Thursday evening. Apparently, Google can find only 68 instances of “Happy Thor’s Day” ever uttered in the entire human history. I’m a trailblazer!

Funny signs of life: yet another online conference at work, but this time with webcams. (We all stopped using them ages ago due to the creepiness factor.) I turned mine on. Moments later, a coworker messaged me with “GRIGORY! Your hair looks AWESOME!” Heh. At least there’s that, eh?

Today is the first day of the last quarter of this godforsaken year. A lot of big projects are wrapping up at long last. Some new ones are beginning. This calendar division is entirely arbitrary, of course, but nonetheless – I can’t help feeling that I’m one small yet significant step closer to my goals.

By the way, this is the last chance to download my “50 shades of yay” book for free – it’ll get back to its $2.99 price after midnight. I haven’t promoted the giveaway with any sort of energy or gusto, but hey, a few hundred people found and downloaded it nevertheless. If even one of them reads it and feels a little better as a result, this will have been worth it.

In covid news, there’s a scandal in Turkey. Their health minister has been fudging the numbers, counting only those who tested positive and had symptoms. The official count excludes the asymptomatic Turks who tested positive. The truth came out after an opposition leader claimed the real number is 20 times higher than the official count. These shenanigans should surprise absolutely no one, but they still make me wonder: how many other countries are deliberately downplaying covid’s impact, and to what extent? Future statisticians are going to have so much fun digging through all this dirt…