Srol @srol@mellified.men

Hi, my name's Patrick. I'm a 30-something journalist. You may have read this introduction to Mastodon I wrote for The Outline https://theoutline.com/post/2689/mastodon-makes-the-internet-feel-like-home-again?zd=2&zi=6c4up5po. These days, I'm a freelancer for CNN, although I almost never talk about work on this account.

I post more about my hobbies, like programming, baking, anime and science fiction/fantasy literature. I used to make Mastodon bots like @NintendoPowered and @Energy_Forecast

That's about it #introduction #introductions

69 degrees out. I'd be saying 'nice' even if it wasn't the sex number.

I like how bare cliff faces look like petrified tree stumps.

“Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.” - Terry Pratchett

Not that I don't love intricately detailed pictures of spaceships but variety is nice

There was like a brief period in history when a science fiction novel could have an abstract cover instead of intricately detailed pictures of spaceships and I think that period was from 1971 to 1979

Wow, it's actually a sequel to a book I never read. I had no idea.

The book has been identified! End of Exile by Ben Bova! The second I saw the cover, I instantly recognized it. Thank you so much to super sleuth @dredmorbius for finding it!

* Even though he saved everyone, he's exiled for breaking the law. He goes to look for the last surviving adult.
* He finds the last adult, who is very old and near death. He finds out from him that the ship is almost due to arrive, but because no one has been adjusting its trajectory, it's actually going to hit the star their destination orbits instead.
* The exiled kid saves everyone????

* The kids formed a society around a video that adult left behind telling them not to mess with any of the machines. He told them not to because he didn't want them accidentally hurting or breaking something, but it became like a religious rule.
* A water pump breaks and the kids look like they might run out of water.
* But one of the kids accidentally activates a video tutorial on how to fix water pumps and fixes it.

It was in the children's section of the library. Details I remember:

* It took place on a generation colony ship in the final generation before arrival at a new Earthlike planet.
* Almost all the adults had died in a hull breach on the bridge.
* One of the last surviving adults had left the kids to look for supplies on another part of the ship.

I spent a lot of time imagining what these passengers must be thinking as I passed other swimmers in the pool. Were the swimmers other ships passing in the dark? Or were they unknowable terrors of the void,

Eventually I'd reach the end of the pool and the passengers would disembark for their new lives on a new world, leaving behind the ship their ancestors first boarded on the other side of the pool. Then I'd get some ice cream from the snack bar.

When I was a kid and my family would go to the public pool, sometimes all I would do was lie on my back and slowly float from one end of the pool to the other.

I imagined that my body was a colony ship built to keep alive multiple generations through the years on a trip through deep space. For every few minutes that passed in the pool, 50 years passed for the passengers as I floated across the pool.

I had a sudden urge to play Tee KO tonight, but I can't use the computer I stream from until I fix the power in the basement.

*screams into the microphone*

I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT STARGATE EXCEPT STARGATE UNIVERSE WAS A GOOD SHOW

*it's a Rock Band microphone, I'm alone in my basement*

... a lot more old people pretending to be babies than I was expecting.

Okay, it's gonna have to be an extension cord running the length of the house for today. This is increasingly looking like a problem for an electrician.

Sometime last night the outlet that I plug my router into decided it was getting out of the electricity business. Now I have an hour to figure out some kind of way to get the router online or I'll need to go into the office to work today.

@ElfLord @toilettrouble also, the Elf Lord's Toilet Trouble sounds like a children's book published by two Ivy League graduates who have never written for kids before but think it's probably easy

Any time I try to make a Follow Friday post I feel bad because I don't want to seem like I'm excluding anyone so this post is just for freedom.horse follow @ElfLord and @toilettrouble oops wait it's saturday now alexa delete toot