Is it just me, or is what’s coming out of various political circles something like the following –

“Obama: He’s been in office almost a week. So why isn’t everything better already?”

– with the subtext being that if the man hasn’t solved everything in the first 100 hours, his administration is clearly a failure.

To which I have to say: Dudes. Expectation management is your friend. People are still finding their offices. Certainly it makes sense for, say, Fox News to act like we’re all going to die a horrible death at the hands of the swarthy as of 12:01 pm January 20, but everyone who isn’t in fact suckling from Rupert Murdoch’s withered, reactionary grandpa teats or otherwise engaged in banally predictable conservative panic might want to consider taking a run through shady glens, hugging a box full of kittens, swilling down an Xanax smoothie or whatever it is they need to do to relax and let the man and his administration get up to speed. And it’s not like they haven’t already been busy enough.

So please: Calm. You will have at least four whole years with the man and his administration. Give him at least a couple of weeks to settle in before accusing the lot of them of slacking off on the job. It’s just a thought.

At the reading Mary Robinette Kowal and I did in San Francisco, one member of the audience was wearing a Tesla Motors T-Shirt, and in conversation he mentioned he wasn’t just wearing it as an affectation, he really did work at Tesla Motors. At which point I used my Jedi mind tricks to get him to give me a Tesla Roadster. And lo, it worked, because this was waiting for me when I came back from (ironically) Detroit this weekend:

Excellent. Mind you, the intended scale of the car is a little off, but I blame that on my sloppy Jedi mind skills more than anything else. Athena asked what it was, and I said “It’s an electric motor sports car,” to which she said “Cool, can I have it?” To which I said, “Get in line.” We weren’t talking about exactly the same car in that short conversation, you understand.

While I’m unlikely in the immediate future to get a real Tesla Roadster, I have to say I’m delighted to finally be in a place and time where a car like the Roadster exists — i.e., an actual electric car that isn’t the automotive equivalent of eating bran in the morning. It’s doing more for the argument of weaning ourselves off our pathetic addiction to burning petroleum products than an entire army of Ed Begley, Jrs. could ever do. An entirely electric car may not be my next automobile purchase, but I’d bet a lot of money it’ll be the car purchase after that. And maybe then I’ll be able to afford the Roadster. A boy can dream.

In any event: Thanks, Greg, for a shiny new car.

Flickr photo by Bluesilver

John Nichols, who recorded my and Mary Robinette Kowal’s reading at Borderlands Books on January 16th, has thoughtfully chopped up the audio files of the performance into the individual stories and events, thus keeping me from having to do so myself, for which he wins my eternal gratitude. So for those of you who are interested, here are the links to the whole event. Each link will take you to Mr. Nichol’s site, where the audio will stream for you, with the exception of “The PetMaster 2000,” which I posted here earlier as a downloadable file.

The Performance

“Denise Jones, Super Booker” (Read by both of us)
“Nails in my Feet” (Mary)
“Missives From Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results” (Me)
“Trip, Trap, Tripping” (Mary)
“The State of Super Villainy” (Read by both of us)
“Evil Robot Monkey” (Mary)
“The PetMaster 2000” (Science Fiction comedy improv from the both of us)

Before & After

Pre-show chatter (~20 minutes)
Post-show Q&A (~25 minutes)

Extras

Encore chatter/Kodi doesn’t miss me
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Thanks once again to John Nichols for recording and posting these. It was a heck of a lot of fun, and I’m glad those of you who weren’t there get a chance to listen to it.

Also, if you click on the picture above, it will take you to an entire photo set of the evening, taken by Flickr user Bluesilver. Also much fun.