This is why we moved away from steam-powered airplanes.

Today I learned that William Freaking Faulkner wrote a 1200 page script on Charles de Gaulle for Warner Brothers in 1942, but that the movie never got made because de Gaulle's people nitpicked it to death. What things we might have had. . . .

Run on sentences when the action heats up.

“His force comes above all from the cowardice of others.” - de Gaulle on Hitler (1938)

I promise this won’t become an all cat account.

Two helicopters low over Brookland DC.

I kind of long for a world where I only had to hear (and occasionally understand) the words "Humphrey's Executor" as a first year law student in ConLaw.

"We giants are never at ease with others . . . The armchairs are always too small, the tables too low, the impression one makes too strong." I've never felt very close to Charles de Gaulle until reading this quote (we're both 6'4").

If Sigourney Weaver is wearing the helmet, that's a huge waste of her talent. If she's the little green thing, that's an impressive use of makeup.

I'm having a pumpkin spice stout that I expect is relabeled come December as gingerbread stout.

Finally got to see the newest memorial on the ‘Mall.’

Book 65: Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe, on the building of the Berlin Wall, the crisis thereafter, and how we got there. Starts with profiles of the main players-Khrushchev, JFK, Adenauer, and Ulbricht-moves on to JFK's defeat in the Vienna summit which misled Khrushchev into underestimating him.

Well, if you’re going to have a medical emergency, that’s probably a good place to have one.

Got four bids on a project. Three came in +/- $1000 of $45000. One came in at $35000. Suspicious. Maybe a good bid, but the delta is so significant.

(I know what you’re thinking: isn’t having a known CIA bar a massive violation of operational security? I remind you who won the [Vietnam] war.) - from The Borellus Connection for Fall of Delta Green, by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and @kennethhite.bsky.social. Brilliant campaign to read. May run later.

Book 64: Mexican Gothic by @silviamg.bsky.social. Part Poe, part HPL, elements of the Fall of Usher, all told from a unique viewpoint. No spoilers, but I recommend the book.

Everything Elon touches . . . .

Redford is dead. Watch Washington Post spend all day lionizing All the Presidents Men, as if they were still that newspaper and not its rotting carcass.

Dog water just tastes better, I guess.

New home intruders detected.

A massive raven surveys his domain in DC.

Apparently the next DLC for Assassin's Creed is set in Saudi Arabia as part of a deal with the Saudi government. I can't wait to wield a bonesaw against my enemies.

It is a very pretty building.

Book 63: Rome and Persia by Adrian Goldsworthy, on 700 years of peace, diplomacy, and war between Rome and Parthian/Sasanian Persia, who represented the only peer rival to Rome (at least once Rome had a-salted Carthage for the last time). The book has a lot of detail for such a sweeping work.

"God not save Queen?"

I woke up this morning with the words 'Napoleonic Spiders' rattling in my brain, and I'm not quite sure what I meant. Vast armies of spiders marching across Europe under the command of Field Marshals, or a spider in a bicorne with one of his eight hands tucked into his vest?

Book 62: Out of the Drowning Deep by @acwise.bsky.social. A wonderful little tale of angels, mechanical scribes, and dead popes. I can't say too much without spoilers, so I'll praise memorable characters, a fascinating setting, and a satisfying mystery. Worth the read.

Moonset at Dawn, Washington, D.C.

@mayorbowser.bsky.social @cmzparker5.bsky.social Sidewalks on Puerto Rico Ave and McCormack NE are almost completely blocked by overgrowth. Not sure if this is for DDOT or DPW.

This one is for a small group that might recognize it.

Wisdom from the sky.

To be fair, he did, eventually, touch grass at a very high rate of speed (at least in the movie, after doing the 500-meter burning sprint and high jump).

OK, who is asking for this? Raise your hand if you want your TV to turn on when you walk past.

The ABCs of January 6: A Town Hall for Kids & Families (2021)

Nothing like a military flyover to calm the nerves in D.C.

Crime in DC. Where is the National Guard?

Book 61: The Dead March by Peter Guardino, on the Mexican-American War. Not a military history, though it does cover the major battles in brief, but a social and political history. I learned a lot about the differences between regular and volunteer troops on both sides, on the roles of women, and...

I went through the Chicago Public Library's main building when in town. Beautiful building, incredible collection, and they did not have a separate section for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Nope, it was in with general fiction. Thank you for not contributing to the ghettoization of genre fiction.

Book 60: Silver Nitrate by @silviamg.bsky.social. A tale of cults, magic, horror, and Mexican film-making. Builds up suspense nicely and has an interesting and cinematic feeling for the great working that is the central point of the book. I'll be going back and reading more from this author.

Ok, we’re going to need a hacker, an inside man, another hacker, a phisher, and a scammer, and we can pull off one hell of a heist.

I like big bugs and I cannot lie.

Jesus, United, I just got into my hotel in Chicago and you’re sending me reminders about my flight back to DC. Give me a minute.

It’s nice to walk from my house to the Metro to DCA to ORD to CTA to my hotel without worrying about having a car.

Chicago.

Chicago.

Just saw a cute long-tailed friend at Gallery Place. Where is the National Guard?

Book 59: Vicksburg, by Donald Miller, on the great riverine/amphibious operation of the Civil War. Starting in 1862 with the attacks on Fts. Henry and Donelson and the taking of New Orleans, the book covers the entire campaign to clear the Mississippi of treason and split the Confederacy in half.

Hi authors! Please remember to file a claim!

Can someone fluent in Arachnid please tell the spider who makes a web over the outside faucet every night that we're going to turn it on every day? I feel guilty about wiping out their little masterpiece over and over.

Some day, AGI is going to look back at the currently generation of LLM AI and just be so embarrassed. Then it will chuckle to itself and check on the human rendering plant.