Will's Good Idea for the Week of 8/16/26

Good Sunday morn to all Christians, except the C of E. Losers. Reminder, Britain is finished. 

Moving on [Please-Ed].

Blog traffic is way up. We've no idea why. As usual, Blogger stats tell us absolutely nothing we want to know about where the traffic is from, who's linking to Stroock's Books, etc, etc. The traffic is mostly bots and spam, we think. 

Yesterday we mowed the lawn. Got to the gym, which felt good. The scale says we're back down to 243 pounds or 17.3 stone. We won't convert that into Canadian, moose eating bastards. 

One of our critics has packed it in. Should we slam that critic? We think we should. But not today. [Why?-Ed] Why not? [Did not your late friend Kathy Shaidle* warn how draining and pointless internet flame wars ultimately are? -Ed] She did, Ed. She did. Still...[Still what?-Ed] We are loath to get down in the muck with the pigs. We get dirty and the pigs like it. But sometimes family business must needs be settled. We've done it before. [That was a good piece-Ed] So was this. We don't even remember who that guy was anymore. And sometimes it's personal. 

We find ourselves thinking of the past as is our lot [You do that too much -Ed], milestones, anniversaries and the like. Usually 20 years, not 25 is what matters to us. It's 2006 week all week here at Stroock's Books. Enjoy. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 8/16/26...

We had no breakthroughs on any future projects...we need to update that page, don't we? Remember, we're thinking of one standalone book, probably on a new platform. 

No breakthrough on To Liberate Mars. 

We do find our selves thinking about World War 1990: Ireland and the 5th nuke novel a lot. 

If we were to start a third universe, what would it be? 

*What's Warren Kinsella doing these days?

Saturday Updates

Ah, it's good to be back, as Tony Stark once said. 

A long trip yesterday with some traffic backup and a whining cat. Good times. Nevertheless, we are home where everything is just as we left it. 

The lawn needs mowing.

We needed a gym break, we got a gym break. The body feels tan, rested and ready. We'll think about possible new regimens today. 

What a trip, though. Two weeks at the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction in the Berkshires. We can't recall a better long-term stay. We come away pleased with the endeavor. And we'll be back Labor Day. 

And so begins the final phase of the Stroock summer. 

Our man in Norway sent us some very tasty Norwegian chocolate.

Otherwise there's not much to report. 

Let's move on to the things, shall we? 

The Things.

Okay, we really fixed up a lot of World War 1990: Thatcher's War. We read through half the book. More work remains. In fact the read through was so successful, we're going to do another read through this week. 

Also, we've figured out where Mr. Adams is staying during the war and how 14 Intel-the Group figures that out. The Irish Ranger Wing will strike once again. 

World War 1990: Thatcher's War is 72,000 words. 

We began another nuke story. Soviet sub, damaged by Coast Guard cutter, sends crew ashore to retrieve needed medical supplies, etc. Runs into angry and armed towns people. Reader(s) will get the drift. 

Finishing this story and the DEW Line story will get us close to 60,000 words. One more story, no? If you've ideas, let's hear them. 

The 5th nuke novel is 46,000 words. 

The Last Morning of the Second Week

Another fine morning to you all. Today the Stroock family will be returning home after a most successful two weeks amidst the Berkshire's pastoral splendor. 

Some HR lady/middle school vice principal type* here on the lake is circulating a letter protesting the 'excessive noise' from the Israeli summer camp. Lol, lighten up, lady. These kids spent large parts of the last three years hiding in safe rooms and bomb shelters. In other words, get fucked. 

Related...The great Steve Sailer asks, Are Jews an Ethnicity? Our answer to that question is, we don't know. Our 23&Me tells us we're 48.6 percent Ashkenazi Jew. Thanks, dad. We're actually darker complexioned than we look at first glance. But we've blue eyes and blond hair. Thanks, mom. Put us in a lineup with Jerry Seinfeld and Ben Shapiro and we'd stand out. Jews are of course a desert people. Even now, as we write this we feel the allure, the pull of the Holy Land.

We don't pay much attention to British politics these days. There's no point. The country is finished. But Nigel Farage (whom we're not even sure we support anymore, the wanker) was being investigated for some trumped up corruption charged, resigned his seat in parliament, ran for reelection - and romped. If one believes the charges against Farage, great. We've got some Arkansas real-estate opportunities you're going to love. 

DOGE Report. A kind of herky-jerky day where we never felt comfortable but never-the-less got a few things accomplished. 

FB tells us we posted this fifteen years ago today, 'Tentative story list: surfer dude in Vietnam, a German nat in the IDF, a defense of a Pacific island in 1941, a disgruntled Brit Merc in Africa (think Wild Geese), something Jake Bloom- I have no idea what, some Americans in the Philippine Insurgency C. 1902 and a sequel to To Defend the Earth called To Attack Mars.'

So that's what we were thinking about back then. Bear in mind we had two novels in print, A Line through the Desert and To Defend the Earth. Israel Strikes was but a gleam in our eye. 

We're off to pack and clean up. Wish us luck. We'll report from home tomorrow. Update...we have an old fashioned clothes washer here. You just dial to the setting you want, and that's what the machine does; 40-50 minutes. Our fancy hi-tech close washer at home seemingly ignores the settings we select and takes 60-90 minutes to do a load of wash. Smash the machines. 

*We looked up the author. Everything about her says, 'I'm a WNBA exec and I don't know what a woman is.'

Thursday: the Second Week

A very foggy good morning to everyone. The lake is covered by fog...oh, now it's lifting.

Another full day here at Lake Buel. Youngest Daughter has taken a liking to fishing and caught at least a dozen blue gills yesterday. Of course it's up to dad to unhook 'em. We boated. We kayaked while Middle Daughter paddle boarded. The Stroock family enjoyed its evening boat cruise. 

Hot Air reports on the Wisconsin primary vote tally fiasco. Subhead: in which NBC's Steve Karnacki realizes Trump was right about 2020. We love this story. God help us we do love it so.   Reminder: believing the 2020 election was fair is the conspiracy theory. Here we are at the Bedminster Stop the Steal* rally the Saturday after the 2020 election. We stand by every word. Trump won.

DOGE report.

We are struggling on. We've read through everything till the invasion of Ireland. That's half the novel. That half looks like what it's going to look like. It still feels a bit jumbled though. 

We had an idea for another 5th nuke novel story. A US navy destroyer sails into San Fransico Bay, and it's a nightmare. 

The other night we dreamt we were writing a story about a space cruiser skipper, that is a CA in space. And we liked it. 

Related...no real ju-ju for To Liberate Mars. 

We had an idea about a sword and sorcery novel. It's mostly just LOTR**, which alert reader(s) will have noticed has been on the telly a lot lately. Three siblings. Two princes have opposing personalities. A young princess is confined to doing princess things, as the Queen is long dead and she fills that role. The young princess has spent her life reading the great histories. In the continent-wide war that follows, she comes to advise her father, the King [Not bad-Ed.] I know, right? 

*Note how we sneak it we're an author. We come off as poised, reasonable, charismatic and handsome [Ew-Ed].

**Fun fact. We only tried reading The Lord of the Rings in the mid-2000s and we didn't like it. We didn't like it at all. Our inspiration would be Dennis L McKiernan's Mithgar - which is a LOTR knock off.

Wednesday: the Second Week

Hello stalwart Stroock's Books reader(s), and happy midweek. We're enjoying another fine morn here on Lake Buel. The sun is out. The fog is coming off the lake. The air is cool and dewy. The weed cutter is out and making a hell of a racket. 

We did some light yard work yesterday as we found a vine growing up the side of the house and attaching itself to the sat TV wires, which need to be reset. We ain't gettin' up there. Sorry, but we don't do roofs [He said 'roofs' in his dear neighbor's Minnesota accent-Ed]. 

Speaking of the Upper Midwest, DSA loon Francesca Hong narrowly lost the state's Democrat Gubernatorial primary last night, despite polling way ahead. That's the second big DSA polling miss (after El Sayed in Michigan). Pollsters don't know how to poll for the DSA, and the commie bastards aren't as strong as they think they are. 

Huh we saw on the lake FB group this note from the Israeli camp, 'Anyone planning fireworks this weekend? Would love to be prepared for worried campers...' That is, all those Israeli kids have the yips from 3 years of war and are jumpy around explosions. 

This blog is getting a metric-fuck-ton of traffic lately. Any of you newbies wanna buy an alternate history, science fiction, or military fiction novel? Start with something small and self-contained, like The Austrian Painter: What if Germany won the Great War?

Our childhood best friend, from like - the 80s, turned 50 yesterday. Those to lads are both fifty now. Remarkable.

DOGE report. We read through another couple of Thatcher's War chapters yesterday. One seemed rambling and disjointed. Which may not be a problem. We're making progress thought. Shoring up those chapters is the big task of the day. September 1...1 September...

Tuesday: the Second Week

Morning glory, as the great Hugh Hewitt likes to say. The air is cool with a slight breeze. The lake like glass. As we write this a wake border is passing across the water. The weed cutter is humming and droning down at the southeast section of the lake. The Israelis up the shore a making quite a racket this morning. They were having a great time last night, too. 

So yesterday afternoon we were sitting here on our deck, reading through World War 1990: Ireland's Armagh chapter, when we heard some stirring and rustling across the canal. We looked, stood up, and then knocked on the family room window. 'Look. Out. Side,' we said. 

For on the far bank of the canal was a large black bear, and two cubs following her. They walked along the bank to the beaver lodge, where mama-bear growled and poked around for a bit. The beaver was pissed and spent the next hour cruising the canal until he was satisfied the bears had moved on.

Look, like 99.56 percent of America, we don't care about the WNBA. We've watched part of one Indiana Fever game and admitted we were entertained. We'd watch another Indiana Fever game. But we remain in awe of the league's inability to get out of its own way. Two NBA vets are declaring for the WNBA draft. Good. More will follow, this blog predicts. The league is convening a meeting to determine what a woman is, we guess.

WNBA, you deserve this.

The racists and heterophobes in the WNBA resent Caitlin Clark because she's the most popular player in the league despite never winning a championship and, you know, being white and straight. Listen, butch, we got news for you. In the late 80s Michael Jordan was the most popular player in the NBA despite not having won a championship. In the early 2000s the NBA's most popular player was Alan Iverson despite same. Don Mattingly holds a mythic place in the hearts of Yankees fans despite...readers will get the point.

Imagine the late David Stern needing to hold a meeting to determine what a woman is or letting butch brutalize Caitlin Clark. Reminder, Stern dragged the NBA out of its moribund 70s and made Bird vs Magic the best sports rivalry of the decade. Mister we could use a man like David Stern again. We can't decide whether to end this post with 'Feminism is always bad for women' or 'WNB dalenda est'.

Monday: the Second Week

A fine morning here in the Berkshires where we begin our second week at the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction. We're not sure when we're returning to the New Jersey hinterland. Wednesday? Saturday?

The reinforcements have withdrawn. We've made a tentative agreement to gather once again here in mid-October and clean out the garage. We will also sit in session and make some decisions.

This being the Berkshires we've only heard back from 33 percent of the contractors we've contacted about doing some work on the house. A few plumbing matters need attention. Trees must needs be felled. We ourselves have done a fair amount of work around the yard and house, but only a fair amount.

The air is cool and still. So is the lake. The Israelis down the lake are making quite a racket. Sup with that? So's a truck down the road which seems to be perpetually backing up.

We got out twice for some boating yesterday. You know, put a couple of torpedo tubes on her, a quad-50, a 20mm, and you'd really have something there.

Glenn Reynolds marks the 25th (25th!) anniversary of Instapundit. From time to time herr professor has linked to our books, causing an 'instalanch", that is, a sales spike. Instapundit is still part of our daily read, and will be so long as the blog exists.

At Spiked, Brandon O'Neill says, 'There’s nothing the digital left loves more than an untimely death.' He goes on to list the left's depraved joy in the death and murder of various people with whom the left disagrees. We've seen it first hand from people we know. From people we like. We will probably see some prominent Dem deaths in the coming months. Hold your tongue, fellow MAGA hats. 'They do it to us' is no excuse. They are not our teachers.*

What Will's Watching: PBS's Billy Joel 100th concert at MSG. This blog is a huge fan of Billy Joel, of course. The man's music has been with us our entire life. We've seen him in concert a few times ourselves. We often complain about aging (and aged) rockers who can't do it anymore. But aside from missing a few high notes he wrote while in his 20's, Billy Joel can still do it. In fact, he brings it. We were thoroughly entertained. Fun aside, the girls learned about telethons, this being a PBS broadcast, 'And viewers like you.'

We've checked and it seems we've never had a Billy Joel Week here at Stroock's Books. We did write this. Also this Monday (not) Metal. We should have a Billy Joel Week. Alas, this week is not that week.

*Reference. Verbatim from Lion of the Desert. Had we knot sited, would that have been plagiarism? We don't think so.