I have this bad habit of getting half-way or a third through a book and putting it aside, sometimes coming back to it months later. It's not that I don't like what I'm reading, I just...need to read something else. This is currently the case with two books by the bedside, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and The Towers of the Sunset. Both fine books ( Read more... )

Disjointed things that sometimes form blurry half-formed something... I've really been enjoying Endeavour. My favorite show at the moment. Quoting from A. E. HousmanTo-day I shall be strong ( Read more... )

It's that magical time of year where I need to re-up a bunch of shit for my business. Got my insurance documents on Friday. Premiums went up $20 a month. It's absolutely worthless, but... I could try and find a "better" policy, but there isn't one. I wish I had my "Obamacare" still. That was the best insurance I ever had. First thing I felt under ( Read more... )

"Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know."

-Lao Tsu

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and ( Read more... )

"Ghosts have all the time in the world ( Read more... )

Got up, tried again to see if I could get a PPP loan. I did this purely out of paranoia. Called some banks, and unless I can convince a bank manager someplace to let me open a business account, and then file the papers and have it approved, no PPP. So, no PPP. Fine ( Read more... )

"...the Count had taken a break from his nightly aperitif, suspecting that the liquor had been an unhealthy influence on his mood. But this saintly abstinence did not prove a tonic to his soul. With so little to do and all the time in the world to do it, the Count's peace of mind continued to be threatened by a sense of ennui - that dreaded mire of ( Read more... )

"A king fortifies himself with a castle," observed the Count, "a gentleman with a desk."

Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow

Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million-colored sun
Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume
The spaceward-flown horizons infinite.

― Clark Ashton Smith