Pixel Scroll 10/20 Hugo, we have a problem

(1) David Brin urges everyone to make a fashion statement for Back To the Future Day:

Okay so October 21 is “Back to the Future” Day,” when movie houses all over will be holding special showings of BTTF-II, to commemorate our crossing that particular frontier — when Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrived at the ‘future’ of 2015 from the year 1985. Here is a rundown of ways the film was eerily on target… and another… if you set aside hover boards and flying cars and hydrated pizzas. And Mr. Fusion, alas. Hey, everyone wear a DOUBLE TIE that day!  I haven’t heard anyone else pushing that meme, so pass it on starting here!

Mockfry(2) Jim C. Hines’ Icon report includes a photo of a group posed around the “Future Birthplace of James T. Kirk” monument in Riverside, Iowa. Hines is there with Ann Leckie, David Gerrold, Joe and Gay Haldeman, and some others I should probably recognize.

(3) Amanda S. Green considers possible outcomes of Amazon’s new move against fake reviews in “To Pay or Not to Pay”.

I can’t speak for Amazon but I have a feeling what we will see happening is that a number of reviews will simply drop off the site. These reviews will either be directly tied to the sites Amazon has suspicions about or will have key phrases that are oft repeated across other reviews. It is easy enough to code a data crawler to find such similarities. It is basically the same sort of tool that schools use to determine if a paper contains any plagiarized parts.

Amazon might go one step further. Right now, if you look at Amazon customer reviews, you will see some from verified purchasers and then those that aren’t. A verified purchaser is someone who actually purchased the item from Amazon. The only problem with this is it doesn’t reflect those who borrowed a book or short story under the Kindle Unlimited program. This may be the point where Amazon needs to add that as one of the descriptors. I know a number of authors, and readers alike, who have been asking Amazon to do just that. At least that way, people who look at reviews before buying something would have an idea if the reviewer actually put down money on the book in question.

There is always the possibility that Amazon will require you to have purchased an item from them before you are allowed to review it. I’ll admit to being torn about this option. That would keep reviewers like Shiny Book Review from posting reviews on all sales sites. It would kick out reviewers who receive free copies of books unless Amazon has them register as reviewers. This is a path I’m not sure I want to see them go down.

Right now, Amazon gives more weight to reviews written by verified purchasers. As they should.

(4) The Tiptree Award is looking for recommendations. Got one? Click and fill out their form.

Most of the books and stories that Tiptree Award jurors read to pick a winner are nominated by authors and readers. We need your suggestions. If you’ve read a work of science fiction or fantasy that explores or expands our notions of gender, please tell us about it by filling out the recommendation form below. If you have more than one, just fill out the form again with a new recommendation and submit it until you’ve told us about them all.

Recommendations close on the 1st of December, 2015.

(5) Fans and everyone seeking eyeballs for their blog are busy mining the newly-released Star Wars trailer for provocative material like – Who dies in the movie?

The first full-length trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens gave fans plenty to speculate wildly about, but one moment in particular is causing widespread panic across the galaxy — or at least, the Internet. Towards the end of the trailer (watch it here!), there is a one-second shot of heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) sobbing over what looks like a dead body. So who dies?

(6) Geeks Are Sexy has photographic proof that Canada’s Newest Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a member of the Rebel Alliance. Eh?

trudeau

(7) Catherynne M. Valente delivers The Big Idea today at Whatever. You were warned!

Radiance doesn’t have a big idea at its heart.

It has about six. It’s a decopunk alt-history Hollywood space opera mystery thriller. With space whales.

Over-egging the pudding, you say? Too many cooks going at the soup? Gilding that lily like it’s going to the prom? I say: grab your eggs and hold onto your lilies because I am cannonballing into that soup FULL SPEED AHEAD.

(8) Brandon Kempner assesses the chances of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora getting a Hugo nomination.

The Hugo is a murkier award in 2016, given the turbulence surrounding it. 2312 took third place in 2013, and was also third in the nominations. Given the campaigns that are sure to take place in 2016, 3rd place is probably vulnerable to being pushed out. Add in that 2016 is a strong Hugo year (former Best Novel winners Robinson, Stephenson, Leckie, Walton, Bacigalupi, Scalzi, and Liu are all fighting for 5 spots, and that’s not even factoring in Puppy campaigns or buzzy authors like Novik). As a result, I think Robinson will miss the ballot, but a strong year-end push could definitely grab Robinson a spot.

As for metrics, as of mid-October 2015, Aurora has 2,535 Goodreads ratings with a 3.79 score and 264 Amazon ratings with a score of 3.7. Those aren’t great but they aren’t terrible. It’s a rare thing to see the Goodreads score higher than Amazon, but I couldn’t tell you what that means. I think around 1500 Goodreads / 100 Amazon is the cut off to be competitive, so KSR is well above that. Score doesn’t seem to matter for either the Hugos or Nebulas; VanderMeer won a Nebula last year with a 3.62 Goodreads score.

(9) Tobias Buckell is losing readers right and left. Mostly right. “Today’s passive aggressive fan mail: reader will not read more of my books because I don’t speak English English as my first language”

(10) Peter David “Just when boycotts couldn’t get any more stupid: Star War VII”

When the first “Star Wars” film came out in 1977, it was criticized for the overall whiteness of it. The one major black actor, James Earl Jones, wasn’t even given voice credit (his choice). This was answered with the introduction of Lando in the very next film, but still, mostly white.

So now the new film prominently features a black hero and there are actually idiots who are declaring it should be boycotted because of that? I mean, I knew there are people for whom Obama can do no right because of his skin color, but this is quite simply insane.

(11) But Gary Farber says it’s a fake boycott trolled by 4chan.Here’s one of those claiming credit.

(12) Meanwhile, in the interests of being fair and balanced, we bring you the A.V. Club’s post “Conservative pundit bravely comes out in support of the Galactic Empire”.

Star Wars’ Galactic Empire tends to get a bad rap. Oh sure, Emperor Palpatine started the whole thing by manufacturing a phony war to scare people into supporting a leader who would slowly take away their freedom in exchange for “safety,” the entire organization is suspiciously stocked with almost exclusively white human men, and there was that one time it destroyed an entire planet full of innocent people just to prove that it could, but is any of that stuff objectively evil? Conservative pundit Bill Kristol doesn’t think so, according to a tweet he posted this morning in response to a joke about how the Star Wars prequels encouraged conservatives to root for the Empire….

(13) Today In History:

  • October 20, 1932 — James Whale’s The Old Dark House makes its theatrical debut.

(14) Today’s Birthday Boy:

  • Born October 20, 1892 – Bela Lugosi. As they say at IMDB:

It’s ironic that Martin Landau won an Oscar for impersonating Bela Lugosi (in Ed Wood (1994)) when Lugosi himself never came within a mile of one, but that’s just the latest of many sad ironies surrounding Lugosi’s career.

(15) Today’s Birthday Book:

The Return of the King, being the third part of the novel, was released on 20 October 1955, completing the publication of the tome that had begun on 29 July 1954 with the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring. The Return of the King had originally been planned for release much earlier in the year, but Tolkien delayed it due to working on the book’s appendices, to the annoyance of readers (yet another epic fantasy trend begun by the Tolkmeister).

(16) Belfast-born writer C.S. Lewis is to be honored in his native city with a series of new sculptures depicting characters from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe reports the BBC.

Belfast City Council has commissioned six new pieces of public art, including Aslan the Lion and the White Witch.

They will be erected in a new civic square, currently under construction, at the Holywood Arches in east Belfast.

…As well as the lion and the witch, the six pieces of art also include sculptures of Mr Tumnus, Jewel the unicorn, Mr and Mrs Beaver and the Stone Table

(17) Belfast is also where the third C.S. Lewis Festival takes place from Thursday 19 – Sunday 22 November 2015, marking the 52nd anniversary of the death of the author, theologian, academic and creator of the incredible Chronicles of Narnia series.

Across 4 days of Lewis-related events will be reflections and assessments of the cultural significance of Lewis’ rich legacy, the impact he had on Belfast, as well as the strong influence his native city had on his vast body of work.   There will be something for everyone with many magical and free events offered; it’s definitely worth checking out.

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898. The C.S. Lewis Festival will recognise and celebrate both his life and his legacy to the world.   Across 4 days of Lewis-related events will be reflections and assessments of the cultural significance of Lewis’ rich legacy, the impact he had on Belfast, as well as the strong influence his native city had on his vast body of work.

(18) Free lifetime memberships for trying it! One of the best book cataloging sites. LibraryThing launches in iPhone app.

We’re thrilled to announce the official LibraryThing iPhone App!

What it does. This is our first version, so we’ve limited it to doing the most basic functions you’ll need for cataloging on the go:

  • Browse and search your library.
  • Add books by scanning barcodes. Scanning to add is VERY FAST!
  • Add books by searching.
  • Browse and upload covers, using the iPhone camera.
  • Do minor editing, such as changing collections and ratings. Major editing sends you to LibraryThing.

(19) Wait, you mean it isn’t fake? “This Software Lets Someone Else Control Your Face”

Researchers created expression transferring software that projects mouth, eye, and other facial movements onto another face in real time.

(20) “Life on Earth likely started 4.1 billion years ago – much earlier than scientists thought” reports Phys.org.

“Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously,” added Harrison, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. “With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly.”

The new research suggests that life existed prior to the massive bombardment of the inner solar system that formed the moon’s large craters 3.9 billion years ago.

“If all life on Earth died during this bombardment, which some scientists have argued, then life must have restarted quickly,” said Patrick Boehnke, a co-author of the research and a graduate student in Harrison’s laboratory.

Scientists had long believed the Earth was dry and desolate during that time period. Harrison’s research—including a 2008 study in Nature he co-authored with Craig Manning, a professor of geology and geochemistry at UCLA, and former UCLA graduate student Michelle Hopkins—is proving otherwise.

“The early Earth certainly wasn’t a hellish, dry, boiling planet; we see absolutely no evidence for that,” Harrison said. “The planet was probably much more like it is today than previously thought.”

The researchers, led by Elizabeth Bell—a postdoctoral scholar in Harrison’s laboratory—studied more than 10,000 zircons originally formed from molten rocks, or magmas, from Western Australia. Zircons are heavy, durable minerals related to the synthetic cubic zirconium used for imitation diamonds. They capture and preserve their immediate environment, meaning they can serve as time capsules.

(21) A New York Comic Con panel on the economics of Star Trek  gathered Trek writer Chris Black; Manu Saadia, author of the book “Trekonomics”; Annalee Newitz, founding editor of the culture site io9; moderator Felix Salmon, of Fusion; Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist; and Brad DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

“Gene Roddenberry tried to paint our future,” said DeLong, noting that we’ve gone far down that road. “We’re now, in fact, approaching post-scarcity in food and products.”

But, as Newitz pointed out, because “Trek” is a future where money no longer exists, people work because they want to but are therefore supported by other economies. To prove her point, she cited as an example “Measure of a Man,” an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” that centered on the character of Lt. Cmdr. Data, an android.

Even though Data is a crew member of the starship “Enterprise,” unlike his fellow crewmates, he’s a robot. But does that make him a person or Starfleet property?

“We’re constantly being reminded that slavery and low wages support the comfortable, ‘Enterprise’ living,” Newitz said….

Salmon, the panel’s moderator, pointed out that in 2016, “Star Trek” will turn 50 and Thomas More’s book, “Utopia,” will turn 500. He then asked the panel if there is anything utopian about “Trek.”

“We are problem-solving, puzzle-solving, status-seeking creatures,” DeLong said.

Krugman responded by saying: “People have an amazing ability to be unhappy. The problem with utopia is not the lack of scarcity — it’s people.”

[Thanks to Will R., Steven H Silver, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

 

542 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/20 Hugo, we have a problem

  1. good going, Canada!

    That was by far the most physically demanding election I’ve worked. 13 hours, two one-minute pee breaks. Lunch but I screwed up my dinner arrangements. Super-busy all day, until the Jays game and then it just dropped down to busy.

  2. @Lauowolf

    Here’s how the badges work in England – Option 1: You receive a benefit which automatically entitles you – in my case this was DLA higher rate mobility and, depending on the assessment, will hopefully be PIP in the future. Option 2: Councils have a limited ability to give them out locally based on their own criteria, which varies depending on area. This requires Yet Another Assessment.

    I’ve looked into option two – I have the form ready to go, actually, in case of this dragging out forever – but Yet Another Assessment of uncertain timeframe and eligibility requirements is edging past my ability to cope with government/healthcare bureaucracy right now (since I’m also at the tail-end – I HOPE – of half a year of pain management/occupational therapy/physio/podiatry/dental surgery run-around).

    I’ve also enquired as to whether my sort of extended ish DLA award (while the PIP is being bureaucracy’d, they can’t cancel DLA – presumably because witholding a sizable chunk of a disabled person’s income because the government is being slow at processing applications would look really bad) might work for getting at least a short extension on the blue badge, but no-one I’ve phoned so far seems to know the answer to that, which is dead helpful.

  3. 60 fifths!
    Sorry, don’t have anything else to contribute right now.

    Edit: rats. Missed it by this much.

  4. @ Aaron:

    Maybe he did decline and no one said anything.

    Which would be unsurprising. It would have been a private conversation, after all, and editors usually don’t repeat private discussions in public. Writers with professional self-conduct also don’t (which is why I was, for example, so flabbergasted to see Lou Antonelli publicly post, WITHOUT PERMISSION, that letter he received from Carrie Cuinn at Lakeside Circus. Who DOES that???–well, obviously, very unprofessional writers).

  5. I don’t believe Torgersen revealed the names of anyone who declined before the publication of the list, which is to his credit.

    I hardly ever get to say that, so even though this probably comes under basic professional courtesy, its to his credit, dammit. Gotta start somewhere.

  6. Meredith

    Then I will maintains the crossed fingers until your evaluation has decided properly…

  7. @Meredith, I’m sorry for both your frustrating day, and the sad reason for it.

    @Everyone, Rosie is adopted, and by now on her new home in Vermont. I’m very pleased.

    Here in 4075, proper care and worship of cats is a basic cultural value.

  8. Meredith: I don’t believe Torgersen revealed the names of anyone who declined before the publication of the list, which is to his credit.

    No, it isn’t. Having to publicly admit that high-profile editors and authors wanted nothing to do with your petty little political slate is not exactly something a Manly Man would want to brag about.

  9. Meredith, I’m so sorry about your gruelling, unnecessary trip and the further agonizing delay in your decision process.

    Please take good care of yourself. I hope you recover quickly.

  10. Meredith: How frustrating! I hope they get you in again soon (but not so soon you haven’t recovered enough spoons to deal with it).

  11. My official SJW-authorized kitty arrived today! He is not, however, Rosie, and I am not in Vermont. He is also not Siamese. But he is still pretty awesome.

  12. Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate it.

    @BigelowT

    The siamese cat requirement is pretty flexible. There have been some suspiciously tribble-like SJW qualifications around here…

  13. @BigelowT, congratulations!

    Rosie regrets she is not available to be your SJW-qualifying kitty, but is sure her distant cousin will do an excellent job.

    My SJW credential is a Chinese Crested Dog, the dog that knows it’s really a cat. And in 6639, everyone else finally realized it, too.

  14. Meredith, is it bad of me to wish a number of the current Tory government to end up in wheels as a result of painful and debilitating disease and injury, so they can see how much fun it is to be repeatedly sent hither and thither on other people’s orders?

    But they have chauffeurs and wonderful allowances and so many, many aides, so they wouldn’t really get it, would they? And that nice Mr Cameron even had a severely disabled son.

    I hope things improve, macro and micro, for you.

    “I have designed a “Manly Man Card” suitable for printing out and carrying around in one’s wallet like a desiccated condom”

    Here, have an internet to tuck beside the proof of manliness. And your new card too 🙂

  15. @Ann Somerville

    I’ve often wished that spending a week in a wheelchair, a week blindfolded, a week with earplugs in, etc., was a requirement before people are allowed to work in the Department of Work and Pensions. I think they might be less stupid about putting systems together (and less likely to claim that everything is accessible now so disabled people oughtn’t need any help). The problem is that while all those tests would be flawed (it would be very difficult to produce an accurate experience, and probably impossible to do so in an ethical way), none so much as trying to simulate a mental illness without having one, and you couldn’t miss them out. The assessments are already worse for people claiming on mental or partial-mental grounds without widening the gap.

  16. I added a picture of a kitty not unlike the new boy and I am so excited to see it showed up. But of course it did. It’s 8166. We know from gravatars here.

  17. Yeah, Manglobe was a shame. They did some good second tier work(best, arguably, Samurai Champloo) but in the last couple of years both Wit and Trigger have opened, so a case of swings and roundabouts.

    The weirdest anime story I heard recently is Production IG taking over the FCLC licence. That is just insane!

  18. BigelowT: My official SJW-authorized kitty arrived today! He is not, however, Rosie, and I am not in Vermont. He is also not Siamese. But he is still pretty awesome.

    Congratulations! The discovery of the new family member’s personality is always a real <cough> adventure.

    In digging up Buggles videos, then spending another hour or two compulsively clicking through to a bunch of (according to YouTube) related videos, I discovered that my new SJW credential, a black Tribble with claws, seems quite partial to 80s music, as the purring and trilling only got louder. (I discount any possible amplifying effect that may have been caused by the accompanying singing on my part.)

    The older SJW credential, a snowshoe Siamese, adjusted to the singing long ago, and remains unimpressed.

  19. @Mike Glyer

    I don’t know from theories, but I like the Pixel Scrolls with puppy news included.

  20. @Peace
    re: LHB

    I think you’re right about the dating evidence and the “did this actually happen” evidence. I think they’ve also done computer sims and calcs wrt the number of craters on the moon and inferred there was some point at which impacts happened a lot, lot, lot more often than they do now.

    The data in the PNAS paper may influence a number of hypotheses, which is way cool.

  21. I’ve never had a Siamese cat; can I still be an SJW? I’ve had 3 black and whites, one white and orange, and one tortoiseshell. It seems to me torties are excellent for being SJW kittehs, all of them either being female or sterile males. Presumably Siamese-pattern torties would be the ultimate.

    @Meredith: Fie. They couldn’t have phoned? I do think that’s a good excuse for the assessor, but honestly, someone should have phoned. Perhaps you were already on the road.

  22. Tom Galloway: I can’t get over how many people offer coaching and advice to the Sad Puppy leadership. Toward what end? Because you’re actually cool with a slate provided it’s brought about in some antiseptic way you approve? Are you nuts?

    What’s the problem with SP4 having a website where hundreds of people, including, so far, a bunch of regulars here, go to make recommendations?

    What’s the damage done if someone collates a convenient shortlist of the ten most popular? Did you expect people to go read all of the hundreds of items in each category? If someone is interested in hearing recommendations of things to read and consider, within their finite budget of money and time, doesn’t that by definition mean they’ll look at a shortlist?

    There will be Hugo recommendation threads here. If we look through them and tally the Filer Top Ten Recs in each category, should Mike refuse to let such a comment out of moderation? Does that make any sense?

    Yes, I heard about how Kate Paulk mentioned in passing somewhere that if people want their favorite stuff to win, they’d do well to prioritize the items they like which are among the most popular. Why is it a problem to say that? Is it false or misleading? Doesn’t that obvious truth apply equally obviously to those who read Whatever pimpage threads and Tor.com advertorials? Or File 770 threads? Are there dramatic repercussions planned for those sites if someone states the obvious on… oops, now I’ve done it.

  23. My SJW credential is a Chinese Crested Dog, the dog that knows it’s really a cat.

    I’ve got a Maine Coon, the cat who thinks she’s a dog.

  24. What’s the problem with SP4 having a website where hundreds of people, including, so far, a bunch of regulars here, go to make recommendations?

    I suspect that no-one would be objecting to the Mad Genius Book Club, set up to host an open discussion about their favourite books. But given that they chose not to do this, but pin it to the toxic puppy brand, they render themselves immediately suspicious.

  25. Wait, Filers are participating in SP4? Why? I can see no good reason for this. Please enlighten me.

    Meredith: I hope everything gets worked out with the least possible hassle and or pain.

  26. @Brian Z: At least part of it is that the intent behind SP4 was always to create those curated lists.Couple that with the suspicion that they’ll be using a method similar to Brad’s patented 100% Open and Democratic Recommendation List and it starts to smell of slate in the same way that male teenagers tend to smell of Axe (or Lynx if you’re a Brit).

  27. Why? I can see no good reason for this. Please enlighten me.

    I haven’t, but there is definitely the temptation to go and nominate the accursed Scalzi just to make their heads explode.

  28. Gaaah, managed to open File 770 in unfiltered browser and read the comment by Brian Z. Still being dishonest, still asking questions that have been answered, still trying to defend slating, cheating and vote rigging by any means possible.

    Dishonest trolls never change.

  29. Brian Z: I know that over the last 6 months I repeatedly claimed that Kate Paulk wouldn’t be doing a slate next year for SP4, but now she’s announced that she will be doing a slate, so why aren’t you all okay with that?

  30. NickPheas: “just to make their heads explode.”

    Oh, it’s not that I don’t get the temptation, I just think the outcomes are kind of terrible in the end.

    I mean, even if anyone is in earnest trying to influence the slate, a slate’s a slate no matter how good the books on it are, and no matter how it was produced. It’s inherently unfair.

  31. NickPheas on October 22, 2015 at 1:45 am said:

    I haven’t, but there is definitely the temptation to go and nominate the accursed Scalzi just to make their heads explode.

    Let’s not be petty. Moral superiority is one of the perks of being an accursed SJW, or so I hear. So far all I’ve gotten is the cat and there’s some confusion over whether that’s my SJW cat or my feminazi cat.

    Here in the year 4442 we still get cats but since sex-based social roles have been eliminated, all manly-man cards have been replaced with personly-person cards. Also the cards are made by robots with lasers.

  32. I should also note that the robots with lasers require us to carry the cards at all times–or else.

  33. Moral superiority is not giving into the temptation. Sainthood is never feeling it, and I’ve never had any illusions on that part.

  34. Just to be clear, my objections aren’t moral anything, they’re strategic.

    I hope that doesn’t disqualify me from receiving a cat, revenge, SJW, feminazi or Siamese, I don’t care. I’d really, really like one.

    It’s 6406, you’d think they would have fixed allergies by now…

  35. Sure. Head explodey stuff aside, there is a possible strategic gain from forcing the puppies to present works they feel are distasteful but have merit. It either forces them to put good works onto the ballot, which would be better than getting the complete laundry lists of John C. Wright, or it forces them to visibly reject their stated principles, which damages what little credibility they have.
    On the gripping hand, anything that gives them the chance to say “look at all this filthy liberal work on our list, but it placed sixth and so won’t make our final slate recommendation list which you should adhere to without needing to read the works, they have been arrived at after an open and democratic process after all.” Which would be bad.

  36. @NickPheas It would be easy enough to slate the slate and push Scalzi to the very top but since it wouldn’t cause the puppies to learn a lesson about slates and would violate anti-slate principals, all you’re left with is head-explodie.

  37. I should also note that the robots with lasers require us to carry the cards at all times–or else

    I think this wins Iphinome today’s inyernet. But given it is 22/10/5994 she will have quite a wait before she can collect.

  38. NickPheas:

    It either forces them to put good works onto the ballot, which would be better than getting the complete laundry lists of John C. Wright, or it forces them to visibly reject their stated principles, which damages what little credibility they have.”

    Am I a bad person if I say I would really like the chance to no award the heck out of John C Wright?

    I don’t want them to put good works on the ballot, I want them to stop putting things on the ballot except by the regular old means. As for damaging their credibility, you mostly just have to quote them.

  39. Am I a bad person if I say I would really like the chance to no award the heck out of John C Wright?

    Haven’t we already been gifted with that chance? And seized it with all available appendages. Sure, it’s preferable to giving him a rocket, but I’d rather give one to someone deserving.

  40. So would I, of course, but not at the risk of normalizing slates.

    Drivel is easier to vote against.

  41. I think SP4 will punch above its weight just due to the scattered nature of traditional Hugo voters putting down individual choices or not attempting to nominate 5 items on a given category.

    Then the question will be – did they nominate anything enjoyable worth reading ? Time will tell !

    I am not participating in the listings – I will make up my mind on my own. I doubt I will have a full ballot of nominees.

  42. Susana on October 22, 2015 at 2:39 am said:
    I hope that doesn’t disqualify me from receiving a cat, revenge, SJW, feminazi or Siamese, I don’t care. I’d really, really like one.

    It’s 6406, you’d think they would have fixed allergies by now…

    There are promising developments. Actually, even now there is a very tempting option, despite the fact that people react with horror and desbielief – hookworms.

  43. Lurkertype – Pumpkin pie mochi ice cream? I can have such a thing? I think I have a quest for the weekend that will carry me through the Asian grocery stores of my land…

    Meredith – I am sorry. The situation sounds miserable, even if you are not the worst victim of the day. If I ever snap and become a supervillain, I will create a wand which inflicts migraine headaches on those who scoff at the idea of a debilitating headache. Don’t see any reason I can’t create settings for a few weeks worth of mental illness or a particular set of disabilities, while I am at it.

    Lis – Congrats on cat corraling and rehoming!

    I have often thought that Siamese Cat is as much a state of mind as it is a breed. In terms of SJW qualification, I think any sufficiently spoiled lap pet qualifies as a Siamese Cat.

    Y’all make me smile, with food talk and links and man cards and I thank you for it.

  44. I think if File 770 ends up on a Puppy slate I’m going to feel perfectly comfortable giving it a Guardians Of The Galaxy-type exemption for my own personal voting.

    I didn’t read Tom Galloway’s remarks to Kate Paulk as coaching on slating so much as an explanation of how slating can’t help but reveal itself. If Son of Monster Hunter, Return of The Dark Between The Stars and The Chaplain’s Revenge are all getting buzz among Puppy types, but only The Chaplain’s Revenge ends up on a Puppy “Recommendation List” and The Chaplain’s Revenge gets nomination numbers that are two or three times as big as those of Son of Monster Hunter and Return Of The Dark Between The Stars, we’ll all know what happened. And the label above the list will cut no ice.

    And for what it’s worth, I’m very interested in the Puppy stuff, but I like seeing the other stuff too. And a comment thread that is big helps draw me in to read the comments, so I like having stuff all mixed up.

    Though I can certainly understand someone saying “Good grief; what the Puppies say and do never changes and so the responses are understandably much of a muchness too and I’m tired of wading through them.”

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