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scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-06 12:40 am
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-06 12:40 am
Tonight’s Moon, 11/5/25
Full Moon on Guy Fawkes. Pretty cool-looking moon, too.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-05 10:33 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-05 10:33 pmSaja, All Fixed!
This handsome little man got fixed today! It’s super important to get your animals fixed, especially if they’re indoor/outdoor like our kitties are. Spaying and neutering is essential for being a good pet parent, and I’m so glad we were able to get Saja taken care of.
He is very drowsy and sleepy, so after feeding him a Churu tube, he is off to his cat bed to rest for the evening. Enjoy his drowsy glam shot, and have a great day!
-AMS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-05 03:14 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-05 03:14 pmThoughts From an Off-Off-Year Election, 2025
Well, that was an evening, wasn’t it.
Zohran Mamdani won decisively in NYC, of course, and that was the headline event in terms of optics, but then there was everything else, that went the Democrats’ way this election night: Governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, along with the undercard races, Democrats gaining a dozen seats in the Virginia House of Delegates, surprising statewide victories in Georgia, Democratic Supreme Court Justices being retained in Pennsylvania, and out in California, Proposition 50 passing comfortably. Almost none of these were razon-thin wins; the Democrats ran up margins.
Over on Truth Social Trump had a tantrum about it, but then, he would, wouldn’t he, and the simple fact of the matter is, all of this is substantially his fault. Turns out that out-and-out grifty fascism isn’t, in fact, very popular, especially when the promised benefits of that nonsense — lower food prices and inflation kept in check — are nowhere in sight, and when the only part of the government that is working is the part that floods cities with armed paramilitary violating people’s constitutional rights. Trump doesn’t appear to think this election was about him and his government, but of course nothing is ever his fault.
I’m not naive enough to believe that this is it, this is the turning point where the nation shies away from the brink, not in the least because the result of this off-off-year election year will be to convince Trump and his pals that the problem was that they didn’t suppress voting more, so 2026 will absolutely have more shenanigans. Fascists don’t like free elections! Who knew! And that will be a thing we get to deal with. With that said, I don’t imagine things are going to get better for the Trump administration in terms of, well, anything, between now and November of next year. It’s entirely possible that their cack-handed attempts to rig elections simply won’t be enough. That’s not to say that they won’t try, however.
Those caveats noted, let’s not pretend last night wasn’t, in itself, a big deal. Democrats essentially ran the table in the big races and even flipped some long-held GOP seats in the deep south, and that’s not nothing. Mamdani throat-punched the Trump-endorsed Cuomo not once, but twice — as well as he fucking should have (the fact that 40% of New York City voters went for a sex creep who pretty much believed he was entitled to the mayorship, is a whole other discussion to have some other time). It’s also not nothing that a Muslim Democratic Socialist got over 50% of the vote in a three-way race and still would have won even if all of GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa’s votes had gone to Cuomo instead. Sliwa said last night that he’d been offered $10 million to drop out. I’m glad he didn’t, but even if he had, Mamdani would still have been making his victory speech.
There’s been some hand-wringing among the pundit class that Mamdani, famously brown and an immigrant, might now be the poster boy of the Democratic party, which seems stupid on its face and doesn’t get any better as one drills down. There is no doubt the GOP will strive to scare a bunch of rural white people with Mamdani, because the modern GOP is an unapologetically racist party that exists to scare other unapologetic racists (and people who are willing to be swayed by unapologetic racism) into compliance against their own interests. What all of them miss is how Mamdani actually won, despite all the frankly despicable racism and anti-Muslim bullshit that was thrown at him. It’s a formula that, as it happens, is easily transferable to other Democratic candidates in other races, even when their underlying conditions are different than in New York:
I’d say there are probably two other points to add here: Mamdani ran a campaign based on optimism and inclusion, which stands in stark contrast to the politics of the modern GOP, which is fueled by hate, fear and exclusion. Also Mamdani ran to win, as opposed to running to not lose, which is a different thing and has a different tenor to it. I think there’s a sense, particularly among younger voters, that the modern Democratic party runs campaigns to not lose more often than not, which makes them safe and not capable of actual change, and also pisses people off, because right now is not the time to run cowardly campaigns. If what the DNC and others in the Democratic party, and the general pundit class, are taking away from Mamdani’s win is oh, no, a Muslim socialist rather than looking at the mechanics of how he won and won a fucking majority of votes in a mayoral election with the largest turnout in decades, then they are stupid and need to stand aside and let others lead.
With regard to California’s Proposition 50, I’m glad it passed and I hate that it’s come to this, but come to this it has. The GOP is now Trump’s party, and Trump doesn’t actually give a shit about democracy and never has. This fact delights a lot of GOP politicians on both the national and state level, who find democracy an annoyance at best and would happily stuff everyone but white male landowners into a hole if they could. Texas’ wholesale plan for an off-season revamp of its legislative districts to turn the state even redder is egregious. The fact that the GOP expected Democrats only to whine about it but otherwise do nothing was, well, naive, especially when California is being led by an ambitious egotist like Gavin Newsom, who clearly has the presidency in his sights for 2028.
At least Newsom’s redistricting proposal was put to an actual popular vote, rather than simply shoved into being like it was in Texas, so there is some veneer of propriety to it. To be clear, I suspect that if redistricting was put to a vote in Texas, it would pass. But I don’t imagine it even occurred to Abbott, Paxton, et al to do it that way — they find democracy annoying, after all. In a perfect world neither Texas nor California (nor any other state) would get to resort to such electoral shenanigans, representative districts would not be relentlessly gerrymandered, and we could all eat ice cream sundaes and never gain weight or get gassy. We do not currently live in this perfect world.
Finally, on a personal note:
THIS IS TRUE. Sherrill recently recommended The Dispatcher as “a fun beach read” (true) and now she’s Governor-Elect of the great state of New Jersey. Is this a coincidence?!? I mean, yes, yes, it is, correlation is not causation and all of that but even so, if you were running for governor of a state in our great nation, I would say at the very least recommending my work during interviews couldn’t hurt. Just try it now and then, is what I’m saying. You’re welcome.
Anyway. A good night for people who are not racist fascists and/or sex creeps. We need more nights like these, especially hopefully a year from now. They will not happen without effort. Take a couple days off to enjoy the moment and then let’s all get to it for 2026.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-04 05:42 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-04 05:42 pmThe Big Idea: Charles H. Melcher
Some stories go beyond the page, presenting themselves as “living stories,” as author Charles H. Melcher calls them. Read all about these living stories in the Big Idea for his newest book, The Future of Storytelling, and see how a story can be capable of invoking all the senses, make you the main character of the story, and offer a glimpse into the future.
CHARLES H. MELCHER:
My quest to find the people and technologies that are reinventing storytelling has often led me to some unexpected places.
One evening in 2014 I found myself in a former mail-processing facility in London, taking in a performance of The Drowned Man by the immersive theater company Punchdrunk. The conceit was that you were in a Hollywood-like film studio where a movie was being shot. Upon entering, guests were given masks and asked to keep them on at all times and not to speak. Otherwise, there were no rules, and the nearly 600 guests were free to roam around the building like ghosts, either exploring the many intricately designed rooms or following specific actors as they performed scenes in different locations.
After a couple hours of wandering and watching, I grew tired and was thinking of calling it a night, when just then a beautiful young actress in a tight leopard-print dress and ruby-red lipstick drifted into the room. I chose to stay a little longer and see what unfolded. I followed her, along with some of the other guests, as she performed different scenes, until she ducked behind a door that I hadn’t noticed. On a whim, I decided to see where she was headed, so I followed her. She was waiting for me on the other side and quickly shut the door behind me and locked it. She motioned for me to follow her down a hallway into a little office. There, she reached up and took off my mask. My cloak of invisibility had been removed, and I felt exposed, face-to-face with this actress, just the two of us.
She hung my mask on a coat rack and took a Humphrey Bogart– style trench coat off the hook. She put it on me, tying the belt and adjusting the collar just so, and then led me by the arm down a narrow corridor that got progressively darker until it was pitch black. Finally, she let go.
I was alone in the dark, every one of my senses on high alert. After what felt like a long time, I suddenly heard a voice over a loudspeaker yell, “Action!” followed by a popping sound and an explosion of light, then another pop and another burst of light. As my eyes adjusted, I realized I was surrounded by about thirty silver umbrellas, the kind photographers use to diffuse strobe lights. And then I saw her, the actress, starting to walk slowly toward me—but she was completely transformed. She had an intense, almost crazed look in her eyes. I was worried that she was no longer a friend but a foe—maybe even insane. As she drew closer to me, I froze, fearful that I was going to need to physically defend myself against her. She raised her hand up toward my neck and then laid it gently on my cheek. When she took another step forward, I could feel the warmth of her body up against mine. I could smell the sweetness of her perfume. Instinctively, my hands went around her waist.
As she looked longingly up into my eyes, I was no longer afraid of her—now I was afraid of myself. What role was I willing to play here? I’m a happily married man, but there I was, alone in a room with a beautiful starlet in my arms. While I contemplated whether to lean in for a kiss, I heard the same voice over the loudspeaker yell, “Cut!” and everything returned to pitch black. The actress moved away and I was alone, every part of my body shaking with excitement and uncertainty. Then I felt her hand on my arm, and she led me back down the corridor into the small office, where she removed my trench coat, hung it on the hook, and put my mask back on. Finally, as she was about to see me unceremoniously out the door, she stopped and whispered in my ear: “I think you would be great for the part.” I was off again, left afloat among the hundreds of other ghosts in the building. I’d entered the experience as a voyeur, but by the end, I was playing a role—in fact, I realized I had been auditioning for the role of the leading man. And as unsettling as it was, I loved it. For the rest of the weekend, I walked around London just a little bit taller, feeling like James Bond, with the sense that adventure might be waiting for me around any corner.
This experience made me realize that I was craving a new type of storytelling, one that is participatory, multisensory, interactive, and highly personal; stories that aren’t confined within a screen, a pair of headphones, the words on a page, or a theatrical proscenium but exist all around us, engage with us, and even change based on our decisions. And I’m not alone: Creators and audiences all over the world are embracing embodied, immersive stories, although the scale and breadth of this trend is still invisible to most.
A revolution in storytelling is taking place, and it is going to have profound implications in almost every field. It’s happening in the top-secret tech labs of Meta, Apple, and Google; in avant-garde performances at fringe theater festivals; in escape rooms housed in storefronts of suffering shopping malls; in cores of quantum supercomputers containing next-generation artificial intelligence; in the newest VR and AR headsets; and in centuries-old museums. It’s happening at festivals like SXSW, Cannes Lions, and Comic-Con; in restaurants and bars; in old garages and abandoned bowling alleys; in Hollywood studios and Madison Avenue advertising agencies; on university campuses and at nonprofit organizations. It’s happening in the middle of the desert in Nevada and on a palm-sized device that lives inside the pocket of nearly every person who will read my book The Future of Storytelling.
As the publisher of Melcher media and the founder of the Future of StoryTelling (FoST) Summit, I’ve been incredibly lucky to get invited into the studios, labs, offices, and academic corridors where the future of living stories is being invented. I have come to believe that if we can understand the mechanics and unleash their full power, living stories – a term I coined – have the potential to become more popular than Hollywood and gaming have ever been. Artists and storytellers have a new opportunity to serve their audiences by creating experiences in which the audience plays an active role.
Something beautiful happens when creators relinquish control of the narrative to their audience. The reason living stories are so powerful is that they engage not only our eyes and ears but our whole person. They gift us experiences that our brains and spinal cords are primed for, thanks to millions of years of evolution. You can feel your response to a living story in the hairs on the back of your neck, in the pit of your stomach, in the ache in your thighs as you move and choose, emote, and think through these experiences.
Just imagine: How different is it to read a book or see a movie about surviving a natural disaster than to believe in the moment that you did? How much more satisfying is it when you, not King Arthur, are able to pull the sword out of the stone? Stories have always provided us with a safe, instructive way to survive the world, as we observe characters making choices (often the wrong ones). With living stories, those characters are us, and we learn from the choices we make, and learn deeply, because we feel them throughout our own bodies. Living stories are a gateway to a more intense emotional life, to living more fully in the world.
I wrote The Future of Storytelling not to undermine the traditional storytelling forms, or to suggest that they should or will be replaced. I wrote it because of my love for living stories and my excitement for what these stories can and will do now and in the future, due to breakthroughs in technology, storycrafting, world-building, and our perpetual yearning for new paradigms.
For storytellers, audiences, and stories themselves, it’s an exciting time to be alive.
The Future of Storytelling: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
Author socials: Website
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-04 05:30 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-04 05:30 pmWe’ve Voted!
All the Scalzis voted today, because that’s what you do. Here we have are electing township trustees and board of education members — not hugely sexy, but actually important for where we live. Every election counts, is what I’m saying. If today is a voting day for you, I hope you went out there and did the thing — and if you haven’t done it yet, as of 12:30pm, it’s not too late! You have several more hours! Do the thing!
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-04 12:47 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-04 12:47 pmA Change Of Pace
Hello, everyone! Recently I did a piece over the fact that I’ve been writing on the blog more or less officially for a year now, and I asked y’all what you thought of the content so far and what y’all want to see more of, and all that good stuff. I also said that it’s pretty clear from my history that I tend to write about restaurants, outings, and unique experiences more than anything else, as it’s what I have really enjoyed doing and writing about and it also makes for new and exciting content.
Despite these types of pieces being my most commonly written genre and them being well-received, I’m here to say that I’m going to be slowing down on those types of posts specifically.
I wasn’t exactly expecting to get a whole dang house right now, and now that I have one, my priorities are shifting. So too must what I do and what I spend money on shift, as well.
As much as I love dining out, partaking in bougie experiences, and driving far away from home just to do weird activities, again, I have a whole dang house now! I suddenly have… a utility bill?! And the house itself plus all the awesome decorating I’m about to do is not, uhhh… cheap.
In response to this, I must reel in my extravagant purchases and galivanting around the surrounding cities, spending all willy-nilly on excellent food and drinks. Instead, I will have to start making my own excellent food and drinks, and I hope that y’all end up enjoying that content just as much. I know some people in the comments of my previous post said they like my baking posts and would like to see more cookbook reviews/cooking at home content. So, it’s y’all’s lucky day because that’s about to be a huge chunk of what I do!
Aside from cooking at home and talking about cookbooks, being a home cook, cookware I like, etc., I’m also planning to do posts over the house itself. Things like the decorating process, how I’m devoting an entire bedroom to my 200+ Squishmallows, fun things like that. I also plan to do more movie reviews, because I have lots of streaming services and will be at home plenty enough to watch stuff now. Also, more sticker content! Basically things that I can do at home. I’m about to become the biggest homebody you’ve ever seen.
Honestly, change is very difficult for me, and it’s going to be hard to do things differently than I have been doing them for years. I think that all things considered, though, that this is a good change. I love cooking and baking, and having the chance to improve my skills and learn more about home-cooking is exciting. I truly love going out, but it can also be exhausting. This past year in particular it’s really been getting to me how busy I am and how much running around I do. I think it’ll be nice to be more anchored to one place. My new home.
And this isn’t to say that I’m never going out again or won’t be dining out literally ever. Just that my focuses are shifting right now. It’s all very exciting, honestly! I’m glad y’all are here through this journey, and I can’t wait to share more.
-AMS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-03 04:17 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-03 04:17 pmReminder: Scam Artists are Scammy
Found via Facebook, a fake testimonial from “me” being excited that a scam site got “me” a dozen reviews on Amazon and Goodreads over the space of a few weeks. I obviously did not make this testimonial, and also, bluntly, I wouldn’t be excited by a dozen Amazon/Goodreads reviews. “3 Days” pictured here, already has 3300 ratings/reviews on Amazon and over 4000 on Goodreads. I’m not now, nor have I been for some time, in the business of trying to plump up my Amazon/Goodreads review numbers. I certainly wouldn’t be recommending a service to do the same. They’re scams all the way down.
I suspect the people who regularly read here know that I or other well-known authors are not in the business of giving testimonials to sites that purport to “help” authors with reviews, but there are lots of aspiring writers who, shall we say, live in hope that there’s a shortcut to getting one’s name out there, and that something like this may be one of those shortcuts, and who might see my name, or the name of some other similarly notable author, and allow themselves to be convinced this sort of scam is a good idea. So this post is to tell them: No. Sorry, no. No author you have ever heard of is going to be scrabbling for Amazon or Goodreads reviews, and even if they were, they wouldn’t be doing it like this. Save your money.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-03 02:08 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-03 02:08 pmThe Time Traveler’s Passport is Now Out!
What is The Time Traveler’s Passport? It’s an Amazon-exclusive anthology of six short stories — one written by me! — that have time travel as an integral part of their plot. Not even counting me, it’s a pretty grand line-up of authors: R.F. Kuang, Peng Shepard, Kaliane Bradley, Olivie Blake and P. Djèlí Clark. My story “3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years” was released early on the Amazon “First Reads” program, but now the entire anthology is up and ready to be read.
Here’s the link to Amazon’s page for the anthology. If you have Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited, you can check out these stories at no additional cost; for everyone else you can buy the entire anthology for a nice low price, or pick and choose the individual stories. The stories also come with audio narration (mine performed by Malcolm Hillgartner), so you have options on how to take in the tale.
These are all excellent stories by fantastic authors (credit here to editor John Joseph Adams for putting it together), and well worth your time to check out. Enjoy!
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-02 02:19 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-02 02:19 pmA Genuinely Unexpected Commemorative Item
Athena called me yesterday with a quest, which was to go to a house about a mile away and pick up a plate. I wasn’t entirely sure what the point of the quest was until I saw the plate: A commemorative plate with our church on it, from the 70s, celebrating a century of Methodist presence here in town. Along with the plate was a program for the actual Bradford United Methodist Church centennial celebration, which happened on September 10, 1972. I would have been three at the time, and also, in California, for this particular event.
I should be clear that the building we now own, the former Methodist church (which we now formally call The Old Church, and less formally, simply “the church”), does not date back to the 1870s. The program helpfully includes a history of the Methodists here in Bradford through the 1970s, and informs us that our building had its construction commence in May of 1917, and was dedicated for worship on November 24, 1918. This means that officially our building’s 107th birthday happens in about three weeks. That’s a lot of candles.
When we first got the building, I thought it had been built in the 1930s, so the building is appreciably older than I first assumed. It’s probably not the oldest building in town, but it’s close to it — there was a major fire in town in 1920 that burned down most of the existing structures. This building survived that particular calamity.
From the centennial program I also learned the construction cost of the church: $17,000, not counting the pipe organ, which cost an additional $1,700 and was installed a year after the church was opened for worship. I put this sum into some inflation calculators to see how much it would be in 2025 dollars, and the answer was between $340,000 and $365,000, depending on which inflation calculator you used. I don’t dispute that inflation gradient, but I am also reasonably sure you couldn’t build a structure like this one, at the size it is, and with the amenities it has, for that amount; it would cost at least three times that much now, if not more. We bought the church entire for $75,000. In any era, we got a very good deal on this church.
Also apparently the church at one point had ivy growing up its sides, so the illustration on the plate would suggest, although the picture in the program itself does not show any of that. It may have been artistic license. The centennial celebration, incidentally, was pretty modest: Standard services in the morning, a “carry-in dinner” at noon, and then a 2pm program of “singspiration” and special music with comments from former ministers and friends. Then a fellowship hour at 4:30, and at 7, a special concert by the Teen Ambassadors Singers, sponsored by the Bradford Area Council of Churches. Sounds like a lovely Sunday, honestly.
I’m delighted that our neighbor gifted us this plate, and this centennial program; between the both of them I feel like I have a much better idea of the building we now own and are the custodians of. Both the plate and the program will have places of honor in the church. I’m happy that we have this building, and hope to keep adding to its history here in town.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-01 09:18 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-01 09:18 pmA Decade of Scamperbeastery
A decade ago today, Sugar and Spice came to live with us here at the Scalzi Compound. They were semi-feral kittens who lived on the porch of my mother-in-law’s neighbor; we were originally going to just get one but the two of them seemed particularly attached to each other, and both Athena and Krissy thought it would be cruel to separate them, so, fine, we took them both. Two kittens at once means quite a bit of chaos, which is how I eventually started calling them “The Scamperbeasts.” They were the founding members of a club that grew to include Smudge, and now, Saja.
Neither Sugar nor Spice seem inclined to make a big deal out of the day — they are both napping right now, Spice four feet from me in the cat tree in my office — but I thought it would be nice to make note of the day anyway. A decade is a lot of time in the life of a cat, and a fair amount in the life of a human, too. I glad our times on earth have intersected. Even if Sugar does randomly hork up weird things onto the carpet on a semi-frequent basis, and Spice regularly wakes me up at 3am to show me her butt. None of us are perfect, now, are we.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-01 04:50 am
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-11-01 04:50 amNew Cover: “The Scientist”
Krissy is off with friends for Halloween, so I did what I do when left to my own devices: I recorded a cover song. This one is from Coldplay, although my favorite version of it is from Aimee Mann. I tried covering her version but it turns out she sings higher than I do. Who knew? This one is more in my range. But here’s her version, because it’s great. I hope you like my version too.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-31 05:10 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-31 05:10 pmA Trick or Treat Thought for Halloween
Originally posted on Threads, but I’m posting here because for some reason Threads doesn’t embed here:
“Trick or treat candy is for everyone. Cute kid in an adorable costume? Candy. Teen not in a costume feeling self-conscious but hoping you’ll give ’em candy anyway? Candy. Adults accompanying the trick-or-treating little kids so they don’t run into traffic in a middle of a sugar high? Oh, you best believe they’re getting candy. You, giving out the candy? Have a fun-size treat, babe, you deserve it. CANDY FOR EVERYONE, all the time and this year most of all.”
That’s it, that’s the post. Happy Halloween, everyone.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-31 01:57 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-31 01:57 pmA Mini-Vacay In Columbus: Part 3
For our third and final day in the bustling metropolis of Columbus, Bryant and I decided that instead of brunch, we just wanted coffee and pastries. We had to be out of the Airbnb by 10am, which was actually one of the main complaints I saw in the review of the place. It did seem a little early to me, as well.
Back to the coffee, Bryant really wanted to try Fox in the Snow cafe, but I told him I’d been there once before and hadn’t cared for it. I went a few months ago with a Columbus friend to one of their locations, and I was super excited to try it, as it’s very popular online and a favorite among locals. When we got there, my friend ordered a caramel latte. The employee said they didn’t have caramel, only vanilla. So we both ended up getting a vanilla latte since it was apparently the only flavor they had. I also ordered a ham and cheese croissant, and he handed it to me right out of the case. I asked if I could please get it warmed up, and he said “we don’t do that here.” What do you mean you don’t warm up pastries?
Overall, the employee was definitely on the ruder side, I was shocked they seemingly only had vanilla, and my pastry was cold and hard. I definitely expected better based on the hype and the price point.
Thankfully, this time around, my experience was much better. Some places do deserve second chances!
The employees were much friendlier this time, and one even complimented Bryant’s sweater. We both ordered an iced chai, and got a blueberry cream cheese pastry to split:
As certified iced chai lovers, Bryant and I thought that these ones were pretty exceptional. They were perfectly spiced, but also sweet and creamy. The blueberry pastry had a yummy sugared crust, and plenty of filling. They did not skimp on the blueberries nor on the cream cheese filling. Both items were actually ridiculously good, and we contemplated going back for a second chai because one truly did not feel like enough, but we resisted, because we actually had a second cafe we wanted to check out.
That’s right, y’all, we’re doubling up on cafes.
Up next on our list was Pistacia Vera in the German Village. Now here was a cafe I had heard so much about online. Whether it was Tik Tok or Instagram, all the foodie girlies were downright obsessed with this place, so obviously I was very excited to try it.
I also realized that going to a cafe would be a great opportunity to do the Big Idea for that day. Nothing better than sitting in a coffee shop on your laptop (I have never actually done this, this was going to be the first time believe it or not).
When we got there, all of the outdoor patio seating was completely full up (there honestly was not much), and there was no seating at all inside. That was pretty bizarre to me. I asked if they had WiFi and they said no. Tragic.
Tons of beautiful pastries lined the glass cases, and it was honestly kind of overwhelming what to pick. We ended up picking a pistachio praline eclair, a plum raspberry almond tart, and a chocolate chunk pistachio cookie.
(I swear I could not get a good angle on these.)
The raspberry tart was seven dollars, which is definitely a good bit, but it was actually a very dense slice. I was blown away by how good the tart was. It was packed full of raspberry and almond flavor, and it was so soft and moist. I loved the plum slices and almonds on top. Honestly it was amazing, but I kept having to take one bite and put it back because it was a lot.
As for the pistachio eclair, it didn’t taste like anything at all. It really didn’t have much flavor, and Bryant was even like, “well, I don’t taste much.” So that one was a let down, and was five dollars.
Our other pistachio goodie, the cookie, had that absolutely perfect cookie texture of chewy and dense with a crisper outside. In terms of flavor it was pretty good, but I wouldn’t say it was like, wildly amazing or anything. It was three dollars and fifty cents, which I think was actually a good price for the size of the cookie, especially when you consider that it’s pretty dang stuffed with chocolate chunks and pistachios.
But you know what was not a good price? Their coffee. Bryant and I both got an iced maple butter latte, which is listed on their menu as having espresso, maple, salted cream, and oat milk. It was a 16oz iced latte. For NINE DOLLARS. No cold foam, no maple cookie topper, or anything else you can think of that would’ve maybe jazzed it up somehow to make it worth nine dollars. After looking at their menu, that’s not even the most expensive latte they have. Their pistachio latte is ten! Ten dollars! And a lot of the drink is just ice! Plus it was just a standard latte, it wasn’t even mindblowingly good.
So in total we spent over forty dollars on two iced lattes and three pastries plus tip, and there wasn’t even any seating or WiFi and the workers weren’t even friendly. I’m literally distraught. I have never paid that much for a latte, and I hope to never pay that much for one again. I usually pay $6-$7 and even that feels like a lot, but I sure as hell ain’t going to make it at home so what am I gonna do. Whole lotta nothin’.
Anyways, at this point I really needed to get the Big Idea done and I didn’t really think it was feasibly to try to go a third cafe just for some WiFi, especially because they may not even have it. So, I did the only sensible option left. I went to a library.
The Upper Arlington Public Library was my savior that day, its Internet free and fast, its heart courageous and brave. Thank you, public library, you’re always there when I need you.
Bryant and I still had some time before our ticketed time of 1pm for the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, so we decided to go across the street from the library to Littleton’s Market.
Littleton’s Market is a gourmet grocery store that has tons of specialty ingredients hard to find at regular stores, a bakery, a coffee shop, a cafe that serves a surprisingly huge selection of food (including oysters), plus serves beer, wine, and cocktails, and even has events like wine tastings! As someone who loves unique and funky food items, perusing this store was so much fun. There was lots of cool stuff and tons of amazing looking food. Plenty of people were enjoying lunch outside on their patio which even had heat lamps around. It was such a nice atmosphere and such a cute store with a lot of great stuff. I hope to go back sometime when I haven’t just had way too much coffee and pastries.
Finally, it was time for the pièce de résistance: the conservatory.
I have only been to the Franklin Park Conservatory once before, back in May, so I was excited to see if anything was different this time around. This was Bryant’s first time at any conservatory or botanical garden literally ever, so that was exciting, too.
When I tell you we had the best time, I really mean it. The Franklin Park Conservatory is an absolute treasure. Every section is incredibly beautiful, made even more visually stunning by the Chihuly glass sculptures (18 in total!). There’s so many different biomes to wander through, each having totally unique flora, and even some fauna, with an awesome koi fish pond in the Pacific Island Water Garden section. There’s a truly amazing display of bonsai trees, all of which are decades old and meticulously cared for. For the fall, they’ve decorated the outdoor portions with hundreds of pumpkins.
Not only do they have an extensive plant collection for your viewing pleasure, but they also host tons of events and classes. Whether you want to learn how to better care for your plants, bake a cake, craft a stained glass pumpkin, or sip cocktails, they’ve got a huge variety of events to choose from. Literally like almost every day they have something different going on.
Plus, they have a neat gift shop, and you can even buy plants there. Of course, Bryant and I each had to take one home to commemorate our time at the conservatory.
Bryant said that being surrounded by so much greenery and beautiful flowers cured his depression. Honestly, I totally agree. I felt so at peace amongst the palms and ferns, literally just in awe of the huge, incredible, beautiful plants around me. It was a great experience, and I wish I lived closer so I could go more often.
After walking around so much and working up an appetite, it was time for our final destination in Columbus, Taj on Fifth. Bryant and I love Indian food, so I booked a 4pm reservation to have an early dinner before hitting the road.
Located on Fifth Avenue just North of the Grandview Heights area, Taj on Fifth opened last year and prides themselves on traditional Indian cooking with a modern twist, and they even grind their spices in house!
When we got there, we were the first ones in the door since they had just opened for dinner service, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture of part of the interior.
I actually really like the vibe they’ve got going on here. I like the wood and leather look, and the covered patio on the right makes it so that you can enjoy it any time of year. I would say the only qualm I have is the flatscreen TVs at the bar, but y’all already know that is a very specific issue that I’ve had with multiple places. I just think it detracts from the nice look of the place. But I digress that it really is just a personal thing.
Since we were there at four on a Wednesday, it was during Happy Hour. It’s Tuesday-Friday from 4-6 and you get $5 off their signature cocktails, $2 off a glass of beer or wine, and $2 off small plates as well. With a deal like that, I simply had to try their Chai-Espresso Martini:
This had OYO Honey Vanilla Bean Vodka, espresso brew, Taj House Chai syrup, and pecan bitters. I absolutely loved this espresso martini. I thought it was a unique and yummy take on a classic drink, but it still retained all the good aspects of the traditional cocktail. The Chai flavor only enhanced the drink, it didn’t detract anything. After the $5 discount, this cocktail was only nine bucks! Or it might’ve been ten. Somewhere around there.
And here’s a look at their large plates menu:
Before we ordered our entrees, we decided to try their Mixed Pakora Platter, which was one of their small plates:
This came with cauliflower, potato, paneer, onion, and kale. It was served with a cilantro-mint chutney and a tamarind chutney. This appetizer seriously smacked. Everything was perfectly crispy and even the kale had great texture. The cilantro-mint sauce was so fresh and herbaceous, and the tamarind sauce had so much flavor, a little went a long way. This was such a good portion, there was plenty for both of us. We tore this appetizer up, and it definitely seemed worth the $15 (thirteen since it was happy hour!).
For our entrees, Bryant got the Taj Stuffed Paneer, which was $23, and I got the Saag Paneer for $19. Of course, we had to get garlic naan to go with it, too, which was $6.
Look how scrumptious that looks! It might look like a small portion in the photo, but I can assure you these were definitely generous portions. Even though both the saag paneer and stuffed paneer were listed as mild, I definitely felt like my saag paneer was rather spicy. Bryant’s dish seemed a considerable amount less spicy than mine, which is odd because I don’t really think of Saag Paneer as being that spicy of a dish. Most Indian places I’ve been to ask how spicy you want it on a scale of one to whatever, but Taj on Fifth just has their food come as it is. I can respect that, but I am pretty weak to spice.
Since it was so spicy, I asked for a side of their mixed raita:
I’m not sure what all was in here other than basically yogurt, herbs, and spices, but this mixture was delish. After mixing it in to the saag paneer, the yogurt sauce cooled my meal down a lot while giving it lots of good flavor from all the fresh herbs and spices. I’m so glad I thought to try it.
Besides the good food and delicious drink I had, the service was also very friendly. When the bill came, I mentioned that I actually wanted to get a mango lassi to go, and instead of fixing my check and printing me a new one with the lassi on it, they gave it to me for free and said it was on the house! The lassis are six dollars so that is definitely a considerable freebie.
We were there for over an hour and no one else came in the entire time. Our waitress even asked us how we heard about them (Tik Tok), which is giving me the vibe that this place is a hidden gem that isn’t getting the traffic it deserves. If you’re in Columbus, I highly recommend Taj on Fifth. They could use some love!
Mango lassi in tow, we hit the road back to the West, the sparkle of the city still gleamin’ in our eyes as we chased the sunset.
All in all, even with some slight disappointments, this Columbus trip was one to remember! I’m so glad we went on it.
Have you tried Fox in the Snow cafe? Are you an espresso martini maniac like me? Do you like Indian food? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-30 05:28 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-30 05:28 pmA Review of Grokipedia, Using Myself as Test Subject
What? You didn’t know that Grokipedia exists? Well, it does, and it’s Elon Musk’s attempt to run Wikipedia out of town on a rail: An “AI”-generated compendium of information about things and stuff, that also, not coincidentally, aligns with Musk’s weird techno-fascistic view of the world, because he’s got his hand on the tiller with Grok, especially when his pet large language model plunges deep within itself to find an actual fact.
I have personally found a good way to spot-check “AI” is to ask it questions about me and see what it gets wrong, and so, in a similar fashion, I popped over to Grokipedia to see what its article about me says, and how accurate it might be.
And how accurate is it? As accurate as anything made with an LLM, which is to say: meh, not especially, because fundamentally LLMs aren’t built for accuracy, they’re built for statistical probability, and these really are two separate things. Grok can find out things about me on the Internet, and put those things into Grokipedia, but it doesn’t appear to have the ability to discriminate between what is truth and what’s not. If it shows up enough on the Internet, Grok’s happy to print the not truth.
Two small examples of this: Grokipedia incorrectly lists my birth order in relationship to my siblings; it decided to choose between three options and got it wrong. Likewise, Grokipedia confidently asserts, across more than one article, I will note, that Steven Spielberg is involved with the film adaptation of Old Man’s War. The Spielberg thing isn’t true, but it was a rumor that did the rounds on the Internet, because Spielberg is Spielberg, and because OMW is one of the most successful science fiction series that is still (alas!) unproduced as a film. I have repeatedly said Spielberg isn’t making the movie, but me saying that is outnumbered by the number of sites asserting it, so if you’re Grok and you’re basically a statistical engine, who are you going to believe: The one guy who wrote the thing, or the dozens of web sites that cut and pasted the rumor?
(To be clear, it’s not just Grok that gets this wrong, because the architecture of all LLMs is similar. I just asked Gemini and Copilot “Can you tell me if Steven Spielberg is involved in a film version of Old Man’s War” and got affirmatives of varying strengths. Gemini confirmed there are rumors but cautioned that the project is listed as “in development,” whereas Copilot not only straight-up confirmed that Spielberg is officially attached to direct, it even offered up a release date: May 15, 2026. Which means Spielberg has seven months to produce a screenplay, cast the thing, ramp up pre-production, film it, jam in all the post-production and squeeze a score out of John Williams. This on top of the actual movie he has due out in June 2026! So, good luck to him there.)
There are other errors of fact and inconsistencies within Grokipedia; for example, listing one of my books as my first published, and then a few paragraphs later casually mentioning another one of my books which in fact is the first published. Other books of mine are offered with incorrect titles. The article is fairly long and reads as if it was rather sloppily-edited, which isn’t true: It wasn’t edited at all, or, at least not by a human. It’s fair to say Grok’s inherent editing qualities are similar to its information-retrieval-and-assessment qualities, which is to say, not great.
Now, here’s the thing: I am me, and thus, am the definitive expert on me, and I am here to tell you that if you were to rely on the Grokipedia article about me for reference, you would get several things wrong, some things trivial and some others rather less so. If Grokipedia is getting things about me wrong, what else is it getting wrong in other articles, where I do not have the same level of domain knowledge? I can’t trust it to be accurate about me, so how can I trust it to be accurate about any other thing? The answer is, I can’t. Again, it’s put together by an LLM, and LLMs, by their nature, get things wrong.
(As a contrast, incidentally, the current Wikipedia article on me is accurate, put together as it is by actual humans and occasionally updated by them as well. No mention of Spielberg there.)
Aside from the factually-iffy nature of Grokipedia, evidence of Musk’s political and social positions are very clearly baked into the site, or at least, into the article about me. The article spends more than a thousand words detailing my political positions, my involvement in the “Sad/Rabid Puppy” Hugo-related nonsense of a decade past, and, generally, Why Conservatives Don’t Like Me. The last two of these is mostly rehashing how both author Larry Correia and multi-hyphenate grifter Vox Day had bugs up their respective butts about me for a bit. I’m pretty sure Correia hasn’t given me much thought in several years, and honestly who knows what hole Day has fallen down recently, so in general I’m not sure why so much of the Grokipedia piece is given over this sort of thing, other than because this is where Musk’s own biases are, and what’s important to the boss is going to be important to Grok.
I will note that Wikipedia, which Musk has recently spent time castigating as “woke,” because of course he has, that’s his shtick now, has almost no mention of any of this; my political positions are limited to a couple of sentences in the “personal life” section, and the Sad Puppies nonsense, and my tangential-other-than-being-an-approved-whipping-boy role in it, is appropriately put into its own article. Its prominence in my Grokipedia article mostly feels like an attempt for a conservative-leaning site to reframe and relitigate this stuff, which, you know, meh. Any suggestion that Grokipedia is more interested in straight-ahead dissemination of factual information rather than the presentation of certain political viewpoints and perspectives, and certainly in comparison to Wikipedia, is belied in what information it chooses to present and how.
Which, again, is an issue: If this very evident bias is a thing for a subject I intimately know about, i.e., me, how much of an issue is it for the things where I do not have substantive domain knowledge? Having used Wikipedia for a while now, I feel reasonably sure that its biases are not “liberal,” they’re “pedantic,” as in, the sort of person who spends a lot of time creating/editing Wikipedia articles is less interested in shoving a political viewpoint into the articles there than they are in demanding every little fact presented has verifiable third party support. Musk wants to castigate Wikipedia because he is launching a competing product and because, as Stephen Colbert once memorably put it, “facts have a liberal bias,” meaning that they often don’t fit into the (current) conservative viewpoint. Also, Musk is an asshole, which is not to be discounted here.
Which is to say, if you have to choose a “pedia” to trust, you might choose the one assembled by a bunch of pedantic nerds saying “well, ACTUALLY” to each other until the heat death of the universe, over the one assembled by an LLM controlled by an insecure Nazi salute-throwing billionaire who sprints to reprogram that LLM every time it shares a fact that makes that billionaire angry or sad, or doesn’t fit into his Playskool Machiavellian ambitions and plans. In this particular case, a thousand pedantic nerds is much better than a single rich one.
Anyway, hi, I’m John Scalzi, and the Grokipedia article about me is not great. If you like, you can use that as an anecdotal bellwether for the overall veracity and utility of that site in general. We’ll see if it gets better over time. But in the meantime I’m going to consider it at this point like most things that route through Elon Musk: Fashy, unreliable, and generally to be avoided.
— JS
Whatever (scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-30 02:02 am
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-10-30 02:02 amToday in Personal Nostalgia: My First Business Card
I came across it this evening as I was going through some old files and was surprised to find it; I didn’t know any had survived between 1991 and now. Be that as it may, indeed, 34 years ago this was my business card. Being a movie critic was my first job out of college. How did I manage to convince a respected regional newspaper to hire a 22-year-old with no actual film reviewing experience for a hotly-coveted gig? One, I spent the summer prior to joining the newspaper doing a three-month crash course in the history of film, up to and including bringing home a triple feature of classic films every night from the local video store (my roommates loved that). Two, I was cheap. My first year salary was something like $23,000, but then again this was 1991, when I could rent a nice apartment in Fresno for, like $450 a month or something, and fast food was still actually cheap. I got by just fine.
Mind you, I was under no illusion, then or now, that I hadn’t gotten unfathomably lucky with my first job out of college. Professional movie critic gigs weren’t readily available, even in 1991; summer crash course or not, it was really only the whim of the newspaper editors at the time, who were trying to polish up the reputation of the Bee by adding what was essentially a luxury position to the staff, that opened up the slot as it was. It was terribly fun while it lasted, but it didn’t last forever; in 1996 I was told that the paper was going to quit having me review movies and move me over to a general reporting slot. I responded by going home that afternoon and securing a job at America Online, a (then) up-and-coming tech company who wanted to have a writer of its very own on staff. I wouldn’t be doing movie reviews at AOL either, but at least they were paying me twice a much as I was getting at the Bee.
(This was, of course, also unfathomably lucky. Observers will note “unfathomably lucky” happens a lot in my career. No, I don’t know why. I try to be appreciative when it happens.)
Fresno was and is frequently the butt of jokes in California but I have nothing but good memories of my time there, not in the least because it was there that I met Krissy. Likewise, I have nothing but good memories of my time at the Fresno Bee. It was a great place to have landed right out of college, with smart colleagues and patient editors, cheap rents and affordable fun. Plus I got to watch movies and tell people what I thought about them, and interview movie stars and filmmakers, which was a cool thing to do when one is still, essentially, a kid. I wouldn’t have missed a moment of it. It was a good time in my life.
PS: Fun fact: “Scoopy,” the Bee mascot of the Fresno, Modesto and Scaramento Bee newspapers (all owned by the McClatchy chain) was designed by Walt Disney. It was a fun little thing to have on one’s business card.
— JS
