(1) GALAXY QUEST BURIED TOO? Australia’s News.com says two Galaxy Quest stars are making contradictory statements about the sequel’s future.
Sam Rockwell (“Guy Fleegman”) told The Nerdist podcast that it’s dead, Jim —
IT APPEARS the untimely death of much-loved actor Alan Rickman earlier this year has nixed any hope of a sequel to the 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest.
Rickman’s co-star in the film, Sam Rockwell, revealed that talks were underway to make a follow-up to the cult classic, which saw a bunch of former sci-fi TV stars enlisted to save the world in a real-life battle against alien forces.
“We were ready to sign up for it,” Rockwell reveals on the Nerdist podcast.
“You know, Alan Rickman passed away. And then Tim Allen wasn’t available. He has a show. Everybody’s schedule was all weird. We were going to do this sequel on Amazon. It was going to shoot, like, right now.”
The deciding factor in the sequel not going ahead, Rockwell says, was Rickman’s death in January this year aged 69. Rickman passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. “How do you fill that void of Alan Rickman?” asks Rockwell.
Tim Allen, on the other hand, told The Hollywood Reporter immediately following Rickman’s death that it was still on:
“I’m not supposed to say anything — I’m speaking way out of turn here — but Galaxy Quest is really close to being resurrected in a very creative way. It’s closer than I can tell you but I can’t say more than that. The real kicker is that Alan now has to be left out. It’s been a big shock on many levels,” he said at the time.
(2) KZIN ON LINE TWO. ZD Net reports “World’s brightest X-ray laser boosted with $1 billion upgrade”. David K.M. Klaus jokes, “Looks like Chuft-Captain is going to get a powerful enough X-Ray Laser for the Lying Bastard in time for the trip to the Ringworld.”
The world’s brightest X-ray laser, SLAC’s LCLS, has received a $1 billion cash injection to vastly improve its capabilities and our understanding of how the world works on the atomic level.
The Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, is the home of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) laser system, a critical component for researchers working on atom-based projects.
(3) GETTING WISDOM. Whiting Awards winners get financial counseling in addition to money. The New York Times explains in “Helping Writers With a Windfall Avoid a Downfall”.
“I might be close to solvent,” the poet and essayist Brian Blanchfield said, “but I still think like a deeply insolvent person.”
Mr. Blanchfield, 42, was in a conference room near Times Square recently as part of an unusual group: 10 sometimes-struggling writers suddenly in possession of $50,000 each. Winners of the 2016 Whiting Awards, given annually to up-and-coming authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, they were learning how to handle not just the unexpected payouts but also the complicated emotions that money can inspire: ignorance, confusion, shame, panic, the occasional bout of inchoate elation….
Mitchell S. Jackson, 40 and the author of a novel and a book of essays and short stories, said that until recently he supported himself largely through teaching. At one time, he taught something like eight classes, paying between $1,800 and $5,500 each, at different colleges. He made a lot less than he had when he worked at his first job, dealing crack and other drugs as a teenager in Portland, Ore….
(4) THANK COG IT’S FRIDAY. The PRI radio show Science Friday this afternoon included a segment on “Telling the Story of Climate Change — In Fiction”(“Cli-Fi”) reports Rich Lynch. “Pablo Bacigalupi was one of the guests (via telephone). There was some interesting discussion about his novel The Water Knife.”
(5) WILL GALAKTIKA PAY? The story takes a promising turn – in “Galaktika Magazine: Statement from Istvan Burger” A. G. Carpenter reports:
Istvan Burger, publisher of Metropolis Media and Galaktika Magazine, has issued a statement regarding the reports of massive theft of translated work over the past decade.
Mandiner Magazine has a brief summary and the full statement in Hungarian here.
It seems that Burger is offering to compensate authors effected by the theft and admits that the foreign acquisitions have been mishandled and they “did not act with due diligence, caution, or even speed.”
(6) GOURMAND AT LARGE IN LA. Here’s how John Scalzi tapered off from yesterday’s In-N-Out burger lunch.
I asked for a lot of butter with my oatmeal. This hotel is not fucking around. pic.twitter.com/PdjkyQSStJ
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) April 8, 2016
(7) FAVORITES. Wim E. Crusio begins compiling his “Favorite science fiction classics (I)”. His first three picks are Time Enough for Love, The Witches of Karres, and The Left Hand of Darkness. He explains why. I don’t recall ever seeing Time Enough for Love on anybody’s list of favorites before. (I’ve read it a couple times — I’m not pointing that out because I disliked the book.)
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 8, 1990 — Twin Peaks premieres on ABC
(9) MORE REACTION TO DRAGON AWARDS.
Jason Sanford makes a powerful suggestion.
https://twitter.com/jasonsanford/status/718519358641872896
At The Other McCain “Wombat-socho” writes —
I am probably the last person to find out that Dragon*Con, probably the largest non-comics convention in fandom, has finally bestirred itself and created its own set of awards – the Dragon Awards. This has been greeted with much glee by Sad and Rabid Puppies alike, with Declann Finn going so far as to declare victory. I’d say he and our Supreme Dark Lord are probably correct in predicting that the Dragons will almost certainly eclipse the Hugos, given the much larger voting base which makes any kind of gaming the nominations or the final vote futile. Looking forward to seeing how it works out.
So futile that Vox Day immediately set out to do that very thing?
I am registered to vote in the Dragon Awards and I would encourage you to do so as well. I’ll post my recommendations here the week after the Hugo shortlist is announced, in the event that any of you might happen to be curious about them.
Louis Antonelli isn’t completely opposed to gatekeeping, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to slam the door on fandom.
Hmmm… I guess this mean the fans will go one way, and Hugo your own way (sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)https://t.co/WvOxTXDcrY
— Lou Antonelli (@LouAntonelli) April 8, 2016
Sgt. Mom concludes “Another Round of Puppy Saddening” with an endorsement of the Dragon Awards, at Chicago Boyz.
To some followers of the Sad Puppy Saga situation, the whole matter of a prestigious award in science fiction being bestowed by a diminishing number of Worldcon members seemed quite pointless. They pointed out in comments and blog-posts, that Worldcon is becoming a smaller and more inward-turning science fiction gathering. Why shouldn’t a larger fan-convention gathering work up their own awards, and let the Hugos no-award themselves out of existence. Behold, in this last week, a massive, popular and long-established convention of science fiction and gaming enthusiasts – Dragon-con – has come up with their own proposals, to recognize and award not just a wide range of books and authors, but movies, and games as well. That should prove … interesting to say the least.
Sean O’Hara opines, “What the World Needs Now Is Another Sci-Fi Award Like I Need a Hole in My Head” at Yes, We Have No Culottes.
That being said, not all awards are created equal. That awards are inherently flawed doesn’t mean that some aren’t more flawed than others. The people championing the Dragon Awards (inevitably to be known as the Draggies) seem to think that the award will be better than the Hugos because DragonCon has a larger voter base than WorldCon. But, again, DragonCon is a regional convention. You get a larger sample size, but of a smaller cross-section of society. It’s already bad enough that SF awards are dominated by American tastes without narrowing it further to a specific section of the United States. The people championing the new award aren’t really doing it because of the larger voter base. They’re doing it because it’s nice and provincial — it’s not gonna be tainted by all those damned foreigners and their fellow travelers with their cosmopolitan tastes. This is going to be an award for Hobbits, picking out works full of nice, Hobbity sentiments, and the fact that not anyone outside the Shire will give a damn … well, nothing outside the Shire matters anyway.
Brad Torgersen told his Facebook friends.
And so: the final nail in the coffin of the Hugo awards. Looks like the Dragon Award is basically going to be doing everything Sad Puppies was hoping to get the Hugos to eventually do, but Dragon Con is doing it without having to wade through all the histrionic, caterwauling drama that resulted from the self-appointed defenders of Worldcon correctness and propriety throwing the genre’s all-time biggest temper tantrum. I raise my glass to this, and predict that within ten years, a gold-foil DRAGON AWARD label on a book is going to routinely replace both NEBULA and HUGO labels.
(10) SQUEAKING GATE. There is GamerGate mess around Baldur’s Gate now. Katherine Cross sums it up in an opinion piece “The Siege of Dragonspear drama and the video game community” at Gamasutra.
The past week has seen an explosion in drama amongst a particularly vocal minority of gamers angry about the inclusion of what they see as “social justice” themes into Beamdog’s Baldur’s Gate expansion The Siege of Dragonspear. The conflagration has a few sources; some players are complaining about bugs they claim Beamdog has been slow to fix, but that has been disingenuously used as a figleaf by some of the outraged crowd to mask the true source of their vitriol. Said source is elaborated on in this Niche Gamer article, which complains about–among other things–the very brief inclusion of a trans woman character who has only a minor speaking role, a silly “actually, it’s about ethics…” joke, a Goblin who calls your character racist, and the “sultry voiced rogue” Safana becoming a “sarcastic dissenter” who occasionally insults the player character.
An interesting tweet regarding this:
https://twitter.com/MadAdam_/status/717938548180180992
(11) CASHING IN THOSE COMICS. Yahoo! News knows about a “Superhero Dad Selling 5,000 Classic Comic Books for Daughter’s College Tuition”. See the benefits when people’s collections don’t get tossed?
Al Sanders may have spent his entire life reading about superheroes in his vast classic comic book collection, but now he’s turning into a real-life superhero by selling them all to help fund his daughter’s college tuition.
“As all parents who have college-age kids, we started putting together what it was going to cost and what we needed to do,” the doting dad from Seattle told ABC News of his decision to sell. “You start looking at those options you have, and my comic books were an option. That’s when I looked at their value, and I’m now trying to find a good home for them.”
[Thanks to Hampus Eckerman, Rich Lynch, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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Ah now, oatmeal is rich folk food like caviar and champagne. As a kid it was always cornmeal mush for a hot breakfast cereal. Later I spent most of a summer living on mush after an emergency I couldn’t afford and given a choice of pay the bills or eat. A box of cornmeal goes surprisingly far and, back before the spike in corn prices, was dirt cheap. Oatmeal! Such decadence! 😛
(Yes, yes, uphill BOTH ways. In the snow)
Otherwise though I’m voting with Steve Davidson for coffee as breakfast. Can’t let the blood content get too high in my caffeine system.
I’m mainly thinking of how much I hated that hallucination I had where they made a fourth Indiana Jones movie.
Argh! That auto-fic of the Indiana Jones movies never, ever happened!
It’s hard not to sympathize with such justified denial, but I still think the brilliant twist in the sixth movie actually made the fourth and fifth ones completely worth it.
We will not speak of the seventh.
The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), but I had to think a while to come up with that.
Hmm, I wonder how much of an effect they’ll have. The Locus Poll does get fewer voters than the Hugos, but there’s a 2x scale advantage for subscribers.
My Chinese housemate eats congee for breakfast — leftover rice boiled to a watery texture. It’s not bad if you stir in a bit of pickled vegetables; he has some kind of pickled mushrooms that are particularly good.
I prefer thick-rolled oats cooked rapidly in twice their volume of water so that they’re chewy. Serve with a pinch of salt, butter and/or milk.
VD speculates that they may have to raise that subscriber advantage.
@chad Saxelid – To this day, my friends and I refuse to admit we saw the 3rd Highlander film.
We got lost on the way to the theatre and wound up at a strip club. Nobody can prove different.
To answer my own question, Mad Max: Fury Road is better than Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Drunken Master II is also better than Drunken Master, but I’m not even sure I would have thought of it as a sequel.
I never liked Tron, so I didn’t bother with Tron Legacy.
Steve WRight – re. Maclean’s “the Satan Bug”, I’m afraid you misremembered. The main character is hale and hearty when it starts, and loses his knife by embedding it in a bad guys throat, deliberately.
I’m not sure which one you are thinking of, although starting a book handicapped is a great trick that Dick Francis used in almost every novel of theirs.
The Satan bug was the first book I remember giving me the same sort of horrific fear as Stross’ “The Atrocity Archive”. Interestingly his earlier books were horrible death fests, I stopped reading them as a late teenager when the death toll in “Bear Island” got too much for me when I re-read it, yet his later ones focus on avoiding killing people as much as possible.
Also the nice thing about having a library is that you can access the books easily, and I have just found that re-reading the opening of the satan bug is nice, you can see the work of an experienced craftsman, whereas reading “Dominus” by Tom Fox you are constantly irritated by the excessive use of adjectives and the sentences and descriptions which just aren’t smooth.
@ Aaron –
Silly indeed. But never mind “final nail,” I’m stuck on “the coffin of the Hugo.” There’s a coffin? Oh, noooooo!
Someone should notify Cixin Liu, 9-time winner of China’s most prestigious sf award, that the 2015 Hugo Award he received 8 months ago is “dead!” While you’re at it, alert 2014 Hugo winner and 2015 Hugo nominee Anne Leckie, who also became a New York Times bestseller in 2015, that her Hugo is now post-mortem!
No doubt, John Scalzi will be Very Disappointed to learn that the Hugo he won in 2014 for his hardcover NYT bestseller Redshirts, about 9 months before he announced his $3.4 million publishing deal, is ready for burial. Such a shame.
Recent Hugo nominees and/or winners such as NYT bestsellers George RR Martin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Cathrynne M Valente, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire, and Brandon Sanderson had better get rid of those decomposing rockets before they start to smell.
Or about publishing or the book business.
The right kind of oatmeal can be an acceptable subject for real breakfast, which is a sausage & egg burrito from Wawa.
@Jack Lint – Has there ever been a good sequel to movie where there’s been a long separation between the original and its sequel? Galaxy Quest was 1999, so let’s say 15+ years separation between original and sequel (Can we also leave out Star Wars? No good can come from going there.)
I’m mainly thinking of how much I hated that hallucination I had where they made a fourth Indiana Jones movie.
That sounds like a terrifying hallucination. I’m so glad that movie never happened.
Mad Max (1979), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
I grew up with oatmeal (and Cream of Wheat) with butter and brown sugar, no milk. For some reason, I used to salt oatmeal.
ETA – Sorta ninja’d by Jack and my own internet, which took five minutes to post the above.
I’ve always wondered exactly what was in the “bason of gruel” that Mr Woodhouse consumed so regularly.
The storytelling quality of Tron Legacy is not significantly different from that of Tron.
Take that how you will.
@Jim Henley
I’m not even sure of the gas at Wawa. Don’t eat the food. LOL
Re Distant sequels:
I submit that the only good sequel to Highlander (1986) is the 1995 film The Hunted.
Sure there are plot issues, but less than any of the “official” sequels. It even stars Christopher Lambert. Just shout “There can be only one!” at the screen once the climactic fight ends.
Re Oatmeal:
I take mine with a spoonful of peanut butter for the extra protein and calories. It helped when cycling to work and I cannot break the habit.
The “coffin of the Hugo” — a winning design idea for the World Fantasy Award?
I preferred the TV show Highlander to the movie version myself.
@ Jack Lint –
By contrast, I didn’t like Fury Road–but probably because I’m the sort of viewer who preferred Beyond Thunderdome, which is the only Mad Max movie I liked.
That said, I think Fury Road did an excellent job with creative action scenes, costume, set design, and world-building, and it succeeded well at the kind of movie it tried to be. I’m just not its audience.
@ Tasha– me, too.
Actual bumper sticker spotted at a con many years ago: “Lowlander. There can be but a few!” 🙂
I was once in Shakespeare & Co., the Paris bookstore that was often used as a setting in the HIGHLANDER television show. I had my back to the door, browsing a book… and someone behind me declared in a loud, menacing voice: “There can be only one!”
I whirled!… to find Gardner Dozois laughing over my reaction. (wg)
(About half a dozen people from US sf/f were in France for a convention that week, and we’d traveled up to Paris en masse for a couple of days of touristing afterward.)
@Tasha Turner:
None of the Wawas in downtown Philly sell gas. Though I did pass a gas-station Wawa in Brandywine, MD today. And I love Wawa food, which I eagerly eat several times a week.
There was a 5 year gap between Ghostbusters 1 & 2… and it has to be admitted that “2” was nowhere near as good (and I wouldn’t throw down with someone who thought it was awful)… But even so, I love “2.” Not as much as 1, but I do love it.
I haven’t read I Will Fear No Evil and I assume it’s as bad as everyone says. But I like how it confirms my assertion that Heinlein was a new-wave author.
I also think someone should market a hot unpalatable breakfast cereal under the name Filboid Studge. (Surely the Munro estate couldn’t still sue.)
From the description of an episode of the BBC’s Early Music Show, available via iPlayer :
Available here until (by my calculation) 7am Tuesday (File770 time)
Re. the Satan Bug – re-reading it I find there are some scientific errors obviously, and also that yes, the narrator was run over by a tank and hurt by a gas shell, but that had been 15 or 20 years earlier in WW2. So not quite a handicap to the start of the story.
As is The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Many of Heinlein’s later books become incredibly self-referential, and in parts are definitely fanfic of his own works.
Well, I was trying to ignore them. Some would say that one should ignore NOTB as well, but I quite liked it.
I suppose one could say that late Asimov was crossover fanfic as well. I think that Heinlein, in conceiving a multiverse, handled it better than Asimov, in trying to maintain that this had been the same universe all along.
@Cheryl S: “For some reason, I used to salt oatmeal.”
I’m sure IanP will be relieved to see that someone is doing it right.
I’m still intrigued by the reference upthread to making it with “mild and water” (and if it’s a typo, I don’t want to know). Dark mild or light, I wonder? Perhaps when my pension kicks in next year I’ll have the funds to indulge in a little culinary experimentation in the field of beer-based breakfasts …
RETURN TO OZ was pretty much a sequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ, what with “return to” in the title, and being based on the book that followed the original in the series. I thought it was pretty good. Also, it has Dorothy almost convinced the first one was a dream, which follows on the ending of the movie rather than the book.
@guthrie: I couldn’t believe I was misremembering that badly, so I dug out my own copy! Yes, he’s disfigured and partly blinded and his doctors want to cut his foot off and replace it with a prosthetic; and no, being a Maclean hero, he doesn’t let trivia like this slow him down….
Maclean is one of those writers I respect for his craft more than for his art; he sets out to write high-tension, high-energy action thrillers, and he has the technique for that absolutely down pat. (Mostly – there are one or two books which don’t work so well, I think, but I suspect that’s true of every writer.) He’s not a writer you’d go to for deep psychological insight or the subtle lyricism of the well-turned phrase… but, let’s face it, there is a time and a place for subtle lyricism, and “inside a nuclear submarine that’s on fire” probably isn’t the time or the place. (To give but one example.)
@Jim Henley
I Will Fear No Evil at least had an interesting premise: old man’s brain ends up, without intention of the old man, transplanted in a young woman’s body. It could have between a brilliant dissection of social mores. Of course it’s later Heinlein so it didn’t turn out that way. Still possibly the best of his later works after, of course, Friday. Not a statement that says much, nor a sterling endorsement, but there it is.
@kathodus
Oh yes, there’s a fair bit in “Safe Space” about what Kramer was up to and how people running Dragon*Con supposedly knew about it but looked the other way when he’d walk around with a number of (very) young people in tow. Hard to know how much is true, but it’s certainly a fact that he plead guilty.
Dragon*Con certainly didn’t cover themselves with glory on that one. That’s a lot more serious than the same accusations about Worldcon ignoring a pedophile writer 30 years ago, since it was a) much more recent b) involved a Dragon*Con organizer, not just a random attendee, c) happened at a Con that is far more likely to attract kids in the first place.
But, yeah, “Safe Space” doesn’t give Kramer nearly as much space as it gives to trashing Delany. (Kramer isn’t black.)
@ Laura Resnick
Ah, Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore heaven. One of my proudest possessions is the copy of Islandia that George Whitman sold me there for 10 francs (that’s how long ago), saying he never could finish it. Perfect: hanging around Paris, drowning in Islandia.
In fairness I prefer Scott’s Old Fashioned thick milled oats rather than pinhead for porridge and will add a bit of milk as well as water so I’m not wholly traditional.
@Laura Resnick I whirled!… to find Gardner Dozois laughing over my reaction. (wg)
What fun. What a great memory. LOL
@Jim Henley
I’ve only seen Wawas in NJ with gas. Enjoy the food I guess.
@Greg Hullender
Oh the decisions the SP & RP should have to make:
1. Keep promoting Safe Space as Rape Room and not go all out excited for Dragon*con Awards
2. Stop promoting Safe Space as Rape Room and continue plugging the Draggies as the best thing since sliced bread
Because the 3rd choice would show a total lack of consistency and we know SP/RP are about a consistent message:
3. Promote Safe Space as Rape Room and plug the Draggies
Oatmeal is porridge (and not only to the Scots), though when we moved to New Zealand it was slightly confusing because growing up in Malaysia (formerly part of the British Empire) ‘porridge’ to me could mean either oatmeal or rice congee. We always knew which we were talking about, didn’t everyone?
Oatmeal is supposed to be good for diabetics but not in the way I like it: made with milk & some water where needed, topped with brown sugar.
The porridge a.k.a. rice congee? That’s one of my comfort foods.
1) I hope it’s not made, and I sure as hell wouldn’t find Tim Allen to be a legitimate source on anything, except maybe the effects of cocaine.
8) Good. Let the sad puppies fight the Cosplayers and the Twilight/Divergent kids and the weeaboos.
I see that Teddy has released a list of evil SJWs to never ever hire. I’m sure that won’t backfire at all. He’s already got dissension in the ranks as they want to add anyone they have an issue with while he demands that they keep the scope narrow. Someone pointed out that he himself should be on that list.
Oatmeal and brown sugar are made for each other, whether homemade steel cut or instant in a pouch. I think maple brown sugar is Quaker’s best-selling instant, though apple cinnamon probably runs it a close second. Nuts and fruits are always good. But if you only have butter, that’s good as well. Cream of Wheat is just too dull, no matter what you put in it — it’s literally wallpaper paste, or a street team could use it to stick up posters for your band. Grits with cheese are good.
But I am very intrigued by Heather’s sushi oatmeal. Scottish sushi! (they do have splendid salmon there) And possibly a less-spicy version of PJ Evans’.
@Sean O’Hara: Fair enough, but I don’t think the Puppies are latching onto it just because it’s Southern American — they’re latching onto it because they’re desperately looking for some award, any award to game. And “email all the votes you want” looks easy to game. The MURICA FUK YEA part of it is just a bonus. Which I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they hadn’t even thought of till you mentioned it, frankly — their mission is to Freep ALL The Awards.
(Everything must be huuuuuge and they must win, which is why Teddy et al lurrrve Herr Drumpf.)
If the Dragonish-esque awards were limited to only members, then the puppies, gators, and other right-wing malcontents would stand NO chance against the young ladies, PoC, queer-friendly and cosplay types. Being an internet poll, though, I’m imagining gators, Boaty McBoatface, and Rick Astley ranking pretty high. Or maybe a hundred duck-sized horses.
Starting with TEFL, Heinlein basically just started fanfic’ing himself over and over, which coincides with when he stopped getting Hugos. Too much navel gazing. The Heterodyne solution is more elegant — and the radio plays are a hoot. Watch one if you possibly can (Kevin makes a great announcer; Tom Galloway is a fine Krosp. Meow.).
There can be only one Highlander movie. That’s it. There can also be only one Highlander TV show, which actually was better. It made more sense and explored the concept a lot more thoroughly. Does Dozois wield swords?
@Laura, @Tasha and @lurkertype: I also preferred Highlander – the Series to the movies, though the first one was good. Not as good as the series, though. The less said about the sequels, the better.
@Tasha I noticed the same inconsistency regarding canine squeeing about Dragon Con and the Dragon Awards, while at the same time promoting VD’s “exposé” about pedophiles in SFF, since one of only two actual pedophiles mentioned in that thing used to be a Dragon Con organiser. But then they’re puppies, so consistency is not to be expected.
Oatmeal: Like Steve, I’m not a big fan of breakfast, but when I need to get up early, I have homemade muesli made from rolled oats (the ones in the yellow package that don’t get soggy so quickly) and whatever dried fruit and nuts I have at hand. Then I add milk and a teaspoon of mixed wheatbran and shredded flaxseed. Sometimes, when I feel fancy, I add in some fresh fruits. No water, no sugar (that’s why I mix my own muesli), no heating, no butter, no soaking. Honestly, rolled oats get soggy so quickly – even the tougher ones in the yellow package – that I don’t get why you would want to soak them at all. Though I also make some great cookies from rolled oats at Christmas time.
As for that pasty stuff in Scalzi’s tweet – just no. Reminds me of grits, which almost every German who ever had them, dislikes intensely.
@alexvdl
I see that Teddy has released a list of evil SJWs to never ever hire.
Oh my, that’s the silliest thing I’ve seen all week. His minions have even made themselves a wiki so that they can record the dread SJWs and collate all the “evidence”.
I predict people will feel offended if they don’t make the list.
And Pixel, when you call me, you can call me Scroll.
The oatmeal thread reminds me of a long-ago poll on a hackerish mailing list as to what the best breakfast was. The results were: 3. Pop-Tarts 2. Cold pizza 1. Lunch.
In the whole history of the world, has there ever been anyone with as much time on his hands as VD?
I cannot help suspecting that much noise and nonsense in the sf/f community would never have happened if only VD would find a craft or sport he liked. Knitting, collaging, badminton… SOMETHING!
@mark
I’m feeling feisty, not down, today, so yeah, I’m disappointed that I am not on this list.
OTOH, strangely and oddly, I get unironically retweeted by the Castalia House Blog whenever I tweet a link to a new podcast episode on SFF Audio on our PKD reading project. The first time I figured it was done mockingly, but they’d done it several times now, apparently in all seriousness and respect. Go figure.
Mark on April 9, 2016 at 5:29 pm said:
I won’t be offended, because who the heck am I? But I certainly want to know how I can make the list. I mean, honestly, what an honor that would be! 🙂
it was always cornmeal mush for a hot breakfast cereal
My grandmother made fried mush. (Pack it in a loaf pan until it’s cold, then slice and fry, preferably in a pan where you’ve just fried ham, bacon, or sausage.)
I like multigrain hot cereal, but oatmeal with whole flaxseed will do. Smooth is Not Good.
Oatmeal – I prefer it baked, with brown sugar and apple (or some other fruit). I’m not a big fan of more traditional preparation methods. It’s a texture issue.