Searing moments of (other people's) pain!

[elfs]

Ouch #1: Seen in a book review:

The habitat arrives in Saturn orbit and sends a lumbering probe down to the surface of Saturn's moon. The probe refuses to upload its data. The habitat experiences a series of minor malfunctions that slightly affect certain things, like the orientation of its solar array. There's a presidential election, in which the incumbent promises that everybody will get rich mining Saturn's rings for water, and his opponent promises to repeal the "zero growth protocol" that prevents people having babies. One of the two candidates wins the election. The lumbering probe trundles about a Wikipedia entry on Titan. The data gets uploaded. The minor malfunctions get sorted. That's your lot; there is no more.

OUCH! "The lumbering probe trundles about a Wikipedia entry on Titan." I cringed when I read that. And I thought I was harsh on books I didn't like. Y'know what's really startling? The book in review is Titan, by Ben Bova. The review is by Adam Roberts in Strange Horizons. This book won the Campbell this year!

Ouch #2: TV Chef Gordon Ramsay needed urgent hospital treatment after burning his scrotum in a kitchen accident. "Suddenly I felt this searing heat - my balls were burning. You wouldn't believe how much this hurts."

Comments

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

great balls o' fire! as my dad used to say when he dropped a cigarette in his lap.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

"Chef's Nuts Roasting On An Open Fire"