Monthly Archives: August 2022

My Chicon 8 Schedule

I’ll be at Chicon 8, this year’s Worldcon, starting tomorrow, and if you’re there, you’ll be seeing me doing public events at these times and places: Friday, September 2, 20221:00 PM CDT: 45 Panels in 60 MinutesGrand Hall LDuration: 60 mins 4:00 PM CDT: Autographing – John ScalziAutographing areaDuration: 60 mins Saturday, September 3, 20221:30 […]

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The Big Idea: Bob Smietana

For years now, Bob Smietana has been a writer, reporter and editor for the Religion News Service, and as such has had a front row view of the changes in, and challenges of, religious organizations and entities here in the United States. Where is it all going — and where should it be going? In […]

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The World’s Biggest Pooper Scooper

Because we live in the country and are not hooked up to the village of Bradford water supply, we have a septic tank, and because we have a septic tank, every five years or so the county comes by to check on it and make sure it’s in working order. The last time, everything was […]

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Church Update, 8/28/22

As summer begins to wind down, so too does the first phase of the church renovation. Things done since the last time I checked in here: Railing added to the balcony: Sanctuary floor and chancel finished (the pews, while out, are not in their final positions), new basement-level floors laid, one restroom refurbished and another […]

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The Big Idea: Randee Dawn

Life is short… but TV is forever. Author Randee Dawn plays with a fantastical variant of this sentiment with her new novel Tune In Tomorrow. RANDEE DAWN: Who wants to live forever? One great thrill we get from writing and reading fantasy, science fiction or even horror is about imagining creating and watching creatures who […]

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Universal Yums: August 2022 Review

Hello again, everyone! Today I’m back with another Universal Yums review. This time it’s the August box, so I’m just barely fitting it in before the end of the month. Hard to believe it’s almost September already! In case you haven’t seen my other posts over Universal Yums, it is a subscription box company that […]

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The Big Idea: David Quantick

You have to hand it to David Quantick: He took a wild idea, and then, as the kids used to say, let his fingers do the walking (on the keyboard. I’m sorry. I will stop with the puns now). In this Big Idea, learn how the author finally got the idea for Ricky’s Hand out […]

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GeForce Now: A Review

In my writeup the other day about not getting a new computer (or, more accurately, about ordering one and then cancelling the order because of supply chain issues), I mentioned that in lieu of getting a ginchy new computer with a top-of-the-line graphics card, I got a subscription to the GeForce Now streaming service, which […]

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The Big Idea: Dan Koboldt

Heists! Dan Koboldt has been thinking about them — strictly for fictional purposes, honest! — and in this Big Idea for Silver Queendom, Koboldt gets into the nitty-gritty of what makes them work. DAN KOBOLDT: I love a good heist movie. It probably says something about me that my favorite film genre involves cleverly stealing […]

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More New Music: “8/22/22 (Perseus Galaxy Cluster)”

NASA’s Exoplanets Twitter account posted this yesterday: And I was all, huh, I wonder if I can make some music out of that. The answer is: Apparently! Although I didn’t end up using the original audio file. What I did was make a MIDI file out of the original audio, quantize it for time and […]

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(Not) Getting a New Computer

My desktop computer has been slowing down a bit recently, and my graphics card is now several years old and questionable for a number of new games I wanted to play, and my C drive recently informed me it had only 5GB of space left on it. So I made the decision a couple of […]

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The Big Idea: R.R. Virdi

All legends have an origin. Author R.R. Virdi tells us a bit about how stories change, shift, and adapt over time in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The First Binding. R.R. VIRDI:  Something I wanted to tackle with The First Binding is the nature of stories: how they’re created, how they travel, change their […]

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The Big Idea: Kate Heartfield

Author Kate Heartfield brings us an original story based in the wildly popular videogame series Assassin’s Creed universe. Come along as she unwinds the history of her newest novel, The Magus Conspiracy. KATE HEARTFIELD: Queen Victoria survived eight attempts on her life over the course of her reign, by seven assassins (one guy tried twice). […]

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Oh, Right, Governance

I’ve noted before that I am posting less about politics these days, primarily because I find it largely enervating, and there are only so many ways to say “The current GOP is a white supremacist authoritarian cult who threw away any pretense at seriousness to grovel at the feet of an actual seditious criminal” before […]

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Why I Like Making Music

Mostly, it’s because I’m not good at it. This is not me fishing for compliments. I am aware I can fiddle about and get something out of my equipment that is musical, and that it isn’t completely awful. What I mean is that my level of technical competence with the programs and instruments I own […]

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Your Weekend Cat

I had the Midjourney AI art generator give me a few pictures of a cat in a library, in the style of Gustav Klimt. This was my favorite, both for the absolutely unimpressed expression but also because in the cat’s “fur” you can see hints of books and bookshelves, which is actually quite clever for […]

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Love Death + Robots Renewed For Season 4

Netflix announced it on its Twitter feed (and presumably elsewhere): Of course I’m thrilled about that and for the whole team at Blur, the production company who makes LD+R for Netflix. Before anyone asks, at this particular point there’s very little I know and even less that I could tell you about the status of […]

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