Down a Thursday

Baaaah! A cold morning here at Stroock's Books, as is typical of Decembers in New Jersey. 

Thursday Downer...[Oh no-Ed] oh yes. We worry and are otherwise racked by anxiety - about any number of things. Our HVAC system, for instance, which was just checked out BTW. We're a prime candidate for anti-anxiety meds. No way. Them side effects....Our best treatment is afternoon gym time. 

Career wise feel we've peaked and are on the downside of our career trajectory. We feel like we're being passed by, as if there are steps we could take to advance our writing, but just don't know what they are. We also feel stuck.  Maybe we just feel 52. 

This is a good time to remind ourselves to count our blessings, which are indeed many. Also, there's always money in the banana stand. 

What Will's Watching: Derry Girls, S1E4. This show's fookin' funny, that's just all there is to it. In this episode the local Catholic parish is taking in refugees from Ukraine (it's the early 90's). The Ukes are baffled by Northern Ireland's sectarian conflict, 'But you are all part of same religion, da?' Something this observer has thought, many, many times. 

DOGE Report: Research and reading of World War 1990: Whatever it's Called, continues apace. We read through another two chapters today. 

We moved the nuke novel short story along a bit. Those two zany Irish kids are in the ruins of a famine era church overlooking the sea. It's time for whatever is going to happen to happen.   

Going Deep...

...Space 9.

Good afternoon, and Happy Wednesday, reader(s) of Stroock's Books.

In the end the TN07 special congressional election wasn't all that close, with the GOP winning nearly a nine-point victory. Yes, Matt Van Epps underperformed vis-a-vis 2024, which is normal for the party in power during a special election or the midterm elections. Blue wave crashes on red rock, we suppose.

That's an 8.9 percent victory in a + 10 GOP district. We don't want to overdo it, this is trouble for the GOP, which certainly deserves trouble (what's congress been doing the last 6 months?). But the Dems thought they could pull off an upset and missed badly. You don't get a silver medal in a two-man race. A win's a win. 

This from Powerline seems prescient, 'His victory does not portend a glorious future in next year’s midterm elections, but by itself it appears not to signal a meltdown either.' Right now we think we may see a midterm similar to what we saw in 2022, where the blue stays blue and the red stays red. We await events. 

At PJM, Tim O'Brien asks, 'Is Ireland About to Erupt Into a Civil War Over Illegal Immigration?' O'Brien posts video of The New Republican Movement, threatening violence over mass migration. In the video three masked men bear guns while one of them reads an anti-government, anti-mass migration statement. Having spent the last 18 months researching The Troubles, the video looks soooooo familiar. Nut graph, as the J-School losers would say, Ireland's done it before and can do it again. Think of a generation of young, angry people raised on stories of The Troubles....chilling. Exit question: what if Catholic and Protestant unite against mass migration?

What Will's Watching: Star Trek: Deep Space 9. We're half a dozen episodes into DS9. We haven't watched the show in 25 + years. Just as we recall, DS9 is a somewhat darker version of TNG. There's a lot of chief engineer Miles O'Brien so far and Dax is under utilized. Security chief Odo hasn't quite developed. Doctor Bashir comes off as a naive adventurer. Commander Sisko is subdued and less dynamic than TNG Captain Jean Luc Picard, something for which Avery Brooks took a lot of criticism back in the day. But for us Brook's portrayal works as a contrast to the passionate performance of Patrick Stewart. In the end, we're entertained, 3/4. 

First World Problems, as Ace would say. Our four-year-old dishwasher has been beeping intermittently for a couple of years now. Sometimes it just shuts off. A repairman wanted half the purchase price to replace the motherboard. We said no. Recently we speculated that the water hose wasn't lining up with the sprayer when we pushed the top rack in. We've been doing so more carefully and deliberately. The last four washes have been trouble free. Infernal machine. 

DOGE Report: Okay, we read through the Thatcher's War whip around chapter. The scenes are fine, but we're not entirely satisfied with the scene order. What's Al Gore making a speech in the senate doing in the middle there between Cuba and Iraq? We may be over thinking [Not typically a problem for you, Knobhead-Ed]. And then we read the IRA attempt on Thatcher, chapter. Is it perfect? No. Is it good? Yes. Good enough? Maybe.

Big Blue Still Blows

Happy Tuesday, Stroock's Books enthusiasts. 

According to the weather gizmo on our phone, heavy snow is coming down. Not at 33 degrees, pal. Not hardly. We're just getting some light rain at the moment. 

There's a special congressional election in TN-07 today. This blog predicts doom. 

New York sports suck hole, the triumphant return. The New York Giants suck, that's just all there is to it. At one point last night they were down 30-7. Special teams gave up a TD, embarrassingly muffed a FG attempt (we've never seen a kicker just trip like that), and turned the ball over. Why is the special teams coordinator still employed? 33-15, and it wasn't that close. That New England couldn't run up the score on the hapless Giants doesn't speak well for them. Jaxson Dart looked okay, though. 

Hot Air reports on a petition drive to revert the Mario Cuomo Bridge's name back to its original Tappan Zee Bridge. We've nothing against Mario Cuomo, for whom we voted in 1994. But that mighty bridge across the Hudson will always be the Tappan Zee to us. For those who don't know, here are some specs on the bridge. It's truly an impressive span, rivaling the Golden Gate or Maryland's Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake. Looking south from the bridge one can see right into Manhattan. 

DOGE Report: We read a lot on the various Protestant/Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland yesterday. Ulster Defense Association, Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Resistance....does it matter which orgs we write about in the Derry/Londonderry conflagration? Not really. Reader(s) should bear in mind that when not killing Catholics, get a Taig they might say, the UDA and the UVF would kill each other. Nice. 

Anywho...we'll re-read some of our RUC stuff today/tonight. `

Alright, just read through Thatcher's War prologue. Away we go, we guess. 

Still no idea what Kenny and Aoife get up to. They're out of their houses away from their abusive family. They're up on the hill overlooking Ballycosta Estate. They're looking down at the cliffs, down at the Irish Sea....now what? 

Monday Blues and Jews...

Good morning, reader(s) of Stroock's Books, and happy December. Temps hover around freezing and there's a bit of frost on the ground. The weather babe tells us to expect a little snow tomorrow. 

December sales numbers are in. Keeping to form, sales of our latest novel, War Night, Stories of the Great Nuclear War of 1975, declined about 20 percent, month on month. War Night is still not quite in backlist territory yet. As usual sales look like the Normandy invasion + Australia, with various Euros bringing up the rear.  

Our 'Good morning, Substack this is your [insert day] reminder that Israel is great' posts get hundreds of likes. We usually link to one of our novels in the post now. Are we moving merch? 

On a whim we read the first story in To Survive the Earth last night. In this story a bunch of suburbanites are watching TV news (Fox) as the aliens arrive.  We barely remembered it, TBH. File and forget, as the great Robert Stacy McCain says. We did enjoy what we read, though. So that's a + for us. 

Well the Broncos and Redskins gave the NFL fan all he could ask for last night, including a Redskins loss in overtime. The Jets beat the Falcons. Yawn. The Giants play the Patriots tonight. Ugh. That should be pretty ugly. Or should it? 

In Israel, Iron Beam, which has already been battlefield tested, goes live at the end of the month. Iron Beam greatly changes the Israeli's calculus vis a vis Lebanon and Hezbollah. Notes JNS, 'The estimated cost per firing [Iron Beam] is about $2 to $5, compared to $40,000 to $80,000 for a single Iron Dome interceptor.' Iron Dome is obsolete and the Jew is clever. Exit question, what is Hezbollah's response?

Do note that while the Europeans make lots of noise condemning Israel, in the coming years they'll be lining up to buy Israeli weapons as they scramble to defend themselves from the big, bad bear. 

Reader(s) may recall that Netanyahu is caught up in a years long corruption trial. This blog calls bullshit on the whole affair. Champagne and cigars, who cares? Bibi has requested a pardon from President Isaac Herzog. Why not? Naftali Bennet (whom we hope is PM, some day) says the pardon should be issued in exchange for Bibi exiting politics for good. This is not a bad idea. 

Meanwhile, Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid* has proposed a bill denying voting rights to draft dodgers. This bill is aimed at the Haredi, who continue to refuse service arguing their religious study is service. This blog supports Lapid's measure 100 percent. The Arab parties are not entirely happy with the bill, though. Note, Arabs can serve but are not subject to the draft. One day there will be peace, or relative calm, anyway. Fixing the Haredi situation will be the top domestic priority. 

...You see Monday is kind of a blue day, start of the week and all. It's cold outside leading to blue weather aesthetically, the Israeli flag is blue and white. The Giants play tonight. We're a bit blue ourselves....oh never mind. 

*Lapid is a fierce Bibi critic. We've no problem with the man. As the great Benjamin Disraeli (oh look, more Jews) said, the job of the Opposition is to oppose. Rumors are Netanyahu will call for an election next summer. While reelecting Bibi would piss off all the right people across the globe, the man would have to earn our vote. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 11/30/25

Good morning, Christian reader(s) of Stroock's Books. Get yourself to Church now [Why, you haven't set foot in a synagogue in three weeks-Ed]. Three words: post church lunch-buffet. 

Back to back days at the gym. We may hit the gym today out of sheer ennui [Reminder, he pronounces that N-U-I and keeps making me do this dumb joke-Ed]. When we like a joke, we stick with it. 

Last night Mrs. Stroock's Penn State played Oldest Daughter's Rutgers, bringing the Stroock household to the brink of civil war. The Nittany Lions won 40-36. At 6-6 Penn State is now bowl eligible. Hello Gallery Furniture Dot Com Bowl.

So we spent a good chunk of yesterday reading up on the Ulster Volunteer Force. Dang. We're actually cautious about writing what we think because they're still around and the Red Hand has a long and vengeful reach. We hear that voice in our head asking, you sure you wanna do this? We're just gonna be fair. We haven't even gotten to the Ulster Defense Force yet.  

Moving on to Will's Good Idea for the Week of 11/30/25...More Irish paramilitary reading, followed by some tweaking of World War 1990: Thatcher's War. We'll get back to the 5th nuke novel this week. Just what do those two Irish teenagers find? Not Rory Gallagher, that's fore sure.

Saturday Updates

Good morning, Stroock's Books weekenders. The temp here is below freezing, a first for the year, we think. 

Well, the Eagles officially suck again. And the Cowboys are surging. To put it another way, the NFL's Black Friday game was certainly a black Friday in the Stroock household. 

We've begun the laborious process of watching Deep Space 9. We haven't seen an episode in 25 + years. Wish us luck. 

We're still not missing Twitter...much. Phone time is down about 30 percent since we assassinated Natan Nagid. 

The HVAC system is operating normally. Huh, so the fan comes on and after a minute the burner starts. The burner stops and after a minute the fan stops. Makes sense.  Just the other day we were telling Mrs. Stroock that we missed being gleefully unaware of how all this equipment works (HVAC, AC units, sump pump etc etc)  and just taking it all for granted. Reminder, yet another HVAC technician said the unit's built to last 10-15 years. This unit is 10 years old.  

On to nicer things. Or the Things, shall we say.

A truncated but decent enough week with World War 1990: Thatcher's War. We're 85.8 percent sure we've written all the scenes we must needs write. We still need to do a little research though, as through 65,000 words we were never quite sure if we were dealing with the Ulster Defence Association or the Ulster Volunteer Force. We're reading a book on the latter and ordered a book on the former. They're both bastards. 

This progress basically knocks Thatcher's War into the read through and editing phase. 

We didn't do nuthing with the 5th nuclear war novel, and still have no idea what those zainey and lovable Irish kids are going to get themselves in to. But we do have them prepared to get into it, whatever it may be.

Post Giving Thanks

Happy Post Thanksgiving Friday, reader(s) of Stroock's Books, and Shabbat Shalom. 

Who the hell is running a leaf blower at 8 AM in the morning?

A rare miss for this blog yesterday. We crossed the mighty Mario Cuomo Bridge, overnighted at our dads, and went down to our sister's place for Thanksgiving (as has been tradition for at least a decade). We returned to our adopted home state of New Jersey Via the George Washington bridge. 

So...reader(s) will recall our heat malfunction Thursday night. It turns out our over-technologied [Not a word-Ed] thermostat thinks our HVAC system has a heat pump and activates it, which for some reason kicks on the AC. The HVAC technician solved the problem by switching off the AC. 

We've also no idea why the thermostat just now began doing so. Don't you love nuisance tech? We first heard the term 'nuisance tech' about a month ago. A quick google search didn't return any definitions or even usages. We define nuisance tech as unwanted bells and gizmos in a device which should otherwise be very simple. Smart stoves or smart fridges, for example. 

What we got today? The women folk will go shopping. We'll find something else to do. Some minor yard work remains. 

Mrs. Stroock's Eagles play the Bears at 3 PM. We're not optimistic. 

DOGE Report: We finally wrote the scene in which we describe what happened to the fellow who shoots Ian Paisely. Time today might best be spent going back through our notes on Protestant militias and sorting out just which outfits we're dealing with in World War 1990: Thatcher's War. They're bastards, they really are. We have the UFF, which is the paramilitary wing of the Ulster Defense Association, itself a paramilitary group. We'll probably stick with them. And...that's about it.