About a year ago I got a Google Talk account and made that publicly available to people, just in case they wanted to IM me or whatever. The problem with this is that not really all that many people have Google Talk, and since firing up Google Talk was a little bit of a pain (because I’m an idiot, I could never get it to work on Trillian), I hardly ever signed onto it, and now use it primarily to contact one particular person.

However, recently people have been asking if I’m even on IM, and — provided I have some free time — I’m not averse to chatting with folks. So I’ve gone ahead and made myself another public IM account, this time on the AOL Instant Messenger, which most people seem to have. Here’s the screenname:

ScalziOnAIM

Simple. Feel free to add me to your buddy lists, and, if you see me online, feel free to likewise drop me an IM. Because if I’m on my public IM screenname, that means I’m feeling, you know, public.

(For those of you dying to know, yes, I also have a more private IM screenname, which I use primarily for business clients and family/friends of long-standing. I don’t make that one public because it’s meant to be a low-bandwidth thing. Please don’t be offended if you don’t know it; not a lot of people do.)

How often will I be on the ScalziOnAIM screenname? I dunno. Depends on how much free time I have. I’m on it now, though.

Oh noes!! The kolalas have gone all Lilith Fair!

Female koalas indulge in lesbian “sex sessions”, rejecting male suitors and attempting to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time, according to researchers.

The furry, eucalyptus-eating creatures appear to develop this tendency for same-sex liaisons when they are in captivity. In the wild, they remain heterosexual.

Scientists monitoring the marsupials with digital cameras counted three homosexual interactions for every heterosexual one.

I for one am waiting the imminent arrival of LezMarsupial.com, showing only the finest in hawt same-sex koala-on-koala action. My credit card is at the ready!

(No, LezMarsupial.com doesn’t really exist. But I bet by the end of the day, someone will register it.)

I have no reason for posting this. I just think it’s funny. Especially the headline for the story at the link: “Australia rocked by ‘lesbian’ koala revelation” Really? Rocked? Is Australia going to kick the koalas out of the house, so that they tearfully have to show up on New Zealand’s doorstep? Personally, I can’t imagine the Australians I know going anything other than “you go, situationally lesbian koalas!” Because the Australians I know are all cool like that.

Also, “Situationally Lesbian Koalas” is the name of my next band.

Update, 6:44pm: Look! It’s Lezmarsupial.com! No, I didn’t do it.

Oh, look: Here’s the Nebula Ballot for this year:

Novels:

The Privilege of the Sword – Ellen Kushner (Bantam Spectra, Jul06)
Seeker - Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov05)
The Girl in the Glass – Jeffrey Ford (Dark Alley, Aug05)
Farthing - Jo Walton (Tor Books, Jul06)
From the Files of the Time Rangers – Richard Bowes (Golden Gryphon Press, Sep05)
To Crush the Moon – Wil McCarthy (Bantam Spectra, May05)

Novellas:

Burn - James Patrick Kelly (Tachyon Publications, Dec05)
“Sanctuary” – Michael A. Burstein (Analog, Sep05)
“The Walls of the Universe” – Paul Melko (Asimov’s, Apr/May06)
“Inclination” – William Shunn (Asimov’s, Apr/May06)

Novelettes:

“The Language of Moths” – Chris Barzak (Realms of Fantasy, Apr05)
“Walpurgis Afternoon” – Delia Sherman (F&SF, Dec05)
“Journey into the Kingdom” – M. Rickert (F&SF, May06)
“Two Hearts” – Peter S. Beagle (F&SF, Oct/Nov05)
“Little Faces” – Vonda N. McIntyre (SCI FICTION, 23 Feb05)

Short Stories:

“Echo” – Elizabeth Hand (F&SF, Oct/Nov05)
“Helen Remembers the Stork Club” – Esther M. Friesner (F&SF, Nov05)
“The Woman in Schrodinger’s Wave Equations” – Eugene Mirabelli (F&SF, Aug05)
“Henry James, This One’s For You” – Jack McDevitt (Subterranean #2, Nov05)
“An End To All Things” – Karina Sumner-Smith (Children of Magic, Daw Books, Jun06)
“Pip and the Fairies” – Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons, 3 Oct05)

Scripts:

Batman Begins - Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer (Warner Bros., released 17 Jun05)
Howl’s Moving Castle – Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt (Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney Pictures, U.S. Premier 10 Jun05. Based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones.)
Unfinished Business – Michael Taylor (Battlestar Galactica, Dec06)
The Girl in the Fireplace – Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, BBC/The Sci-Fi Channel, Oct06 (broadcast 10 Oct06))

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy:

Magic or Madness – Justine Larbalestier (Penguin Razorbill, May05)
Devilish - Maureen Johnson, Razorbill (Penguin Young Readers Group, Sep06)
The King of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner, Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins, 2006)
Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness - Scott Westerfeld (Eos, Mar05)
Peeps - Scott Westerfeld (Penguin Razorbill, Sep05)
Life As We Knew It - Susan Beth Pfeffer (Harcourt, Oct06)

Leaving aside my usual rant about how the Nebulas need to get on a calendar year schedule, I think this is a pretty good slate, and it’s got a lot of my friends in it. Yay! I know award nominees! I feel shiny.

For those of you wondering, I wasn’t even close to being considered for the Nebula this year. But then I wasn’t even close to being considered for the Nebula last year either, when I got on the Hugo ballot, so this isn’t indicative of anything other than the Nebulas and the Hugo having different constituencies and tastes, which is in and of itself not a bad thing.

The Nebulas and Norton will be unveiled on May 12. Best of luck to all the nominees.

The reason is because I have in my grubby little hands an interview with Hal Duncan that is chock full of awesome, and you can’t read it until tomorrow, when I put it up for the Wednesday Author Interview. Honestly, looking at this interview, I don’t know how you’re going to survive not reading it until then. You’re just going to have to find a way to muddle through somehow.

However, while you wait, there is something you can do, which is get Hal’s latest book Ink, which hits stores here in the US today. And like the interview, it is chock full of awesome. I know this because I read it a while back, when the ARC was sent to me. And I remember when I was reading it that I was wondering how the rest of you were going to survive not reading it until today. Well, how did you? Seriously, man. I want to know.