Recent content by Iain Aschendale

March means I've only (!) got a month and change of vacation left though. Woe is me, woe is me.

In the original F.E.A.R. computer game, one of the NPCs, a programmer named Norton Mapes, wears a belt buckle that says "RTFM." Read The Fucking Manual My dad worked in corporate-level tech support and was occasionally on-call from home. He used "flipping" but the song was the same.

Yeah, my first lessons were a summer school class in high school. Could have taken Driver's Ed in lieu of gym class for one semester but that would've meant waiting on account of when my birthday falls. I've had to take the test twice more because my birthday falls when school is in session...

Try on Hugh Laurie (Greg House) and his "British" accent. I knew nothing about him other than the medical drama and that one threw me hard. I understand that for fans of A Bit of Fry and Laurie it was exactly reversed.

"There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists". -attributed to an anonymous Yellowstone park ranger, in reference to the difficulty of designing "bear-proof" trash receptacles

I'm trying to summon up the courage to sign up for driving school. Not because I'm afraid to drive, I got my US license when I was sixteen and I'm in my (gulp) mid-fifties now, but because it's so damn expensive. Around 2-3000 USD (about 300,000-400,000JPY) for a two-week intensive course. But...

Huh, none of our emojis seem appropriate. That's not a request for more, but I was going to go for a one-click response. Ah well, he was a good guy, much better than many we left behind in the move.

So... if you lose the argument* discussion that has ensued from this, does that mean that you now believe that a writer should win more arguments than (s) wins?

Minstrel passed? Shit, somehow I missed that. RIP, he was a good guy.

We pay bills either by direct withdrawal from our credit card (air miles. I end up with about one free international flight a year) or, in Japan, paying at the convenience store. I have all my essentials like power, gas, water, and phone set to go from the card, but I have my national pension...

"Live every day as if it were your last, and sooner or later a police sniper will have to prove you right." -Iain Aschendale

I found the third one disappointing. It was just "the further side-quests of [I forget the character name]." I was expecting something to advance the overall world situation. That said, it's mostly been overwritten in my memory so I could be wrong.

It always boggles my mind that Winston Churchill didn't consider the Irish to be "white."

She played herself in Dogma too.

That's 131 words. The late Iain M. Banks made a hobby of creating monster sentences. For example, this one from The Algebraist clocks in at 167: Same book, this guy is 181 words: