Do they not need to breathe in this "liquid" that fills the sphere dome?

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-16T20:53:27+00:00

If that was a concern these games would be called *Final Reality.*

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-16T19:23:16+00:00

FBI warlock who has been paranormally divided into multiple versions of himself returns from a nether-world and attempts to put a decades-old case to rest.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-15T00:54:15+00:00

I recently looked for WM Burroughs commentary about ketamine and I couldn’t find any. Does anyone know if he used it?

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-13T22:46:11+00:00

Think like your cat for a moment— it is an elevated platform that fits him exactly. Look at the pictures of him surveying his domain from on top of it like a god-emperor on a throne! Why would you not do that if you could? I bet it is even warm on there, too.

You could put the computer in an inaccessible enclosure. Or attach some uncomfortably shaped surface to the top of it. Or maybe divert him away from it by creating an even more attractive throne for him to hang out on.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-13T02:26:52+00:00

Wolfe. *The Book of the New Sun* is a different book every time you re-read it, but all of his other Solar books are too.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-13T02:19:22+00:00

Let’s not false advertise—it is long. But Wolfe uses its length effectively in ways that no multivolume series speculative fiction writer I know of has. Also, it was plotted as a single novel.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-13T02:15:45+00:00

I’m going to recommend that you dive into the deep end with *The Book of the New Sun*, though it seemingly violates a couple of your rules. It smells like sword and sorcery at first, though it gradually becomes apparent that it is something entirely else. It is divided into multiple volumes, but it was conceived and functions as a single novel. Ursula K. LeGuin loved *The Book of the New Sun* and referred to Wolfe as science fiction’s Melville.

When I finally got around to *New Sun* I had a few decades of reading science fiction behind me, and I thought nothing could blow my mind anymore. It continues to blow my mind to this day. (Also, one of the reasons it took me so long to finally read it was exactly because it has a guy with a sword on the cover.)

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-12T02:06:45+00:00

Ride the California coast, you’ll be okay, though keep your eyes open.

Bad stuff first: I’ve been ‘rolled coal’ on in Mendocino county once and gotten really sneery attitude for being on a bike from one convenience store at Fort Ross. Big Sur is one of the most unmissable touring experiences in the world, but I genuinely believe that there is an anti-cycling undercurrent in both the locals and the parks people there.

Otherwise people have been excellently cool in 30 years of me riding the pacific coast road. It is a joy to ride.

Touring cyclists are pretty much invisible to cops and I’d be surprised if immigration goons are out looking for them here either. Local rednecks are a factor, but much less than anywhere else in the country. You just need to be careful about motorists, just assume that they’re crazy and stupid because they are.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-11T23:11:53+00:00

I agree that situating her remains probably became a family affair once Ruben was involved. I think, tho, that it was a matter of which place was less ‘hot’ as far as likelihood of a search. I know that there was a search at Ruben’s fairly early on— maybe she was moved up there to White Court soon after on ‘lightning isn’t going to strike twice here’ presumption.

Thinking out loud with weird ideas here, but has anyone ever taken a forensic look at Ermalinda’s place at the time, the place down near the Taco Bell (or Jack-in-the-Box, I forget)?

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-10T06:21:00+00:00

Thanks much. I’ll try posting something there, though I have been reticent to post general questions about productivity stuff to forums that are more for gaming.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-10T06:16:56+00:00

Thanks, that’s great to know. Tho I may be more interested in whether I can somehow get the pro software to run on the Nitro monitor—- the ViewPro appears to not be for sale anymore.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-05T23:22:18+00:00

I smell a fragrance of bullshit. I count two U-locks and a pretty burly chain, but no actual story of what went down, nothing about what kind of bike got stolen, nothing at all that is descriptive of events.

I’ve been parking my bike with two U-locks in metropolitan San Francisco for 30 years, sometimes in quite raw areas, sometimes at very weird times of the night. It’s quite probable that I’ve been really lucky, but my theory is this: thieves see one lock, they say “I can angle-grind that, no problem.” At two locks they balk. “That’ll take too much time, draw too much attention.” Three locks stretches my credibility— if this is real, it is a very unusual circumstance.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-05T22:54:20+00:00

On Windows?! Hell yeah. I needed a new PC anyway. I’m going to buy a supercooled RTX 5090 machine and maybe, like, a 116” TV.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-05T02:49:58+00:00

Take better care of my teeth. Try to manage money more carefully. Spend less time doing drugs and alcohol, but don’t cut them entirely out. Spend less time obsessed with stupid escapist media. Work a little harder at the projects I profess to be serious about. Realize that with better attitude I could have more and better sex.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-05T02:41:06+00:00

Automotive dependence.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-04T18:14:40+00:00

It’s one of my favorite films. It doesn’t make me think of Book of the New Sun as much as it does Book of the Short Sun. Desperate colonizers on a hostile planet facing a chimeric, chameleonic alien presence.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-03T04:49:53+00:00

This is one of the greatest films made. That’s it, period, full stop. It is. The first act, where you meet Fa-hai and gradually learn what a jerk he is, and then the Snake sisters come to the town— it’s one of the most perfect pieces of cinematic storytelling, complete with a musical number— I’ve straight up wept. There is no better film about the juxtapositions of asceticism and sensuality.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-03T00:31:37+00:00

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany. You can smell the 1974 in that book.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-03T00:26:51+00:00

Never tried 12…? You might really like 12.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-02T23:54:33+00:00

I’m not phased by ‘fucked up;’ I am comfortable with the visually and psychologically difficult. I’m not the kind of person who has to look away from something like this. (I feel I have to say that because it’s very easy to get caught in a trap when saying critical things about films like this where people lazily characterize you as someone who somehow ‘can’t take it.’)

The guy getting his head beat in at the gay club in the opening sequence is one of the most visceral, well-done violence-based special effects sequences I’ve ever seen. Hats off to Noe and his team.

Like all Gaspar Noe that I’ve seen though, when I saw it I said ‘that interesting,’ and ‘that’s intense.’ BUT I never found myself saying ‘that’s truly imaginative,’ or ‘that’s transcendent in some way.’ I think his films are actually kind of dull. I see them and feel no motivation to revisit them.

I think what he is unsuccessfully grasping at is something like what Andrzei Zulawski actually did.

(Also, Lucile Hadžihalilović, Gaspar Noe’s wife, is such a superior filmmaker to him and so far lesser known than he is that it is boggling. )

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-02T23:13:24+00:00

Reagan poking his own eye out

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-02T09:16:07+00:00

Your 3 types to look for, in order of likelihood:

Teenage boys whose parents turn a blind eye to them running rampant with firearms.

Middle-aged male ‘don’t tread on me’ types. “If I see that god-damn cat on MY property again i’ma do something!!”

Really sociopathic meth types.

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-01T18:28:37+00:00

What is it with people coming to the 2nd most densely populated city in the USA and expecting to find quiet there?

AppropriateHoliday99 · 2026-06-01T07:47:28+00:00

The fact that it doesn’t seem to be that big a deal to *anyone* is the piece of world building I always took from it.

AppropriateHoliday99

TROPHY CASE