Depression is a bastard. I hope the fog starts to lift some for you soon.

Reading S. M. Stirling's new The Desert and the Blade, which is a Ripping Yarn of the first order. Rereading Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's Civilizations and Nicholas Ostler's The Empire of the Word for work.

No, that's the Duke of Edinburgh.

Still haven't opened it…

Sorry, tension breaker, had to be done…

"And syphilis from my philandering husband…"

[distant fwapping of ears in the wind…]

Well, they're mostly harmless, if expensive to maintain. Plus tourism from monarchy deprived Yanks and Commonwealth people! I just like to see the Foot Guards wearing eighteenth century uniforms while carrying locked and loaded modern assault rifles.

Brilliant! Ta' very much!
Any improvement on the old job front, yet? I certainly hope so.

If I ever publish anything big, I will dread doing promotion more than the fires of Hell itself and hate the whole ordeal, but I'd probably do it anyway.

I fucking adore Bad Education! "Vhat ish de clitorish?" Being a History teacher makes it doubly hilarious. I've only seen two seasons and the Christmas special. Did they do a third?

I agree with you about The Corrections. I can't get into Franzen at all.

I would also strongly urge you to avoid his first novel The Broom of the System. There are some promising flashes, but it's mostly Not Very Good At All. I only managed it once and it was a tooth-grinding chore.

This is the first and last time I'm going to post DENTAL PLAN on the A. V. Club, but I feel that this merits it.

Feldman terrifying the Spanish-speaking cleaning lady is hilarious and easily his finest work as an actor.

"Dumb motherfucker" seems to be a primary criteria in my experience.

Unfortunately, his research was highly dubious and his prose style was terrible.
His only strength as a writer and a speaker was staying relentlessly and repetitively on-message.

TR was an outrageous bullshit artist and PR stuntman

He didn't want to run. He got "Bullied" into it.

Andrew Jackson's frequently shrieked catch-phrase "I'll kill every last one of you sons-of-bitches!" was uttered before decibel levels could be measured, so the LBJ stat needs and asterisk beside it.