us out into the open. And then, they came, and they came. We killed *thousands*, and still they came!," the bad captain Tracey says. I don't know how the species survives, given that the individual cicadas get themselves killed in every possible way, from flying into doors to landing on pools of water and drowning. They are profligate with their lives, that's for sure. Perhaps they only become stupid after they've mated and laid eggs. A friend of mine says their existence is proof that there is no God, but maybe they're just proof that God has an inordinate fondness for cicadas.
( Lots and lots and lots of fiction and a dab of comics and poetry )
Entry tags:
politics and prose
I went to two John Kerry events Wednesday night, forcing postponement of SV/Angel watching. Now, the only reason my picture isn't in the dictionary defining "shy" is that I'm too shy to be photographed, so this required serious fortitude in the face of multiple strangers in close quarters. Turns out I could have gone to the sit-down dinner, but by going to the lower-level shindig in the art gallery, featuring Chuck Schumer and Cam Kerry, I ran into an old friend, so that's okay.
Schumer was funny and talked a lot about judicial nominations, in deference to the lawyer-heavy audience at the art gallery. When he introduced Kerry at the dance club (the event for people younger and less generous than the people at the art gallery), he didn't talk about judges. Instead, he talked about the Sopranos, and got Steve Buscemi's first name wrong.
At the dance club, Kerry wasn't particularly inspiring, and he wanted to talk about health care, which didn't much energize the crowd, though they were willing to cheer for it anyway. I understand why Kerry's strategy can't be to say "vote for me because I'm not George W. Bush," but that's really why I was there. I wanted him to talk about Iraq and the economy – he did get around to the deficit, and the best part of his speech was when he got to foreign relations, pointed out that we need to have some support in the other 96% of the world, and then said "America should never go to war because it wants to. It should go to war only because it has to." That was a crowd-pleaser. There were too many jokes about the young folks getting drunk and forgetting what they'd heard, and there was a six-foot tall friendly joint in a sombrero painted on the wall near where we were standing (think Mr. Butts, Doonesbury's talking cigarette, and you'll get the idea), which I didn't think was exactly the right image. Then again, there was a lot of talk about 1968 ... Anyhow, I heard Kerry, even though I didn't quite see him, and that plus finding my old friend was worthwhile.
In the last bit of politics, I thought Tom Shales of the Washington Post had the best line on Bush's news conference: When Bush said "When I say something, I mean it," he said that the reporters were too polite to call out, "Then when are you going to say something?"
Then I watched SV & Angel. Loved them – no spoilers, but if the WB persists in calling new episodes "fresh" episodes, I won't answer for my actions. Not just in the on-screen bug, but every! damn! time! they came back from commercial.
In other news, the best line from last week's viewing of Jeremiah: Rivka: Would you like little marshmallows in your hot chocolate?geekturnedvamp: Is that a trick question?
Good point.
( Westlake, SV tie-in, Macleod, Irresistable Forces, and nonfiction )
Schumer was funny and talked a lot about judicial nominations, in deference to the lawyer-heavy audience at the art gallery. When he introduced Kerry at the dance club (the event for people younger and less generous than the people at the art gallery), he didn't talk about judges. Instead, he talked about the Sopranos, and got Steve Buscemi's first name wrong.
At the dance club, Kerry wasn't particularly inspiring, and he wanted to talk about health care, which didn't much energize the crowd, though they were willing to cheer for it anyway. I understand why Kerry's strategy can't be to say "vote for me because I'm not George W. Bush," but that's really why I was there. I wanted him to talk about Iraq and the economy – he did get around to the deficit, and the best part of his speech was when he got to foreign relations, pointed out that we need to have some support in the other 96% of the world, and then said "America should never go to war because it wants to. It should go to war only because it has to." That was a crowd-pleaser. There were too many jokes about the young folks getting drunk and forgetting what they'd heard, and there was a six-foot tall friendly joint in a sombrero painted on the wall near where we were standing (think Mr. Butts, Doonesbury's talking cigarette, and you'll get the idea), which I didn't think was exactly the right image. Then again, there was a lot of talk about 1968 ... Anyhow, I heard Kerry, even though I didn't quite see him, and that plus finding my old friend was worthwhile.
In the last bit of politics, I thought Tom Shales of the Washington Post had the best line on Bush's news conference: When Bush said "When I say something, I mean it," he said that the reporters were too polite to call out, "Then when are you going to say something?"
Then I watched SV & Angel. Loved them – no spoilers, but if the WB persists in calling new episodes "fresh" episodes, I won't answer for my actions. Not just in the on-screen bug, but every! damn! time! they came back from commercial.
In other news, the best line from last week's viewing of Jeremiah: Rivka: Would you like little marshmallows in your hot chocolate?
geekturnedvamp: Is that a trick question?Good point.
( Westlake, SV tie-in, Macleod, Irresistable Forces, and nonfiction )