Note: this review is spoiler-free. I read Malazan: Book of the Fallen for the first time about 3 years ago and fell in love. The massive scope, the cast, the humour, the action; everything about it was what I wanted in a book, pondourous sections included. I used to have a review for it on this site and can’t for the life of me remember why I removed it. In any case, Malazan has cemented itself as one of my favorite book series of all time, and I’ve reread the whole series once and the first 5 books perhaps a half dozen more times. Read more...

Note: this review is spoiler-free. The last few books I’ve read have been a bit more serious in tone or ponderous; The Black Company, WWZ, Gormenghast (still working on this one). Minus Discworld, I can’t say I’ve read any lighthearted fantasy books, let alone a slice-of-life one. Legends and Lattes was recommended quite a bit online, so I figured I’d give it a shot. To summarize the plot quickly (and spoiler free), it’s the story of an orc who opens a coffee shop. Read more...

I thought the last nice weather window would be the hike I had done on the 6th, but nature decided to grace us with one more snow-free day in Switzerland before I leave, so I decided to head back to the Saentis massive and visit the other side. I started at Bruelisau and hiked first to Saemtisersee, then to Faehlensee. At this point, my good fortune began to fade as the tube to my water bladder from solid. Read more...

I’m heading home for the holidays in a week and a bit, and wanted to get a last hike or two in. I really enjoyed the route up the Chaiserstock and decided I’d give it a shot, and readjust my plans if necessary if conditions aren’t ideal. Well, I didn’t expect nearly a meter of snow dumped on the mountainside. The regular route past the local via ferrata was impassable, 40+ degree slopes with shear drops and lots of powder snow. Read more...

I decided to do this hike again with better weather, with much more success. The route up through the pass to the summit was pre-post-holed by other hikers, making it much easier going than before. There was a bit more exposure than I was necessarily comfortable with one point, but that section was thankfully quite short before opening to a nice flat field before the summit. The view from the top was spectacular, with views of Pilatus, Grosser and Kleiner Mythen, Gross Aubrig, and Chaeserrugg (and a billion other peaks I don’t know the name of and will have to get around to hiking eventually). Read more...

After over a week of not really doing any exercise, gym or hiking, I figured it was time to crank out a quick hike. Since the weather was supposed to be bad (a few mm of snow at lower altitudes), I figured I’d do a shorter, safer hike, and picked Bockmattli thanks to its sub-30 degree incline for most of the ascent, lower altitude, and proximity to another hike I had previously done but never gotten a good look from afar, Gross Aubrig. Read more...

I haven’t been able to update the gemini version of this blog for the past few months because of some bug causing new posts to not be added to the index.gmi file. I probably should have looked into it sooner, because it turns out all I needed to do was add type: post to the header of my .md source files. Turns out the newer version of Hugo I’ve been using doesn’t do it by default, and I never noticed it was missing. Read more...

I intended to do this last Sunday, but ended up only sleeping three hours and figured it wasn’t worth trying on so little sleep, so I did it yesteray instead. It really was unfortunate, since on Sunday the grass was green on the south side and the sun was out, but by yesterday, a bunch of snow had been dumped on the mountain. I ended up making it within 15 minutes of the summit, but had to turn back due to some snow drifts covering up the switchbacks, with a nice steep drop on the side if I happened to slip or the snow shifted. Read more...

I went for a hike with my roommates yesterday (for the first time since moving here, took a little while) to Gross Aubrig, on the basis of 1. it being near Zurich and 2. it being a shorter hike, so more suitable for busy students. The hike itself was nice, as was the companionship. Something I’ve come to appreciate across hikes is being able to drawing connections between regions of the country via peaks. Read more...

A gene variation that occurs to a hatched proto-chicken, if not occuring in the sperm or eggs, will not be passed on to the animal’s offspring, meaning it could not possibly be the first chicken since the gene variation would die with it. If the gene variation occurs in the sperm or egg, or in their early union, then the offspring (first in the form of an egg, then that of a chicken) will inherit (and be able to pass on) that gene variation. Read more...