It's so baffling that Doyle was also the guy who used science to debunk Kohn's tuberculin "cure" for TB. Yay facts! Boo facts! So good! And so bad!

And I love her dearly for that gift, and for the thousand other acts of love she's given me over the decades. One of those is the career I built, in part, because she showed me libraries, and librarians. So. Here's to Elizabeth Rogers, MLS, retired.

It was a world of infinite wonder and possibility and it was one of the greatest joys of my childhood, that endless access to books. It wasn't through my local library, but it was a librarian who did it.

I read Swallows and Amazons. Mandy. The Westing Game. Swiss Family Robinson. All of Anne of Green Gables. All of Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, and Judy Blume. The Boxcar Children. Trixie Belden. The Borrowers.

I don't specifically remember getting the boxes, but I remember that my bookshelves were filled with books that I hadn't read yet. And that was a wonder all itself. I could go pick something and there would be a new story inside.

Betsy is a librarian, and at the time worked at a regional library district as a consultant for other libraries, and doing collections work on the central collection. She would send the deaccessioned copies to me, her incredibly avid reader niece.

I loved it all the way through. So great!

Every. Single. One. For 20 minutes. Because he said he would, and then it got popular.

And he still does it.

They says something.

So go listen, yeah?

www.weopenatsix.com

So. Go listen to episode 1. It's short, and with your time.

Later episodes get longer because the audience clearly could tolerate it, and recent episode times have a 20 minute pad on the end because Joe, the writer/producer, reads the screen name of every Monte Cristo level Patreon supporter.

2024 was my year of doubling down on cozy stories. The world is fucked up enough without needing to do any deep dives into fictional misery. Midnight Burger is cozy. It's a family, and they care, and they don't abandon anyone, and so far, they always win.

Also, REALLY FUNNY.

Also, it's serious and thinky and there are revolutions and genocides and evil empires and Bad Guys - but it's also kind, and funny, and emotionally generous, and deeply human even when the characters aren't human.

Did I mention funny? Because it's fucking funny.

Why? Because if you were a time traveling, dimension-hopping diner, wouldn't you have an alternate dimension with wolves in YOUR freezer?

I would. Totes.

And then you replaced that guy with Gloria, a dispirited taqueria owner who just wants the world to be better. Except the DMV employee doesn't leave; he waits tables.

Because the TARDIS is a diner, obviously. And there are wolves in the deep freeze.

More why: it's like if you took Doctor Who, made it American, added an academic theoretician, and a prodigy engineer who becomes a space pirate, added two incorporeal companions who are also old-timey Arkansawyer Baptist preachers, and replaced the Doctor with a DMV employee.

Why? Well, it's great. And it's been great since episode 1. It's still great at the almost-end of season 4. And it's got a couple side-story threads that are also great.

In short: fuck healthcare CEOs.

I know that no one in my family is dying over this issue. But we shouldn't have to be dying in order to get what we already paid for, and my kid deserves to not live in pain for the next 80 years.

And I know "dying" isn't an indicator of getting bills paid, either.