Monthly Archives: March 2016

Hey

bwuh

Hey are you awake

sort of

How come you’re all groggy and droopy and such

can’t talk must edit

Yeah ’cause you seem like your English skills are pretty awesome right now

danke

What are you editing anyway

about 800 million powerpoint slides

Seriously

yes

Okay so what else

betsy’s family came to visit for easter

Was your 18-month-old niece adorable and did you eat way too much chocolate

yes

What is that kid’s vocabulary like

p sweet, she knows about 20 words now, i wrote them down do u want to hear them

Okay

uh-oh mommy elmo okay milk bubbles daddy dog-dog juice sock buh-bye hi baby ball mine binky please thank you book stuck

That’s pretty rad

ikr

Are you still planning to go to Boston at the end of April

yes

Any other social interaction

mr trube will be visiting this weekend and we might watch avatar

Did you find an amazing new webcomic that you can’t tell us about yet because it’s Friday Links not Thursday Links

yes

What do you think about people who mix up hyphens with en dashes

noobz

Whatcha been reading

time travelers guide to elizabethan england, paradise lost (again), joan of arc

Do you feel that people who underrate the value of science perhaps do not properly appreciate how much more horrifying the past was

yes

What’s the deal with Joan of Arc anyway?

amazing

What about that thing with the bird and Bernie Sanders, what’s up with that

bernie = radagast

Okay well I won’t take up any more of your time but your English really is outstanding

ty

This Pi Day, embrace the joy of circles in whatever way makes you happy.

Yeah, that’ll work.

Trump’s wisdom is deep. Like, really deep. So deep that it might sound like stupidity to the untrained ear. What it is, in fact, is revolutionary.

Take, for instance, the infamous comments he made about John McCain back in July of last year. Trump was at a rally, talking to a Republican pollster named Frank Luntz.

Trump: “…I supported him [McCain] for president. I raised $1 million for him. That’s a lot of money. I supported him, he lost, he let us down. But he lost and I never liked him much after that ’cause I don’t like losers. But, but — Frank, Frank, let me get to it.

Luntz: “He’s a war hero. He’s a war hero …”

Trump: “He’s not a war hero …”

Luntz: “He’s war hero.”

Trump: “He is a war hero …”

Luntz: “Five and a half years in a Vietnamese prison camp …”

Trump: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured. So he’s a war hero …”

Luntz: “Do you agree with that?”

Trump: “He’s a war hero, because he was captured, okay? I believe, perhaps, he’s a war hero. But right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people. So what I said is John McCain, I disagree with him that these people aren’t crazy.”

(source)

To summarize: John McCain (1) is not a war hero, (2) is a war hero, and (3) is only technically a “war hero” because he was captured, like a loser.

Some might call these statements contradictory, confusing, petty, disrespectful, cynical, self-serving, small-minded, misleading, unnecessary, ridiculous, and absurd. Such people aren’t grasping the deeper wisdom.

The point is simple. Labels like “war hero” don’t really matter. What really matter are labels like “loser.” And if you get captured, you’re a loser.

This deep insight upends centuries – nay, millennia – of conventional wisdom, which says that enduring enemy capture is difficult, harrowing, and often ennobling. Obviously, the conventional establishment logic is misguided. After all, if you get captured, aren’t you a loser by definition?

With that in mind, for the edification of all, I present:

A List of Losers (i.e. people who have been captured or arrested by opponents)

• Jesus Christ
• St. Peter
• St. Paul
• John the Baptist
• Samson
• Daniel (Old Testament)
• Joseph (Old Testament)
• Socrates
• Julius Caesar
• Joan of Arc
• William Wallace
• Queen Elizabeth I
• Galileo Galilei
• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Paul Revere
• Thomas Paine
• Henry David Thoreau
• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Susan B. Anthony
• Anne Frank
• Rosa Parks
• Alan Turing
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Winston Churchill
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Nelson Mandela
• George Takei

Such a long list of losers may give pause to even such a venerable sage as Mr. Trump. If he can’t rely on any of them as role models, then who can he turn to?

That’s something the philosopher must decide on his own. But I may be able to offer some guidance, in my own small way.

A List of People Who Have Never Been Captured (to my knowledge)

• Judas Iscariot
• The Prophet Mohammed
• Hillary Clinton

Mr. Trump, you’re welcome.

You may recall that last Halloween, the sedulous Benjamin Trube challenged me to write a romance novel for NaNoWriMo – 50,000 words, finished by November 30. If I managed it, he would personally record an audio book of whatever I had written.

Well, I didn’t make November 30, and we ended up dropping the word requirement to 25K. But I did, in the end, cross the finish line.

A few weeks ago I handed Mr. Trube a copy of my “romance” “novel.”

“Novel” is in quotes because 25K words is pretty damn short for a novel. And “romance” is in quotes because the book is pretty damn ridiculous, as you might guess from the title: The Desirable Man Who Entered a Relationship with the Heroine Despite Occasional Setbacks Described Herein.

I took the liberty of mocking up some covers.

Direct image links: front cover, back cover.

Early reader feedback has been positive and incredulous. It’s not publicly available yet, but I’ll keep you posted.