Monday Morning Update
Posted on November 8, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 61 Comments
AS IF YOU CARE.
1. Back home again after a weekend away. Where did I go? What did I do? Sorry, that’s classified. But I will say that when that race of superintelligent badgers emerges from its sett outside of Omaha, Nebraska and claims dominion over the whole of the Midwest, you should not be entirely surprised. And I had nothing to do with it. Nothing.
2. That said, it was a lovely weekend with friends, not nearly all of whom were hypercognitive mustelids.
3. All right, fine. You want a hint where I was? Here’s a hint: While I was there, I ate beignets. Which badgers do not like unless dipped in an earthworm reduction.
4. I am told I am not allowed to speak of the badgers anymore.
Anyway. How was your weekend?
Weekend not half bad, though I worked through a good deal of it; had Friday off, though.
Badgers, eh? You should have called this entry “Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday Monday/MORNING UPDATE.”
Two days. Now here it’s Monday, and the promised rain has finally arrived. Two days of anticipation and now rain to mess with schedules and plans. With any luck it’ll be past by Friday, which is when I get tested for Aspergers. Probably have some rare, obscure ASD instead.
Pretty good! Played a couple boardgames with friends on Friday night. (What?) Saturday played Rock Band 3 with some other friends. Sunday we thoroughly enjoyed Megamind, and even the 3D didn’t detract from the film. Last night had a friend over to watch episode 2 of The Walking Dead, and then a little bit of Left For Dead to round out the weekend.
We love our Badger Overlords! C’mon down! You’ll love them too!
Made Schadenfreude Pie. Well, Schadenfreude tarts actually, and then didn’t take into account the increased surface to volume ratio of the smaller form factor (curse you, square-cube law!) and over-baked them. And then ate them. Because in the words of Mort Walker, “Doctors bury their mistakes; cooks eat theirs.”
All things considered, the beignets sound like a better idea.
Did the beignets come with cafe au lait in a charming outdoor setting?
Mine was a quiet weekend. Which was the plan all along. I got very little accomplished, but that was also the plan. I find that a weekend like that once in awhile is good for the soul…and the sanity.
My weekend was pretty nice. My wife and I are about five weeks away from imminent parenthood, so it’s been a mix of frenzied baby preparation and enjoying each others company.
I figured when you tweeted about $9 wraps you were on a trip.
Hyper Taxidea Taxus, Hyper Meles Meles, or some other badger?
Oh, earthworms, so probably Meles Meles.
Good. Taxidea are pyscho bastiches.
I laid out a garage sale in my garage and watched football while people came and went. One guy was late to his party, already lit up, and dropped a hundred dollars on a few old things. Then it rained. A Japanese/American man came in and told a few stories about his Vietnam War experience that made me want to curl up under a table.
Looking for that Nebraska Badger, but they all say they’re from Wisconsin. I sent them packing like the Packers did the Cowboys.
We spent a wonderful weekend in McMinnville, Oregon at the recommendation of one of your guest bloggers from last summer. A Tuscan Estate is a fantastic B & B, and with the leaves turning and the cool air, it was everything we wanted in a nice, relaxing weekend.
Badgers!? We don’t need no stinking badgers!
(Actually, badgers are sophisticated creatures and can be reasoned with. I’m more worried about the race of superintelligent beignets you’ve now pissed off.)
I thought the Badgers were from Madison, Wisconsin. Or is that a brilliant misdirection on your part?
Of COURSE it took place in Omaha. I mean, the entire state of Nebraska and Omaha isn’t a real state or city. It’s entirely gov’t run and used for various types of deep cover and TS projects. Really, has anyone ever really met anyone from Nebraska? If you have, I’d start wondering what the gov’t wants to know about you. And yes, we don’ need no steenkin’ badgers!
As for my weekend, daughter, who seemed on the mend from cold/fever stuff earlier last week suddenly relapsed Sunday afternoon. Could tell it was real as she didn’t want to watch Doctor Who or Simpsons last night. Definitely a sick child. So she and Momma are staying home today and having chicken soup and large furry dogs crushing her on the bed.
I was able to get a single raku firing in but was too breezy for more. Bummer. Wife has a lot of beads to get going with for her jewelry making.
Let’s see, what else, The Peacekeepers fell to the Consciousness in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri game. Roll of the dice on new game with random assignment landed me on new planet as the Gaians. This is my favorite faction to play and I can usually win unless I end up on the same ground as the Hive or Spartans. They’ll overrun me every time. About all I can do is cut my losses and try to find a new territory but by then, am so far behind on tech advances, it’s really difficult to catch up.
I also thought some more on my Victorian Chicks in Space story/web comic (Room w/View vs Ice Pirates which really says more about me than I should probably share). Over the years (started imagining it back in ’97 but haven’t actually written anything out or drawn anything; am not an actual writer or artist), it’s now become cities in flight (James Blish crossed with season 5 Dr. Who) where Edwardian era British industrial town (my joke in the story; doesn’t actually have anything to do with Victorian era) run across late ’60’s launched Spokane. Nothing like mixing hippies in to a story. I figure there’ll be some kind of crash landing on mildly inhabitable planet in new star system. And dinosaurs. Got to be dinosaurs. Thanks to Lucas’ second batch of Star Wars movies, you can come up with as crazy a story as you want and it’ll still look more reasonable that Star Wars and it’s teen-age elected queen who lives on a planet you can fly all the way through.
But anyways, thanks for asking. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before. ‘Course, now, they have a real reason to avoid posing the question to me in the future.
13 hours playing Rock Band 3 and Dance Central with Ferrett and a bunch of other people on Saturday. It was definitely a “I’m tired of being a responsible grown up” kind of weekend.
I watched a chessy SF movie that started with the voice over narration:
“by 2001 mankind had explored all the planets near the sun, inculding Saturn.”
It kind of went down hill from there.
According to local news, here in Cincinnati, a small band of highly-trained badgers has taken over our city government and ordered a lot of carry-out food–all of it charged to taxpayers. We are sending to Columbus for help.
Coincidentally, due to a sale at Dunham’s, I was stocking up on semiautomatic riffles and ammunition. I await the battle with our would-be badger rulers.
Congratulations to Ari on the coming baby.
I don’t blame you, John, for the badgers. Anyone who has traveled in Nebraska knows they’ve been around for years. But few are willing to speak of the real situation, the coming invasion.
Oh my. I have said too much.
Marveled at the reaction, then counter-reaction and now the counter-counter-reaction to the whole Cook’s Source thing.
I mean, Dang, people.
You are going to post the recipe for an earthwork reduction now, aren’t you? How will we ever be able to keep our badgers sated if you leave out these critical details?
Gah! Earthworm. I would swear that was what I typed!
How was my weekend? Mercifully, badger-free (that I’m aware of, at least…).
Went to the AFI fest on Saturday, saw a rather consciously artsy movie. Wound it up with a trip to Tito’s Tacos. Okay, it’s not next door to Hollywood Boulevard, but once I’ve escaped the San Gabriel Valley, I like to keep going.
http://www.titostacos.com/
I continued to fight a cold that started on Thursday culminating with fever Friday and Saturday which broke sometime after noon on Saturday. I did very little on Saturday but hang around the house and treat the cold. Saturday evening, as I was feeling better, I went out to dinner with a few friends and then went and bought a couple of water tight storage containers and promptly transferred stuff into them from not water tight containers and into a basement room which is usually water free and may be even further water proofed soon. Said stuff is not made of anything that is easily damaged by water (Legos, and some AV wiring we use once a year). On Sunday, my daughter’s boyfriend helped me rake leaves and I trimmed ivy from the driveway wall and put it and the leaves in the paper lawn refuse bags to be picked up by our municipality today. I also washed our bed sheets and put the electric blanket on the bed. I’ve finally accepted that the inevitable will happen and we are entering that season with white stuff on the ground and colder temperatures.
I’m getting the following on the AP wire:
New Orleans, LA — In a surprising move, the Saints have hired science fiction author, and noted bacon artiste, John Scalzi to act as Team Creative Consultant.
“This could be a good thing for us,” quarterback Drew Brees said. “I mean, our runners like to run in space, but we’ve not been able to find any space on the field. Scalzi has built a career out of making space. I think it’ll be a wonderful fit. Plus, you know, the dude lets us pay him in Red Vines, so, how could you pass it up?”
As a current resident of western Nebraska, I for one would welcome our badgerish overlords. They cannot be worse than our current government officials. As for my weekend, I indulged in the last 2 packs of cigarettes I will hopefully ever smoke (starting on the patch today, and Jeebus, these things are itchy), did some work around the house, wrote a little on the Nanowrimo project (and I’m dreadfully behind on that) and went for a long drive on Sunday with my family.
Celebrated my grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary with a nice dinner. And then had a lazy Sunday at home. It was a quiet but good weekend.
I packed, I cleaned, I watched BBC’s Hitchhikers Quide and a bit of Football. Funny enough, in the A.M. I watched Badgers dancing on badgerbadgerbadger.com because it was linked through Brittish news, I also wished for more beer (it’s sad, no one out here carries Schlitz) and I found my Fuzzy collection.
I tickled my littles and loved my hubby, I listened to music from Shinedown through classic Rolling Stones and cut myself repeatedly on cardboard, bubble wrap, broken glass and packing tape.
I like badgers, they are cute.
Mushroom, Mushroom.
Badger-free.
Completely, utterly, totally, and in all respects, badger-free.
This weekend I enjoyed watching the Cleveland Browns for the first time ever. Take that, Tom Brady!
Wow, I was in New Orleans this weekend, too. Were you also performing at Lady Fest?
snake. a snake. oooooooo. it’s a snake.
Found out that Dragon Age is just as addictive as EverQuest II.
I went to the small but perfectly-formed one-day Bristolcon on Saturday, whereat were Alastair Reynolds and Cheryl Morgan, among others. Joe Abercrombie was there; I hadn’t heard of him before but he was funny enough in his interview with Cheryl that I bought his Best Served Cold and got it signed, even though I normally read precious little fantasy outside Tolkien, Pratchett, Mieville and LeGuin. A couple of authors, karate black belt John Meaney and Aikidoist Juliet E McKenna, got appropriately dolled and tooled up and demo’d fighting techniques for the benefit of anyone wanting to write plausible fights.
Sunday I walked round the top of Cheddar Gorge and then went to the pub, where the unusual customers of the week were a group of large Dutch men all very smartly turned out in white winged collar shirts, little bow ties, black trousers with braces, blue scarves and half a dozen shiny medallions each, apparently members of a brass band over in the West Country to perform at a Bonfire Night do at Burnham-on-Sea. Then I watched the Brazilian Grand Prix on the telly.
Now I’m having Incident at Hawk’s Hill flashbacks.
@starnarcosis: Argh, EQ2 just sucked me back in after a couple of years off. Can’t. Stop. Playing. I’m Cerranis on Antonia Bayle if you wanna group up or what not.
I was in New Orleans attending a fannish wedding on Saturday. No beignets, alas; but plenty of good food.
And Sunday I got to take a nap. Sleeping in the afternoon with two or three cats cuddled up close—lovely.
Oops, I forgot. I found out James MacArthur died. I didn’t have time to mourn him properly through the weekend, it just hit me, just now. How sad, he was such a handsome man.
Exhausting but satisfying. Friday, shopped for ingredients and cooked Pork Goulash for 32 women at a homeless shelter. Saturday, helped Marcia prepare a Pakistani lunch for 60-70 people in support of a Quaker drive for flood relief funds; delivered the shelter meal. Sunday, prepared several hundred papads, helped to serve the lunch and clean up afterwards. Made $1700 for flood relief and got compliments on the food from several of the Pakistani speakers, two of whom actually took leftovers home.We collapsed into bed at 7 pm and slept 10 hours. Yes, a good weekend.
Beignets? Jealous!
I went badger hunting.
Obligatory link
Still funny after all these years.
Gilmore @ 15
I’m from Nebraska but currently living north of Seattle. The badgers are not overlord material really, they are grumpy and don’t play well with others.
Oh, my mom called (retired gov’t worker) and told me to drop by your house to ask a few questions. No, you don’t have to give me your address, she had it already…
Huh. The only real question – Scalzi, did you ease the badger?
I was involved in a lab accident that transformed me into a badger, although I retained my intelligence. I tried calling for help, but everyone just assumed I had always been a badger and had simply became hypercognitive somehow.
Then they threw beignets at me so I threatened them that if they did not stop that I would take over the whole Midwest.
I actually thought I saw you at one point, but I was in Lincoln not Omaha so I guess it was just someone that looked like you.
Boring weekend in Northeastern Kansas (as opposed to the mutant badgers of Southwestern Nebraska). Baked a half dozen loaves of bread to be smuggled by my dad to his brother in the Eastern Bloc, er, I mean Virginia. Finished reading Blackout and started All Clear by Connie Willis. Watched and remember how utterly disappointing Star Trek: Nemesis was. Took the Rottweilers to the vet for a shot (always an adventure). Watched the leaves trickle off my Black Oak, wishing it was a Pin oak and could wait for the spring.
I had an entire weekend in which I did not grade papers or go anywhere near my classroom. It was very successful indeed.
I need to figure out how to make beignets without a) owning a deep fryer or b) paying CDM outrageous mail-order prices for what is essentially a square donut.
You did pick the right time of year to visit there, though. It probably wasn’t too hot.
Like Pam Adams @#25, I fled the Valley and went to see Eraserhead at AFI Fest Saturday afternoon. But, having lived in Santa Ana for some time before coming to LA, I am aware that Titos Tacos is the opposite of good mexican food (Try Taco Rosa’s in Newport Beach instead. You can try Poquito Mas in Burbank if that’s too far, but there is no truly great mexican food in LA), so I did not go there afterward.
On Sunday I played a tabletop role-playing game with friends old and new. But it was not Gamma World, so there were no hyper-intelligent badgers from Nebraska to deal with.
Saturday volunteering at the WVIZ World Series of Wine winetasting at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Sunday volunteering at the Irish-American Club East-Side Arts & Craft Fair in Euclid, OH.
I made fish-faces at my ten-year-old son and he laughed until he got the hiccups. (Yes, I did other things this weekend, but this is what I accomplished. And I’m good with that.)
#18 by Laura Resnick: According to local news, here in Cincinnati, a small band of highly-trained badgers has taken over our city government…
Old news. That happened years ago. And they’re still in office!! ;-)
Badger badger badger badger
Mushroom! Mushroom!
Oh, snake! It’s a snake!
Do not fuck with badgers, man. We had a bunch of badgers back on the farm. They took on a tractor….
and won.
Destroyed the front tire.
Indirectly.
Cause someone drove the tractor at high speed over the opening to the burrow.
Ok,camoflaged boobytraps isn’t quite as impressive as a direct frontal attack…
Still, badgers 1. Tractors 0.
Returned my husband to the world of Meat World Trains, which has resulted in plans for a whole new layout.
Since I get (1) some portion of the house cleaned up because of this and (2) to make scenery for same, this is a good thing.
I hope you realize that “Hypercognitive Mustelids” sounds like a dandy name for a band. Will you be on tour in New England any time soon?
So my buying a pattern for an amigurumi badger was foresight, then, not whim? Excellent.
Someone once told me polar bears are mustelids.