Author: Shane

“Her Path Lay Forward” to appear on Cast of Wonders

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I am pleased to announce my story “Her Path Lay Forward” will be appearing on an upcoming episode of Cast of Wonders, the “speculative fiction podcast for young adults”.

This story features a very unusual dragon slayer, who is nonetheless pretty bad-ass. It also features characters named after basically every person in my family, a fact that I am seriously reconsidering now that it is actually going to be produced! So, uh…sorry if I used your name.

You may remember that my story “Downsizing Pluto” previously appeared on Cast of Wonders way back in 2013.

Details on the episode when it goes live, of course.

Looks like we got a trouble maker on our hands

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the_dunce

(Photo credit: Lauryn Marinho)

2nd Grade Math

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So, in celebration of Memorial Day, we got some doughnuts from the Doughnut Vault (like you do). We had four doughnuts left, so we saved them for dessert. Three were gingerbread and one was strawberry glaze, so of course everybody wanted the strawberry glaze.

“Okay, Evelyn,” I said. “If we each take one quarter of the strawberry doughnut, what will we have to cut the other three doughnuts into to split them evenly?”

Evelyn stared into space to contemplate the problem, but before she could even get started Oliver blurted out, “Three quarters!”

It was a total record scratch moment. Evelyn, Sara and I just looked at him in surprise.

“That’s right, buddy! Good job!” I said (when I had recovered from my shock). “That’s some second grade math right there. And you did it faster than the actual second grader!”

“Well,” said Ollie, “[Our teacher] always says our class is ready for second grade math.”

Sara asked him some follow up questions and he nailed those as well. She asked, “If I give you half of one doughnut and a quarter of another doughnut, how much more do I owe you?” “None,” he said. “Okay,” I said, trying to goad him. “Only give him that much…” But he didn’t budge.

I guess his kindergarten teacher wasn’t kidding when she said he was good at math!

5 month comparison photos

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Alex’s photo shoot was the only 5 month photo shoot not to end with crumpling the sign and eating it. I’m not sure if that’s because we had 2 extra distractors, or because he was busy trying to crumple and eat the camera.

Sara says I should write more posts about Alex, but right now I’m more in a “day-to-day” mode: what do I need to do to get through today (especially with the kids having a lot of “end of the year” activities at school).

But I can assure you that Alex is growing, laughing, doing tummy time, drooling, gnawing on bread, and all the other things that a 5 month old aught to be doing!

Let’s talk about “dash” buttons

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So, it has been brought to my attention that Amazon is now marketing these dash buttons. They are little branded buttons that are hard-wired to order a certain product from Amazon. The idea is that you sprinkle them around the house in convenient locations, and when you realize you’re out of some essential item such as dish detergent or toilet paper (or Doritos™, Gatorade™, or Ice breakers™ mints, or whatever other trivialities you can’t live without), you press the button and Amazon immediately ships you another one, ensuring you never have to have to live for even a single second without your precious Burt’s Bees™ lipbalm, or contemplate just how empty and meaningless your life has become.

Of course Amazon makes these little beauties free, and why wouldn’t they? They are bypassing your Superego, and wiring a button directly between your Id and those tasty, tasty Doritos™. Once you have that button there, you’re never, ever going to stop pressing it. Forget price comparison, forget avoiding impulse buys…those puppies are guaranteed delivery in under two hours with Amazon Prime Now™!

When I first heard about this, my reaction was something like:

I mean, this is it, right? The end of humanity? This is where we slowly sink into the abyss? Full on Idiocracy?

I mentioned this to a few friends and neighbors, like, “Hey, aren’t we all horrified by this? Isn’t this the worst of American consumerism on display??” and actually…everybody disagreed with me. They thought this was a great idea, and in fact, one co-worker has already installed several in his house.

So…am I off base, here? Is this not the worst thing ever, and actually just a convenient way to get products you need with minimum effort? Can I look forward a whole wall of these buttons and I just do my shopping by pressing whichever ones I’m in need of?

I mean, I guess being able to order any product on earth from the Internet in our pockets was just too much effort for some people? I don’t know. What do you think?

(Horrifying concept via Keffy)