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Seven books new to me. Well, six and one replacement. Four fantasy, one historical, one horror, one science fiction. Two appear to be part of series.

Books Received, October 11 to October 17


Poll #33737 Books Received, October 11 to October 17
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Boys With Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell (July 2026)
0 (0.0%)

Behind Five Willows by June Hur (May 2026)
1 (100.0%)

Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher (August 2026)
0 (0.0%)

Heir of Storms by Lauryn Hamilton Murray (June 2026)
0 (0.0%)

City of Others by Jaren Poon (January 2026)
1 (100.0%)

Starry Messenger: The Best of Galileo edited by Charles C. Ryan (November 1979)
1 (100.0%)

How to Lose a Goblin in Ten Days by Jessie Sylva (January 2026)
1 (100.0%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
1 (100.0%)

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
Today Hawk had her foot surgery. Her first of two foot surgeries. There's one for each foot.

We were at the big clinic in Mountain View for about 4 hours. That included time for check in, pre-op checks, 90 minutes in the OR, and then recovery and discharge. The surgery time was long so I went upstairs to the cafeteria to wait it out instead of sitting in the surgery center's waiting area. Call that a bit of pro mode.

Another bit of pro mode was basically knowing where everything is at the clinic. Every time a nurse or other staffer started to give me directions to some place, like here to park the car to pick up Hawk for discharge, I stopped them and said, "I know. We've been here a lot before. Unfortunately."

Once back home Hawk wanted pancakes. That's her usual post-surgery indulgent meal. We've done it lot before, unfortunately. ๐Ÿ˜‚

Mochi pancakes (Oct 2025)

Yes, the pancakes are actually slightly purple. They're ube mochi pancakes. This time I didn't troll her family about her loving chocolate chip pancakes. It's no fun; they all complete failed the "Do you know your own daughter/sister?" test last time.

After lunch Hawk curled up on the sofa to watch some videos. I'm taking it easy this afternoon, too, having taken the day off from work.

Baby Talk

Oct. 16th, 2025 11:58 am
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
[personal profile] dorchadas
One benefit of Laila having a speech delay is that a lot of really cute toddler expressions that go away too fast (from a parents' perspective) have stuck around for longer. Here's a list of them at this point, so I don't forget them later:
  • Tromise: What she says when she's telling us she won't do it (whatever "it" is) again. Upgrades to "Big Tromise" when she's trying to show us how serious she is. This is already fading away into "Promise"
  • Princess Stuff: Sparkly gowns, high heels, tiaras, gloves, anything that she knows a princess would wear.
  • Hold You: In most other circumstances she's got I/you down but this one lingers when she wants me to pick her up.
  • Same same!: Any time two things are similar, usually accompanied by pointing at them and then crossing her arms and pointing at the opposite one.
  • Big Giiiiiiiirl!: Always in a sing-song voice, whenever she does something she knows is a sign of getting older that she's proud of, like putting her clothes on by herself. She'll also use "Big girl" to describe anyone acting like a grownup--I got called a big girl for putting my shoes on myself.
  • Cheese hangaburs: What she says when someone is taking a picture of her.
  • Peppersalts: Salt and pepper.
  • Little Girl: There are three classifications of people--babies, little girls, and people who are elderly. A little girl is anyone from about age 6 to 45.
  • Flamingos: "Mangos." Sometimes this becomes "Flamangos."
  • Somegetti: Spaghetti.
What a cutey. Emoji Kawaii heart

Average New Car Tops $50k Now

Oct. 16th, 2025 08:54 pm
canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
It's in the news this week that the average new car price in the US has topped $50,000 for the first time. That's according to a study released by Kelley Blue Book.

That eye-popping price presents quite a bit of sticker shock to those of us older than, say, 30, who remember cars being a lot cheaper in the past— including the not-too-distant past. But car prices are inflationary, and over time the compounding effect of a few percent a year packs a wallop— particularly after the past few years, when inflation has run higher than just a few percent a year.

Even so, have car prices increased faster than the rate of inflation? One way of looking at it argues yes. For example, I bought my own first car, new, in 1991. It cost $9,100. Per inflation calculators easy to find online (I did a quick search and tried the top five results, all hosted by reputable sites) that $9,100 in 1991 dollars is $21,500 today. Trying finding a new car for just $21,500 nowadays! "The $20,000 market for cars is extinct," Cox Automotive analyst Erin Keating said, as noted in this Yahoo! Finance article (14 Oct 2025).

"Extinct" is a bit of hyperbole, of course. But if you tweak that term to nearly extinct, it's spot-on. A quick check over at Edmunds.com shows that it's hard to get into a new car, even a subcompact, for my $21,500 effective price in 2025. Here's what I found:

  • A popular car that was comparable in size to what I bought at the time is the Honda Civic. The cheapest Civic model today starts at 24,500. (That's Edmunds' suggested negotiated price, not "sticker".)

  • Another popular moden that was similar to mine 24 years ago is the Toyota Corolla. The cheapest new 2025 Corolla, in base trim, is $22,200.

  • Rounding out the Japanese Big 3, Nissan's base-model Sentra S retails for an average of $21,250.


Many of the articles covering KBB's announcement point out that a simple, inflation based comparison is misleading. That's because, they argue, cars today are better than cars from years ago. Indeed, reliability is up across the auto industry. Statistics show that cars are able to operate more miles and more years now than decades ago.

Feature content in new cars is improved, too. That $21,250 Nissan Sentra S is derided for offering sparse accommodations. Indeed it comes with steel wheels with plastic hub caps and cloth upholstery. But my 1991 new car also had steel wheels with plastic hubcaps and cloth upholstery... and it did not have power windows. Or air conditioning. ๐Ÿ˜ฐ These are things we all take for granted in cars today! And the 2025 Sentra S also has remote keyless entry, push-button start, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with a 7" touchscreen. My 1991 car didn't even have a side-view mirror on the right side. I bought one a year later for $95 from the dealership's parts department and installed it myself!

So, yeah, the $21,500 end of the new car market really doesn't suck today. Sure, you're getting a base-model car for that money, but even the base model today is a way nicer car than the base models of years ago.

And what about that $50k figure? Most of the news coverage about it notes that the average price has been driven up by most of the activity in the new-car market being at the higher end. Lower end shoppers are finding more satisfaction in buying a good, lightly used car for $21,500. That's where I'd be shopping today with $21,500. Meanwhile the best-selling new vehicle in the US is the Ford F-150 pickup, the most popular trim levels of which start over $40,000. The plusher trims run from $50,000 to over $70,000.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
The work crew was in our house again Wednesday. Recall that on Day 1, Tuesday, they stripped the tile off the floor to repair the leak damage underneath. Today they laid the new tile.

New tiles in the bathroom, no grout yet (Oct 2025)

The tiles still have spacers between them (those little plastic loops) because the mortar underneath them is still drying. The hole in the floor over toward the left side is where the toilet drain flange will be installed and the toilet will sit.

Pantry ceiling and walls patched from pipe leak, not repainted yet (Oct 2025)

Downstairs they patched up the bits of ceiling and wall they cut open to repair damage from the leak. The drywall patches look great. I mean, they're not painted yet, so that part doesn't look great, but the workmen did a fine job of mudding and sanding the gaps between drywall pieces that it looks smooth and continuous. Once they repaint— which is planned for Monday— this area will look like nothing ever happened.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The tabletop science fiction roleplaying game of transhuman survival from Posthuman Studios.

Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The American orbital transfer station offers employment to Byron McDougall, a chance for Charlie Bond to search for an alternative to MAD, and for Diana Osborne, escape from her violently abusive father.

The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury
canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
I've posted a few times recently about plumbing repairs in our house. We've had two plumbing projects recently. One was replacing some hardware in our shower in our first bathroom. That was a DIY project to replace some dripping valves and update the look of some hardware, and it's now done.

The other project is replacing the toilet flange in our second bathroom. That's necessary because of a leak in the ceiling we discovered. We called a plumber since it was a leak inside the walls. He removed the toilet, cut into the walls, and diagnosed it as a broken drain flange that would need to be replaced. That was all eight weeks ago now. Yes, it took that long for them to schedule the work to fix it.

Finally, Tuesday, a small crew came to start the work. Here's the Day 1 progress.

Fixing the toilet drain flange - Day 1 progress (Oct 2025)

Part of the reason it took the plumbing company 8 weeks to schedule the work is that they realized they'd need to remove the tile floor in the bathroom and re-tile it. You can see the floor stripped down to the sub-floor in the photo above. You can also see the new piece of sub-floor (plywood) they installed. That's to replace what was rotted out by the leaking flange. Once they stripped out all the tiles they realized the rot spread more widely than first thought. Thus it was good the project lead decided to strip the whole floor.

The black pipe with the metal can sitting atop it is a temporary drain pipe sitting atop the new flange. That will be trimmed down to size when they're ready to reinstall the toilet.

This is my home office during plumbing repairs. I've moved temporarily. (Oct 2025)

I posted yesterday about moving my home office downstairs temporarily. Here's why. The photo above shows what's currently in my regular home office. Yeah, the bathroom being repaired is connected to the office. So in addition to it being super noisy up there while the workers are working, the office is currently storing a few things that aren't in the bathroom. Like the actual toilet!

The plan for today, Day 2, is that the workers will install new tile on the bathroom floor. Among other things that means they're going to be running a tile saw— which has a very loud, very high pitched whine as it runs. Working from downstairs may not be enough. I might have to work somewhere other than in the house today.


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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Growing up is hard enough without the entire world falling apart around you.

Five Novels About Coming of Age During the Apocalypse

The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran

Oct. 15th, 2025 09:19 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Why do Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital patients keep plummeting from the 6th floor, and why do none of them bleed when they hit the tarmac? The explanation is outside Detective Suyeon's field of expertise.

The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran

Assembling New Shelves

Oct. 14th, 2025 08:04 pm
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
Our kitchen pantry has been out of service for the past several weeks waiting on plumbing repairs for the toilet. Until just recently we've been limping along with the pantry contents stacked up on one end of our dining room table. We never intended that to be a long-term solution... but we also never expected it to take the plumbers nearly eight weeks to come back around and start the repairs. So late last week we shopped online and ordered a couple of inexpensive shelves to put in the dining room as a temporary measure.

Assembling shelves for a temporary pantry... and more (Oct 2025)

The shelves arrived Sunday night. We started putting them together almost right away.

Yes, like most furniture today— most affordable furniture, anyway— these shelves arrived in a flat-pack box and we had to assemble them ourselves. In the photo above and the first one below you can see us bolting things together with the help of hex wrenches (included).

Assembling shelves for a temporary pantry... and more (Oct 2025)

What do I mean by affordable furniture? Well, as we were looking at various comes-in-a-flat-box, assembly-required shelves on Amazon Hawk asked, "Why don't we just go to Hoot Judkins and get another bookshelf like that nice one we have upstairs?"

The reason we don't is that two-shelf bookshelf— which, BTW, is solid wood— cost $300... 10 years ago. The same item probably costs $500 today. These shelves are $50 apiece.

And these are on the pricier end for what they are. The vertical frames are metal, not particle board, and the shelf planks are real wood, also not particle board. If we'd wanted particle-board shelves we could've paid as little as $30 apiece.

Assembling shelves for a temporary pantry... and more (Oct 2025)

Once we got the two shelves assembled on Sunday night and loaded up, moving most of the pantry contents off our dining room table, we decided we'd like a third shelf! Yes, these are really sturdy, and the fit and finish nice. Plus, they do fit neatly under the kitchen counter overhang (no accident; I measured) and the black-and-dark-wood colors match our dining table. We ordered a third shelf Sunday night, and it arrived less than 24 hours later, on Monday around dinnertime. We assembled it promptly, and— after posing it for the photo above— filled it up with pantry contents

It's a bit ironic that we left our pantry stacked up atop our dining table for 8 weeks before buying these shelves, and now after we've had them just a day or two the plumbers are here, working on the bathroom, today! It kinda seems like a waste of $150 for these shelves. But I knew the timing would be a risk when I bought them, which is why I carefully selected these shelves for their size, looks, and quality. Once we get the pantry back in order— which hopefully we can do in just a few days, now— we'll redeploy two of these shelves to hold some of the overflowing materials in Hawk's crafting space. The third shelf we'll probably keep here in the dining room, tucked under the kitchen bar, to hold overflow that would otherwise clutter the dining room.

Robo-Spam Now With AI

Oct. 14th, 2025 12:49 pm
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
It was only a matter of time. For a few years we had the scourge of robo-spam calls. You know, spam campaigns where a recorded voice tries to trick you into something, like your relatives in China are in trouble with the central government, and asks you to stay on the line for more instructions. (Yeah, that one was easy to detect— and ignore— because it was in Chinese and I have no Chinese relatives.) But now, because it's 2025 and AI is popping up everywhere, we have AI robo-spam. Spammer aim to increase their hit rate— the chance that you interact with their pitch— by making it seem almost like a real person is talking to you.

I answered my first call like this last night.

Note, I don't answer many spam calls anymore. They've become easy to spot, as the Caller ID comes up "Potential Spam" on my smartphone. I chose to answer this one on the theory of once you answer they stop trying. (I base this on knowledge of how auto-dialers work, from my experience as a telemarketer ๐Ÿ˜จ many years ago. The system will keep trying your number periodically until it logs a live-person connection.) Plus, sometimes these calls are not from spammers, per se, but from organizations I have a relationship with.

The call began innocuously enough, with seemingly a live person on the other end.

"HI, IS THIS <YOUR NAME>?"

"Yeah, this is <first name>."

"<long pause> THIS IS ERICA FROM CREDIT-SOMETHING. HOW ARE YOU?"

The voice seemed a bit off. It was natural sounding but boomy. And it was too perfect. That triggered my suspicions. Most spam callers nowadays frankly struggle with English— because they're low-skill workers in foreign countries where the cost of labor is lower than in countries where English is the primary language.

"What's this about?" I asked, aiming to short-circuit the obvious cold-call.

"<long pause> GREAT! I'M CALLING ABOUT—"

The second long pause and the fact that the caller responded as if I'd answered her question ("How are you?") instead of countering with my own question told me I was likely speaking to a robot. And by "robot" I mean an AI powered system. Though obviously not a great one.

"Are you a robot?" I asked, interrupting

"<long pause> I AM AN INTERACT VOICE ASSISTANT!"

"Ergo, you're a robot. <click>"

Working from Downstairs, Again

Oct. 14th, 2025 09:29 am
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
With plumbers expected to arrive today to fix our broken toilet— yes, that link is from almost 8 weeks ago; that's how long it's taken then to get around to the work ๐Ÿ˜ก— I've moved my home office setup down to a folding table in the living room.

Temporary downstairs home office... again (Oct 2025)

I do this temporary office relocation a few times a year. Most years I do it for a week or two in the summer when it gets really hot up on the third floor, where my real home office is located. This year the summer wasn't that hot, though I did choose to relocate briefly in May when the neighbors were having noisy renovations done. It's nice that modern technology— laptop computers and LED external monitors— makes it easy to grab and go. From the time I unplugged upstairs until I was set up and powered-on downstairs was 5 minutes.

It's not a bad setup, aside from the fact the folding card table is a bit wobbly. (A few years ago Hawk would let me borrow her craft desk when I needed a week's relocation, but now it's too full of... craft.) It's nice being able to open the curtains on the sliding glass door to enjoy the view of the garden outside. This morning a pair of humming birds are flitting around the trees. It's also nice to open the door for fresh air in the morning, though this morning it's just a tad too cool to enjoy it.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Fallen Woman turned private investigator Sarah Tolerance is hired to recover a fan. Carnage ensues.

Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance, volume 1) by Madeleine E. Robins
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
Earlier today I put our plumbing progress to music in the form of "Back in the Shower Again". Now it's time to revisit a topic I posted about yesterday, changing seasons, with two tunes: Here Comes the Rain Again and The Heat is On.

That's right, after Sunday turned out to be both sunny and warm, today turned rainy and cooler. Around 4pm I noticed it was cool in the house, having not really warmed up much inside all day, and switched on the heat. It wasn't a big change, just that 68° in the afternoon felt too cool inside. The heat is set at 70° now.

A big part of the reason it never warmed up inside is that it's been cool and cloudy outside all day— with rain that kicked in after noon. We've gotten a pretty good dumping of rain this afternoon, actually. When Hawk and I went out for some errands late this afternoon we noted that various kinds of runoff systems in the area are struggling, from drainage outside our house to drainage along roads and at commercial buildings. One weather source reports 1.25" of rainfall locally.

Well, turning on the heat today completes the trifecta of signs that it's fall. It's been cool enough that I opt to wear long pants, the rainy season has started in earnest (* not just that once-a-summer freak summer rain we get some years), and it's gotten cool enough that... ๐ŸŽต The Heat Is... <bam> <bam>... On. ๐ŸŽต

The pillar of fire

Oct. 13th, 2025 04:46 pm
dorchadas: (Dreams are older)
[personal profile] dorchadas
I don't think I wrote about this a while back when it happened, but [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I were talking about it recently. There's a song I used to sing to Laila every single night called ื‘ืฉื ื”ืฉื B'shem Hashem--here's a video from the Plague Years of our synagogue singing it--and for years [instagram.com profile] sashagee had no idea what it meant, it was just me singing in Hebrew and she thought it was some kind of lullaby. So when I told her the actual words:
ื‘ืฉื ื”ืฉื ืืœื•ืงื™ ื™ืฉืจืืœ
ืžื™ืžื™ื ื™ ืžื™ื›ืืœ ื•ืžืฉืžืืœื™ ื’ื‘ืจื™ืืœ
ื•ืžืœืคื ื™ ืื•ืจื™ืืœ ื•ืžืื—ื•ืจื™ ืจืคืืœ
ื•ืขืœ ืจืืฉื™ ืฉื›ื™ื ืช ืืœ

B'sheim Hashem elokei yisrael,
mimini Michael umismoli Gavriel,
Umilfanai Uriel umeachorai Rafael,
v'al roshi v'al roshi shechinat el

"In the name of G-d, the G-d of Israel,
On my right hand Michael, on my left hand Gabriel,
Before me Uriel, and behind me Raphael,
And over my head, the presence of G-d"
that it's basically a prayer for protection, hoping that the archangels will surround and protect Laila while she sleeps, she told me about a dream she had about a pillar of fire hovering above Laila while she was in her crib--some obviously Biblical imagery--before she knew what I was singing about, and got very excited and told me about her dream when I explained the lyrics to her.

Laila hasn't asked about this yet, but I'll make sure to mention all this when she does.

A week in the hospital

Oct. 11th, 2025 07:35 pm
dorchadas: (Mario SMB3 World 1 Help Castle)
[personal profile] dorchadas
Poor Laila.

Not because she was injured or anything, B"H. We knew this was coming--they wanted to put her in for a week and take her off her meds so they could get some good EEG images of what her seizures look like when they're uncontrolled (relatively speaking). Somewhat worryingly, it happened almost immediately after they stopped her medicines. The next day, she had two seizures in the night, and the night after she had at least one and possibly two, so they put her back on her medicines and she hasn't had one since. When they talked to [instagram.com profile] sashagee about what they found, they said that:
  • Laila's seizures are all coming from a single area in her brain, which is good. A lot of the really difficulty-to-solve problems show up if you have bilateral seizures.
  • Because Laila is currently on her fourth medicine and no previous medicine has controlled her seizures for longer than a few months, brain surgery is now on the table.
  • They have a new medicine they're putting her on that is supposed to work really well with one of her current medicine, so the doctors are hopeful that this might be a solution.
  • Laila's main doctor is also a professor of pediatric neurology, so they're the best person we could have taking care of her.
So we're waiting to see what happens with her new medicine.

That's not really why I felt bad for Laila, though--all her seizures happen during her sleep, I'm not sure she even knows she has epilepsy--why I feel bad is because she was stuck in a single room, attached to a set of cords hooked up to her head that she couldn't touch or move, for four days. I went to visit her and [instagram.com profile] sashagee every day after work, and around the halfway point of the week she got so frustrated with her cords on her head that were itching and that we kept not letting her scratch--and when she did manage to scratch one, it came off and the tech had to come back in and reattach it. She ended up crying herself to sleep after an hour and a half of fidgeting and scratching. It was really awful to watch, and I'm just glad that when she woke up the next morning I heard that she was a her normal, cheery self again.

She has an MRI next week so they can get a better image of her brain and try to figure out exactly what part of her brain is causing the seizures. Once they know that, they'll better be able to figure out what to do.

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