9 Comments on “Welcome to 2021”

1. Happy New Year, John! (and to all the Whatever readers) . I’m going to make pork chops and blackeye peas with a baby spinach salad for lunch whilst I watch the sportsball. My resolutions are pretty basic – follow Wheaton’s law and be a good companion to my just-today-turned 11-month old German Shepherd puppy. This means, as common sense warrants it, going out on showshoes and hikes as much as we can and making sure she’s happy, healthy and loved.

2. Happy New Year! I had to teach my aqua aerobics class this morning. All of one person showed up but we worked hard. Now, some light cleaning and following Sugar’s advice.

3. My new years resolution is for Trump to end up in jail and all assets seized to pay fines and debts.

4. Trump lives in that tiny paranoid brain; I’m not sure there’s anything worse we could do to him. We ned to focus on mitigating the damage he’s done.

5. Rest well, good souls, while we all may.

6. Happy New Year, John, Athena, Krissy and all the critters at the Scalzi Compound!

   Here’s to a better (please, please, please) 2021 for all of us!

7. Happy New Year’s Day to John, Athena, Krissy and all the fur balls at the Scalzi ranch.

   I intended to do some cleaning around the house, but we were up late last night, and there was a good football game I could watch on broadcast tv. So never mind. But calm and quiet, critters here to pet. Wife was napping face to face with Coo, a young 50 pound puppy. Calm.

8. Sugar, who knows her William Blake, is Resting before the great Labour of visionary transformation of the public sphere. She wants to be on full health, “for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
   against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
   darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
   places.”

   Clever girl, that Sugar. =^_^=

9. Thanks for the picture of Sugar, whose coloration I have adored since kittenhood.

   Happy New Year to all, and may it be better than the dumpster fire of a year we just finished.

   I started the new year, as one often does, by re-reading an old favorite. This year it was Redshirts. I chose this because underneath the surface slapstick, it develops unexpected depth and becomes surprisingly moving and optimistic. I hope that is how this year goes.

   Hopefully this establishes relevance to the blog post and avoids the Mallet.

   After re-reading, I have to ask: what was the interrupted pun near the end of Chapter 23?

   “A man who needs to know if he’s really that way, or just written to be that way,” Hanson said.
   “Yes,” Dahl said.
   “Someone who needs to know if he’s really his own man, or—”
   “Tell me you’re not about to make the pun I think you are,” Dahl said.

   I’ve never seen this answered (and I just searched again). I could never come up with anything funny enough to be worth the buildup and have idly thought that you were screwing with your audience there as well. Sort of a setup to Chapter 24.