The Thursday Downer et al

Irish beef stew last night. So far, no gout. Will keep the commune updated. 

Oldest daughter is in Manhattan for a four-day Model UN, nerd-fest 2023 as we call it. During her off time, she is availing herself of the cities' cultural riches. Watch out for the street people, we warned. As we write this, she's at the Museum of Modern Art. Starry Night is there, she says. Also some Picassos. 

The writing, re-writing and editing World War 1990: The Final Storm continues apace. Write now we're working on scenes in which the public is confronted by the Emergency Broadcast System. Since this came up in conversation with one of our people the other day, for younger reader(s), the EBS's only purpose during the Cold War was to alert the public in case of nuclear attack. They didn't activate the EBS for missing kids, or snowstorms or whatever. 

Which brings us to the commercial break:

That's the EBS in 1980. Note how the test is prefaced with, 'This is ONLY a TEST.'

We've written a bunch of scenes into TFS where people are watching TV, or the telly for you people across the pond with a speech impediment, and the EBS goes off. What do they do? What happens? Okay reader(s) who' do you want to see? Ideas.

The Thursday Downer double shot...

Shot one: We've had a slight muscle pull in our pec, bringing about chest pains which feel almost exactly like...well chest pains. It's a bit disconcerting. We went to the gym yesterday. If our arteries were actually clogging up, we'd have dropped dead on the Stairmaster. 

Shot Two: readers(s) will recall we like an occasional cigar, say once a week, a lot less in the winter. We've had six this year, so far. Maybe one today with a warm, sunny 55 degrees promised by the local weather babe (Update: yep!). No one has dance today, so no dad-taxi duty. But when we light up an Arturo Fuente Short Story and can't help but feel we're smoking cancer.