Pedophilia seems to be mainstream in the "Oryx and Crake" universe.  Jimmy and Glenn watch it on regular websites, along with all kinds of other pornography.  They also watch people being beheaded.  I think Atwood's point is that this society in general is depraved, not that Glenn specifically is evil.  (I mean,…

Yes, it's still an apocalypse.  But it bugged me that Jimmy could have met up with a team of well-organized survivalists if he'd walked just a few miles.  And that all the survivors are somehow related to his previous life.  (Though, again, it's reasonable that other people with connections to Crake might have…

In "Oryx and Crake", you think Jimmy's the last man on Earth until the last few pages.  Then "Year of the Flood" reveals there are several dozen more survivors who live a short distance away, including his old high-school girlfriend.  I know there are narrative reasons for people in that area to survive, especially…

It's not really a new character.  It's the same obnoxious British guy that's been here for a while.  Karla Ha Ha, spinachleaf, A Grey Man Writes, etc.  He gets banned frequently so he has to come up with new names every few months.

No, we're not very far along.  So when I say we may have twins, it's in a speculative "Holy crap, there could be more than one baby in there!" way, rather than anything based on facts.

I'm glad I didn't reply to the above thread.  This one is much more appropriate.

The Last Word is equal parts gin, lime juice, maraschino liqueur, and green chartreuse.  My cocktail book says to use .75 oz of each, but you can scale it as you see fit.

Best novel about a man dying of cancer, released shortly after the author died of cancer: Iain Banks, The Quarry
It's not Banks' best work, but it's exactly as depressing as you'd expect.

Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen had sun-dwelling creatures in their novels "Wheelers" and "Heaven".  They were described as semi-sentient masses of plasma, so they'd look something like larger versions of the blue flame guy.

Friday night I saw Kristen Schaal perform stand-up as part of the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival.  At the same time that she was on stage doing jokes about her pubic hair, she was also on Disney Channel playing a cute little girl who loves her pet pig.  She's got range!

I can't remember the last book that I hated as much as "Chronic City".  If I were you, I'd return it to the library, or risk destroying the library copy in a fit of rage when you get to the terrible plot twists in the last chapters.

"Excession" is the only Culture book I dislike.  Too many ships, not enough people.  There were some interesting concepts, but I find all the inter-ship dialog a chore to read.  I guess I also disliked "Inversions", if that counts as a Culture novel.  I'd reread it to see if I reconsider, but it's also the only…

I don't know if Jake Jr. was drinking strawberry juice.  The box had the words "8%" or maybe "9%".  Based on my extensive experience with boxed wine, that sounds like an ABV.  So she may have been drinking boxed strawberry wine.  It's okay, she's basically 30.

I read "Consider Phlebas" first, and consider it to be a good starting point.  It was the first published Culture novel, and the protagonist stands outside the Culture, so it has a different view of the society.

I'm also disappointed that there was no Newswire, especially since I discovered Banks from the AV Club review of "Matter" a few years ago.

I've only eaten dandelion greens on pizza.  They get cooked enough to remove the bitterness, and there's enough other flavors so you can't tell you're eating dandelion greens.

The best friend can stay.  But the ventriloquism and the wacky accent/foreigner humor really drag the show down.

Remember, the show is a (shitty) RPG.  When the game starts, you have whatever limited equipment you can scrounge up, and the enemies are weak.  So it was crossbows and machetes vs. muskets.  As everyone leveled up, they found better equipment, which is why the show ended up with non-stop gunfights and helicopter…

I like the show's willingness to kill off characters.  It gives some consequences to the  constant gunfights and explosions.  If anything, they don't kill off enough people; it's ridiculous for Monroe to still be alive.

I visited the in-laws in Maine.  We went to a very small brewery called Oxbow and tasted all of their offerings, including a style I'd never even heard of.  (It's called a "grisette"; it's like the coal-miner equivalent of a Belgian saison, without the spices or sourness.)  On the way back home we stopped at…