larryhammer: pen-and-ink drawing of an annoyed woman dressed as a Heian-era male courtier saying "......" (annoyed)
[personal profile] larryhammer
So Eaglet gave me a book, Dad Jokes by A. Grambs,* and I am annoyed. Not at the giving — it’s a perfect gift. Eaglet knows me well.

I am annoyed at the book itself.

People, this is not a good joke book. Weak wheezers, forced puns, tenuous connections, so many barely worthy of Uncle Benjamin from The Blue Castle. All too many pages evoke not even a single groan, only ugh — or in Eaglet’s idiom, a flat bruh. In fact, to compare we pulled out Eaglet’s own book, Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids by Rob Elliott, and opening either at random, the kids’ entries are better in every way.

I feel cheated, and disrespected as a dad. 1/5 do not recommend. (Not 0 only because there are a couple pages with something groan-worthy.)


* Copyright is by Alison Grambs.


---L.

Subject quote from In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel.

Mellandagarna

Dec. 30th, 2025 02:45 pm
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
[personal profile] rmc28

I managed to get out for my yoga classes Saturday and Sunday mornings. Saturday afternoon I spent a lot of time faffing and failing to go to the public skates I'd tentatively pencilled in; eventually I dragged myself out for the last one and unsurprisingly I felt much better for having done so. It was much easier to drag myself there on Sunday, and I had a bonus surprise meeting with a work colleague, and a lovely long chat while we skated.

Then it turned out Charles's usual lift to hockey practice (alternate Sunday evenings) had fallen through, so I said I'd take him. I had the bright idea of asking the coach if there was room for me to hop on too as a one-off addition to the class, and so I got a bonus 2-hour ice hockey practice. Oh, that felt so good.

Yesterday I switched things up and took Nico swimming in the early afternoon, which I found surprisingly tiring, and went to yoga in the evening. I got chatting to a fellow student afterward, and it turns out she also works for the university on the same site as me, and knows some of my colleagues, because Cambridge is Like That. We swapped some class recommendations and may stay in touch.

I'm really glad I picked up the hot yoga pass, it's been fun to do regularly and if nothing else it's ensured I left the house pretty much every day. If money were no object I might consider a more regular membership, but it's pretty expensive when not on a promotional pass. Plus between my hockey commitments and the additional gym sessions I want to add in January, I'm really not sure I have the time. Maybe I'll think about it again after the university season is over.

Tomorrow I'll see out the old year with one last yoga class, and then go to the last public skate of the year at the rink in the early afternoon. I'm vaguely planning a movie night with Tony and the offspring, watch the fireworks broadcast from London, and then probably zonk.

Aside from exercise I've mostly been reading, with a side of listening to hockey podcasts fall in love with Heated Rivalry.

(no subject)

Dec. 30th, 2025 09:31 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Allowed Burglar Drake Maijstral is stalked by a mysterious foe.

Rock of Ages (Drake Maijstral, volume 3) by Walter Jon Williams

Yuletide Recs 2

Dec. 30th, 2025 03:27 pm
selenak: (Vanessa Ives by Sakuraberries)
[personal profile] selenak
Darth Real Life is still on my heels, but:


Katabasis - R.F. Kuang

Two different and both clever and sensitive explorations of what the aftermath of the novel might have been like for Alice and Peter:

The Next Step

The Raven's Paradox



The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle


In that clear unpeopled space: the Unicorn's long way to her forest. Has the poetry, the beauty and the character growth of the book.


Lord of the Flies - Willliam Golding

I Remember (Don't Worry) : in which Ralph encounters Jack years post novel. Disturbing in the way the book is, yet with some glimpse of hope.


Penny Dreadful

mimics the lampllight's struggle with the dawn: After a night of victory, Vanessa and Hecate, separately, search for their footing. Missing scene from the second season's finale, with both women and Malcolm expertly drawn.



The Radiant Emperor Series - Shelley Parker-Chan


The Calligraphy of Disgrace: in which we get another take on these novels' entertainingly screwed up soulmates relationship, with an AU twist.


Frederician Historical Fiction

Five times Amalie saw Luise, and one time Luisa saw Amalie: in which the "Five Things" format is expertly used to portray the relationship between the Melanie Wilkes of the Hohenzollern court and her sharp-tongued sister-in-law.

Courting the Chamberlain : in which we find out how Frederick the Great's lover got married to the resourceful Caroline Daum.

The Ring of the Nibelung - Wagner

Loyalty only to me: Hagen learns many lessons from his father over the years.


Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

Again two different takes on a novel's aftermath, the first focused on Magnus, the other on Avi, which also doubles a great take on his development across several timelines.

Some Desperate Hope

Salvation from falling into the sea of misguidances

Update

Dec. 30th, 2025 11:54 pm
vass: cover of album "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" (Yuletide Hippopotamus)
[personal profile] vass
Hi everyone. Sorry I've fallen off the posting again.

Here are some Yuletide recs:

Imperial Radch/Translation State - Ann Leckie: a perfect preservation (so we’ll never fall apart). If you haven't read Translation State yet, then I strongly recommend not reading this fic until you've read canon. Otherwise, recommended. (I was the recipient.)

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson/The New Yorker RPF: Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death

Goose of Soulmate Enforcement trope/Original Fic: #footscraygoose (Especially recommended for people from Melbourne)

Prophet - Sin BlachĂŠ & Helen Macdonald: Wrong Choice

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie: k2, p2, yo, k2tog

Columbo, Princess Bride (1987)
The Princess Murdered

France's language watchdog has told government officials to use French fetish terms... (News Satire): Les immortels au service de la petite mort

Chalion/Les Mis: The Truth that Once Was Spoken

Object permanence issues

Dec. 30th, 2025 02:31 pm
cimorene: SGA's Sheppard and McKay, two men standing in an overgrown sunlit field (sga)
[personal profile] cimorene
People really watch Benoit Blanc movies without having ever encountered any detective fiction other than Sherlock Holmes and feel fully qualified to comment on the connections that they think they've made.

Remember the terrible articles in the late 90s that repetitively and confidently asserted that Rowling had invented YA fantasy, or low fantasy, because they didn't bother to check a single library or bookstore?

Just one thing: 30 December 2025

Dec. 30th, 2025 06:35 am
[personal profile] jazzyjj posting in [community profile] awesomeers
It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

The Spy Who Loved Me - chapters 8 & 9

Dec. 30th, 2025 11:42 am
themis1: Lightning (Default)
[personal profile] themis1 posting in [community profile] girlmeetstrouble
!!!Content warning for violence and threats of rape!!!

Chapter 8: Read more... )

Comment: Viv is in a very tough spot, but does her best to arm herself and think of a way to escape. The villains are extremely one-dimensional ...

Chapter 9: Read more... )

Comment: A really nasty chapter – despite all Viv’s efforts, she only manages to slightly wound the men. I'm guessing help is on the doorstep!

Mudlarking 76 - Grant's Quay Wharf

Dec. 30th, 2025 11:23 am
squirmelia: (Default)
[personal profile] squirmelia
A lunchtime lark and the foreshore was full of tourists.

One man was showing his small daughter how you should scrape the top level off, in an area where no surface disturbance is allowed. That annoyed me.

Anyway, apart from the tourists, there was one other mudlark there that lunchtime, wearing wellies, mostly in the mud.

I didn't find a lot. A chunk of a John Maddock plate, possibly from between 1906 and 1927. I don’t usually find sherds with words on in this area. A bit of a plastic flower. A bit of glass that said 72 on it. A piece of Staffordshire style slipware, some bits of Bellarmine. I was happy to find a button.

It was near to low tide so I walked underneath Grant’s Quay Wharf. It's a bit dark under there so more difficult to mudlark but it feels like you're somewhere secret when you're amongst the wooden struts.

Mudlarking finds - 76

Underneath Grant’s Quay Wharf

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

Yuletide Recs (2025 Part 1)

Dec. 30th, 2025 10:30 am
thisbluespirit: (reading)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit posting in [community profile] yuletide
22 recs in As You Like It, British Airways, Cabin Pressure, Cadfael, Dogsbody, Enigma, Flower Fairies, The Good Place, Georgette Heyer, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Ludwig, The Prisoner, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Time Master, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully & Yes Minister at my journal.

December Days 02025 #29: w00t

Dec. 29th, 2025 11:25 pm
silveradept: A green cartoon dragon in the style of the Kenya animation, in a dancing pose. (Dragon)
[personal profile] silveradept
It's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.

29: w00t )

Mudlarking 75 - Solstice

Dec. 30th, 2025 08:37 am
squirmelia: (Default)
[personal profile] squirmelia
I was awake at 5AM and I was the only person to get on the first train of the day at my station.

It was Solstice, and at sunrise, I was on the foreshore, staring at the Thames and the pink sky.

I found a broken plastic domino! I found a jack (alley gob) similar to the one I found previously!

–

I found a sherd from an inventor who exhibited in the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace!

The sherd says 17 Silver-Street, Wood Street on it.

Mayo & Co were located at this address and appear in a catalogue for the Great Exhibition, which was held at Crystal Palace in 1851.

Description from the catalogue:
“Patent syphon vases, for containing aerated or gaseous mineral waters. They afford the means for withdrawing at pleasure such quantities as may be desired, whilst that which remains for subsequent use retains its purity and effervescence. The vases exhibited are specimens of the combination of metal with pottery. The process of manufacture is the invention of the exhibitor.”

Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851:
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pdp6m5e3/items?canvas=406&manifest=2&shouldScrollToCanvas=true

Silver Street no longer exists, but there is still a small garden - St Olave Silver Street, where a church once stood. There's also a plaque in the garden for Shakespeare as he had lodgings on Silver Street.

–

I found a pink plastic star spokey-dokey, that may once have been attached to a bicycle.

I found an orange button.

I found a stoneware sherd that says “gin”, but it probably contained ginger beer.

Two pieces I haven’t figured out:
The dark brown sherd that has the word “king” visible
The lighter brown sherd that has “N.Higg” visible.

Glass:

–
A good chunk of a bottle that says “216 Kingsland Road” and “Batey” on it. Batey made ginger beer and mineral water and “Batey’s Britannia Steam Works” was located at 216 Kingsland Road from 1847.

How it looked in 1920:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DrLNoPDW4AELDkw?format=jpg&name=medium

212 - 216 Kingsland Road is now the Suleymaniye Mosque.

–

Another piece of a medicine bottle with “Sp” on it, which would have had measurements for tea spoons or table spoons on it.

R Whites, always so much lemonade.

“Ingsland” - likely another Batey.

“Bourne Denby 09” - Probably from 1909.

Not yet identified:

“eet.w.”

“re”

“ford”

–
Mudlarking finds - 75.2


Mudlarking finds - 75.1

Dominoes and jacks - the white ones were the ones I found this time:
Dominoes and jacks


(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

Yuletide 2025 recs

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:11 pm
proteinscollide: (shorn)
[personal profile] proteinscollide posting in [community profile] yuletide
9 recs over at my journal for: IVE, Two Husbands One Wife, Bend It Like Beckham, Billy Elliot, Blackadder, NMIXX, Revenged Love, Sabrina Carpenter - Manchild, Set It Up

2573 / Fic Year in Review, 2025

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:10 am
siria: (the pitt - mel smile)
[personal profile] siria
My fic year in review: Biosphere, Doctor Who, ER, Fire Country, Interview with the Vampire, The Newsreader, A Nice Indian Boy, The Old Guard, The Pitt, Stargate Atlantis, Superman )

Added up, that gives me:

Word Count: 163,779
Fandoms: 11
Stories: 56

This is one of my all-time most prolific writing years, both in terms of total word count and in the fact that I averaged just over a fic a week. I guess vampires + doctors = inspiration. Who knew?

My most average fics on AO3: word count, hits, kudos, bookmarks )

Picture Book Advent Wrap-Up

Dec. 29th, 2025 10:38 pm
osprey_archer: (books)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
And Picture Book Advent draws gently to a close. A note for my future self: although traditionally Advent ends on December 24, I think it would be nice to have a final picture book for the morning of Christmas. (My sister-in-law’s large extended family does a BIG Christmas, so we’ve simply ceded Christmas Day to them and have our own little family Christmas later on, which leaves Christmas morning open.)

Because of the way the dates of Advent fell, I had only two books left to review. First, The Wee Christmas Cabin at Carn-na-ween, by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Max Grafe, a picture book version of a story I first read in Sawyer’s story collection The Long Christmas. After a lifetime helping out in one cabin after another, with never a home of her own, old Oona is at last driven from her final house on Christmas Eve… only for the Good Folk to build her a house, and grant her wish that every white Christmas hence, the hungry and the lonely will be able to find her home for succor.

A lovely story. Another solid example from Sawyer that the spirit of Christmas is “generosity” and not “copious evergreens.”

And second, The Christmas Sweater, Jan Brett’s new Christmas book this year! Theo’s Yiayia knitted an extremely gaudy Christmas sweater for his dignified pug Ari. Hoping to win Ari over to the cozy warm sweater, Theo takes her for a snowshoe in the woods… only for a fresh fall of snow to obliterate his tracks! But fortunately, Ari(adne)’s sweater caught on a twig near the edge of the woods, so they can follow the unraveled yarn back home.

From the dedication, it looks like one of Brett’s children married into a Greek family, and this book is an homage to that family connection. I particularly enjoyed Ari’s expressive face, and indeed all the dogs running around in the snow in this book.
catherineldf: (Default)
[personal profile] catherineldf

It was one heck of a year!
We released 3 titles:

  • Point of Hearts (Astreiant #6) by Melissa Scott
  • Running Dry by M.Christian
  • The Complete Astreiant by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett

Award News:

  • Point of Hopes (Astreiant #1) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett won a Midwest Independent Publishers Association Award for speculative fiction
  • Catherine Lundoff won an Alice B. Readers Award for her body of work in sapphic fiction
  • Terror at Tierra de Cobre by Michael Merriam was a finalist for the Inaugural Small Spec Book Awards, Horror Category
  • The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones was nominated for the Indie Ink Awards in 2 categories, including Aromantic/Asexual Representation
  • The Complete Astreiant by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett is eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Series this year

Other Cool Things:

  • The University of Minnesota Library Upper Midwest Literary Archive is officially collecting us, with a finding guide and everything, crossed listed with the Tretter Collection.
  • Point of Hearts was reviewed in Locus Magazine, our first title in Locus.

Apart from that, we did 36 events this year! That includes conferences, book festivals, bookstore readings, book events at breweries and other venues, podcasts and probably something I'm forgetting. It was a lot! If you were one of the folks who hosted us, bought our books, reviewed our books, supported our Patreon and/or generally helped us get the word out about our books, you rock! Thank you!

And a big thank you to our authors, cover designers, book designer and my assistant, Alexa, for all your hard work this year! Additional shout out to Kate Larking who did a bunch of marketing and publicity work for us! See you all in 2026!


merrileemakes: A very tired looking orange cat peering sleepily at you while curled up on a laptop bag (Default)
[personal profile] merrileemakes posting in [community profile] booknook

Arms Race: And other stories By Nic Low

Nic Low is a writer of Ngāi Tahu and European descent who divides his time between Melbourne and Christchurch. His writing on wilderness, technology and race has been widely published and anthologised on both sides of the Tasman. His first book was Arms Race, a collection of speculative fictions shortlisted for the Readings and Steele Rudd prizes, and named a New Zealand Listener and Australian Book Review book of the year.

This was a real mixed Dog of stories, not in quality or interest but in tone. They ranged from very speculative future dystopias to... I don't even know what the counter to spec fic is. Normie? Mundane? I can't remember the last time I read garden variety fiction. But one of the Low's mundane stories was a total riot - 'Rush' describes a group of First Nations Australians styling themselves as the Aboriginal Land Council of Minerals and digging up a war memorial in central Melbourne to prospect for gold. It was bang on in tone and hilarious in the way it perfectly captured the double standards and unconscious (or just fucking conscious, really) bias of colonised Australia. (hey remember the time when a brown muslim woman tweeted on ANZAC day about the human rights violations Australia was inflicting on (brown and mostly muslim) refugees and the backlash was so strong she lost her job, had to move house and eventually had to flee the country?)

I had to check to see when this book was published to work out which of the many sacred First Nations sites destroyed by the resources industry could have prompted this story, but considering the book is 11 years old there's too many to even consider.

I also really liked 'Facebook Redux', about a 70 year old millennial who digs up his old Facebook Profile to find his dead wife's old profile and gets scammed by Russian AR hackers. A really prescient story about what we broadcast online and how it can be used against us.

Low's style of not using quotation marks for speech was a bit challenging to get used to, but it was worth persevering to experience the depth and variety of these well-crafted stories.

5/5 stars. Some of these stories will stay with me for a long time.

Not Quite an Ice Storm in 2025, Then

Dec. 29th, 2025 09:52 pm
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
[personal profile] dewline
Seems to have fizzled out by morning. Overnight winds tonight are bringing the chills back, though.

I wish I had more to say right now.

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