All Kinda Classics

 It's not a great contract, but it is a real one, where I make money. Yay!

 I think I've mentioned that I did the Goodreads reading challenge this year. Every quarter, they put out a half dozen or so catagories of books that (publishers have paid them to promote) you read from, you get an internet stamp, etc. I've read all kind of stuff. Some I had on my to read list for a while, one or two I read for the blog, some that wasn't on my TBR but was in my area, and some that was totally out. It's good to get out of my comfort zone. Most of it was absolute trash. The 90s Star Wars novels aren't high art, but most of them are at least reasonably free of obvious editing mistakes, blatant dicontinuity, etc. The amount of Big 5 books that look like first drafts is fucking embarrassing. I've heard there's a lot less editors/development going around these days, but we're talking stuff I'd hope a half decent amateur crit group would catch. I'm going back to grumpily reading the classics. Any probably trying the Malazan series. 

 After being in the middle of  Fruits  for so long, it's kind of weird to not be on something. I think I'm going to go back to the stuff I skipped in Volume 2. It was cool to finish Vol 1, I'll take another stab at it. Just jamming out to "Everytime We Touch" covers and folding laundry. BEHOLD THE OFFICIAL MILLENNIAL PROM THEME: Can we call exclamation marks BANGS? What are you BANGING so much in your emails, Jan‽

 https://www.npr.org/2026/08/24/nx-s1-5937919/move-over-beer-in-rwanda-a-bar-might-pour-you-a-glass-of-milk https://www.npr.org/2026/08/27/g-s1-139914/milk-rwanda-milk-bar https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/09/world/africa/rwanda-milk-bars.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_bar

 The other day, I stumbled across  Atomic Robo . I'd read a couple of the print issues, but I was pleasantly surprised to see if still being published in the old school 2 page a week webcomic format online. Good stuff, working my way through the archive. Brian (the writer) also did the first web comic I ever followed:  8-Bit Theater .

 This was the weirdest thing we saw on our trip to Yale last month, a stained glass window of siege weapons in a common room. Even weirder, I can't even find anything about it online. I'll probably do some more digging, but I didn't expect this to be hard to find out more about.

   Got this month's  Rotary Magazine  and it had a liberal education essay in it that was decent. Just gonna pull a few quotes to talk about a little tonight since I can't find a digital version. A liberal arts education is sometimes misunderstood as a preparation for nothing in particular. In fact, it is a preparation for everything.  Its core purpose is not to load students with specialized information but to cultivate habits of mind: critical thinking, ethical reasoning, clear communication, and above all, adaptability. 90% of the classes I took in undergrad were, at best, about as informative as reading a Wikipedia article, despite spending 40 hours (plus homework) and thousands of dollars on each one. Most of them were a decade out of date on specifics before syllabus week, and wouldn't touch anything involving thinking with a ten foot pole. The idea of learning  anything  that'd be useful in real life, versus just paying a bunch of m...