Monthly Archives: April 2008
The Dastardly Culprits What Make Me Sneeze
Posted on April 25, 2008 19 Comments
These are they! Well, some of them, anyway. In the crabapple tree in the front yard. Evil bastards, the lot of them, but they sure are pretty.
Not Even In Your Dreams
Posted on April 25, 2008 24 Comments
I had this dream last night that I was playing a guitar and singing a song, and everyone around me started singing along with me. And when the song was done, I said, “wow, you must have really liked the song,” and someone said “no, we were all singing to drown out your guitar playing.” […]
A Small Yet Fundamental Truth
Posted on April 25, 2008 36 Comments
There is nothing you can do to make a MySpace page actually look good. No matter what you do to them, they still end up looking like a genetic misfire between a 1996-era personal Web page and a screen full of Visual Basic buttons laid out by a monkey. I think so many people migrated […]
Mmmm… One Star-rific!
Posted on April 24, 2008 104 Comments
For your fun and edification, I now present selected snippets of one-star reviews of my work on Amazon. Why? Oh, just because. Old Man’s War: Opening the book, I met a central character whose lame attempts at humor are acclaimed as hilarious. Gradually we find our man is gifted at everything but amazingly modest. This […]
Missing The Point
Posted on April 24, 2008 57 Comments
Shorter Hillary Clinton: By this metric which doesn’t actually matter, I’m winning. This is the “Lurkers Support Me in E-Mail” strategy, applied to the presidential campaign trail. I think we may need to introduce Hillary to Al Gore, winner of the popular vote in the 2000 election. And then to the Democratic by-laws for winning […]
My Wife! My Best Friend!
Posted on April 24, 2008 20 Comments
Just come across while procrastinating preparing to write: This is a picture of Krissy (whom I imagine most of you recognize by this point), and Natasha, who is one of my dearest friends in the world, from last October, when we were out in California for my 20th anniversary high school reunion. This picture was […]
Shareware Story Haul: One Week In
Posted on April 23, 2008 46 Comments
It’s been a week since I posted “How I Proposed To My Wife: An Alien Sex Story” as a “shareware short story,” for people to read and enjoy — and, if they like, to pay me a bit for it. So how has it done, financially speaking, in the course of a week? Let’s find […]
I Hear and Obey
Posted on April 23, 2008 19 Comments
Krissy, on the phone to me as she drives home: “You need to go and take a picture of the sun right now!” Here’s a thought: Gravitationally speaking, the sun is 93 million miles down from us. And we would fall all the way in. Yes we would.
The Direction I’m Heading
Posted on April 23, 2008 28 Comments
Minus the feathered hair, mind you. This realization after I opened the front door to a beautiful spring day, and then sneezed for five minutes straight. Which is not as much fun as it sounds like, trust me.
Quick Official Statement on “2:42”
Posted on April 23, 2008 22 Comments
Wired.com has picked up the story about The Morning News’ piece on 2:42 being the perfect length for a pop song having an eerie resemblance to my own post on the matter a few years earlier. I admit to being initially rather skeptical that the subject matter was entirely coincidental, but then Josh Allen, the […]
A Bit More on OSB
Posted on April 23, 2008 102 Comments
In e-mail: “So, you’re saying you’re for the Open Source Boob project? Really?” Well. I’m for the idea of demystifying breasts to young men who fetishize them to the extent of not being able to process the fact there is an actual person that they are part of, yes. My understanding of the project was […]
10 Delegates? Really?
Posted on April 23, 2008 51 Comments
After all that, Hillary Clinton nets just ten delegates? Is there anyone in the world not involved with the Clinton campaign who thinks ten delegates were worth the past seven weeks of complete and utter nonsense? Really? No, I mean it. Really?
Stalker Info, Permanently Posted
Posted on April 22, 2008 7 Comments
I’ve added a Scheduled Appearances page to Whatever (which aside from this link you can find in the “Administrivia” sidebar) to help folks who are wondering where in the Earth I am supposed to be — and I include myself in this number — know where I’ll be for public appearances and suchlike. As you […]
Update on Shareware Story and 1,000 True Fans
Posted on April 22, 2008 11 Comments
Folks have asked when I’m going to have an update on how much money has come in from the shareware release of my story “How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story.” Well, tomorrow evening it will have been up for a week, so I suspect that will be a good time for […]
Open Source Boobs
Posted on April 22, 2008 192 Comments
Since I was at Penguicon over the weekend, people are asking me in e-mail to comment on the “Open Source Boob” thing that was going on there. Well, first, by way of explanation, the whole Open Source Boob project is best explained by this post and this post (which adds further clarification) by The Ferrett, […]
Optimamistic
Posted on April 22, 2008 52 Comments
The New York Times has an interesting piece focusing on the font choice for John McCain’s presidential campaign — it’s Optima — and what the choice might signify, given that it’s the font used for the names on the Vietnam Memorial and so on. It’s also a referendum on the font itself. The article includes […]
I Suspect That Tori Amos Was Somehow an Inspiration For This
Posted on April 21, 2008 34 Comments
This being that. But does Tori deserve credit or blame? Well, I think your answer here will tell you more about you than it will about Tori Amos (or Emm Gryner, who is the actual artist performing the work). (Linked to from here.)
You Don’t Have to Be an Ohio SF/F Person to Wear This Shirt, But If You’re Not It Will Be a Lie
Posted on April 21, 2008 35 Comments
Look what I got from the ever-fabulous Catherynne Valente, whist at Penguicon: The last line prompted someone to say to me, “isn’t that grammatically incorrect?” To which I said, “Dude, colloquial use on a t-shirt.” Just in case anyone’s still suspecting I’m hopelessly prescriptivist. And anyway, content-wise, it’s entirely correct; Ohio has a surprising number […]
The Surprise Award No One Told Me About
Posted on April 21, 2008 26 Comments
Apparently over the weekend The Last Colony received the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2007. I learn this from reliable sources in my comment thread — including two people who were at the Romantic Times Booklovers’ Convention in Pittsburgh, where the awards were announced and saw the awards list […]
Back From Penguicon
Posted on April 20, 2008 28 Comments
Lovely time. Now very tired. Planning to get to sleep early. How was your weekend?
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying