So far, with the help of a few scripts (both bash and Python) I’ve been able to get most of the site back up to the way I want it to be. Most of the images should be working now. I still have to create and run another script for the way that this theme wants cover images to be references. I think that does bring to light one of the annoyances with Hugo vice Wordpress. When it comes to themes, each one expects things to be organized differently. It is much more chaotic than WP. Perhaps the type of person who runs Hugo is more likely to roll their own theme? Or will pick one and not change until they abandon their blog?

I’d been thinking about moving to a static site generator like Hugo, Jekyll, or Pelican for a while now. I probably would have used them from the beginning vs a fully-fledged CMS like Wordpess had they existed back then. But the recent shennanigans with Matt Mullenweg and Wordpress were the catalyist I needed to make the move. I’m going to try it out for a while and if I don’t like it, I can always go back to Wordpress. (I haven’t deleted my content.) For now most of the images on the site will be broken until I update them to exist on Hugo.

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post about how my kids got themselves (and, by extension, me) into Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted to reflect on how far I’ve come since then and where I might go in the near future. Starting off with a quick recap of the linked blog post, my brother David had introduced the kids to D&D via Muk, a module for introducing your kids to D&D. Unfortunately, it was written for an experience adult D&D player or DM to DM for the kids, so we had a few fails with my first time as the DM. Then we moved on to DnD Adventure Club. That was, and continues to be, a huge hit with the kids.

This morning I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Decoder Ring. The most recent episode had a very interesting title: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie…Will he want a Welfare check? I don’t remember this book from my childhood, but I do remember reading this one (and others in the series) to my kids. The podcast explores the fact that, starting around 2015, this book started to become known by conservatives as an allegory against the welfare state. While this podcast episode eventually interviews the author and confirms this was not her intention, I can certainly understand how the book could be read that way. It’s a great example of how art (literature, movies, images, music) becomes “property” of the culture once the creator releases it into the world. In many ways it doesn’t matter what the creator wanted (although I always find that fascinating), but what the culture does with it.

I’m a bit late to updating the list this year. There aren’t too many new entries, but there are a few changes.

Politics

5-4 Pod – Official Description:5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases; an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Presented by Slow Burn co-creator Leon Neyfakh, 5-4 is a production of Prologue Projects. Eric’s Commentary: If you really want to see how crazy it is that 9 men and women who server for life have such control over American life, you can be silly like me and listen to this show. I often find the topics and conclusions depressing (whether it’s the current Supreme Court or one from the past) The hosts are entertaining, though. They’re all practicing or former lawyers.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I saw that this book topped the lists for most checked out book in 2023 in multiple library systems my curiosity was piqued. But it was this episode of Our Opinions are Correct that pushed me over the edge into getting this book. Boy am I glad I did!

How to describe this book? One of my thoughts was Ender’s game meets Harry Potter, but with college kids. But then I cam up with a better comparison: RF Kuang’s Poppy War Trilogy (first book: The Poppy War The Poppy War, but with Western settings. Is it dark academia? I’m not sure. I was a kickstarter funder for a few dark academia anthologies, but haven’t read them yet. No matter how it’s classified, it does (eventually) have some really graphic sex. Like, the beginning of the book has a warning about all the violence and how graphic the sex is. I think if you’ve read a romance book before, it’s probably nothing you haven’t heard before. But if you’re used to the usual sex scenes in SFF, this is quite a bit more.

Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the definition of a niche product. The only people I think would enjoy this are the intersection in the Venn diagram of D&D fans and Rick and Morty fans. I know I’ve been watching Rick and Morty since the first season and I can’t imagine that I would find this collection if my kids hadn’t gotten me into D&D a year or so ago. Almost all of the humor comes from D&D jokes and Easter Eggs.

Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Valerie Valdes continues the Gen X/Millenial pastiche that the Chilling Effect in this third, and final, entry.

A few of the references across the trilogy:
- Voltron
- Portal (from previous books)
- Smash Bros (crash sisters)
- Death Star-like weapon
- Solid snake reference?
- Transformers
- Pokemon (in previous books)
-Captain Planet

Sometimes the references are just in the chapter titles and other times they are important plot points. The insane thing is that this WORKS for three whole books! You may or may not shake your head, but this doesn’t feel like Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs. This feels like a real, cohesive universe. It’s not jokey (although it’s not overly dramatic). I don’t know how Valdes pulled this off.