robert.admin – Page 45 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

December 5, 2021

Redshirts (Review)

love John Scalzi’s writing – enjoyed Old Man’s War and The Collapsing Empire. And I’ll admit I was looking for a light-hearted book, a lampoon of sorts of Hollywood sci-fi franchises and the characters who are in them. Expecting nothing more than a reheating of Galaxy Quest, I dove into Redshirts. So Ensign Andrew Dahl of the Universal Union has just been assigned to the Intrepid, flagship of the fleet. Since it is a forward exploration and combat vessel, one would expect casualties. But, as the nerd joke goes, the security forces (i.e. the “redshirts”) suffer appalling losses. And they die […]

December 2, 2021

The Inviolability of Books (DOG EAR)

ooks represent a number of things, particularly the containment and storage of thought, knowledge and wisdom. That is why book burnings (by Nazis) and book bannings (by school boards) seems like such an evil thing to those who wish to see humanity reflect on its mistakes, realizations and histories. And which is why throwing out books made me a bit queasy recently. You see, I had to intercede in a friend’s medical crisis and breaking into his house revealed that he was a hoarder. Marie Kondo would have run screaming from the piles. Me, I found it a bit disturbing. […]

November 28, 2021

Make Room! Make Room! (Review)

ritten in 1966 (just as overpopulation was becoming a known concern), this novel by Harry Harrison was the driving force behind the movie Soylent Green. Focusing on the book (the whole cannibalism aspect is absent), we have detective Andy Rusch sharing a small tenement flat with Sol, a retired engineer who has cobbled together a bike-generator for their small fridge and TV. Andy has been assigned a case looking into the murder of a known racketeer – it’s thought to be the work of a new mob moving into New York (it’s actually the result of a frightened burglar who […]

November 25, 2021

oally Unaccepable (DOG EAR)

hort piece on hanksiving day. The “” key sopped working on my keyboard. I press i and nohing happens. I really pisses me off. So I lay in bed hinking about he keyboard and wha I migh wrie, and I figured why not about his supid failing key? Sared the piece and hen remembered he can of jet spray in the close. Sure! hat migh work! So I sprayed he key from all sides. …. How is it working? ttttt. Seems whatever was stuck under there, whatever crumb or dust or gunk, it’s blown out. No “T” problems anymore. At […]

November 25, 2021

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/24/2021

ow that was depressing. It’s my birthday. My wife is in the hospital for observation for her dicky heart. I need something to take my mind off everything. It’s ops night! Great! Nobody showed. Honest, our other pre-Thanskgiving events were always well-attended. Everyone stayed late because it was a holiday tomorrow. But this time some people had to work, some people were traveling, and some people took the cheap way out and had passed away. We had six guys running the layout on their own. So no dispatcher and not a lot of chatter. We ran two freight trains, a […]

November 22, 2021

OpsLog – TY&E – 11/21/2021

remember when there were five N-scale layouts in this area. Every Monday night, younger versions of myself and my friends would meet and operate. We’d stick through things until 11pm or so and run the crap out of whatever home layout we found ourselves at. But everything changes. People. Relationships. And clubs. Now here are three layouts that can operate in this area (and two of them are mine). The other belongs the Python-quoting JW, the Tipton, Youngstown & Erie Railroad. And in a creepy Frankenstein way, the TY&E is made up of 30 year old modules (which our club […]

November 21, 2021

The Last Emperox (Review)

or this review, I’m going to avoid spoilers. It’s the last book of the The Interdependency Trilogy. I won’t tell you who lives and who dies. However, the flow passages between the planets of the Empire are shutting down, entire habitats with billions of souls dependent on trade will die, and the only planet (End) with a natural biosphere that could keep humans alive is controlled by evil Noble House Nohamapetan, and even if they lifted their blockade the planet would be overrun by billions of displaced people. So it’s pretty grim. We see Emperox Grayland II trying to mature […]

November 19, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 11/19/2021

ad to go out to the club and wait for the alarm guy so I decided, since I haven’t run since thousands of people required my assistance for every little thing, I’d run a switching session on the Tuscarora. And to make it fun, I’d run the full tower (using signals) too! The main thing was to see how my SW-7 would work. Right before the NMRA convention the chip croaked (three weeks out of warranty). I originally had a Paragon 3 sound decoder installed (it’s what it came with). New ones are shipping with 4s – Craig LeVasseur noted […]

November 18, 2021

Respect (DOG EAR)

‘ve been thinking about this for a while. The wife and I watch a lot of Japanese shows on the various streaming sources (and not just anime). The thing that always catches my attention is the formalized respect that people pay to one another in Japan. If they are wrong (or shamed) they bow. And they mean it. It’s always a formal thanks or apology to the person being honored. Of course, in America, it’s a little more… informal. if you do a heroic deed for someone, they will offhandedly throw off a “thanks”. Or maybe buy you lunch (if […]

November 14, 2021

The Trafalgar Gambit: Ark Royal III (Review)

o this is book three of the Ark Royal series, the final book (final, did you say? That sounds like foreshadowing. Uh oh). In a nutshell, the Ark Royal was an old Royal Navy space carrier, built along specs thought important eight decades past, put out to pasture with a goof-ball crew and suddenly pressed back into service when all those lighter, newer carriers were all turned to scrap by the Tadpoles (an alien race that seemingly attacked us out of the blue (well, black, since this is space)). If you are curious about all this, read my earlier reviews […]