Ron

Living in MA means we change twice a year but I would prefer that we didn't do it and stayed on Standard Time (ST). Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a misnomer as we don't actually save any daylight. And the last time the U.S. chose permanent DST in the seventies there was an uproar to turn the clock back to ST. Besides there's that little thing called the bodies circadian rhythm which aligns with the clock being set to Standard Time. Now, I enjoy Science Fiction stories which often include the colonization of new planets. Not every planet has the same rotation as our Earth but I don't recall every reading in any depth about how humans learn to deal with a slower or faster planetary rotation (the movie Interstellar dealt with planetary time but the planet was near a black hole, which just throws everything off kilter). If we complain about an hour here and there here how would we like a twenty-eight or twenty-one-and-a-half hour day somewhere else? Food for thought.

When visiting the site today I keep getting a screen that states 'Please wait while your request is being verified' before GA opens in Chrome's newest iteration and also the most previous one before I updated Chrome this afternoon. This is new. Any idea what's going on?

On November 18, 2026 Voyager 1 is expected to reach one light-day from Earth, about 25.9 billion kilometers.

Here in the States that would not be allowed. We are allowed to trim any overhangs but you can't impinge on another's property.

That's permissible in many places even today. That's likely to get you a charge of trespassing today if you're not on very good terms with your neighbor.

@wildone Don't think of them as birthdays per se but as celebrations of a trip around the sun. I've just celebrated my sixty-something trip around the sun in the last week. Like @chris191070 I am also considered to fall in with the Libra crowd (we are a hoot at parties). A good friend and his father took me out to lunch at the new Hawksmore ($$$$) restaurant in Boston. It's the British groups first restaurant in the U.S. and I enjoyed my meal very much. It was the first time I've had the pleasure of eating potted beef & bacon, it came with an onion gravy and not one but two popovers. Yum! And, of course since the restaurant has a steakhouse vibe, I had steak frites (wagyu-style) and the fries were fried in beef tallow. Now I know for most of history people used beef tallow but I've become so accustomed to vegetable oil fried fries that the tallow fried ones were not as ... Shall I say, tasty. There I said it. At the end I was presented with a plate upon which was written happy birthday in rather elegant chocolate script and not one or two pieces of chocolate but a small box with eight little half-round chocolates of the melt-in-your-mouth kind that exploded with caramel. Wow! Cheers to more trips around the sun!!!

I happen to be very impressed by the rhinoceros. One sees them on the various nature shows certainly, but actually seeing one... Dang! They are impressive creatures indeed. Which reminds me that although I've lived in Massachusetts for nearly twenty-seven years (most of that time in Boston), I've never made it to the Franklin Park Zoo.

According to Neal deGrasse Tyson in one centimeter slice of your lower colon lives and works more microbes than the total number of humans who have ever been born. That's both astonishing and cool to know. But is it ice-breaker information suitable for parties?!

That looked wrong to me but I couldn't quite place why at first. It turns out that it is incorrect. Astronomical Fall begins on the 22nd of September and Meteorological Fall begins on the 1st of September (this applies just like @Graeme says on the first day of the month that the Astronomical season date lands in wherever you live on the map).

Congratulations on your promotion @lawfulneutralmage.

Can you guess the song? Last night I dreamt of some bagels ... Just like I knew the thought I never thought. Young girls with eyes like potatoes ...

She's nine-years younger than me. Does that help? Otherwise, an iPhone is not in her budget and she's happy to get a phone that works remarkably well and continues to get security updates.

I've had iPhones only since the 4s. Every few years I trade up (planned for in my budgeting) and I hand my old phone down to my sister which is currently an iPhone X, the first OLED iPhone. This year it was time to trade up from a 14 Pro Max to the new 18 Pro Max. I've already pre-ordered the phone which arrives on Friday the 18th (I've read if you didn't pre-order on the day of release you can expect a delivery day some time in October now). I'll replace the battery in my current phone and send it along in 'like new condition' to my sister.

Here's a forty-year throwback...

I've checked in everyday for the last few years (I have the badges to prove it ) and most days I'm looking around, if only briefly. So GA is and has been a stopping place in my daily routine for some time. I enjoy interacting with the other members and commenting on the various site blogs whenever I have something to say that adds to the conversation (aside from those few times when I've been a little stroppy ). GA is the only place that I've posted what I've written as an author, so there's that exclusive content here. I enjoy commenting on other author's stories when I actually have time to read as well. I guess what I'm saying is that GA has become a sort of home for this wandering gay author who has plenty of ideas and occasionally comes up with a story now and again. Thank you for the place and the space to roam freely.

Kasabian's new album ACT III is right on. Here's a preview...

It seems that grade schools start their year all over the calendar. Some have been in school a couple of weeks already (planning for those snow-days) and some don't begin until this coming Wednesday (making up for snow-days at the end of the school year). So, those kiddos unlucky enough to not have air-con are in hot school rooms in August or June.

My father was the last child and so both of his older sister's daughters were right around his age. The younger one hurt a foot by stepping on something sharp which later developed gangrene. Even though the infection was thought to have been arrested, over time it lead to the amputation of her leg above the knee. My father was quite fond of his niece and she had a gaggle of kids that were just a little bit younger than my brother and I so we saw the family quite often. Seeing her lack of a lower limb was just a normal part of growing up. As a consequence I never felt the need to stare at anyone missing body parts. I understood that it can happen to anyone.

I leave comments for stories (when I feel I have something to add) where the author is either not publishing anymore, disappeared or has died. My comment may be read by a new reader, and possibly offer something they hadn't considered. This could change a reader's perspective. Comments are good.

I remember talking my uncle and his female partner (later married) into going to the Oberlin, Ohio Apollo movie theater to see Rocky Horror Picture Show. Being virgins (ha!) we didn't know the half of what the audience was going to get up to. After the spectacle of the parade of characters and then rice was tossed around and the squirt guns they could take no more and we left. It was a few years later that I sat through the movie on DVD. I have watched Tim Curry prance around a few times since then. I particularly liked Mr. Curry's portrayal of Darkness in the movie Legend with Tom Cruise and Mia Sara. The movie was one of the last to play at the local mall movie theater before it closed. I went to a matinee showing not really knowing what the movie was about and ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Being a big fantasy fan I've watched the movie several times over the years since.

Yes, that part works. Myr gets a rainbow and a crown on his badge. I have a plain magenta one. And yours is broken.

I do have a nice magenta colored badge, thank you. Even if it has no identifier on it.

A word of advice, if you're going to reply to comments do so individually and not in batches. Those that comment may again add an emoji of some type in response to your reply to their comment, thereby increasing the content in your profile which also increases your standing. To add, I learned about this the hard way. I remain worried about Kevin.

I hadn't a clue, Bill and I didn't go into reading the stories with the intent of trying to figure out who wrote what. Much too complicated and I'm not so familiar with the varying author's works to make educated guesses either.

I see that the rank symbol is broken again. For some of us but not all of us.