2025-12-25 13:00:00
On to bigger and better things in 2026. If you are celebrating something, happy holidays! If not, happy Thursday!
2025-12-24 13:00:00
I finished Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil last night. It ends up being a good book, but it takes a while to get there. It's a narrative non-fiction story covering an alleged murder in Savannah, GA. The book is highly atmospheric in a Southern Gothic way, representing Savannah as a quirky town full of genteel Southerners, but also a place where anything goes.
I really don't understand how it's one of the longest-running NYT bestsellers of all time. The murder that drives the story doesn't happen until about 40% into the book. Before that, it's a meandering story of a NY writer moving to Savannah and the hijinks he gets into with a too-crazy-to-believe but 100% real cast of characters. Once the (alleged) murder happens, the story picks up through the trials of the alleged murder.
All I can think is that in 1990, before travel videos on YouTube and Vloggers, 98% of America knew absolutely nothing about Savannah and thus were just totally captivated by the atmospheric storytelling in this book. When I visited Savannah a couple of years ago, the local tour guide referred to Savannah as Slowvannah, and I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed by the city. Also, I lived in Atlanta from 1989 to 1998 and never once visited Savannah. I thought about Saint Patrick's Day in the city a couple of times, but it never worked out.
So I'm glad to have knocked off a "classic." If you have not read it, I would not necessarily jump it to the top of your TBR list. The exception is if you are planning to visit Savannah. I would definitely read it first in that case. I read South of Broad before visiting Charleston, and it added to the experience.
2025-12-24 13:00:00
I have 46 books on the books page for 2025. Several are DNFs, and there are probably 5 more in-progress books that never made it to the page. These were my favorites. Reviews are all on the 2025 books page, so I'm not repeating them here.
Fiction
Non-Fiction
2025-12-20 13:00:00
So, I've apparently gone from not writing weekly updates to only writing weekly updates. Is that an improvement?
My big achievement this week was to redesign my consulting website. The previous one was a placeholder. It held the place for about 6 months. Otherwise it was another week of not even putting on shoes M-F since all I did was work. It was sunny and comfortable today so we spent the afternoon in Carytown, where I had a truly fabulous cup of tea (a hot buttered rum flavored herbal tea) as we wandered in and out of the shops. The shops were very busy on this last weekend before Christmas, so I guess that is a good sign for the local economy.
I'm looking forward to taking it easier the next couple of weeks. I'm working Monday and Tuesday this week, although probably not the full day, and 1 or 2 days the following week.
Today was my book club's annual celebration of Jolabokaflod, the Icelandic tradition of giving gifts of books and chocolate on Christmas Eve. We do it as a white elephant gift exchange, at a brewery. It's always a lot of fun. I came home with The Worst of All Possible Worlds by Alex White. I acquired it via steal because the back cover blurb starts with, "If you miss Firefly..."
Also, I've been using Waterfox as my primary browser, and so far I'm impressed. It seems nice and speedy and the default settings just seem to work.
Watching
We watched another heartwarming and romantic Christmas movie - Gremlins. We also watched Stand By Me, as a tribute to Rob Reiner. I had forgotten that Wil Wheaton was the star of that movie. I remembered that he was in it, obviously, but I remembered it more as 4 co-stars. But nope, the story really revolves around Wheaton's character.
Reading
Reading has been slow. I'm reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It was kind of a slog for the first half of the book, but now that the murder has occurred the pace of the story has picked up and I'm enjoying it much more. I'm probably going to have several new additions to the TBR pile after Thursday morning, so I need to break this reading slump that I am in.
Links
One of my favorite bloggers with some thoughts on the true meaning of Christmas.
Thin desires are eating your life.
The writers at Pencilstorm have some thoughts on Kiss kissing up to Trump.
Is Christmas Vacation actually an anti-capitalism movie?
And with that, this is likely my last weekly-ish updae for 2025. However, I still need to write my favorite books of the year post, and my annual year-end posts on 12/31, which is this website's birthday. The site will be 30 years old. I will have much more to say on that later.
I wish you a joyful and peaceful holiday season, whatever you may be celebrating. Or if you are not celebrating anything at this time of year, I hope the last days of 2025 are good for you, for whatever definition of good you choose.
And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.
2025-12-14 13:00:00
Next weekend is the last weekend before Christmas. Are you done supporting destructive capitalism, uh, I mean buying gifts for friends and family? I am done. I even wrapped a few presents today. We used to go way overboard but have dialed it way back in the last dozen or so years. We actually have two budgets, the number my wife and I agree to spend on each other and the kids, and that number times 1.4, which is the number in my spreadsheet.
The big news this week was that I got an email on Friday informing me that I've been accepted into the 2026 training cohort of the Virginia Master Naturalist program. So once I complete the 35 hours of classes, plus field work, plus 40 hours of volunteer work, I'll get the title, and the secret handshake.
Watching
This week's overly sweet Christmas movie was A Princess Switch, with Vanessa Hudgens as both the Chicago baker in a fictional European kingdom for a baking competition, and the soon to be married Dutchess doppelganger. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you they switch lives for two days and baker Vanessa falls in love with the Prince and Dutchess Vanessa falls in love with Baker Vanessa's guy friend. Shockingly, they live happily ever after. I think. There are apparently two sequels but I'm probably safe in assuming they too have happy endings.
Given the state of the world I will not be surprised if Hallmark type Christmas movies are having a moment this year.
We also watched the Knives Out flick, Wake Up Dead Man. I don't know how to talk about without spoilers, so I'll just say I was entertained, but it ran about 15 minutes longer than it needed to.
And, on the recommendation of author John Scalzi, we watched Strictly Ballroom, an early 90s Australian flick set in the overly competitive world of ballroom dancing. It far more entertaining than that plot has any right to be.
Reading
The only notable thing that happened to my TBR pile is that I gave up on A Farewell To Arms. I forced myself to about 1/3 done, but that is as far as I'm going to get. Add it the pile of uncompleted classics, with Moby Dick.
Listening
I got nothing to talk about musically this week. I just streamed That Station, which has added Christmas tunes to is usual awesome mix of tunes.
Links
This 15 minute video on the history of Gopher is fascinating. One of the lead guys ended up at Duke, and I'm fairly certain I met him a few years ago. I wish I could remember for sure.
Did you know that NASA has a bunch of free ebooks available? Get them now before the Trump administration realizes that there they are there.
Cory Doctorow's long explanation of what is really happening with AI is worth reading.
Stephvee.ca on deleting Spotify reminded me of a similar article I wrote a few years ago.
I wouldn't normally link to Yahoo Entertainment but I was amused to learn that Mila Kunnis is President of her HOA, and she is dealing with the same shit I deal with. It'll give me something to open with if I ever run into her in an airport or something.
And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.
