Mysterious6030
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030
@mysterious6030.bsky.social
270 followers 120 following 230 posts
Haven’t figured out just who I’ll be here, so this will just have to do for now. (Knowing me, I hope I change this before 2030)
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 1d
Friday Vocabulary for the 44th Friday of 2025:

“I wish that on the day my mother bore me
A windstorm had swept me away to a mountain
Or into the waves of the restless sea,
Swept me away before all this could happen.”
— Homer, Iliad, VI.363-366 (Lombardo translation)
Friday Vocabulary
1. corm — [botany] swollen stem of plant serving as storage organ, bulbotuber Transforming your corm into a burgeoning banana plant is a labor of love and ... well, labor, which is the reason for the ...
educatedguesswork.com
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 4d
It’ll have to be for state crimes, one assumes
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 4d
“Creatures only use force when they are frightened or unsure of themselves.”
— Michael Elder
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 5d
Continuing my re-read of PKD, just started once more to read one of Philip K. Dick's 4 best novels, The Man In The High Castle
#booksky
A wordy cover with most of the imagery behind the text (which reads "Philip K. Dick / His Greatest Masterpiece / The Man In / The High / Castle / The World-Famous Classic / Of A Conquered America!") and then with barbed wire at the foreground below that text—but the thing is, y'see, the barbs on the barbed wire are formed from pointed … swastikas! Get it?!? Well, anyway. The image behind the barbed wire at the bottom third of the cover is of a small suburban house with a porch and a chimney and it's a single-level dwelling painted in either beige or cream (I'm no judge of color; ask my wife) with brown trim and roof, but it's not really suburban 'cause we see no other houses around it, only a green lawn and shrubbery and a little cute lake to the left of the cover, and a big deciduous tree towering behind it, as well as some other trees, more like … what are those tall pointy trees that they always have at memorial parks and like that? … well, like those. And then behind the house and behind the trees a hilly or mountainous landscape fades back into a haze or fog and then in the far far background, in a dreamlike grey or so mist rises a towering pile of rock, a mountain, all this behind the wordy text given above, and atop the rock peak, which is almost a cylinder, is a very distant castle just peeking out above the "Philip K. Dick" line of the cover text. Oh, and there's some bookkeeping stuff along the left edge, sort of ruining the imagery, but you've got in small type the Ace books logo, and turned 90º so as to lie just along the spine edge, the ISBN number and the price in Canadian and 'Merican. And that's the cover image. This is the Ace Books reprint from 1988, by the way.
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 8d
Friday Vocabulary for the 43rd Friday of 2025:

"As a nation we've never been without an answer, even if it's only a Bronx cheer."
— Norman Dodge
Friday Vocabulary
1. motorik — driving 4/4 beat—often with pop! on 3rd beat—typical of krautrock Though of course most are familiar with the motorik used in Kraftwerk's "Autobahn", aficionados still argue whether Jaki ...
educatedguesswork.com
1
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 10d
That Sunday buzz after the marches really wore off fast
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 10d
I thought the movie was one of the best realizations of the actual PKD story among those I’ve seen (I have Gary Sinise’s _Impostor_ in the queue but haven’t gotten around to it yet), without of course the ‘50s woman patronizing at the end of the short story
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 10d
Zackly
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 11d
Meant to say “also _recommend_ not reading…”
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 11d
I’ve found that reading a book makes the line at the Post Office seem shorter and my work breaks seem longer.
I also find it strange that people will watch videos in out break rooms with the sound tinning from their phones and note nothing wrong with that.
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 11d
That book was so good I’ve found myself frightened to read anything else by him. I also not reading anything about the book—not even rhetorical blurbs—before reading the text itself.
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 11d
I enjoy the fact that as I read I am never interrupted by my book asking me if I’ve thought about using a weight-loss drug
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 11d
ALIENS still has the best lines, tho’—I’m still saying “Game over, man!” and “You’re just grinding metal” to this day
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 12d
Wilkie Collin's 3rd novel, Hide And Seek
#booksky
On a blue cover the words "Wilkie Collins" above and the title "HIDE and SEEK" below a roughly (very) circular window showing an old etching (used to illustrate an original edition of this work) depicting a woman wearing a long white (night?)dress holding a candlestick with lit candle above her head with her right arm, as she looks down at the ground below her, her long hair falling to either side of her head. A stool with some objects is in the background to the area which she is searching, and behind her is a shadowy figure of a stout man reaching with his right had to her shoulder (in fact, according to the text accompanying the image (printed within the book), he is reaching to snuff out her candle, which is on the opposite side of her body from his hand, but what are ya gonna do?). The man has a beard but no mustache, and wears a tight black skullcap.
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 13d
I immediately changed it to ‘poop plane’ in my mind as well
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 13d
Sad is the idea that everything (and everyone) is a ‘business product’. That no higher purpose is served by providing factual information, community, employment, skilled writing, diverse opinion, or examples of integrity than the goal of funneling $ to those who know not want…
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 13d
There was the Fairhope, AL No Kings protester, arrested for lewd conduct
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 13d
Love her!!
Reposted by Mysterious6030
davidjesudason.bsky.social
David Desi Pubs Dason @davidjesudason.bsky.social · 15d
I’ve found a legitimate concern
Viz: APPARENTLY it costs the NHS over £300,000 a year to remove foreign objects from people's rectums. Why aren't we removing British objects instead? Was Brexit all for nothing? Gerry Paton, London
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 15d
Friday Vocabulary for the 42nd Friday of 2025:

"The only dependable law in life—everything is always worse than you thought it would be"
— Dorothy Parker
Friday Vocabulary
1. mews — alley where stables are found; street with houses built from former stables or built to look like stables No other passerby were on the streets at that hour, and as the tattered waif limped ...
educatedguesswork.com
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 18d
I did that my last ‘puter change,but now I just have a hard drive that’s the equivalent of a home’s junk drawer
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 18d
Finally took down from my ‘on deck’ shelf and am reading The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, the first in a lauded series by Becky Chambers
Book cover of The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which shows, besides that title and that author in big 3-D letters (well, the title’s in 3-D, at least) dominating the cover, a small planet in the distance (i.e., behind the “The”) of a murky reddish or maybe cola color, and in the foreground (we know this because part of the image is superimposed over the title, specifically the bottom of the letters “W” & “A” in “Way”) a patched-together somewhat rusty maybe space-going (one assumes) ship with little bits and pieces here and there like some of those old Space 1999 landers but with more dyssymetry and a little bubble part at top (explained in the text of the book so I won’t here) and a big search light thingie (which obviously makes almost no sense in space but …) illuminating the space just before it (which is pretty much impossible unless we’re inside a dust cloud I guess) as well as the bottom “V” of the “W”. There’s also a little circle at the upper right with the following text within: “Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series”. And at the bottom, below the author’s name, is the blurb quote “Great fun!” with the source given just below as “—Ann Leckie, author of Ancillary Justice”. The black background shows itself to now be pure black, but dotted throughout with little dots that may be stars … or nebulae … or galaxies … or something else that might look like a hazy dot at interstellar distances.
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 19d
Siri and I have a hate-hate relationship: I hate her and she never understands me, but I haven’t found the right robot bartender to cry my sorrows to
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 19d
Be careful what you ask for…
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030 @mysterious6030.bsky.social · 20d
Ditto for me ‘cept I was in Decatur
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