Russell Asplund
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russellasplund.bsky.social
Russell Asplund
@russellasplund.bsky.social
16 followers 6 following 5 posts
One man, scorned and covered with scars. Science Fiction and Fantasy writer, occasional guitar player, professional nerd and father of 7. He/Him LGBTQ Kids.
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russellasplund.bsky.social
Russell Asplund @russellasplund.bsky.social · May 29
Latest poem. I think of it as part of my Love Poems for Aging Nerds series.
Flight of Fancy   Last night the ceiling fan cast shadows that seemed to form a Miyazaki aircraft, impossible six-winged and serpentine with a swept-back tail and I imagined it could take us away to some old-world city where you and I could set up a shop, rundown and ramshackle, but inviting; be the weird old couple who helped send the heroine on her way with helpful words, or a needed meal, a comedic break in the action, in an animated world where all problems could be solved in a two hour run time (90 minutes in the American edit).   Then late at night, when no one was around, (in a scene cut from the American version) we'd magically transform into vines and slither up the stone side of the shop, moving upward, twisting around each other till at the top, all intertwined, under the moon and bright scattered stars we'd blossom. Our hidden, youthful selves displayed in golden, glowing flowers revealing to that distant sky what could usually only be read in sideways glances and secret smiles shared over decades.   But the hero would sense it stopping by the shop in the morning, and think of the heroine, and rush to pursue.   Russell Asplund 5/25
russellasplund.bsky.social
Poetry of the day.
August 28, 2025 at 4:37 AM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
atrupar.com
Tim Cook pathetically kisses Trump's ass by pretending him with a "24 karat gold" gift
August 6, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
justinfalcone.com
Awful. When I drive, I'm reading Finnegan's Wake
dennycarter.bsky.social Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · May 29
The only time I really feel like "we're cooked" is when I drive around and see every third driver literally watching or scrolling their phones while driving. Not at a red light. While navigating traffic. The addiction is total.
May 29, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
ruffbun.bsky.social
honestly I might be a mediocre writer at best, but by god every mediocre word is my own. People have forgotten that sometimes you just need to write some garbage to get over a block!! Go back and fix it later, but write ANYTHING!
criminalerin.bsky.social Erin Fogg says Free Link @criminalerin.bsky.social · May 28
I just

C'mon

The tool that gives you like 50-100 words when you're stuck is inside your skull!!!! Or maybe weed! Or a nice walk! Or literally anything else!
A post on r/WritingWithAI from yesterday with 11 upvotes and 37 comments. Al has made my writing worse? I have a middlingly successful pen name in a romance niche, and the whole point of using Al was to speed through the commercial work so I could save my real creative energy for the big personal projects I actually care about. But it's taking longer to get a decent book with Al than it would to just write it myself from scratch. The constant editing loop is destroying my writing process. Instead of drafting then editing like every writing guide tells you, I'm trapped in endless tweaking of Al-generated text that isn't even good. I'm spending so much time wrestling with this stuff, editing and re-editing and trying to make it not sound terrible, that by the time I'm done with the commercial stuff I have nothing left for my passion projects. This isn't about the ethics of Al, just the functionality. I feel trapped. The commercial work was supposed to be the income that would buy me time and mental space for the writing that matters to me. Instead, I'm pouring all my energy into fixing bad Al prose while my literary work sits there, untouched. In the end, the commerical work does sell, but when I look at how many hours it takes to get a decent draft I feel like I would be better off drafting manually. The thing that was supposed to free up my creative bandwidth is completely draining it instead. Does anyone know of a tool that gives you like 50-100 words when you're stuck? Not full scenes or chapters that change your voice - just enough to get unstuck and keep your momentum going. Everything I've tried either generates way too much or completely derails what I'm writing. Is anyone else dealing with this? Where you thought Al would handle the "grunt work" but it's actually consuming more of your creative resources than doing it the old way? I'm starting to wonder if I should abandon Al entirely and go back to pure manual drafting.
May 29, 2025 at 12:32 PM
russellasplund.bsky.social
Latest poem. I think of it as part of my Love Poems for Aging Nerds series.
Flight of Fancy   Last night the ceiling fan cast shadows that seemed to form a Miyazaki aircraft, impossible six-winged and serpentine with a swept-back tail and I imagined it could take us away to some old-world city where you and I could set up a shop, rundown and ramshackle, but inviting; be the weird old couple who helped send the heroine on her way with helpful words, or a needed meal, a comedic break in the action, in an animated world where all problems could be solved in a two hour run time (90 minutes in the American edit).   Then late at night, when no one was around, (in a scene cut from the American version) we'd magically transform into vines and slither up the stone side of the shop, moving upward, twisting around each other till at the top, all intertwined, under the moon and bright scattered stars we'd blossom. Our hidden, youthful selves displayed in golden, glowing flowers revealing to that distant sky what could usually only be read in sideways glances and secret smiles shared over decades.   But the hero would sense it stopping by the shop in the morning, and think of the heroine, and rush to pursue.   Russell Asplund 5/25
May 29, 2025 at 9:16 PM
russellasplund.bsky.social
The Constitution Shouldn’t Have to Wait talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-c...
The Constitution Shouldn’t Have to Wait
You’ve seen our liveblog, which provides a detailed and technical look at...
talkingpointsmemo.com
May 15, 2025 at 9:15 PM
russellasplund.bsky.social
For DOGE, And All Criminal Actors, There Must Be Consequences and Accountability talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/for-d...
For DOGE, And All Criminal Actors, There Must Be Consequences and Accountability
For a couple weeks, the green world has been rife with rumors...
talkingpointsmemo.com
April 19, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
Ever since Bush vs Gore, the MO of the Rehnquist-Roberts Supreme Court is to start with the desired political result and then work backwards to find some obscure law or technicality that supports the desired outcome. They are standing the law on its head.
April 8, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
internethippo.bsky.social
You can probably trace this back to the Nixon pardon, the post-2008 "Too big to jail" decline in white collar prosecutions, and of course more recently the half hearted Trump prosecution. These are fundamentally political, not legal problems
davidjroth.bsky.social David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · Mar 30
One of the defining feelings in American life, for decades now, is elites doing plainly criminal shit and nothing at all happening as a result. It is deranging in a way that virtually nothing else is. Media fixates on perceived street lawlessness but shit like this matters much more in my opinion.
jonathancohn.bsky.social Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · Mar 30
Dereliction of responsibility by the court. It is so flagrantly illegal. www.huffpost.com/entry/us-wis...
March 31, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
davidjroth.bsky.social
As a Senator, I serve a cause higher than what my constituents might "want," or the interests of the labor unions that support my party, or even the continued function of the republic itself. And that cause is uh... hmm this is embarrassing. Wow. I definitely had it written down. On a post-it. Haha.
March 14, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
alexandraerin.com
Due to no fault of our own and unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, it transpires that there was actually no gold inside the magical, golden egg-laying goose. We will now light the world on fire, in case that brings us more magical geese.
July 25, 2023 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
alexandraerin.com
So far, this goose has laid an egg of pure, solid gold every day. This is terrible, as there is absolutely no potential for growth and our operation has stagnated at 1 gold egg/day. We now have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to maximize our revenue stream by killing the goose to get more gold.
July 25, 2023 at 2:10 AM
Reposted by Russell Asplund
rajandelman.bsky.social
Do you think anyone working at Elon's Twitter headquarters has died from rolling their eyes too hard
July 23, 2023 at 3:39 PM