Lots of news to catch up on - in honor of Orange Alert I read M.P. Shiel's
The Purple Cloud, in which a cloud of cyanide gas wipes out most of the human race. Fortunately, one of the survivors is more than a little mad and goes about the world burning cities and building palaces out of gold. Unfortunately, he meets an innocent young woman with an extremely annoying lisp. Given that Our Hero's first name is Adam, connect the dots. Worth it for the florid prose, up until the protagonist regains his sanity.
Continuing our Decadence theme, I've also been reading J.K. Huysmans' two most famous books,
A Rebours and
La-Bas for a gaming project I'm working on. And next up are
A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich and J.A.G. Roberts'
A Concise History of China.
In other news, two of my friends in California were
swallowed by Microsoft. The good news is that they will both be making lots more money. The bad news is that Tim, commonly compared to 'a puppy on speed' and subject to speculation on whether he's a slan-like mutant with extra adrenal glands will be moving to a city with
far too much coffee. Ah well, what trouble could he
possibly get into?
Oh, and there was some snow. Ever decide the middle of a blizzard would be the perfect opportunity to take the subway to the (closed) office so you can get your power cable and work from home? You can wipe that grin off your face right now, Mister.