Tag: blog

On FOMO and BookTok

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reading5 Comments

I think we all knew this already, but it’s official: I can be manipulated. Rather easily, in fact.

I don’t know if you live a lifestyle that allows you to not have heard of the above book. If you do, I envy you, because it has been everywhere on my everything for two solid weeks. I first became aware of it several months ago, and actually had it preordered for a while, a preorder I cancelled when the word Dramione first entered my vocabulary.

So why do I own it now, snagging it from my local Barnes and Noble for a surprisingly reasonable $21 and change?

Because the reviews this damn book has been getting have been ludicrously good, and while I don’t really think it’s going to be all that good, and I’ve been burned by BookTok fads approximately fourteen thousand times before, if this book is half as good as people have been claiming it’s going to be something I need to read. And the reviews don’t seem quite as dominated by young women as one might expect; TikTok is the world’s epicenter for the “book girly,” a category that I think is supposed to exclude grizzled and ancient penis-havers such as myself, but I’ve seen guys talking about it too, if perhaps not quite as glowingly.

It’s a thousand fucking pages long. I have far too many thousand-page books on my TBR, and seriously, y’all are never going to stop laughing when you see the state of my shelf tomorrow. I will get to it when I get to it, God damn it, and if I don’t love it I’m never trusting another TikTok book of the moment again.(*)

That was a lie, sadly. I knew it was a lie when I was typing it, and it’s a lie now.

The fucking book doesn’t even have pretty edges. I’m trying to save for a down payment on a car, damn it, what the hell am I doing?

(*) What am I reading right now? Book five of Dungeon Crawler Fucking Carl. Which is so much better than it has any right to be that there should be some kind of law that it’s breaking.

An admission

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Teaching1 Comment

“Dipshit groyper in it for the lulz” was not one of the identities I had considered for the shooter.

I need to figure out what it is about the first test of the year that causes all my kids to turn their brains off. Because I’m pretty sure I’m four, maybe five years deep where after the first test I wanted to quit my job and go pick onions for a living. My next classes are going to be yet another one of those situations where I have to struggle to keep the words fucking idiots from escaping my lips. Tell me, gentle reader, what do you think about this statement:

Any number to the power of 0 is 1.(*)

I feel like that’s pretty unambiguous!

Can you explain to me why, in a question about the power of zero, where the notes stated that any number to the power of zero is one, some students said that no, this number wouldn’t equal one, or worse, that some of the example numbers would only sometimes equal one? Gentle reader, can you give me a single example in mathematics of the word sometimes showing up when we’re talking about something equalling something else?

Christ, I’m tired.(**)

(*) For the purposes of this conversation, remember this is 8th grade math, and we’re going to ignore the fact that there’s debate about whether 00 equals one or zero. They’re not going to get asked about that in 8th grade. Literally every other fucking number equals 1 when raised to the power of zero, and I’m willing to tolerate a tiny inaccuracy in what I thought, again, was a clear and unambiguous statement.

(**) I have had this exact conversation, multiple times: “The rule is any number to the power of zero equals one. What’s three to the power of zero?” “One.” “What’s twelve to the power of zero?” “One.” “What’s three hundred to the power of zero?” “One.” “What’s negative four to the power of zero?” “… negative one?” “The rule is any number to the power of zero is one.” “Oh, one.” “What’s point five to the power of zero?” “… point five?”

Any means fucking any, God damn it.

Public Service Announcement

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

Just in case you haven’t heard, even by 2025’s standards there was a pretty massive fuck-up by somebody this week, with billions-with-a-b of passwords leaked.(*) And it’s looking like a lot of them were from Apple and Google and Facebook, and places like that where you really want to make sure your password is secure. I changed about twenty passwords today– all of my email addresses except for work, anything connected with money, and this site– and while it was a pretty big pain in the ass, it really needed to be done.

You’re using a password manager, by the way, right? You should be using a password manager. Make your password for that a four-or five-word phrase that you’ll remember, substituting a couple of numbers for letters or maybe doing some strategic misspelling, and let the app worry about everything else.

Anyway, point is, go do that.

Dammit, I had something else for this. Uh … shit, getting old sucks; I’m watching a video on another monitor while I’m writing this and I’ve lost the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at once. Expect a quick post tomorrow; we’re going to my brother’s to celebrate both of his kids’ birthdays; we’ve had to reschedule this a couple of times now because one or both of them keep getting sick, so hopefully nothing other than the heat will be getting in our way tomorrow.

Gaaaah. If I remember the other thing I’ll either throw up another post or just edit this. There was definitely something but it’s gone right now. Sigh.

(*) I’m not actually certain of any of the details of the leak, which looks like it had to have been multiple simultaneous leaks, somehow? I just know I pay attention whenever Apple or Google gets hit by one of these things because those are the accounts I really don’t need compromised.

EDIT: Oh! I remembered! I woke up this morning to discover that I had a couple hundred page views already, which is not normal– usually there will be no more than a couple dozen overnight. The other weird thing? They were all from Hong Kong, and the specific posts that were seeing a bunch of views were all older posts with no clear relationship to one another. We’ll see if it happens tonight. Those couple hundred page views were also spread out over a hundred or so individual visitors, so it’s not like one person went through a big chunk of the site or something. So … yeah, Hong Kong folks, if you come back, can you tell me why? 🙂

On my inner magpie, and other thoughts

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, Teaching1 Comment

So, um, these showed up today. They are hand-numbered, 41/199. When I die, my wife can sell them to pay for my funeral. They will make me happy every time I walk past my bookshelves for the rest of my life.

Have I read the books yet? Nope. Although now I kind of have to. We’ll make it a summer project.

Teachers complain a lot, right? The understatement of the decade, surely. Like, read the site for five minutes. Teachers complain a lot. But one thing I feel like doesn’t get discussed enough is how emotionally fucked up the end of the school year can be, and now that I’m down to the last three days I’m starting to really have to stare that in the face. This has, on the balance, not been a bad year– there have certainly been moments, there always are, but in the main it’s been a pretty good year. Top half, let’s say.

Some years aren’t all that bad– last year comes to mind. But this year there are a good half dozen kids who I really, really like, who I’ve grown pretty close to over the course of the year … and I get to see them three more times and that’s it. They’re gone. And because I teach 8th grade, it’s worse, because they’re not just no longer in my class, they’re gone entirely. Like, maybe I’ll see them when they do their grad walk in four years, but that barely counts? And even if they do stay in touch, and some of them do, of course, it’s not like this is the kind of relationship where I can drag somebody out to lunch or go see a movie or some shit like that. Like, not even in a “that’s kinda weird” sorta way! A “people are going to assume terrible crimes are happening!” sort of way!

I don’t want to commit crimes! I just think your kid is cool and I would like to keep them in my life after seeing them nearly every fucking day for a year.

Next Thursday is going to really suck, is what I’m saying.

Related, but not really: I had a parent email me about a concern over the final, which in and of itself is just fine, but in the middle of the message she threw in “as you know, he tried taking his life a little over a month ago,” and NO THE MERRY FUCK I DID NOT, MA’AM. I thought for a minute she had mentioned it and I had forgotten, somehow, and looked through every previous email I’ve gotten from her, and … NOPE. There very much was no message about it.

And, like, how do you respond to that? Do I just pretend she told me? I ended up not directly addressing it one way or another and answering the substance of the email, which feels … weirdly flippant, somehow? I feel like I’m yadda-yaddaing a suicide attempt, but I also really don’t want to correct her on it. I may contact our social worker and see if he knew about it, but that potentially opens up an entire different can of worms if he didn’t.

Mental note, don’t put the question in writing.

Here’s what I’ve got

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

I really ought to re-embrace the notion that I don’t have to post every single day, but I’m absurdly close to a year straight without missing a day and only, what, 2/3 of those have been bullshit? That’s a pretty good record, right? January and February have been exceptionally heinous, I know, but between being constantly sick and actually (don’t tell anyone) having a pretty damn good year at work, I’m both lower on good material than I normally am and less inclined to talk about it than I might be otherwise. The main things going on in my life right now are shit I actively don’t want to talk about here, which leaves book reviews and the occasional picture of a pile of fountain pens.

(The purple one on the right and the coffee-colored one in the middle are my current favorites. I am trying my best to not buy any more, because if I do, I’m going to start edging into more expensive ones. The most expensive pen there was $52. I caught myself eyeing one for five hundred dollars the other day and am uncomfortably close to pulling the trigger one that runs $150. I can’t do this.)

Anyway, speaking of video games (just pretend), I’ve been trying to put 9 Sols to bed but I’m completely stuck– I actually turned the difficulty down on a boss that I’m certain I could have beaten but I didn’t want to take the time, and now I can’t figure out where to go next. If I can’t figure it out tonight I’m gonna hit up a walkthrough. The game’s a lot of fun but I feel like it should have been a 25-hour game and right now I’m pushing 30 and I don’t know how much game there is left– at least two more bosses and who knows how much exploration. I have like four games on my PS5 I want to get to and another on the Xbox, believe it or not, and I can’t play any of them until I beat this one.

In which I have a disease

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocyLeave a comment

…both in the literal and metaphorical sense. The wonderful news is that my ear abruptly partially cleared on the way home from work today, as I was actually on my way to urgent care to have it looked at again. It’s not 100% yet; there’s still some tinnitus and a little bit of pressure, but it’s not remotely as bad as it was yesterday and the transition from one phase to the other took all of thirty seconds. Hopefully it’ll continue to improve over the next day or two; I have about five doses of my antibiotic left.

The metaphorical sense? Do I need to explain, since you presumably have eyes and can see the image at the top of this post? Because God damn if I didn’t involuntarily start to reach for my wallet the second this image appeared on my phone, only to realize that the presale doesn’t start until the end of March so I have plenty of time to talk myself into buying four books that I didn’t like by an author who I genuinely dislike just because holy shit they’re pretty.

(They actually come with two dust covers each, those above and another set that is a slightly upscaled version of the original covers. I already have all four of these damn things with the original covers, so it’ll be these.)

Don’t ask the price. The set will cost roughly $texas; Broken Binding editions are expensive. They appreciate like motherfuckers, so I could pretend that I was going to hold on to them for a year and then sell them, I suppose, but I’ve got to buy them first. Nonetheless! Daddy can do this, all day, every day, no problem. But when is it going to stop?

I know I’ve said this before– hell, I’m a million and a half words deep into this site, I’ve said everything before– but I really never thought I was going to be the person I’ve become, where the more discretionary income I have, the more shit I find to buy. This obsession with special editions of books even if I don’t like the books is just the latest Goddamn symptom.

My palate is crap

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocy5 Comments

I’ve talked about Importin’ Joe’s Coffee around here at least a couple of times– they are a local small business that is somehow also an Ethiopian coffee company. They first came across my radar when they delivered a bunch of coffee to my school a few years ago, and every so often they send me an email at exactly the right time and I order some more coffee.

This happened last week, and I didn’t realize until after the coffee had been delivered that I’d inadvertently ordered whole bean coffee rather than pre-ground. And since the only way I solve problems nowadays is by throwing money at them, rather than tossing the unusable $15 bag of imported Ethiopian coffee or, God forbid, attempting to return it, I spent $80 on a coffee grinder.

A secret about me, or maybe I just think it’s a secret and it’s been completely obvious to everyone who has ever known me: I would like to be a snob about something. Something. I don’t care what. I want there to be something where my tastes are refined and classy and shit, and I turn my nose up at the lesser versions of, I dunno, whatever that thing might be.

I don’t drink alcohol, so that leaves out whiskey and wine. I don’t smoke, which eliminates cigars. I cannot convince myself that clothes are important enough to start dressing like a fancy person. And I’ve got to admit that part of the attraction about buying a coffee grinder– and not some cheapass $20 coffee grinder, no, it’s mid-range or nothing for this guy– was that fresh-ground coffee beans are supposed to be a lot better than pre-ground. And, like, I thought that was supposed to be an obvious difference? I already know to avoid instant coffee like the plague, but I think everyone kind of knows that already, and the simple fact is that since I became a coffee drinker in 2015 or so, if instant is all the coffee that’s available, fuck it, I’m drinking instant. My tenure at the furniture store proved that. Shit, I already drink my coffee black, and that’s pretentious enough, right? Let’s go to the next level!

Y’all, I absolutely cannot tell the fucking difference between fresh-ground coffee and pre-ground coffee. I can barely tell the difference between the different coffees we have in the house. I mean, I can; the Meijer house brand’s “Michigan Cherry” flavor smells strongly of cherries and I suppose kinda tastes like them, too? I like chicory? But the particular Importin’ Joe’s coffee I ordered claims to have “tasting notes” of fudge, toasted caramel, and cherry “on the back end,” and I literally do not know what the fuck any of that means. It tastes like coffee. It doesn’t taste burned like Starbucks coffee does, which registers in my head as “good coffee.” I ground the beans for the Michigan Cherry for the last couple of mornings and I can’t taste any difference. I happened to be at the grocery tonight and picked up some Colombian coffee, because Colombia. But my wife is going to do a blind taste test on me this weekend, and I’m gonna lose it, and I’m gonna lose it so, so badly.

Is there a way to train yourself for this shit? I don’t smoke, again, which would make me think I’d be able to identify basic flavors, but I’ve got nothing over here, and I wanna be a damn coffee snob. Somebody help me. Surely if I can train myself to like black coffee I can figure out how to identify a “note” of “toasted caramel,” right?

Infinitefreetime in The Writing Process Blog Tour

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing12 Comments

photoI have been nominated for a fair number of WordPress blog awards in the past year, and I’ve ignored almost all of them.  That’s not because I’m not grateful, because I am; it’s always awesome when people think of my blog in any remotely positive context, much less in a context involving a prize, but because I end up having to write the same post, more or less, over and over.  I need to start working on recognizing other blogs more often, and the awards help with that, but it’s not at the top of the priority list just yet.  (He said, smarmily.)

Anyway.  It stands to reason, then, that the one time I see a viral blog post happening that I want to post an entry for, no one nominates me.  🙂  So I’m pretending that Taylor Grace or Part Time Monster nominated me, and I’m going to re-tag Winter Bayne and Gene’O over at The Writing Catalog just to be a jerk.

On to the questions:

1. Why do I write what I do?

I write, loosely defined, speculative fiction— mostly of the science fiction and fantasy genres, with a smattering of heavily H.P. Lovecraft-influenced horror mixed in there as well.  Trouble is, for the most part I can’t keep my genres straight.  Those three were what I read most as a kid (and, truth be told, still do) so they’re what I associate “writing” with.  When I’m not writing fiction?  Well… look around.  My nonfictional/blog stuff is mostly about teaching, although I’ll write about anything that strikes me around here and my blog is frequently filled with nonsense.

2. How does my writing process work?

Blogging is first-draft, sit-down-and-go stuff, and once I can get started (which can take a while) if I’m writing nonfiction I write insanely quickly– I once pulled off a thirty-page paper in a few hours in grad school.  Got an A, too.  Fiction requires hours, days or weeks of “thinking” (read: procrastination) and is much, much slower, although one benefit of the advanced thinkytimes is that my first drafts tend to be pretty clean.

If I’m doing blog posts, nothing is required– I can bang out a blog post while watching my son and cooking dinner at the same time.  (And I’ve done that.)  Fiction requires solitude, music, the house to be reasonably clean, nothing else hanging over my head, and music.  I’m thinking of keeping a running soundtrack of my current novel, actually, which so far includes Murs, Mika, and Meg Myers, because apparently iTunes got stuck on M yesterday.

3. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Genre-bending and humor, although I think tonally my work sounds a lot like John Scalzi, if John Scalzi were about a third as good as he is, and that might be overstating my abilities.  But, yeah, the genre-bending.  My series The Benevolence Archives involves ogres and gnomes and dwarves who ride around in spaceships, so I clearly don’t know what the hell I’m doing in keeping genres together.  My first novel, Click, was originally going to be a Conan-type barbarian sword & sorcery thing and somehow ended up with the first major scene being set in an antique shop on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago.  Hopefully this means fans of either genre will like me; the darker parts of my brain think it’s going to ghettoize me out of existence.

I suspect I was bad at coloring in the lines as a kid.

(You can buy The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 at Amazon right here, if you like.)

4. What am I working on at the moment?’

Two projects:  One, a Benevolence Archives novel (the piece linked above is a short story collection and is novella-length) and two, an entry for the Baen Books Fantasy Adventure Award that is– eek– due in just a couple of weeks.  The contest entry is kinda giving me fits, because of the genre-bending tendencies I discussed above:  it’s wanting to bend toward horror more than I think a “fantasy adventure” story ought to, and I either need to rein it in in a direction I don’t think the story wants to go or give up on submitting it and come up with something else.  Which… God, who knows how long that could take.

(Oh, and random advice: if you’re going to take a picture of your workstation for a blog post, make absolutely sure there isn’t a credit card sitting on your desk, face-up, right next to your keyboard!  That is an incredibly bad idea!)