Author: Veselin

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October in Books

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

October was a busy month and I didn’t have much time for entertainment. I still managed to finish five books.

Best Book

  1. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin – my third book by this author and it might also be the best so far. An ancient Egypt-like world, where magic is collected from dreams, and dreaming is visiting the land of the dead. The priests gathering the magic are at risk of taking too much and losing humanity. The idea is not too novel but the whole story felt sufficiently different, alien, and better. Overall, a clear 5/5 and one of the best #1s for the month on this blog for the year.
  2. Turbo Twenty-Three by Janet Evanovich – where Stephanie Plum will investigate a person turned into a giant ice cream bar. A nice, ice-creamy bubble gum with a good plot. Also 5/5.
  3. and 4. The first two books about Jake Longly by D.P. Lyle. A former baseball player turned detective, a series glowing in 70s style neon with a bit of exploitation. Overall very promising. I gave them 4/5 and ordered the 3rd book. Looking forward to reading it, once it gets home.

Worst Book

  1. Caraval by Stephanie Garber – I felt tricked by that one. It started well but turned into a slime. 3/5 – not for me. Probably won’t look for the continuation but who knows.

Grey Heron?

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

I saw a mystery bird today.

I thought only have one big, long-legged frog-eating bird around, and it’s the Stork. But we saw something like a grey stork, way out of season. Storks have already left the country for the year. So with some effort and the kind help of this website, I think I witnessed a bird we call Chapla. My photo quality is so good that it can as well be the Loch Ness monster.

Happy Halloween!

🎃

The Wire

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

There’s a park close to our co-working space that’s surrounded by a wall. Right in the middle of that wall, there’s a patch of 10-ish meters of barbed wire. I’ve been to the other side a few times, nothing but trees. Makes me wonder why and how?

And a local resident:

Very friendly.

The dark side and the darker side

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

This is a photo from my neighborhood. This is the dark, northern side of the buildings.

And this is a sidewalk, the legal way to cross the highway. Of course, there are other ways further away. I call this sidewalk “The middle path” because it’s medium inconvenience, and in my opinion, holds the highest risk for the pedestrians. Zoom in and you’ll see the leftovers of a flying car that somehow fell off the bridge without damaging the guard rails. Not an isolated accident. I’ve seen a flying car in the opposite part of the cloverleaf interchange.

Three Wishes

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
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This question has one simple answer, that’s likely also wrong. “Infinite wishes” – you actually only need one, and you’re good.

However, if we dig deeper, we don’t want anything to do with the genie. The genie has a way of twisting everything. So meeting that genie means you better run.

“Hello, brave traveler! I will grant you three wishes” – the Genie said
“I wish to live forever.” – the human responded
“Granted.”
“Wow! I’ll never die?”
The genie replies, “You won’t die… but you might wish you could.”

Endless wishes can easily be twisted: the genie might end your life before you even use them, limit you to one wish per century and claim the first wish is already gone. Or they can grant your wishes while corrupting your mind so all you wish for is absurd. To survive a scenario like this, you’d need to wish for something extremely simple, precise, and un-twistable. Even then, it’s far from easy.

Ask for a million bucks, and suddenly you’re buried under a million deer. Try again, specifying dollars, and it’s a million Zimbabwean dollars. Try one more time, insisting on a million USD in cash, and watch the crushing weight of coins flatten you. And whatever you do, don’t wish for world peace. One poof and you’re on Venus, where war has never existed… but life sure hasn’t either. Or Earth is now Venus.

We have in our folklore some stories about the golden fish, granting wishes. The golden fish is a bit nicer than the genie and would sometimes grant them to a very clever asker, although most stories still have unpleasant plot twists. We also have the golden shark, which grants wishes in a bloody and immediate way, but at least the shark is honest and won’t end the world.

Maybe you wish for the genie to implement your other two modest wishes with a good intent and no awful twists.