Avaunt

If we had a reliable prophet like the Classic Greeks did, I would ask if I am going to live to read the third of The Kingkiller saga.

I really love it when a series has continuity of cover artist. It is important to me, entirely part of the book.

!

On 6/26/2020 at 7:39 PM, JasonT said:

 

That was prime Carlos.

Jason speaks the truth. I can still summon up the mental image of page after page of those stories. Quite often this involves Angela narrowing her eyes as she decides someone is superfluous to requirements, or Jim grins as he rolls out a few more feet of caper.

Bro !. Still cool. I got old since I said hi to you!.

I am determined to do it. It is surprising what  I had forgotten, from the first read through. Something any member of my family will tell you is I have an uncanny ability to read a page of any book I have ever read, and start from there and detail what carries on, to the point that even other McLarens ( the single most contentious family in the world, I would argue bet ) do not argue with me if I say "such and such a thing happens next in this book" or rattle off the plot of a book. However, I have been surprised more than once by whole pages of the books, which literally has never happened before in 45 years of reading every day. It just doesn't happen. If I find a book and don't remember the title, unusual in itself, I just open it randomly and read a few pages, and if I read it once, I know.

What I suspect has happened, is their unwieldy size, recondite matter, the chop-and-change of the view points, and the density of the writing, has seen me put one down while reading it, pick it back up and accidentally skip a few pages, and not notice because of the internal style and massive cast etc. Still, such an unusual occurrence for me, I am amazed at it.

After all, each one has taken me at least a week of reading and that probably means putting it down or in my bag two dozen times. Quite likely I messed up a few times. Also of course, much of my life has been afloat in alcohol.

On 6/18/2020 at 3:16 PM, Christian said:

How fucking crazy is it that we’re talking about being middle-aged on this forum now?

 

A few years ago, my twin got a really bad flu, then took a heavy fall off his roof, and got pneumonia. I rang him up to remind him if he died, I got all his toys, and he said to me "This is not a joking matter, I feel more than half dead".

I pointed out the average life expectancy being 87.4 years for NZ males born in 1966, we were in actual fact, half dead.

It did not cheer him up.

I have took a "before" photo this morning. I will post it when I have an "after" photo that makes it a good comparison. And not until.

I'm thinking, in a good light you understand, Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou

The plug around the neck is the very essence of "Goodies" goodness.

That was an all round excellent production, I am one of the privileged human beings of all time, that I saw it when it was a new thing and not a meme.

I am still trying to work through a re-read of Erikson's works. I am enjoying it, but there isn't the same pleasure re-reading as I get from say, re-reading Patrick O'Brian or Jane Austin.

It is very lore heavy, as you no doubt remember. It is far more egregiously so, on the second reading.

Yeah, well, I weigh 90 kgs. But at least this means the epidemic finds me robust. Also, I have been paid my wage right through to last week, so I actually saved 1100 dollars during lock down. Do I hear a " Hell YEAH, Socialism ! " ?.

I just can't shed weight since I turned 40, even when I was going to the gym I just turned it to muscle so that in fact I ended up weighing 500 grams more in the course of the year last year. The gym is going to be allowed to open again soon, and I will be there day one, and four times a week, my solemn oath.

They threatened him with a muzzle and he pulled one out of his pocket, and gave a dirty leer.

I totally love the Stainless Steel Rat series.

If some girl wanted to set me up as a patsy, my affections, she could cos-play Angela from the 2000 ad stories.

I am plus one for anything that resurrects Tommy Monaghan.

How did you find a copy so quickly though? Do you live above a secondhand shop? /envy

Read those. Loved how they depicted the different "people" on the Yilanè  side of things, I quite remember, lo this many moons later, the attitude of the female-officer-thug-pragmatist character as being pretty awesome.

I always had a soft spot for H. Harrison, but he was very much an unaware product of his times, no-one's reconstructed man. I met a very large stumbling block in my appreciation of his works, when I read his civil-war time travel book, A Rebel in Time. He was honestly trying to do "good" but it REALLY showed how very little appreciation of the actualities of slavery, and in fact his contemporaries experience,  he had.

If anyone wants an object lesson why no-one should try to write about race, when they have always lived in privilege on the topic, that is the book to offer them. I don't condemn him for the intent, you are to understand.

Hey, I just was rolling crunchy and saw this advertised, came to tell yoou guys about it. I saw a preview of the art, looked quite nice.

But not as transcendent as "Keep your hands off Eizouken!" which is the greatest happiest experience I have had in years. Wow. Sore wa hokori takai otakudakara

Totally disagree with you about the police needing someone to call them.

However, this is a basic philosophical difference between us, no point in arguing it out. 

I saw a video that certainly gave pause for thought. A guy dressed in gear like speedway-armor, full face visor-ed bike helmet, ( I have no doubt that it was all extremely expensive gear, it was all brand new, and not the sort of thing you expect to find in the hands of an nonprofessional ) he pulled out an expandable baton and started smashing the window of a business premises. He didn't have anyone with him, he didn't have a bag or any way of carrying stuff off, he made no attempt to go inside, or to interact with anyone.

A much smaller guy walks up and tries to remonstrate with him, with other people filming, and the armored guy acted like he wasn't in any danger of being arrested or punished, didn't even react violently to people filming him, and simply walked away down the street.

Why would someone do this? If it was supposedly someone "punishing the system" would it be at all likely they would be by themself?. If it was a looter, why he no loot?.

I have to say, it looked very much like some police officer attempting to kick off a riot. Someone later claimed that just before he arrived, a guy on a motorbike drove down the street and dropped three large smoke canisters in the street.

Pretty much from a play-book of some organisation. Of course, the play-book might be "This is how to discredit the police forces" too.

Of course, it would only be turn and turn about if someone stole their original idea from 2000 ad, right?.   I can't actually think off the top of my head of a thing they made that wasn't a rip, in the 80s. I suspect if I did think one was original, one  of you guys would be able to say "Um do you think that was original ? . . . didn't you ever read such and such then?".

The thing for me, about the  Lovecraft stuff, is I could never get past the basic dichotomy ( which may have just been something that occurred to me alone for some quirk of my being  ) of forces incomprehensible, beings unknowable being written about. I just hit that oft-repeated idea in the books and said "But you just wrote about them . . ."

I dunno, I just never got into them because it seemed too unlikely.

<---- totally loves me some space-opera, and time travel novels though, so, inconsistent.

Love it !.

Never got into the Warhammer creeds, but the little I saw of the Empire of Man reminded me forcibly of Termight and Torquemada from 2000 ad.

"Be vigilant, be Pure, Behave !"

I am compelled to try to find good in other people, Lou. Even when I seriously am exasperated with someones stupidity, like in this case, I kind of despairingly look through the ramblings hoping to find sense.

And, I have to say, one of the tenants of their complaint, I find to be quite reasonable. It doesn't matter if one side is or isn't using this crisis as an excuse  to stifle its opponents. If there is the chance, then the time to protest has arrived, just to make it clear that it would be a policy that  was self-defeating. You can't just trust in the other side, in an active Republic, history has shown this.

If only they had the sense to do it while obeying the common sense parts of the restrictions, social distancing, masks, etc.