+Dinner with awesome friends
+Beers and cheese munchie platters with onion jam and candied pecans
+Daylight until 8:15
-Rain now
-Rain tomorrow?
-Rain on Sunday too?

Well, drat. I think I'll try to drag the Harpy outside tomorrow if it's at all nice, and go into work on Sunday, which looks like more of a sure thing for rain.

This time next week, I will be in Texas. Looking for Birkenstock Girls. Or maybe Cowboy Boot Girls. cool new indie music acts.

::bounce::

I hope it's hot. I need more suntan.

Current Mood: weird

Am I too far behind to be starting a new Ni90? Hopefully not. And I have quite a bit done so far, so that'll make up a bit for the lag. I finished the last book I started here, though it too be a bit longer than 90 days (college does that, I suppose). BUT NOW, I'm working on a creative thesis for my senior year, so writing is not only a hobby but a requirement too!

The project, in case anyone is interested, is called The Suits--at least it is for now. It's a new mythology for the postmodern age (i.e.: now, LOL), based upon Neil Gaiman's Sandman, classical mythology, a bit of the Bible, and a LOT of anime. It's also very musically influenced (as each chapter is tentatively going to start with a new song quote...).

It's called The Suits because each god is based upon a particular royal face card within the Poker Deck (and oddly enough, I just found out, the Tarot deck, as poker cards are a bastardization of Tarot cards--yay research). It's looking to be pretty epic, and could even extend past the 65,700 mark.

I look forward to working alongside you all again (I haven't seen anyone since last summer, so it's been a while), and I'm sure that I'll be reporting in for my share of mocking (though we can always hope not, right?).

Current Mood: energetic

On Wednesday, May 28th, I’ll be packing up boxes and such.  On Thursday, May 29th, I’ll be loading a truck and getting ready to leave Vegas.  If anyone feels like helping me load the truck on Thursday, there will be pizza and such provided.

Come to think of it, if anyone feels like helping me pack on Wednesday, I won’t turn you down.  :-)

(Originally posted at Words Words Words by skzb. Please leave any comments there.)

We have arrived in California in one piece, and the promised wireless at the hotel is actual wireless at the hotel.

I went and checked the little box on my ticket that said I wanted wheelchair assistance, and so I got it, no fuss. The lovely little Somali woman who took me through ticketing and security was fairly adamant that markgritter and timprov must be brothers, but this is a minor inconvenience. Checking the box in advance FTW. Because, seriously, folks, it was hard enough to deal with turbulence, takeoff, landing, the little train dealie to the rental car, etc., without having to haul my butt through airports pulling someone's arm out of his socket. Round and round and round. Uff da.

But the hotel is good, and soon there will be Cuban food, so there's that.

The week overall isn't looking so bad, but the last couple days have been something of a loss. I get a walk in, come hell or high water, and make dinner. Other stuff no matter how minuscule I am going to go back to tracking in little calendar notebook. Like, last night I sorted some papers that are going to be a book, once I get them bound together. Sorted some books this morning, and some zines yesterday. But mostly watching teevee in the evenings, with heating pad on my poor back. Another couple lifetimes would be useful.



we cannot all do everything

I'll be putting them up, but very late tonight, because I have to go see dddragonlady and evilwhitetiger sing and dance tonight.

There will also be a limit on how late things can be bought, as I have to pack the goodies up for WisCon next week.

More later. Having a good Friday?

A review by Paul Kincaid:
Sfsite

I rarely argue with reviews. When I have on one or two occasions is correct a review, which I will do here--this is what Kincaid says:

"Just about all of them pay reverence to the ghost stories of the past, perhaps most blatantly in Gene Wolfe's "Sob in the Silence," a nasty but inconsequential tale that, I suspect, would not have been included here if it didn't have Wolfe's name attached to it."

I object to this most strenuously.

Perhaps Kincaid didn't care for the Wolfe story, but I found it creepy and scary. I don't know what what he means by "inconsequential" --perhaps it's not a socially instructive moral tale such as Geoff Ryman's "Pol Pot's Daughter (a Fantasy)" which Kincaid considers the best story in the book. But IT DOES WHAT IT IS MEANT TO DO.

However, that is not what annoys me. What I do object to (and I hope someone sends him over here to read this) is the idea that I included the story because of the presumed marketability of Gene Wolfe's name. Sorry, but that's not how I edit YBFH.

I have NEVER taken a story for YBFH for the name value. I've NOT taken plenty of stories by writers whose names have a much greater impact on the marketing of a book than Wolfe's.

I have no interest in responding to the rest of the review but to say that Kincaid seems not to understand horror vs fantasy. Horror is usually better served in traditional forms/structures --which isn't to say that occasional experimentation isn't sometimes effective in evoking horror. But I'd say that too much structural fooling around can dissipate the mood.
Comments most welcome.

"It looks like you're struggling to get it up," my kung fu instructor said. Which was particularly distressing, considering I was practicing with my staff.

Yes, I giggled.

What he meant was, I was using my arm to raise the staff above my head instead of using the momentum of my hips. So, I tried it the correct way, and twaaaa-aaaaang, aggravated the part of my back that I hurt yesterday from sitting in a chair.

Last week it was my shoulder. Hurt it sitting in a chair. Aggravated it by head-banging at the Rush show.

At least when I told people at the kung fu school about the Rush show, I became instant hero to the males between 35 and 45.

I think the real gist of this little missive is, I need a new chair.

Check out David Snyder speaking on Persuasion and Influence at Hypnoticon, the fun and interesting Hypnosis Convention..

MrsO (videlia) wants to know why I blog so much about Lost.  She may regret she asked that. 

Originally, I was going to add this to my other Lost post today, but that got so long, I decided it would be easier to have a separate post.  So if you don't want to read anymore about Lost today, you may want to skip this post.

The easy answer is, well, I love Lost.  The love you have for something doesn't always make sense to others who witness it, and it's pretty impossible to explain.  But if you're inclined, I'll give it a go.  And I'm going to try and do this without giving away any spoilers, so people who haven't seen the show, or who jumped ship, can decide if they're interested. 

http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/2008/05/joo-lemos-mythi.html

Most prickly pear cactus in our area has lemon-yellow flowers, some of which fade a lovely orange on the second day.  I love it when the cactus is in bloom, and the magenta fruits, or "pears," are valuable wildlife food for many species.

But we've had one little odd cactus on the place that I'd never caught in flower...until this year.   Bright  yellow, but with a wine-red center and staining up the centers of the petals, so it looks like a tulip, almost.  According to two of my reference books, it's a red-eye prickly pear, and the catch is that the red-eye prickly pear (in three races) is found from Arizona to west Texas...west of the Pecos River, not on the east side of the Edwards Plateau.



So this little beauty is a sort of mystery.  In its general description, it fits the big Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas model of the red-eye prickly pear...details of the pads, as well as the flower.  But...what's it doing here?  It's not on a roadside, where seed might've fallen off a truck with a load of cow manure or something.   There was never any structure anywhere near where it is--the land went from prairie to plowland to pasture--so it's not likely to have been deliberately planted (not since pre-European-settlement times, anyway...I suppose an Indian tribe that ranged to the west side of the Edwards Plateau might have found some and brought back fruits or seeds, but that's a long time ago.)

I've asked for help from professional botanists.
 

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/05/16/foreign-tidbits/

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/?p=1071

So the title of the Romanian Predator: South China Sea is PREDATOR : TEROARE ÎN JUNGLĂ”. Which makes as much sense. It’s set on an island in the South China Sea, much jungle-filled. And there is a LOT of teroare. Tons of teroare. So much teroare per square inch that the integrity of surrounding structures is compromised.

Meanwhile, City of Saints was just published in Poland and I’m told there’s a review forthcoming in the Polish edition of Playboy, for which they just requested a headshot from me. Okay, I’m going to have to get a copy, and it really will be to read the articles. Or, er, look at the articles.

Phone lines are still noisy, so there's only one I can connect on, and half-normal is the best I've had so far.  (At first, though I could get email, my browser would time out before connecting so I couldn't get to LJ.) 

This will improve, I know.  But it's been a bit of a nuisance since I discovered what may be a range record for a species of cactus, or a species not yet reported (I think it's a cactus range expansion of a known species, but not sure....I wanted to send photos of all its floristic details to the Wildflower Research Center but couldn't get the connection.)   I'm going to try uploading images here to post, but with the slow connection that might not work either.  Posting and uploading images here is molasses-in-winter territory.

Today I braved the heat and the Mission sunshine (which is fierce) and went to the Planning and Building Inspections offices to turn in photos of the last two outstanding electrical problems and their remedies. After some confusion as to how to handle the problem, a nice man signed the permit and we are in compliance and the kitchen, permit-wise, is complete.

There is still the ongoing and vexed matter of the damned refrigerator (one month and counting)...

Life with two pet anteaters.

* They're incredibly intelligent, able to open doors, windows, the fridge, respond to their names

* They're freaking expensive (over $4500 each) and require a highly specialized diet, even if you have tons of ants handy. So they're not for everyone.

* They wear clothes.

* They hug:



* They get romantic:



Click the link above for much more.

Warning: impossible, absurd amounts of cuteness and awesomeness.

Their main blog. Apparently they're both going to star in the next Dr. Doolittle movie or some sh*t like that.

Sauce: Dark Roasted Blend.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, it's my birthday today!

Current Mood: happy

I have phoned the clinic and made an appointment for Himself. I have deposited the ambulance squad paycheck. I have done a major grocery run, sufficient to stock the refrigerator and the freezer with entree makings for the next week or so. I have paid this month's electric bill.

So when the Supernatural season-ender finishes burning to DVD, I will watch it without an excessive amount of guilt (where "excessive" is defined, in this case, as "any.) The act of doing so puts me under a subsequent moral obligation to buy the DVD, of course, but it's not as if we weren't going to be picking up Season Three as soon as it came out anyhow.

Current Mood: okay

http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/2008/05/celtic-myth-pod.html

When the earthquake hit the Sichuan area of China, I don't think anyone anticipated the devastation that would occur or the fact that rescue efforts would be so slow and so hampered. Our world is filled with upset and unrest right now. We're so busy fighting the Boogey Man that we are unable to fight the battles that we can conquer.

It's so easy to get caught up in our own day to day dramas and forget that even at our worst, there are people who would be grateful to be burdened with our problems.

The pictures below are borrowed from the Reuters page where the full slide show is available.

Here is a story that matters, and I think these pictures only tell a part of it.