Posted on September 12, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
Looks like it’s going to be another pretty decent day in paradise.
Hope you’re all doing fine. I’ve got a chapter to write, and then, you know. Hawaiian things to do.
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, editor – AMS
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“Hawaiian things to do.” Sounds like Scalzi’s getting lei-d.
Hang ten, dood!
Looking forward to the sunset.
You should work a hawaiian shirt or a palm tree or a fruity drink into today’s chapter.
Hang loose.
If you’re on the Big Island, my wife highly recommends a “night snorkel with manta rays” experience. You hold on to a big buoy, the buoy has a light, the light attracts little creatures that attract manta rays. You watch as the manta rays, illuminated, feed below you. She said it was incredible.
Have a great time!
– yeff
HEY: One of the best places to get nicely priced Hawaiian shirts (or Aloha shirts, as I believe they call them there: ) Goodwill. There were 4 racks of them.
(may not be your ball of wax, but I stocked up on a work trip)
Just be careful if you go to Hapuna Beach. On the other hand, as my husband can attest, if you end up with a ruptured spleen from bodysurfing there, the Kona Community Hospital is pretty good. (Except for this part: “Oh”, said the admitting nurse, “the last guy who came in from there didn’t make it.” ) My boys would echo the recommendation of night diving with manta rays, my husband had to miss it for some reason.
the picture is priceless!
Bali hai….
I’ll third the recommendation of night diving with the manta rays. It was really cool!
Much prefer the sun rays to the manta rays. Of course that might be because I don’t swim. Enjoy!
If it’s still there, there is a brilliant, cheap Indonesian place in Kailua-Kona.
Looking forward to HawaiiCon and seeing you on panels, book-signings, and whatevers.
If you have a chance, there’s a state park south of Kona near Captain Cook with a long name that translates to, “Place of Refuge.” Just outside the park (I think, it’s been a number of years since we were there) is the best snorkeling I’ve ever done. The place is called, “Two Steps,” and it is spectacular beyond words. You come in off a lava shelf into 12-20 ft waters filled with brilliant corals and fish; it is like swimming in a National Geographic special.
DC Spartan, that’s Puuhonua O Honaunau and the ocean around it. The park itself is worth some walking around time before you get to the snorkeling, which is indeed excellent.
A couple points: 1) Loved “Old Man’s War.” You may be a Lefty, but you can write—same as Charles Stross. I may not care much for you as a person, but as an artist, you’re pretty good. I think the same of Wagner—“Valkyries” is my favorite study music, but if I met him…
2) Genocide does NOT require everyone in that group get killed—the Nazis fought genocidal war against the Slavs and the Jews—interestingly, the Slavs are now finishing the job on their own, to themselves. Just eliminate 1/3 of a group and you’ve done a good job. What people never contemplate about the Holocaust is that it cost the human race about 8-10% of its potential Nobellists. (1/3 of all Jews X 1/4 of all Nobels are won by Jews=)
3) Conservatives have no “safe space.” Neither do Jews or Zionists. I’ve been getting punched for being me longer than you’ve been sentient, John.
4) A book does not sell itself to me by being about genderqueer, transexual, or anything to do with sex or orientation. I left Delany’s Hugo Award Winning Dangerous Vision behind long ago. I like a story that tells me something about ideas, and characters whose humanity makes me think. A sense of history helps, as well.
5)The best Sci-Fi novel of the 21st Century so far was by Tom Kratman, not you. Every year, “Caliphate” ratchets forward tighter and tighter, like a thugee noose that the West cannot escape. Everything going on in Europe circa 2016 was predicted by Kratman earlier—and everything that will happen by 2050 he has already predicted. And all the “1st World Problems” and discussion about how our fantastically free society “oppresses” people will vanish in a bloody haze of ISIS and its allies, and their torture pits. Tom may rub you the wrong way—I happen to know he is a fantastically well informed gentleman.
6) My view from the Rio Grande Valley beats your view from Hawaii. And the taxes are much lower here.
7) People are leaving the Blue states in droves to move to Texas. I wonder why?