Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

Just a brief note. I'm typing this on one of my broken laptops. The keyboard on this one is erratic, and sometimes other things happen. My last laptop went out of service with a broken fan. Might be repairable, don't know. At least this one boots. I ordered TWO laptops, which were on sale, 9 days ago from Tiger Direct. I've gotten LOTS of stuff from them in the past, never had a problem. After several days, I checked order status, and discovered the order hadn't shipped. A live-chat session informed me that they had so many orders for that model (Lenovo B50 for $299) they were sold out and back-ordered. After a couple of days, I cancelled the order. They told me at the time that they were going to put a hold on my funds for five days (I don't know why), but I didn't realize the implications of that until I went to pick up some prescriptions today and my card was denied. Embarassing. I went home and checked, and had more than enough money in my account, PLUS that

I took a look at my output the other day, and according to that, I'd only read two books in May. I knew THAT wasn't right. I checked further, and found I'd done some reviews on Amazon, but for various reasons, had not posted them on my blog. Here's one of them I'm a Neanderthal. Nobody takes us seriously. The Geico commercials made fun of us and pretended to get caught. Ha ha. Big whoop. About 40 years ago, Asimov wrote a story about one of us, called 'The Ugly Little Boy,' and it made kids cry. Ha ha. We are ugly by your standards. You guys are so frippen pathetic about stuff like that. You spend more on cosmetics than you do on every kind of useful research combined. Idiots, every dang last one of you. I had to watch this stupid movie about a night at a museum, and the big joke there was that we would eat styrofoam peanuts. Idiots. One of the basic requirements for survival in a resource-poor environment is the ability to determine which items are nutrient

This is a huge departure for me; never thought I would be reviewing a book about strippers. Here's how it happened, starting from the beginning (The names have been changed to protect the innocent): Thirteen years ago, long before we met, my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant foxy praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, was a single mom and legal parapro, living with her four daughters in a house in East Point, GA. (A few years prior to this time, she had divorced their father, who was then promptly deported to Nigeria.) Next door to her lived Sylvia and her husband Arnold, and their two sons John And Leonard. Sylvia's teen-aged daughter Karen lived part-time with her, and part-time with Sylvia's mother, Esther, due to reasons unknown to me. During the periods she lived with her mother, Karen spent a great deal of time at Vanessa's house, since she was close in age to two of Vanessa's four daughters. They ate meals together, had p

I posted this on one of the forums I frequent, because it amazed me at the time, and still does: Sabrina Chase invents languages. At least two, maybe three. The biggest stretch is the language she invents for the crabs, because they don't share anything in common with humans. I suppose you could really count that as two separate inventions; she has one section where we get a direct quote from a crab, and then there are numerous episodes of what passes for a translator; the word choices require the language equivalent of a Sherlock Holmes, in my opinion. Then, there are the human specialized dialects. I'm not certain if criminal speak and tech speak are the same form, not being a linguist, but the dialect varies enough that it requires either context or translation to be intelligible to the naive character. It's been a long, long journey for Moire. She's lost her original crew friends and her ship, and spent a lot of time on the run. She has become the stand-in mother fo

The latest entry in my run-up-to-the-Hugos is also the latest work by 2015 nominee for Best Fan Writer Amanda S. Green. I've hit all but one of these writers in the past month, and I've got to tell you, excellence abounds. Amanda just published "The Sword of Arelion" on May 4, so when you get your copy, it still may be a bit warm and have that new book sell. It's the first of a series, and I'm contemplating pounding on the table and chanting "More More More!" Here's how it starts (this is paraphrase, not plagiarism): The old man sat in the corner of the tavern. His days of greatness were past, and his strength was gone, but his honor kept him intact. It was there to see, for those who had eyes; but somehow, the only eyes that found this hero of the past were those of the mousy servant girl. She had been warned not to encourage the old man to take a place by the fire, and especially not to feed him, but she saved the scant soup she was given for h

It was a powerful rumor bomb with a burning fuse. By August 2014, the sparks were coming stronger and faster, with hints of a Campbell nominee being the person responsible for the slash blog Requires Only That You Hate. By September, the names were on the table , for all to see. Even so, the final explosion was held off until October , when author and editor Nick Mamatas confirmed the identity of an online blogger and SFF forum participant. Using a number of screen names, including RequiresHate and Winterfox, this person was known on a number of special interest forums, primarily for posts and Tweets which ferociously attacked both works she did not like, and those who disagreed with her assessment. Mamatas revealed that RH/WF was none other than up-and-coming, 2014 Campbell nominee Benjanun Sriduangkaew . The reaction was immediate and extreme. In a bizarre deviation from the tone and content of the rest of his blog, , Mamatas wrote on October 9th “Watch Your Mouth,” finishing

Cedar Sanderson has been nominated for a "Best Fan Writer" Hugo, against some pretty strong competition. It makes me smile to think she will be able to stamp her works "from Hugo nominee Cedar Sanderson" from now on. The story is about Linn, a 12 year old girl who goes to visit her grandfather for the summer. As a special treat, she discovers the farm cat has just given birth to four kittens, and she will be able to help with their care. Looks to be a quiet, peaceful summer. However, that first night, she wakes up to overhear a disturbing conversation. There is a war pending, and (fanfare) THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS IN THE BALANCE! Her grandfather, who happens to be one of the ancient gods known as Vulcan, is really aggravated by the whole thing, and wishes the gods arguing for war would just get over it. The farm cat, who happens to be the goddess Sekhmet, agrees with her grandfather. And since the kittens in the barn, which Linn has been assigned to as caretaker, a