The Early Years: We’ll All Float On

So there are some kids who you can just tell are going to grow up to become artists, because even when they’re little, they’re creating ridiculous good drawings and sketches. For instance, years ago, one of my wife’s 10-year-old students, upon learning that his teacher’s wife was a fellow Doctor Who fan, whipped up this little sketch of a Silent, a member of a group of alien religious fanatics who are one of the Eleventh Doctor’s main antagonists, whose primary ability is that nobody remembers a Silent after leaving his presence, but will still be compelled to act upon whatever instructions the Silent gave them:

You’ll forget you ever saw this as soon as you look away from it, but you’ll go and buy some of Jim’s books.
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Aneurysms In the News

The astute reader will not be at all surprised to learn that I am a longtime fan of both BattleBots* and Mythbusters**, and so the unexpected death of former BattleBots competitor and Mythbusters host Grant Imahara did not escape my notice.

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Not a Review of “Into the Night”

With our last couple of Netflix discs, we’ve been on a bit of an old movie kick ― “old” in this case meaning 1967 (the original version of Bedazzled*) and 1985 (Into the Night). No, not the series where the airplane is trying to avoid getting fried by the sun; the movie, where Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer are trying to avoid getting fried by the sun. Or something like that.

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Proofs of Life. Or Something.

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned that, due to the totally botched rollout of their “upgraded” web site, Lulu.com had managed to hose the three books I’ve had on sale through them since, oh, 2008 or so, that I had contacted their support department, and that if I didn’t hear from them, I was likely to retire the books from Lulu.com and move them to KDP and IngramSpark. Well, the astute reader will probably not be shocked to learn that I never heard from Lulu.com, that I retired the books, and that I moved them to KDP. (IngramSpark will be next.) This week, I got the first set of proofs from KDP of the new and improved—as in, likely to actually be available soon—versions of Dragon Stones, Long Before Dawn, and A Flock of Crow is Called a Murder.

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Not a Review of “Suicide Squad”

So the other week, we watched the DC Comics superhero film Suicide Squad:

Only one of these people is having any fun. Can you tell which?
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Teaser Tuesday: “In The Woods”

So recently, I was reading In The Woods, a mystery/crime novel by Tana French, which is the first in the “Dublin Murder Squad” series:

Things found in the woods: Squirrels, birds, badgers, dead bodies.
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The Early Years: Jim Has A Groovy Dresser And Nothing To Wear

“What about the red one? Should I wear the red one?”

Teaser Tuesday: “Old Broken Road”

Recently I was reading Old Broken Road, by K.M. Alexander, the second book in “The Bell Forging Cycle”:

OldBrokenRoad
Your tax dollars at work.
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The Early Years: Jim Is Class Spokesman

From the “Blatant Lies” department:

 

CodedMessage_2020052310495_1920
Coded message translation: “My captors forced me to write this. Send help.”

 

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About Your Dating Profile …

A few months ago—before the shelter in place started, but not long before—I started watching The ExpanseThis is an adaptation of the science fiction book series of the same name; the first season (mostly) follows the plot of the first book, Leviathan Wakes, which I read last year during my recovery from The Event. I say it “mostly” follows the plot of Leviathan Wakes because it includes characters and subplots I’ve never seen before, which is what’s making me a little reluctant to watch too much of the series just yet, because …

spoilers

When adaptations are involved, I usually try to read the book before watching the adaptation, so that I can properly position the adaptation somewhere on “the book was better”* spectrum. (By this measure, The Expanse is pretty good.)

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