Pixel Scroll 4/8/16 “…And He Built A Crooked Mouse.”

(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.

(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.

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.

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:

(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.]

278 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/8/16 “…And He Built A Crooked Mouse.”

  1. Slightly off topic, but today’s poem for National Poetry Month, “The Cat’s Song,” by Marge Piercy, is really cute and absolutely true.

    Also: the Dead Elk salivating over that SJW Wiki? That’s hilarious. Soon, people will be lining up, saying, “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.”

  2. Laura Resnick on April 9, 2016 at 5:41 pm said:

    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!

    We can at least be thankful that he’s given up inflicting his dreadful fantasy writing on the market.

  3. Maple and Brown Sugar is one of my least favourite Quaker Oats flavours, because they get the maple so very wrong and sugar it up even more than they need to.

    I didn’t have homemade oatmeal until the last handful of years(and usually had it myself with berries, cinnamon, and either real maple or brown sugar but not both), but it’s a staple for my (Diabetic) sister-in-law. She’ll cook a week’s worth of steel-cut or otherwise sturdy oatmeal, mix with a couple of spoons of peanut butter, and freeze the portions. To eat, she microwaves it THEN adds frozen berries, as it’s pretty much impossible to have it consistently hot without some bits being too hot. The berries cool the oatmeal back to edible, and the oatmeal thaws the berries, pretty much by the time she’s done stirring. I tried that at her place and thought I could stand to have that as breakfast about every second day or so (which is high praise from me – I am not generally a “same thing every time” kind of person), but I’ve never got into the necessary habit of actually making the batch.

  4. “We can at least be thankful that he’s given up inflicting his dreadful fantasy writing on the market.”

    Preach!

  5. Re: Locus Awards – We really should quit giving VD ideas.
    Thanks for the reminder about them, though. I need to make sure my double vote (being a subscriber) is counted. Now if I can just track down an envelope that has my subscriber number on it.

    In any case, remember to cast your vote, especially if you are a subscriber.

  6. @Peter J – 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 …

    That’s…a worthy ambition. Slainte. 🙂

    Also, that SJW list is kinda off kilter. And I remain puzzled as to how he fits all the clowns in that tiny car.

  7. @Bonnie McDaniel

    Come now, cats are always on topic 🙂

    Very nice poem. Thanks for the link!

  8. Lee Whiteside: Re: Locus Awards – We really should quit giving VD ideas.

    Seems to be a weakness in fan psychology — it’s much more important to say something and be the smartest one in the room at this minute than it is to avoid giving bad ideas to somebody who will use them.

  9. Teddy’s followup post for that list of SJWs is delightfully nutty.

    He seems to be claiming that it’s got his opponents all worked up into a frenzy but mostly people appear to be laughing at him and his idiocy.

  10. He seems to be claiming that it’s got his opponents all worked up into a frenzy

    I don’t think VD has any opponents. There are a lot of people who find him laughably loathsome or tediously repellent, but I don’t think anyone would refer to him as their opponent. His ludicrous antics and incoherent ranting don’t rise to that level of validity.

  11. The best oat porridge I ever had was in Orkney, at a B&B. My late husband John and I were tired of full Scottish breakfasts by that point in the trip, and asked if we could just have porridge. I have no idea how they made it, but it was heavenly.

    John’s Scottish uncle also made a fine bowl of porridge. He soaked his overnight, and cooked it in the morning in a double boiler. I’m not sure what type of oats he used. (That is a wonderful house to visit, in many ways. I just don’t get to Edinburgh often enough.)

    Microwaved rolled oats just doesn’t compare. Stove top rolled oats is already lots better (to my taste) than microwaved. I don’t know why.

  12. @Mike Flyer

    Seems to be a weakness in fan psychology — it’s much more important to say something and be the smartest one in the room at this minute than it is to avoid giving bad ideas to somebody who will use them.

    Ouch. That hits close to home.

  13. @Laurs Resnick: very good point. The people he imagines are his opponents or nemeses, then.

  14. @nickpheas

    I’ve seen quite a few tweets by people wanting on the list, so yeah, certainly some people do and typically by people that the loser division doesn’t target – ie not women/ trans/ etc.

    The most hilarious thing is seeing Day’s not-so-slow meltdown as the Dead Elks keep putting in anyone they don’t like on to it. Clearly, this failure in maintaining the ideological purity of an enemies list is but a step in his Xanadu Strategy.

  15. SJW LIst. Funny. I just finished re–reading Bunch & Cole’s Sten series (milsf with some fun insider references & borrowing from other universes; first 3 were pretty damned good, the remainder tailed off, the finale was weak) and one thing that comes up pretty regularly are “enemies lists” and how underlings tend to add a few of their own names once the list is created by the Supreme Leader. I mean, if you’re going to send out a squad to make people disappear in the middle of the night, you may as well make the exercise worth the effort, right?

    Almost every time I read one of Beale’s rants/programs/campaigns, I’m reminded of something I’ve read in a (usually) milSF book. Makes me wonder….

  16. Surely it’s a compliment to be on Teddy’s list?

    I don’t see how. The list is about him and his impotent rage, not about the people on it. He just wants attention. As always.

  17. You all almost have me checking out his blog to see the SJW list. Or the Wiki. I keep reminding myself I’m stronger than that. Thanks very much for not including links or I might have given in. Who cares what VD is up to when it’s this level of petty play at book villain?

  18. I suspect it’s a weakness in human psychology to want to be the smartest kid in the room. I’ve all too often been “the smartest kid in the room” and paid for it later. That’s why I like coming here-I’m not even close to being “the smartest kid in the room”. It actually feels good to be in the bottom half of the class for a change!

  19. Fine, you all win! I went to VD’s blog and followed the link to the wiki, then back to the comments. This may be the best thing VD has ever done. Admittedly, it’s a one-dimensional joke and the humor only goes so far, but the comments section… oh, the puffing and preening and bahk-ba-gakking of those struttin’ lil’ fellers. It’s all 4GW strategy and tactics. They’re going to create a multitude of mirrors so that the SJWs can’t shut them all down, and the SJW movement will be destroyed! DESTROYED! The SJWs were all playing 3D chess, but the whole time VD and his mangy-but-plucky elk were playing in 4, 5, maybe even 8 dimensions.

    My Mom once told me this joke*: “What’s the height of conceit? An ant floating down a river on its back with a hard-on, yelling ‘raise the drawbridge!'” I’m getting the same message from this latest VD endeavor.

    * That is literally the raunchiest joke my mother ever told me. I was stunned.

  20. Robert Reynolds
    It’s interesting. I, too, had this idea I was smart, talented, etc., but in a college class with all these gol-dang kids who are taking full loads, I’m just someone who’s occasionally interesting. On the plus side, I am optimistic as hell for the future leadership of my country.

    kathodus
    “…just then, a coconut falls on the oblivious elephant’s head, and she grunts a little, and the mouse starts humping twice as hard and says, ‘Suffer, baby, SUFFER!'”

  21. @Tasha:

    I continue to resist. Be strong!

    (Also I have resolved to call VD “Theodore” from now on, because Theodore was always my favourite Chipmunk. Then I started trying to filk “The Christmas Song” but it didn’t go so great.)

  22. Catching up after too long…

    Oatmeal:

    I don’t eat the stuff often, so when I do, it’s usually the instant stuff. I like to add one envelope of hot chocolate mix to three envelopes of oatmeal in a big bowl for just the right amount of chocolatey goodness. (And although I’ve lived in the South for my entire life, I’ve never been able to stand grits.)

    Odd breakfast-related tangent: I went shopping yesterday and picked up some microwavable sausage biscuits, which came in regular and buttermilk varieties. I decided to splurge on the higher-priced buttermilk. I’m sure it’s worth the extra penny. (True story – $4.92 vs. $4.93.)

    All that said, I kicked off my day today with sweet-and-sour fried rice, extra soy sauce. (There was a mix-up with the takeout last night. My sweet-and-sour combo needed about one-and-a-quarter containers of rice, but got two, leaving me with a full belly, extra rice, and not quite enough flavor. Thus the extra soy sauce and unconventional breakfast.)

    Mizhena:

    Haters gonna hate, I swear. As for the “badly written” argument – look, it’s one line of dialogue, and one of the proposed fixes is “you should have to go on a quest to find that out.” Yeah, because it’s so realistic that a company’s going to write an entire quest about a character when one scrap of dialogue got so much negative attention. (If dipping your toe into the pool is uncomfortable, why would you follow it up by cannonballing in?) Doing that would just cause complaints from all the gotta-do-all-the-quests people that the character’s gender was being forced on them.

    Further, I can’t stand the “she should be more circumspect” argument. Yeah, because a second-world fantasy setting matches 2016 Earth in all other respects, right? This is a setting with all kinds of gender-bending magic and religions; wouldn’t trans characters be better tolerated there? Applying current social norms like transphobia to a fantasy world… now that would be bad writing! I’m with Ed on this; if you’re okay with interspecies procreation, one trans character shouldn’t faze you in the least.

    It’s a game, people. Play it (or don’t) and move on.

    TEFL:

    Not my favorite Heinlein, but far from my least favorite. I mean, it’s no Farnham’s Freehold.

    @Soon Lee: “A short fiction award to honour Eugie Foster? I like the idea. But in relation to the Dragoncon Awards, I don’t know.”

    She was a volunteer there for years. I can’t think of a more appropriate con/award pairing to honor her, although I’d hope the Dragons are run well enough for it to BE an honor.

  23. I don’t remember if it got a name, but one of the Laws of Usenet was: if you want to know the answer to something, post an obviously wrong answer. People will fall all over themselves to prove you wrong, where they wouldn’t bother to answer a simple question.

  24. @Tasha Turner,
    I’m holding out too! *clink*

    @Dawn Incognito,
    I now refer to him as Vox Day (pompous as it is) because it’s his self-chosen moniker. I used to refer to him by other names (VD, TB, Beale), but realised it was not that different to namecalling. I choose not to lower myself to those using names like CHORF, Puppy Kickers etc. to denigrate people I don’t like. YMMV (obviously). These days I show my contempt of Vox Day by ignoring him.

    @Rev. Bob,
    I was aware of her relationship (and Matt Foster’s) to DragonCon. If it’s a good well-run award, it would be an excellent way of honoring her memory. My reservation is mostly because we still don’t know whether the DragonCon awards will work out or if they’ll end up in a hot mess. I guess my concerns are the same as yours.

    Internet voting hijacked? Inconceivable!

  25. @Soon Lee:

    Given that the leader of Rabid Puppies has posted here and in his own comment section as “VD,” I find it difficult to equate referring to him by those two letters with namecalling. It would be like me getting upset if someone called me “Bob” – that’s how I chose to be seen here, so I have no right to complain if people use that name for me.

  26. @Rev. Bob,

    It’s just me. He might sign himself VD, but other’s have made the connection between ‘VD’ & ‘Venereal Disease’ (and TB & Tuberculosis). It might be funny one time. Contemptuous though I am of his efforts to dehumanise others, I choose not to dehumanise* him in return. He’s still a human, though IMO a bad one.

    *I have the same problem with ‘Rethuglican’, ‘Libtard’ etc. Our Prime Minister John Key isn’t well-liked by some who accuse him of cronyism & running the country like a mafia, and call him Don Key. Whether I agree with his policies or not I don’t see how calling him Don Key helps civil discourse.

  27. @Soon Lee:

    I was walking home in the unseasonable snow (what the hell, spring?) thinking about this. Specifically, if using Vox Day’s real name is similar to using the “deadname” of a transgender person. I’m not sure if it is, but I understand where you’re coming from.

    I will try to ignore him as well, and not refer to him at all. However, I reserve the right to read any hateful excerpts in a Chipmunk voice in the privacy of my own head as a sanity-preserving measure. I only have about 18 Sanity left, and don’t relish the idea of exploding when I enter a room like in Eternal Darkness.

  28. Steve- yes, I think it’s the not letting it slow him down bit that made me forget the issue. IN fact I’ve forgotten a lot about it. Might have to re-read more of them.

    I find it interesting you say high-tension, high-energy action thrillers, because re-reading it, I find that there’s a fair bit of tension, but done through talking and some explanation. A lot of modern authors could learn something, with their pointless chases and lack of interactions of main characters with other people. Ludlum was also good that way, some of his books seem to be 90% talking, but instead of being boring it’s gripping and tense.

    Hmm, is anyone doing anything like that nowadays? I guess a lot of the thrillers are like Jack Reacher books, one of which I read and I felt no need to read others, and I recall some violence, but not a lot of plot or character and not so much tension either.

  29. @Dawn Incognito
    There’s my buddy. Thank you. Reading him in chipmunks voice. LOL

    @Soon Lee
    *clinks* and thanks the more in my buddy system the better.

    I now refer to him as Vox Day (pompous as it is) because it’s his self-chosen moniker. I used to refer to him by other names (VD, TB, Beale), but realised it was not that different to namecalling

    I’ve written before on being careful of the names one chooses for themself* as it may come back to haunt you because of the initials. I refuse to type out his full name for a variety of reasons. Using his given name may be wrong for the reasons you mention. Mostly I try to ignore him and mention him as little as possible. On the other hand I don’t have a problem calling a person who is ok suggesting I want to be raped by his initials, VD. Having been raped I can, with full confidence, say he is wrong.

    *as a refresher: Malka Esther = ME (it’s all about ME LOL) when I chose it I was going for something less egotistical than my husband’s suggestion Malka Bracha = queen of blessings. Oops

  30. @Dawn Incognito,
    I remember good old SAN points from “Call of Cthulhu”, the one IIRC that had a Lovecraftian glossary at the back? Squamous, rugose, batrachian, Cyclopean etc.?

  31. Rev. Bob: Given that the leader of Rabid Puppies has posted here and in his own comment section as “VD,” I find it difficult to equate referring to him by those two letters with namecalling.

    I agree. There has to be some modifying innuendo to turn it into namecalling.

  32. Nigel :

    Butter My Porridge, The Scalziman Said.

    Boy, and doesn’t THAT sound like a sleazy sexual euphemism.

    “And in the morning, she really buttered my porridge, if you know what I mean…”

    “No, not really.”

  33. Soon Lee
    I appreciate your resolve. Name-nicking always seems like trying too hard (my position on this has evolved over the years), and it is starting to grate on me to see folks around me working to come up with cute monickers. Sounds like something that [insert unfunny made-up name here (because self-deprecating humor)] would do.

  34. RE: Vox Day’s chosen moniker – I’ve seen some of his supporters disingenuously attempting to claim that, by calling him Theodore Beale, or Ted Beale, or whatever, the SJWs are doxxing him.

    He calls himself VD, both here and at his home blog. I could call him Vox Day, but for some reason, VD just makes more sense to me. I’ll just leave that one un-examined.

    @Tasha: I wish I could be more helpful in the avoiding silly internet drama department, but I am weak and wanted entertaining.

    Lastly, what is the deal with all the shade thrown at grits? Grits are great, especially cheese grits!

  35. @Various,
    Regarding ‘Vox Day’ vs ‘VD’: As I said, it’s something I choose to do, with no expectation for anyone else to do the same.

    @RDF & Mike,
    Nicked from elseweb:
    You can make anything sound dirty by adding just seven words, as the actress said to the bishop.

  36. @Soon Lee, I agree about the name-calling. I think VD is okay, though, since he uses it himself. But Rethuglican, etc., yes, absolutely. Also “fee-fees”. I feel slapped every time I see that. Are we second graders?

    @Kathodus, agreed on the grits. Actually, I like a lot of different kinds of porridge. Grits (with butter and maybe cheese), oatmeal (with brown sugar, milk, and raisins and nuts if I can get them), cream of wheat, Red River cereal, rice congee. Also split pea soup. Yum.

  37. Bonnie McDaniel: Split pea soup is “porridge”?

    Think of “Pease porridge hot/Pease porridge cold/Pease porridge in the pot/Nine days old.”

    I’m pretty sure I actually found the recipe for the “nine days old” pease porridge in a medieval cookbook, once upon a time. It was called “olde pesen in gravy,” or something like that.

  38. RE: Vox Day’s chosen moniker – I’ve seen some of his supporters disingenuously attempting to claim that, by calling him Theodore Beale, or Ted Beale, or whatever, the SJWs are doxxing him.

    Its a pen name. Its on his Wikipedia page. Calling VD Theodore Beale isn’t any more doxxing him than saying that James S.A. Corey is Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck is doxxing them.

  39. @Bonnie, I admit that it’s not a very *modern* usage of “porridge”!

    @Mary Frances, exactly.

  40. I’m fine with calling him Ted or Teddy. I think it indicates my complete lack of respect for the man rather than just being outright namecalling.

    When I call him the SooperJeenyus, on the other hand…

  41. @Heinlein Cussers and Discussers: I enjoyed The Number of the Beast at the time, though it wandered and some stuff made no sense. As for I Will Fear No Evil, I liked it okay at the time, but it had a lot more problems (and a really annoying, cop-out ending). In both cases, his handling of women and men was pretty eye-rolling, in retrospect, but at the time it probably didn’t strike me as much as it would now. I liked the fanfic-crossover stuff in TNotB at the time, IIRC. I never read the later Lazarus Long books, but I have “The Cat…” somewhere, my book database tells me.

  42. @Mike Glyer: “Seems to be a weakness in fan psychology — it’s much more important to say something and be the smartest one in the room at this minute than it is to avoid giving bad ideas to somebody who will use them.”

    Meow. 😉 Do you want to go through life thinking “oh maybe that wacko is reading everything I type, so I shouldn’t say what’s on my mind in conversation with folks on the ‘net”? I sure don’t. He’s a reasonable topic of conversation (you still report on him . . . ), so watching what we say seems silly, at least up to a point; I don’t feel like mentioning the Locus Awards like this is past that point, but I admit, I’m not sure where that point is, if it exists. I suspect he’d’ve thought of the Locus Awards anyway – plus they were mentioned months ago in related contexts, IIRC. And it’s hardly “smartest one in the room” material – it’s kinda brain-dead obvious, isn’t it?! Which is probably why it keeps getting mentioned. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, though, LOL.

    Also: Locus has shown itself quite willing to change rules at the last minute to “fix” things the editors feel are problems with the awards, so I suspect they’ll take care of themselves if they get trolled hard.

    @Pixel Title Suggestion: He Who Must Not Be Scrolled (probably proposed months ago???)

  43. Kendall: So were you the one who gave VD the idea to game the Locus Poll, too? Did I miss seeing where that connection was made?

  44. Catching up after a weekend in DC.

    jonesnori/Lenore Jones on April 9, 2016 at 9:14 pm said:

    The best oat porridge I ever had was in Orkney, at a B&B. My late husband John and I were tired of full Scottish breakfasts by that point in the trip, and asked if we could just have porridge. I have no idea how they made it, but it was heavenly.

    I never had porridge on Mainland, as we were staying in a self-catering hostel, but OMG the ice cream. Orkney ice cream is the best I have ever had. Alas the chances of my getting any more are close to nil. But wow. If anyone ever goes to the Orkneys, have some ice cream.

    (Also, if you’re near Loch Ness, have a meal at the Oakwood Restaurant in Dochgarroch. Oh. My. God. Don’t let the ambiance fool you. The food is ambrosial beyond description.)

    I used to eat Quaker instant oatmeal until I took a close look at the ingredients. Sugar, yes, I knew about that. But the sodium! Wow. Quaker quick oats cook up just as well with boiling water and are just oats. No sugar, no salt, no nothing else except a little cross contaminate grains. And so much cheaper!!

    When I can get maple sugar I eat it with that. Otherwise, brown sugar.

  45. @Mike Glyer: Huh? No, but it’s come up more than once here methinks – perhaps other places (I haven’t looked for it, but again, it seems a rather obvious thing to think of/comment on). So I was baffled by the harsh comment about fan psychology and the implication that we should all tiptoe around Beale. (shrug) That’s all. Sure, people give him way too much attention (including me, as we see from my reply to you 😉 ).

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