Former Member

It was interesting seeing Corbin channel his inner Capo. At least the Giovanni Family is unlikely to cause Corbin’s fatality. The other restaurant guests were holding their breaths wondering how Corbin would react to Luca’s formal Capo behavior, whether he would inadvertently take a submissive role through naïveté or whether he would claim equal status. ;–) Is it possible that Luca has plans to entice Stefano to Hailey to ‘neutralize’ his threat to Corbin permanently? Was the Reina Family on friendly terms with the Giovanni Family? Or did the demise of the Reina Family allow the Giovanni Family to expand into formerly Reina territory?

Both you and Geron know my real name! It’s not Andrew or the Saltire. I’m really a vanilla kind of guy – I’m just aware of many of the kinkier things people do. ;–)

That’s one of the few Wolfe Video movies that I haven’t seen. A large percentage of Wolfe-distributed movies are shown at Frameline in the Castro Theatre so I get to see them on the big screen. Support women-owned and LGBTQ-owned businesses like Wolfe! ;–)

If I were the EU and reluctantly decided to let the UK change its mind about leaving, I’d impose some pretty strict conditions that would restrict the UK from opting out of select EU regulations, maybe even force the UK to abandon the Pound in favor of the Euro. Adding another large strong economy would add welcome stability to the Euro. Compensation to the EU for years of stress and uncertainty. ;–)

@Will Hawkins waste paper basket trash can ;–)

I’d been thinking that a now relatively inexpensive drawing tablet and a painting program* might be easier for Eric to use. On the other hand, the program would probably confuse Eric too much. A basic app that works only in grayscale might be the best for Eric – one that doesn’t offer a lot of frustrating options. ;–) Maybe in a year or two after Eric has gotten used to his computer and doesn’t need tech support as much. ;–) * Drawing programs use vectors – they work by remembering a description (eg a circle, a certain width wide, in a specific color, in this percentage across and this percentage down on the page) and can be easily scaled up in size without jagged edges. This means they are great for things like architectural plans or cartoon-like pictures, but less good for sketching out a realistic flower. Adobe’s Illustrator is the major drawing application. Painting programs are bit-mapped – they work by remembering everything on a grid (the square X spaces across and Y spaces down is this specific color). This means that thing become obviously jagged when you scale the image up double the size. Scanners produce images in this sort of format. This is the easier way to create realistic shading and subtleties. Adobe’s Photoshop is the premiere painting application and is extraordinarily complex. There are many free or low-cost apps that duplicate to a greater or lesser extent, a subset of the Adobe applications' features. Most can be purchased outright as opposed to Adobe’s expensive subscription model. Fewer features means they’re almost certainly easier to master than the professional applications too. ;–)

The beauty of science fiction and fantasy is that you only need to change a few things. You can set your story in the future or in a parallel world. But by keeping the humanity that you have clearly captured in all your work would make those worlds believable. Science fiction doesn’t necessarily mean spaceships and aliens. Fantasy doesn’t always mean magic. ;–) But science fiction/fantasy does allow a writer to think as far out of the box as they can or wish. But the differences can be as subtle as the writer wishes too. In its own way even Gilligan’s Island was fantasy. ;–)

The Brits never adopted the Euro and now they’re leaving the EU (European Union) anyway. ;–)

Even (especially?) if the dinner is awkward and uncomfortable (for the diners), we (the readers) will enjoy the interplay! ;–)

Or the Saltire… ;–)

Or kink, when it’s rotated 45°. ;–) Note: I have never seen one of the 45° types in real life, only the ones associated with religion…

I thought you were from Essos! ;–)

Our worst fears have come true! The cleaner was working for Stefano. And it seems like Harris kept good notes on Corbin’s whereabouts. Don’t FBI agents use codes in their notes to prevent things like this from happening? And as we feared, Harris’ family was murdered in retaliation for his work against the Mafia. But we also found out that Harris isn’t as squeaky clean an FBI agent as we thought! He seems to be implicated in three assassinations of his own. Why would he be foolish enough to keep a paper trail? Or is he smart enough to provide red herrings for Stefano to chase? ;–) Zampa is too tiny to protect Corbin. But maybe she’ll prove to be a distraction at a critical time. Chicks and kittens, who’da thunk? ;–) It’s a very small town! Of course everybody knows each other’s business. Why wouldn’t the capo know about Corbin’s relationship with Paul. I’m sure Luca was just as curious about why the fluent Italian-speaker was living in Hailey – I’m guessing that Corbin’s dialect or accent was identifiably Sicilian as would be typical of Mafia-associated bio-families. Naturally, he’d want Corbin investigated, but at least we know Luca isn’t homophobic or Jenoah wouldn’t be so open about being seen with Bruce! ;–)

I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intent. Is my edit less offensive?

I thought they stopped doing that about 2000 years ago!

When your resources are severely limited by the Feds like mine (Social Security Disability), you have to make major sacrifices (no car, no animals, no cable, no vacations, no Netflix, no Amazon Prime, etc). My mother used to sit between my younger brother and me during church service. She’d pinch us if we wouldn’t keep quiet or were too restless. I don’t think we distracted my dad’s preaching though… ;–)

I see you’ve done that with this story on Tickiestories. ;–)

Considering some of the recent scandals the news, some employers might covertly endorse such behavior while simultaneously publicly condemning anything remotely similar as inappropriate and unprofessional. ;–)

Well he’s certainly not going to report his activities to his employer! ;–)

How else would they coordinate the training of their clueless human? Dogs aren’t as cynical as cats. They’re too trusting and loyal. But I’m more frugal than most people with limited incomes. I don’t have the resources to take care of an animal. I have enough trouble cleaning up after myself! ;–)

You remember how you got an ‘F’ on that report when your teacher accused you of plagiarizing the encyclopedia (aka the pre-digital Wikipedia forerunner)? ;–)

I watched a couple seasons of early The Real World. The first season (NYC) and San Francisco (naturally). I remember reading that Eric Nies* said he flirted with Norman and Julie equally, but the producers edited the footage to focus on the more marketable hetero flirting. SF’s Pam Ling did become a doctor and I was surprised to see her interviewed about HIV/AIDS on the local news a few months ago! ;–) * Queen Latifa once asked him, “How much do they pay you to show your nipples?” because he appeared shirtless onscreen so often. ;–)

Aside from the slight name change* during the gas-rationing ‘70s, the Mustang has been in continual production since its introduction as a 1964½ model. Its prime competitor, the Camaro went out of production for about seven years before it was reintroduced. The Dodge Challenger had a gap of a quarter century between models. None of them share any components with their earlier predecessors. None of their twin/near-twin stablemates (Cougar, Firebird, and Barracuda) currently exist since all three of those brands were killed off (Mercury, Pontiac, and Plymouth). The term is still applied to the current iterations. ;–) * The Mustang II is now belittled as unfitting to wear the badge, but Ford made an intelligent decision when it drastically downsized the Mustang. It was a huge sales success at the time. Critics complain that it shared too much with the Pinto (also a sales success during much of its life) and wish that Ford had used the Maverick as the source chassis. Few remember that the Maverick chassis had its origins as the basis for the original Falcon, just as the first Mustang did. It was an archaic design that would have been a giant leap backwards. The Mustang II saved the Mustang when Chrysler had killed the Challenger/Barracuda and GM was considering the end of the Camaro/Firebird. Ford’s other option was to adapt the European Capri and they didn’t do things like that during that time period. ;–)

I got a Google search page with one Tumblr-safe (but probably not GA-safe) picture that appears to be from an exhibit. ;–) When I tried using DuckDuckGo, I got a bunch of miniature war game pieces and naked women – I didn’t think the Vikings sent naked female warriors into battle! l–)

Looking at the spacing between sentences, it’s pretty obvious who is old enough to have learned how to type on a typewriter! The only exceptions are those who have read up on or were trained in page layout and graphic design (I read books). Old typewriters didn’t have proportional fonts the way computers do (thanks to Apple and the Macintosh), so you used a double-space to make it easier to identify the difference between the spaces that separated word and the ones that separated sentences. Double-spaces are typographically wrong and are redundant when using modern computers where most text uses proportional fonts. With monospace fonts, each glyph takes up the same amount of space as every other glyph. That’s why a monospace ‘i’ looks so wide while a monospace ‘m’ looks squished! Professionally created text like books, magazines, and newspapers don’t use double-spacing. There are proportional font families that have tabular numbers so they’ll line up nicely in columns. For something we see and use every day, most people are unaware of the incredibly subtle differences in fonts. They are a fascinating topic to study (I recommend Peachpit Press' The Non-Designer’s Design Book by the Bay Area’s other Robin Williams). It’s intended for non-professionals, especially anyone who ever needs to create a report, poster, business card, or the text document. It will help you create better, more professional looking documents of all sorts. But we all know how difficult it is to train an old dog new tricks! ;–)