Hi Weird, sorry for the double post.
The death of the Pope brings me so many memories about the time he was elected and our discussions here is Weird. It was a moment of glory for me, as the most active Argentinian member of the forum  . It was so shocking...
I think he did a good job. RIP.

Maen.
Dina, I actually thought about you yesterday, when I heard that the Pope had died. He was the first Argentinian pope ever. I think even the first South American one.
I liked that in the beginning he wanted to change a lot in the Catholic church. I still think that he wanted change, but the institution is so big so that he was kind of blocked a lot.

Also I do think that the Catholic church needs to adapt more to modern times. In my country there is such an increase of people turning away from faith in the last years. I guess it us in part due to at least the Catholic church almost living in the middle ages. Some rules did not transfer well into modern society.
I hope that the next pope will continue what the late pope has tried to start and modernise the church.

I am not a very religious person myself. I would rather say that I am almost agnostic, but I did grow up in a mostly Catholic region. I remember that as a child I was afraid of priests and God. Most priests I knew seemed so far away from reality, I could not imagine they understood everyday problems.
But still the church belonged into the society and was rooted there through many cultural aspects.

In Germany, religion is rather a private matter except for the rules on religious holidays, like no noisy partying on Good Friday or most shops closed on Sundays.
Otherwise there usually is no public display of one's private beliefs.

LOL, I just remember my culture shock when I went to an US American service. At that time I was a member of a temporary Christmas choir organised by the families of American soldiers in the city. Most singers were Americans. I was the only German singer without ties to any American soldier. I just came because they advertised in the newspaper that they needed more singers.
It was fun, I met some nice people, some of them I could not understand.
Before every rehearsal they would hold hands, bow their heads and pray. I thought that was weird, but OK. I wasn't used to this kind of devotion. We don't do that. We just meet, greet each other and start to sing, even in a church choir.

But the shock came during mass. There was an American preacher and the way he prayed I have so far only seen on TV in some movies. And I thought this wasn't real. It was fascinating to see that in real life. And suddenly people all around me were shouting how much they loved God and Jesus.
I almost had a heart attack when the man next to me jumped up to shout out his love for Jesus.
I was used to being quiet in church except for prayer. And even then you do it in kind of a murmur.


In our choir we have a relatively new singer. She joined about a year ago. She is from Nigeria and her way of expressing her beliefs reminded me a bit of my experience in the American service. She usually tones it down a lot. And I've asked her if she feels that our service is somehow not enough, as she is used to people being more open. But she told me, that she understood that just because someone isn't expressing their beliefs like she does, this doesn't mean theirs is less strong than hers.

Yeah. I thought I'd share that with you.  Whatever you make of it.


Also: there is an Argentinian school in Antarctica? Wow.

Here is my Dresden Files appreciation post: 😃

I lost count. I am also relistening. Started with Dead Beat, now I am at Changes. To prepare for the next book.
I love to read about all the ideas and opinions here. It enriches the books so much.

And Dresdenphiles should definitely be a thing, lol.

These are usually pop-culture references, that the monsters never get.

In this case, I think this person spotted it:  https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/11ys5hu/comment/jdbwnnj/

Aaaah, I am like Barrowill, I didn't get the pop-culture reference.

@Dina

I hope your neighbors who are building things are far away, so their noised do not bother you too much.

I'm afraid not. They are about 3 metres from our house. But their house will be built faster than the others, because they won't build any basement and the walls will be prefabricated ones. Also the builders are very nice people, they always announce when they will be blocking the street. As there is only one way out, it is crucial for us to know when we need to park outside. Not all builders did this and one was even blocking our exit one time. And as they spoke neither German nor English, I needed to show them with gestures that they needed to put their stuff 2 metres further to the right. I had my doubts that they understood, because they just looked at me confused, lol. But 5 minutes later they moved the stuff like I asked them. The block would have lasted for two days.
So I am quite happy with the new ones. I memorised the name and when we build our future shed for the bikes (if we ever do this) I will ask them to do the digging and the concrete.

Spoiler for White Night:

@Dina.
I can imagine how exhausting teaching can be. When I have an intern or an apprentice with me at work, everything takes 3 times as long as it would alone and at the end of the day I have a headache because I talked so much and didn't have time to drink enough.

About 12Months: when he finished writing in February, I was very excited to have the book this year. It is only 10 months from now but it feels like eternity.

Also it is my husband's birthday, which means, I can not start reading at once and have to wait until the guests are gone, lol. Could make me a shitty host perhaps.
But as it is a Tuesday, I am sure he will want to have the party on the weekend. Though there will still be at least my mother as a visitor.

Micro's birthday is on Tuesday and there are not many relatives there because of work.
And later that week I have to go to an indoor trampolin park with 11 kids. Yay 
I hope I won't have to jump myself. I am only 0.3 kg from maximum weight. Could be embarrassing.

Back to the book: maybe, the date is a new placeholder and we'll get an earlier release once editing is done.

Cool. I wonder what the cover will be.

At first I was a bit shocked at the release date. But it seems to be consistent on several sellers' websites.
That's almost 12 months after he finished writing. I thought it would be faster considering there is supposed to be a lot of pre-editing due to the beta readers.
I would have expected to have the book by late October or November 2025.
At least there is a date now. I am happy to see this.

Amazon often uses placeholder dates. I suspect this is one.

I fear not. The former placeholder date was 2027. They changed it recently. But if it changes to an earlier date, I would not mind. At all. 😇 Just saying. 😅

I asked the new GROK 3 a.i. and it estimated about 6-9 months after the finished manuscript based on all the info it looked up.  Publisher history for other books....etc..   My guess is October 31st,  Harry's birthday.

This would be cool, but unfortunately October 31st is a Friday. New books are rarely published on Fridays. I'm not sure, if it is Tuesday or Thursday in the US.