I doubt it. Retail isn't my thing and if I was going to do it, I'd probably try my hand at something like a comic and/or game store.

WYE migrate to a foreign country where you did not know the language?

Promises are something to keep.

(The) Greatest Story Ever Told

Quote by redwriter
Today I moved on to seven in the morning.

I'm at four but only three different drugs. One I take two of.

Quote by verbal
Cold and snow are moving in, just in time for the weekend. I’m not complaining!

Quite the opposite here. 4-5C and sunny is our forecast. I might even try going for a walk tomorrow.

Well, no one has done the prep yet, so.........

Here's some Nicaraguan dark roast from Las Chicas. Teas are Raspberry Royale and Earl Grey. Cold drinks looking good but I've restocked the hot chocolate and marshmallows.

I have an idea for a "universe" but still trying to figure out a story to set in it. It's urban fantasy, basically.

Quote by redwriter

April 4th---the big one!

Wow, so you're turning 18 this year? 🤣 Marking it on my calendar!

Curse of the Werewolf

A little over 50 years after his first big hit "Piano Man" (which came out in November 1973), Billy Joel has returned from a lengthy break from songwriting this morning. Here is "Turn the Lights Back On". It's vintage Joel. Not his best, perhaps, but definitely a Billy Joel song and a pretty good one.

Quote by redwriter
Wow, only one error and done in good time. Things are get better! And the speech therapy is due today! Hope she is pleased.

Good to hear. Take care and keep working at it!

Ape comes in bangin' his head. Snarfs a couple maple walnut cookies from Snoopy

Getting better all the time, but still a bit stuffed up and low on energy.

Coffee is an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from Fire Roasted. Teas are Scottish Breakfast and Earl Grey Supreme (EG but with more bergamot). Washed the cold drink pitchers and whipped up some fresh iced tea and lemonade.

We are into the back half of the week. What's up, folks?

The Sixth Extinction - Ayreon

Arjen Lucassen's formula of pulling together top singers and musicians for symphonic metal concept albums has served him and Ayreon well for many years now. This is from a live performance by Ayreon last year. I can name a bunch of the various singers who appear but I'll bet I've heard others and just don't know them on sight.

Big nope. Blasting down the road without a steel/aluminum/composite shell around me ain't happening.

WYE handle a snake?

Request help from help desk.

grabs a couple carrot cake cookies from Snoopy

Good afternoon. Man, this place is getting livelier, esp. with Cora coming in to do an afternoon hot beverage service. Yee-haw.

I looked at the 4 drafts I have for a sequel to Shadows of Tan Maldrin (well, one possible sequel). I think I have completely lost the plot with that planned series. Too bad, but I am going to squirrel it all away somewhere and move on, I think.

I have thoughts on a couple possible "universes" I can use for some new stories. These wouldn't be series so much as stories with a shared setting and maybe some interplay among characters. One I have scoped out a bit in my notebook. The other is rambling around my head.

Good morning, all you happy people!

No, I'm not over the bug yet, but feeling better.

Coffee is some Colombian dark roast. Teas are Russian Caravan and English Breakfast. Cold beverages looking good. Restocked the hot chocolate and marshmallows.

For the poets among us who might have enough written to consider publishing. There is a link in the article to another that explains why the reading fees exist in the first place, but these ones don't have it.

https://authorspublish.com/102-traditional-poetry-manuscript-presses-who-do-not-charge-reading-fees/

LOL. Will that poor song ever escape the legacy of being in Pulp Fiction? I mean the original song dates so far back, it's origins aren't known. The first recording was by a Greek musician in 1927. Even the surf rock version used in Pulp Fiction actually dates to 1962, And, yet, almost everyone today associates it with that movie.

This version, interestingly, dates to the same time as the Pulp Fiction. It's jazz take from Vince Guaraldi.

My language learning skills have declined, but that's one I might consider.

WYE go to a "meet and greet" to meet a musical artist you are a fan of?

Reading list from my Cruise:

A Collection of Short Stories and No One Writes to the Colonel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

We were stopping in his homeland (Colombia) on the cruise and I have never read the Nobel winner so I decided to do so. Very good writing and some intriguing characters and stories but a bit too morose for my mood these days.

A Brief History of Earth, Andrew H. Knoll

In 8 chapters, geologist Knoll takes us from the Big Bang to the Anthropocene. Does a good job of giving a high level look at our world's history and our place in it.

Hadrian's Wall, Adrian Goldsworthy

Nice overview history of the Roman wall that runs across Northern England. Cute anecdote about the author scratching out the "H" in "Hadrian" in a book when he was a kid so it would be "Adrian's Wall".

The End of Everything, Katie Mack

A cosmologist looks at various ways the universe could end and, in doing so, gives a good review of various current theories and speculations about it origins and nature. Good pop science in the vein of Sagan or Degrasse Tyson.

Banging my head to a band from Japan that I just stumbled across yesterday. Lovebites is all-female power metal band with a sound reminiscent of classic European power metal like Helloween but leavened with thrash (Metallica is thrash metal). They've been at it since 2016, with a break over 2021 and 2022 after losing their original bassist. These are from their first concerts after current bassist Fami joined.

Love the gospel-ish opening to this one.

And this anime theme from 2021 is a favourite of mine so far.

We got rain on the weekend but now we are back to snow.

So my wife and I have similar symptoms, but I was positive and she is negative. So clearly one of us got an erroneous result, but which? I'll keep assuming I have COVID but it does show that the rapid tests are not perfect.

Good morning!

Don't feel like sourcing coffee today and I see I still have some Tobermory Flowerpot Island so making that. Teas are English Breakfast and Raspberry Royale (a Bigelow's blend I fell hard for on the cruise).

On a sick day today. Told folks at work I'm taking this day to day but I kind of hope to be back working from home at least tomorrow.

I would love to but with only a bachelor's in my field, doubt I would be considered qualified. I also have a Master of Library & Information Science, though, which I guess could help.

WYE sell your home and live on cruise ships fulltime (yes people do this)?

Yeah, so apparently my "cold" is actually a certain other virus. The number "19" is involved. 🙄

But I am not too bad at the moment so I'll put on a mask and gloves and whip up some Panamanian coffee. Teas are Scottish Breakfast and Duke of Earl Grey. Pitchers of cold bevvies are washed and refilled.

Toying with stories but not really getting much going yet.

One of my favourite openings for a novel ever:

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."

-The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells

Good that you keep posting and that you're keeping a sense of humour about the whole thing. Seems like a good way to promote your recovery.👍

Good morning, all. Today we will do Costa Rican coffee. Teas are Yorkshire Gold and Russian Caravan.

Nursing a bit of a cold. Nothing serious, just inflamed sinuses and a cough. I wore a mask while making the hot drinks so fear not.

Oops, missed one. We had a stop in Limon, Costa Rica. Visited a rainforest reserve. Saw lots of cool animals, including sloths and a bushmaster, one of the most toxic venomous snakes in the Western Hemisphere. Which was under the control of a handler but not in a cage or container.

Quote by Cora

I read mostly spiritual reading. The Saints are very wise and helpful. Books by Russian authors, Dante's works, although I've only read "The Inferno" thus far. And C.S. Lewis books.

Ever come across The Language of God by Francis Collins? It's about the only Christian apologetics that has clicked with me in recent years. Collins headed the Human Genome Project and the National Institutes of Health so the book is very focussed on reconciling his strong Christian faith with his acceptance of science as a way to know the world. He is a fan of Lewis and cites him. Used to be available as a free PDF but he seems to have taken that down so maybe it is back in print. He also started a foundation exploring/promoting the relationship between Christianity and science, which runs a podcast under the same title.

And Alissa in her native environment, fronting Arch-Enemy. The song is the leadoff track from their 2022 album Deceivers, the video is footage from their 2023 tour. And, yes, that really is her voice. The woman is a great "growler" who can also put out some terrific clean vocals.

Charlotte Wessels and Alissa White-Gluz are two of my favourite female voices right now. Charlotte is solo after years in the band Delain while Alissa fronts Swedish melodic death metal band Arch-Enemy. They have worked together a few times since Charlotte went solo. This song was original a patron-exclusive on Patreon but finally got a general release last week. Alissa also appeared on a track on Charlotte's first solo album and later joined Charlotte onstage for some of her first solo concerts.

Since we've had songs quoted already, how about this one from Finnish songwriter Tuomas Holopainen:

"Would you do it with me?

Heal the scars

And change the stars.

Would do it for me?

Turn loose the heaven within."

From "Ever Dream", originally recorded by his band Nightwish.