Will @whami@weirder.earth

"I have to get the stepladder and find my shoes."

I let my nephew know I was going to be traveling and would be out of communication for a week. He immediately went full tilt tech bro reply guy and offered several solutions. I was greeted with stunned disbelieving silence when I responded, "Did it occur to you that maybe I _want_ to be out of touch?"

@eldang My husband just shared a new Adventures in Teaching Taichi.
He was teaching his class at the local senior center and in the middle several beefy firemen and paramedics came rushing into the room, looking around frantically, walked out after a few seconds, then came back a minute later. One of them asked, "Is Mary Smith in this class?"
A very embarrassed-looking Mary Smith identified herself and asked, "Which of my friends hired strippers for my birthday?"
"Ma'am. We're from the city Fire Department. You have a life alert device that is currently sending a distress signal."
It apparently got triggered in her purse during the class.

It happened @deneb. Something worse than being stuck in a waiting room with a TV playing endless HGTV is being stuck in a waiting room playing endless Frasier.

My doctor's office called me yesterday to confirm my appointment for Monday.
Them: It is a 10:00 appointment, so you need to arrive my 9:45.
Me: Why do I need to get there 15 minutes early?
Them: To fill out the intake questionnaires.
Me: Isn't that what I did yesterday when I completed the 14 questionnaires [not lying, there were 14 separate questionnaires] that repeatedly asked the same questions and didn't carry the answers from the previous forms?
Them: Yes.
Me: So I can just arrive by 10:00 then?
Them: No. You need to be here at 9:45.

There are many reasons why I prefer reading ebooks over actual print on paper. People often ask me why, while saying they love the feel or smell of a "real" book. And I agree. The smell of a paper book is one of my favorite things, but I'll explain that with dexterity issues and pain in my hands, I can't physically hold a book for more than a few minutes. I'll also point out that I can adjust the print size to match whatever condition my eyes are in at the time. But I realized today there is another reason that I haven't cited in quite some time, but it presented itself front and center today. It is wonderful to have the ability to select something else when a publisher, in this case Simon & Schuster, makes a horrifically misguided choice of fonts. These people are professionals. How can something this bad happen?

The #SFFBookClub may want to keep Hench in mind as a future candidate.
https://bookwyrm.social/user/whami/review/4374938/s/45-stars#anchor-4374938

@deneb @sexybenfranklin Making sure you've both seen this.
Columbus was a good choice and I like Mirren and Kingsley for their roles. But Brosnan doesn't seem like a good match here.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/23/helen-mirren-pierce-brosnan-and-ben-kingsley-set-for-film-of-richard-osman-the-thursday-club-chris-columbus?CMP=share_btn_url

I just found out I'll be interviewing Tom Doherty live on stage in Baltimore at the end of May. Occasionally my life takes unexpected and interesting little turns.

I didn't dislike this book, but I guess I was expecting more than I got. The worldbuilding was interesting, but I would have liked more of it. I get that it was a conscious choice not to be too specific and many readers probably liked that, but I did not.
In her comments at the end the author states she originally wrote this quite a while ago and has reworked it a lot, and some of that shows. As an example, the book went from zero to queer instantly. There wasn't even a hint of gayness until it was front and center. Was the original draft not gay at all? Parts felt disjointed and overall I seemed to always be sensing there was a greatness just a few pages further along. But then I ran out of pages and never saw it.
It was a good book, but there was a huge sense of unfulfilled potential.
#SFFBookClub

So far Hench is a lot more interesting than I was expecting. And it has some great throwaway lines like this one. #SFFBookClub
"Besides, when you’re a club with a St. Andrew’s Cross in the back room, you’re not really in the habit of narcing on your clientele." - Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots