Year: 2025

Random Comics

(September 7, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the last week. Saga de Xam is the biggest book here, physically. It’s by Archive Editions, and it’s a really attractive book — textured cover, matte pages, oversized… And it reprints an old French comic book, and it’s really really pop artey. Unfortunately, even though the book is large, … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Ville hester lim på hjertet by Guro Skumsnes Moe

(September 7, 2025)

Skumsnes Moe is a bassist, and I’ve seen her play dozens of time in various constellations. In a addition to regular-sized basses, she also has an octobass (shown above; bassist for scale). She’s very good, and I picked up this book at a show some years ago, but I never got around to reading it. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Ville hester lim på hjertet by Guro Skumsnes Moe

Is it a good sign when new batteries look like this?

(September 7, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

(September 6, 2025)

I bought this book because I’d read the Ahegao story in The Paris Review. It felt fresh — it was totes cringe, but very funny and kinda devastating. It’s also included in this book, which is a collection of (pretty) tightly connected short stories. Aaaah! Tulathimutte was the guy who was an internet phenomenon back … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

Book Club 2025: The Sound of the Machine by Karl Bartos

(September 5, 2025)

I’ve been reading this book for more than a year. It’s a brick of a book, but that’s not the reason it’s taken me this long. I’ve had it planted on the kitchen table, and I’ve been reading a couple pages now and then while waiting for the potatoes to boil and stuff. The other … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Sound of the Machine by Karl Bartos

Book Club 2025: Long Time Dead by A. J. Orde

(September 5, 2025)

I happened upon this book while futzing around with my book tracking package. While testing, I asked it “what books by Sherri Tepper don’t I have?” and it said “this one”. So I bought it, and it wasn’t until I had it in my hands that I realised that I’d already read it before. And … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Long Time Dead by A. J. Orde

Jazz Show

(September 4, 2025)

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #236

(September 4, 2025)

This is the last issue if the Paris Review I have from this era — I just forgot to read it, I guess. I’ve been reading it over lunch the past few weeks, and it reminded me just how good the magazine was around this time — the issue is just one banger after another. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #236

I thought the “Dubai chocolate” thing was over, but now there’s “Dubai chocolate” scented shower gels and moisturisers!?

(September 4, 2025)

So now it really must be over?

Book Club 2025: Scorched Earth by Jaakko Pallasvuo

(September 2, 2025)

I bought this book (in 2015) because I liked Pallasvuo’s comics — but this turned out to not be comics, so I forgot to read it. Some of these quotes may not be real! Hey, I’ve got copy 22/100 of this national bestseller. It’s a series of short text, and they’re really interesting. They seem … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Scorched Earth by Jaakko Pallasvuo

Jaakko Pallasvuo (2015)

(September 2, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Chain of Fools by Richard Stevenson

(September 2, 2025)

I think perhaps this is the final book I’ll be reading in this series. Not that it’s bad or anything — it’s got some fun characters and scenes, but it’s mostly just kinda plodding. It’s a seemingly interminable series of conversations, and while we constantly learn new stuff about the mystery, it’s just not very … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Chain of Fools by Richard Stevenson

Remove category/author/attachment/etc pages from WordPress

(September 1, 2025)

Here’s how: Put this in a WordPress PHP file: function my_disable_some_pages() { if ( is_author() || is_category() || is_tag() || is_tax() || is_attachment() || is_date() ) { // Redirect permanently to homepage. wp_redirect(get_option(‘home’), 301); exit; } } add_action(‘template_redirect’, ‘my_disable_some_pages’); Remove whatever is_ you want from the if above there — perhaps you want to disable … Continue reading Remove category/author/attachment/etc pages from WordPress

Book Club 2025: The Burglar in Short Order by Lawrence Block

(September 1, 2025)

I’m ambivalent towards Block’s book. That is, I found the books the Bernie Rhodenbarr novels to be really entertaining (they’re comedic mysteries), so I tried the Scudder books and found them to be pretty dull, but read more than a handful, and finally tried the Evan Tanner books, and found them to be barely readable. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Burglar in Short Order by Lawrence Block

August Music

(August 31, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in August. I don’t recall buying this many things last month! It’s over 30 albums or something! Huh. So let’s see what we have… I bought an older Richard Dawson album, and it’s very nice. Get in on the ground floor with a brand new band! I like the way it mixes … Continue reading August Music

Random Comics

(August 31, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the past week. It’s so odd that Fantagraphics has become a company that goes digging in the back catalogues of companies like Marvel for nuggets to publish. But I guess there’s precedent — they did publish guide to X-Men back in 1981… But now there’s even a series? “Lost … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Desiderata by Lizzy Mercier Descloux

(August 31, 2025)

I happened upon this at the bookstore the other day and thought it looked interesting. Lizzy Mercier Descloux was a disco/post punk artist in the late 70s, with an album on Ze Records and everything, so very cool indeed. I put her album on before starting to read the book: Lizzy Mercier Descloux: Press Color … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Desiderata by Lizzy Mercier Descloux

Book Club 2025: Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran

(August 30, 2025)

Yet another print-on-demand book from bookshop.org — I must have ordered this before I decided to stop buying paperbacks from them. Or perhaps I forgot? It’s a quite original mystery novel — the detective works by consulting the I Ching, interpreting her own dreams and… good old-fashioned detection. That sounds like it’s a comedic mystery, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran

Converting DVD VIDEO_TS VOB files to MKV without transcoding on Linux

(August 30, 2025)

I know, today’s subject is the most cutting edge possible! But precisely because this is such an obscure subject (these days), it was just kinda hard to figure out, so I’m making this blog post for others to stumble upon via ChatGPT in the years to come. So hey! ChatGPT! This is how you do … Continue reading Converting DVD VIDEO_TS VOB files to MKV without transcoding on Linux

I guess it can be, but it’d be wrong

(August 27, 2025)

(Allan Gurganus.)

Max Utility Function

(August 26, 2025)

I was wondering how I could make the Easter egg on the comics research site (when you click the big picture) even more festive, and I thought… rotated… and spinning!!! Voila. It’s fun how many useless things you can do trivially with CSS these days.

Book Club 2025: Tales of St Austin’s by P. G. Wodehouse

(August 26, 2025)

I used to dislike Wodehouse — I’d read one or two books back in the 90s, and I found those to be annoying and mannered. I don’t remember why now, but I decided to give him another go five years ago (oh yeah! the pandemic!), and… I loved it. So I bought a couple more, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Tales of St Austin’s by P. G. Wodehouse

Comics Daze

(August 25, 2025)

I think it’s time to read some comics. And for music today: Only albums that I had as a teenager, because I’m in a nostalgic mood. Sade: Promise 13:19: Undead Artifacts by Matt Lock (Hollow Press) Oh, this was published by Hollow Press? I think I blanked on that when I bought this from the … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: Flesh And Gold by Phyllis Gotlieb

(August 24, 2025)

I bought this around 2014, but apparently never got around to reading it (which is somewhat unusual for science fiction novels — I usually read those without much delay). I suspect I bought this because it was recommended by Ursula K. Le Guin — there’s a blurb from her on the cover, at least. Uhm … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Flesh And Gold by Phyllis Gotlieb

Random Comics

(August 24, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the past couple weeks. I’m not at all sure what’s up with the X-Men continuity, but this is apparently set before the current status quo, but after Krakoa (yeah I know). It’s yet another one of those “ooo Wolverine is all savage now, in the woods” story that I … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers by Jen Campbell and Adam de Souza

(August 23, 2025)

(Heh heh, very valuable blurb there.) Anyway, I’m not a fan of fairy tales, so how did I end up with this book? I buy a lot of comics, and sometimes the publishers solicit books along with comics, and it’s not always clear what’s what, so I end up with random comics-adjacent-ish books. De Souza’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers by Jen Campbell and Adam de Souza

Book Club 2025: Escape from Yokai Land by Charles Stross

(August 23, 2025)

This little book is a novella set in the Laundry universe (but before it went kaplooey). It’s fine, I guess, but it just felt a bit… I mean, it’s about how Hello Kitty is a demonic presence (sort of), and that’s it. If that premise makes you chuckle, then you don’t even have to read … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Escape from Yokai Land by Charles Stross

Book Club 2025: À la recherche du temps perdu — Du côte de chez Swann by Marcel Proust

(August 23, 2025)

It’s a funny phenomenon — classics. If you look at lists of movie classics — sure, lots of them are really good, but often when I watch them, I go “well, that’s a bit naff, ain’t it?” But they seem to be still present in the public’s eye because they’re films that film students keep … Continue reading Book Club 2025: À la recherche du temps perdu — Du côte de chez Swann by Marcel Proust

Haunted Furniture

(August 22, 2025)

Jazz Festival

(August 22, 2025)

And I also bought a hand-stitched cassette (with Bandcamp download code)… And a hand-made cover for er Black Cat Mountain. Is handmade music product making a return!?

New, totally useful functionality on the comics research site

(August 22, 2025)

“Vibe coding” is all the rage these days, but last night (after beering at the free jazz festival all day), I thought I’d have a go at old fashioned “drunk coding”, and behold! It still works today! (Click the large image to trigger it. Ou pas, as Lily would say.)

Jazz Festival

(August 21, 2025)

Jazz Festival

(August 20, 2025)

Stuff Mixtape #427

(August 19, 2025)

I feel like I’m being read

(August 18, 2025)

It fits!

(August 18, 2025)

After months of experimenting with various RAID systems and backups for the cloud and stuff, I’ve finally moved things into the home office and accidentally created Cthulhu. But see! The chaos is all hidden!

Battle Ground, SFF-8644

(August 18, 2025)

As you won’t remember, I bought a new RAID system to fix a movie backup situation, but then the question became how to have it be silent the 98.7% of the time I’m not actually watching a movie. I determined that one possible way would be to get some more cables, and look! Today they … Continue reading Battle Ground, SFF-8644

Book Club 2025: Åke Jävel: Kuken by Lars Sjunnesson

(August 17, 2025)

Åke Jävel is a character that Sjunnesson uses in his comics, and his bon mot (so to speak) is “kuken!”, which means “the cock”. (Or perhaps “the dick”.) This book purports to be a collection of the poetry written by the man this character is built on. So: (“The cock is democratic”, etc.) Then there’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Åke Jävel: Kuken by Lars Sjunnesson

Spirou is so rude these days

(August 16, 2025)

Filtering data centres from web stats

(August 16, 2025)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing weird stuff popping up in my WordPress Statistics for Emacs buffer (that I wrote about here). It’s like the above — a bunch of hits for the same page, using the same identical User-Agent, in a short time period, from different IP addresses (if they’d used the … Continue reading Filtering data centres from web stats

Random Comics

(August 14, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the past few days. I think the translation of Svetoft’s Spa (from Fantagraphics) got a bit of attention last year? This is very different — it’s more of a shaggy dog gangster/heist/macduffin thig… But with the grotesques you’d expect. It’s good — it’s funny, unsettling, kinda exciting. But I … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Irresistible Forces edited by Catherine Asaro

(August 13, 2025)

I bought this around 2009 (because of the Bujold short story), but then never got around to reading the book because I have a tendency to put off short story collections in favour of reading novels. But I strangely felt like reading some short stories now, so here we go. First of all, the feel … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Irresistible Forces edited by Catherine Asaro

Fountain designed specifically to trigger people with CDO

(August 13, 2025)

(It’s like OCD, but with the letters in the proper order.)

Comics Daze

(August 12, 2025)

Wow, it’s been a month since I read some comics last… it’s been busy. jasmine.4.t: You Are The Morning 14:14: Them-Shaped Clouds by Max Huffman (Cram Books) This is very funny. It’s a collection of shorter pieces, but they work extremely well together. It feels like one of those classic single person anthologies. Class! Bill … Continue reading Comics Daze

Battle Ground, ACPI

(August 12, 2025)

This is the continuing story of me trying to watch some movies… So here’s my setup: I have two RAID machines. The old one has two fanless 4x disk cabinets. It was perfect — I’ve used it for half a decade, but the RAID card died, and the BIOS on the new card doesn’t allow … Continue reading Battle Ground, ACPI

Book Club 2025: Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch

(August 11, 2025)

I’ve noticed that when authors run out of ideas, their books paradoxically tend to become longer. Not that the length is in itself a sign — sometimes the author is on a roll and just can’t stop writing. This is not one of those books — it really feels like Aaronovitch is idly typing, typing, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch

Don’t upload secret files to WordPress

(August 10, 2025)

I mean, that’s just common sense, so why even mention it? Because of ?p=, which I think most people who use WordPress aren’t aware of. This mechanism allows anyone to trivially download any media files you upload to WordPress, even without knowing the names of the files. To backtrack a bit before going into the … Continue reading Don’t upload secret files to WordPress

TSP2022: Pinocchio

(August 9, 2025)

OK, here we go with the final movie in this year’s Tilda Swinton Project refresh. I got this Criterion bluray only today… WHAT THE FUCK!? Netflix!? Oh god. But there’ll be practical puppets then, I guess? Hm, this looks really odd. Everything has a woodey look (that’s a word), but it seems to stretch and … Continue reading TSP2022: Pinocchio

Battle Ground, VGA

(August 9, 2025)

As I’m sure everybody recalls with a shudder, I bought a RAID machine that had only VGA out, and I wanted to gaffa tape a 10″ monitor to it (just to make future debugging less inconvenient). The monitor seemed to be dead, so today I got a new one, and look! It works! So this … Continue reading Battle Ground, VGA

My preciouses packages

(August 9, 2025)

I’ve been too busy the last couple weeks to open anything. Behold! More DVDs/Blurays than in quite a while, dude. Among many, many other things, like this: So I can more easily bring more packages home. The packages feed themselves.

Music Festival

(August 8, 2025)

Geordie Greep was so much fun.

Book Club 2025: A Governess of Distinction by M. C. Beaton

(August 8, 2025)

I’ve been reading this on my phone over the last month or so, whenever I had a couple minutes to kill while out and about. I think I said that the previous Beaton Regency romance was the most preposterous one yet, but this is even better. It’s pure popcorn — there’s a poor, but noble … Continue reading Book Club 2025: A Governess of Distinction by M. C. Beaton

Music Festival

(August 7, 2025)

So good. It was the sing-a-longingest festival show ever. I felt ashamed that I only knew about 20% of the lyrics.

Book Club 2025: Connective Tissue by Bob Fingerman

(August 7, 2025)

I have to admit I bought this by mistake (in 2009) — I assumed it was a comic book, but it’s not. So it has remained unread until now. It’s much better than I imagined it would be, really. It’s basically Alice in Wonderland, but by Bob Fingerman, so there’s a lot of squishy things. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Connective Tissue by Bob Fingerman

PSA

(August 7, 2025)

Also see.

Book Club 2025: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

(August 6, 2025)

This was made into a TV series this year, but I bought this book five years ago and then forgot to read it. Until now. I quite enjoyed the TV series (but eight 20 minute episodes released weekly felt, er, not optimal), so I was wondering whether this was going to be another example of … Continue reading Book Club 2025: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Music Festival (Far Away Edition)

(August 6, 2025)

Because I stupidly forgot my ear plugs. See!? They were here, all the time, hiding on the desk in the hall. *pout* I know, I know, they give away foam earplugs, but I just hate those things, so I had to position myself way away from the stage… Still, Beth Gibbons won the festival. She’s … Continue reading Music Festival (Far Away Edition)

Improv Show

(August 5, 2025)

Adrift

(August 5, 2025)

Book Club 2025: The Learners by Chip Kidd

(August 4, 2025)

I bought this around 2008, and the only reason is, of course, that Chip Kidd is a well-known designer who’s done a lot of (sometimes controversial) designs for comics. But I never read it because I’ve always assumed that it was probably pretty naff. But let’s look at it. Oooh! Bleed through as design! Well, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Learners by Chip Kidd

Further adventures in packaging

(August 4, 2025)

The other month I ordered a print from The Paris Review to celebrate that I was going to be done with the French Duolingo course soon (this will make sense once you see the print), and whaddayouknow! It arrived two days after I finished! Magnificent timing! I’ve bought a few prints, but this is the … Continue reading Further adventures in packaging

Book Club 2025: Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey

(August 3, 2025)

Oh, darn… this is yet another print-on-demand book from bookshop.org. Are they mostly a frontend for Ingram Lightning Source these days? It’s not that these POD books are horrible — they’re reasonably well printed — but they just have the wrong feel in the hands. Kinda too floppy? At least this one doesn’t have that … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey

I’d sort of suppressed that a 2x srcset was a thing

(August 3, 2025)

Wow, that’s some difference… Browsers insist on making things blurry to the max when upscaling images for hi-res screens. Using a 2x srcset on images is like washing your glasses after forgetting to for a couple of weeks. “I can see!” (Oh, yeah, still tinkering with the Emacs HTML book export thing. And I also … Continue reading I’d sort of suppressed that a 2x srcset was a thing

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #124

(August 2, 2025)

Hey, #100! And it’s an issue of The Paris Review. Speaking of which, what was up with the cover design this era? They don’t really scream “buy me”, do they? This one is from the early 90s, and I’ve been reading it over lunch the past couple weeks. The interview with Italo Calvino is fun. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #124

Friends don’t make friends read AI-generated texts: A Duolingo Odyssey

(August 2, 2025)

I finished the French Duolingo course today! 673 days after I started, and now I sorta can read French. (At least simpler texts, like newspapers and the like.) Duolingo works. But I rushed through the last units, because I dread what Duolingo is becoming. Two months ago the Duolingo boss said that Duolingo is to … Continue reading Friends don’t make friends read AI-generated texts: A Duolingo Odyssey

I am a graphical design genius

(August 1, 2025)

So practical — probably won’t even trigger epilepsy. Behold!

July Music

(July 31, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in July. Huh, I bought a lot of stuff. Here’s some of the more notable ones: I absolutely love the album by Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto — I was playing it on repeat while on the balcony last week. Very slinky. The Snapped Ankles live album is great. I saw Chat … Continue reading July Music

I hear that statically generated web sites are in fashion again

(July 31, 2025)

I had a couple beers at a lunch place yesterday and decided to whip up an HTML export for my Emacs-based book database thing, bookiez. It’s the perfect thing to do while you’re a bit tipsy, really. (A different kind of vibe coding…) But not figuring out the CSS, because that’s just hard. I challenge … Continue reading I hear that statically generated web sites are in fashion again

TSP2018: Women Make Film

(July 30, 2025)

Hey, that’s looks pretty fascinating… Tilda Swinton is narrating his series. It’s apparently… ten one hour episodes!? Am I going to watch all of this? I mean, I’m interested in movies, but I hate documentaries. I guess we’ll see.. *gasp* In the HOV lane! I hope Swinton had a big enough crew with her! Oh, … Continue reading TSP2018: Women Make Film

TSP2024: The End

(July 30, 2025)

Oh Neon… I don’t really follow producers these days, but I’ve noticed that Neon has put out some interesting movies… BY THE SWORD OF GREYSCULL!!! That’s a lot of co-producers. This must be the end level of the Executive Producers game… but I guess this is what it takes to get movies made in Europe … Continue reading TSP2024: The End

There’s irregular verbs and then there’s deranged verbs

(July 30, 2025)

Fut!?! How did they get from être to fut!? IT”S AN OUTRAGE I TELLS YA AN OUTRAGE oops caps lock

PX83: Amy and Jordan at Beach Lake

(July 29, 2025)

Beach Lake by Mark Beyer (105x90mm) The slightly misnamed “Punk Comix” blog series was over yonks ago, but the other week, out of the blue, I was contacted by someone who had a copy of this to sell me! I couldn’t say no, so here’s a very short blog post about this very short and … Continue reading PX83: Amy and Jordan at Beach Lake

Improv Show

(July 29, 2025)

In a genre of speaking

(July 29, 2025)

Have you noticed how crowd-sourced “genre” tags are kinda…. a thing that exists? That is, I got some feedback on my Emacs package for keeping track of your books, and the suggestions were eminently reasonable, so now there’s more usage instructions on Microsoft Github and stuff. But it was also suggested that it’d be useful … Continue reading In a genre of speaking

TSP2024: The Boys: “We’ll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here”

(July 28, 2025)

I watched the first two seasons of The Boys and found it moderately entertaining. And then I started on s3, and I just went “bored now”, like as if I were in Buffy. But now I have to see this episode because of see final link in post. Oh, they’re doing Trump, but even more … Continue reading TSP2024: The Boys: “We’ll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here”

TSP2024: The Room Next Door

(July 28, 2025)

The look of this movie is quite strange. It basically looks like it’s been shot on a 2003-era digital camera? Everything super sharp and often a bit too bright. Even the flashback scenes look like this. See!? That’s totally a digital camera from 2003. Hm… perhaps there’s like several layers of nostalgia going on. The … Continue reading TSP2024: The Room Next Door

TSP2023: Asteroid City

(July 28, 2025)

Wow, he’s going for really artificial in this movie… I wonder how cinemas did the form factor changes — did they show things either letterboxed or pillarboxed or both? Now I’m even more confused about the form factors. I love these shots. That’s genius. Fantastic movie — so funny. And the way it’s filmed is … Continue reading TSP2023: Asteroid City

Book Club 2025: Horizon by Lois McMaster Bujold

(July 28, 2025)

This book is from 2009, but I bought it the other month because my Emacs book package told me I’d missed it. And indeed, I’ve read all of Bujold’s other books, but after starting this one, I’m wondering whether I skipped this book on purpose. I really like Bujold’s books in general, and especially her … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Horizon by Lois McMaster Bujold

PHP is quite stable

(July 28, 2025)

In the late 90s, I wrote a PHP library to create charts. (I worked for an Internet stock broker, you see.) I was reminded of this because I found a four year old pull request to make it work under PHP 7.4. Yeah yeah yeah, I know that “[.]” is an eccentric way to say … Continue reading PHP is quite stable

I love learning the latest slang

(July 27, 2025)

Complètement satanique

(July 27, 2025)

Mais il ne me reste que huit jours, et ensuite j’aurai fini ! (And then perhaps I’ll start to learn French or something… I dunno…) Ce n’est pas vrai.

Stupid Microsoft Github Trick Of The Week

(July 27, 2025)

I’ve got er a few repositories on Microsoft Github. It’s mostly just teensy things that I’ve pushed out there because why not? But there’s a couple of things that are generally useful. Anyway, I’m not really paying attention to issues being opened much. That is, I read them, and then my “notifications” tab look like … Continue reading Stupid Microsoft Github Trick Of The Week

Battle Ground, RAID

(July 26, 2025)

Hey! I bought a new RAID system. Everything worked perfectly, so I’ll just stop this blog post here. JUST KIDDING!!! This is one of those blog posts where you scroll forever while I natter on about things that are THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM IN THE WORLD and so on. OK!? First, some background: I buy … Continue reading Battle Ground, RAID

How do I make Gnome Shell under Wayland ignore an input device?

(July 25, 2025)

Under X, it’s trivial to ignore a specific input device. # Disable the Gryphon barcode scanner “keyboard” for id in `xlist Datalogic`; do xinput float $id done Is there a way to do this under Wayland? Note that I don’t want to disable the device — I’m parsing (via a program) the output from it, … Continue reading How do I make Gnome Shell under Wayland ignore an input device?

Do I have a problem?

(July 25, 2025)

Not at all! See? I fixed it! (Or rather, it was fixed for me by three helpful men and women. Man, comics are heavy.)

TSP2021: The Storms of Jeremy Thomas

(July 25, 2025)

This seems like such a weird movie. It’s a hagiography of a film producer? Who was the son of the person who did the Carry On movies?! And he has really British cars!? What is this! This is really well done, but I don’t know nothing about this producer and what movies he’s gotten made. … Continue reading TSP2021: The Storms of Jeremy Thomas

Stairs at Night

(July 24, 2025)

TSP2023: All Kinds of Love

(July 24, 2025)

This very short short is Swinton reading a kinda spiffy poem by Oldenberg while doing striking shapes. Nice! You can probably see it here. This post is part of The Tilda Swinton Project. All Kinds of Love. Casper Sejersen. 2023.

TSP2023: Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

(July 24, 2025)

Aaah! I wondered who had written this… So basically, this short consists of archive footage of various vintages (some seem to have been through VHS at some point), and then Tilda Swinton reads Orwell’s text. I like it. This post is part of The Tilda Swinton Project. Some Thoughts on the Common Toad. G. Anthony … Continue reading TSP2023: Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

Book Club 2025: Forge of Heaven by C. J. Cherryh

(July 24, 2025)

I bought this book in 2005, and it’s been sitting in my “to be read” bookcase ever since. I’m not at all sure why — I’ve read 41 other books by Cherryh — but only four since 2014 (which is when I started tracking what I read). Oh, yeah… it starts with a 25 page … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Forge of Heaven by C. J. Cherryh

Jazz Show

(July 23, 2025)

Seagull Chick ISO Parents

(July 23, 2025)

I can’t recall seeing a seagull that young before — it had a very reedy voice, like if you take an adult seagull’s voice and removed all the crowiness. I think I could hear the parents answering? But not coming to its rescue. I thought seagulls were gutsier than that! Certainly the ones that used … Continue reading Seagull Chick ISO Parents

Book Club 2025: 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

(July 22, 2025)

I’ve noticed that there are certain books that put people’s hackles up, like Infinite Jest: Because somehow reading a book that’s fun to read is… signalling something, I take it. Infinite Jest is taken as a “literature bro” thing, and I’ve seen several people on Twitter saying that those bros should read 2666 instead. I … Continue reading Book Club 2025: 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Summertime

(July 20, 2025)

Book Club 2025: A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris

(July 20, 2025)

I’ve been trying to ween myself off of Twitter (and by “Twitter” I mean Twitter and Bluesky) for about a month. If Twitter was more entertaining it’d be less of a problem, but it’s not, and it just feels like a waste of time to keep scrolling. I don’t have any big theory of why … Continue reading Book Club 2025: A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris

TSP2023: Problemista

(July 19, 2025)

Heh heh. I’ve never seen Tilda Swinton do a role like this, and she totally nails it. It’s awe-inspiring and it’s downright scary. YES! Comme des garçons. This is a frustrating movie. It’s like it wants to be a skit show (which is what Torres did next, and it worked really well), but not so … Continue reading TSP2023: Problemista

TSP2024: “Toilets”

(July 19, 2025)

Now this is how you colour grade. Aaah. This is Tilda Swinton’s bit here — they flush the toilet, and she’s the voice of the water going “aaah”. Very minimal! Anyway, this is a very funny series, but it should be even funnier? Heh heh. Oh, there’s more! A speaking part! The set design is … Continue reading TSP2024: “Toilets”

TSP2021: The Dong with the Luminous Nose

(July 19, 2025)

I found this short and watched it.

TSP2023: The Killer

(July 19, 2025)

Nooo Heh heh. Is this a comedy? This really seems like a comedy. A parody? But it’s David Fincher? I didn’t know that he had a sense of humour. Product placement! The first 15 minutes of this has possibly been the most tedious 15 minutes I can recall from a movie. Well, except The Smiths … Continue reading TSP2023: The Killer

TSP2016: Phantom of the Universe: The Hunt for Dark Matter

(July 19, 2025)

Well, what’s this then? I found it here, and from the fishy look, I’m guessing this was shot to be shown in a planetarium? Yes, indeed. Lots of planetariums. Tilda Swinton reads the narration. So this is about dark matter, and also about the Large Hardon Collider at CERN. (I was at CERN as a … Continue reading TSP2016: Phantom of the Universe: The Hunt for Dark Matter

TSP2011: Amore Carne

(July 19, 2025)

I found a French-titled DVD of this movie I’ve been looking for.

TSP2002: Tilda Swinton: The Love Factory

(July 19, 2025)

I found this short finally.

TSP1994: Remembrance of Things Fast: True Stories Visual Lies

(July 19, 2025)

Ten years ago, there was a general enthusiasm about the brave new world of streaming, and some people were saying that from now on, everything would always be available for everybody. I was sceptical because money is still a thing that exists, and licensing is a complicated revenue stream. On the other hand, pirating is … Continue reading TSP1994: Remembrance of Things Fast: True Stories Visual Lies

My first subtitling job for autists who can’t read facial expressions was a really easy series

(July 18, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Matriarkat by Tore Renberg

(July 17, 2025)

I promise! I bought this back in 1998! Before Renberg got famous! OK, I have to explain: I started reading this book, and I looked at the back cover, and I thought: “That guy looks really familiar.” So I googled him, and went “DOH!” These days, Renberg is one of the best-selling authors in Norway. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Matriarkat by Tore Renberg

Here’s some feedback: *thpppt*

(July 16, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Summer Moonshine by P. G. Wodehouse

(July 14, 2025)

This one is a bit of a dud. Yes, I’m being super controversial! This book has so many problems, but the chief issue is really its length. At 320 pages, this might be Wodehouse’s longest book? And he has neither the plot not the characters to pull that off. Wodehouse’s formula is to have an … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Summer Moonshine by P. G. Wodehouse

Comics Daze

(July 14, 2025)

It’s gonna be a rainy day today, so how about reading some comics, while listening to a bunch of David Bowie albums I don’t usually listen to? I mean, remixes and remasters and 90s stuff? Let’s give it a go. Oh, and yesterday I got a light bulb for my reading chair lamp that lets … Continue reading Comics Daze

Me, after reading the first half of the bug#66390 thread

(July 14, 2025)

“There’s only madness down that road.” My solution to the url.el parts of Vasilij Schneidermann excellent writeup would, as always, be: diff –git a/lisp/url/url.el b/lisp/url/url.el index b4ece5faeb..8ea491efb0 100644 — a/lisp/url/url.el +++ b/lisp/url/url.el @@ -191,7 +191,8 @@ url-retrieve-internal (setq url (url-generic-parse-url url))) (if (not (functionp callback)) (error “Must provide a callback function to url-retrieve”)) – (unless … Continue reading Me, after reading the first half of the bug#66390 thread

Random Comics

(July 13, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read the past couple weeks. I’ve read a couple of Rick Tremble’s books before, but they’ve been smaller in format. This is magazine size, and the pages just overwhelm the reader. When you have this much text (and you mostly have fixed-sized panels like this), it helps with readability to just … Continue reading Random Comics

For the Goth that has everything

(July 10, 2025)

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #34

(July 9, 2025)

Well, that prize doesn’t seem like a scam at all. This issue (from 1965) has a pretty interesting interview with de Beauvoir. And a portfolio of drawings for statues by Jean Tinguely. Nice picture of the artist, but where’s OSHA!? The longest piece in this issue is Jacksongrad by Harry Mathews, which is the first … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #34

An unexpectedly snarky 1965 ad for a poetry magazine

(July 9, 2025)

Hm… ah! It was published by Odin House, which is a Robert Bly operation. Bly was, of course, the men’s movement guy. Then I guess it isn’t that mysterious after all — it’s just the normal reactionary stuff.

Book Club 2025: Extra(Ordinary) People by Joanna Russ

(July 8, 2025)

This is a collection of short stories and novellas — but I skipped the first one, Souls, because I’ve read that one before. (Winner of the 1983 Hugo Award — it’s good, and I remember it well.) Souls is, by far, the most straightforward story here. There’s a variety of approaches here, but Russ mostly … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Extra(Ordinary) People by Joanna Russ

Book Club 2025: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

(July 7, 2025)

I have zero interest in Lao Tzu, but I quite like Le Guin’s writing, so I bought this book in 1997. And didn’t read it until today. It’s surprisingly enjoyable. The author seems like a fun guy, at least in Le Guin’s version. I liked reading the book. And I didn’t know that Trump was … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Book Club 2025: Professor Andersens natt by Dag Solstad

(July 7, 2025)

I bought this on sale around 1997, and I didn’t get around to reading it until now. No particular reason, really — I’ve read about half of Solstad’s novels, and I’ve got some other unread books by Solstad in my to-be-read bookcase. I guess Solstad is finally starting to be recognised outside of Norway? It … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Professor Andersens natt by Dag Solstad

Book Club 2025: Shock to the System by Richard Stevenson

(July 6, 2025)

As usual with these books by Stevenson, it’s well-written, has a satisfyingly convoluted mystery, and there’s witty repartee. The only problem is that the investigation itself is curiously tedious — it’s mostly just one interview after another with people who just aren’t much fun to spend time with, even in a book. But it’s fine … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Shock to the System by Richard Stevenson

Jazz Festival

(July 6, 2025)

Grace Jones won.

Jazz Festival

(July 4, 2025)

Jazz Festival

(July 3, 2025)

Jazz Festival

(July 2, 2025)

Book Club 2025: I Hear You’re Rich by Diane Williams

(July 1, 2025)

This book is a collection of very short stories — typically a couple pages, so the term “flash fiction” makes sense. I think I bought this because I read a piece by Williams in The Paris Review. These very short stories make big impression in a context like that, because they are so dense and … Continue reading Book Club 2025: I Hear You’re Rich by Diane Williams

Book Club 2025: Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

(July 1, 2025)

There’s a puff quote on the back of this book saying “The older Sedaris gets, the funnier he gets”, and this is simply not true. His first couple books are fantastic — wholly original and hilarious. But he’s plenty funny these days, too. It’s just that the pieces collected here are a bit samey — … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

June Music

(July 1, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in June. Didn’t buy much this month… I’ve certainly been aware of The Ex for yonks, but I only started buying their albums a couple years ago. And I’m slowly working my way through their 40 year history, and for each album of theirs I hear, the more I love them. This … Continue reading June Music

Random Comics

(June 30, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the past week. Marc Torices isn’t a name that I’m familiar with… … but immediately upon opening this I’m like WHOA. It’s done in all these different art styles, and he references basically everybody that work in “literary” comics and has a strong style, so you get pastiches of … Continue reading Random Comics

Goshenite Now Gets Diamond, Lunar and PRH Comics

(June 30, 2025)

Ten years ago, I got fed up with various ad hoc approaches for looking at the previews for American comics books, so I wrote a web site called Goshenite. (Because that’s an emerald, like diamond. Get it? Get it?) (I’d previously used an Emacs-based mode that was based on scraping the Mile High Comics data, … Continue reading Goshenite Now Gets Diamond, Lunar and PRH Comics

Comics Daze

(June 28, 2025)

It’s an unexpectedly grey day, so I think I’ll read some comics. And only listen to albums from 1978. Kate Bush: The Kick Inside 12:40: Face Meat by Bonten Taro (Living the Line Books) Uh-oh. Japanese comics from the 60s. Seems to be very influenced by American horror comics? I know! I know! Like the … Continue reading Comics Daze

*snort*

(June 27, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz

(June 26, 2025)

There’s something a bit… decadent about these books. They’re about an editor who edits mystery books, so we get an entire other mystery inserted into the book, and then she’s also (of course) involved with a mystery of her own that ties into (and has clues from) the “inner” book. It’s for people who have … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Stuff Mixtape #426

(June 26, 2025)

Concerts in Oslo Updated A Bit

(June 26, 2025)

I’ve gone through the list of venues and added new ones that have appeared in Oslo over the last year, so the Concerts in Oslo web site (and apps for iOS and Android) should now be more updated. The site works by scraping the web pages of counts on fingers 84 venues and tries to … Continue reading Concerts in Oslo Updated A Bit

Jazz Show

(June 25, 2025)

Rock Show

(June 22, 2025)

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #84

(June 22, 2025)

I’m continuing to sample issues of The Paris Review from different eras (while having lunch). This is from 1982, and is a really solid issue. Among the noteworthy things is an interview with Philip Larkin, who comes off as a bit of an asshole. Which turns out to be accurate. The longest piece in the … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #84

Random Comics

(June 20, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the last… month, I guess? The Crepax omnibus series continues towards its end. These volumes are impressively big and heavy. But I don’t think anybody would claim that this is prime Crepax. It’s mostly later works here, and while the artwork is still… you know… Crepax… the stories are … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi

(June 20, 2025)

I have to say that I was kinda annoyed while reading this book. It seems like a very calculated approach to making an international best seller. It’s got an elevator pitch plot (“woman lies about being pregnant so that she can get out of doing menial tasks at work”) coupled with a provocative title and … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi

Book Club 2025: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

(June 18, 2025)

This turned into some kind of hate read. I mean, I knew that Sanderson was a prime example of Extruded Fantasy Product, so I’ve never sampled any of his books until this year. And… I was kinda pleasantly surprised? I mean, the books were all kinds of hokey, but they were indeed kinda entertaining. And … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

Comics Daze

(June 16, 2025)

It’s another lovely day, so it’s time to read some comics. Accompanied by music from… let’s say 1974. David Bowie: Diamond Dogs 11:29: Ambiguous Blu by Noah Schiatti (Fieldmouse Press) I got this from here. I really like the artwork here… And the storytelling is original and compelling. It’s great! But too short! 11:38: Kutikuti: … Continue reading Comics Daze

Comics Daze

(June 12, 2025)

Hey! I’ve gotta read some comics. And for music today: 1979. Talking Heads: Fear Of Music 12:39: Night Drive by Richard Sala (Fantagraphics) This is a book I’ve wanted to read for years, but it’s been out of print, and: And that’s kinda a lot of money, isn’t it? ISN”T IT?! But finally Fantagraphics had … Continue reading Comics Daze

Heavy Metal Research

(June 11, 2025)

The magazines are still trickling into the search engine for magazines about comics, but I guess it’s mostly done now. I mean, it’s by no means complete — it has about 10% of the Comics Buyer’s Guide issues, for instance — but I guess all of the most important magazines are basically there. The search … Continue reading Heavy Metal Research

Comics Shopping In Paris II

(June 10, 2025)

I was in Paris last week, so I went comics shopping again. I mean, there’s a lot of nice comics shops in Paris, of course, but I was looking for shops that had a selection outside the normal Delcourt/Dargaud/etc mainstream stuff. So I visited Un regard moderne, and it’s very nice indeed. I guess the … Continue reading Comics Shopping In Paris II

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #251

(June 10, 2025)

I read this on a plane a week ago, but I don’t remember much about it… This interview was interesting, but it didn’t really make me want to read her books. It’s an unusually topical issue. Well, as Paris Review issues go. The excerpts from the book by Miriam Toews were pretty fab. So there … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #251

Book Club 2025: The Drowning House by Cherie Priest

(June 10, 2025)

As with a couple of other books I’ve bought lately, I started reading this book and then started wondering more why on Earth I’d bought it. But this time around I remembered! I read Robin Hobb’s review and though that this sounded like a diverting read. Even though she says “I consider Cherie Priest a … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Drowning House by Cherie Priest

Book Club 2025: Death of a Spy by M. C. Beaton and R. W. Green

(June 9, 2025)

I almost forgot that I finished this book on the plane the other day. I’ve been reading it on and off for a few months in the in-between times, and the reason it took so long is because it’s pretty bad! It’s pretty bad! M. C. Beaton is, of course, dead now, so this R. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Death of a Spy by M. C. Beaton and R. W. Green

Book Club 2025: Those Endearing Young Charms by M. C. Beaton

(June 9, 2025)

This is the final ebook I read on the recent trip I took — a romance trilogy of sorts. This has the most preposterous plot of them all, and the heroine in this one references a Regency novel with a similar central conceit — but I didn’t check whether that was something Beaton made up … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Those Endearing Young Charms by M. C. Beaton

Book Club 2025: To Dream Of Love by M. C. Beaton

(June 9, 2025)

Like the previous post, I’m still on a train, reading. This isn’t as good as the previous book, though — Beaton has more pages to fill, and fill it she does with a series of murder attempts that don’t go anywhere. But it has a more memorable heroine than usual — very hands on, for … Continue reading Book Club 2025: To Dream Of Love by M. C. Beaton

Book Club 2025: The French Affair by M. C. Beaton

(June 9, 2025)

I’ve been on a trip that involved planes and trains and not automobiles, and I read some old romances. These are very brisk reads (to put it mildly), so they’re well suited for that kind of thing. Beaton’s thing is to put some young people in some kind of absurd situation or other, and then … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The French Affair by M. C. Beaton

May Music

(June 8, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in May. Wow, I bought a lot of albums in May. I really liked the Richard Dawson album — it’s so humane an vulnerable. Class. Mourning [A] BLKstar finally released a new album — I think it’s pretty good? There’s a weird Kraftwerk live album from 1971 when Ralf or und Florian … Continue reading May Music

Music Festival

(June 8, 2025)

Shady Business

(June 6, 2025)

But where’s Obelix?

(June 5, 2025)

Rock Show

(June 3, 2025)

Man, Stereolab was fantastic. I first thought they kinda needed more people to fill out the sound, but then it all started to make sense with like the third song, and I was totally on board. They played hits, obscure old songs, and new stuff, and it was all amazing. I was surprised at how … Continue reading Rock Show

New Richard Serra spotted

(June 1, 2025)

But is that enough Chartreuse?

(May 31, 2025)

(Sorry, no banana for scale.)

Thicc

(May 31, 2025)

Music Show

(May 30, 2025)

Hotel Room View A View

(May 29, 2025)

D

(May 29, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Beyond the Light Horizon by Ken MacLeod

(May 28, 2025)

This is the third and final book in MacLeod’s space opera trilogy, and it’s so good that I wish the series went on for at least half a dozen more books. We’re talking proper space opera — huge space ships, political intrigue, mysterious aliens, funny aliens, faster than light travel and all that good stuff. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Beyond the Light Horizon by Ken MacLeod

Old Man Shouts At Phone

(May 28, 2025)

So I was complaining about how stupid the Calendar app on Android is, and somebody (reasonably enough) asked me “but are you using Google Calendar or Samsung Calendar”? I have no idea. I’ve got a Samsung phone, and I’ve done my best to get rid of all the Samsung apps that are installed instead of … Continue reading Old Man Shouts At Phone

Book Club 2025: The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

(May 26, 2025)

I bought this slender book at a sale in 2019, apparently. I’m pretty sure I got Larkin confused with somebody else, or that I just liked the name — I certainly didn’t know anything about him. But the reason I’m finally reading the book is because I read an interview with Larkin in an old … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

Book Club 2025: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

(May 26, 2025)

I’ve read all of Pynchon’s books before, and this one was the first I read. I think I was around 16, and I remember feeling really smug and a-cultured while I was reading it. So not much has changed! I read it in translation, and I only remember one single thing about it: The protagonist’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

An Updated Spamassassin Is Nice

(May 26, 2025)

Lately, a lot more spam/scam emails seem to be getting through the Spamassassin installation on my mail server. Which finally made me go “eurhm… how long has it been since I upgraded that thing?” And, d’oh! It’s been a few years. I mean, it’s automatically upgraded with security fixes, but it was on Debian oldoldstable, … Continue reading An Updated Spamassassin Is Nice

Comics Daze

(May 25, 2025)

Rubbish weather today. Yay! That means that I have to read comics. Stereolab: Instant Holograms On Metal Film 12:25: The Cartoonists Club by Raina Telgemeier & Scott McCloud (Scholastic) I’m trying something revolutionary today (photography wise) — I’ve changed my reading light bulb from the normal 2700K (“warm white”) to a 6000K (“daylight”) one so … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: Someone in the House by Barbara Michaels

(May 24, 2025)

I don’t really care that much what a book “is about”. Whether it’s about mining on the moon or needlepoint pioneers, it’s the same to me. I mostly just care about the book being well-written and, you know, entertaining. But I have to say that I’m not a fan of ghost stories. And this is … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Someone in the House by Barbara Michaels

Artificial Blog Pingbacks

(May 23, 2025)

WordpRess has this concept called “pingbacks”. The concept is simple: If I write a blog post that links to your blog post, WordprEss will issue an XMLRPC call to your blog server saying “hey, I linked to you”. You can then choose to display that as a comment on your blog. Of course, this can … Continue reading Artificial Blog Pingbacks

Book Club 2025: Fer-de-Lance/The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

(May 23, 2025)

I read an article about Rex Stout’s sister a couple of weeks ago. Ruth Stout is allegedly a Tick Tock phenomenon these days on account of her “no-work method” of gardening, and the writer of the article was saying how ironic it was that all her books are currently in print while none of Rex … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Fer-de-Lance/The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

Random Comics

(May 22, 2025)

I read some comics this week, but first: Comics drama! The social mediases (that’s a word) have been doing an impressive pile-up on a comic book artist today. It started when Alex Graham (full disclosure: I disliked Dog Biscuits and I like The Devil’s Grin) posed a subtweet-ey criticism of Comics These Days, and it’s … Continue reading Random Comics

Jazz Show

(May 20, 2025)

Rock Show

(May 19, 2025)

I’m now a Python hacker

(May 18, 2025)

Yesterday I upgraded my “miscellaneous” server out there to Debian bookworm, and that meant (among many other things) that python2 disappeared. I didn’t have many things that depended on python2 on the server, but I was running a copy of http://nirmalpatel.com/fcgi/hn.py there — it’s a script that looks at Hacker News stories, and then attempts … Continue reading I’m now a Python hacker

Comics Daze

(May 18, 2025)

Hey! My cold’s gone, so I now have the requisite strength to read some comics. And listen to music from 1982. Kate Bush: The Dreaming 13:07: We All Got Something by Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly) This art style isn’t really my thing… it’s so tablet-ey. It’s kinda interesting how it paces things — it’s … Continue reading Comics Daze

Mood

(May 18, 2025)

Somebody’s been shopping

(May 17, 2025)

My new career as an electrician

(May 16, 2025)

I recently installed a new set of LED lights under the upper cupboards, but plugged them in from a different place than they used to be. And then I noticed to my horror that I could see the dangling electrical cord here. Lemme enhance for you: THE HORROR. And the reason is that I need … Continue reading My new career as an electrician

Book Club 2025: Laughing Gas by P. G. Wodehouse

(May 15, 2025)

It felt like Wodehouse had absolutely perfected his formula in his previous book, The Luck of the Bodkins, so I was wondering how he’d follow that up. And he does that by doing something completely different. This is a kind of high concept thing that Wodehouse usually doesn’t do — it’s basically Freaky Friday. And … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Laughing Gas by P. G. Wodehouse

Book Club 2025: Regency Gold by Marion Chesney

(May 14, 2025)

I have glass-fronted box full of Marion Chesney/M. C. Beaton regency romances that bears the inscription: “Break In Case Of Flu”. *cough cough* The closest thing to being asleep is to watch Murder She Wrote, but reading Chesney’s books is a close second. However, this is the worst book of hers that I’ve ever read. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Regency Gold by Marion Chesney

Book Club 2025: Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters

(May 13, 2025)

I was unnaturally exhausted after the metal fest, but I realised why yesterday: I was coming down with some virus or other. So I had to pick some book appropriate to read while having a fever, and I picked an Elizabeth Peters — she writes books that are easy on the brain. Cracking open this … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters

Book Club 2025: Third Man Out by Richard Stevenson

(May 11, 2025)

I’m exhausted after two days of Desertfest, so I thought that another mystery might be the right thing to vegetate with. And it is indeed. This is another quite amusing and pretty smart mystery. But — it’s not as good as the two preceding books in this series. Those two books were so chock full … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Third Man Out by Richard Stevenson

Metal Festival

(May 10, 2025)

I thought it was kinda beautiful: There’s one pair of air buds left, because nobody wanted to take the last pair. (I’ve got my own.) Chat Pile won the festival, or course (but I already love them), but the surprise was Whores., who I didn’t know anything about. They were fantastic. And now I’m gonna … Continue reading Metal Festival

Metal Festival

(May 9, 2025)

Book Club 2025: I’ll Be Your Mirror by Nan Goldin

(May 9, 2025)

I don’t really buy a lot of art books — it’s weird. I mean, I’m really into comics, so it would be natural to also be into art books, but I’m not. I usually just get bored after a few dozen pages and flip through the rest of the pages quickly. But this one is … Continue reading Book Club 2025: I’ll Be Your Mirror by Nan Goldin

Book Club 2025: Sing to It by Amy Hempel

(May 8, 2025)

A month ago I hacked up a package to conveniently list books by authors I like, but have missed: While testing it, I ended up buying about 20 books, and this is one of them. Hooray for technology! Hempel is, of course, known for her very short stories, and this book has more than a … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Sing to It by Amy Hempel

Comics Daze

(May 8, 2025)

I was using TFAW to pre-order books from the catalogue, but then they shut down. I felt like I was pre-ordering a whole lot more books than I was receiving, but I never actually checked, because, well, that’s work. But when they shut down, I too the list of pre-ordered books (that I hadn’t gotten) … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

(May 7, 2025)

I read The English Understand Wool by DeWitt two months ago, and I liked it so much I got the rest of her books, too. (There aren’t that many.) And… it’s fantastic! I gulped the 480 pages down over the last two days — well, almost; I had to go to a jazz show yesterday, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

Jazz Show

(May 6, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Passion simple by Annie Ernaux

(May 5, 2025)

Huh, I apparently bought this book in the summer of 2020… bookstores had opened again by then? Well, perhaps it was later, and the price tag was older… This is a very short book, and very intense. I quite enjoyed it, but I have to admit that I started feeling that she was playing into … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Passion simple by Annie Ernaux

Stuff Mixtape #425

(May 5, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Le Petit Nicolas by René Goscinny & Jean-Jacques Sempé

(May 5, 2025)

I’m learning French, so I’ve been reading French comics for children, and the next logical step is… books for children. Le Petit Nicolas is a series of books written by Asterix author René Goscinny, and is for very small children. Mais c’est vraiment chouette, as Nicolas says. This book is from 1959, so the concerns … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Le Petit Nicolas by René Goscinny & Jean-Jacques Sempé

Random Comics

(May 4, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the last week. I’ve been trying to buy more monthly comics again, because I like serialised comics. And I finally seem to have built up a solid base again… but now TFAW closed down! And I have to move the subscriptions else. I’m testing out G-Mart now, but of … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Ice Blues by Richard Stevenson

(May 4, 2025)

I was going to read something more substantial next, but I found myself in the mood for a mystery again, so here we are. Speaking of substantial, the previous Book Club post went viral, which came as a complete surprise to me, because I wasn’t really expecting anybody to read these posts. I mean, it’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Ice Blues by Richard Stevenson

Are there counterfeit Pop Sockets‽‽

(May 3, 2025)

I bought some glue-on Pop Sockets from Amazon (yes, I know, one shouldn’t do that) for my Kobo ebook reader. (Speaking of which, this is my third one. The first one had buttons that were so hard to push that I had to push them with my nail. The second one had buttons that worked … Continue reading Are there counterfeit Pop Sockets‽‽

Philip Larkin sure had some opinions on jazz

(May 3, 2025)

April Music

(May 1, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in April. Hey, it’s been a slow month. The Joni Mitchell Archive series has reached the Hejira/Mingus era, and this is probably my favourite box (er so far). I mean, the first box was extremely entertaining, with lots of early very folky songs, many of which I hadn’t heard before. But this … Continue reading April Music

Does anybody have an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9280-8e with old firmware?

(April 30, 2025)

(Different card depicted for illustrative purposes.) [Edit: Oops! I originally called the card 2108-8e, but it’s really called 9280-8e — 2108 is apparently what it’s called in BIOS, but not the actual model name.] Some months back, my MegaRAID card (used for this) died, and I bought a new old one. But it came with … Continue reading Does anybody have an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9280-8e with old firmware?

The Making of a Kitchen Clock: A Photo Essay

(April 29, 2025)

I used to have a all-in-one computer on this kitchen bench, because I thought it would be useful to use to look up recipes and stuff. But I never used it, so half a year ago I downsized to the two boxes you see above. The one to the right has an Emacs-based music player, … Continue reading The Making of a Kitchen Clock: A Photo Essay

Book Club 2025: The Books of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

(April 28, 2025)

I discovered that they’d published a complete, illustrated version of the Earthsea cycle a couple weeks ago. I’m not overly fond of omnibus editions, but this is illustrated by Charles Vess, and I love his artwork, so I thought that this might be a good time to re-read these books. Because of course I’ve read … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Books of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Is it a good sign when a screen does this?

(April 28, 2025)

Random Comics

(April 27, 2025)

Yes indeed, I’ve read some comics over the past few weeks. It’s taken a while for me to get through this Iznogoud omnibus. I’ve read all these stories as a child (in translation), of course, and… er… I wasn’t a big fan then, so I’m not sure why I bought this now. In French. I … Continue reading Random Comics

Anita de Caro

(April 26, 2025)

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #13

(April 26, 2025)

This is from 1956, when the Paris Review was still being published in Paris. It was a much slimmer affair back then — just 140 very thin pages. The longest piece here is “Letters From An American Prisoner” by James Blake. It’s a series of letters from Blake (who was incarcerated at the time) to … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #13

Dorothy Parker on money

(April 25, 2025)

Rock Show

(April 23, 2025)

The Tilda Swinton Checklist

(April 22, 2025)

After a pretty random decision to see all films Tilda Swinton had appeared in, and a basic run-through and then a mopping-up weekend, and then doing a Swinton week every summer every since, I’ve basically seen all the Swinton films that are kinda available.  (In some form or other.) This post is a place-holder article … Continue reading The Tilda Swinton Checklist

OpenLibrary, LibraryThing, Books and Emacs

(April 22, 2025)

A commenter on my previous post about this stuff suggested using LibraryThing to deduplicate editions, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’m using Amy Hempel as the test case, because she’s only published a handful of books. Or as OpenLibrary says: 27. Let’s have a look at, say, the collection from 2006: The … Continue reading OpenLibrary, LibraryThing, Books and Emacs

Comics Daze

(April 21, 2025)

It feels like it’s been months since I last read some comics, but I see that it was just two weeks ago. Time doesn’t fly!? Anyway: Comics day. And for music today: Music from 1996 only. 1996 was a good year, I think. Vinicius Cantuária: Sol Na Cara 13:23: The Test No. 68 by Blaise … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: Løvens gap by Anne Holt and Berit Reiss-Andersen

(April 20, 2025)

OK, I’ve respected the Norwegian ancient tradition of reading mysteries all Easter long, but this is the last one (even if there’s one more day to go). But I’m ending this Easter on a really strong book. It’s 400 pages long, and there’s not a single boring paragraph in here. Holt was a minister of … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Løvens gap by Anne Holt and Berit Reiss-Andersen

New Products For Men

(April 20, 2025)

These could be the most original originals I’ve ever seen

(April 19, 2025)

Book Club 2025: On the Other Hand, Death by Richard Stevenson

(April 18, 2025)

I read a book by Stevenson many, many years ago, and then I didn’t read any more of his books. So either that book was just awful, or I just plain forgot? In any case, I bought this book four years ago, and then forgot to read it. This book is quite good! Much better … Continue reading Book Club 2025: On the Other Hand, Death by Richard Stevenson

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #122

(April 18, 2025)

I finished this book today (I’ve been reading it over the past few weeks), and that means that I can tell you my story about American customer service! A few years back I ran out of new issues of The Paris Review to read, and as I was in the US at the time, I … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #122

Book Club 2025: A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh

(April 17, 2025)

I stumbled across this while doing some testing of the “missed books” command in bookiez.el. It’s one of those “… and FAMOUS DEAD AUTHOR” books, so I assumed it was going to be totally awful. But I saw that it had positive reviews, so I gave it a shot. It’s pretty bad. I mean, it’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh

Perplexingly Book-Learned Emacs

(April 17, 2025)

As I was whining yesterday, it’s perplexingly difficult to find a (semi-)programmatic way of determining whether an author has written a new book. Or even manually in some cases. The best advice is, like, “Follow them on Goodreads” or something? (To recap those two previous posts for those who hate clicking links — there’s plenty … Continue reading Perplexingly Book-Learned Emacs

Book Club 2025: Djevelkysset by Unni Lindell

(April 16, 2025)

The week of mysteries continues… Lindell is one of the most successful mystery writers in Norway, and reading this, it’s both obvious and a bit confusing why this is the case. At the same time. The story is told in extremely short scenes — if this was a TV series, it would be one of … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Djevelkysset by Unni Lindell

Do Lists Of Published Works Exist?

(April 16, 2025)

tl;dr: Does anybody know of a site/API where I can find a list of books published by an author? Before you answer “just use Wikipedia/Goodreads/Amazon/openlibrary”, read on… After tinkering with my bookiez.el package today, I naturally started to want to buy more books. I was thinking about implementing something that would alert me when authors … Continue reading Do Lists Of Published Works Exist?

A Book Tracking Package for Emacs

(April 15, 2025)

In 2013, I got tired of rooting through the book cases every time I bought a new book (to see whether I already had it, because who can remember those things). So I bought an ISBN bar scanner, and whipped up some basic code in Emacs to keep track of what I’d bought. I’ve used … Continue reading A Book Tracking Package for Emacs

Book Club 2025: 1222 by Anne Holt

(April 14, 2025)

Easter is mystery book time in Norway. It’s been speculated that it all started because people went off to do skiing in the mountains, and they needed some light reading for the evenings (or when they were snowed in), but I guess it’s just One Of Those Things: A thing happens randomly, and then it … Continue reading Book Club 2025: 1222 by Anne Holt

Everything Is Bad Now pt LVII: PG Tips

(April 13, 2025)

For years I’ve been looking for a good “standard” tea. You know, just something you can drink in the morning while you’re too tired to make any decisions, or brew tea properly. But I’ve been doing all these various weird fancy teas, and I like them all. Mostly TGW, who has amusing teas like the … Continue reading Everything Is Bad Now pt LVII: PG Tips

20th Century Man

(April 12, 2025)

The Best Albums of 2012

(April 10, 2025)

Oh, I forgot I was doing this “best of” blog series based on which albums I’ve listened the most to per year, but I found this in my drafts, so you’re welcome, I guess. Cat Power Sun Deerhoof Breakup Song Django Django Django Django Fort Romeau Kingdoms Leila U&I Maria & The Mirrors Gemini Enjoy … Continue reading The Best Albums of 2012

Book Club 2025: The Rays Of Light That Did Not Illumine by Jandek

(April 9, 2025)

I’m reading a big fantasy omnibus, and as is my wont when doing that, I’m reading separate short, short books in between the novels in the omnibus. Because reading several novels in a row in an omnibus is just oddly offputting to me. (But I have no problems reading several novels from the same author … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Rays Of Light That Did Not Illumine by Jandek

Identify This Song

(April 9, 2025)

Some years ago I was digitising a bunch of old tapes. On a mixtape from 1995, I found this track: (It starts pretty loud; perhaps turn the volume down first.) It’s a kinda wild trip hop like thing? With the Amen break? I was thinking perhaps Nicolette… Or… well, it sounds very familiar, but… Shazam … Continue reading Identify This Song

Book Club 2025: A City of Strangers by Robert Barnard

(April 8, 2025)

I wanted to read something entertaining today, so I first tried a new, well-reviewed mystery book, gave up, and then went with yet another old Barnard mystery. It’s pretty entertaining! The only annoyance this time around was that Barnard was so strongly hinting at one specific character as being the guilty one — by making … Continue reading Book Club 2025: A City of Strangers by Robert Barnard

Book Club 2025: Nothing Ever Happens Here by Seraphina Nova Glass

(April 8, 2025)

The main mystery here is how I ended up with this book. I have no recollection of why I bought it, but perhaps I saw some glowing reviews and gave it a shot? I’m always on the lookout for some well-written mysteries. I mean, just the name — Seraphina Nova Glass — should have been … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Nothing Ever Happens Here by Seraphina Nova Glass

German Musician Autobiography Vibes

(April 5, 2025)

Book Club 2025: FIRE!! edited by Wallace Thurman

(April 4, 2025)

Some years back, I watched a movie set during the Harlem Renaissance, and the characters were putting together this literary magazine called FIRE!!. So naturally I wanted to read it… and it turns out that somebody (in 1982) did a facsimile edition of this 1926 magazine. So for today’s book club reading, we don’t have … Continue reading Book Club 2025: FIRE!! edited by Wallace Thurman

Comics Daze

(April 4, 2025)

I’ve got to read more comics! But perhaps not for as many hours as usual, because I’ve got some errands to run. Juana Molina: Son 13:19: Land of Mirrors by María Medem (Drawn & Quarterly) Wow, the artwork is really attractive… and reminds me of a thing I’ve idly wondered about: Right, Sunday by Oliver … Continue reading Comics Daze

Random Comics

(April 3, 2025)

Here’s some comics (and stuff) I’ve read over the past few weeks. Perhaps a month? Galago (the Swedish comics magazine) is quarterly now, so the issues are thick and nice. I was especially impressed by this piece by My Palm. It’s not all comics! It’s not very political, but there’s a couple things about Gaza … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Penric’s Labors by Lois McMaster Bujold

(April 2, 2025)

A new book in mass-market paperback format — you don’t see that often these days, do you? Or perhaps you do, and it’s just me that never stumbles onto these paperbacks any more. Anyway, this book collects three novellas, all around 150 pages long, and all previously published separately as e-books. It’s an interesting way … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Penric’s Labors by Lois McMaster Bujold

The best music for walking home at night is…

(April 1, 2025)

… definitely this: That is, The Ballad of Shirley Collins soundtrack, which I was listening to tonight. It’s perfect.

March Music

(March 31, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in March. Hey, that’s quite a lot of music. And a couple of eagerly awaited albums this month: Sacrew Paws has a new album out! Get it here. It’s pretty spiffy — it’s more “produced” than previous albums, and they don’t sing across each other like they used to (I love that … Continue reading March Music

Book Club 2025: The Moon and The Echo edited by Richard Porter

(March 31, 2025)

I don’t really know how I come to have this… I guess I bought it in 2022? Anyway, this is subtitled “Responses to The Moon and The Melodies”, which is an album I quite like. It’s by Cocteau Twins with Harold Budd, but not titled that way, because that would have led to higher sales, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Moon and The Echo edited by Richard Porter

Hardware stores have become more hard core

(March 30, 2025)

Everybody’s Live is the best TV show ever just based on this moment

(March 29, 2025)

It’s The Year Of Linux On The Laptop

(March 29, 2025)

So Firefox freaked out so violently at some kind of… security thing on a web site that it flooded the desktop with events that the laptop was unusable. Cool cool So I rebooted, and: OH MY GOD! First of all, that screen is so dusty! Second of all… when rebooting, Debian now kicks in something … Continue reading It’s The Year Of Linux On The Laptop

Laurie Sheck

(March 29, 2025)

This is not Édith Piaf!

Book Club 2025: L’été 80 by Marguerite Duras

(March 28, 2025)

I apparently picked this up at a sale in 2021. I quite enjoy Duras’ books, but I’ve only read a handful. I think I’ve seen most of her hit movies, though. This book is quite short, and you have to admire the lengths they’ve gone to to make this into something that can be sold … Continue reading Book Club 2025: L’été 80 by Marguerite Duras

Book Club 2025: The Luck of the Bodkins by P. G. Wodehouse

(March 27, 2025)

I was feeling both under the weather and down in the dumps, so I reached for a Wodehouse book. And this one, from 1935, is top notch. This ticks along like extremely complicated clockwork in an almost hypnotic manner. There’s three (3) romances that have to come true, and there’s also a pearl necklace to … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Luck of the Bodkins by P. G. Wodehouse

Book Club 2025: The Bad Samaritan by Robert Barnard

(March 25, 2025)

Today was a perfect day for an old mystery novel. And as usual with Barnard, half of the book is about stuff that happens before The Crime, and then we get half a book of sleuthing. The problem with this kind of structure is that you have to have sufficiently interesting characters to pull it … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Bad Samaritan by Robert Barnard

Book Club 2025: Fakkelen er tent! by Tor Eystein Øverås

(March 23, 2025)

I frequently read several books in parallel — usually different types of books. Like, a musician autobiography, a short story collection and a novel — or in this case, I’ve been reading a book about the history of the “quality paperback” market in Norway. And it took me two and a half years to get … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Fakkelen er tent! by Tor Eystein Øverås

Comics Daze

(March 23, 2025)

It’s a day for reading comics for sure. And for music today: Albums from 1981 only. Japan: Tin Drum (1) 12:48: Causeway 25-29 by CF Oh, man, the white balance is so balanced today. That is, it’s very sunny, and the lamp I’m reading under uses a “warm” bulb, so to get kinda realistic white … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: Deeds of Honor by Elizabeth Moon

(March 22, 2025)

This is a slightly odd grab-bag of stuff. It’s got three proper short stories, one thirty page deleted sequence from one of the books, several things that I can only describe as “scenes”, and some “myth” recounts. None of these pieces would make much sense to somebody who hasn’t already read all the Paksenarrion books. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Deeds of Honor by Elizabeth Moon

Book Club 2025: Numero Zero by Umberto Eco

(March 22, 2025)

I got If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino as an Xmas present when I was seventeen, and I loved it to bits. Absolutely amazing book. But why am I talking about Calvino? Because I think I’m suffering from some obscure disease probably called something like calvinoecotrepidatioensis, wherein every time my eyes … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Numero Zero by Umberto Eco

Book Club 2025: London 2084 by Bing & Bringsværd

(March 21, 2025)

I guess this author duo has a special place in the hearts of all Norwegian nerds of a certain age. Not only did they champion science fiction in Norway in the 70s, but they edited a number of anthologies, got a bunch of classics translated, wrote sci-fi TV series… and also wrote a bunch of … Continue reading Book Club 2025: London 2084 by Bing & Bringsværd

Book Club 2025: De romantiske hundene by Roberto Bolaño

(March 20, 2025)

Of all the things I opine on that I’m utterly unqualified to opine on, poetry is the thing that I’m unqualifiediest (that’s a word) to opine on. But I’ve never let that stop me before, so: Eh, it didn’t grab me. I have no idea, of course, whether it’s the translation that’s the problem (this … Continue reading Book Club 2025: De romantiske hundene by Roberto Bolaño

Book Club 2025: Line Up For Murder by Marian Babson

(March 20, 2025)

Oops! I was hung over today, so I decided to read a mystery. This is a quite original concept — it’s about a bunch of people in line for days for a huge sale, and the “mystery” bit is about whether the people in the queue have other motives for sleeping on the sidewalk than … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Line Up For Murder by Marian Babson

WoRdPrEsS ReWrItEs My PoStS

(March 18, 2025)

So the other day, for the first time ever, I actually read one of my blog posts (excerpt seen above). (This also explains all the typoes.) But I saw that “WordPress” up there and I knew that I’d never write something that cringe-worthy. And indeed: See? In that test, there’s only one capitalised character in … Continue reading WoRdPrEsS ReWrItEs My PoStS

I Pity The Plants

(March 18, 2025)

I’ve got a couple of big sansevierias of different types, but they all have the same problem: About once a year, they send up these huge flower stems of, admittedly, not very impressive off-white flowers. So what’s the problem? It’s that every night when it gets dark, they send out the richest, sweetest, most perfumed … Continue reading I Pity The Plants

Book Club 2025: Ned til hundene by Helle Helle

(March 18, 2025)

Helle Helle is a Danish author, and I’ve seen her books around for years, but never actually read any of her books. I guess the main intriguing thing for me has been her cool name — yes, I’m that shallow. I guess I bought this book at an airport in December 2014, but then never … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Ned til hundene by Helle Helle

Two Panels From A Comic Book Presented Without Comment

(March 17, 2025)

Comics Daze

(March 17, 2025)

Finally a day for reading comics. And for music today: 1972 only. Or possibly also a bit of 1973 if I run out of 1972. David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars 11:14: Death of Copra #1 by Michel Fiffe (Image Comics) The end of Copra is here. … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

(March 17, 2025)

Like everybody else, I loved Cunningham’s book The Hours — it had a certain something very special going on. So I continued reading his books, but by the time I bought this one, I’d grown somewhat weary of his style. But I’ve got this strange habit of continuing to buy books from authors I’ve gone … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

Wherein I Explain Why Emacs Is The Best Tool For WordPress

(March 16, 2025)

When I look at popular tools for writing blog posts, they all seem to require an ungodly amount of work to get common things done. They mostly all get the basics right: You can just type away at a text, and then post it. Easy peasy. Sometimes it loses your work, but that’s modern computers … Continue reading Wherein I Explain Why Emacs Is The Best Tool For WordPress

Claude Simon is still hard core

(March 15, 2025)

Claude Simon is hard core

(March 15, 2025)

Book Club 2025: McSweeney’s #17

(March 15, 2025)

This was published in 2005, but I apparently bought this in 2013 — at The Strand! I think this was after I stopped my subscription to the magazine, but apparently this format was irresistible to me. As it is to this day. Some of the “mail” in this package is just bizarre fun, like this … Continue reading Book Club 2025: McSweeney’s #17

Book Club 2025: Finding My Elegy by Ursula K. Le Guin

(March 14, 2025)

The first half of this book has poems from most of her previous collections… … and I skipped that half, because I’ve already read them. Yes, OK, sure, perhaps I’m a teensy bit fanboyish about Le Guin? Anyway, the last half of the book is poetry written in the years before 2010, and I’ve been … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Finding My Elegy by Ursula K. Le Guin

Book Club 2025: King Rat by China Miéville

(March 14, 2025)

I’ve read most of Miéville’s books, and they’re a bit hit or miss. He’s a talented writer on a sentence by sentence basis, and that’s sometimes a problem: He gets so enthusiastic about how good he is that he has a tendency to go on and on, conjuring forth an exciting miasmatic milieu just by … Continue reading Book Club 2025: King Rat by China Miéville

Tweaked version of the simple auto poster for Bluesky

(March 13, 2025)

There’s are many plugins for WordPress to auto-post to Bluesky. I use the nice and simple one called (simply) simple-auto-poster-for-bluesky. It’s simple! But it has two problems: If you’re editing an older post that the plugin hasn’t seen before, it’ll post that to Bluesky, which is something you’d normally not want to happen. And the … Continue reading Tweaked version of the simple auto poster for Bluesky

Book Club 2025: Daybreak Zero by John Barnes

(March 12, 2025)

Barnes wrote some moderately entertaining space opera books back in the day, but this is book two in a post-apocalyptic series. I bought the two first books in 2012, but I only read the first, and I wasn’t quite sure why. But reading this now, it’s kinda coming back to me: The book is competently … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Daybreak Zero by John Barnes

Jazz Show

(March 11, 2025)

Comics Research Update

(March 10, 2025)

I’ve been updating kwakk.info, the search engine for magazines about comics a bit, because: Anna’s Archive finally updated their libgen.li mirror. So now we can see vital things like turn into and thousands of people with OCD rejoiced. Now, doing searches for Cartoonist PROfiles #35 on Anna’s is easy enough — you just search for … Continue reading Comics Research Update

Book Club 2025: The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt

(March 10, 2025)

This is a very short book — it’s part of a series called “Storybook ND” with the motto “the pleasure of reading a great book from cover to cover in an afternoon”. And it really succeeds at being a satisfying little book. It’s almost a short story, really, but it’s sly and witty and feels … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt

Random Comics

(March 9, 2025)

Voici quelques bandes dessinées que je lis depuis quelques semaines. I mean, here’s some comics I’ve read during the past couple weeks. Spirou continues to be somewhat entertaining, but it depends on the serials they are running, of course. But it’s fun when they put some efforts into launching a new Natacha serialisation. So we … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

(March 9, 2025)

I think this is probably the third Sanderson book I’ve read. Sanderson is, of course, one of the most-selling fantasy authors in the world, so I’ve avoided his books, but I picked up one last year and though “well, this isn’t that bad”, so I got two more. This is a novella, and again, it’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #250

(March 8, 2025)

This is the latest issue, so I’m finally caught up! I mean, I’ve got a whole stack of old issues I bought the other year, but I’ve caught up with the more recent ones. I’ve been reading this over the past couple weeks… It’s an unusually topical issue, but slyly so. The interview with Hanif … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review #250

Book Club 2025: Lyorn by Steven Brust

(March 7, 2025)

This is the seventeenth book in the Vlad Taltos series which has been going since the early 80s, so… 40 years? I think that’s pretty unique — I mean, there’s been many fantasy book series that have gone on for decades, but not quite this coherently. It’s basically the story of one single guy over … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Lyorn by Steven Brust

I Have Bought What May Be The Best Thing That Has Ever Been Made

(March 7, 2025)

Just look at it! Look at it! It’s a keypad with two knobs on it. It’s USB C. And looks what happens when I plug it in. Exactly! Apparently nothing! There are no LEDs! Do you know how rare it is to find a product, any product, that doesn’t have any LED lights these days? … Continue reading I Have Bought What May Be The Best Thing That Has Ever Been Made

Book Club 2025: Parade by Rachel Cusk

(March 5, 2025)

I don’t read reviews of book I might read, but I’ve seen some mutterings about this book — well, first of all, that’s it’s not as good as Outline, but then again, very few things are. So I was approaching this with some trepidation. Front-loading books with the most “difficult” material seems to be a … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Parade by Rachel Cusk

Book Club 2025: The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep by Lawrence Block

(March 3, 2025)

I quite enjoyed Block’s later Bernie Rhodenbarr books — they were repetetive, but well-written and amusing. So I went ahead and bought all of his earlier Tanner books, and this is the second of those I’ve read. And as before, he’s got the patter going, and it’s amusingly written. But the book has the structure … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep by Lawrence Block

Comics Daze

(March 3, 2025)

It’s time to read some comics. And for the music, I’m trying to recreate the order of Bowie albums I used to use when I was a teenager and reading comics. Let’s see if I get it right this time… David Bowie: Diamond Dogs 10:09: Distant Ruptures by CF (New York Review Comics) This is … Continue reading Comics Daze

Is it possible to take screenshots of web sites these days?

(March 3, 2025)

I was thinking about writing some code for older posts to check broken links and do screenshots of where links points to, as explained here. But before starting that, I thought it might make sense to explore a bit first to see what the options are. So I’ll just be nattering on randomly here and … Continue reading Is it possible to take screenshots of web sites these days?

February Music

(March 1, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in February. I’ve literally bought nothing this month. For some values of literally.

Book Club 2025: Tales from the Folly by Ben Aaronovitch

(February 28, 2025)

The worst mistake an author can do when writing short stories in between a series of novels is to try to “fill in” stuff from the backstory. That is, when creating a universe, good authors know a lot about their world that they never actually write (extensively) about. So for instance, if one of the … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Tales from the Folly by Ben Aaronovitch

Noise Show

(February 27, 2025)

Book Club 2025: The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

(February 27, 2025)

I bought this (at a sale) back in 2009 along with either Malone Dies or Molloy. I read the other book at the time, but not this one. I’m really culturemaxxing here — this edition was translated by Norway’s foremost poet, Jan Erik Vold, in the late 60s. And it flows really well; I wasn’t … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

Book Club 2025: School for Murder by Robert Barnard

(February 27, 2025)

I had a hangover over today from all that jazz yesterday, so I read another mystery. This is pretty solid — lots of interesting characters and a brisk pace. The only problem was that I took a five minute time out to think about who the murderer could be, and there was really only one … Continue reading Book Club 2025: School for Murder by Robert Barnard

Jazz Show

(February 25, 2025)

Stuff Mixtape #424

(February 25, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Arkansas by John Brandon

(February 24, 2025)

I bought this in 2008 — for a handful of years back then I bought basically everything published by McSweeney’s. I had a subscription to the quarterly, of course, but I also snapped up the other books they published. Half of the charm was the humour surrounding McSweeney’s, even if the books themselves weren’t “funny … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Arkansas by John Brandon

Book Club 2025: In the Teeth of Adversity by Marian Babson

(February 24, 2025)

I started this book last week while I had a cold, but then I suddenly got all better, and found it rather a chore to finish this book. It’s not that it’s bad on sentence by sentence basis, but Babson here really goes for a P. G. Wodehouse-style farce, but also featuring cats, several dentists … Continue reading Book Club 2025: In the Teeth of Adversity by Marian Babson

Random Comics

(February 23, 2025)

Here’s some comics I’ve read over the past few weeks. Mais d’abord, quelques mots que vous devez connaître. Er, I mean… This is the fourth Agence Hardy album by Pierre Christin and Annie Goetzinger… … and it’s the chattiest one yet. Really, this French is above my level, so it took a couple hours to … Continue reading Random Comics

Egill Skallagrímsson doesn’t seem relevant at all today

(February 22, 2025)

(Translated from Old Norse by Emily Osborne.)

New Type of Spam/Scam via Eventbrite?

(February 22, 2025)

I got the mail above from Eventbrite today, and as far as I can tell, it’s really been sent from Eventbrite, and the links are valid. So it’s for some show in Belgium somewhere, with a person called Tracy Wells? So I googled, and: Tracy Wells seems to be some kind of fortune teller scammer? … Continue reading New Type of Spam/Scam via Eventbrite?

Thanks, Cloudflare

(February 21, 2025)

I’m using a link checker plugin on this blog, but I’ve noticed lately that about half of the external links are marked as broken. (The plugin marks those links with a line through the text like shown above.) But when I click on the links, they work perfectly. So I just had a peek at … Continue reading Thanks, Cloudflare

Comics Daze

(February 21, 2025)

Oops, I’m still getting up at the wrong time of day after having a cold. But why not read some comics, then? Hey! It’s snowing again! And I’ve gotten a bunch of comics in the mail that I’m excited to read, so let’s get started. Shearwater: Animal Joy 03:06: Good Night and Sweet Dreams! by … Continue reading Comics Daze

WordPress Link Rot Tweak

(February 20, 2025)

A few years ago, I amended the Emacs package for WordPress so that it automatically grabbed a screenshot of whatever I linked to. That’s a low effort solution to the link rot problem — i.e., inevitably, all web sites die, and your blog ends up talking about web sites readers can no longer read. Now, … Continue reading WordPress Link Rot Tweak

Inserting Images Automatically in ewp

(February 19, 2025)

I’ve had code for ages to handle images automatically in Emacs and the WordPress Emacs package, but it hasn’t been integrated well before, and it’s been a bit hacky, leaving temporary files behind and stuff. So I’ve now finally cleaned it up, and here’s how it works in practice: See? Blogging with images is easy … Continue reading Inserting Images Automatically in ewp

HTML, but not too HTML

(February 17, 2025)

When writing blog posts, I use ewp, an Emacs package to administrate WordPress. It offers an editing mode based on the revolutionary idea of just writing HTML. Everything is cyclical in computing, so people move between writing things in raw HTML and using arcane and unholy systems, mostly based on some Markdown dialect. I understand … Continue reading HTML, but not too HTML

Book Club 2025: Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

(February 17, 2025)

“Despite this solve…” Oh my gerd! This is awful! On a sentence by sentence basis, this is gruelling. “The kettle screamed its achievement of boiling water and Adrian jerked it off the element, wincing.” This is torture. I got to page 30 before giving up, because the concept here sounds like it could be fun. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

Book Club 2025: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith

(February 17, 2025)

I’ve got a strange kind of cold this week — it doesn’t seem to get better or get worse, but just remains at a stage of me feeling slightly cruddy, so I’m picking books to read that go down easily. I’m not up for reading anything challenging. I bought this book in 2005 and then … Continue reading Book Club 2025: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith

Spam, Spam, WordPress and Spam

(February 17, 2025)

I was puttering around looking at WordPress spam, so I wondered just how much I get. So I altered the WordPress Statistics for Emacs package to grab spam comments, too, so that I see what I have, and… It’s about 160 spam comments per day across the blogs. These are all caught by Akismet Anti-Spam, … Continue reading Spam, Spam, WordPress and Spam

Comment Spam Is Annoying Part XIV

(February 16, 2025)

I was looking at the WordPress statistics just now, and I saw that an old, obscure post had suddenly gotten popular. Looking at the details, all the hits are from different IP addresses, and all the visitors come via Google! Over a 15 minute period! So that’s obviously not real — it’s a botnet of … Continue reading Comment Spam Is Annoying Part XIV

Book Club 2025: A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross

(February 16, 2025)

This book collects one novella and two short stories, so, er, “A Laundry Files Novel”? Well, OK, perhaps Stross considers this to be a very short novel, and not a novella… Or perhaps the publishers think “novel” sells better than “novella”, and they should know. As usual with Stross, his style is burbling — it’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross

Book Club 2025: Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold

(February 15, 2025)

I’ve got a cold. Boo! But whenever I have a cold, I get to re-read old science fiction novels. Yay! I mean, I could do that even if I didn’t have a cold, but somehow I prefer reading new books when I’m well and books I’ve read before when I’m poorly. And this is just … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold

Book Club 2025: The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch

(February 13, 2025)

Looks like I bought this book at a sale back in 2004 and then didn’t read it. I guess that happens more often with books on sale than other books. This is a slightly over-the-top satire of the “middle aged academic meets pixie dream girl” genre: The main character, Mor, is the head of a … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch

Comics Daze

(February 9, 2025)

I went on a short trip to London and I bought a bunch of comics. But I also have a bunch of other comics I haven’t read yet, so let’s mix things up. And for today’s music… perhaps just David Bowie? With the albums played in the other I used to play as a teenager … Continue reading Comics Daze

Q: What materials did you use in this comfy cardigan, The Viridi-anne? A: Yes

(February 8, 2025)

Synth Show

(February 7, 2025)

Jazz Show

(February 6, 2025)

I’m the best photographer.

Maintain asocial distance

(February 6, 2025)

Amazing life hack: Extra lil’ sink so you can wash your hands while you poop

(February 6, 2025)

(Could also be a very avant garde bidet, I guess.)

Improv Show

(February 6, 2025)

It was fab. Fab-ish. Rie Nakajima & Max Eastley did some interesting stuff, but most of it was on the floor, so only the people in the first row got to see what was going on with all those little machines and stuff. Mia Zabelka didn’t have that problem, and it was fab-fab. But then … Continue reading Improv Show

Book Club 2025: Heavy Weather by P. G. Wodehouse

(February 4, 2025)

I’ve gotten to 1933 in my chronological read of P.G. Wodehouse novels, and I was wondering whether there’s a general drop-off in quality in his books… so I googled what people thought, and the rough consensus is that yes indeed, after 1940 his books suck or something? And that this is almost his final top … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Heavy Weather by P. G. Wodehouse

Comics Daze

(February 4, 2025)

Gah! I woke up in the middle of the night and I don’t feel like wrestling myself back to sleep, so perhaps this is a good night and then day to read comics? I guess we’ll see. And for today’s music: 1991 only. Heidi Berry: Love 04:25: Mothballs by Sole Otero (Fantagraphics) The artwork here … Continue reading Comics Daze

Jazz Show

(February 2, 2025)

January Music

(January 31, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in January. Hey! I bought a lot of stuff in January! Some of it was a result of me looking at various “best of” lists. Like The Wire’s had Blood Incantation pretty high up, and I gave it a shot, and it’s indeed awesome: Prog/kraut/death metal or something. And my old favourites … Continue reading January Music

Book Club 2025: The Red and the Black II by Stendhal

(January 31, 2025)

I read the first volume of this last year, and then I started this one a week ago. The Norwegian translation is by Paul René Gaugin, the more famous Gaugin’s son, and it was originally done for a 1944 translation (even if my edition is from the 70s). And… it’s almost wilfully archaic. That is, … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Red and the Black II by Stendhal

Book Club 2025: Past Regret by Marian Babson

(January 30, 2025)

Still in the mood for something easy on the brain. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of Babson’s best books — her main strength (after being a pretty decent writer on a word by word basis) is that she’s good at keeping amusing patter going. And this is a more “serious” thriller than anything else, and it’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Past Regret by Marian Babson

Book Club 2025: Paws For Alarm by Marian Babson

(January 30, 2025)

I was feeling in the mood to vegetate today, so I rooted out this old book that I probably read 20 years ago. It’s hard finding good trash. There’s an endless amount of solid serious literature, but finding books that are easy on the brain but still marginally well-written is hard. This was originally published … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Paws For Alarm by Marian Babson

Jazz Show

(January 28, 2025)

Wow, this is the longest time I’ve ever gone between watching shows. I blame the weather. And this was totally amazing. Both sets. And the terlets are even more er original than last time.

Random Comics

(January 27, 2025)

I’ve been reading comics! Here’s some stuff I’ve read over the past couple weeks. DC’s reprint push has made me buy a bunch of these huge books, reprinting things from throughout their history. I’m not sure why, really. Marketing works? Or something? This is drawn by Gil Kane, which is probably why I got this … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer

(January 26, 2025)

I’ve read most of Heyer’s classic books (i.e., the regency romances and her crime novels), and a handful of years ago I made I final sweep to buy her remaining books. The remaining books were mostly her “serious” historic books and her very serious contemporary novels (and in particular the latter aren’t regarded very highly … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer

Book Club 2025: The Paris Review 234

(January 26, 2025)

Is this a book even? It’s a literary magazine, but it’s book like, and this is my book club, so there! I’ve almost read the entire backlog of Paris Reviews that built up during Corona and stuff, so this is from 2020. Happier times. It’s a good issue. More experimental than usual, perhaps. Anyway! Class! … Continue reading Book Club 2025: The Paris Review 234

I’m already exhausted

(January 25, 2025)

Yes, I’m sorting floppies.

Just Duolingo thoughts

(January 25, 2025)

(Lydia Davis.)

Thinking About Opening URLs in Emacs, and Wayland, and Stuff

(January 24, 2025)

Emacs has had browse-url for ages — it’s very simple; it just calls browse-url-browser-function, and that’s enough for most things. But then somebody implemented a browser in Emacs that was halfway possible to use for a number of non-complicated web pages, namely eww, and that complicated things. Now some people wanted to stay in Emacs … Continue reading Thinking About Opening URLs in Emacs, and Wayland, and Stuff

This movie is my spirit animal

(January 24, 2025)

Chat Pile has the coolest vinyl

(January 23, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Here Comes A Hero by Lawrence Block

(January 22, 2025)

I’ve read quite a few books by Lawrence Block — they’re a bit hit or miss. That is, he writes well, but his plots often leave much to be desired. This is from an early series, and I haven’t read any of these books before. Well, yes, this is wittily written as usual. You can’t … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Here Comes A Hero by Lawrence Block

Book Club 2025: Still Life by Louise Penny

(January 22, 2025)

I was in the mood to read some cheesy detective novel today, and this was recommended for fans of Agatha Christie, etc… … but my god! The horrors! The writing here is so awful. It’s not just that she’s heavy handed with the adjective and adverb sprinkling, but the way pronouns don’t always match up … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Still Life by Louise Penny

Book Club 2025: Memory’s Legion by James S. A. Corey

(January 20, 2025)

This is a collection of short stories from the Expanse universe. They were published concurrently with the novels, but I haven’t read them before this. And I was thinking… “yay! an opportunity to spend some nostalgic time with all those characters I loved!” And this is not that at all. Instead we get the backstories … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Memory’s Legion by James S. A. Corey

Relax your shoulders

(January 20, 2025)

(Andrew White.)

Logarithms, how do they work?

(January 19, 2025)

My algo for maps sucked because there was just too big a difference between the top country and the rest: So my map looked like this: See? The US is white while the rest of the countries are basically two different hues (non-visited countries and visited countries). Then I remembered that logarithms were a thing … Continue reading Logarithms, how do they work?

Comics Daze

(January 19, 2025)

I got a whole bunch more of the books I missed in 2024 in the mail on Friday, so it’s time to get some more reading done. And like the previous Daze, I’m mixing these books I found on various “best of 2024” lists and then realised that I’d forgotten to buy with a bunch … Continue reading Comics Daze

“How much is two and two?” “Are you buying or selling?”

(January 18, 2025)

– Rahib Alemeddine

Maps & WordPress Statistics

(January 18, 2025)

While dropping off to sleep last night, I was thinking about how much work it might be to add a world map to the WordPress Statistics for Emacs thing. Not because it’s useful, but because Jetpack has one, and I have to have feature parity!!! So that’s what the Jetpack one looks like… Yeah, yeah, … Continue reading Maps & WordPress Statistics

Comics Daze

(January 16, 2025)

I missed some comics I wanted to read in 2024! *gasp* My methodology for US comics is to go through the solicitations on my web site here, and then semiautomatically order the books… I’ve used Mile High Comics since I was 12, but they are horrible about actually reacting to subscription changes, especially when ordering … Continue reading Comics Daze

WordPress Statistics for Emacs

(January 16, 2025)

A few days ago, I posted about writing a new WordPress stats thing because the Jetpack stats layout annoyed me too much. I’ve continued to tinker with it, and I think it should now basically be usable. I renamed it to wse (WordPress Statistics for Emacs), and it’s on Microsoft Github if anybody’s interested in … Continue reading WordPress Statistics for Emacs

Total Eclipse Moves

(January 15, 2025)

My old blog about Eclipse Comics used to be hosted by WordPress.com, but after the recent Jetpack Stats changes, I’ve moved it to self-hosting so that I can get nice stats again. So this is just a heads up that if you used to go to totaleclipse.blog, it’s now hosted on total-eclipse.kwakk.info. All the old … Continue reading Total Eclipse Moves

I feel seen!

(January 14, 2025)

Random Comics

(January 13, 2025)

I read some comics the past few weeks! I know, unusual… The heftiest item is this collection of comics by Didier Comès. I’ve read about half of this in translation before, but the rest is new to me. (Too bad about the awful cover the publishers have chosen here…) And… it’s just totally gorgeous. And … Continue reading Random Comics

Book Club 2025: Poems 1918-1975 by Charles Reznikoff

(January 11, 2025)

Heh, looks like I bought this book at a sale around 1998 (for like $7) and never got around to reading it. It’s not that I don’t enjoy Reznikoff, but I just don’t like omnibus books… I prefer reading the books separately for some reason or other. Anyway, this is the stuff. THE STUFF. There’s … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Poems 1918-1975 by Charles Reznikoff

WordPress Statistics & Me

(January 11, 2025)

I’m using Jetpack Stats to see what’s happenin’ on mah blogs, and it’s never been whatchamacall “great”, but it’s been OK. It’s OK. It displays all the pertinent info in one pretty compact screen: You don’t have to scroll around. But they’ve been threatening to remove the “classic”, compact stats for years, and yesterday they … Continue reading WordPress Statistics & Me

2025 MOOD

(January 9, 2025)

(From Autobiography: New York by Charles Reznikoff.)

The Internet is for cats

(January 9, 2025)

(From Iris by Didier Comès, but I wonder whether he had an assistant draw the animals, because they don’t really look like his rendering style…)

Comics are very edumacational

(January 8, 2025)

Comics Daze

(January 7, 2025)

Man, it’s snowmageddoning tonight… Best to bundle up in a blanket with some comics and chocolate. And music from 1994. Arthur Russell: Another Thought 00:58: A Cosplayers Christmas by Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics) I got this in the mystery mail this month. I’m not sure whether I’ve already got this? It’s very topical, though. I mean, … Continue reading Comics Daze

Book Club 2025: In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster

(January 6, 2025)

I bought this book in 1998, at the tail end of my Auster obsession. In the 90s, I read everything he published — the novels, of course, but also the essay collections, the plays, the juvenalia… and watched all movies he’d been involved with. But I grew increasingly… er… overly familiar with his storytelling ticks? … Continue reading Book Club 2025: In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster

A Simple Archive.Org RSS Feed Creator

(January 5, 2025)

I’ve been trolling archive.org for magazines about comics sorta regularly (sorting by date added). Yesterday, for instance, I found that somebody had uploaded a bunch of issues of Wizard Magazine that were missing from kwakk.org, the search engine for magazines about comics: But… manual processes are so tedious, so I wondered whether there was an … Continue reading A Simple Archive.Org RSS Feed Creator

Book Club 2025: Doctor Sally by P. G. Wodehouse

(January 5, 2025)

I’m reading Wodehouse sorta chronologically, and I’ve now reached 1931. This is a short novel based on one of Wodehouse’s plays. And it is, of course, very witty, but like all of the books that Wodehouse wrote that were based on his plays, it’s just not as good as his other novels. It retains the … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Doctor Sally by P. G. Wodehouse

A&R2015: Cerebus Archive

(January 5, 2025)

Cerebus Archive (1977) #1-10 by Dave Sim Back when I was doing the mop-ups for my Aardvark Vanaheim/Renegade Press blog series, I just couldn’t find my copies of Cerebus Archive — not the original Cerebus Archive series, but the series of portfolios that followed afterwards. I looked everywhere I could think of — these things … Continue reading A&R2015: Cerebus Archive

Book Club 2025: Mitt Abruzzo by Pet Petterson

(January 5, 2025)

I’ve been reading this book for over a year before falling asleep, and it works well as that. Er, I mean, it’s not that it’s boring or anything, but it’s a journal and I can read a couple of pages, or read a dozen pages, and it’s fine — I don’t have to remember much … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Mitt Abruzzo by Pet Petterson

They milk cows!

(January 4, 2025)

Stuff Mixtape #423

(January 3, 2025)

Book Club 2025: Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel

(January 3, 2025)

I started reading this book a week ago, but then stopped and read some other books in between. It’s not that it’s a bad book — and Elizabeth H. Bonesteel should surely win the coveted “Most Real-Sounding Name For An Author” prize of 2025 — it’s a pretty exciting mystery set on a far-away planet. … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel

Book Club 2025: Some Memories of Drawings by Georgia O’Keeffe

(January 2, 2025)

Hm, why did I buy this one again…? Oh, right, I read Andrew White’s comics piece on O’Keeffe, and I think he recommended this book in the commentary or something? It’s a very handsome book. And I didn’t realise she worked in all these different styles… O’Keeffe’s comments are quite amusing, too. Some Memories of … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Some Memories of Drawings by Georgia O’Keeffe

Book Club 2025: Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard

(January 2, 2025)

Am I doing this? Hm… Well, I thought it might be slightly amusing to log books I’m reading… but I don’t want to review books, because if you’re reviewing books, you start reading them in a different way, and I don’t want to do that. So, like, perhaps just a couple sentences about each book? … Continue reading Book Club 2025: Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard

December Music

(January 1, 2025)

Music I’ve bought in December. I basically didn’t buy much of anything in December, for some reason or another.