Mid on a Wednesday

A frigid good morning (and afternoon) to Stroock's Books reader(s) and fellow citizens of Winterfell. As we write this the temperature outside is 4 degrees, F not C. And we just lost a Tauntaun.*

So we read a story in the Jerusalem Post yesterday referred to Irish Taoiseach Michael Martin as 'the prime minister' and we damn near lost our mind. Taoiseach, my fellow Hebrews, Taoiseach. Pronounced t-sha. We know, it's weird. But it's Ireland, so....

Via Ace, because Ace of Spades is always right, an article lambasting the rise of modern tech and lamenting its ubiquitousness. Author Jason Freid calls this, The Big Regression, and we urge reader(s) to click on over. Tech is in everything now. Tech is in things that don't need it. We just got rid of a 'smart' thermostat that must have had a hundred settings when we just need the thermostat to keep the temp at 70 degrees. 

All this technology makes equipment harder to operate, because there's nothing 'smart' about it. Instead, the so called smart tech is over complicated. Nothing seems intuitive anymore.  And more chips and sensors just mean there's more than can go wrong. We hate it. We do hate it so. 

Who designs this crap? Who thinks, 'You need to be able to shut off your stove from you couch'? Who thinks, 'You need your refrigerator to tell you you're out of milk'? Who are these fucking people? Who are these autists? Who are these nerds who go home and play videogames and watch anomie porn? [Sounds like you...] Shut up, Ed.

DOGE Report...not good. Not good at all. Essentially, we're stuck. Essentially we need to put Thatcher's War down for a few days. So as soon as we finish the rough of this post, we're going to start a new nuclear war short story. No idea what it is yet. But we're going to start it. We've 45 minutes to come up with something. Okay we're just going to read through the Morning Roary sequel and hope something hits. 

Despite our not doing anything on Substack our older Substack posts are getting likes, restacks, even comments, etc etc. We're sorely tempted to start doing things on Substack again.

*Huh had no idea Tauntaun was spelled T-a-u-n-t-a-u-n. [Tonton?Ed]. Of course [Dumb Yank-Ed].  

Tuesday Will's Getting Bored

Baaah....outside it's cold and snowy. The temp is 6 degrees (this morning). We're having a week-long cold snap here in northern New Jersey. 

Inside we're jumpy at the clacks and clunks of pipes in the winter cold.  At 52 we're turning into a nervous old woman, it seems. 

We're still not doing anything on Substack. We miss it, a little, being able to post and/or troll about something that annoys us. But only a little. 

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Long time reader(s) of this blog will recall we prefer Israel Kicked the Crap out of her Enemies Day. Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, Iran....the list of vanquished enemies these last two years is indeed impressive. 

We are also reminded that 35 years ago today (holy freholies) the Giants defeated the Bills 20-19 in Super Bowl XXV....Wide right! This is the greatest moment of our sports life. We've become indifferent to the Giants in recent years. With four Super Bowl victories we're quite satisfied. The late Tom Coughlin flame out and the Ben McAdoo implosion left us disappointed and drained. But with the hiring of John Harbaugh, we're tempted to get a new Giants cap. 

Minnesota....We don't have a strong opinion on operations in Minneapolis, but it appears the president wants a change in leadership and strategy. This strikes us as wise. Chuck Schumer (the worst Jew in America) is threatening to shut down the government over ICE funding. Okay, Chuck. Your terms are acceptable. 

DOGE Report: a day interrupted by snow removal. We deleted the British army planning scene and will rewrite it today. 

We read through one of the three stories we've written in the 5th nuke novel. It's good. For the first time in weeks, we feel just a bit of juju for a 4th story. Or at least some juju for coming up with an idea for a 4th story. 

We also did some thinking about our far in the future sci fi trilogy (remember that?). Mostly we thought about what Mars would be like. How would the planet's different regions look? What would internal Martian rivalries be like? 

We spent a lot of time thinking about Martian cultural issues. There'd be a constant push to ditch the old Latin geographic names. Mars would be semi-Spartan with a mandate for an hour of earth gravity exercise every week. Martians would constantly debate the need for that. 

Every year as Mars reaches its opposition to Earth, the navy would conduct vast fleet exercises. 

Monday Meh

Happy Australia Day to Stroock's Books reader(s) Downunder. This blog endorses and celebrates the European conquest and settlement of Australia. 

Thought that snow would never stop. Actually, the snow stopped about 2 PM. There followed sleet and freezing rain, making for a pleasant evening. We got about a foot of snow overall here. We've never shoveled snow like that before. It was heavy but cleared pretty easily, and felt like sand. Weird. Of course the plow came by last night and blocked in the driveway.

We'll need to get out there, touch up the walkway and finish clearing the cars anyway. We look out the window with a strong sense of resignation and melancholy. Baaah! More coffee will help.  

Okay, that wasn't too bad. We were worried about the snow blower, but it just needed more gas. 

Minneapolis, Minneapolis. Minnesota, hang your head in shame. This blog has said before that Trump should finish making his point there and get out. It's too late for that. In this blog's estimation, Trump has no choice but to stand his ground. No, the Insurrection Act would be a bad idea. There will be a time to declare victory and leave. That time is not now. 

Will's sports wrap. We actually enjoyed the snowy Patriots/Broncos game. We like snowy football and offenses stymied by the weather. So the Pats got back into the Super Bowl six years after Tom Brady left. Impressive. Exit question That pretty blonde sitting next to Pats owner Robert Kraft is his daughter, right? Right? Nope.

The Rams/Seahawks game was most excellent. At no point did we believe the rams would win. And so it was. Seahawks DB Tariq Woolen drew a 15-yard taunting penalty after they stopped the Rams on 3rd and long. Woolen then gave up a touchdown. Moron. Why is not taunting and generally acting like an ass so hard? Woolen is a lucky man. 

We're pretty meh about this Super Bowl matchup but are trying to think of a matchup about which we wouldn't be meh. Meh. The Seahawks should be favored though. 

On The Sea: Naval Alternate History (Arc of Ares), is number 8 in the Amazon alternate history series as of this morning. 

What's the plan for today? We have none. We'll probably get back to the Thatcher's War interlude chapter. 

Will's Good Idea for the week of 1/25/26

Another miss for Stroock's Books yesterday as the Stroock family trod across the dread Hudson River for lunch with our father at Epstein's Kosher Deli. 

The snowacaust has begun in earnest and as we write this a few inches have fallen. It's cold and windy out there, man. Forecasts remain vague with the latest calling for between 7-13 inches of snow. A sanitation truck just roared past. Excellent. 

To our eye it does not look like that ICE agent should have shot that agitator in Minneapolis. Nevertheless, this is a FAFO situation. Don't bring a gun to a protest and don't get in a physical altercation with law enforcement. We can't decide if Trump should send in the marines or stand by and let the blue cities burn. 

Iran...preparations proceed, they say, with more assets moving into place. Prime Minister Netanyahu is briefing the opposition. New reports say the IRGC killed 30,000 people. We remain skeptical of these figures, just because we remain skeptical of everything the media tells us.* 30,000 dead? How do they know? 

Saturday Update on Sunday.

We've been working on the interlude chapter and British invasion briefing scene. Another vignette where a bunch of officers are sitting around a table and talking about plans. Yawn. The interlude chapter needs a few more scenes to make things make sense. World War 1990: Thatcher's War is 41,000 words. 

Will's Good Idea for the last week in January...various.

We're going to experiment with not doing anything on Substack for a while. We've 1467 followers. Sometimes they even buy our books. Is it worth it? We shrug in the most Mediterranean way possible, 'Eh?'.

Our experiment with being back on Twitter is fine, but it's once again turning into a time sink and generally pissing us off. We're just not sure if knowing what Kurt Schlichter thinks is worth the aggravation, though the colonel is always right. 

*See for example low fat high carb diets, WMD slam dunk in Iran, and six feet social distancing. 

Fook on a Friday

Good morning, Stroock's Books Kibbutzim and shabbat shalom. 

Fridays are not usually great creative days. We shall see. Honestly we don't have much to do today. 

The foot still bothers, less, but it bothers. Baah, we needed a gym break anyway, one tells oneself. 

The !@#$ bedroom smoke detector chirped at 11:30 last night. It's near the top of the A-frame ceiling, meaning we had to go to the basement and drag the ladder up and get on the top step. We don't do so good on ladders. 

In truth we're glad, we're glad that damnable device chirped. We've been looking at it for months, knowing the battery has been in there forever, and wondering when it was going to chirp. Long time reader(s) will know we've had household equipment trust issues for quite some time. 

We took the battery out and listened to the smoke detector grow weaker with each chirp until finally, it died with a chirpy death gurgle, which we enjoyed immensely. 

In preparation for Sunday's blizzard we broke out the snow blower and tested it. Fired up on the first pull. We refilled our gas can* and even got a spare sparkplug in case the current sparkplug conks out. Right now, forecasters call for over a foot of snow. We remain vigilant. 

Since we were already at the auto parts store we bought new wipers for the SUV and relearned the dark art of windshield wiper replacement. There's a touch, and we just don't got it [You just don't got a lot of things-Ed]. 

Aye, a varied and interesting life we're leading...

What Will's Watching: Excalibur. We saw it was there on YouTube and decided, screw it. The fighting scenes are ridiculous. Nigel Terry is too old to play a young Arthur. At times the film moves too slowly. Other times it moves to quickly. We don't care. We love this movie. Excalibur is about air, setting, and ambience. It feels grounded in dark medieval reality, but mystical at the same time. Nicol Williamson is brilliant as Merlin. Lo, Patrick Stewart doing Patrick Stewart things. The last two minutes....well, they're stunning. 'Arthur! Arthur!' - 

Let's do some quotes, shall we?

'Anál nathrach, orth' bháis's bethad, do chél dénmha'.

'Your lust will hold you up.'

'Rise, father. I was your son before I was your king.'

'Any man who would be a knight and follow a king, follow me...'

'A dream to some. A nightmare to others!'

'The king without a sword....the land without a king!'

DOGE Report.

We told our design people to put an Irish flag on the World War 1990: Ireland cover. But shouldn't we use an Ulster Flag? Upon this matter we shall dwell.

As we write this Arc of Ares: On the Sea is #4 in sea adventures and #7 in alternate history. Daaaaaang.

*$2.49 a gallon. Wow!

Thursday Thatcher ('rs War)

Good afternoon, fellow Stroock's Books enthusiasts [Enthusiast? You make me stay here -Ed.] Shut up, Ed. Get me a cup of coffee. And take your time about walking away...Ouch! Aww! Stop hitting me! Ack!

We asked our fellow North American if he could stop sending Canadian weather down here. He claimed he didn't control the weather. That's when we remembered that the Jews have all the latest weather machines. Just ask former DC councilman Trayon White. We said we'd contact the control board and get back to him. Sure enough, temps are at an almost balmy 45 degrees (American not European).

That being said, we're supposed to get a major blizzard on Sunday. At this point the weather babe is predicting 12-24 inches. Yikes. Snowmaggedon? Snowpocalypse? Snowacaust? You tell us. We broke out the snow blower. She fired up on the first pull. 

What Will's Watching: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Game of Thrones winked out, and House of the Dragon bored us. Dynastic intrigue, yaaaawwwwn. But we watched ep-1 of AKSK and are utterly charmed. A squire makes himself a knight after the death of his master. Young Dunk is unsure and has to learn the ins and outs of the trade. He's affable, and quite large too. When asked if he'll take the lamb or mutton Dunk replies, 'Both'. This is a laymen's, or knight's journey in Westeros. We are very, very pleasantly surprised. So far 4/4 

DOGE Report.

We've sent the MS to the formatters, sent them the back cover text and instructions for the cover. Green, with an Irish flag and a masked, silhouetted gunman. 

We've spent all week messing around with the first half of World War 1990: Thatcher's War and have pretty much set things the way we want them. An intro of political leaders followed by 4 or 5 scenes of nihilist Prod violence, the bastards. From there it's sectarian violence, counterinsurgency, cloak and dagger, and political intrigue. 

Whither on a Wednesday

As we write this morning the temp is zero degrees, that's American, not European. The air is still. The snow on the ground is white and frozen. The eastern sky glows yellow/white. A lone deer lays beneath one of the trees in the back yard. The effect is quite serene, pretty even. The scene kind of feels like Borodin's On the Steppes of Central Asia. [Look at you, referencing classical music-Ed] We know, right?

A major storm is coming Sunday and Monday, they say. 

Our right pinky toe still bothers, as does the lower foot and calf. This will certainly be a third day with no gym time. We grit our teeth in frustration. Every day we don't go to the gym we grow weaker while our enemies grow stronger. 

Baaaah! We swipe at the air and drink our grog. This is the first winter where we feel old. Never quite warm. Never quite comfortable. 

We feel little but ennui [There's that word again-Ed] for our Substack efforts. Meh, time to pack it in?

Hot Air tells us: 'CNN Allows Claim That President Was Part of 'Global Sex Trafficking Ring' Until Scott Jennings Challenges'...You know, we like to say we come from a journalistic background. One can hear echoes of said background on this blog. From time to time we make some pretty outrageous claims here. These claims are usually so outrageous as to become farcical, 'It will surprise no one that a large portion of this blog's readership are young women.' We once claimed to be getting inside info on the Q-Anon movement from a source we called Qbi-Wan. If there's any doubt, we post a disclaimer, 'It's possible that the preceding is not 100 percent accurate.'....but you can't say shit like that.