I’ve read some of Crichton’s other books, not all but a few, and I get it. I wouldn’t rate them so high. But I don’t consider these two to be that kind of book.

Only classics? Geez. OP, forget my recommendations.

Correct answer:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39358054/best-sci-fi-books/

https://thegreatestbooks.org/lists/359

The best science fiction has to offer:

Metro 2033

Sphere

Jurassic Park

Roadside Picnic

Metamorphosis

Add from Stephen King:

Night Shift

4 Minutes to Midnight

(Both are novellas/story collections)

And also:

The Call of Cthulhu and other weird tales

Absolutely. A few months after this I went directly to the person above my boss and explained the situation- mental health, physical health, turned into dependence on weekly psychologist sessions.

Basically told me to get over it.

This was a non profit organisation dedicated to helping homeless, refugees, victims of domestic violence, and elderly people who are unable to afford aged care. The people on the ground doing the work were amazing people. But the people in charge were all cosplaying as big business shitheads.

Shit job from 10 years ago. Getting too drunk at the office Christmas party and talking so much shit about my horrible fucking boss to a couple of influential senior managers who are close to the CFO. Freaked out all weekend about it, severe anxiety attacks. That mixed with the hangover I was just vomiting all weekend.

And then: Run into one of those senior managers early in the office on Monday morning, apologised for being inappropriate. Get a response “oh, we all know how bad she is, can’t believe you haven’t quit yet”.

Nobody would risk that fucker coming back for anything.

I use the Steam controller, (obviously not helpful since they don’t make it anymore) most of the time.

I also have the remake of the old Xbox “duke” from a few years back. The largeness of it in my smaller hands always felt surprisingly comfortable. It’s wired and recognised as generic xbox one controller - BUT only when running steam. If steam isn’t open, then the controller continuously turns off and back on every 20 seconds.

I have a few DS4 controllers sitting here that still work. Eh. Not much use but they work fairly well. I don’t really like the PlayStation control design.

I have never tried a Switch / Switch-compatible controller on yet. My partner has a couple for… the Switch! But I’m hoping they do well because I just bought my daughter a Sonic-themed, Gamecube-style wired controller for her upcoming birthday (she obsessed with Sonic and saying she wants to play a game one day instead of just watching). It would be good if she can just take it between playing Switch with her mum or PC with me.

Final comments -it’s wired or replaceable batteries for me. So many dead DS3 and DS4 controllers sitting around from years back that won’t charge, or last about 15 minutes. But wires never get in the way anyway, and I always have eneloop AAs ready to go.

Trick or treating isn’t so much of a thing in Australia, even though the idea of Halloween and dressing up has become more popular.

Anyway, no one has ever done it in our neighbourhood, but just in case I buy a bag of chupa chups in October in case anyone knocks on the door.

I think he’d have one thing to say

“The joke Is on you!”

But there are so many dodgy similar looking ones that auto complete if you’re typing it.

I went to type in the aka.ms to find a bit locker recovery key. And didn’t realise it autocorrected to something like akam.ms and it was a super sketchy site about bit locker recovery. Luckily I realised straight away even MS wouldn’t host a website like the one I saw.

Gravy. I put gravy on a ton of things. People look like they’re going to be sick when I term them I have pasta with gravy.

I can’t speak for the UK but I believe the situation would probably be same as Australia. That is, there are a bunch of different ways to cut chips.

The thicker chips you mentioned are called steak cut chips.

The fries (thin, McDonald style) are called shoestring fries.

Long, not thin but not thick (best reference I have here KFC style, but don’t know if they’re the same in North America), would be known as straight cut chips.

Sir-Racha. I think it’s Australia only, it’s stocked at our local supermarket and the only thing we’ve ever found that replaces original sriracha for us.

https://www.sir-racha.com

Our bird isn’t with us anymore, but years ago I bought her a special made backpack with mesh windows and some wooden perches inside it so I could take her outside. It was excellent.

OpenTyrian

But in Australia you CAN get an old Thinkpad, so…

Where I work; the public facing staff, security and customer service roles, are now offered to wear one at the start of their shift. They all want to use one.

These workers face abuse - physical assault, threats, harassment - from members of the public.

What has been found is that when they turn the body worn camera on, the other person tends to stop the abuse or at least de-escalates somewhat. (Prior to having body worn cameras available, some of these staff had tried to use their phone to film when in an incident, but it almost always triggered an immediate violent response - one staff had their phone taken and smashed, another was hit in the face)

There has been a decrease in mental health injury claims since using these. My own talks with these staff are that they feel safer, and had asked their employer to procure more body worn cameras as there wasn’t enough for all the staff.

The staff are not required to have them constantly on, they press a button to switch it on when an aggressive situation is forming or they believe they are in danger.

Dink Smallwood and various dmods.

Sonic 3 AIR, and the Sonic 8bit Remakes because my daughter can’t get enough Sonic.

I just this afternoon rolled up a new character in Stardew Valley.

Uh, remembering how sharp those bits of steel were.

Your family needs to replace that 2tb with 500gb and then you’ll be all set!