Zombie

Clouds on Mars images sent by NASA’s Perseverance Rover just before Christmas

well it’s Christmas and Christmas means toys

“Men are not women” - sounds kinda quaint in 2021 going on 2022 Interesting that the link is by and references entirely women writers of m/m including Josh Lanyon. Do readers actually notice / avoid / prefer women writers of explicit m/m sex scenes? Also, how important / significant is women readership for m/m explicit sex?

Superman and Lois or is that Lois and Superman? I loved the Superman show with Dean Cain He was hot, Lois was fun - in fact the whole show was just great entertainment This reboot is so… devoid of fun. Lois is always scowling, Clark is miserable and downtrodden and superman junior is a right moaning tiresome pain. And it’s not helped by the picture being dull and washed out, whereas Superman was in bright Technicolor (shot on film?) and just looked so good on the old cathode ray tube TV. New doesn’t always mean better. So does it get better?

no, not right not right at all ☔

Hmm, “woke” is the term bandied around for much of this along with “virtue signalling” to show just how “on message” companies, wannabe “leaders” and the like are as part of “on-message” “group think” - motivated in large part, I suspect, by fear. Fear that if anyone even questions the “ideology” just for a moment then they will be “the enemy”, to be shunned, attacked, brought down. Coupled with the new Holy Commandment - Thou Shalt Cause No Offence To Anyone. It’s a toxic combination and doesn’t augur well for free speech. Or the whole point of education - which surely ought to be about how to think for yourself and make up your own mind. Of course, even Star Trek TOR had its lecturing storylines, although mostly it was about entertainment. But if the Prime Directive is to be not causing offence to anyone then the industry may end up entertaining no-one.

I’ve done some fossicking about this word As fans of Poldark will know, and I’m sure the lingering camera shots of Ross Poldark’s shirtless torso (Aiden Turner) scything the grass had nothing to do with it nor him coming out of the sea dripping wet, trousers / pants clinging lovingly to his tautly muscled thighs… , the main industry in 18th (and 19th) century Cornwall (southwest England) was copper and tin mining (since the Bronze Age) and many Cornish miners emigrated during this period to Australia to make their fortunes there, taking their language with them - including this Cornish dialect word FOSSICK, v. Cor.3 [fosik.] To obtain by asking, ' ferret out.' The above is an extract from vol. II of the 6 volume The English Dialect Dictionary, by Joseph Wright (pub from 1898). Joseph Wright was Diebold Professor of Comparative Philology (historical linguistics) at Oxford University and, interestingly, was a tutor of the student JRR Tolkien. Wright had a significant impact on Tolkien’s life and influenced his fascination with language, which is at the heart of LoTR and The Silmarillion.

we tend to assume that knowledge and technology developments are a continuous, connected process but history shows they're not - da Vinci’s discoveries about human anatomy and circulation, especially the heart, were only rediscovered centuries later (he never published) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28054468 - concrete was used extensively by Roman engineers including underwater construction of ports and harbours, but this knowledge and technology - which is essential in our modern world - was lost for nearly two thousand years (disruption after the “fall of the Roman Empire”?) http://engineeringrome.org/understanding-roman-concrete/ - the Antikythera mechanism, discovered 1901 in an ancient sunken shipwreck, was considered a prochronism and nothing like it has ever been found since. But it cannot have been the only example of such advanced engineering technology, and the associated knowledge needed to conceive it and to construct it has also been lost (all we have is references to other complex devices in various ancient documents that have survived) https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/12/24/no-the-antikythera-mechanism-was-not-unique/

interesting that the head of NASA, former astronaut and politician Bill Nelson (appointed earlier this year) has joined the ranks of the many that have held prominent positions in the US military and politics in “coming out” publicly to say that the military encounters included in the Senate report may well be extra-terrestrial This is a surprising about-turn from his previous statement, as recently as June, when he was asked about the then upcoming Senate report on military encounters with UFAs/UAP and replied he did not consider they provided evidence of extraterrestrial visitations, saying “I think I would know” if that were the case CNN report 4/6/2021 https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/04/tech/ufos-nasa-study-scn/index.html The Hill report 1/11/2021 https://thehill.com/opinion/international/579303-nasa-chief-bill-nelson-latest-official-to-suggest-ufos-have

Sterndale Bennett - talented and competent composer who created some very enjoyable music. Yet that was not enough. He hasn’t endured, like so many other talented artists that just fade from memory. There must be something missing. Emotion? Originality? Musical hooks and tricks that raise the hairs? Maybe all of these things

“ “Many years ago, Norris Church, the sixth (and last) wife of the novelist Norman Mailer, wrote me from their Provincetown home to complain about my misuse of the word “factoid.” She pointed out that her husband had coined the word in his 1973 book about Marilyn Monroe, “Marilyn,” and that it meant not “an odd little fact,” but “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority.”” https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07/23/opinion/just-factoids-please/ Well tough titty, Norris - or should I say Barbara? (her husband Norman Mailer told her she should change her name from Barbara Jean Davis - Factoid #1 ) - because no-one controls language (despite pitiful efforts by the Académie Française - Factoid #2 ) Anyway, that’s all by the by - here’s the factoid I wanted to post (#3 ), as officially written on the State of Virginia roadside historical marker / commemorative plaque. So it must be true!

Roswell Picked up a complete boxset cheap on eBay of this US TV series from 1999-2002 and just finished s1. It’s an easy, enjoyable, escapist watch and just what I wanted. OK, a high-school teen-love drama with actors well past school age is a tired old trope. But throw in aliens, “identity politics”, evil govt black ops and a killer Dido theme and it holds up pretty well after 22 years. Don’t know how s2 and s3 will pan out but so far I’m happy with my bargain buy

how about Transfusion by Nervous Norvus Zoooommm Tooling down the highway doing seventy-nine I'm a twin pipe papa and I'm feelin fine Hey man dig that was that a red stop sign Transfusion transfusion I'm just a solid mess of contusions Never never never gonna speed again Slip the blood to me Bud I jump in my rod about a quarter to nine I gotta make a date with that chick of mine I cross the center line man you gotta make time Transfusion transfusion Oh man I got the cotton pickin convolutions Never never never gonna speed again Shoot the juice to me Bruce My foot's on the throttle and it's made of lead But I'm a fast ridding daddy with a real cool head I'ma gonna pass a truck on the hill ahead Transfusion transfusion My red corpsickles are in mass confusion Never never never gonna speed again Pass the crimson to me Jimson I took a little drink and I'm feelin right I can fly right over everything everything in sight There's a slow poking cat I'm gonna pass him on the right Transfusion transfusion I'm a real gone paleface and that's no illusion I'ma never never never gonna speed again Pass the claret to me Barrett A rollin down the mountain on a rainy day Oh when you see me coming better start to pray I'ma cuttin up the road and I'm the boss all the way Transfusion transfusion Oh doc pardon me for this crazy intrusion I'm never never never gonna speed again Pump the fluid in me Louie I'm burning up the highway early this morn I'm passing everybody oh nothing but corn Man outta my way I don't drive with my horn Transfusion transfusion Oh nurse I'm gonna make a new resolution I'm never never never gonna speed again Put a gallon in me Alan Oh barnyard drivers are found in two classes Line crowding hogs and speeding jackasses So remember to slow down today Hey daddy-o Make that type O huh Atta-boy

The penguin’s plots to steal the crown Caused murderous mayhem, and many a frown Till vanquished she lay, in complete disarray Outwitted, outsmarted, with nothing to say!

beautifully written

if you Google “male pulchritude” you’ll get some, ah, interesting results…

Good grief, it’s like operating a nuclear submarine …dead easy when you know how!

until yesterday / the weekend (?) there used to be: “Forums“ heading in large font (directly under “Featured Blog Posts”) and then “GAY AUTHORS COMMUNITY” heading in capitals and then a box for: “The Lounge” forum with the most recent thread activity shown (name, poster, date/time) and then a box for: “Forum Games and Humor” forum with the most recent thread activity shown (name, poster, date/time) and then a box for: “Help” forum with the most recent thread activity shown (name, poster, date/time) and then “AUTHORS AND STORIES” heading in capitals and then a box for forums in this section etc This has now all been replaced with a new box, top right, which contains the “Gay Authors Community” heading (now in lower case) with: tick box The Lounge tick box Forum Games and Humor tick box Help and the “Authors and Stories” heading (again now in lower case) with: tick box Promoted Author Discussion tick box Stories Discussion Forum These tick boxes seem to make little difference if none, some or all are ticked and certainly don’t restore the Forums to the display format that had existed until the weekend Also, the photos section above “Who’s online” has gone. Sorry this is such a long and tedious post but it’s the only way to explain how the Forums page display has changed on my iPad

interesting and old word from Latin which the OED indicates to have fallen into disuse in the UK except in linguistics and logic, the latter having obvious current relevance for data connections, algorithms etc

iPad 6 iOS 14.6 I always open at Forums because it gives (gave?) at-a-glance overview of the whole site - window for each of the forums showing most recent poster, name and date (in bold if new) e.g. Help, The Lounge, Games, Writers Forum etc - single click navigation to open The Lounge, or Games or whatever All concisely laid out onscreen without having to do a lot of scrolling of other stuff you might not be looking for This is how it’s been for a long time. Simple and neat. Is there a “classic” display option to get back to this or similar? thanks

You better watch out my Uncle Fester is very partial to penguins… boiled penguins

Well, it’s been a pukka word since it was added to the OED in 1976 . Three Associate and Deputy Editors of the dictionary have written a detailed blog about its origin and possible etymologies (something Tolkien, as an expert linguist and inventor of languages, would have been interested in) and also correspondence with Tolkien prior to the word being included in the dictionary (the draft OED entry was sent to Tolkien for his comment). In his replies it’s clear Tolkien was not entirely comfortable with the claim “invented by J.R.R. Tolkien”, accepting the possibility he could previously have come across the word in other texts when he was younger. According to the blog, Tolkien gave an “imaginary etymology” of the word as a compound based on two Old English words: “the hobbits notice that the speech (of the Rohirrim) contains many words that sound like Shire words but have a more archaic form. The prime example is their word for the hobbits themselves: holbytla. This is a well-formed Old English compound (because Tolkien represents the language of the Rohirrim as Old English). It is made up of hol ‘hole’ and bytla ‘builder’” However, the blog explains that after Tolkien died “the word (hobbit) did turn up, in a long list of ‘supernatural beings’” compiled by a Yorkshire merchant and amateur folklorist, M. A. Denham (1800 or 1801-1859), which were published in the 1840s and 50s and copies were acquired by university libraries including the Bodleian in Oxford (which would have been used extensively by Tolkien in his academic work and, most likely, background research for creating his Middle Earth fantasy world). Unfortunately Denham gave no explanation of where “hobbit” came from …so I guess we’ll never know https://blog.oup.com/2013/01/oed-hobbit-definition-word-origin-etymology/

Giant Little Ones 2018 Seemingly laden with gay trope cliches, this well written and acted and beautifully shot Canadian movie should be seen

The EU caused huge damage by making it illegal for shops to sell things like beans or cucumbers that weren’t perfectly straight, or fruit like apples that didn’t meet exact size requirements. Due to pressure from some countries about the disgusting waste these unnecessary EU rules created the EU eventually backed down but the damage had already been done - consumers had been conditioned to expect “perfect” fruit and veg and wouldn’t buy “ugly” produce that was perfectly delicious. So, well done you for supporting and embracing enjoying and promoting produce that may look a bit wonky but is fresh and tasty