51 at the Beach

Good afternoon from Long Beach Island, where the Stroock family has enjoyed two mornings of gloriously sunny and breezy beach time and lots of sun. Last night we topped things off by going to the Fantasy Island amusement park where we sought and attained amusement.  Behold:

Will reprising his Disney World look. We look good, that's just all there is to it. 

Having viewed a few pics of oneself in a bathing suit*, we admit to being a bit disappointed at the end result of the hundreds of hours we've logged in at the gym this year. One is never satisfied, of course. But still...Admittedly we are satisfied by comparison, as we see many a big man at the beach walking with his shoulders back, gut protruding as if he just swallowed a basketball. Or worse, a man in a saggy suit with a wrinkly stomach hanging over the elastic waistline. We ain't nowhere near that. Not bad at 51. 

We all got a bit, just a bit scorched yesterday.** So we're taking it easy this afternoon.

We read War Night's Lexington chapter. It's fine, though we realized Lexington doesn't have an ending. This is because we don't know how we want Lexington to end. Our Grognard, as is his wont (and job, bastard) points out that the way we're writing War Night is not necessarily in keeping with the canon of The Great Nuclear War of 1975. In the latter, the war just seemingly pops up with little warning. In War Night, the crisis percolates over a few days. 

Are we retconning? We may be retconning. Huh, spellcheck recognizes 'retconning'. What can we say, our understanding of the war has greatly increased. Don't you people want a better story that may not match 100 percent with the half dozen scenes in the first chapter of The Great Nuclear War of 1975? Are we not allowed to grow and improve as an author? Or must needs we (must we needs, we dunno) crank out exactly the same thing all the effing time [A bit defensive, are we?-Ed].

Speaking of retconning crap [You just implied you're writing retconning crap-Ed] We caught the last five minutes of The Rise of Skywalker last night; which we've never bothered to see. TROS wasn't even shite. It was hilariously bad. We won't do that to our eyeballs again. 

We read on about Ireland, the IRA, and the Troubles with great fear and trepidation. It is important to get this as right as we possibly can. There's tonnes of details. The Troubles are far more complex than the Middle East. Actually, the Middle East is easy. The region is filled with dysfunctional and failed societies. To distract their restive populations, corrupt governments gin up hatred of al Yahud. 

* Sorry gals, and maybe a few of you guys, we're not posting bathing suit pics [Thank goodness for that-Ed]. 

**Not us. Our people come from the desert, and the sun loves us.