Roy G Biv and Friends

Originally created this playlist on Spotify some years ago, was reminded of it today**, discovered Spotify no longer had America's "Green", and recreated it on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8nPtJfUMwlOIv9RVO7SQforS3WoLyo4g

** I have a rotating moderator for my team's weekly standup, and part of the moderator's job is to ask a "Question of the Day". Today's question was "what is your favorite Taylor Swift song" and trying to find my favorite song simply titled "Red" led me to Taylor Swift.

Vermont Spring plantings

Picked up a couple of blueberry bushes at Claussen's in a light drizzle this morning, and a couple hours later Vermont Spring was wondering if we missed Winter.  It all melted, and I got the new bushes in the ground in the evening.

Winter's Orbit, Everina Maxwell, 2021

The opening sentences are great:

"Well, someone has to marry the man," the Emperor said.

She sat, severe and forbidding is a high-collared tunic, in her reception room at the heart of the warren-like sprawl of the Imperial Palace.

I see why they wanted a quote from Ann Leckie, though this is not quite Imperial Radch, and more of a romance than the kind of deep intrigue in Leckie or Arkady Martine.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance might be the best comparison among works I'm familiar with, promising a similar kind of romantic hijinks set against a broader, darker, background.  The challenge here is that the universe is entirely new, and so it's a lot to take in at once.  If you're ready to take that on, it's worth a read.

Spring was never waiting for us, dear

Going to Arthur Park was really just a lark

The leaf covered path flowing down

Someone left this roller out in the rain

I don't think I can skate it

The ice is thin, I'd break it

And I'll have to wait for winter again.

Thank you for your service, T510

For a nearly a decade this has lurked on the side table to my workspace.

In June of 2014 I bought a steeply discounted Lenovo ThinkPad T510 from my then-employer IBM.  Initially, the ThinkPad replaced a very old desktop computer as the main home computer, but the kids gaming needs soon outstripped it and we purchased an HP in 2016 (which we still have).  The ThinkPad then became "my" computer for personal use, until I joined Dataiku in 2017 and company policy allowed me to use the work MacBook for personal use.

At this point I considered rehoming the ThinkPad, but then realized that I could instead install Linux w/no GUI on it and use it as a personal Dataiku server.

And so it began its lurking, and I started and maintained a number of projects on it, through my switch to Olive and acquisition by Availity.  But as my day-to-day work no longer involved Dataiku, I felt more keenly the inability to share those projects the way I can with, say, GitHub.  So I started moving Dataiku projects to notebooks in GitHub repos, and today finished moving the last one.

So now it's time to finally wipe and rehome the ThinkPad.

Edit: quick shout out to all the ports on the laptop and its dock.  The laptop alone has more ports than the dock of my current work laptop.

Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind; Annalee Newitz; 2024

An important book for our times, and I would recommend. My primary quibble is that the preface ends with the statement, 

"This book is a story about how one nation, the United States, turned people's minds into blood-soaked battleground -- and how we, the people, can put down our weapons and build something better." 

I think the book delivers in spades on the first part, chronicling a history of psychological warfare from before the start of our nation.  With respect to the second part, while there is some discussion of how we can defend ourselves and our communities from psyops, I don't think it presents practical guidance to solving the problem of achieving *mutual* disarmament.

Adventures in travel; or, thinking you've lost your phone

 For the last few years, I've attended PrinceCon by traveling by train.  The trip is in multiple legs; first on Amtrak's Ethan Allen Express, and then on NJ Transit to Long Branch and then on down the Jersey Shore to visit my mom.  In 2024, no issues.  Last year, the Ethan Allen Express was so delayed that I had to run to my 5:59pm NJ Transit connection and only made it because the boarding platform was so close to where Amtrak had disgorged us.  The next NJ Transit train would not leave until 7:59pm, so I was *extremely relieved* to have made the 5:59.

This year, the Ethan Allen Express took a little nap on the tracks shortly before 4pm, and by the time they convinced the little engine it *could*, we were running half an hour late.  Starting around 4:42pm, I began receiving texts from Amtrak every 4-8 minutes confirming that we were, in fact, still running half an hour late.  Prepared for this from the previous year, I stood up early and positioned myself at the exit so I would be the first person off my train car.  The Ethan Allen Express pulled in, I oriented myself towards the side where the platform was, and launched myself out when the doors opened. 

I quickly found the escalator, strode confidently up, found Track 4 where my NJ Transit connection would be, went down the steps, and walked towards the train with several minutes of breathing room.  I reached for my phone to activate my NJ Transit ticket, and... my phone wasn't in my right pants pocket.

My phone wasn't in my left pants pocket; that's where my wallet has been this whole trip, but my phone wasn't in my right pants pocket, which is where it had been this whole trip.  I'm wearing pants with zippers so that valuables can't fall out, but my right pants pocket is unzipped.  How could I have left it unzipped?  How could I have not noticed my phone falling out?  Had I been *pickpocketed* and somehow hadn't noticed?  I was wearing my jacket, which had been stowed on the rack above me during the initial leg of the journey, tapped my left breast pocket (the right is where my gloves and hat are stowed; my jacket doesn't have any other pockets) and didn't feel the hard plastic of a phone.  

Ran back up the stairs from Track 4 and frantically looked for a way back down to the Amtrak train.  Couldn't find one and ran out and across the street to Amtrak's desk to see if there was some way to get to the train I'd just come in on.  At this point I didn't care about making my connection, I just really needed my phone!  I helped an older confused person in front of me recognize that they had been called by an Amtrak employee at the desk, and while waiting, tapped my left breast pocket again, this time lower, and felt the hard plastic of a phone.  It's a large pocket, and the phone had slipped sideways and was lying just below my ribcage.  

I resigned myself to having missed my connection over nothing and camping out until the 7:59pm NJ Transit train, and noticed it was still 5:57. Ran back across the street, through the station, patiently down the stairs as the family in front of me was also trying to catch the same train, and made my connection just as it was leaving!

Addendum: I continued to get alerts every 4-8 minutes that the arrival of the Ethan Allen Express was delayed by 30 minutes until 8:22, two and half hours after the train had arrived at NYC.

Four years of playing Wordle

The first wordle I did was on Jan 5, 2021, which I got in 1 guess because a friend came on Facebook and asked, "Has everyone done today's wordle?"  Then I went to find out what wordle was, thought about why they might be asking, and guessed right.

Since then, I've used that word as my first guess every day (with the exception of Apr 23, 2022, when a coworker started asking, "Has everyone done today's wordle?") and disabled Hard Mode because tiger is a terrible first word to use for Hard Mode (so many words end in "er").  After 4 years, starting tomorrow I'm going to start using a different first 

How have my four years of Wordle gone?  Well, recording that accurately was a bit of a challenge.  At first I used the original Wordle website, and then the Worde app, and finally the NYT app when the Worde app was no longer synced with the official Wordle of the day.  So my stats from the NYT app aren't right: 

Fortunately, I had taken screenshots of nearly all of my games, and eventually put them all into a spreadsheet, so that I have a more complete accounting:

Even cooler, I have a chart that shows the progression of my guesses over time, so you can quickly see when 3's started to outpace 4's and now 2's have started to outpace 5's.

The obvious question is: am I getting better at Wordle?!  Well, no, there are simply fewer words to choose from.  There are only 686 words left from the original Wordle list.  NYT sprinkled in 22 "new" words in 2025; unless that rate increases dramatically in 2026 and 2027, we realistically have roughly 2 years of OG Wordle left.

Degradation of public resources, NOAA edition

For several years, as a hobby project I've been downloading the previous year's weather data for Burlington VT in early January from NOAA.  I went to go do this today, and the data only goes to October 4, when the government shut down.  

The weather data that is available is only the precipitation data, and is missing the air temperature and wind speed data.  This data is not only missing for 2025, but for previous years.

This is vandalism. 

Flippers gone wild

This property is a flip, sold earlier this year for $1.6M and now being offered for $4.6M.  We have photos from the 2014 sale (for $1M); did the flippers add $3M of value?  

There was a pool, the pool is gone.  The tennis court still exists, but it looks like it's in poor shape.  My guess is that the pool was in bad enough shape that it had to be removed in order to sell the renovated property.

View from above, 2025

The listing claims the property was "built" in 2025, but it's clearly a significant renovation of the original cottage-style structure, not a complete teardown and rebuild.  From the front, it looks like a full second floor was added to the main part of the house, previously there were dormers.  A three-car garage was also added to the side of the house, and it dominates the complex. 

Front 2014 and 2025, side-by-side

The back used to have a lot of asphalt; that has been torn up and replaced with grass.

Back 2014 and 2025, side-by-side

Throughout the interior:

• fireplaces appear to have been removed; 
• cross-beams were removed;  
• interior stone was removed; 
• dark wood floors replaced with white oak; 

... in general, anything that gave the home any kind of unique cottage-y character is gone.

Interior 2014 vs 2025; I *think* this is the same room, but it's hard to tell.  All I know is that is a big damn wall. They tried to make it less severe by putting on the paneling, but it's a tough room to work with. 

Interior from 2014 and 2025.  These are *not* the same room, but are illustrative of how the house had character to it, and now it's a super white blah space.

What I read in 2025 (books)

I've logged 51 titles in my spreadsheet for 2025 so far, up from 2024 and well above my 10-year average.  What was different?  Well, 7 of those titles are DNFs, and it's unusual for me to have more than 2 in a year.  So, yay, I was trying things I wasn't sure I would like, and yay, I put them down when they didn't work out. 

What stood out this year?  Picking a few:

Siren Queen.  Nghi Vo's novel about early Hollywood with a fantastical twist, where being admitted to the studio system feels a bit like being trapped in Faerie lands.  The cameras are magical devices that can literally harm your soul, and becoming a big star literally puts your likeness in the sky. 

The Women. Kristin Hannah's novel recognizing the American women who served in Vietnam and the erasure of their experience when they returned home.  I read this on the recommendation of a friend, and then read Mystic Lake later this year.  

He Who Drowned the World. Shelley Parker-Chan's sequel to She Who Became the Sun, and the concluding novel in this series.  Unlike the previous book, this was not a Hugo finalist; I think it was equally worthy.  This is a book in which a number of people achieve everything they (thought they) desired and find out all the terrible things they've done weren't worth it, and all because their aim was simply to achieve an end, without a plan for what would happen after.  This book, and its predecessor, also neatly examine how the world treats people who do not conform to rigid gender expectations, as well as the cost to those who harm themselves in trying to conform.

What Grows from the Dead. Dave Dobson's (a friend) rollicking crime / mystery / thriller set in modern day North Carolina.  

Lines. Sung J. Woo's (a friend) Sliding Doors-style story of a couple's relationship after a collision (or near miss) in Washington Park, NYC.

What Feasts at Night.  This is T. Kingfisher's sequel to What Moves the Dead, and the second in her "Sworn Soldier" novellas, which are a mix of Ruritanian romance and horror.

Alien Clay.  Adrian Tchaikovsky's novel about a dangerous planet where undesirables are sent to toil so that Earth can learn enough to eventually be able to exploit the planet.  This got my top vote for the Hugo award this year, because it did the best job of examining a thought experiment that was reasonably novel to me (no shade on the other finalists). 

The Tainted Cup.  Robert Jackson Bennett's first novel in a fantasy detective series won the Hugo award for best novel this year.  Excellent worldbuilding and a detective that's like Sherlock Holmes turned up to 11, but so overly sensitive to her surroundings that she can't leave her rooms without a blindfold on, so her "Watson" has to do all the investigating and bring the clues back to her.  I expect to read the sequel for the 2026 Hugo finalist book club.

Another World.  Pat Barker's first book after completing the Regeneration trilogy (the first of which I read back in 2009).  I read this after finishing Mystic Lake, and it was a great chaser, for while both books are about "normal" lives, Hannah wrote an entertaining tale about the melodrama of likeable people, and Barker wrote about a thoroughly banal family.  I nearly put the book down a few times in the first 50 pages, but Pat Barker skillfully drew me in to her story, and ultimately it was a pleasure to see a master at work.

What I listened to in 2025 (podcasts)

I've had Pocket Casts on my phone for a while, but it wasn't until this year that I finally made more of a habit of listening while doing yardwork.  I tend to listen at 1.4-1.5x speed, and liberally skip episodes (or parts of episodes) that don't interest me.  So what's currently in my podcasts list?

The casts I look forward to most include:

1. Our Opinions are Correct is a fortnightly conversation between Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, veteran award-winning SFF authors.  They talk about subjects I like, their conversations hit the right balanced between structured and impromptu, their experience and friendship and personalities shine through the medium, and their runtime hits a sweet spot of about an hour.  
2. Brave Little State is a VPR program that has run for 9 years, researching and answering selected questions from listeners about Vermont, tending towards the uncommon and odd.  It airs fortnightly and typically runs under half an hour, which is perfect because I probably don't need to hear more than 22 minutes about the Tinmouth apple.  
3. The Important Thing is sporadically published conversation between two friends about a topic of recent interest/concern to Michael and Lyle.  It's pretty low structure, but it's kept short (typically under 20min with a few running to 30).
4. Served with Andy Roddick, but just the interviews.  I don't really want to read or hear about tournaments and matches, I want to watch them.  
5. Choiceology with Katy Milkman typically starts with a motivating story to illustrate the topic, and then moves into discussion with experts.  Several times I've found myself skipping to the discussion with experts because I've understood the topic and don't need/want 20 minutes of motivating story.  

Casts that I'm still getting used to include:

1. Worldbuilding for Masochists was a Hugo finalist for best podcast this year, and I listened to the finalists in order to make an informed vote, and I am generally enjoying the discussions among the hosts and with guests about how they approach elements of worldbuilding in their work.  
2. Hugo, Girl! was another Hugo finalist; this is largely a recorded book discussion group.  I like the hosts; I'm not convinced I want to listen to other people discuss a book rather than have a discussion with my friends.  
3. Coode Street Podcast was *another* Hugo finalist.  So far there's a been a bit of a mix of book discussion and other topics; my favorite episode so far was an excellent discussion with China Mieville. 
4. The Great & Secret Knowledge I added when they interviewed Lois McMaster Bujold and she mentioned it on her blog.  Episodes run 2-3 hours.
5. Happy Vermont is a "travel" podcast, but it tends to focus on the unusual.  So far it's paired well with Brave Little State.

There is also Vermont Edition, which runs 4 times a week for 50 minutes; it's simply the in-depth daily story from VPR repackaged as a podcast.  

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age; Annalee Newitz

Four Lost Cities is top-notch pop-science reporting -- it provides a great start for someone to dip their toe into an area of knowledge to determine their interest, and then go further if there's a spark.  I learned something new (and in most cases, quite a lot) that I didn't know before about each of the cities: Çatalhöyük, Pompeii, Angkor, and Cahokia.

One of the things Newitz tries to do, and I think succeeds at, is to differentiate for the reader what is known versus what is theorized and contested about each site, and what are the basic arguments for each opinion.  

The central thesis is that none of these cities were truly "lost", and all cities go through natural cycles of growth and abandonment.  I liked that Newitz applied her own personal experience with a (very brief) abandonment and regrowth cycle in San Francisco, and can't help but think about places like Buffalo and St. Louis, which haven't recovered (yet); Pittsburgh, which shrank as steel left and decades later recovered as a tech hub; Burlington, VT, which continually hemorrhages its youth to larger and higher-income cities, but maintains a steady state through immigration (both people from wealthier states looking for a smaller city, and international immigrants).  Newitz briefly mentions New Orleans and Detroit, and writes of how some research of modern urban areas can be applied to archaeological work; it feels like this is an area ripe for follow-up.

Four Lost Butterfingers has joined Future of Another Butterfinger in my camera roll

Do I... actually like Microsoft Teams?

About 2.5 years ago, my data science team was part of the AuthAI acquisition by Availity.  Among the many challenges was one of tooling: we were going from a Google Suite / Zoom / Slack setup to Microsoft Suite.  I hadn't touched Microsoft Suite since leaving IBM in 2016, which was prior to the existence of Microsoft Teams; we used Webex for conferencing (just audio and desktop sharing) and had no messaging system, just email.  This was clunky for distributed, remote collaboration, but we made it work. 

Both Dataiku and Olive AI had Google Suite / Zoom / Slack setups, which I thought worked very well.  GSuite was (and still is) superior for collaborating on documents, and Slack was the missing link for semi-synchronous communication that moved faster than an email (or setting up a meeting) and was less demanding and intrusive than a phone call.  The main problem was that Zoom was necessary for anything other than a small group meeting, and anything typed in the Zoom chat was extremely inconvenient to get into Slack; at Dataiku, our solution was to use Slack channels as the meeting chat (at least for anything we wanted to keep; "whatever happened in Zoom chat stayed in Zoom chat."

So, there was naturally some trepidation when moving to Microsoft Suite.  Focusing on what looked promising, I pointed out that Teams meeting chats were saved directly the product, which was an improvement over Slack + Zoom.  This was cold comfort to a team used to Slack, and identified a number of pain points on Teams:

• Chats and channels were separate tabs, which meant people responding to chats would miss new messages in channels, driving people to send messages in chats rather than use channels.  The ideal is for the vast majority of conversations to happen in public channels so that knowledge is shared and new ideas get eyes on them, and Teams was encouraging the opposite.  MS fixed this by putting chats and channels in the same tab; sadly, the damage has been done and we have to retrain ourselves to use channels, but this is progress.
• Meeting chats were simply chats, not part of any channel, which meant that if a new instance of a meeting was created, say, because ownership of a meeting changed (MS doesn't allow you to change meeting owners; you need to create a new meeting), an entirely new meeting chat would be created.  You can now schedule meetings within a public channel, so while the new meeting chat would still be created, at least all the meeting chats will be in the same channel.  1:1's are still a problem, because you still end up with your personal chat with a person in addition to the 1:1 meeting chat.  Still, there is progress here.
• No custom emojis meant you couldn't inject your own team/company character.  This made using Teams less *fun*; while it's not a "get stuff done" feature, it's an important quality of life feature.  This was fixed earlier this year.
• Similarly, only one emoji reaction to a message was fixed this year.
• Teams seems to play badly with hardware.  I have a Sony bluetooth headset that worked fine with Zoom on my Olive laptop; on my Availity laptop, I'm inaudible when using the mic on my headset on Teams.  This continues to be a problem; I know this because Teams will sometimes change my mic setting from the external webcam to the headset.  This remains a problem.

All in all, significant progress has been made by MS in delivering on the promise of the premise that Teams would provide better integration into the rest of the office suite than GSuite / Zoom / Slack.  Calendar is now fully integrated, and I can mostly ignore Outlook, just checking the inbox a couple times a day.

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special (1985)

I made the mistake of quoting from this once too often, and so some years ago Sarah insisted we show the He-man/She-ra Christmas special to the kids so they would stop asking us what I was talking about.  The Wikipedia plot synopsis doesn't really do the special justice, so I planned to do a running diary of it... but never completed it because the onion just has so many layers.  At the start of this December, I saw that this year was the 40th anniversary of the original airing of the special, so one way or another, it will be posted this year.

[0:00]

It's snowing, and everyone is preparing for Adam and Adora's birthday!  In... a Christmas special?  Are we really going to equate He-man and She-Ra with Jesus by giving them the same birthday?  

As the camera pans across the hall of the palace where all the preparations are being made, we're treated to glimpses of a bunch of characters that had action figures but weren't featured prominently in the show (consume!  consume!).

Bow, the 1985-era Sensitive Guy (tm) from She-Ra, is unafraid to show his 1985-era Feminine Side (tm) by suggesting a new color to use in the decorations, but with 2025 eyes he's mansplaining to Peekablue what colors to use and she's tired of his shit.

Peekablue putting up a good face for the sake of harmony on Adora's birthday

Queen Marlena reminds us she's from Earth, and these preparations remind her of Christmas, and... this special was first shown on Christmas Day 1985, so yeah, I guess we really are going there and He-Man/She-Ra == Jesus.  She then wonders where are Adam and Man-At-Arms? as the camera pans again across the same shot of the palace hall, because if Filmation drew it once, you were gonna see it at least twice.

[1:23]

Man-At-Arms proves his enginerding credentials:

Adam: Shouldn't we be helping with the preparations?

Man-at-Arms: In a minute!  We're almost finished here.

Apparently, getting his government surveillance system ready for tomorrow's test flight is more important than trifles like Adam and Adora's first birthday together.  Be true to yourself, Duncan!  

Orko (He-who-must-not-be-named), He-man's annoying sidekick character whose sole purpose is to move plot with his incomparable incompetence and main character energy, makes his appearance.  For reasons that make sense only to a writer on a tight deadline, He-who-must-not-be-named breaks into the "Sky Spy" and accidentally launches it.  (The Masters of the Universe series was full of appallingly unoriginal and shockingly on-the-nose names like "Man-At-Arms", so "Sky Spy" fits right in.)

Now Skeletor's going after the Sky Spy, in a ship called the "Collector" (presumably b/c he uses it to "collect" things?), and his henchmen are all ones who didn't figure prominently in the TV series (buy the toys!), and apparently to distinguish them, they all just have super goofy voices (and I say this about a show where there's a YouTube video of the main villain laughing for an hour).  

"Look, Skeletor's going after the Sky-Spy!" Yes, Duncan, we can see that.  I guess I should just be grateful they didn't add "in the Collector" to the end of that observation

[4:07]

Our Heroes (tm) see this and Adam turns into He-man in order to stop Skeletor.  As he runs off, Adora soliloquies her intention to change into She-Ra, but she doesn't do it right away, so now I'm trying to remember who from Eternia is in on She-Ra's secret identity?  Adam knows, but maybe Man-At-Arms doesn't and that's why she doesn't change in his presence?  At any rate, we are cheated of a She-Ra Transformation Montage.

Just as Skeletor is about to nab the Sky-Spy, He-man arrives and starts busting stuff up.

Two-Bad Head#1: Master, it's He-Man.
Two-Bad Head#2: Quiet, he'll hear us!

Okay, this was intentionally funny.  Good job, writers.  Skeletor demands Two-Bad use the "force belts" to stop He-Man, and He-Man repeats the words "force belts" for us, because this is the first (and last) time they will ever be used.  Apparently, in sufficient quantity, force belts are strong enough to contain a guy who can literally punch you into space?!  This seems like writerly convenience to give She-Ra a grand entrance to "save" He-Man. 

He-Man: Sis!  Just in time!  As usual.

The writing on He-Man engages in a lot of content-free parentheticals and other wasted words.  Some of it is just filling air time, but other times they could simply show the action that they've animated without the meaningless patter on top.  Note that while bound by the force belts, He-Man's magic sword magically doesn't fall off the in-flight Collector.

[6:20]

Everything is now under control, and He-who-must-not-be-named decides to try one of his spells that never work, just to be the deux ex machina that takes him to Earth to meet some children who will teach him about Christmas.  He-Man states: "The Sky-Spy, it's spinning off into space!"  (thanks, He-Man, we couldn't tell)  As He-Man and She-Ra initially chase the Sky Spy before it teleports across the galaxy, we learn that Swiftwind can apparently fly into Low Eternia Orbit.  Cool trick, bro.

That's not Eternia!  It doesn't look like Earth, either...

[8:20]

He-who-must-not-be-named lands on Earth and, deep in the snowy woods, immediately runs across two unsupervised children who are about to be killed in an avalanche (just a typical day in the life of latch key kids).  For once, his magic spell works (perhaps he should add "please work" to all of his incantations).  Because Eternia has no Prime Directive, He-who-must-not-be-named blithely invites the children into the Sky-Spy to warm up, and that's when they tell him all about Christmas.

(note: the scenes skip back and forth between Eternia and Earth, but all the Earth scenes are literally just interludes to remind us that these children exist and are teaching He-who-must-not-be-named about Christmas)

Hands on hips while the Queen is reading, everyone!  That means you, too, Duncan!

Back on Eternia, the ladies discover that He-who-must-not-be-named dropped his book near the launchpad, and they figure that's why the Sky-Spy disappeared.  Fortunately, Man-At-Arms has a "Finder Beam" (more lazy functional names) that allows them to discover he's landed on Earth.  Even more conveniently, Duncan has a "transport beam" that will allow them to teleport He-who-must-not-be-named back home.  BUT FIRST we must go to Etheria on a fetch quest for a "Carium water crystal" (?!?!) to power the "transport beam" because there are none on Eternia.  

[12:30]

We finally get a She-Ra Transformation Montage (yes!  30 seconds of reused animation!!) as Adora says goodbye to Adam.  On Etheria, She-Ra goes to Mermista to ask where a water crystal might be found.  Stereotyping much?  "If water is in the name, the water Princess must know something about it."  Mermista tells She-Ra that one lies in a deep pool guarded by the "Beast Monster" (in a story filled with lazy naming, this is the LAZIEST WRITING EVAR).  Their plan is for She-Ra to distract the monster while Mermista looks for the crystal.

She-Ra reflects that she could never have succeeded without Mermista.  Perhaps there could be a theme of teamwork here, but there's no time to explore story when there's all this plot to get through.  The "extremely dangerous" Beast Monster is still literally right over there, climbing out of the shallow pit it fell into, when some giant robots crawl out of the earth.  Going into commercial, She-Ra sums up for us: "Well, Swifty, now we have to pass those things to get the crystal back to Man-At-Arms."  Just so we don't forget during the break.

Coming back out of commercial, one of the giant robot shoots She-Ra and Swiftwind with a gun that encases them in a bubble.  They have She-Ra trapped!  And then... they just leave, but not before identifying themselves as "the Monstroids" (buy the toys!  oh, wait, we made a toy of a different thing and gave it the same name.  enh, whatever).

Swiftwind comments "They're changing into other forms!  What evil robots."  That's right, kids, don't watch Transformers, watch Masters of the Universe!  This is just such a deeply, immensely weird line.  It sounds like Swiftwind believes it's the act of changing into other forms that makes these robots evil, though He-Man, She-Ra, and Swiftwind himself all change into other forms on the regular.  So is Swiftie some kind of organic lifeform supremacist who only sees this behavior as evil in non-organic lifeforms?  Will this cause problems if there are form-changing inorganic lifeforms who are allies of Our Heroes (tm) in the future?  Like these "Manchines" She-Ra mentions while reaffirming for us that these robots are:

1. evil
2. dangerous
3. called the Monstroids
4. likely to return later in the special

[18:30]

Back on Eternia, before turning on the transport beam, Man-At-Arms notes "I hope he remembers to stand in the light."  Sweet Jesus, their technology encourages people to walk towards the light?!

On Earth, He-who-must-not-be-named and the kids are atonally singing the words "Jingle Bells" over and over without reaching the end of the phrase.  Now we have to question whether anything these children have told He-who-must-not-be-named about Christmas is correct.

He-who-must-not-be-named walks into the light, and takes the children with him to Eternia, because of course he's not thinking about the consequences of his actions.  He introduces them as Alicia and Miguel -- is this a subtle bit of Hispanic representation from an 80's cartoon?  

[Meanwhile, somewhere...] Horde Prime says, "There is a great disturbance (in the Force?)" and decides that this new spirit of Christmas on Eternia will somehow threaten his rule.

Bring me my most competent servants who always succeed, Hordak and Skeletor!

Back on Eternia:

Alicia: "Will we be home in time for Christmas?"

Marlena: "I'm not sure."

That's incredibly honest and forthright of the queen.  I've always liked this line because it's what I want to see in our own real-life leaders.

At any rate, it'll take a few days before the water crystal can be recharged, leaving plenty of time for shenanigans.  Queen Marlena then suggests merging the twins' birthday party with a Christmas celebration, just in case you forgot that He-man/She-Ra == Jesus.  

[22:00]

Bard and Perfuma entertain the children.  I don't think Bard's song will become a Christmas standard.  Hordak comes and grabs the children... and He-who-must-not-be-named, for some reason.  The worst part about this is that it's not like He-who-must-not-be-named happened to be standing next to the children and got picked up by accident; they used a third tractor beam to pull him up.  

Hordak's henchmen, Kattra, Modulok and Multibot, otherwise all seem more competent than Skeletor's.  That is, until they get back to Etheria and the Monstroids simply take the children without a fight.  The Monstroids seem to want the children because they believe Horde Prime will come for them, and then they can... destroy Horde Prime?  We've been given no reason why the Monstroids have beef with Horde Prime or how they even knew of the children's existence?  Can they also feel the disturbance caused by the Spirit of Christmas?  Does this story need the Monstroids at all?

He-man and She-Ra ask Peekablue for information on where Hordak might have taken the children in the Fright Zone.  Peekablue sees that the Monstroids have the children now...

Peekablue: "But the little robot people have gone to rescue the children."

She-Ra: "Robot people?  You mean the Manchines?"

Peekablue: "Exactly."

If Peekablue knew what they're called, why didn't she just call them the Manchines in the first place?!

"They don't call me Cutter for nothing!"

"They don't call him Zipper for nothing!"

The Manchines (buy the toys!  oops, we didn't even try to cash in on this) immediately break the children out of jail and are then immediately surrounded by the Monstroids.  He-man and She-Ra then arrive to destroy Monstroids and chew bubble gum.  And they're all out of bubblegum.

While the adults are battling the Monstroids, Cutter tells He-who-must-not-be-named to take the children "to a safe spot", where they befriend a Manchine puppy, and Skeletor captures them pretty much immediately.  Unlike Hordak, Skeletor leaves He-who-must-not-be-named behind and just takes the children (and the Manchine puppy, who is being held by Alicia).  He also entraps Swiftwind in some stalagmites to slow pursuit.  Hordak chases Skeletor and damages his ship, but Skeletor damages Hordak's ship in turn, forcing Hordak to turn back to base for repairs (?).  

[32:17]

Skeletor crash lands in a snowy area, and he needs to force-march the children to the rendezvous with Horde Prime.  It's cold, and the children beg for warmth.  After the sister collapses from cold, Skeletor relents and makes them warm coats.  They start to march, and Skeletor insists they leave behind Relay, the Manchine dog.  But Relay whimpers piteously and Skeletor relents, carrying Relay himself "so they can go faster".

As they march, the children tell Skeletor about Christmas, and the horror that the writers are now going full-on A Christmas Carol with Skeletor as Scrooge sets in.  Sadly, because this is hilarious, this is actually an improvement over everything that has happened up to this point.

Skeletor rolls a random encounter.  "A snow beast!  Quick, get behind me!"

Skeletor arrives at the rendezvous point with the children.  Somehow, He-man and She-Ra arrive next, even though there's really no way for them to have tracked them here, or known where the rendezvous point was.  Then Hordak arrives with a small army.  Hordak deflects a blast from Skeletor's staff right back at Skeletor, knocking him out of the fight for a bit.

She-Ra says, "Better get back, children.  Orko, go with them."  Just like the last time, He-who-must-not-be-named leads them right to the enemy, but this time it's Horde Prime.  Hordak's army of troopers prevents He-man and She-Ra from getting to the children in time.    

"I don't know what's happening to me... but I MUST SAVE THE CHILDREN."
(this is the line I was quoting too often)

Skeletor somehow manages to damage Horde Prime's ship?  He-man sees it go down, comments upon this, and then he and She-Ra throw Horde Prime's spaceship into space.  Moments later the children thank Skeletor for saving them, and He-man is incredulous: "He saved you?".  He-man, you were right there, you saw it happen!  

She-Ra: "Don't worry Skeletor, Christmas comes only once a year."

Note that somewhere in here, Hordak and his army of troops have just disappeared...

[40:55]

In the denouement, Adam (dressed as a super-buff Santa Claus) gifts each of the children a flying belt, again, because Eternia has no Prime Directive and apparently no one considers the consequences of their actions.  Man-at-Arms sends the children home, and somehow the Eternians are able to watch as Alicia and Miguel are reunited with their parents in time for Christmas.

Songs for Midwinter with Kongero and Windborne

We had the pleasure of seeing a second Lane Series concert this fall, and two artists on the same evening!

Kongero is a Swedish folk group of four women singing a capella.  They sing beautifully and are exquisitely in tune with each other, metaphorically and lyrically.  Their patter between songs was also entertaining.  Highly recommended.

Windborne is a New England folk group that specializes in old songs.  While their musicality suffered a little in immediate comparison; they were excellent, enthusiastic, and funny.  Would see again.

Solving wordle in 3 guesses or less

I've recorded 1216 attempted wordles, and finished 608 (or exactly half) in 3 guesses or less. This happened a little earlier than expected**, mostly due to a 14-day run of 2's and 3's.

Wordle games by number of guesses needed

Of course, the reason why I'm starting to get many more in 2 or 3 is because there are only 713 words left from the original wordle list. So far, NYT has peppered in 30 words that weren't in the original list, but it's unclear to me how many more they can add without getting obscure or including 's' plurals.

** I thought it would be around the 4th anniversary of my first wordle, on Jan 5.

A couple of dormant webcomics return in 2025: Wonderella and JL8

One of the wonderful things about using Feedly (or your RSS feed aggregator of choice) is when content from an irregularly-updated source suddenly pops into your feed.  This year, two webcomics that I started following in the 10's reappeared.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella returned in January after more than 5 years, and has been updated as Justin Pierce has time over the course of the year.  Rita now carries the mantle of Wonderella and provides an interesting shift in how the role is portrayed, though Dana still figures prominently (and rudely) in comic.  :-)

In April, JL8 continued a storyline begun in 2020, but not updated since June 2023.  While it's been nice to see again, as Yale Stewart writes, the future of JL8 is uncertain, so enjoy it while you can.

Bionic Six

Secret Galaxy recently did an episode on the Bionic Six and its failure to catch hold in an era of massive cartoon-to-toy pipelines.  

I wasn't a huge fan of Bionic Six, but S02E25, "Bottom of the Ninth Planet" has a line I still remember.  Meg is in a contest with an alien sportsman where each has to take turns thinking of objects for a second alien to turn into and attack the other contestant, and if you couldn't think of a new object fast enough, you would lose (at least, it seemed like that's how the contest worked).  The aliens cheat, with the second alien giving ideas of objects to be turned into.  At one point, he suggests "turn me into a can!" but the alien sportsman turns him into a thimble instead, which does no harm to Meg.  Meg, tired and hungry, turns him into a hamburger, which knocks out the alien sportsman.  The second alien then says, "I coulda been a container, instead of a bun."

Even though it would be years later before I saw On the Waterfront, the line was iconic and known to teenage me, and it was absolutely hilarious being referenced in this context. 

(before publishing this, I did a quick search to see if I've ever mentioned Bionic Six before, and somewhat hilariously I started and abandoned a post 6 years ago about this, so thank you to Secret Galaxy for providing the impetus to complete it)

Playlists for books: Martha Wells's The Rising World

 Turns out Martha Wells made a playlist for Witch King, and now one for the sequel Queen Demon.

She didn't link to a playlist on YouTube or Spotify, so I made a couple:
Witch King:


Queen Demon: