LOL

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics1 Comment

I cannot wait to vote for this man for President. Cannot. Wait.

Teachers are not really supposed to talk politics or endorse candidates in class, right? I get why that’s an expectation, although I don’t like it very much, and I think most teachers feel the same way, more or less. I have never confirmed how I have voted on any issue, although I have said things like “you have met me; your guess is probably correct” to kids before. But I will say that it was interesting to drag myself into work today, bleary-eyed and sticky in the weird way that one is after a night with little sleep, and notice just how many of the teachers in the building happened to be wearing blue. I was wearing a burgundy polo shirt, for no better reason than it was the first shirt I touched when I reached into my closet this morning, but I did make sure that all of the LED lights in my classroom were blue today. For some reason.

We were supposed to have state testing today, but it had to be cancelled at the last second because of some sort of tech issue that was either district-wide or originated at the state level, I’m not quite sure. But cancelling testing meant that everyone in the building had planned for very short class periods today and suddenly we all found ourselves with an extra 25 minutes in each class period to contend with. My car had a cylinder timing issue, and got towed to the mechanic yesterday, and after work I had to go pay for the repair, then take my rental back to the airport, then go back to the mechanic to actually pick my car up. So I didn’t get home until 6:30, which in Indiana in November is pitch fucking black. To say today was exhausting is to slightly understate things, I think.

All of that is prelude to say that last night was successful beyond my wildest dreams; I was somewhat willing to be optimistic about Texas, Maine and Michigan, but … Kansas? Mississippi??? And to be honest I’m not sure how the hell we lost Louisiana, because with all the vote that was still out in East Baton Rouge and New Orleans when I went to bed, that should have been plenty to take the win. Lauren Boebert is out. Virginia fucking Foxx is out. Kris Kobach is unemployed. Vivek Ramaswamy can slink back into the pile of semi organic goo he slithered out of. It was a good fucking night.

I don’t want to rain on my own parade, but I do think we all need to brace ourselves for an epic level of fuckery in the next two and a half months. There’s been surprisingly little yammering about the election being fixed so far, at least from what I’ve seen (and, of course, I’ve been at work all day) and it may be that we won so big that allegations of shenanigans simply can’t take hold. There’s going to be some bullshit, though. Probably a lot of bullshit. I hope the Democrats are ready for it.

And then, next January, I want these fuckers to hit the ground running, and I want this administration torn to shreds. No mercy, no quarter, and no pause. I want hearings, I want arrests, and I want fundamental fucking change. Some of these people are going to turn out to be Blue Dogs again, even if they aren’t calling themselves that (I’m looking your way, Josh Turek, and I’m very much prepared to not like you if you turn out to be another Fetterman,) but I have to feel like our majorities are big enough that we can absorb the occasional defection from a conservative Democrat from a red state. I mean, Christ, look at this:

I didn’t see anybody predicting an 83 seat majority. I sure as hell didn’t see anyone predicting what could be a 56 seat Senate, either. The first thing I want out of all of these people is a robust discussion about who leadership is going to be. I’m not as down on Hakeem Jeffries as a lot of people– the man has done a remarkable job holding his coalition in the House together over the last couple of years– but I am entirely willing to lose Chuck Schumer, and I don’t want to see either of them simply coronated.

I’m going to take a shower and go to bed early now. Regardless of whatever’s coming next, I feel a lot better about being an American right now than I did a couple of days ago.

Taking a deep breath

On By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

The last few times I’ve live-blogged election nights haven’t gone well, so look for me over on Bluesky tonight. I’ll be up until I can’t stand it any longer.

They’re just not that bright

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, TeachingLeave a comment

Really freaking rough day at work today. The day started off with an emergency staff meeting. As you can probably imagine, an emergency staff meeting, this one called on literally three minutes’ notice, is never a good thing, and this one was worse than most, as we lost a student over the weekend. Apparently she had a massive seizure while in the tub. Halloween was her fourteenth birthday, and was also the day her parents decided to take her off life support.

She was not one of mine, and not a kid I knew, but the building was a mess as a result. We were given a statement we were asked to read to our second hour classes, and there were grief counselors in the building all day long.

And as much as I would like to blame that for my kids’ academic performance today, I really can’t do that, as once again a huge percentage of my students decided to pretend today that they had not only not attended a single second of any sort of 8th grade Math class, they had spent their entire lives living in a small, dark box and had never encountered the concept of numbers in general. Far, far more kids, unfortunately, than could be reasonably presumed to have known this girl. Plus it was also happening during first hour, before anyone knew what had happened.

I don’t know if non-educators can really understand the frustration of spending an entire month of class time talking about solving equations every single day, and then to wait a week and have a solid majority of your students act as if they have never encountered any such nonsense before. Or to ask an eighth grader what three plus nine is as part of explaining an admittedly somewhat tricky story problem and be greeted with a blank stare and three obvious guesses before you finally pry the answer to that first-grade math question out of them.

I still can’t figure out how it is fair that I get judged on the academic performance of people for whom being a moron is aspirational. “When am I going to use this?” indeed; you will never in your life use anything, and I wish I could get across to you how intensely depressing that all is.

Are there standardized tests later this week? Of course there are. They are never fucking dumber than right before something that is important to me, but not to them.

Monthly Reads: October 2026

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography, ReadingLeave a comment

I read a lot of really good books this month, and A Court of Splintered Harmony is definitely the book I’ve talked about the most, but Book of the Month goes to Christopher Buehlman’s The Thrice-Bound Fool, which somehow I didn’t review. You should read it.

Unread Shelf: October 31, 2026

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Pretty heavy, partially because a lot of rereading happened this month. We aren’t going to talk about these:

These books are, uh, let’s say awaiting promotion to the Unread Shelf. They certainly aren’t the beginnings of a third shelf. That would be crazy.

#REVIEW: Well Dweller (2026, PS5)

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews, video games2 Comments

So, remember Crypt Custodian? The guy (guy! one single developer!) who created that just released his next game, Well Dweller. In Crypt Custodian you played a ghost cat who literally cleaned up the afterlife. In Well Dweller you play one of the very last birds alive, who is trying to rescue his family from a wicked queen who killed all the rest of the birds to make a pretty dress. He fights with a matchstick.

The games share a lot of DNA; they’re both Metroidvanias with mild platforming elements; Crypt Custodian is top-down and Well Dweller is a side-scroller, but both feature huge, complicated maps, lots of power-ups that allow for a decent amount of build variability (or you can grind up to be able to equip basically everything if you want) and cute stories that occasionally punch you in the gut. I liked this game a lot; it’s short (I got 100% and the Platinum in about twelve hours) and easier than maybe it needed to be but those are the only real weaknesses. Well Dweller also offers occasional moments of incredible creepiness; witness the boss above, and the one below:

Your bird does indeed live at the bottom of a well at the beginning of the game, with the rest of his family, but what the title of the game does not mention is that they live inside of a skull, so these are either very small birds or a very large skull, I’m not sure which. You will also sometimes do things like have a little picnic outside of a rotting corpse:

The corpse will not be commented on by either of the characters, and it will not come to life and attack you. The whole game is like this. It’s nuts.

You already know I love games with heavy exploration elements, and I love Metroidvanias in general, and this really scratched an itch for me. I was especially pleased with the platforming; I generally think of platforming as something I have to get through in a game rather than something I enjoy, and this game doles out its platforming moments in little bite-sized chunks, and in general is not trying to hurt you. There was really only one bit where the platforming got on my nerves, and I’m comfortable calling it a skill issue, and one way or another it was over in a few minutes. There’s definitely nothing in this game that you might have to beat your head against for hours like certain other games. The graphics are pretty, the controls are tight, and the combat is maybe a little limited but still fun. You’re going to pick up some movement skills that will help you out but you’re not really going to pick up any combat techniques beyond swinging your match around and a little firebomb that you can either toss at your enemies or throw into the air and then smack at them, baseball-style, with your matchstick.

At $20, there’s no reason not to pick this one up. Go for it.

I can’t do it tonight

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

I have, at the very least, a lot to say about A Court of Splintered Harmony, which I finished last night before going to bed, but that was before spending a heavy teaching day in my 84-degree classroom (it’s late October, so the heat has to be on, to hell with the fact that it’s still in the mid-seventies outside!) and then having my adorable little gay kids club and then going to Parent-Teacher conferences for my son and oh also Patrick fucking Stewart died.

I cannot. I am exhausted and I am completely emotionally spent and somehow I saw this coming, because I found myself weirdly worried about Stewart earlier this week, and I am going to take a shower to wash the sweat off and go to bed now that tomorrow’s lessons are ready.

Ok let’s gooooooooo

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reading, TeachingLeave a comment

This furry little asshole sits in my lap while I read all the time, and this is the first time she’s decided to take a bite out of one of my books. There are literally teeth marks in the dust jacket now. Brat.

Anyway, I survived the field trip and the reward party, and now I have two days of ILEARN practice tests and a Goddamned data-collecting exercise that no one is going to actually look at but we sure had better have done by Friday or there will be UNSPECIFIED CONSEQUENCES.

Bah.

Gonna go finish the book now.