• You know  what happens when I am a Good Homeowner and schedule regular maintenance? I discover our heater has a cracked heat exchanger, that's what. The old one lasted 26 years, so I have no complaints. And it explains the weird behavior of the CO detector last winter. (A couple of times on super-cold days it would beep once, then stop.  Now I know it was catching the exhaust seeping back from the exchanger and saying, "HEY, I SMELL CARBON MONOXIDE...no, wait,  it's gone now, never mind.")
• So, anyway, we're getting a new heater soon. (Apparently some people wait for the crack to get big and immediately dangerous. Yikes. Nope. Not me. I like breathing.) The AC unit is just as old and didn't do a good job this summer, so we're budgeting to replace that too. We could plug in electric heaters and not freeze but Spouseman will melt in a Chicagoland summer without cooling. So that's the latest big deal.
•  Anyone analyzing cable television shows by their advertising would conclude that the main audience is, "people with diabetes and/or cancer, people who care passionately about condiments, and people who need cheap car insurance and expensive security systems."
• The latest in searches:
  • bubble wrap invention date
  • single item narcissism
  • pumpkin size varieties
•  Media update!
  • Book: Kingdom of Ash by Sarah Maas. It's the big sprawly, conclusion to the long, long, looooong classic fantasy saga. It would be easy to list out a dozen things about the series that rub me entirely the wrong way, and a half dozen more that make me wince...but...I liked it anyhow.
  • View: Jurassic World. Um. I enjoyed the dinosaurs, but ugh. It's one excuse after another for major CGI battle & chase scenes, with gratuitous gore. (Keep in mind I don't mind gore qua gore. In this movie it was jarring in the wrong way.) Oh! OH!  And  "diversity characters" who are walking weak stereotypes? Awful. Worse than the ridiculously thin villains.  Did I mention I enjoyed the dinosaurs?
  • View: Ocean's 8. Fun, basic, heist movie. The callbacks to Ocean's 11 and 13 were super too. I kept thinking Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock were the same person in different wigs, but that's not a flaw in the movie, that's my brain's little issue with face recognition.
•  Random cat pic:
• No Context WIP snippet:

  The tenth time the dog sprang to his feet and alerted to a blank spot on the wall, Deena lost her patience. “Seriously, Bazel? What is your issue?”And someone answered in a deep, pleasant drawl, “He has good instincts. So do you, grand-daughter.”

And that's all the all there is for this time.