April 26, 2025

"Mr. Hamilton's fight with the sea-lion" from Andrew Lang's The Red True Story Book.

Today's a rainy Saturday - just getting started and hoping to get some organizing done around here. In the meantime...

• We're checking out Watson. It's not bad, a little goofy, not sure how many times we can all go back to the Sherlock Holmes well before it's bone-dry but it's finding something new to do with the characters. Just three episodes in but it's got some promise as a medical procedural.

• Discovered the wild joys of r/HobbyDrama - there's a lot of crazy stories and here's some of the ones I liked reading:

  • [European Comics] Siggi und die Ostgoten: How Germany's controversial "Foxlord" created the worst possible version of Asterix

  • [Comedy] How to piss off everyone you've ever met so badly that they can't even be bothered to insult you: the roast of Chevy Chase

  • [Literature] "When a minx’s head is so deeply deposited up her own slimy passage...": Literary Narcissism and the Fall of Bat Segundo

  • [Media Criticism] Channel Not So Awesome: How a Blossoming Internet Empire was Exposed and Collapsed for it's Incompetence, Abuse, Cover-Ups, and Greed

  • [Video Game YouTubers]Game Grumps discover a lost piece of gaming history, but really didn't

  • [Theme Parks] July 17 1955 - The disastrous opening day of Disneyland

• Searched around Project Gutenberg for fun and stumbled across a full collection of Andrew Lang's books about fairy tales and other things. Definitely written for children but also in language that reads well (era-specific prejudices aside...) since the Victorians and Edwardians didn't always talk down to kids back then. Also found a copy of The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Sir Edward Creasy, which is also an interesting read in retrospect.

• Terrible news - the 988 hotline is being defunded by October and we need to find more ways to help those who are vulnerable during this time.

Might add more later today but this is what I've got for now. - A.B. 4/26/25