Here, Have a Pimp Thread

It’s been more than a month since I’ve done a pimp thread, and folks are sending me e-mails wondering when the next one will be because they have something they want to promote, and while I enjoy their piteous cries, my cruel nature doesn’t run that deep. So: Here you go folks. Tell us what you have that you want to promote the heck out of. Pimp your stuff, pimp your friends’ stuff, pimp the stuff of folks who don’t know but whose stuff you like, and so on.

Remember that if you put more than three links into a comment that it’s likely to get stuffed into the moderating queue. Don’t panic; I’ll release it.

As for what I’m pimping, I’m pimping something local and going on tonight, so you Dayton folks, consider going out and representin’ at Books & Co at The Greene for:

KELSEY TIMMERMAN
THURSDAY, JANUARY 29; 7-8 PM @ The Greene

KELSEY TIMMERMAN will discuss his book, Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes. Have you noticed that the clothes you’re wearing come from all over the globe?  Have you ever wondered what the lives are like for the people who make your clothes?  That idea intrigues Kelsey as he set out to visit the countries whose nametags were on his clothes.  His travels took him to China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Honduras.  He’d like to share his journey with you as he puts a personal face on the issues of globalization and outsourcing.  He learned that 97% of America’s clothing is imported.  China accounts for 30% and the garment industry accounts for 75% of Cambodia’s and Bangladesh’s exports.

You’ll recall the Big Idea piece on this one. If you can make it, it’ll be worth your time.

So: Promote, people! Tell us what you’ve found all shiny and new and worth sharing.

102 Comments on “Here, Have a Pimp Thread”

  1. I finally brought my font design business back from the dead. For too long (6-7 years), it was comatose. Found a good open source e-commerce platform that supports digital products, and have started to get my fonts loaded into it.

    Next up: complete redesign of the presentation layer.

  2. I’m here to pimp George’s Employment Blawg at: http://www.employmentblawg.com

    Want advice on your job search? An in-depth discussion of the Fair Labor Standards Act or the reasonable accommodations requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act? Or a little workplace-related Friday Humor?

    The Blawg covers literally everything work-related, from HR concerns to career-changing advice to the nuances of employment and labor law. We through in a bit of humor on Friday afternoons to help wrap up the work week.

    Come on by and check us out!

  3. My mostly sf/fantasy zine, Kaleidotrope — and, more importantly, the writers whose great work makes up each issue. #6 coming in April, submissions and subscriptions always welcome!

  4. From a purely fun, funky computer graphics end of things, try Groboto. I’ll let you google it for yourself.

  5. I might as well, since you offered…

    I just re-released my book “The Pig and the Box” yesterday, which is finally available worldwide. Free PDFs on the site, and links to buy as well.

    And my animated series “RollBots” is premiering Feb 7 on YTV in Canada, and then shortly thereafter on the CW4Kids in the US. So. Uh. Watch it.

    Yay!

  6. Hey, folks. Figured I’d return to pimp again. My big project is still the bid for Raleigh, NC for the 2010 NASFiC. Our website’s up here. We’ll be putting together a zine in support of the bid soon, to be sent to all of our supporters (and released generally thereafter). Yes, we’re still shamelessly looking for money and votes — but we intend to use them to put on a big, fun convention next year.

    Keep in mind that in order to vote in site selection, you’ll need to be a member of this year’s Worldcon, Anticipation, to be held in Montreal this August. Even if you’re not able to go, you can still get a supporting membership, which allows you to nominate for the Hugo Awards (if you’ve got it before January 31), vote on the Hugo Awards, and vote in both the 2011 Worldcon and 2010 NASFiC site selection. And that seems like enough pimping for the time being.

  7. Thanks, John! I’ll pimp a friend’s blog. He’s Dave Olbrich, former publisher of Malibu Comics and he posts a lot of stories about guys like Jack Kirby, Marv Wolfman (who told him to stay away from comics) and Brent Anderson (who he almost cheated out of $30). And he has some great stuff on The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. Have at it!
    http://funnybookfanatic.wordpress.com/

  8. We’re doing new “Linux in a Minute” videos over at Linux Journal. If you’re curious about Linux, they might be helpful. Plus, you get to see my ugly mug. (Which is not as much of a plus as it seems, really…)

    http://www.linuxjournal.com/linux-minute

    But wait you say, this is a writer’s blog. Yeah, well, I write for them too. So pbpbpbpbttttt. ;)

  9. I’ll pimp my good friend, Shannon LC Cate’s pro blogging gig on Strollerderby.

    http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/Shannon+LC+Cate/default.aspx

    She is a Ph.D in religion, married (via Canadian same-sex marriage) to her partner who is also a professor. They have two Black children, adopted domestically. She writes compellingly about family issues, adoption, trans-racial families, politics, religion, etc. She is smart as a whip and is extremely well-read and thought provoking.

  10. I’ve been playing keyboard/piano for a while now, and only just recently recorded some of my playing for sharing & such. mp3’s are posted here: here. (Confession: none of these were straight-through recordings… all were edited in some fashion. But, hey, huzzah for digital editing technology! :-P )

  11. What the heck — I’ll re-pimp the science fiction webcomic I’ve been doing:

    http://www.sunsetgrillcomic.com

    “Gangsters. Mercenaries. Public defenders. Ordinary people struggling to survive in an extraordinary future. They all have one thing in common: they all drink beer.”

    Up to 77 strips just now and I haven’t missed an update yet. So if nothing else, the thing is teaching me discipline. :)

  12. To my pleasant surprise, I’ve been nominated for a Texas Social Media Award. If you read my blog, my tweets, etc. and think I’m any good, you might be so kind as to leave a comment here:

    http://is.gd/hI34

    Or, you know, not. We’re all still friends either way. ;)

  13. Magic & Mechanica, a collection of short stories about the intersection of, well, magic and machine, has been published. It includes “Terminus,” a short-story I co-wrote with Dru Pagliassotti in which we imagined what might have happened if the Romans had trains and northern Britain had dragons.

  14. I’m going to go ahead and be a little classless by pimping my Battlestar Galactica Liveblog wherein I somehow manage to write 3,000+ words during the course of the show. I write a pre-show section where I let everyone know my thoughts about using falcons to assassinate world leaders (and also how every prescription drug name would also be a good name for a falcon. I have a lot of weird thoughts, a lot of which are about birds).

    This is live in the truest sense of the word. I start writing the second the show goes on, and stop the second the show is over. I update every two minutes. I am also on the front page of google for “Battlestar Galactica Live blog” which is… well… it’s definitely something. Probably not anything good mind you, but something.

    Anyway, you may find it funny.

  15. I just ran a half marathon for the Crohn’s and Colitis foundation of America. It was in Miami this past weekend, I got a pimp tan and a cool medal.

    There are going to be two more half marathons coming up this summer. The first one is in Napa Valley and the second is in Kona, Hawaii. It is a fundraiser I don’t have the specifics on how much you would have to raise, but room and flight are paid for, you just pay for food.

    So if your in the Cleveland, Ohio area we are beginning to take people to start the training. Here’s the website http://www.ccteamchallenge.org, you can send me an email if your interested. Its for a good cause.

  16. Ok, cool… A blog post about some injustice -in my opinion- http://nithska.blogspot.com/2009/01/but-what-if-my-church-doesnt-like-black.html

    And more to the point of SF & F interests, please check out the PDF preview of M-Brane SF featuring my story ‘Do Men Dream of Bloody Sheep?’ http://issuu.com/nithska/docs/mbranesf01

    Alright… one more. :) If you are on Authonomy, consider giving Los Lobos Ninos and the City of Doors a peek. Probably not as well written as my short stories, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?! http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=5545

  17. You know what’s the best Sci-Fi novel no one’s ever read?

    The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson.

    Seriously, it’s one of my top three favorite books of all time. It’s also been out of print for a decade or so – but worth hunting for!

  18. Dave Marusek’s new book came out last week Mind Over Ship and he’s having a signing at my favorite local independent bookstore (Gulliver’s Books) this weekend.

    I’m either pimping the local guy or the local bookstore. Which is a great store that focuses more on books than having a current web page….

  19. My first novel, The Machine of the World is available now on amazon.

    As the world succumbs to a slow death, choking on mushrooms and poison, a young servant girl is caught in the last attempts by human hands to thwart fate and the destiny of all living things. The King of Ruhleheim made a deal for immortality but not longevity. 1500 years later, his mummified corpse keeps his descendants up at night. But Prince Laslo and his twin sister, Princess Lydia have a plan to rid themselves of the king once and for all. Inez Vespertine, Lady’s Maid to Princess Lydia, overhears this scheme. To get her out of the way, the royal twins send her to visit their cousin, the Marquise, who lives deep within the Ergot Forest, a vast swatch of poisonous fungus that is overtaking the world. But when Inez returns not just alive and well but with a scheme of her own, the conniving twins are befuddled. Who will survive to rule a dying world?

    Doesn’t it just scream Valentine’s Day present?

  20. I’m here to pimp my sci-fi novel, released last November, and available on Amazon, B&N, etc.

    There’s lots more about the book on my website, including flip-and-read baseball-card-like illustrations, but here’s the back-cover blurb:
    It’s love and terrorism in the time of cholera. In the mid-21st century, a SARS-like flu has killed billions and turned most of the rest into mindless, stumbling zombie-like invalids. The few humans who had immunity now face the threat of a comet on a collision course with Earth. Settlers from the Moon colony were spared the disease, but face their own threats to survival: radiation-induced mental illness, a limited gene pool and shrinking resources. The Moon settlers have launched a last-ditch mission to Earth to salvage human DNA and other crucial materials … before the comet strikes. The salvage crew find the biggest threat to the mission is neither the zombies or the comet, but insanity within their own ranks.

    If I could put up pictures, I do of my girlfriend in her red pimp-meister hat here.

  21. Sorry about the typos in my . I’m on hillybilly heroin (hydrocodone) after having rotator cuff surgery. See my GearHeadZombieBlog for the gruesome pictures if you wish. The blog is linked from my web site.

  22. Most magnificent of you, oh great Scalzi, to offer of such an opportunity! For those interested in anthologies that have a little of everything, check out the just released ‘The World Outside the Window’ by RJ Buckley Publishing. A group of misfit authors (including myself) got together for this and no, we didn’t pay to have it published. The author’s name is listed as Anthony Waugh, because they didn’t have room to list all the authors. I generally write sci-fi, but I wrote a general fiction for this. It’s a tear-jerker, so if you read ‘Strange Dreams,’ you may want to have a hankie ready. BTW, there’s Kindle version for six bucks.

    http://www.amazon.com/World-Outside-Window-Anthony-Waugh/dp/0979170192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233268844&sr=1-1

  23. I’m pimping my own fantasy/sci-fi/horror/etc. webzine, Daikaijuzine (http://www.daikaijuzine.com), which has featured fiction by Tim Pratt, James Maxie, L. E. Modessit, Jr., and David Farland, not to mention numerous other talented writers.

    I’m also going to pimp my buddy Keith’s site, http://www.superpheemy.com. Keith’s a hardworking, skilled artist, struggling to find his first non-contract gig in the video game industry. Check out his stuff and maybe say yo.

    I’m also going to pimp my own website, http://www.mossroot.com, where I’ve been writing a short story per week every week for the past 27 weeks. Some are pretty good. Most are… well, kind of meh. I recommend avoiding #27 in particular.

  24. I feel like it might be a little early to pimp this, but what the hell – I’ve started a podcast. It’s the audio version of book reviews I’ve been doing for the last three years, and I just put up the third episode yesterday – which, completely coincidentally, is that of The Android’s Dream.

    The previous episodes were Good Omens (on the theory that you should start with what you love) and The Bad Beginning (just to balance it out with something I despise). There’s no overall theme to the podcast yet – it’s just books I enjoyed reading and my thoughts on them.

    The Labyrinth Library. Available on iTunes for your convenience as well….

  25. I’m pimping for the magazine Swill.

    http://swillmagazine.com/

    It’s almost unknown — but Harlan Ellison recommended it to Ellen Datlow and when John Shirley got a copy he gave us a story that he thought was too extreme to publish elsewhere. (It is hi-larious in a John Shirley way and will be appearing in issue four.) It’s also been studied at the Columbia School of Writing in Chicago. All of this has certainly surprised me.

    It’s a literary magazine that’s genre-friendly, or it’s a neo-pulp magazine that isn’t afraid to be pretentious. It’s also got a lot of my art in it, art that has recently gotten me into my first gallery show. It’s big, too. Magazine-sized and running about sixty pages.

    If print is dead, then we’re part of the zombie apocalypse that must inevitably follow. Check it out!

  26. I highly recommend (a.k.a. “pimp”) Leigh Butler’s blog, where Leigh is tracking a total re-read of the Wheel of Time series. I was thinking that I needed to go back through the whole series in preparation for the final book’s release — I am big on Brandon Sanderson, so I know I will read it — but this is a better way to accomplish that preparation.

    The summaries are much more entertaining, IMO, than reading the books AGAIN for myself, and some of the commentary is hilarious. So far, I’ve been reminded of why I liked the first book so much when it was shiny and new, and I’ve been reassured that one can enjoy some aspects of WoT and still be irreverent about the WTF aspects. Of which there are many.

    http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=12422

  27. I’m pimping ebooks. As you know (Bob), Hal Spacejock book 1 was released as a freebie last year (and thanks for publicising it on Whatever – much appreciated!)

    Next month the other books in the series are going to be released as ebooks. They’re going to be very cheap (approx US$3.50 ea), and available in a bunch of DRM-free formats. The latter talk some sweet talking from me, but the publisher agreed to it in the end.

    I’ve set up an info page right here:
    http://www.spacejock.com.au/HalSpacejockEbooks.html

    That means UK and US publishers have about, oh, 14 days to stump up some bucks for the rights and put a stop to this madness ;-)

  28. As you’ve kindly invited, I’ll draw the attention of any readers in the field of visual effects to follow the link behind my name, or that URL in full:

    http://www.imaginetix.co.uk

    Swing past if you’re looking for an effects animator, or if you just want to see some pretty things, some of which blow up.

  29. I went! To see Kelsey, I mean. I even won a free copy of his book by having clothes on from the largest number of countries (9). My jeans were made in Egypt, my fleece in Jordan, my tank top in Vietnam, my coat in the Dominican Republic, under-jacket made in India, scarf in the Philippines, shoes and gloves made in China, and hat made in Canada. Which is only 8. Hmm. Well, the nearest contender had 4, so that’s ok.

    (No, I don’t know where my socks or underwear were made.)

    I started the book over dinner and am enjoying it so far, but I think it’s lacking for the fact that it doesn’t have Kelsey’s photographs that he shared with us in the presentation, which was really interesting.

  30. This week was a good one! I gave my third brown bag talk about David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, which totally changed my working life for the better. Had a great discussion about the perils of your Inbox.

    The email Inbox. Man, are you people filthy minded!

    I also learned that I beat my Weight Watchers goal! Lost 27 pounds so far! Felt better than I have in a long time. Now I have to think about my next goal. Maybe 23 more, take me down to an even 50.

  31. Thanks for pimping my reading John! As you can tell from Anne @ #72 it was a success. 20 folks braved the weather. Heck, on my way home I heard on the radio that I was driving through Level III snow emergencies. That means if the cops stop you, you get a ticket. Greg Morntenson may have drawn 800 the week before at Books & Co, but I bet there wasn’t a single person that risked law breaking to be there.

  32. http://livinpeace.bravehost.com/index.html

    its a friend of mine’s website, containing some of his music and other friends music also. its electro, funk, rock, blues all mixed into one awesome musical smoothie. and theey make synthesizers and music equipment. i suggest the grogger, a nifty little synth inspired by yours truly.

  33. Scalzi appears on Ravelry! (Sorry, you must register to read, it’s still in beta.)
    http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/crochet-liberation-front-headquarters/484101/26-50

    Here’s the quote for you non-Ravelers:
    ” Have you read any John Scalzi? Fun, character and plot balanced SF; snappy dialogue. Old Man’s War is the first in a trilogy. You can check out John’s work at http://whatever.scalzi.com/about/a-brief-biography-of-joh
    While I loved the Old Man’s War books, I also loved The Android’s Dream. I also enjoy his blog, Whatever.

    Couldn’t resist recommending some SF to a fellow reader!”

    I’ve been reading the Whatever for years, long enough that I got Agent to the Stars online, and I never imagined I’d see you recommended on a knitting forum website. (Come to think of it, I never thought I’d see a knitting forum website, much less one with 280,000 members.)

    Congrats, John, you are truly everywhere!

  34. I just posted the first four chapters of my Science Fiction novel THE KINSHIP on Authonomy, a social networking web site for readers, writers, and Harper Collins editors. The Top Five books will be reviewed by Harper Collins editors and a select few will be offered publishing contracts. Three contracts have already been offered.

    Check out my book here and if you like, please vote for me by clicking on “back the book.”

    Here’s the first 100 words:

    “You know we’re breaking mission protocol.” Lieutenant Jana Randall yanked up her sleeves.

    Tang of alcohol, stab of a needle in each arm. The medtech at the rundown clinic hooked Jana to the cell separator that would remove the microscopic markers from her blood, tools the Kinship used to track its agents.

    Her partner Rodrik ignored the medtech. “And your point is?”

    “Without the Kinship nanomarkers, we’re off the Grid,” she said. “If anything goes wrong–”

    “Domek’s scanners will pick up our signatures.” Rodrik slapped microderm patches on his own IV nicks, his dark brows knit together. “Then we’re dead anyway.”

  35. If you are in the San Francisco area, come to my balance class Sunday mornings in Emeryville at The Athletic Playground, and I’ll teach you to walk on ropes!

  36. If any of you happen to be in in Shanghai during February 2009, my coauthor’s still trying to get his university to send a grad student to present at the huge Complexity2009 international conference our paper on Quantum Cosmology.

    “Time, Incompleteness and Singularity in Quantum Cosmology”, by Philip V. Fellman (Southern New Hampshire University), Jonathan Vos Post (Computer Futures, Inc.), Christine M. Carmichael (Woodbury University) and Alexandru Manus (Southern New Hampshire University).

    The equations are gnarly, but there’s a good science fiction story lurking in there someplace.

    Yesterday I snailmailed 64 double-spaced pages to Stan Schmidt at Analog, a short story and a novella, as stand-alone stories written for dual purpose thus, and as chapters of my still incomplete novel manuscript Axiomatic Magic. All 16,550 words were written since Christmas, as were some other chapters. Yesterday I also wrote another 18 pages (4,300 words) of another chapter (“But Herr Einstein, that’s nonsense!”) of the other novel manuscript I’m trying to complete (Fast Times at Stuyvesant High).

    This is the hard way to avoid finishing the data crunching of my Tax Year 2008 transactions (roughly 1,000 of them) to hand off to my CPA. Once filed, the California tax refund will (I kid you not) be an IOU from the essentially bankrupt state. The Scalzi family might want to avoid greater Covina during these dark days, when a judge has approved the forced closing of almost all state offices 2 Fridays each month, amounting to roughly a 9% pay cut/furlough for the typical (Unionized) state employee.

  37. This is entirely late – I picked a bad few days to do the no-internet thing…

    I’d like to plug our PDF zine (90+ pages), Speculative Mystery Iconoclast, on sale at our site, http://www.specmystery.com . We specialize in publishing Speculative Mystery crossover short fiction.

    Please support us, if the above is your kind of short fiction.

    I’d also like to pimp this site and its owner for being so gracious in allowing us mere commenters to pimp our wares. That didn’t come out right…

  38. Hello everybody, I just finished creating my account and I really wanted to say Hi! I have been lurking here for a a long time and finally decided to join.

    I am a realator and in my free time I’m trying to make a personalized puzzle for friends and family.

    So, hello from Italy, I hope to talking to everybody.

  39. hey you

    2010 wasn’t thriving to be just another unfamiliar year for me , but a whole new decade. While most go down goals relating to body issues, financial goals, career advancement, relationship pleasure — I decided to overcome my addiction, specifically my masturbation addiction.

    I’m sorry to say that I have finally failed to keep my addiction at bay and I have decided to keep an eye on some porn again. Do any of you guys know where I can find some quality porn pictures or porn:adult videos?? I’m specifically looking to download stuff without watermarks and sufficient quality dvd rips to raise a nice clean collection. No tube crap. I’ve been searching for the past 10 hours to get hold of something like this. This is the first time I’ve visited whatever.scalzi.com but so far I have only found a few videos and pics shared by the members. I got some great content from a guy calling himself TwediemaTevyReums from another popular forum but my appetite is still not quenched. This is one of the videos he gave me just to give you an example of the quality I’m looking for:taylor-tildentilden-real-ex-girlfriends-pornvb porn forum

    Anyway, I hope this is the right category to post this question in.

    Buenas tardes

    “When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.”
    – Mae West (1892-1980)

  40. hey guys! i’m new here. my name’s ashlee and i’m from Portland.

    i like baking and baking friends. oops i mean making. hahah.

    umm i want to forge unusual friends! expectedly a true strong man like johnny bravo to
    sweep me off of my feet and pick me up and shake me like a baby! (…just kidding!)
    i reckon i like watching flicks trailers more than i like watching movies
    and i wish that people would condense all movies to 3 minutes on youtube.

    if you want to give me a back rub down i can pay you in jellybeans or uh.. nevermind.. i can pay you in jellybeans ONLY.

    i’m a gorgeous shapely person. i don’t worry about anything. except for myself.

    it’s wintry and cold here during the winter and most of the year, so how does a compact innocent lady stay|presentable?

    i only just get to go outside so i use spray tan. it works like magic and it covers up whiteness.
    so don’t worry my rosy cheek friends (you don’t have to lie and say that you put on too much blush anymore!) ok anyway.
    i have boys swooning over me and forgive me tell ya.. i’m running| out of jellybeans ;) ;) sooooooooooooo

  41. Mayan End of the World 2012. According to the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012 Ends Great Cycle, which was called “The Fifth Sun”.
    Cycle had 5126 years length, and began on 13 August 3113 BC. Some claim that in this year Mayan calendar ends,
    which could mean the end of the world. In fact, after attending the next cycle of the Mayan calendar going to be, “The Sixth Sun” or “Sixth Age of Creation”

    THE END OF THE WORLD

  42. #Z
    Shanghai

    Shanghai – the city having ancient history, takes the important strategic place in a mouth of the river Yangtze and during the history invariable involves numerous businessmen and adventurers.

    Shanghai – the largest economic center, the largest port and the largest industrial base of China. It also is the important trading, financial, scientific and technical and cultural center. In Shanghai lived and many visible public figures of China worked, the places connected with their activity were kept.

    The traveller in Shanghai is covered with a specific atmosphere of a large megacity with the advanced trading industry in which elements of east and western civilizations fancifully interwine.
    Tourist departments of Shanghai offer tourists first of all a trip on shops, excursions on museums and memorable places, rest in the country areas, special excursions for young girls, acquaintance to the Shanghai kitchen, improving tourism and so forth

    Features of Shanghai as prospering city of long history and place where numerous art workers have left about themselves memory, well-known to all world. Last years in shape of city there were new modern structures: the Television tower ” the Pearl of the East “, Skyscraper ???????? and others. In Shanghai tourist festivals on which tourists from all world gather are arranged. About 10 bus routes carry tourists on one hundred to noteworthy places. In Shanghai besides an atmosphere of prospering ancient and cultural city, the atmosphere of a modern epoch lets itself know strongly.

    Shanghai lays in a strip of a subtropical ocean monsoonal climate, the average annual temperature of 15 degrees on Celsius, for July and August is necessary the hottest weather, the average temperature reaches 28 degrees. January, average which monthly temperature of 3 degrees on Celsius coldest month is. For Shanghai clear seasonal distinctions between seasons are characteristic. The winter and summer long, spring and autumn short-term, a winter season covers 126 days, a summer season of 110 days, for the spring and autumn there are 130 days. Any season suits tourist trips, but it is especially good to travel in Shanghai to inter-season period – in the spring and in the autumn.

    Helen Hamburger, Nov 2010

    PS: I’m sorry, if I’m too offtopic here :)
    PPS: And if so, a eminent favor to Admin, to change this message to a only Topic. Thanx.

    Read my other things at http://www.unecowas.com

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