I may still head down to the basement, however. You know, just to check on the provisions.
THEY WERE A LIFETIME TOGETHER
- Home
- May 20, 2013
Whatever
Search Whatever
Archive (3/02 – now)
Administrivia
- About
- A Brief Biography of John Scalzi
- Availability for Interviews, Appearances and Writing Work
- Books by John Scalzi
- Contact Information
- Guidelines for Publicity, Blurbing, Unpublished Work, Retweets, Guest Blogging and Charitable Solicitations
- Scheduled Appearances
- Site Disclaimer and Comment Policy
- The Canonical Bacon Page
- The Scalzi Creative Sampler
The Big Idea
What's the Big Idea? Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words.
Authors: for information on how to participate, click here.
The Blatherations of Others
- duskfire on Two SFWA Presidents
- kaberett on The Big Idea: Madeleine Robins
- kaberett on The Big Idea: Madeleine Robins
- kokkieh on The Big Idea: Madeleine Robins
- Naomi on Comment Overflow for “10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing”
- Frankly on Two SFWA Presidents
- Gulliver on Two SFWA Presidents
- Juno on Amanda Palmer, Kickstarter, and Everything
- John Scalzi on Two SFWA Presidents
- scorpius on Two SFWA Presidents
- Gulliver on Nebula Award Winners!
- Simon S. on Nebula Award Winners!
- megpie71 on Nebula Award Winners!
- speakertoanimals on Nebula Award Winners!
- tumblr backups on Being Poor
Whatwitters
- Why, hello, first one of these of the day. At least two of your siblings will follow you. p.twipple.jp/tTZF1 17 minutes ago
- I am awake (and showered) at 4:40 am to catch a car to the airport. Thus is the enduring glamour of touring. 25 minutes ago
- I know it's late on Sunday but: SEATTLE! I have an event tomorrow! Come see me! Bring everyone you've ever met! www2.bookstore.washington.edu/_events/events… 5 hours ago
- NOTICE: I AM FULL OF CHURRO SHAKE. FOOD COMA COMMENCING. FURTHER INFORMATION AS EVENTS WARRANT. 9 hours ago
- THIS IS A SHAKE MADE OF CHURRO. I ALSO HAVE ONE. YOU DO NOT. YOU SAD FOOL. http://t.co/hNANM1PV3l 10 hours ago
- Guess which one is incoming and which is outgoing. RT @cathshaffer A portrait of two SFWA presidents. yfrog.com/oct8kjpfj 13 hours ago
- Plus, we made Gene Wolfe a Grand Master. Top THAT. You can't. You just can't. 20 hours ago
- The Nebulas were the last major event of my SFWA presidency (knock on wood for the next six weeks). I was delighted they went so well. 20 hours ago
- THE NEBULA AWARDS TOTALLY HAPPENED. Need a list of the award winners? Got you covered: whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/19/neb… 20 hours ago
- RT @MaryRobinette: At the Nebula Awards and can see up @scalzi 's nose. http://t.co/6SagbUEt6H 1 day ago
Recently on Whatever
- The Big Idea: Madeleine Robins
- Two SFWA Presidents
- Nebula Award Winners!
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste
- RT Book Reviews Video Interview; IGMS Review of THD
- View From a Hotel Window: San Jose
- Hey! Mass SF/F Signing! Tomorrow! San Jose! 5:30 – 7:30! With Me!
- Brace Yourselves, Internet, For the Unremitting Onslaught of SEXY
- South Bay: I Am At Book, Inc’s Mountain View Store Tomorrow at 7pm!
- Paul Di Filippo Writes Up The Human Division for Barnes and Noble Review
Random Whatever
Click this link -- and you'll be taken to a random Whatever entry in the archive. Which one will you get? Got me!
Proudly powered by WordPress · Theme: Minimum by StudioPress.
There aren’t any towns near you called Jericho, are there?
You didn’t like those neighbours anyway.
No, I’m here in DC, and everything’s fin[CARRIER LOST]
Is that an old postcard? I think I’ve seen that image before.
Never realized an A-bomb would give treetops a ghostly, glowing aura. Nice effect. Ominous, too. You downwind? Plenty of potassium iodide in the basement?
if it’s any consolation you’re likely getting more radiation exposure microwaving a burrito.
Wimpy Californians, afraid of a little severe weather.
get to zee chopper!
Are the tubs of buttercream frosting safe?
(looking around) I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. STOP STARING AT ME.
@ rick: One microwave burrito can ruin your whole day.
Provisions? What, are you one of those crazy survivalist types?
Sorry, I live in Orygun and that’s what I hear every time a friend or neighbor sees my shelf of canned food that might last me a week.
Teresa and I saw a mushroom-shaped cloud once. Our first thought was “Shit, it’s started, and they’ve nuked Boeing.” In fact it was the second eruption of Mt. St. Helens. (We lived in Seattle in those years.)
Really, if you grew up during the Cold War, you know just how heart-stopping the sight of one of those things was. If you didn’t, never mind.
Scorpius, tell them you’re a Mormon and you have to have supplies.
Or…are Mormons classed under “crazy survivalist types”? I don’t think it’s accurate, but your friends and neighbors aren’t exactly being rational if they ask you that.
Great image. Have a nice stay in the basement. Don’t forget the O2.
Once upon a time, I worked within a dozen miles of an airbase. I’d forgotten that the airshow was coming up. So when I was walking to lunch and a very military-shaped flying thing screamed by overhead at low altitude and high speed … well, after reviewing the options, I decided to stay outside and wait.
We see this everytime they burn off one of the nearby cane fields. I’m inured to it.
Home canned food is yummy. Mmmmm, yummy yummy black raspberry jam.
About a year ago, something just looked off when I got home from work in the evening.
At 6 PM, everything in my neighborhood was casting shadows in the wrong direction: the stronger shadows were toward the west, with corresponding weaker shadows toward the east (where they should have been).
The reason? Strong sunlight reflecting off one of these monster clouds – judging from John’s photo, the one we had was easily 8-10 times its size. The effect lasted about half an hour.
I never saw anything like it before or since. Unforgettable. Stuff like that makes you take note of what you take for granted.
Hey, at least you won’t lose your hair. :D
Patrick – Yeah, tell me about it. I remember the first time I heard the Emergency Broadcast System use the phrase “This is not a test”, back around 1990 when they were just starting to use it for regular emergencies. It was raining, some low-lying valleys were going to have flooding, but I’m about the same age as you and TNH, so “Emergency Broadcast System…Not a Test” is followed with “and kiss your ass goodbye.”
After 40 years of Cold War nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction, modern terrorists are just putzes compared to Dueling Superpowers.
20 February 1971. 10:33 AM, UPI started ringing ten bells. Second time I’d heard ten bells. You don’t forget them. I think there’s a WCCO 830 air check from then on the internet somewhere (wasn’t my station then.) (The first time was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and what a night that was.)
@ Bearpaw
Yeah, but not because of the rads.
Really, if you grew up during the Cold War, you know just how heart-stopping the sight of one of those things was.
Yep. To give an example, its lords knows how many hours since John safely posted that picture (and has posted again since), I have fully functioning internet, electricity, and am comfortably watching regular lunch-time tv; in spite of all logic, I still felt the need to turn my radio to the news channel, just in case. Now that is some seriously damaged behaviour on my part.
Crypticmirror — You’re not the only one so damaged.
Yeah I don’t think many people today realise just how terrifying it used to be knowing that instant death was a mere four minutes and it could happen absolutely any time. I grew up in one of the areas that retained their air-siren right into the late eighties, and it was tested the first Sunday of every month at 11:30am. And every single time, even knowing it was due, when it went off for its 30 second test (followed by another 30 second “all-clear”) everyone’s stomach churned. It used to be joked that the the siren was tested at half eleven and the town’s toilets were tested at 11:35.
One month, I remember, there was a technical fault and it stuck on for a full 2 minutes before they got it shut off and sounded the all clear. I wasn’t even a teenager, but I so vividly remember people just breaking out in tears and hugging each other. Now those were really scary times. My personal belief as to why the 90s were so free-wheeling was because all that pent-up panic and dread from the cold war all unravelled at once.
Must be pyrocumulus. (h/t Karen Neville)
I remember that fear. I remember in the 80s hearing that some enormous percentage of grade-school students believed they would die in a nuclear war. Not that they might, or could, but that they would. During one of Reagan’s macho stand-talls with the USSR, or maybe it was when he made his “joke” about “we start bombing in five minutes,” our discussion was about whether we’d rather be at ground zero (before that became a name) or be out in the country and try to survive.
I guess I was lucky. I was a Baby Boomer growing up in the 50s and 60s in Omaha. At age about ten my best friend next door and I figured out there was nothing we could possibly do to survive a nuclear attack, living 20 miles from Ground Zero, so we totally quit worrying about it. Doesn’t freeze my marrow like some of the other commenters’.
I’d like to see the Scalzi family on Doomsday Preppers.
Isn’t that in the direction of Wright-Patterson AFB?
YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
Enjoy!
http://archive.org/details/ACanticleForLiebowitz
@ James Davis Nicoll
Great book, and fairly unique in the post-apocalyptic fiction. The only other book I can think of off the top of my head that targets the same broad-stroke themes is perhaps Neal Stephenson’s Anathem.
I wonder how far away clouds can be and still be seen. I could swear I saw this same cloud to the west of Indianapolis on the same day, towards sunset. If it was halfway between us, that would be about 50 miles west of me and 50 east of the Scalzi bunker.