It's kinda like snow, caught in a matrix of individual sleet drops?
Happy
Birthday,
mortician!
Weekend
Working backward, this morning was SNOWPOCALYPSE! Which really isn't that bad. And OK, it actually started yesterday, but I was glad when I got word at 6:30 AM that I wasn't needed at my university (though it was closed, I might still have been called in as I'm "essential personnel"). The above 10 AM pic of Highlands Golfcourse, which sits opposite my apartment, was from the grocery store and shopping strip next to me (where I am happy to report both the Piggly-Wiggly and Forest Perk are open... mmmm... hot chocolate! ^_^ ). I'm kinda glad that I didn't drive, though I did thaw out my car. That F150 that's parked askew? Young guy in his late teens or early twenties came sliding across the parking lot only somewhat in control before stopping there so that he and a girl of similar age could hop out. I suspect that drivers like him are a higher risk that the ice on the road! ^_^ Yesterday was a little lazy; after church I hung out at Ferret Rock until the sleet started coming in around mid-afternoon. And Saturday I helped (a little) with raking leaves, etc., at Ferret Rock as well. Overall, a pleasant weekend -- if you don't mind the snow / sleet / ice / slush / whatever we have frozen to our streets this morning! ;)
House of Suns
From my GoodReads review of Alastair Reynolds' new novel House of Suns: As usual, I love Alastair Reynolds' hard, crunchy SF; this was no different. I should likely note that this one isn't set in his Revelation Space universe but in a different milieu, one from which I hope we see other stories. As an aside, I did like one bit of fun foreshadowing -- but I am not sure I would have caught it had I not had some familiarity with the scale of the Local Group?
Later edit
Jared Lee Loughner was a lamer.*
Anyone who thinks he should have shot Congresswoman Giffords is a lamer.
Anyone who calls for violent overthrow right now (while we can still vote) is a lamer.
That includes anyone who is a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist from the 19th or mid-20th century (hush, Bakunin).
BUT THAT ESPECIALLY INCLUDES ANYONE WHO LIKES TO SET ME PEOPLE OFF NOWADAYS. Lamers. The lot.
*You're gonna hear that "he was a Communist!" Nope. His fav books on Youtube?
* Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf
* Ayn Rand's We the Living
* Plato's Republic
* Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels' Communist Manifesto