Maybe I'm just cynical but literally nothing surprised me in the book.

Nut jobs with guns? Check.

Nut jobs feeding bears? Check.

Nut jobs accused of sex crimes against children? Check.

Nut jobs infighting about muh freedoms? Check.

Nut jobs surprised when leopards bears eat their faces? Check.

There's a pretty interesting book about New Hampshire libertarians called "A Libertarian Walks into a Bear". It's about a libertarian utopia that was overrun by bears.

The soundtrack is amazing. The Rza produced it and it introduced me to The Flaming Lips, Sunny Day Real Estate, Method Man, Mazzy Star, and Nick Cave.

Jolene - Dolly Parton

Nana na nana nana nanana

I bounced off Perdido twice, then tore through The Scar then went on to read his whole back catalog. It's my favorite of the Bas Lag "trilogy".

I've never been a fan of the classic meatloaf with ketchup glaze.

I've been tinkering with a combination of this recipe: https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/1770-house-meatloaf

with some techniques from Kenji Lopez's: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-all-american-meatloaf-excerpt-recipe

• Ground veal is hard to find and unethical to boot, but using just beef and pork plus powdered gelatin gives you the same texture and moisture retention.

• I add carrots, garlic, mushrooms, and/or other leftover veggies I need to use up and get the kids to eat but, don't put them through the food processor cause I like the bigger pieces that hand dicing yields.

• I cut down on the salt from the barefoot contessa recipe too, especially if I'm using a salted chicken broth or better than bullion in the garlic sauce.

• A few anchovies and a pinch of msg bumps up the umami.

I've never been a fan of the classic meatloaf with ketchup glaze.

I've been tinkering with a combination of this recipe: https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/1770-house-meatloaf

with some techniques from Kenji Lopez's: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-all-american-meatloaf-excerpt-recipe

• Ground veal is hard to find and unethical to boot, but using just beef and pork plus powdered gelatin gives you the same texture and moisture retention.

• I add carrots, garlic, mushrooms, and/or other leftover veggies I need to use up and get the kids to eat but, don't put them through the food processor cause I like the bigger pieces that hand dicing yields.

• I cut down on the salt from the barefoot contessa recipe too, especially if I'm using a salted chicken broth or better than bullion in the garlic sauce.

• A few anchovies and a pinch of msg bumps up the umami.

Where Wallace at, yo?

I tried a number of them but never found one that felt right. I went back to the stock Pixel launcher. It's far from perfect but I'm getting too old to tinker on features I'm not using anymore. I use the same 4 or 5 apps every day so it wasn't worth the time investment.

If you avoid initiating the conversation with him, the two human/drow/humanoids will patrol a bit and conveniently both stop under a large chandelier that has a little pin holding it up. Dropping it can one-shot them both.

There are candles all over that dais that will ignite grease pools.

There's a wooden bridge behind and above Dror that will easily break and drop whoever is standing on it into the chasm.

Knock a goblin into the pit behind them and there are two spiders that will eat them.

Using the environment to your advantage helps a ton.

Fucking passive voice as per usual - "the woman was struck", not "the pig shot her in the back."

She Works Hard for the Money - Donna Summers

I like a Canadian Old Fashioned.

Bourbon

Maple syrup

Angostura bitters

Ice

Orange peel if you have them

If it's a casserole, there's a 90% chance it's Minnesota.

Maybe they could fix Jedi Survivor first.

I'm replaying the Arkham series and I'd forgotten that Ashley's VA plays Oracle. I couldn't figure out why I was getting annoyed every time she called Batman until I made that connection.

The Steam Deck only has a single USB-C port on it, so you would need the dock for USB-A ports. The good news is that the existing USB-C port is on the top of the Deck and the dock connects via a short cable. You can use the dock as a stand but it's not required.

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/dock

I heard from a "friend" that it runs very well on a Switch emulator on a Steam Deck. Some pre-rendered cutscenes are janky. It has a pretty cool system where you can take a screenshot that will pin to the map to indicate places you need to find back to once you unlock a new ability, and sometimes those don't render right either. But otherwise, gameplay is flawless. Or so I've heard.

I've been champing at the bit for new Mieville fiction so I'll take what I can get. My wife got me October for Christmas but I haven't been in a non-fiction mood lately.