Believers or not, this is a great day to celebrate the return of spring, new beginnings, and new starts…
60F, 98%RH and a beautiful clear day. Full moon (or close to) helped the Easter Bunny hide eggs this morning, I’m sure…..
Kids are going thru their score, parents are trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast that ISN’T chocolate or eggs.
Enjoy the day!
nick
30º and sunny on the North Coast. Wife & kids are off to Mass, and the Easter Bunny is cleaning & hiding eggs. Forecast of rain for this morning is incorrect for this area. Cold is spot on, though.
@Ray, from yesterday, I mildly hate batteries. Had quite a few weak ones back in the sixties, when they were expensive, and I needed to keep ’em going until I could afford a replacement. Even bought some used ones. The newer designs DO tend to fail without warning, not a good trait.
The lowest cost was for a couple of Walmart size 24 batteries I bought in 2000, $26 each after core return. They were nade in China in an AC Delco factory, and lasted a long time. Those days are long gone!
State of the garden– beets are poking up, about a half inch. Pecan trees are budding leaves. Last collard plant is prolific, maybe I scared it by ripping out the others? One of the new blueberries looks like it might not make it. I’ll be using the return policy if so. I almost never can find the receipt if a plant dies in a year, but this time, I’m saving it.
Worked at the rent house -that’s a prep as it is another income stream…
Worked on my closet/hurricane shelter, should get primer on today.
Wife is setting my priorities last week, this week, and next week.
Got some medical stuff cheap. Got some food to replace the rat depredation. Bought some more glue traps.
Finished Locker 9 last night. Fairly short for a modern novel. Well done and moves quickly. Some good ideas for prepping. Have to look into Vetbond (for the dog of course)… and get some antibiotics (for the fish of course.)
Used the first aid kit on the little one’s hand yesterday. She got some nasty scrapes and cuts from a piece of galvanized hardware cloth. Very good to be able to clean and bandaid right then and there. Decided that every first aid kit needs a finger nail clipper added. Cheap, small, can be used as a sliver puller or for cutting threads too. Need to double check they all have magnifying glasses, maybe a pair of cheater glasses too, perhaps the skinny kind with their own carry case.
New antenna is def making a difference. I can routinely hear stations that I only occasionally heard before.
Now I better get some drywall sanding done…..
n
Thank you gooberment and enviro-weenies.
Happy Easter, for those of you inclined that way.
Happy April Fools Day, for those of you inclined that way.
Happy Transgendered Emperor Day, for those of you inclined that way.
Happy Weasley Twins’ Birthday, for those of you inclined in the Harry Potter way.
Hey SteveF, haven’t heard much from you lately, how’s the work going?
n
Happy Weasley Twins’ Birthday, for those of you inclined in the Harry Potter way.
My Twins (girls) hate Harry Potter. Books and movies. I like Harry Potter, go figure. Now if only J.K. would go away being the horrible SJW she is.
She built an interesting world, but the early books were pretty poorly written, and the later books should have had a ruthless editor.
The theme is one of the oldest in lit– poor little abused kid finds out he’s special after all….
n
I do like them, but great lit they ain’t…
Decided that every first aid kit needs a finger nail clipper added. Cheap, small, can be used as a sliver puller or for cutting threads too.
I’ve used nail clippers to remove stitches from my hand. I soaked them in alcohol first.
Kids, don’t try that at home. The Mythbusters are professionals.
Well, in the case of lead I would have to side with the government. That stuff can cause some real serious problems. A lot of unscrupulous vendors were indiscriminately dumping batteries.
Guy across the road from me was filling a low area and allowing people to dump “fill” material, most of which turned out to be rubbish. Even saw an ACE Hardware truck pull in and dump some old (probably forklift) batteries. I got pictures of them doing the dumping and the batteries that were dumped. Went to the police and a few minutes later someone from ACE Hardware was picking up their batteries from the trash. I also made a small presentation to corporate headquarters and sent in the mail. The next week there were a couple of new managers at the store with the prior managers nowhere in sight.
Some of the environmental stuff the government got right. Some it totally wrong, and stupid. Such as my pool water being hazardous waste. Any attempt to drain my pool on the ground would be met with significant finds and probably cleanup costs.
She built an interesting world, but the early books were pretty poorly written, and the later books should have had a ruthless editor.
Just like Ann Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles”.
Rowling “borrowed” heavily from Terry Pratchett, but Pratchett ended up selling more Discworld books than ever thanks to the exposure so he looked the other way.
The new movies “borrow” from Matt Smith “Doctor Who”, right down to the bow tie. Even my kids noticed.
Been busy and have had spotty connectivity. Should be mostly worked out maybe if things don’t go wrong which I expect they will.
The first one was indeed poorly written but despite that was a decent children’s story. As stories, especially children’s stories, go, they got worse with every succeeding book. I read the first five to the boys as nighttime reading. Lucky me, they were both able to read volumes 6 and 7 themselves, as everyone says they were even worse. And my daughter read the first one and didn’t much care for it.
I didn’t know that. But then, I read only one Discworld book and didn’t care for it. A couple people have told me that story was the worst one out of them all and just by dumb luck that’s the one I got from the library. Maybe I’ll try another one sometime.
If they ask me for a paper receipt, I tell them that it is in your computer.
Most of the Discworld books are hilariously funny, if you are in the mood to read them closely, and in order. Some of them only make sense in context.
All of the Granny Weatherwax books (the witches, books like Wee Free Men) are lots of fun. Again, in order. A lot of the Discworld has been turned into BBC shows/movies and are pretty well done. A lot of the humor is self-referential and needs you to have read others in the series. They stand up to re-reading very well too.
TMOAISTI that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it….
n
Harry Potter was good stuff. I disagree about the early books being poorly written – to the contrary, for young-teen novels they were excellent. Very imaginative, lots of stuff happening just under the surface that you can notice, or not, depending on what kind of reader you are.
After than, as happens with too many successful authors, there was a serious lack of editing. The novels got longer, and longer, and looonger – they lost the crispness of the first three. They also got seriously dark and depressing – I know this was to some extent to mirror Harry heading into his teenage years – and also the primary audience – but geez… Professor Umbridge, for example, was just ghastly.
As for being an SJW, you know, I think when people have so much success, they lose touch with reality. If you’re worth hundreds of millions, it’s easy to be progressive. Money means nothing, you live in a walled estate (or restored castle, in her case), it costs you literally nothing to believe in fantasies like “magic dirt”.
Discworld? I tried various Pratchett books, and I found them long-winded and boring. Obviously, it is a matter of taste. Heck, I even disagree with my own tastes – on this long Easter weekend I thought I would re-read Dune, which I haven’t read since college. Bleah, I just can’t get into it.
Part of the problem is reduced attention span. Too many years under stress, juggling too many balls at once. Actually sitting down and reading for literally hours at a stretch? I find that I just can’t do it anymore :-/
That’s what Kindles are for, my good fellow. I very seldom read for long periods at a stretch, but read a fair amount in short bits while waiting for one thing or another.
@brad, I was just thinking about re-reading Dune. Every other time I’ve done it, I had to re-read them all. I don’t think I could now, because of glorifying the Fremen, who are basically middle eastern islamic terrorists, transplanted.
I find I can’t PHYSICALLY sit and read for long periods anymore. My body and back hurt if I do.
I go thru periods where I read in bed every night, for several novels in a row. Then I don’t for a while. And I’m more likely to re-read something I know I’ll like than something new. Freaking SJW took over most scifi outside of milfic and that was a problem for me for years. Now that there is pushback (google ‘sad puppies’ and hugo awards if you really must) there are finally some authors I enjoy reading again.
I read with the kids every night, so short books and stories with the 6yo and chapter books in series with the 8yo. Wife read the harry potter books with her last year. She’s starting to stay up after we put her to bed and read on her own, so just like her old man and mom…..
n
Yah. I stopped reading any scifi/fantasy/specfi published by a “real” publisher after about 1990. I hear tell that’s turned around, a bit, but they’ve lost me as a reader.
Instead, I read some self-published work through Smashwords or Amazon’s KDP, more older stuff, and most of all work published on the web. That latter is mostly open-ended, serially published novels, often running over half a million words. Authors are appreciative when you hit their tipjar. See Web Fiction Guide for categorized pointers to stories and their sister site Top Web Fiction for a list of what’s considered best and hottest right now.
Baen still publishes good stuff. And it’s DRM free. With editors and layout artists, and all the rest of traditional publishing. Many of my favorite classic authors, and most of my current reads are published by Baen if they are traditionally published.
n
Baen still publishes good stuff. And it’s DRM free. With editors and layout artists, and all the rest of traditional publishing. Many of my favorite classic authors, and most of my current reads are published by Baen if they are traditionally published.
My thoughts exactly. I agree 100%. Baen is even republishing old Heinleins and other awesome classics. If you want to stick with a guaranteed list, just go with Michael Williamson, David Weber, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, or John Ringo. Or, just stay away from the Lois McMaster Bujold and Ryk Spoor books. I love them but they are definitely SJW friendly.
Or just ask me. I read and review them all. But I can ignore all but the most egregious SJWs in a good story. It is just the AGW advocates that torque me off.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHV2C7F5C3SWNVJAYRZOU7ORTWYA/
Or maybe I just cannot tell who the SJWs in the stories are now.
@brad, I was just thinking about re-reading Dune. Every other time I’ve done it, I had to re-read them all. I don’t think I could now, because of glorifying the Fremen, who are basically middle eastern islamic terrorists, transplanted.
Dune is not on my top 100 reread list now because of the middle eastern islamic terrorists.
Another recommendation for Baen. As best I can tell, they don’t care about authors’ politics, they just want them to write good stories. With that said, Larry Correia and John Ringo are decidedly NOT SJWs. I think Baen publishes Michael Z. Williamson also, who is again decidedly NOT an SJW.
It seems like Ringo has about a dozen series or so, I think I’ve liked every one that I’ve read. Correia also has multiple series; again, I’ve liked everything that I’ve read so far, which was the Monster Hunter International series and the series co-written with Mike Kupari that began with “Dead Six”. I’ve got the first book of “The Grimnoir Chronicles” in the TBR pile, but it’s a big pile. “Son of the Black Sword” was interesting and a Dragon Award winner. Download “Monster Hunter International” for free . MHI was his first published book. They get better from there.
And Larry is a very qualified gun guy, who got national attention for a blog post about school shooters, antigunners, etc.
The Grimnoir series was less interesting to me, but it is well thought out and consistent. The gaming spin off books (sword and sorcery) aren’t my thing but are still interesting and well written.
Even his quickly tossed off humorous stuff like Tom Stranger, interdimensional insurance agent, is good, and the audible versions are supposed to be great.
Ringo is writing in the Monster Hunter universe which ROCKS. It’s very different from larry, but still awesome. Ringo’s Black Tide Rising post apocalyptic zombie series has some really good stuff in it.
Kratman has written stuff that reads like prophesy (Caliphate), and some that reads like an instruction manual. His State of Disobedience spells out how secession could work in a good story (hint, first seize the mint.)
WRT Baen, they publish Eric Flint and he’s a card carrying commie, as well as hard core right wingers and gun nuts. They have always maintained that they are about the STORY and not the author’s politics. Flint’s 1632 series is good fun, if you can ignore the trade union boosterism. I made it thru several before losing interest.
The Aldenada series by ringo and kratman and others is an aliens invade story, but also very much a post apocalyptic series.
n
IMHO the later Diskworld books are excellent observations of human behavior. The ones that jump imediatly to mind are The Night Watch that focuses on the role of police in a riot and unstable political situation. Going Postal shows us the disruptive effects of innovation in communications and Making Money looks at the idea of what has value. Prattchet was a great observer of humanity and spun much into his books with humor. He was also the only author I spent any time with who wasn’t an arrogant prick.
Worked at the rent house -that’s a prep as it is another income stream…
Yup, income diversification is important. And income that is independent of any employer is very important to one’s long term financial health.
I like rental income a lot. It is the gift that keeps on giving. Yes, it does require maintenance and occasional improvements. And in a economic downturn, you can usually rerent a place for 80 to 50% of the current amount if the current tenant goes south on you.
Our newly minted prepper, mother-in-law, called this weekend to tell us she bought a bug out property. Ten acres in atoka Oklahoma near where she grew up. It has a year round spring, dirt road access, power and phone to the property, mostly wooded and a 20 x 40 concrete pad with metal roof designed to park an RV or mobile home under. It also has an above ground “safe room” for tornado protection. Not bad for $18k. Now she wants me to take my remaining holiday to go and fence it for her. I have never fenced a garden much less ten acres of hilly wooded land.
Reported sales of 200k+ per year for Atlas Shrugged (italics! cool!) are like gun background check numbers. A sign of hope. I enjoyed most of L.Neil Smith’s canon and have read and re-read Heinlein enough to be embarrassed to quote numbers. I believe John Ringo used to post on the FidoNet SF forum back in the day.
I deliberately got interested in computers when my hard copy library became a logistical problem for a renter back when the Mac was a new idea. Even as a gentleman of leisure nowadays (functionally retired, ahem), like others here, I find it difficult to take the time to delve into new authors, or any authors really. Some regret there, so I enjoy Mr. Lynn’s reviews and do carry a kindle klone around with a 1000 or so volumes to read during a spare minute.
BTW, Kratman’s State of Disobedience is free on Kindle today…
and have read and re-read Heinlein enough to be embarrassed to quote numbers
I have reread TSB (The Star Beast), TMIAHM (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), and COTG (Citizen of the Galaxy) a dozen times. I actually want to reread every Heinlein book now (yes, even the books during the time of the brain eater). I actually lost most of my Heinleins, Perry Rhodans, Asimovs, Simaks, Zelaznys, etc, etc, etc in the Great Flood of 1989. I have been slowly replacing them through various means.
My rereads every 2 to 4 years (this list does change depending on my mood):
1. _Mutineers Moon_ by David Weber
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856/
2. _Jumper_ by Steven Gould
https://www.amazon.com/Jumper-Novel-Steven-Gould/dp/0812522370/
3. _A Matter for Men_ by David Gerrold
https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Men-Against-Chtorr-Book/dp/0671464949/
4. _The Tar-Aiym Krang_ by Alan Dean Foster
https://www.amazon.com/Tar-Aiym-Krang-Alan-Dean-Foster/dp/034530280X/
5. _Shards of Honor_ by Lois McMaster Bujold
https://www.amazon.com/Shards-Honor-Vorkosigan-McMaster-Bujold/dp/1476781109/
6. _Ender’s Game_ by Orson Scott Card
https://www.amazon.com/Enders-Ender-Quintet-Orson-Scott/dp/0812550706/
7. _A Hymn Before Battle_ by John Ringo
https://www.amazon.com/Hymn-Before-Battle-Posleen-War/dp/0671318411/
8. _Going Home_ by A. American
https://www.amazon.com/Going-Home-Novel-Survivalist-American/dp/0142181277/
9. _Bitten_ by Kelley Armstrong
https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-Otherworld-Kelley-Armstrong/dp/0452296641/
10. _A Soldier’s Duty_ by Jean Johnson
https://www.amazon.com/Soldiers-Duty-Theirs-Not-Reason/dp/0441020631/
BTW, I was talking with my son today about making some financial moves. He strongly cautioned me to be careful as he believes that we are headed into a depression. Not a recession, a depression.
The wife tells me that I am a glass half empty guy. Well, my son is a glass 2/3rds empty guy right now. Is anyone else suspecting that the economy is getting ready to fall apart ?
Hard to say. I’ve been expecting another shoe to drop since the 2008 mess, as the cure just wasn’t right, being more of the same just doubled and squared. OTOH, that is nearly 10 years ago, longer than I can hold my breath. I’m in tangibles and a bit of precious metals. I’d like to be elsewhere but can’t manage that today.
Yeah, it’s overdue. 2000, 2008, 2016…
managed to delay 2016 longer than anyone would believe. I get the feeling from reading the financial press that it’s like Santa Claus. EVERYONE is playing along and getting the last drop squeezed out. Sooner or later, something will trigger the “readjustment” and it will crash.
n
Dune is not on my top 100 reread list now because of the middle eastern islamic terrorists.
Herbert was another prominent author in desperate need of an editor in his later years.
BTW, I was talking with my son today about making some financial moves. He strongly cautioned me to be careful as he believes that we are headed into a depression. Not a recession, a depression.
The longer cheap money goes on, the worse the withdrawal will be.
I’m old enough to remember 14% mortgages when Volker and Stockman attempted to fix this mess as it first started rolling in the 80s. And people thought that was unbearable.
Even 8% mortgages with 6% 30 year T-bills (probably the minimum to fix the looming pension disaster) at this point would be a wipeout. My first house was 8%, and we thought we hit the jackpot.
The silly season in Austin real estate will get cranked up in a few weeks. Memorial Day Weekend and the trailing sales into the Fall should provide some interesting tea leaves to read for the next year.
released lynn’s comment, scroll up a bit….
n
And here we are with mortgage rates under 2% in Switzerland. Crazy. The banks have at least been clever enough to tighten lending standards, for when the rates go back up.
Brad:
“I thought I would re-read Dune, which I haven’t read since college. Bleah, I just can’t get into it.”
Lynn:
“Dune is not on my top 100 reread list now because of the middle eastern islamic terrorists.”
Greg Norton:
“Herbert was another prominent author in desperate need of an editor in his later years.”
I don’t understand any of you guys. Dune and its successors never get old.