My great-grandmother was raised by her grandparents after her mother died, despite still having her father in the picture. Evidently, at the time, it was widely believed that single dads couldn’t raise kids well. (I suspect people believed this was especially the case with young kids.) Even once her father remarried,…

National Harbor pretends to be mini-Vegas, with even less appeal than Atlantic City but is less run-down (because it’s still new). Nobody who lives in the area goes there. It’s just a weird tourist trap that tries to attract conferences that want to have a more glamorous atmosphere than whatever random business hotels…

I know, right? Her costume is striking, and I really liked their performance tonight. His costume is just tragic, though.

No mention of this costume atrocity from Thursday night? He looks like he sprinkled some glitter on a piece of blue painter’s tape and then stuck that on his outfit to kinda sorta match hers.

I see selkies and think of this story, “Selkie Stories Are For Losers” by Sofia Samatar, which was nominated for a whole bunch of prestigious awards a few years back.

Sony has the rights to WOT, so we’ll see if they eventually get around to doing something with them.

Oh! And I can’t believe I forgot to include NK Jemisin on my list. She’s one of my favorites! I especially love her most recent series (which has been winning lots of awards) which starts with The Fifth Season.

Seconded on the Pratchett; his books are delightful and warm, even as they are incisive. Seconded on Gaiman and LeGuin, and you should read Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman.

I’m on vacation in Italy now, and I’ve been horrified at how careless people have been around priceless artifacts. In one art museum, I saw a middle-aged man casually resting his hand on a Roman sarcophagus that was roped off. In another museum, I saw people reaching out to caress the base of a bronze statue that had…

For the record, DC weather was lovely over the weekend. Temperatures in the 70s! This week, we’re getting temps in the 70s and low 80s and some rain. I have a low tolerance for heat, but even I could work just fine without AC right now because we’re having weirdly cool weather at the moment.

There is so much good food in the DC area.

Barnes and Noble currently has a buy 2, get 1 free offer on Marvel comics and a lot of them already have decent discounts before this sale deal. I estimate that all those discounts stacked together amount to about 50% off if you buy in multiples of three.

Barnes and Noble currently has a buy 2, get 1 free offer on Marvel comics and a lot of them already have decent…

This code has given me so much trouble. First, it kept giving me error messages when I tried to apply it. Then, it looked like it applied, and in the order confirmation the discount vanished, so I had to cancel the order and reorder it. Finally, I just discovered that despite an order confirmation that had the right…

This code has given me so much trouble. First, it kept giving me error messages when I tried to apply it. Then, it…

Update: after all that trouble and an e-mail confirmation that had the correct amount, the discount vanished when the item shipped and Amazon overcharged me.

Update: after all that trouble and an e-mail confirmation that had the correct amount, the discount vanished when…

FYI, the books code is being finicky right now (probably something to do with all the traffic to the site). If it doesn’t work for you but your book purchase meets the terms and conditions, you may have to try refreshing the page and reentering the code a few times before it finally goes through. Then, make sure you…

FYI, the books code is being finicky right now (probably something to do with all the traffic to the site). If it…

I get it, and it wasn’t too long ago I would have thought the same thing.

Ideally, of course, only guilty people go to prison. In reality, a lot of innocent people have been sent to prison for various reasons: biased jury, incorrect identification by witnesses, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We know that these wrongful convictions happen because people have been exonerated by…

This is a lovely, chill game. It won’t satisfy you if you’re looking for a competitive, complex game but it’s the game I always pull out when I play games with people who don’t normally play board games.

This is a lovely, chill game. It won’t satisfy you if you’re looking for a competitive, complex game but it’s the…

Doesn’t apply to pre-orders either, even though that’s not listed in the terms of the discount.

Doesn’t apply to pre-orders either, even though that’s not listed in the terms of the discount.

I LOVE that series by Fred Clark.