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... is the elephant still there? How much of the class she was supposed to be in already passed? And Diane, unfortunately, learning about your mistakes is necessary step to fix them. Yes, I know, I would also prefer some other way.

Now that's just not true. Ships managed their foresails with booms long before that.

If Dan wasn't avoiding doing non-canon things with Pandora until she shows up again in the story, the climax of this arc would be a great time for her to make a cameo!

Well, it's good to have something to look forward to!

Feelin' a little bittersweet. That happy-sad feeling where something a little upsetting happens but it still has a good outcome. Like giving a kitten we rescued a month ago to a new family. We really bonded with this kitten, ya know? I wish we could've kept her, but we already have five cats, we just got a dog that's bigger and more energetic than we were expecting, and we're packing up to move soon. It's really not a good time to get another cat. Still, we made sure she was fed, clean, sheltered, and played with. Her time here was a good one. And in the end, we made sure she's going to a good home. How do you do this for a living, Prof? You just bond with them so easily, you don't wanna give 'em up!

On September 24 in History: 768 - Frankish king Pepin the Short dies. I hope his sons are up to the challenge or this kingdom could fall apart really fast. 787 - A bunch of dudes in funny hats gather in Nicaea (again) to discuss how to Christian. On the docket: veneration of icons. On the one hand, pretty sure there's a relevant commandment about that, but on the other hand, hells yeah! 1572 - Túpac Amaru, the last king of the Inca, is executed by the Spanish. Conspiracy theories that he's still alive about, though admittedly become less and less credible with each passing year. 1830 - Two distinct culture groups stitched together Frankenstein style form the provisional government of Belgium. This will work splendidly. 1877 - The Battle of Shiroyama cements the new order in Japan over the old samurai traditions. Contrary to popular belief, Tom Cruise was not a samurai, and the "last" refers to the group (plural) he fought with. 1890 - Mormons officially denounce polygamy (though a small number continue to practice it on the DL for a while longer) because they really want Utah to be a state. 1948 - The civic-minded Honda Motor Company makes an accord with the public to sell them fit automobiles that will shuttle them about the city. I am so sorry. 1957 - President Eisenhower has had it with Arkansas governor Orval Faubus's bullshit. 1973 - Guinea Bissau declares independence from Portugal. If you read these regularly, you'll know they'll need to wait almost a year before they get it. South Ossetia plays the world's smallest violin. 1991 - They brought in the experts from medical college, who doctored and nursed with all of their knowledge. They tested with chemo and lots of bed rest, they tried litting puffbeezers sit on his chest. But no matter the method, there just was no answer, Theodore Geisel has perished from cancer. And think now of this, and think of it well, for just one cheap laugh I'll now be roasting in hell. 1993 - Norodom Sihanouk is crowned king of Cambodia, a position he himself abdicated and dissolved 38 years prior. In the interim, he has served as Cambodia's prime minister, leader of its single ruling party, official head of state, leader of its government in exile, right hand figurehead to Pol Pot, leader of an exiled resistance group, head of state again, and finally president. "I wish I knew how to quit you, Cambodia." 2014 - India is the first nation on Earth to put something into Mars orbit on their first try. Unfortunately, the best joke I could think of for this would probably be at least a little bit racist.

An incredibly courageous German diplomat caught wind of what was going on and he and some of his friends risked their lives in getting word out before the operation started. Many Danish Jews quietly prepared for flight. On the night between October 1 and October 2, 1943 the Nazis started their action but only caught 500 Danish Jews, or about 5% of the total. The rest managed to escape to Sweden or simply to stay hidden in the time that followed. I have mentioned that my own family was part of this. My uncle Per was only a few months old, and my grandfather and grandmother did not dare to bring him along for fear that his crying would bring the Nazis down on them. Instead my family's beloved and loyal nanny Gerda took charge of him and went out of town, pretending that he was her own. My grandparents and my eight year old father then went to the coast hoping to find transport across the Sound. They could not find a vessel willing to carry them but managed to buy a leaky rowboat for the exorbitant price of five thousand crowns, or roughly thirty to fifty thousand dollars in today's currency. The rowboat nearly sank and one time they feared they had been turned around, but they finally reached Sweden. Fortunately they were not greeted by a Nazi-sympathising government that separated my father from his parents and sent him to a children's internment camp. I am very thankful for that. Faithful Gerda stayed hidden for three months but rumour got around that she was hiding a Jewish baby and she was forced to flee. She managed to reach Sweden and started to search for my grandparents. Once again, the Swedes did not seize my uncle and send him to a holding facility for refugee babies. And after many weeks of searching she found my grandparents and my father. It was an emotional reunion and Gerda was part of my family for the rest of her life. Of course, this would have been impossible without the cooperation of many Danish politicians, police officers and civilians. Fortunately not all of the fleeing families had to deal with greedy war profiteers to escape. And happily and importantly, when it became possible to return home to Denmark again, the way opened by the Allied soldiers who fought so long and hard to destroy the Nazi abomination, Danish Jews were welcomed home. My own family found their apartment completely untouched if a bit dusty. All that was missing was a bottle of brandy that the janitor had availed himself of, and given how well he had taken care of everything my family hardly begrudged him that. I owe my life and freedom to the German officials who leaked a warning of the upcoming purge, to the Danish politicians who quietly spread the word, to all the people who aided in the flight, to the Swedes who so generously gave shelter to my family and so many others, and of course to the efforts of the American and English soldiers -- and to all the Americans and English who worked so hard and paid so much back in their homes. My wife's grandfather, a Captain in the U. S. Corps of Engineers, fought his way from D-Day to Berlin, missing only the Ardennes offensive because he was on Christmas leave. It was a privilege to have known him. (Lord, but the man hated Nazis. I find it hard to blame him.) This story is very much on my mind these days. I apologise for rambling about it, but I feel better with it out here. Thank you all.

17 September I can't believe you forgot the big one... 1859 – Joshua A. Norton contacts the newspapers of San Francisco, California, and declares himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States." Mainstream historians would later try to revise history by portraying the Emperor as insane. But does declaring yourself a ruler without the support of the citizens, religion, military, or other politicians really mean that you are insane?

Nanase and Ellen, Diane and Lucy, Catalina and Rhoda, Grace and Tedd Tess, Ashley and Elliot (mall female Elliot)

Part sheep eh? We're gonna need cheerleadra for this one ...

I keep forgetting if anybody's a cheerleader to begin with. It seems like that would be useful for killing vampires. If many of them were left, anyway....

While true, the term of author using his power to resolve situation in his writing is called "deus ex machina" and is generally considered bad writing. Author is SUPPOSED to make story hold even without himself. Yes, such simplified case makes possible to show what can happen in clear way. I also saw it somewhere ... oh, right, it's on wikipedia explaining casual loop. You can model cases like this even with the billiard ball. Also remember that quantum physics is principally statistically based and when multiple outcomes are possible, which one happen is random, so it doesn't need to be ONLY possible scenario, just likely enough - and the fact that time travel happens isn't, by itself, something which would lower the likehood of scenario happening. I believe it does justify existence of such loops, although it's harder to explain why exactly was everything in superposition in advance ... it's because existence of time travel itself makes the scenario when time travel WONT happen LESS stable than the scenario with stable time loop, because someone would try to interfere. In the Gargoyle case (note that I didn't saw that episode), someone ELSE would try to travel into past but failed to form a stable loop, while the character itself going into past does result in stable loop, so it can happen. In terminator case, later episodes (which allowed past to change, but anyway) established that sky.NET is something which can happen even without time travel ; presumably, it would then invent time travel and try to change the past, failing to form a stable loop. Similarly, the resistance would try to change the past. It is possible that the stable loop that happened, which DID bring sky.NET faster BUT also gave resistance their leader, is the most likely stable scenario from all which could happen - and it actually makes sense, because both sides trying to utilize time travel gained something. It's even possible that it solves the major problem with the movie, specifically the fact that it would be easier to send into past something which would wipe out whole city: it's possible it didn't happened BECAUSE it didn't resulted in stable time loop. (Although the explanation that authors didn't think it though is easier.) ... also, it's not MY quantum-physic based explanation. I would like to take credit but I suspect that I didn't formed it independently but only based on story which explained parts of Novikov self-consistency principle ... and, in fact, had I remembered how it's called, I might just refer to it instead of trying to explain it myself.

Today was shrink day, and no changes to my meds. See her again in a month.

The headache medicine did work. "Did" because I'm out of it. The headaches are back. Trying to get a refill. In other news, the surgeon removed my stitches from my left foot today and pronounced it healing well. I get to come back in two weeks for a re-check.

And then there's the old story of Eric and the Dreaded Gazebo.

I have a can of "Cream of Bacon" soup that I think I'm going to try some time today. I'm still not sure about why this exists, but I have to try it.

There is difference between "safer" and "safe". For example, receiving death threats is generally safer than receiving death sentences. ... hmmm ... true, I might be underestimating number of this kind of activists due to them not being so public. That's not the part I'm arguing with. If only political correctness was really just about this ... ... uuuhhhh ... we got pretty far from the etymology of word "bimbo" ... maybe we should try to stop. (Maybe I should try to stop as you seem to be trying already.)

Ah, fair enough. Maybe Dr. Insano is holding a clearance sale.

Not sure if this goes here or not but reading military technical books translated from the Russian is a bit surreal. I have been trying not to use a Russian accent when reading them but can't seem to do so.

Diane's subconscious realized the direction her life was heading and poked her to make it, even though her conscious mind was in denial about it all. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that she's going to get the epiphany about why Lucy is upset, at least at this moment. Maybe later, but hopefully sooner than that.

The headache medicine does work to a degree, although it makes me a bit wonky in the head. Saw the infectious disease doctor for the last time today. She checked me out and said I don't have to come back.

I need to remember that the people in a you tube video can't hear me. But damn it, they were attacking a near dead half orc mage when there was an intellect devourer right next to them. Not once, but twice.

It's done and it's tasty.

Wow, even your car thieves are nice guys, giving the kids a lift home and making sure a neighbor was there to look after them! I do believe that sort of thing could happen here, too, but the news media seems to prefer running the sort of story where the thief abandons the car with the kids still inside of it (see heat death discusdions), or makes them get out by the side of the road wherever they happened to be when he realized they were there, or somesuch. Statistics say we are much safer and less likely to be the victims of crime, violent or otherwise, than previous generations, but because the media tells us everything about every dramatic crime in the country, our perception is that we're all in more danger than they felt that they were.

Crap, I just realized that Dan missed an opportunity to do a callback to the "Claire" secret identity Grace had, though I know Dan was going for the "painfully obvious" gag here so I guess he gets a pass. ...This time....

Which is indeed what he does in the MCU continuity. That's true, but my point was that he's ok with that - like, he doesn't seem to regret it.

Batman wouldn't be possible without Bruce's money. Didn't read those stories, but based just on movies, I would think real Kal El is somewhere in middle between Clark and Superman. However, definitely agree with him not being satisfied with being just superman. (Hmmm ... nice quote about it on DC wikia ...) Tony Stark, meanwhile, might live just well without secret identity.

Saw the doctor, who diagnosed my headache as acute maxillary sinusitis. He's put me on Augmentin and on a pain medicine called "Fioricet w/Codeine." I'm a little concerned about the latter, but he says it attacks pains that my oxycodone doesn't touch. I hope like hell it works, because on a scale of 1 to 10, my pain was pulling a hard 7 during the appointment. Fingers crossed.

I cannot really agree. Painful as it often is, I prefer truth to illusion. And Quixotic though it may be, I've spent a lot of my life looking for the right sort of mirrors.

More like he's figured it out from Grace. There can probably only be one person that Justin knows that fits the description. Ellen figured it out and heck, Elliot hasn't actually met Rhoda and figured out she was Catalina's girlfriend. Susan was of course the first to find out cus she learned it from the source despite attempts to keep it secret, and it's probably because of why Catalina wanted it kept secret that Susan would have likely felt that it'd be wrong to tell others especially considering what Justin had told her. It's possible that everyone (even Diane, the person Rhoda most wanted to not find out about her liking girls)figured it out on their own because both Catalina and Rhoda were bad at hiding their relationship.

Going to the doctor about the headache today. It's been over a week and the pain hasn't gone away. I'm starting to think that the biggest culprit is a sinus infection, but other parts of my head hurt as well. Hope he can figure this out for me.

I once saw this hilarious mini-comic created by stills taken from the Animated Batman and Superman cartoons. It shows a shadowy figure looking at superhero pictures, it then proclaims "Of COURSE! It is so obvious!" and the last image shows a guy confronting Clark and telling him, "Your secret is out, Clark Kent! You are BATMAN!"

Spider Squirrel Spider Squirrel Squirrely, Spidery, Hero Girl She has strength, she has guts She knows where she hid those nuts

Watching an old episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, of which I've caught fairly random episodes. Hettie was reciting a character's background, and the hometown she gave was my hometown! :-D I'm sure to the writer it was probably just a dot on a map, but it's still fun to hear. And maybe it's not just a dot on the map, maybe one of the writers is from there, or went to college there, or something. The guy on MASH was a deliberate reference to the U of I, after all....

Grace COULD put on other clothes, but she's more likely to "support" Sarah.

Got to see my left foot yesterday for the first time since surgery. Both Mrs. Prof and I were surprised by the straightness and neatness of the stitches. Quite a few of them, too--at least ten, possibly more, with a central stitch running the length of the incision. Looked like a very long American football. The doctor was satisfied with them and said they'll come out October 1st. Had him look at the osteomyelitis on toe #2 of my left foot. He concentrated on the external symptoms, saying that it appeared it was healing. If, however, it broke open again and began to do nasty stuff, then amputation might become an option. Not now, though - it looked good now.

No, but I have heard that you can never cross the same river twice. And I had a computer where I eventually replaced every part except the casing and the power supply. I've replaced the power supply too. But it took much more work than my grandfather's axe.

It’s just I wish I had thought of it a few days ago. I realize it would have been useful for a discussion in another thread. But I got upset and the idea of using this paradox as a metaphor that could allow both sides to bridge the gap without upsetting each other never occurred to me. #hindsight

No, but I have heard that you can never cross the same river twice. And I had a computer where I eventually replaced every part except the casing and the power supply.

Lucy Lawless had a son (and she was very proud of breastfeeding him). Xena, on the other hand... His name was Solan. She gave him to a group of centaurs after the death of his father, Borias, who was killed in combat against a warrior in Xena's employ.

I think we may have to declare Godwin on the Nazi topic here before we slip into attack mode on each other. Let's try to get back to the general cultural appropriation topic if we can?

Well, Lucy could actually be honest about her feelings to Diane. But of course, those things don't happen in EGS unless there's something like an attack by a Spider Vampire, or getting invited to Grace's next birthday party.. Or maybe a mysterious floating woman telling Lucy to do it. Adrian obviously has to come into this story in a big way, but when is another question. It's not established whether either Diane or Lucy is taking one of Adrian's classes this semester. Pandora could advise Lucy at any time from her return, but I don't see her up to marking Lucy or anyone else for awhile.Jerry reset during the last spring break, and he didn't show up as Zeus until New Year's. Pandora's "refresh" should make her recovery faster, but it's only been three days, and the last comic in Sister 3 took place at "an unknown time."

Stay off Twitter and social media of any sort for at least a day. Maybe several. And possibly also less respectable news outlets. I beg you all, in the name of God. I have seen an image I shall never be able to unsee and I may never be able to eat a mushroom again, or even look at one.

Surgery went smoothly, with the exception of a damned painful IV. The last thing I remember before going under is telling the surgical staff that the anesthesia injection hurt like hell. No big bruise left over, but I've got what looks like a vampire bat bite on my hand. No more hand IVs if I can avoid them. I woke up well and was nursed back to consciousness well, with plenty of crunchy ice, cranberry juice, and graham crackers. They even did a bit of physical therapy with me before letting me go, showing me how to walk on just my heel. They suggested that I not use my rollerator and use my walker instead, since it's easier to stop myself from falling with a walker. I've since taught myself to use my cane inside my house, but I'll still be using a walker outside. If you read Facebook, you would have seen my biggest surprise—I'm down below 300 lb. for the first time since my gastric bypass back in 2010! I've been on Lasix for swollen legs for the past month or so, and it's finally doing its job. It also helps that I haven't been eating a ton or indulging in sweets. The hospital scale registered me at 288. Made me a very happy boy. I did eat a bit more healthy on Saturday. Check the appropriate food thread for details.

And cubic roots--don't forget those.

When cat that doesn't trust you and seems scared of you decides to sit on your lap and nuzzle your hand.

I am running on day four of a non-stop headache. I don't know if it's a stress headache, a sinus headache, or a migraine. I'm treating all three, but nothing seems to be working: Tylenol, Sudafed, nor rizatriptan. Has anyone got any advice on how to get rid of one of these? I'm feeling miserable.