So I finally got around to reading John Scalzi's Redshirts, which is pretty much as funny as advertised as it works its way through a parodistic version of Star Trek from the resdhirts' point of view. You can't take it too seriously, because (much like every ST series ever) the science is all bafflegab and bogosity, but Scalzi does something cool with the plot and manages to take what he could have played as the most brutal kind of slapstick ever and turn it into something touching. Which is why the novel has two endings and three codas; it's pretty much the opposite of James Webb's Fields of Fire, which as I observed here has multiple unhappy endings. Worth reading.

I thought I might have read 1635: The Cannon Law before, and I was right. Good book; Andrew Dennis and Eric Flint write very well together.

Whoever owns the rights to Orange Crush, Wyler's, and Hawaiian Punch have a good thing out there with their new "flavor enhancers". I picked up the Orange Crush and Wyler's peach-flavored ice tea Friday and some seltzer water yesterday, and after an unfortunate incident involving a liter of vanilla-flavored Polar Seltzer and the Orange Crush, I've got the knack of adding the enhancer without creating an instant fountain. It's a good alternative to paying far out the ass for Diet Crush, and mixing the Crsuh flavoring with vanilla seltzer results in a decent approximation of a Dreamsicle.