Other people must think I’m a grown up or something. I’ve been invited to a couple of dinner auctions in the last year. We were invited to one for Choral Arts tonight by one of the primary organizers. Emma was feeling unwell, so I went by myself.

I flat out made a donation and bought some raffle tickets. I also won two modest items in the auction, tickets for Arts West and five voice lessons.

I have little natural aptitude for music. I found it difficult to keep time on a triangle in the class “orches­tra” when I was a kid. Songs and music don’t stick in my head. I might—might—rec­og­nize a piece, but …continue.

For his seventy-fifth birthday, John Perry visits his wife’s grave and enlists in the Colonial Defense Forces. The CDF remake him and his peers into su­per­sol­diers with decades of experience in enhanced bodies. Their mission is to protect the human colonies and to take new worlds. It’s an alien-eat-alien multiverse (sometimes literally) and the habitable planets are much contested.

Scalzi owes a debt to Robert A. Heinlein (ac­knowl­edged at the end of the book). The wise old man, the citizen soldier, enduring love, youth re­gained—­some of RAH’s favorite topics. Too, it owes not …continue.

An Irene Adler book; earlier than Spider Dance.

Suicidal sailors with ornate tattoos, an odd sealing wax, and lost treasure. All these lead Irene, her husband Godfrey Norton, and Nell Huxleigh to Monte Carlo. Irene, with a little help from Sarah Bernhardt and the Crown Prince’s betrothed, takes Monaco by storm. Sherlock Holmes finds part of the trail, but completely misses the bigger case.

Fluff, but en­ter­tain­ing fluff.

A paedophile chained up an eight-year-old boy’s parents, then took the boy and killed him. DI Jack Caffery finds the case par­tic­u­lar­ly stressful: his brother was abducted and never found when they were boys. His girlfriend is falling apart too.

Part thriller, part psy­cho­log­i­cal study, part police procedural. Hayder ratchets up the tension as the internal and external pressures on Caffery grow.

Rec­om­mend­ed.

The California Supreme Court handed down their decision about Propo­si­tion 8 today: they’re letting it stand. No new gay marriages, though the 18,000 same-sex marriages that were enacted last year remain valid.

It’s a setback to be sure. The silver lining is that the gay community has been fired up since Propo­si­tion 8 passed in November.

There’s a small but real danger that Referendum 71 will make it on to the ballot here in Washington state. It would roll back the everything-but-marriage domestic part­ner­ship law that passed recently.

I saw Terribly Happy at SIFF tonight.

Robert is a Copenhagen cop, demoted to a remote village in the bleak bogs of Jutland. The locals are clannish and do things their own way. Robert quickly finds himself coming between the man-hungry Ingerlise and her abusive husband Jørgen. She complains about Jørgen, but won’t swear out a formal report. Robert is un­will­ing­ly drawn to her.

Billed as a “blackly comic thriller”, it’s more of a psy­cho­log­i­cal drama. Robert’s unsmiling face carries the film.

Of all the major American holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day are the most divorced from their ostensible meanings. To most peo­ple—my­self in­clud­ed—they are little more than the brackets of summer, three-day weekends of barbecues and sun.

Memorial Day com­mem­o­rates U.S. men and women who died in military service. I don’t think I know anyone who actually observes that, including Emma, a USAF veteran. If I knew some military families, I might think otherwise.

Veterans Day (November 11th) honors all veterans, peacetime or wartime, living or dead. Few adults get Veterans Day off, so it’s poorly observed.

Labor Day originated as a parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of …continue.

The Last Light of the Sun takes place in the Dark Ages of a parallel world. The Erlings (Vikings) raid the Cyngael (Welsh) and Anglcyn (Anglo-Saxon). A young Erling flees indentured servitude and becomes a raider, following in the footsteps of his estranged father. A Cyngael prince dies in an Erling raid and is taken by the Queen of the Fairies; his brother is drawn to another fairy; he will enter into a reluctant compact with the Anglcyn when they are …continue.

Nine years ago, the Ryan Commission was set up to produce a report on physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children in Catholic Church–run re­for­ma­to­ries in Ireland. This week, they released a 2600-page report detailing abuse to tens of thousands of children from the 1930s to the 1990s. The abuse and violence were systemic and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized, if not universal, and they were hushed up and overlooked for decades. The stories of the abused, in their own words, make for horrifying reading. It’s a national disgrace.

The Christian Brothers come off the worst of the many religious orders who are implicated. Even in their day schools, they long had a reputation as …continue.

I updated the Win64 binaries of Vim at vim-win3264 from Vim 7.2.000 to 7.2.182.

I’m amazed that the original binaries were downloaded over 11,000 times since last August.