Hey! We should totally do this. At Tim's house, of course.

I think the theatre is scheduled for completion in January, 2028.

We could throw him a "welcome back to the rest of your house" party.

Will you make some of your "chocolate" cake?

I want to live in LA and visit Tim's house!

Ok. I don't really want to live in LA, just to visit Tim's house when I visit there. And this is not at all intended to actually make an attempt to invite myself, or to imply anything bad about anyone who knows Tim personally and can visit. That's great. After all, I know people that probably wouldn't invite you over because they don't know you, although they probably would if they knew you, because I'm sure you're all wonderful people. It's just every now and then I get the LA envy and the people who know people envy and....

Never mind.

Will you make some of your "chocolate" cake?

You know it, girlfriend!

I've never been to Tim's house. Nor has he been to mine. Though he's always invited. As long as he brings Profit DVDs and is nice to Ruby.

I'm pretty much of the opinion that Heinlein rocked, but I really started reading him in college, after I had gotten a huge influx of history, politics, and social history in my brain. I was more intrigued by the ideas and wordplay and references he threw in to things I found that others thought were really obscure. Also, placing him in the proper context as to what was going on in the mainstream writing world, he was always trying to go beyond what (most) others were doing. He just wanted to wrote for himself and people liked what he wrote.

In fact, it is quite evident in his posthumous book "Grumbles from the Grave" that he had to deal with a lot of petty self-styled arbiters of "what is proper" in some of his stories, particularly the juvies. I never dwelled on if his characters were "realistic," or not, as I tend to accept behavior of an odd character to simply be a character trait or a staple of pulp novels of the time. As he got older and as usual in ill health, he started tying as many of his stories and plotlines together, to irregular success. I shrug off a lot for a good story. I enjoy his writing "voice" and often got caught up in the plots. But then again, I also read the entire Lensmen series by Doc Smith, and those had a really dense sentence structure.

I guess I view his work sort of as a Dirk Gently-style Holistic way. Some do not stand up over time, but at the time they were printed many were cutting edge in ideas and execution.

For instance, I was told Stranger in a Strange Land was the first Science Fiction novel to make the NYT bestseller list? That's baffling to me.

t /off the cuff rambling

The movie is filled with shots of Jennifer Connolly in a white t-shirt and no bra getting Sprayed Down with Various Liquids. This makes her Slippery and Difficult to Rescue when she keeps clumsily getting herself caught by Enemy Mashers.

I'm thinking 50-50 this was probably sarcasm, but thank you anyway, because now Jennifer Connolly is romping around my brain in a wet T-shirt.

Now I'm off to read "Barrel Bear" - this is turning out to be a really good day.

I was pretty much kidding. But

I think the theatre is scheduled for completion in January, 2028.

That gives us plenty of time to come up with our infiltration mission scenario. Clearly, we'll need SCUBA gear for the moat but I'm a little concerned about humping it over the gates.

Maybe we should drop in from a helicopter. I know a guy.

Betsy's right. The juveniles, I think, hold up best of all, because they aren't hampered by Heinlein's attempts to wedge in his concepts about politics and gender relations. They're almost all about the story, and when he was at his best, he told great stories.

I do still love The Green Hills of Earth. Makes me sniffly.