Just Arrived: My First “Hey, Are You Dead?” E-Mail of the Day.
Posted on November 9, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 52 Comments
To respond: No, I’m not dead. I’ve just had a very busy day so far. Doing things that aren’t on the site! I’m allowed! From time to time.
So, uh, hi. I’m alive. How are you?
Good. Kindly stay alive. That is all.
Kinda wondered after all the previous days posts. But hey, it was a lively week. Good to hear, though, that all is well.
I’m alive and ready for a 3 day weekend! (Get Monday off for my birthday, although my b’day is Tuesday).
Hey, I noticed you haven’t posted anything in the last 30 seconds or so. Just checking in to make sure you didn’t raptured by the nerd gods.
Man, some people have a lot of faith in the zombie apocalypse, if they’re expecting you to answer after you’re dead…
Currently reading “The Conserved Bardet-Biedl Syndrome Proteins Assemble a Coat that Traffics Membrane Proteins to Cilia”
No, I don’t know what it means either, but I will in the next hour or so!
Not at WindyCon, and having a bit of an earache. First is by choice, suspect the second is just sinus pressure. Going home in about an hour to snuggle my dogs, eat yummy yummy ribs for dinner, and sew things.
Thanks for your frequent posts lately — they were fun and insightful (as usual).
Now your audience is jonesing for the good stuff, so they’re waving their salt shakers to take your pulse.
Alive and busy as well. This is actually the first chance I’ve had to sit down all day.
I’m alive.But, life does get is the way of reading and writing.
Ed
BraaaaAAAAAAAINSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssss…..
Glad you’re not dead! As for me, things are looking up: I didn’t get my Ontario trip this summer, but I’m making a weekend trip to Cincinnati next week, so I’ll at least get out of town for a while. Thanks for asking! :D
If it isn’t on the internet then did it actually happen?
Still waiting on a paycheck that got held up by Sandy (which: ugh) but anticipating seeing Lincoln tonight.
Still alive here in Seattle. Personally, I didn’t think you were dead, I just expected you were writing or some such.
One the one hand, I write novels in the 50,000 to 120,000 word range, each in a genre or intersection of two genres, that have some chance of selling. On the other hand, I write experimental, self-indulgent, loosely-structured big things, which take on a quirky life of their own. One — BATSHIT CRAZY (Bangkok psychiatrist has frustrating emails with madman in Ho Chi Minh City, reacts to parents’ divorce, enjoys opera “World Soul”) grew past the 1,000 page line yesterday. Another — Alzheimer’s War (Biotechno-Thriller set in 2020 AD in Brazil, China, India, Russia, orbit; a joint naval assault on Shanghai Disney Resort) hit Chapter 405: “China and USA Elect” yesterday, which gets me to somewhere around 400,000 words. Today I passed the 3/4 point of SFWA Minimum Novel on “Lutetia 2040” about asteroid colonization, and wrote a funny poem about a forgetful guy thinking about Marianne Faithfull and Paget Brewster while doing Category Theory. Roughly indexed the contents of two giant plastic document boxes so my son could carry the heavy muthahs into the freezer room and stack them in the closet that used to hold the rooftop solar panels’ water heater. Plus had two more contributions published in The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences™ and got some good advice for the latest subpoena and deposition scheduled for Pearl Harbor Day. And cleaned the stuff in the kitchen sink so the maid wouldn’t be too disgusted. Now I’ll borrow my son’s car and drive to Caltech for the poetry workshop. Thanks for asking.
Stop doing other stuff at once and IMMEDIATELY begin to entertain me on the internetz. I’m entitled to your undivided attention
Kthx.
How do we know that that’s really John and not one of the cats posing as him while the other two dispose of the body? I’M ON TO YOU, CATS!
Alive. Watching the clock tick down at work until it is time to go watch Skyfall. And thank you for asking.
I’m also alive, thank you for asking – and glad to meet you, fellow alive being. I’ve been to a kind of book con for a few hours today and I I obviously bought some books – and a mug.
It’s raining here (northern California)! KittyGirl is not happy with me. In her opinion I am in charge of food and weather and she is in charge of everything else. She has let me know that I am not performing to her standards.
Besides rain all else is good; thanks for asking.
Dear fellow commenters. Can we wait at least TWO days to bug Scalzi to update his blog? He doesn’t have to do it every day, you know. Don’t you all want books and video games??
Sanka, ya dead mon?
Yeah, mon.
Dead, and loving it!
Are you undead? (Giving new meaning to “the braineater struck.”)
*checks for fangs*
*checks pulse*
Apparently still alive.
Respirating. Krebs cycle. Intake and outake nominal.
No precipitation, one happy cat, one unhappy cat, pondering 007.
If anyone ever sends me an email asking if I’m dead, I’m going to send back “Yes.” Just to see what happens.
Hey, I’m OK. Thanks for asking.
If I don’t comment for a while nobody ever asks if I’m dead, I’m jealous.
Maybe you should get a set of those biosensors the astronauts wear and upload the data to some kind of a wordpress widget in real time. Sure, it would be a ghastly invasion of your privacy, but it would reassure us Whatever addicts that you haven’t shuffled off this mortal coil and stop those annoying emails. It’s a win win! Something to think about. ;p
Nice to know you’re still alive, although I’d sort of assumed that. I just assumed that you had something important to do. I mean, Whatever is a very entertaining site, but you aren’t put upon this Earth to make blog posts for my amusement. (Well, I hope you aren’t – it would seem like a rather thankless job.)
Glad to hear you’re alive, although I was not aware the issue was in doubt. Rylee (the dog) just failed in his attempt to save us from the pizza guy, so we’re eating now.
Sitting in the cold during the week power was out from Sandy gave me a head cold which has become some kind of weird ear infection. It doesn’t hurt, yet anyway, but I can’t hear out of my right ear, and the sensation is like like swimmer’s ear or a pressure imbalance that won’t go away. I keep feeling like if I can just yawn wide enough it’ll quit, but this does not appear to be the case.
Thankful for the weekend after a week of Open Enrollment heck at the large company I work for. Only 3 more days to go!
Apparently it’s circle of life day here. Found out one of my old friends died today and another friend is getting ready to have her second child.
Now I have an imaginary version of you covering “Still Alive” from Portal on your Ukulele running through my head.
Thanks?!?
I’m alive and well, having come through the hurricane with only a couple of shivery nights and some sore muscles (from pushing loaded handtrucks and throwing cases of MREs and bottled water around at the donation center). Many, many people in my area still suffering, but I got power back late Monday and am fine (though my usual grocery store is well and truly trashed and won’t reopen for months if at all—not clear where I’m going to get the things I could only get there, like the dry-mouth gum). Please keep a good thought for people in my area who are anywhere from without power to without anything but the clothes they fled in.
Xopher –
“Please keep a good thought for people in my area who are anywhere from without power to without anything but the clothes they fled in.”
It’s serious stuff up there right now. I’m happy to hear you’re alive and well-ish.
Other Bill, I’m as well as I was right before the storm, and my house is undamaged. That counts as “perfectly fine” around here, and really feels that way. In fact, in some ways I’m better off than before, and not just because of comparisons with others who are truly suffering; I made myself useful during the bad early days after the crisis, and that’s given me a lift, coming as it does after many months of feeling utterly useless to anyone.
Thank you for being glad I’m fine.
Sigh. ‘Crisis’ should be ‘hurricane’ in my previous. The crisis is ongoing, though less intense than it was.
Xopher: I grew up in FL and I have some good memories of community coming together and so forth after hurricanes to help each other out. OTOH YMMV pretty fucking widely depending on how the storm impacted you. Sounds like you’ve got a good perspective. Keep the faith, brother.
@ John Scalzi,
You mean you don’t exist for the sole purpose of our entertainment? I’m crushed.
@ Xopher,
I remember MREs from survival school. My condolences, but I’m glad to hear the Northeast hasn’t fallen into the Atlantic.
Alive and well, and less broke than I was yesterday. Woo-hoo!
Actually, this is now the first “Hey, are you dead” e-mail of yesterday.
So this is effectively an open thread so I’m going to make a baseless accusation: I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s ALLOY OF LAW. Admit it: you ghostwrote it. Or at least did all the dialogue. I will accept a large check if you want me to keep this revelation quiet.
Today I am better than yesterday, and I hope you are also.
Honestly, the next time someone performs the internet equivalent of poking you with a stick and asking if you’re dead, you ought to answer “Yes.” and just leave it at that. Serves ’em right.
I see why you weren’t here yesterday. The ladies have been gone for a week, and Friday was your day to do everything you promised to do while they were gone. I know how this works. :-)
Maybe you should get a set of those biosensors the astronauts wear and upload the data to some kind of a wordpress widget in real time.
Getting continual, monotonous updates on the status of your acquaintances…isn’t this called Facebook?
Thanks for asking. I’m kicking ass taking names, and I’m fresh out of names.
Most of the other responses also seem to come from people who feel good, and I hope the rest feel better by now.
The Silent Majority want dead rights! End Vitalism now! – Reg Shoe
Since we see swo many pics & notes on the cats, I was wondering if they are members of the 33%? please see link to oatmeal.com
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill
Mike:
Indeed all our cats are working cats as well as pets. We have agricultural fields on three sides of us, and if we didn’t have cats, in the wintertime we would have field rodent issues in the house.
The dog, it should be noted, occasionally hunts as well.