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Thalassicus signing in.... Lord have Mercy, but I’ve missed you’s all

Zwei the corgi, lmao. Cowboy Bebop fan alert!

OKAY, let's try this again! Zwei the corg: Pirate the calico: (tuxedo cat whose name I still can't remember): https://boomzilla.io/img/tux.jpg

A few photos from Bill's UK appearances, and the associated WGB gatherings:

Yeah those links are broken for me too! Meanwhile, I officially threw my hat in the ring for these two. Now we'll see if they're already adopted and gone or not… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm in my new place. Got a room off of CL for $550/month. Housemates are pretty cool, kinda nerdy like me. It's not in the greatest location for someone without a car But, at least I have the eBike. sharing the house with a dog and two cats this past week and a half. I love both species very much, but TBH I think I am slightly more of a cat person

I'll become an Arizonan tomorrow afternoon! For three months, at minimum. Hopefully longer, if the company wants to convert me to permanent! Like I've whined a lot about, not a huge fan of the Phoenix metro. That said, I do think the desert southwest wilderness/aesthetic is quite lovely. And, the job itself seems interested/and pays better than what I've had! @InfinityCircuit @heavyboots: I'll be in Mesa until May 1st (if they decline to convert me to perm), or indefinitely (if they *do* want to keep me on). I'd totally welcome another mini-meat Most of my weekends should be free.

For the first time in my life, I have no fur babies. I've taken to befriending the cats that roam my neighborhood... I've officially become a crazy person. This is cute...

It's been literally years! Glad to have found you again. Great to see some of you at the WG event Tuesday. Apologies to any I didn't say hello to.

I would say there's a chance that Scott and I would travel to Mesa to see all of you, after March (I'm working for a candidate in the March primary and we also have two sets of houseguests in March).

We're still in the exponential stage of the growth of this new epidemic: as of right now, about 24,000 cases and 500 fatalities, but growing rapidly. The mortality rate is estimated at about 2%, and mostly the already frail, and it may move around a bit, but the speed of growth and of spread around the world is very worrying. Ubiquitous travel means pandemics will seldom be localised any more, though thankfully ebola has been pretty much contained to date. Don't think there's a vaccine yet, and quarantine seems to have been slowing the rate of growth somewhat but not stopping it. I don't really have a question or a solution... I initially thought the Australian government had panicked and over-reacted by stopping people from China coming into the country, and certainly it will have a huge impact on the start of the university year, with a quarter million Chinese students set to start or return, but time will tell: it might end up being important. Pandemics are something humanity regularly experiences, and Yuval Noah Harari in his recent book 'Homo Deus' claimed we have mostly conquered them... but this is a test.

entertaining the canine

ridiculous creature

OK! Here they are. As it happens, there's 20% off until midnight tomorrow (Eastern time I think?) Profits to whichever charities the artists prefer unless they'd rather have the $$ (does anyone have fuldog's email? he doesn't follow me on twitter) https://shop.spreadshirt.com/bombasticloudmouth/screaming+fist?idea=5e45ef20f9376417e07c6264&color=black

As many of you know, I had an idea for an expedition patch. After a brief amount of discussion on Twitter, we decided on a Screaming Fist patch. Fuldog and Sentinel400 came up with the design and I ordered it from a manufacturer. I still have a few patches to mail out and a few more that remain unallocated. If anyone wants one, please feel free to contact me.

I've been meaning to keep up with Stephenson's writings but he is not making that too easy! Just started on Reamde after finishing Seveneves on the plane from London meet. So far so good, and since I'm a rather a gamer type, there's quite a solid whiff of Doctorow's "For the Win!" in there, but in pleasantly Stephenson-ish style, of course. Beyond that, I'm stuck in the middle of the Wizard & Glass, 4th book of the Dark Tower, for quite some time now, and browsing through the excellent Soonish by the Weinersmiths, got it for New Year's - it is very entertaining even if not much new stuff for me as a science/space nerd, and hilariously presented.

I am interested in a shirt

Yay!

Cool. Send me your address.

Ahem. YES!

Yeah, if you've got any to spare I wouldn't mind one either.

@Marshdrifter Yes please!

I got the reference! was just wondering what was the occasion or relation to maybe some get-together of WGBers or something. By the way, the scale of the Corto's escape was always amazing for me, bordering on an immersion break, just because I have lived 400-ish km from Helsinki for many many years and also happen to know how freakishly far the Angara river is from there but I'm definitely up for a patch, PM me the details?

Yes. I still have some patches left, if anyone wants one.

Neuromancer reference!

these are not loading for me...I thought it was just my phone, but not here either

Slowly making my way through Stephenson's Fall or Dodge in Hell. I'm about halfway in, maybe. My opinion on it so far is that it is on par with the Baroque Cycle. So, among his best work in quite some time really.

Catfishing on CatNet - Naomi Kritzer - One assumes that everyone is familiar with the short story Cat Pictures Please? (go, read! again! http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/) This short novel from Tor Teen is a sequel to the short story, and given the indication at the end that there is another book soon, then the start of something bigger? Stef is a teen girl with no IRL friends, because her mum keeps moving them every few months, afraid that Stef's dangerous father will catch up with them. Her only friends are on CatNet, a forum for people posting cat pictures - after a short time on the board, members are added to a private chat group (a Clowder, like a group of cats), where they will get on with every member. The narrative alternates between Stef and CheshireCat, a member of her Clowder, a member of all the Clowders, all the board moderators...the AI that runs the forum and wants to have friends and see cat pictures. In a new school, Stef finds herself disconnected again, desperate to move on, till she suddenly makes a friend, and before her mum falls ill, and the shit hits the fan. This was great, light, diverse, total page turner, I just found it so much fun. The One That Comes Before - Livia Llwelyn - I had noted Llwelyn after reading and listening to one of her shorts, and planned to follow her work up. Which is what brought me to this novella. The words horror/weird get used in discussion of Llwelyn's work, and I have mixed feelings on those genres - some of it is wonderful, and some of it is mince, and I'm not sure I know enough to pick reliably. This worked as being exactly my sweet spot. Alex is a receptionist in a prestige publishing house, dreading Monday morning, trying to gauge how she is going to balance her alcohol intake between now and payday. Which has her lying awake listening to the horrors in the night, super tired on the way to work with her must have coffee. The latest rich bitch intern bugs her, only there because daddy is well placed, swanning round the office with her diamond pierced gills and being all superior to the ugly, ageing, alcoholic receptionist. But Alex quickly realises today is different - something bad is going to happen, and as things get messy she wishes she had followed the urge to not come in to work. It balances utter mundanity, shitty work colleagues, office politics with a constant low level weird (the air conditioning is shoggoth generated, which is the only explicit lovecraftian reference). Short, sharp and that creepy pleasure. Now reading: Agency

HI!

That's a name we've not seen in a while! 👋

Yay!!!!

Malic Acid

I put my review up on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3159786704

she is baby

yeah, I have been thinking of Bravus, Lithos, Misty, & Herr Kuchen a lot lately...

I'm still alive and kicking. Carry on.