Just because I feel like sharing.

From Taltos, by Steven Brust, part of the Vlad Taltos series:

“It is a common misperception that those in the House of the Athyra have no doors in or out of their homes – the idea being that if one doesn’t know how to teleport, one doesn’t belong there. This is almost true, except that they don’t require their servants to know how to teleport. There is almost a door or two for deliveries of those goods the wizards and sorcerers of the keep consider too demeaning to fetch for themselves. Trivial things such as food, drink, and assassins. These items are delivered by wagons to a special receiving area in the rear, where they are received, each in its own way.

“Of course, the assassins aren’t usually expected and, one hopes, not noticed. Theirs is a sad lot, to be sure, with no servant within who knows to announce them. Nor, in fact, are they able to announce themselves, being hidden in a cask marked ‘Greenhills Wine, ’637.’”

Saturday miscellany

Last year's swiss chard looks pretty good, now that the snail-sheltering weeds are no longer hiding much of it from view. I guess I have to wait another month or so to plant tomatoes.

The new version of Hairspray is pretty fun.

It's unfortunate that the process of adding display logic to my dissertation survey makes me drowsy within the first minute or two, but I'm approaching the end.