Posted by Kevin

Upon reflection (and some email feedback) I have further thoughts about the reported aquatic escape of a robber who struck the Paddlefish restaurant at Walt Disney World last month. SeeWas That Scuba Burglary a Successful Aquatic Escape?” (Oct. 24, 2025).

First, so far as I can tell there have been no further developments in the case since last week. I found no new references to it, and if anyone had been arrested, I’m pretty confident the Orange County Sheriff’s Office would have trumpeted that on its Facebook page. But all the recent posts there have to do with Halloween and the sheriff’s “Trunk’n’Treat” program, which seems to involve officers distributing candy from the trunks of their patrol cars. I’m fine with that, unless it’s a sting operation of some kind where they’re going to ask for people’s “papers” or check for outstanding warrants or something. I have no evidence of that at this time.

Second, those who wrote in to object to my classification of this escape as “not yet successful” … may have a point. He is gone, or at least his whereabouts are unknown, and it has been over six weeks now. I still like my eaten-by-alligator theory, but have to admit there is no evidence to support it. Some also pointed out that for there to be an “escape,” there really has to have been a pursuit, and that wasn’t the case here. He grabbed the cash and swam away before officers ever reached the scene. So this was more of a “getaway,” and again it does seem to have been successful at least for now. That too is a fair point.

I suppose the problem was really that this episode was just not in the same category as most of the others I’ve been talking about. The real point there is to encourage people who are actually being chased by law enforcement to stop plunging or jumping into some body of water, which is only going to slow you down and possibly put you and officers at risk. Even if you do have some kind of flotation device, they’re almost certain to have a better one, or they can just wait you out. One of my earliest mentions of this phenomenon, for example, involved someone (also in Florida) who tried to escape a foot pursuit by stealing a pedal boat. See Sinking Pedal Boat Ends Ridiculous Escape Attempt” (Jan. 28, 2010). To catch him they only had to upgrade to a pontoon boat (with an engine, granted). So not only do you still end up in custody, you have the embarrassment factor of being apprehended by a pontoon boat.

But again, that was an “escape” attempt, not a carefully planned getaway, so it fits. The scuba-guy Disney robbery really doesn’t. Fair enough.

This assumes, of course, that there really was a getaway at all. Several experts, and by “experts” I mean random yahoos who posted something on a Disney-related message board I found, have suggested that maybe there wasn’t. As I suggested last time, there is already some reason to believe this was some sort of inside job, given the robber’s apparent knowledge of when and where the employees would be counting the day’s cash. And while a security camera showed the robber arriving, he blinded that camera with spray paint and so it didn’t seem him leave. We only have the other employees’ word for the getaway part of this, in other words, so maybe he just made a big entrance and then hid in the pantry or something until the coast was clear.

Again, this is utter speculation by me and the (other) random yahoos, and not to be taken as suggesting that there’s any evidence of such a conspiracy. Will I take credit for the idea later if it turns out to be true? Probably. But right now, utter speculation.

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([personal profile] nanila Oct. 31st, 2025 11:10 pm)
20251031_164357
[Cutest crochet pumpkin, sitting on my laptop.]

  1. Did you vote in your most recent applicable election? (If you're not yet old enough, do you plan to vote in the future?)

    Yes, I did. We had a by-election yesterday, in fact. I am very pleased to report that the Reform candidate was soundly defeated.

  2. Have you ever protested or attended a march?

    On a handful of occasions. The first was when I was still in high school, protesting Desert Storm. It is the only time I ever cut school and got detention.

  3. What political issue is the most important to you?

    Wow, that is a big question. I think probably human rights. Without the enforcement of a level of fundamental respect for others, we have terrifyingly little recourse from people who would happily trample over everyone else.

  4. Are you a member of a party in your country? If so, which?

    Yes to the first question. I’m not putting the answer to the second in a public post.

  5. Do you ever plan to run for office?

    I’ve been a paper candidate before, but I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. It’s very nearly mandatory to have to use social media to campaign as a candidate, and I’d rather not.
([syndicated profile] ohjoysextoy_feed Oct. 31st, 2025 08:53 pm)

Posted by Erika Moen

Light up your jack-off-O-laterns and summon some ghostly boo-bies because it’s time again for HALLOPEEN! No tricks, we’re bringing you nothin’ but treats in this round-up of all our spookiest comics from our vault. Join us (for free!) on Patreon to get our monthly newsletter of comics like this one! The Cummoning by Alina Most […]
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([personal profile] beatrice_otter Oct. 31st, 2025 12:08 pm)
For the [community profile] rarepairexchange I received a lovely Still Star-Crossed fic (that had good worldbuilding, good characterization, and excellent research backing it up):

you and you are heart in heart (2,289 words). Even now, two months after Paris’ defeat outside the walls of Verona, unrest still fermented. The peace treaty which had once hinged on Benvolio’s execution now hinged on Benvolio and Rosaline’s wedding.

And there was a lot of other good fic that you should check out. Here are some I liked:


Taking Chances Together
(1254 words) 
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura
Additional Tags: post s2e1 Amok Time, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:

A musical collaboration turns into more...


In Splendid Sunshine Dressed (1868 words
Fandom: Casablanca (1942)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rick Blaine, Victor Laszlo (Casablanca), Ilsa Lund
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Getting Together
Summary:

Rick is invited back into Ilsa's life... but what about her husband?


Here's to We (1233 words)
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lorraine Anderson/Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Friends to Lovers, Character Study, Epistolary, Margaret Backstory Typical Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Episode Tag: s06e21 Temporary Duty, Episode Tag: s07e19 Hot Lips is Back In Town, 12x100
Summary:

Snapshots of Margaret and Lorraine's relationship from 1932-1952: growing up, growing apart, and finding their way back.


I Prayed For You (2445 words)
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Father Francis Mulcahy
Additional Tags: Developing Relationship
Summary:

Francis gave something away in hopes of comfort. BJ held that comfort close, even in the late hours.

Or Father Mulchay's trip takes a bit longer than predicted, long enough for some reflection on something developing. (For the 2025 RarePair Exchange!)


How the Halcyon Song Lingers (1348 words)
Fandom: Little Women (2019 Movie - Gerwig)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Theodore "Laurie" Laurence/Amy March
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Parenthood, Married Life, Fall Vibes, Domestic Fluff
Summary:

A glimpse of family life with the Laurences, as Amy and Laurie go for an autumn stroll with little Bess.


Heart's Got Everything to Do With It (6700 words)
Fandom: Tin Man (US TV 2007)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wyatt Cain/DG
Characters: DG (Tin Man), Wyatt Cain, Azkadellia (Tin Man), Jeb Cain
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Kiss, Queen DG
Summary:

It was like the Quest had never ended at all; DG had just run out of signposts to follow. Well, except maybe one....


Heart Murmur (2856 words)
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Reunions, Cunnilingus, Hawkeye Pierce's canonical ED
Summary:

The woman who took the stage was a brunette, fading peroxide-blonde tips neatly tucked into a bun and graying at the temples. She looked better in a pantsuit than she ever had in fatigues, and she’d looked damn good in fatigues. Someone in the crowd wolf-whistled. She tapped her note cards to the podium with a glare that could jump start spontaneous combustion.

Margaret looked the same as ever, even brunette—like she was fully prepared to crush a man into dust for seeing her as less than she was.


The Broadwood Grand (4827 words)
Fandom: Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Colonel Brandon/Marianne Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility)
Additional Tags: Tags Contain Spoilers, Romance, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Friendship/Love, Romantic Friendship, Love Confessions, Falling In Love, Piano, Family Fluff, POV Third Person Limited, Requited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, Present Tense, Regency Romance, Inspired by Jane Austen, Inspired by Music, Happy Ending, Extended Scene, Canon Compliant
Summary:

Marianne Dashwood’s heart is an ocean, deep and vast and rich with life. He has seen it shimmer with the sunlight of affection, roil with the storms of heartbreak, and reel into the calmness of acceptance; but the breeze will blow when it chooses to blow, and Brandon—ever ready with his sails—would wait forever for good winds.


One Kiss is All it Takes (1470 words)
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker
Additional Tags: Getting Together, First Kiss, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker Needs A Hug
Summary:

After what happened on Bespin, Lando visits Luke in the infirmary.

radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)
([personal profile] radiantfracture Oct. 31st, 2025 11:36 am)
I am trying to remember a quotation that may or may not exist.

It is a bit like Kiss of the Spider Woman's "This dream is short, but this dream is happy."

Something like "this is a (something) story for bad times."

Any contenders?

{rf}
Happy Halloween! Having not slept for a variety of stupid reasons, I am appearing this year as the world's most tired Green Man.

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([personal profile] ljgeoff Oct. 31st, 2025 12:08 pm)
So I dont lose it: CucinaPro Manual Pasta Maker

This will also roll oats, make veggies chips, phyllo dough and puff pastry.
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([personal profile] ljgeoff Oct. 31st, 2025 09:45 am)
We're thinking of trying out a quarter acre each of several cereal crops:

- duram wheat
- khorasan wheat
- hard spring red wheat
- dent corn
- rye
- barley
- millet
- oats
- buckwheat

So that's two plus acres that'll need to be cleared. More like four acres, since we'll be companion planting our veggies in with the cereals.
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([personal profile] oursin Oct. 31st, 2025 04:44 pm)

Dept of, what will they think of next (some of this is, as I remarked elsewhere, resuscitating Ye Good Ol' Victorian Quackerie - though, as we concurred, VIBRATORS ARE NOT VICTORIAN!!!): With the menopause dildo, we've officially reached peak menopause bollocks.

(Declaration of interest: I once did a podcast with the author.)

***

Dept of, well, on the topic of dildos, or at least, urgent phallicism: I spent a year dating conservative [frothingly alt-right] men:

Something about getting ready to go on these dates made me feel like I was 18 again — except now I had the ability to run professional-level background checks, which I did. Not because I was operating on preconceived notions but because the few peers I told about my mission encouraged me to. Given some of the vitriol against women in online alt-right groups, they felt I should treat every date as if it were a threat to my life. I came up with a routine: before a date, I’d tell at least three people in advance where I was going and what time they should expect to hear from me by. I enlisted a friend who’s a former Navy SEAL to be my unofficial security consultant.

And they wonder why women are not dating....

And that's before getting to meet the actual doozies who are, apparently, not even the worst types on the dating apps.

***

Dept of, let's have some better news, good news about snails (the snails that one thought had been mown down in the ONward March of Progress, or at least, building much needed housing):

the snails are OK. Nothing bad is going to happen to the poor little Whirlpool Ramshorn Snail, the endangered creature which our Chancellor unfairly blamed for stopping a housing development, causing me to get grumpy on social media. But in following up to try and see what actually happened, I found out a bunch of interesting – and in my view extremely heartening – stuff.
.... it was always a false dichotomy, it was always possible to have the houses and the snails too.

***

Dept of gilded snails in a very different space: From snails to street signs: Soho’s history revealed on a new digital map - the snails on the facade of L'Escargot Restaurant.

***

Dept of, gosh I have met (many years ago) the curator of this exhibition: New York City celebrates the “Gay Harlem Renaissance”

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([personal profile] unicornduke Oct. 31st, 2025 11:18 am)
We were supposed to be open tonight for Halloween, free hayrides after dark, carved pumpkin walk, campfire, etc...

40 mph winds. we don't actually have a real building, our selling area is a glorified pole barn. So I rescheduled it and said we'd do it all tomorrow. I have an employee coming this afternoon for farm work (just texted him to change it to sunday woot) but my main goal for this afternoon is more pumpkin carving. I've got three pumpkins bins worth already done, probably need to do another bin or so worth. jigsaws work fantastic, plus a hole saw mounted on a drill for punching out the back for gletch cleanout.

I spent this morning taking down one small canopy and strapping the corners of the other two to tractors. My dad is out of town having fun this weekend, so I'm doing it solo. Not too bad to be honest, we did a pretty good strapping a few weekends ago when we had 30 mph winds, so it was mostly getting the tractors in place and putting straps around the axles in place of the wood totes and pumpkin bins we used last time. I doubled up all the small straps since my dad took the truck and all of the nice big 2 inch straps with him by accident. My mom is going to the hardware store anyway, so she's going to pick up some extras to keep here on the farm for this sort of situation. 

So now I've got the afternoon to carve, then relax tonight, so some spinning or maybe go over to my shed and finish the warp on the loom. Fantastic. I've got plans to take monday and tuesday off work, we had two groups reschedule to thursday and friday next week and then we are done for reals. But I want to bake things and make some food which works best when I have two days off in a row. I did successfully get my weavers guild show and sale inventory done, I have 25 items for the sale! Leftover key fobs from last year, a shawl and eleven skeins of yarn. I upped my price a little bit this year on the yarns but they are mostly pretty merinos or merino blends and I think they'll sell even with a slightly higher price. Still surprised I got that many done this year given everything. Someday soon I will have my CPW out of storage and it will be glorious.

My parents have floated a plan: get the office at the new house completely finished, get their desks and computers and then move their bedroom over there, so the work will be staring them in the face all the time and they'll be more motivated. They'd still need to cook here at the farm house, but if they manage that, I will be able to get a huge chunk of the shed over here in one go since their office will be my crafting room. that would be amazing, I could get the boxes in my room moved down and unpacked too. Maybe even wash a fleece??? wild. I can almost taste the off season  
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([personal profile] elisem Oct. 31st, 2025 10:32 am)
 Well, it was a good run. I managed to avoid getting the damn thing for more than five years. But it got me.

Am doing sensible things, and have a virtual visit with my GP (or I guess they call 'em PCPs now),and we shall see what she says. Meanwhile, my favorite advice from friends is REST LIKE A POTATO.

Juan has it too. And he was already disabled with Long COVID.

OK, heading towards sleep again.

Good wishes very much appreciated.
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([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll Oct. 31st, 2025 09:05 am)


James Nicoll Reviews saw its 3000th review on the 17th.

23 works reviewed. 12.5 by women (54%), 10 by men (43%), 0.5 by non-binary authors (2%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 10.5 by POC (46%).

More stats and a big chart here.
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([personal profile] sabotabby Oct. 31st, 2025 07:17 am)
HAPPY SPOOOOKY DAY and blessed Samhain if that's your thing.

This week's podcast episode sure is spooooooky! It's It Could Happen Here's "Occulture, William S. Burroughs, and Generative AI," and the moment that title popped up in my feed, I knew I'd be talking about it (even though I Don't Speak German covered Mother Night, this week, which is my favourite Vonnegut book. Maybe I'll talk about that one next week). 

I had never heard of the Occulture conference, which is...what you think it is. As a good little Marxist materialist, I am not a chaos magick practitioner or believer as such except that definitely magic and the occult are a terrain we should not cede to the enemy so I am not not a chaos magick believer, y'know? At the very least as a philosophical and narrative system it's something that I'm quite interested in.

And of course for all his being one of the most Problematic Faves of all my Problematic Faves—he killed his wife ffs—I never really got over my teenage obsession with William S. Burroughs. As the episode points out, he's lumped in with the Beats but more properly belongs with the Surrealists (and the Dadaists) in terms of what he was doing. And y'all know how I feel about the Surrealists and the Dadaists. So there's an unexpected amount of discussion of Burroughs as a magickian at the the conference and his techniques (some of which were extremely funny, such as cursing a restaurant that took his favourite thing off the menu) and particularly his use of technology to channel the non-human.

Which brings me to the argument that I get into way too fucking much, which is "well isn't GenAI basically the same as cut-up poetry," and that's apparently something that was asked repeatedly at this conference. Spoiler: No it is not. Like, neither artistically nor magickically, which is a relief as that wasn't necessarily where the discussion might have gone. The short version has to do with Third Mind theory, which is quite interesting, and again, I feel there's a much more materialist explanation for why it's not the same but I also appreciate the occultist explanation. 

Anyway it's a big meaty feast for my special interests and apparently there will be a second part dropping this weekend, so yay!

Tags:
...probably because I've not had much of a reading brain for the past few months. And I'm still not getting anywhere much with the final chapter/s of A Common Language, sigh.

On the other hand, I'm feeling better in general and am planning to start a new Couch to 5k on Monday next week. And I'm studying! I'm doing a course on book index construction, and yesterday also did the first half of a workshop on using macros in copy-editing. Both have been great so far. :)

What I've read

The Last Soul Among Wolves by Melissa Caruso: I enjoyed this rather better than the first book in the series, partly because it was less repetitive both in structure and in detail, but the plot about Kem's oh-so-special girlfriend's oh-so-evil mother is still annoying.

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North: I had to DNF this one, as my reading brain gave out partway through. Maybe another time.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Toward the Night by James Swallow: a fun, standard tie-in book with some nice character work (especially Erica and her great-great-aunt and their developing relationship), a cool concept and a really sweet epilogue. Good for reading when you cannot brain.

The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez: enjoyable story with some good characters (especially the golem), but every one of the many references to eucalyptus being a standard herb regularly used by fantasy-equivalent Jewish healers in this fantasy medieval eastern/northern European setting made me wince. It's not that you can't do that, but if you choose to do it, explaining how that particularly famous bit of stolen Indigenous Australian botanical IP got to where your characters are at a point in fantasy-history when there'd be little to no contact between the relevant fantasy-equivalent cultures even via go-betweens might help.

The Legacy of Arniston House by TL Huchu: I've enjoyed the previous books in this series, but this one just felt dull and flat and empty, and kind of mean. I won't be keeping an eye out for the next one.

Provenance by Ann Leckie: a fun quick reread. I enjoy Ingray and her family and misadventures much better than I do Translation State, which I just started a reread of after finishing this only to remember that I only really like Enae and hir story. Fingers crossed the upcoming Imperial Radch book will be more to my taste.

What's next:

I have the latest Benjamin January book on its way to me via the library (it's been in transit for some time, so it's probably coming from halfway across the state), and am looking forward to Claire North's Slow Gods and Robin Stevens's A Stocking Full of Spies hitting the bookshop at different points in November.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to get some writing done too - but it will have to wait until next week, as I'm off to the coast over the weekend for my niece's eighteenth birthday (which, when did that happen?!). She's just finished her Year 12 work in time for the big day, the clever girl. :)
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