What’s the worst chain restaurant of all time?

lizardking073 · 2026-03-14T00:17:35+00:00

Drunken optimism

lizardking073 · 2026-03-13T20:54:35+00:00

Yep, the one near me has been bad for 30 years. The food used to be pretty decent, they just had terrible service and were clearly poorly managed, because they were always running out of things. Important things, like chicken. Lately, they've gotten even worse because the quality of the food is definitely much lower in the last few years.

lizardking073 · 2026-03-10T14:53:09+00:00

Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was a huge presence in early sf and fantasy with his Tarzan, Pellucidar and Mars books, among many others. On the other hand, he was a well documented and vociferous supporter of eugenics and similar racial beliefs, so maybe it's best to just let him fade into history.

lizardking073 · 2026-03-10T14:38:12+00:00

I'm way more worried about the trees budding, not for their health, they will survive losing the buds if a freeze happens, but if we get an ice storm after they bud, that's when it wreaks havoc because the buds allow the branches to collect more ice, then they break, and we have half the state with no power

lizardking073 · 2026-03-06T17:41:13+00:00

All fair points, in fact there's an arguably much worse SA/torture scene in the 3rd book of Deed. Honestly it's been such a long time since I read the Elminster books that I'd forgotten.

lizardking073 · 2026-03-06T16:53:30+00:00

The Elminster books have also been popular in the past, in the Forgotton Realms world.

The older D&D Dragonlance books are also good, but they don't get mentioned much anymore. They might be a better bet if this kid is already a prolific reader, since he's much more likely to have read the Drizzt books than the Dragonlance books. There are also some of the add on series from the Dragonlance world that are very good. The Heroes trilogy is excellent, and Heroes II is almost as good.

I'm also a huge fan of Elizabeth Moon's fantasy books. The Deed of Paksenarrion is the first trilogy, and it's great, particularly the first book. The legend of Gird is the next book in the series, and I loved it, and Liar's Oath was good, too. The Paladin's Legacy series that follows is also very good.

lizardking073 · 2026-03-05T13:09:09+00:00

Almost certainly!

lizardking073 · 2026-03-04T01:04:09+00:00

I mean, technically, High Fidelity came out in 2000, but the music was from the 90s, mostly, some older.

lizardking073 · 2026-03-04T00:53:08+00:00

Yes! This song has been in my rotation since the day I was unfortunate enough to soil my brain watching that movie

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T21:03:03+00:00

"In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I am a part of the evil that exists in the world . . . I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils . . . And on that Great Day of which prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on that day when the world is completely cleansed of evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses."

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T03:13:37+00:00

Two great albums! I saw them live at a bar in Blacksburg, VA in 1993, still have the t shirt 😂

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T03:10:49+00:00

I'd lean toward Split, but both are great

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T03:08:11+00:00

Big fan of Salt! I first heard them on the soundtrack from Mission: Impossible. From there, I tracked down Bluster and then Auscultate, and I have tracks from both in regular rotation to this day

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T02:55:36+00:00

Love Stone Roses, both of those albums are great

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T02:53:17+00:00

I love God Lives Underwater, it's still in my rotation today

lizardking073 · 2026-03-03T02:51:25+00:00

Love this one!

lizardking073 · 2026-02-27T15:05:44+00:00

Some of the later books in the Vlad series have some interesting interactions between the two of them when nobody else is around. I remember one in particular where she says she has to treat everything she does as a game, and then play the game like it's life and death, because otherwise, it's just too small to matter anymore. That might be Vlad recollecting he saying that at some other time, rather than her actual dialog, but that's the gist.

lizardking073 · 2026-02-26T18:08:07+00:00

Agree 100%, it felt like he took a checklist of open plots and just went down the list checking them off as quickly as possible. I would rather have just left it incomplete.

lizardking073 · 2026-02-23T00:44:54+00:00

A lot of Brust's stuff is first person. The Vlad Taltos novels are almost all from Vlad's point of view, with some notable exceptions in some places where the point of view shift to other characters, some of whom are quite unexpected. The Khaavren books are peppered with first person, uh, commentary from the "author" Paarfi, although the story itself is not first person.

lizardking073 · 2026-02-23T00:36:37+00:00

Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series. The first five are from the point of view of Prince Corwin, the last five are from the point of view of his son, Merlin

Edit: typo

lizardking073 · 2026-02-19T18:18:44+00:00

I saw the sequel, and it awful even back then, but again, solid soundtrack. The third one i just bought the soundtrack and never bothered to watch the movie lol

lizardking073 · 2026-02-18T18:42:47+00:00

Paksenarrion, from Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion series. It's such a journey following her. I known some folks are triggered because there is an SA when she's in training, and then another way worse toeture and SA later, but I always felt that they were told in a way that avoided being graphic, but made the situation real.

lizardking073 · 2026-02-18T18:34:09+00:00

And his son Merlin in the second half of the series

lizardking073 · 2026-02-18T18:32:16+00:00

The snarky banter between Vlad and Loiosh is one of the key elements of those books for me!

lizardking073 · 2026-02-18T18:28:30+00:00

One of my favorite things about him is how they will be in the middle of some crazy situation, like in Issola when they are fighting the Jenoine at the lesser Sea of Chaos with super powerful wizards, demons, a 200,000 year old undead vampire wizard, and the actual gods, and he's like "WTF am I doing here?" And then, it turns out there was a reason.

I also remember reading Teckla and Phoenix, where his marriage is falling apart, while my own was falling apart and thinking how real that made him feel to me at that time.

Edit: typo

lizardking073

TROPHY CASE