Thinking about climate change and Colorado weather and the absolute capability of CDOT and realizing that The Shining is now an artifact of a past that doesn’t have even a whiff of possibility. We just don’t have places that get snowed in that way anymore, and communication goes everywhere.

Whoa. Yeah, true, and also wild--the fact that they were dependent on *radio* just really sunk in.

I’ve seen relatively recent news reports of needing a few days to dig some spots free of a blizzard’s worth, but that’s true in a lot of flatter places in the country, and it is *a few days* not “see you in the spring!”

one of my favorite books is The Westing Game and it held up really well for a few decades, but the whole "snowed in - with a murderer!" part just wouldn't happen now. land line phones being the only way to contact the outside world? ha.

Stranger sliding in to note: haven't read it in years, but IIRC when describing their life pre-Overlook, there's a small plot point about how they don't have a home phone. Which really feels like something that has been utterly foreign to folks in the US since, like, the 1980's if not a bit sooner.

(I realized I’ve never read The Shining, so I’m doing a couple chapters whenever the cat demands cuddles, and it’s a much better book than the slaughter Kubrick inflicted upon it.) (But whoa, definitely written by someone struggling with substances and mistaking not drinking for sobriety.)

this is why the transporter had to go on the blink in Star Trek. Useful not to have to have shuttle sets and shuttle scenes but hell on the rest of the plot.