Coloring books! With all my bestie !dramatards!

!g*mers I'm reading The Book of Bennetts, a fan lore analysis based on a mixture of hard canon material, extended material, developer insights, design documents, and speculation of implied abstract lore. SPOILER: @Poj is in it

!friendsofpizzashill don't reveal xer true power to Pizzashill....

Key lore consists of developers peepeeing around over stupid shit and getting PERMA strag patrolled, kind of like dramatard power users! also gives me MAJOR cosmic Platysfield lore vibes sisters...

I read G.K. Chesterton's What I Saw in America. It's a delightful look at !burgers from the !britbongs perspective in 1922. He sees a lot of profound differences between the two nations which he wants to celebrate. In his usual paradoxical way, he says that the American president is more like a king, and the king of Britain ought to be considered more of a president; he also fancies he has the politics of a Jacksonian Democrat despite being against slavery.

Some of his observations on Prohibition, Irish independence and the new Soviet Russia are of historical interest, and he also shares how he became giga-blackpilled:

[A] number of educated Americans are very warmly and sincerely sympathetic with England.

What I began to feel, with a certain creeping chill, was that they were only too sympathetic with England. The word sympathetic has sometimes rather a double sense. The impression I received was that all these chivalrous Southerners and men mellow with Bostonian memories were rallying to England. They were on the defensive; and it was poor old England that they were defending. Their attitude implied that somebody or something was leaving her undefended, or finding her indefensible. The burden of that hearty chorus was that England was not so black as she was painted; it seemed clear that somewhere or other she was being painted pretty black. But there was something else that made me uncomfortable; it was not only the sense of being somewhat boisterously forgiven; it was also something involving questions of power as well as morality. Then it seemed to me that a new sensation turned me hot and cold; and I felt something I have never before felt in a foreign land. Never had my father or my grandfather known that sensation; never during the great and complex and perhaps perilous expansion of our power and commerce in the last hundred years had an Englishman heard exactly that note in a human voice. England was being pitied. I, as an Englishman, was not only being pardoned but pitied. My country was beginning to be an object of compassion, like Poland or Spain. My first emotion, full of the mood and movement of a hundred years, was one of furious anger. But the anger has given place to anxiety; and the anxiety is not yet at an end.

Fiction: Ultramarines Omnibus by Graham McNeil

Non-Fiction: The Unprotected Class by Jeremy Carl ("uh oh maybe the Civil Rights act may have created the emphasis on the litigative individual over the collective")

Audiobook: The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History (if you're a leftoid or a rightoid, one of the most interesting stories about how a broke bum IMMIGRANT from the Central Valley in California became a Vegas casino mogul)

The Unix Hater's Handbook. Utter nerd shite

i also got NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD yesterday which is short stories set in the night of the living dead world that i'm reading at the same time

I'm rereading The Mind Illuminated which is a meditation book that I actually saw recommended here on rDrama of all places

I daresay I'm getting better at meditation. Actually it's kind of addicting because I feel bad and scatterbrained if I skip a day

Started the most ancient of ancient literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh. So far Gilgamesh is cucking everyone in Uruk, the gods created a perfect wild man to take him down a peg, but Gilgamesh sent a whore to civilize the wild man

The Fear by Peter Godwin

On a scary books, just read The Shining. Don't care much for Steven King but I did like this one. Really made me want to drink a bunch of martinis.

Moved on to Dracula, one of those I feel I should read, you know? Just to be cultured, find it interesting how much paprika is mentioned, guess it's still popular in the worst parts (eastern) of Europe. Not sure how I feel about Dracula having a mustache.

Also continuing my Tom Wolf kick, started A Man in Full. It's funny, and I'm liking it's take on the upper crust Black Southern aristocrats.

Just finished Ring by Koji Suzuki, debating on the rest of the series. Book was really fun though!

Currently reading Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein, a nice little true crime break, would recommend.

Clearing up my TBR stack and there's a ton of Japanese stuff, don't know how quick I'll get tired of glorious Nippon.

Mrs Brisby and the rats of Nimh. Very good book so far, loved the Don Bluth animated film as well.

Slowly making my way through Database Design and Implementation, from Edward Sciore, with a study group. Other than that, I'm reading "Ergodicity" from Luca Dellanna. The name might sound fancy, but it is basically a Taleb book in half of the pages (which is a positive). Recommended.

Slowly reading the Red and the Black. I think the most interesting part of the story so far is the conflict between the rising bourgeouis vs aristocrats

The main character was born a poorcel and absolutely despises the nobles but the noveau rich disgust him with their lack of manners and flaunting of wealth.

There's also a passage where he meets a (noble) young bishop and he's mesmerized by how polite and gracious he is.

finished scott pilgrim, great series. Trying to read/listen to paradise lost but it takes too much focus to understand what's happening.

getting ready for a blood meridian read (3rd time) for a book club me and my friends do

Finished the OG Foundation trilogy and the 2 books thay came after. Probably won't bother with the prequels. Wasn't a huge fan of the last 2 books - they had a goyslop feel and you could tell his heart wasn't really in them.

Tried to read Salems Lot (I enjoyed the short story Jerusalem's Lot, hoped this would be a continuation) but there's a pretty graphic scene of an infant being abused in the first 50 pages. Couldn't handle it. Those scenes affect me differently after having a baby.

Picking through The Elephant Vanishes as a palette cleanser.

For one of my classes, I started reading Stuart Britain: A Very Short Introduction by John Morrill.