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Series of vignettes that are somewhat repetitive, but amusing. Definitely more interesting when reading a section or two per week than reading straight through.

I think Moore's Pocket of Dog Snogging books are by far my favorites. Hilarious and bawdy--fairy frolicking is not what you think.

Which UC? Seriously, you can't just say University of California. Are we talking fighting banana slugs, bruins, which one. That is a needle in my brain, but this is entertaining in a multiverse imploding sorta way.

Ruminating.

This got darker, fast.

Battle against the eleven kings: A lot of smoting, unhorsing, and rehorsing. Honestly, reads like a less glamorous version of Song of Roland.

While reading Don Quixote, I decided it was prudent to mix in some chivalric writings as contrast and mix it up a little.

"Thou must take notice, brother Sancho, that this adventure and those like stare not adventures of islands, but of cross-roads, in which nothing is got except a broken head or an ear the less: have patience, for adventures will present themselves from which I may make you, to only a governor, but something more."

This is much funnier than imagined.

Taking a break from the History of Peloponnesian War, and picked this Heyer novel because I'm feeling a bit bad for Corinth, at the moment with Athens' machinations.

Perhaps most unsettling, warring choughs do something few animals apart from humans and ants do: They forcibly kidnap and enslave the young from other groups.

--Geez, even Australia's birds are vicious.

Oh man, I usually plow through and laugh uproariously at Moore, but this is a slough. Is it possible that I'll DNF--who knows.

I have fallen behind in my reviews, so fast and dirty it is; either that or rate and run. You can blame Animal Crossings; I'm about to quit RL and follow Pascal.

So excuse the throwdown.

More visceral than I prefer and distinctively male.

We have all been traumatized by this in different ways; looking back, non of us feel lucky--we just feel like survivors.

I'm back! So far, the romance is much more front and center with Chaucer. The tone of it is also more to my liking. Continuing on.

The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what stirs not.

All those aid workers have been showing up with Chinese flags, taking pictures in front of the funeral homes, and then posting the photos all over the internet. [...] Of course I am thankful that they have come to help, but really want to tell them: Not all situations call for you to get all patriotic and wave your flags. Is it really necessary to intimidate us with all of that?

[N]onchantly told us that it was "Not Contagious Between People" and "It's Controllable and Preventable"; they have truly committed heinous crimes with their irresponsible words. If they had even a ounce of decency left, I wonder what sense of guilt they might fell when they see all those people suffering.

Shakespeare is so much easier to read than Chaucer. Ulysses, aka Odysseus--you know what I'm going to say--is such an A$$. Ugh, he reminds me of Iago in this.

Okay, I'm gonna pause and read Shakespeare first since I'm not familiar with this tale of Troy. Be back ASAP.

Actually makes more sense speaking it than just reading it, for the Middle English spelling becomes less of a hinderance. Oddly, too, it makes more sense in the middle of the night when there's dead quiet after being awakened for some unknown reason.

Speaking from a place of moral authority--and moral aspiration--is the strategy historically adopted by dissidents in undemocratic regimes such as totalitarian Poland, apartheid South Africa, or contemporary autocratic Belarus. Trump, an attempting autocrat, intuits that moral authority poses a threat to his project.