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April First

Posted on by Patrick
An image of several explosions all in a row

My sin­gle favourite April Fools’ Day joke came about some­time in the first decade of this cen­tu­ry. An online enter­tain­ment news source post­ed a sto­ry about how Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun tetral­o­gy[1]Sort of. I guess it depends how you count Urth of the New Sun. had final­ly—final­ly—been picked up by Hol­ly­wood for an adaptation.

It was to be direct­ed by one Michael Bay.

(If you know why this is fun­ny, then you are—like me—a nerd.)

I just remem­bered a sec­ond great April Fools’ Day joke. Back in the day when X was still Twit­ter, and was only kind of ter­ri­ble instead of being a full-on Nazi bar, there was a par­o­dy account called @stats_canada[2]They’re still there, but haven’t post­ed since 2021.. They would post ridicu­lous statistics—eg, “50% of look­ing smart while watch­ing the Olympics is just mut­ter­ing “poor form” every few minutes”.

One year, on April 1st, they post­ed noth­ing but accu­rate Cana­di­an statistics.

Head­er image by Luke Jerne­j­cic on Unsplash.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Sort of. I guess it depends how you count Urth of the New Sun.
↑2 They’re still there, but haven’t post­ed since 2021.

Out in the dark

Posted on by Patrick
Star trails (with airplane trails and satellite tracks)

Kath­leen came home from a cof­fee-with-the-ladies evening and said, “You should go take some pic­tures.” The sky was most­ly clear and the night was warm, so I did.

The sky to the north was pret­ty busy, as you can prob­a­bly tell from the star trails at the top of this post. I was about a mile from the end of the run­way at the Bran­don air­port, and I think some­one was doing night take­off and land­ing prac­tice, because a prop plane—maybe a Her­cules, but I’m not sure it was quite loud enough—passed through my shot three or four times. And then there are all the satel­lite tracks, my word.

I also man­aged to get Jupiter and two of its moons (Io and Ganymede, if I’m read­ing this right).

Jupiter, with Io and Ganymede visible

And Ori­on was nice and bright, too. This is a stack of three pho­tos, all tak­en at 50mm, f/1.8, 10 sec­onds, ISO 400. I wish the focus was slight­ly better.

Orion

All told I was out there for about an hour. As I was pack­ing up my gear, I heard a coy­ote start yipping.

Books for the new year

Posted on by Patrick
A photo of the books A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers and Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher

I stopped by the pub­lic library to return a cou­ple over­due books, and since they were open[1]I was­n’t sure they would be, as it’s New Year’s Eve., I checked out the Staff Pick shelves. I found a cou­ple books to take home with me: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Cham­bers[2]A sequel to A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which I adored. and Net­tle & Bone by T. King­fish­er[3]I’ve nev­er read any­thing by her, but I’ve heard she’s very good..

What are you read­ing in the wan­ing hours of 2025 and the open­ing month of 2026?

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 I was­n’t sure they would be, as it’s New Year’s Eve.
↑2 A sequel to A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which I adored.
↑3 I’ve nev­er read any­thing by her, but I’ve heard she’s very good.