Utsu and Meh

February, so it begins. The worst month of the year.  

The gout is gone. We identified the gout early and then treated it, treated it with extreme prejudice. 

Man, when we don't go to the gym it frees up, like, two hours to get things done around the house. Hmmm....

NFL update. Tom Brady announces his retirement after blowing up his marriage to Giselle Bundchen to play one more season. Tom Brady can always get another supermodel, and no doubt will. But still. Also, Sean Payton is going to coach the Denver Broncos. Payton had Drew Brees at QB and coached a dome team. He is seriously overrated. 

This is why Stroock's Books no longer defends the police: 'A group of California police officers shot and killed a double amputee on Thursday as he tried to run away from them on his stumps after jumping out of his wheelchair.' The dead double amputee had a knife, you see. And it was possible, probable even, that he could have wheeled around like a ninja, and thrown that knife right into a cop's throat. Prove it wouldn't have happened. Without looking we're sure the good officers of Reno:911 had to pursue a double amputee. Mister we could use a man like Bobby Peel again. 

Ben Shapiro has a pretty good breakdown of where things stand in the Ukraine war. We urge reader(s) to click on through. Basically, we're all waiting for the Soviet, sorry, Russian spring offensive.* The target seems to be Kiev. Our own sense is that the Ruskis may look bad but have been bleeding the Ukrainians dry preparatory to that offensive. A couple of companies of M-1s and Leopard tanks counterattacking at the right time could blunt that offensive. We shall see.

Things I'd like to say in earnest: [Bites off tip of cigar, lights match.] Listen, scumbag, BA... 

What Will's Watching: Night Court reboot. Episode 4 was better than episode three. We saw a glimmer. But overall, the Night Court reboot is still pretty meh. Which is fine, the original Night Court started off pretty meh, too. We doubt the NBC suits will give this nostalgia bait time to develop though. 

We're working on some of the Japanese scenes in The Final Storm today. We're reporting Japanese F-15 driver crosstalk and we think we have the word for hit, utsu. We had a Japanese speaker to ask questions of, but he also spoke Russian, and has been incommunicado for almost a year, if you know what we mean. No sir, there will no collusion from us. None whatsoever. 

That blue bar is The Aftermath of 1976, yellow is The Great Nuclear War of 1975, red is World War 1990: The Weser. Interestingly, while sales of 76 are lagging behind sales of 75 at this stage of 75's publication, overall sales are up. Why are sales of 76 lagging, we think by as much as 40%? Theory, readers are seeing 76, realizing it's a sequel, and picking up 75 first. Including The Weser, the backlist is accounting for 1/3rd of sales. Conclusion: grow the audience. There ain't no one weird trick to do it. Write more novels, sell more books. 

*A sentence written many, many times in 20th century.