Scott Stein

My novels are narrated by a coffee machine robot who uses way too many footnotes. Book one: “A constant delight.” —Publishers Weekly, starred Book two: “Consistently dances on the edge of absurdity; it’s a great and witty time.” —Vulture scottsteinonline.com www.amazon.com/dp/B08RB4S319

Today. No electronic devices permitted.

The house is burning down around him and he's obsessing over the carpet you put in the den 15 years ago.

I was behind this contractor truck today and their slogan sounds like something from They Live. I don’t know what it is they think they’re saying. Is “Our job is your compliance” an expression I’m not familiar with?

The tinpot dictator’s tantrum is coming from inside the house.

"Grandpa has lost it."

The house is burning down around him and he's obsessing over the carpet you put in the den 15 years ago.

Your daughter is creative. Your daughter loves animals. You daughter is empathetic.

Same dude is probably concerned that woke Star Wars portrays the Empire as bad.

Tech executives engineering a prompt so their personal AI assistant can help them bond with their dog: Chat, who's a good boy?

Asking AI to pet my dog for me.

I understand the problem with purity tests but I also don't want this water to give me explosive diarrhea.

I might be entering my indoor houseplant era

Vertebrates 2028

Vertebrates 2028

JERRY 2028

Saw my very first political TV ad saying liberals are racist against white people. I hope this means they’re getting desperate.

Someone is just learning that the cheesecake factory is not a cheesecake factory. "What do you mean, it's a restaurant? All these years, I thought it was like that conveyor-belt scene from I Love Lucy, but cheesecakes instead of chocolate."

October azaleas hanging on.

I just read the two student stories for Tuesday’s Writing Fiction workshop. One is a sci-fi futuristic body modification suspense horror and one is an isolated village vampire horror.

"I only eat artisanal, farm-to-table cheesecakes."

Mike Johnson: Get me a focus group [Angry that his staff only talked to ten million people]

This will sound like a drugs question but it is not a drugs question it is a houseplant question. Can grow lights be enough for indoor plants that only get a little indirect light? Are there certain plants that would do well like that? (Cheap grow lights that come with the plant stand.)

If my posts amuse you at all, you can get the 63,000-word versions, complete with characters and plots.

Paragraphs FTW

I'm not sure 100 of these dudes could beat up one gorilla. [Gorilla rips arms of first guy out of sockets, bites second guy's face off. Ninety-eight guys poop themselves and run.]

If I tell you not to eat at the new Taco Bell that Sauron just opened, I am *not* making fun of all Taco Bells owned by people who are not Sauron.

So many people are in the first generation to ever know or care about things.

I generally don't want to read books in a series written after the author is dead even if it's written by a human being. Write a Jeeves novel if you must, but don't expect me to consider it one no matter what the estate says.

This guy is driving the iceberg

My former student Madison Betts has started writing about other writers and covering book events in the Philadelphia area. madisonbetts.substack.com

Looking forward to the Nathan Fielder documentary about Elon Musk

Me: Kafka was a great writer and we can learn a lot from him. Someone on Bluesky: He was a bad boyfriend. Do better.

Nobody: Me:

I saw the movie everyone is talking about, am now convinced Nathan Fielder was the mastermind behind Theranos.

Understanding history and politics would be so much easier if the bad guys just called themselves The Legion of Doom.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions but the road we're on, paved with bad intentions, gets there faster.

When you’re in the 26th year of your midlife crisis, it might be time to rename it.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions but the road we're on, paved with bad intentions, gets there faster.

After they read the 1963 novel Planet of the Apes and watched the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, my students read Kafka's "Report to an Academy" this week. I guess I went ape about apes.

It sometimes works for writing novels

To be fair, Confucius did call for political leaders to do a good job.