1. Chasing Chilies:Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail - Kurt Michael Friese, Kraig Kraft, and Gary Paul Nabhan.
2. Vellum: the Book of All Hours- Hal Duncan
3. Legacy- Mathew Farrer
4. Blind- Mathew Farrer
5. Rendezvous with Rama- Arthur C. Clarke

I haven't posted in more than a year, though I've made sporadic efforts to comment. In an effort to start again, I'm going to make a couple posts which will be largely the text equivalent of clearing my throat ( Read more... )

1. Salvation's Reach Dan Abnett 320pp
2. Freakangels V's 1-6 Warren Ellis
3. Life of Pi Yann Martel 326pp
4. Consider Phlebas Ian Banks 544pp.
5. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 216pp

1. Best Served Cold Joe Abercrombie.
2. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Fait Anne Lamott.
3. Iorich Stephen Brust.
4. Thieves World Robert Asprin, ed.
5. Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn Robert Asprin, ed.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her ( Read more... )

The time is coming, sooner rather than later, to replace the current car. I'm interested in people's experiences and recommendations about the usual things- good on gas, reliable and decent winter handling are pretty much the only must-have criteria. I'm also curious about anyone's experience with the Subaru Outback or similar car-wagon types.

Bad Sheep

Midnight’s merely blue,

but me, me, me, I’m
through
and through
sloe, cracked soot-
on-a-boot,
nicotine spat, licorice whip.
You can scratch, scratch, scratch
but I stay underskin true
to ebony, ink, crowberry, pitch;
hoist me up by my hooves
and shake till I’m shook, I’m still
chock full of coke, fuliginous
murk.
O there’s swart in my soul,
coal by the ( Read more... )

gingerkat posted this short blog piece from John Scalzi elsewhere and I thought it was a nice contemporary way of getting across the idea of privilege, without saying "privilege". I particularly the bit about  "Those who play under the 'Gay Minority Female' setting? Hardcore."

Straight White Male: the lowest difficulty setting there is

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