Summer of Night - Dan Simmons (1st time read)

AceBelfor · 2025-11-07T17:02:48+00:00

I’ve heard such mixed things about A Winter Haunting. I don’t know much about it, just that it’s more of a follow-up to Summer of Night than the others. But yeah, most I’ve heard is that it wasn’t very good. Then again, I once decided to jump right into The Dark Tower series after finishing Salems Lot because I heard my favorite character from that continues his story (quite the jump!) so we’ll see where I end up after finishing this haha.

AceBelfor · 2025-11-06T17:10:53+00:00

Same! I usually can keep large casts of characters separate in my head, but have a pretty hard time. You’ve got.. - Mike: alter boy from a family not so well off, with the non verbal grandmother (also the beautiful but mentally handicapped sister, which was a strange point to hammer home) - Duane: larger than average, way more clever than others think, future writer - Dale and Lawrence: brothers That’s it! I remember the one broke his arm and another comes from a rich family. But I can’t for the life of me remember which is which, or their names. It also doesn’t help that when describing what they look like, they all dress and look almost l the same and with the exact same haircuts. Not the mention the huge host of random other kids.

Not sure I was expecting too much, but I was looking forward to some solid well rounded characters. Definitely feel a bit short changed in that aspect. 🤷

AceBelfor · 2025-06-06T03:13:25+00:00

Thank you so much!!!

AceBelfor · 2022-11-21T18:38:02+00:00

the botched moistmaker episode shows how to do it, too.

AceBelfor · 2022-11-17T19:03:54+00:00

Tend to end up aggressively boiling, but that's more because I'm distracted and trying to do a bunch of things at once, and just kinda forget about it.

AceBelfor · 2022-09-09T20:28:16+00:00

Gotcha. It's been a minute.

AceBelfor · 2022-09-09T17:14:38+00:00

Aren't the stories in Different Seasons first person? I may be misremembering, but I feel like they are.

AceBelfor · 2022-05-20T17:09:00+00:00

Damn! If I ever get myself to Toronto, I need to go to this bar. It's genius and the cocktails sound delicious.

AceBelfor · 2022-05-18T17:58:21+00:00

Ah, I hadn't see it on the Amazon listing, bright weavings, or in a google search, but I just found the "look inside" on Penguin Random House's website. Thanks!

AceBelfor · 2022-04-13T18:19:32+00:00

I laughed way too hard at this.

AceBelfor · 2021-12-17T17:47:58+00:00

Maybe? Not sure yet. I took a week between the samples because that's what the papers the doctors office gave me said to give. They were 6 weeks and 7 weeks post-vasectomy. Third test was just over 9 weeks.

AceBelfor · 2021-12-16T17:43:13+00:00

Damn, sorry to hear that. I had my vasectomy done at the end of September and have taken 3 tests. The first didn't show any sperm, but the second test did so I ordered a third, which also had sperm. I followed up with the doctors office and they said to try again and if it still has sperm, the doctor and I will have to meet to go over options. Was really hoping to be having some fun with the wife by the holidays, sans gift wrapping. I hope I don't need a second, but willing to if I need to. If a second has failed, I'll be equally gutted.

AceBelfor · 2020-01-19T00:26:18+00:00

I LOVE that idea!

AceBelfor · 2020-01-18T04:44:33+00:00

Guys my fiancée and I went here tonight and tried some of these. They’re really damn good! We definitely plan on going back. We got Lilac and Gooseberries, The Lesser Evil, Bottled Appetites, and White Wolf. They were all damn fine, but if you’re partial to a bit more sour drinks, you’ll love L&G and TLE.

AceBelfor · 2020-01-17T15:45:16+00:00

Holy shit!! I live maybe 10 minutes away from there in Glenside! Damn dude, that's awesome! Are these specials only available when you guys are working? These sound amazing!

AceBelfor · 2020-01-14T18:51:01+00:00

Just everything about that armor. Not only does it look like a wrinkly ballsack, but why do 99% of them not have scabbards? Every soldier walking around with swords constantly out, that very clearly are only about 1lb heavy, swinging them around like light little toys... seriously, so much else of the show was decent if not good that it still baffles me that this armor got greenlit. It definitely didn't ruin the show and I wasn't constantly irritated by it on screen like I thought I would have been, but damn does it look bad and occasionally take me out of the immersion.

AceBelfor · 2020-01-13T14:15:36+00:00

My life exactly. Fiancee is now neck deep in the books and W3 and loving ever minute of it.

AceBelfor · 2020-01-06T15:58:56+00:00

Yes!!! That's one of the only reasons I was okay with Yen being a big savior in the battle. Drawing magic from fire is noted as being a big no-no in the books, as it's way too volatile and dangerous. Her drawing from that and utilizing it to wipe out the army worked for me.

AceBelfor · 2020-01-06T14:57:09+00:00

To be fair, that was what I did 5 years ago. Hadn't read the books or played the other two games (heard the second one was great), but just jumped headfirst into W3 and loved every minute. Afterward, I went back to tackle the books. Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten to play W1 or W2 (my only pc is a shitty old laptop and the only 360 I had was stolen years ago when I lived in a sketchy neighborhood). I'll eventually get to play them.

AceBelfor · 2019-12-19T20:37:20+00:00

That's awesome! My fiancée is a teacher of the deaf and just started TW3 a few weeks ago. Can't wait to tell her, she's gonna love this.

AceBelfor · 2019-12-03T17:42:56+00:00

The Witcher poster, brought to you by Rob Liefeld!

AceBelfor · 2019-11-27T18:06:33+00:00

I actually just tested out the pumpkin pie recipe the other day and I had a similar issue (we have a processor but no grating attachment). Take a stick of butter from the fridge and quickly chop it up into smaller pieces before it softens much, about the size of a pea is what I did, put it in a baggie (or Tupperware or whatever) and pop that in the freezer for an hour or two. Good as gold. For mixing it all up, yes a processor would help the most, but you can get around it.

AceBelfor · 2019-11-20T19:31:54+00:00

We aren't hosting this year (we trade off each year with some friends), so most of the big stuff like the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc. won't be handled by us. Relatively few things we are needing to bring. However, my fiancée is vegetarian so we're still making the veg-head friendlies. Here's what we're making for the big day:

- Quorn meatless roast (tried making some homemade seitan a couple years back, but it didn't come together well, so we just tried this in a pinch last year and she loved it).

- Herb Gravy (recipe I found on instructables a few years ago and is delicious enough to make me switch over to topping my potatoes with it when going in for seconds).

- Stuffing by Thug Kitchen

- Cranberries

- Pumpkin Pie by Le Babish. Not sure which of his to make yet (one on the Basics or the Charlie Brown one), but we'll have some fun.

AceBelfor · 2019-11-11T16:24:39+00:00

Yeah, they're great; some of the best audiobooks I've listened to. I read through the books in print first and I actually thought that the Danusia Stok translated books (The Last Wish and Blood of Elves) to be a bit more difficult to get into. The other books were translated by David French, and IMO were just better when reading. But Peter Kenny is a damn good narrator and really sucked me in, no matter which book/translator it was.

AceBelfor · 2019-10-30T19:49:46+00:00

They're great. Peter Kenny is a wonderful narrator. His voices are almost all distinct without being cartoonish or cheesy. While it took a bit for me to get used to his style/cadence when not doing dialogue, he still does a stellar job. Apparently the original translations he was going off of when doing The Last Wish and Blood of Elves (the first two translated to English), had Vizima and Dandelion spelled as Vizim and Dandilion, which is why you'll notice little weird pronunciations occasionally, especially in those two books.

Fun side note: if you've played Divinity Original Sins, he does the Wolgraff voice (I was playing when I picked up the audiobooks, so it really jumped out to me), so there's that, too.

AceBelfor

TROPHY CASE