I know, it's been a while. Shaddap.


INT. LIVING ROOM
NIBLET has just finished most of his dinner, followed by a fairly involved discussion of why Niblet isn't getting dessert despite eating much of his dinner. Niblet is doing his very best to hold it together to continue arguing his case before the Court of Dada.

NIBLET
But... I have Halloween candy!

DADA
I know, and eventually you'll get to eat it. You got some
before dinner tonight, didn't you?

NIBLET
(beginning to sob)
Yes, but...

DADA
Listen, kid. When I was growing up, we almost never had
dessert. Usually only on special occasions like Christmas or
Thanksgiving, or somebody's birthday. It was never something
I expected, only a very special treat.

NIBLET
(collapsing, hysterical, onto Dada)
I DON'T WANT MY LIFE TO BE LIKE YOURS!

It's true, my childhood was filled with horrors and abuse, what with not getting dessert all the time! I don't think I'll ever quite get over it. (In truth, it never even occurred to me. It'd be like feeling all pissed off and denied that I didn't get cake and presents EVERY DAY. It just wasn't any kind of thing.)

The problems of the not-actually-very-rich: We rather suddenly inherited several generations of silver service pieces, coming down to me as the only child of an only child of a child of a small family whose patriarch did *just fine* during the Depression, and apparently used "those tough economic times" to pick up some deals.

Much of it is pure silver, in many cases, but it's also, like... you know... pure silver serving trays. Whee? We don't really want to try to impress our guests with silver serving dishes and fine china, so... uh... it's a bit unclear as to what to do with it all. Get it appraised, I suppose, and so I am not complaining, I am just not sure what to actually *do* with this stuff.

I can't imagine serving on it - nothing will suck the heat out of your food like silver can - pretty as it is, it's the heat-transferringist metal around, so if you want your guests to enjoy your food warm, instead of being impressed at how rich you are, you're way better off with plain ol' crockery.

I hope somebody wants this stuff, but... maybe it's better if it's just melted down for the silver. It might do a lot more good than what it's been doing sitting in my grandmother's cabinet for the past 30 years.

As I mentioned on my Facebook a few weeks ago, I received a personal letter from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett. It wasn't a very long letter, but it was long enough to be clear that he'd read what I wrote (which also wasn't over-long, merely one page), and responded in kind.

First, allow me to tell you that I am extraordinarily impressed with the UK's Royal Mail in getting the letter to him in the first place. Instead of addressing the letter to him c/o his publisher, I simply addressed it to him at the closest locality in England I knew of, and apparently it got to him, although as he noted in his reply, it had taken some time. So long that I had honestly forgotten I'd written in the first place.

Both of these facts - the casually terrible addressing and the fact that I forgot the letter almost the moment it was gone - bear witness to the fact that, while I certainly didn't mind and perhaps even hoped that he might read it, I had no reason to ever expect him to.

I wrote the letter because I had to, because something - just one sentence - resonated so deeply with me that it nearly made me get up and shout "Yes! Yes! THAT is how I felt!" I had to write about it, and who better to tell, even if he never saw it, than the very person who articulated my feelings? All the better since he's alive. Imagine if it had been Shakespeare, I would have had to write three letters. (Heaven, Hell, Luton.) (That's a little combined UK/Catholicism joke for ya there.) (Write for details.)

No, I'm not going to tell you much more about what I wrote, nor will I share with you all of how he responded. It is, as I said, personal. On both counts.

However, should you ever read something that you like, and it even occurs to you that you might wish to write to an author who has written something, be it a sentence, a paragraph, a trilogy... you might do well to let them know. They will appreciate it. And, judging by the last paragraph of Sir Pratchett's letter to me, they will very much appreciate that your appreciation is the only reason you're writing:

Thank you very much for taking the time to write to me, and especially writing to me not ending your letter with a request for a free book, a signed photograph, or a bookplate, but simply just to thank me. And that, sir, is why you are having one of the longest and most heartfelt replies to a letter that I have made for a very long time.

Will you hear back, as I did? I couldn't possibly say. But it's worth telling them anyway.

Apparently I should shut the hell up about the Padres. Since my little paean to them they've lost 5 games in a row. So, uh, I take it back! They're terrible! They suck! Boo!

This is about baseball, so please, if you don't enjoy or care about baseball, or if you hate it, by all means skip this. Unless... unless you played some baseball or softball or maybe even some kickball and always had this idea that somehow, some way, there could ever be a team with no huge stars, but just a bunch of guys who were all playing pretty well, somehow beating the teams with the big stars. That team, I am sad to say, hasn't really ever existed... until now.

I am talking about the San Diego Padres. These guys... they're really *good.* None of them are stars, I don't think there was a single Padre on the National League All-Star team. But they're still good.

How good? Well, the Padres have held the best record in the National League since, more or less, May. You may note that we are coming up to September now. They're just really really good.

What has been amusing is to see the people who have to make excuses for how the Padres could actually be this good, I mean, they're not the Yankees, they're not the Red Sox, they're not even the Dodgers!

The usual argument is "well, they play in a HUUUUUGE park at sea level and who could possibly ever hit a home run there and blah-dee-hoo." I'm not saying that Petco doesn't help, but, how come we never hear this about non-sea-level parks? Like, say, the bandbox on top of a mountain that is Coors Field?

The Rockies couldn't win a shitting contest in a toilet if it wasn't in Denver. If you doubt it, look at their home record: 41-20. Away record: 25-40. Nobody ever seems to get all pissed off about the Rockies, though.

And yet, many people seem to try to make the same argument about the Padres - how dare they play in San Diego, and not just in San Diego, but in a lovely waterfront park, blah blah blah, it's a huge park, it eats up hits and homers, it's at sea level where stuff doesn't fly as far, blah blah blah blah blah. So let us look at the facts.

San Diego Padres home record: 38-22. San Diego Padres away record: 38-27. Hmmmmmm. Almost exactly the same, give or take a few percentage points. And this from a club that has to play in friggin' Coors AND Wrigley.

I dunno what the ESPN pundits are saying about my Padres. I don't watch them. I have no doubt, though, that they're repeating the crap above. I'd like to remind them that the Padres road record, extrapolated to the entire season, would, at the moment, be good enough to lead not only the entire National League, but also good enough to lead EVERY division in MLB except the American League East... and even then to be only 2 games back. That's not a bad road record. And it entirely destroys the Petco whining.

The upshot is that these guys are good, and they're not doing it with overpaid stars, or even a super-hot rookie. They are just... good. Almost all of them. I really hope they win it all, but even if they don't, I'm so entirely jazzed at how they got to this point. It's kind of what I always want sports to be.

If the Padres actually win it all this year, first of all I'm going to fall down on the ground and not know what to do with myself, but second will come the "explanations" of how the Red Sox or the Yankees or possibly the Red Sox should have won it. It will be, I think, entertaining. But at the end, I hope it will vindicate sports as something worth doing, and worth seeing: This team of a bunch of guys who are all pretty good at what they do managed to beat the shit out of teams of overpaid assholes who were supposed to be awesome.

Or not. But if they do... man... I will be a happy dude.

For infrastructure geeks like me, this is manna from heaven. For you, normal people, it might be kinda nifty. Link ganked from derspatchel.

Basically it's a map of the US Interstate system, presented in the style of the London Underground map:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/senexprime/4055072020/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Edited to remove extraneous conversation.

<novaheat> Dear god. The local news is currently reporting on the scourge of "textual harassment."

<novaheat> First it was "sexting," now this!

<bitterpants> novaheat: soon we'll be onto "texting"

<bitterpants> then there's exting, breaking up via text messages

<bitterpants> mexting, where mexicans text

<novaheat> Wrexting, where you try to get people to crash their cars?

<novaheat> And hexting, of course.

<Osomatic> Soon, you'll be able to order new glasses or contacts using your mobile phone. Specsting.

<Osomatic> Sending a message to your dog: Rexting.

<Osomatic> Or about your weightlifting routine: Flexting.

<patientfox> parsing source code files via SMS: lexting.

As always, all ads reproduced faithfully, typos and all, except when truncated due to length and of course removing phone numbers and such.

OLD ANTIQUE GRIDDLE
Large, size 9, makes perfect burritos.
I am willing to bet that there is a lot more to perfect burrito creation than the right griddle. No matter what size it is.

AIRE CONDICIONADO
Frigidaire. Con control remoto.
Are you sure that's not a Frigidairio, compadre? Because I think you're making upo the el spanisho. Dude-o.

USED BOARDS
Small amount 1x4 / 4x4, $6 all.
At a certain point, it's okay to just throw stuff away. I know, I know, consumerist culture, reuse reduce recycle, but seriously... six dollars worth of used boards? We can grow more trees, and cut them into many brand-new boards. Really. It's okay.

PRESTIGE GREAT MAUSOLEUM NICHE FOR SIX
Forest Lawn Glendale, $50,000. Be Michael Jackson's neighbor.
Bring the whole family! Once your whole family is dead, of course. But only the other five of them you like the most. Besides, I bet these spots are only Michael Jackson-adjacent. (I'm pretty sure this is a recasting of the ad I previously made fun of in Vol. 5.)

GREY SOFA BED!!!
Includes mattress and cushions, fair condition, $80.
When the best you can say for your sofa bed is that it is grey and "includes" the very components that make it a sofa and a bed, you need a lot more than three exclamation points, son. "Fair" condition may be honest, but the Pennysaver is no venue for honesty. Your asking price is all the honesty necessary. Let me help you out: SOFA BED WITH LUXURIOUS 'STORMY SEAS' FABRIC - Get the rest you deserve on plush cushions, or share the deluxe mattress with a special friend! Bids start at $80. Now that, sir, is how you sell your disgusting grey sofa bed.

UNEMPLOYED
Train for high paying Aviation Maintenance Career. FAA approved program. Financial aid if qualified - Job placement assistance. CALL Aviation Institute of Maintenance
UNEMPLOYED is probably a depressingly apt headline. Gee, I wonder if anybody fails to qualify for financial aid. *sigh*