Thanks. I especially wanted to pass on the “no regrets” advice which someone who lost a parent gave me. Whenever I had a choice to make regarding my Dad I ran it through that filter, and it did not fail me. I wish you, your father and your family all the best.

I went through that process with my own father, who died last year of metastasised prostate cancer. Positive thoughts alone won’t help, and the best thing you can do for you and him is leave yourself with no regrets about the part you play in his final years.

Have the conversations you have to have with him, spend time…

Social commentary isn’t even absent from Niven’s work. And while his hard SF may be adventurous, I don’t know if you could call it carefree fun (hard SF = space trying to kill humans). That’s how ignorant of SF history Torgersen is.

I think even the Heinlein juveniles contained themes and characters that would upset these frightened dopes.

Stephenson talks about him having Louisiana Creole ancestry early in the book in, yes, basically one throwaway sentence. That combined with Neil Degrasse Tyson as a model for the character (a popular science personality who was also an astrophysicist) had me picturing him as looking like the actor Tim Reid throughout…

Don’t worry, even after reading through that you’re still far less confused than sexist simpletons like Vox Day.

On a related note, I’d drop in the term “Islamofascist” as another sure sign of ignorant bigotry. I’m sure Vox and his bunch use that one all the time.

Of course he’s neglecting Doc Dubois, who’s at least part African-American (Neil Degrasse Tyson is the model). If the character had been white, Beale might have paid more attention.

As it happens, I just finished Seveneves. While it’s not one of Stephenson’s best, for Beale to describe it as a “SJW with a Gamma sauce” work means that, while he may have started the novel, he didn’t finish it or get too far into it.

In many ways the novel can be read as a throwback to the hard SF of Niven and…

Yes. The sad part is, that's a minor grievance toward their parents' generation on the part of the Boomers (who, it's worth noting, sent their own leading-edge Millenial children off to a fight in a war that amazingly proved to be even more disastrous and pointless than Vietnam).

Thanks! I came by to post my own submission in this thread and couldn't resist the joke.

He might have been put off when you joked that "size matters."

It's not my main submission (because they asked for "insane"), but I've had a couple of those mortification stories, too. One was second-hand and happened at my high school (which had a lot of film industry kids). My friends and I were being idiot teenaged boys and insulting the heartthrob stars of a teen movie on a…

I've had celebrity encounters, but my most insane one was with a semi-celeb. It was a winter evening in the early 2000s and I was wandering about the old Balducci's market on 6th Ave, shopping for gourmet goodies but mostly cadging free samples of their fine Italian fare.

What's the harm, right? It's not like you'd be injecting chemicals into him.

Does your dream first date end with the guy walking away and then turning around at the last moment to say "Just one more question..."?

No, because a well-adjusted and grounded person wouldn't call it a "daddy issue." She'd call it a "daddy and mommy issue" or, if she was even more mature than that, "good role models." What she implies is that she expects "new daddy" to do all the work to maintain princess's dream marriage. She already has him jumping…

Who has the pool on how many months it will last? I'll take 79.

Agreed on going to a strip club in general. I'm a straight male horndog and have no problem with consenting adults engaging in sex work, but the one time I went to a strip club for a bachelor party I made my excuses after less than an hour. Even though it was supposed to be a high-end gentleman's club the whole…

When I see stories like this, I always think of the 1983 movie Brainstorm. It's basically about a new technology that allows people to record and play back their experiences and memories. Of course one young handsome researcher records himself having sex with a hot woman and as a favour hands the tape to an older male…