Lakeshore

Dear diary —

Today I walked outside. I took my own picture there.



Love,

Jay

Hopefully this is WTF enough..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/1966106/What-came-first---the-egg-or-the-gecko-inside.html

The bizarre discovery was made by a doctor in Darwin as he made dinner earlier this week.

Peter Beaumont broke open an egg and was shocked to find a dead gecko inside. “I was cracking the eggs into a pan when I noticed one of them was all cloudy. I looked at the shell and saw a tiny gecko,” he said.

 

 

Currently at the Starbucks. The wireless router is malfunctioning. I have left terri_osborne, in her capacity as Gadget Girl, to fix it, and am up here catching up on stuff -- and then I go back to proofreading Wounds, the upcoming Star Trek: Corps of Engineers trade paperback collection.

The talk yesterday went very well, and I'm hoping to go back next year. (Yo, girasole! Next year, it'll be in Pittsburgh, so maybe we can fold a trip to visit relative-type people in!) The autographing was disappointing, though I did sell one Quality of Leadership and the local Borders sold two of A Burning House and one of Four Walls. I also got to meet (and geeble at) Victoria Thompson, the author of an excellent series of murder mysteries taking place in early 20th-century New York City.

This morning was promotion day at the dojo. I'm not eligible to go up yet, so I volunteered to help with the kids' promotion. I mostly babysat the yellow belts while they took their written tests, and also ran them through some kata and self-defense.

Then Terri and I went to the gym (we even got to drive, thanks to my emergency car rental, which was nice since it was raining), also stopping at Target for some stuff.

Between Marcus's diagnosis on Thursday, driving to Rutgers and back in the rain on Friday, driving to Lancaster and back yesterday, and today's exertions, I'm poopied out. I'm likely to spend the evening vegging in front of the Yankees-Mets game on ESPN.

But now, back to proofreading......

ninjahijinx offered free icons for anyone coming by, as a way of generating interest in their art and comics website here. I asked for a middle aged lady with some swashbuckling style, figuring, hey, even if it's only within the bone casing of our skulls (or mine, anyway) old bats can bucket too, eh?

So I got this engaging icon, true to promise, meanwhile I'd gone exploring the site. Here's what amazed me--they've got a site for teaching art students world building as well as comics design. World building. Wow. Storytelling has been taking on so many different shapes with the interconnectedness of the web, I am still marveling. (And planning to splash around in the waters of podcasting, soon as I get a quiet morning! What else has been all that drama training for>)

http://igallo.blogspot.com/2008/05/marko-djurdjevic-on-sidebar-nation.html

Being at work on a Sunday afternoon isn't my first choice of weekend activities, but this Marko Djurdjevic interview on Sidebar Nation is making the time go quickly.

This is one weird looking elk, I have to say. It looks more like a llama than an elk. That it’s losing its winter coat doesn’t help with the sad, pathetic look. I’m sure it’s fine though. I don’t think that’s mange or CWD or anything. Most of the elk this weekend were shedding off it’s winter coats. Still, makes for one weird photograph.

Originally published at JeremiahTolbert.com. You can comment here or there.

My first guitar was named Daniel. My current guitar is named Jonathan, for someone I knew during my Rocky Horror Picture Show days. Named it when I was 17 years old. (Yes, wanton_heat_jet, really.)

My beloved Saturn coupe was called Fezzig, mainly because the license plate letters were FZG. No one ever knew but me and the care.

I had a stuffed cat named Jim.

You?

[Another poem by Tom Disch, the mortal, not the god]

The streets are not safe. Women cannot enter
the subway unescorted. Food stocks
are running low, and it's as much as
your life is worth to find ammunition
for a .45. But you'd never know any of this
from the news on TV, where all the talk
is still about the election and the sad aftermath
of the conflict in what is now called Burma
once again. Maybe we could change our name
to something less challenging. Hello-land?
Hello, where am I? How are you.
This is the end of the line, Mister.
You have to leave the car.

I wanted to put in a plug for my brand new anthology from Lethe Press -
Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories, edited by Catherine Lundoff (Lethe Press, ISBN 1-59021-162-6, ISBN 13-978-1-59021-162-5). 17 amazing ghost stories featuring the work of award-winning authors such as Melissa Scott, Lyn McConchie, Marilyn Jaye Lewis and Sacchi Green. Eerie, romantic, unforgettable and disturbing - there's nothing else quite like it.
If you'll be at WisCon, please come to the Sunday afternoon reading and to the book release party on Sunday night. Hope to see you there!
Please check it out and spread the word. Thanks!

Breakfast at the breakfast joint across the street, then writing at the coffee joint in Hillcrest. Still refining the book proposal. I thought I would hate writing book proposals -- mine consists of a pitch paragraph, a synopsis for each of the two books, and four sample chapters from the first book -- but it's actually been really fun to work on. I'm shocked. Shocked that I'm having fun.

So, basically, everything is more writing and more snacks. Not very interesting to blog about, but I'm having fun, and I hope you are too.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/293021925/nazis_gays_and_bryan_fischer.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/nazis_gays_and_bryan_fischer.php

Shorter Bryan Fischer: Because the Nazis really hated homosexuals, they are nothing like the Religious Right. Or maybe it's that because the Nazis were gay, they didn't hate homosexuality enough, as the Bible clearly says you should.

I don't know. It's a confused mess of butchered history, so who knows what this guy is trying to say. He sure seems fascinated with butch Nazis abusing effeminate beautiful boys, though.

Read the comments on this post...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/293015119/bat_wings_and_mouse_feet.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/bat_wings_and_mouse_feet.php

You may recall that a while back I mentioned how Jerry Coyne praised some work on bat evo-devo. I also said that I was going to have to write that paper up sometime. The bad news: I haven't written it up for the blog. The good news: I did write it up for a future Seed column. The better news: Stephen Matheson has a summary right now, so you don't have to wait for my column to come out.

You should still subscribe anyway. It's pretty on shiny paper.

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Went to MacDonalds and ordered a $1.49 cheeseburger. The clerk rang it up for a final total well over $2.50. When I observed that that seemed unlikely, he supported the case that it was $2.50+ by observing that that value was what the machine told him to charge. I was grumpy and would have ended the conversation by cancelling my order.

In the end, he figured out that he had punched the wrong button but it took the manager to straighten things out.

On the "the issue isn't "kids" but clerks - possibly tired clerks - who may be too dependent on their registers" front, I know that I also managed to completely derail a woman at a grocery store by handing her some extra coins after she rang in the value of bill I had given her. The idea was to make the change come out to a nicer value (non-penny containing) but the actual result was that she was terribly confused, couldn't work out the right change even with a calculator, and then took my word for what it was supposed to be.

I had excellent sushi for lunch/breakfast, then spent the day at the beach in Impanema sipping drinks from a coconut enjoying totally perfect weather here in Rio.  Comparing this to mountain life in Wyoming, I can only conclude I’m no longer on the same planet.  I am not sure I have ever seen a girl in a bikini in Wyoming, come to think of it.

And Wyoming and Rio really aren’t that different from each other compared to some parts of Earth (the Sahara, Grand Canyon, East St. Louis, or Beijing).

This is good to keep in mind when writing, or reading/watching bad sf like Star Wars.  Dagobah is the swamp planet, Tatooine is the desert planet, and Hoth is the ice planet.  Right.  What then is Earth?  The every planet?

Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there.

I've been offline for two and a half days (so I'm pretty terrified of the flist volume at the moment). However, many things to discuss.

Doctor Who:
Obtained. Seen. Amused. Thought the ending was meh, but I enjoyed the cheese thoroughly for the first 35 minutes, so it's in the "like" column. Mostly.

Knitting and Fandom:
The BBC is discussing licensing the Mazzmataz knitting patterns. Good. That's the best outcome all around. According to this article, the BBC had been planning to create a line of stuffed adipose, so Mazz's knitting pattern was a direct threat to that particular marketing line, making the C&D suddenly make a great deal of sense.

I find the last paragraph of the article particularly interesting, because it points out the problems of 20th century copyright/trademark law in the 21st century: What makes the episode more significant is that changing technology is making it easier for fans to create and distribute content based on their favourite programmes, causing a dilemma for copyright holders who have to decide whether to risk bad publicity and threaten legal action, or let them run. The current law is blunt: not reacting fiercely and protectively towards anything that might dent the trademark is required, lest the trademark slide into public domain. However, it's a PR nightmare when that is aimed at fans, be it knitters or high schoolers with Harry Potter info sites. So, perhaps it is time that some wriggle room be written into the law.

Knitting, personal:
The Roma project is overrun by barbarians dead. Too ambitious. Too half baked. However, it has been replaced by a series of test-knit patterns for a book currently titled $600 of Therapy (And a Free Afghan). More discussion later as that one bakes past the halfway point, and I may in future call for some test knitters. The general gist is that all of the afghans are based on the same block size, require the same tools, are stress-free for even a novice knitter to understand, and every single project is portable.

New York, New York (it's a helluvatown):
Went up to NYC with fandance yesterday and met up with suricattus and hhertzof. (And y'know that pattern I promised you HH? I had it *with me* the entire time, and do I remember it until I come home? *facepalm* Be aggressive, and ask oblivious me next time; I *do* have it for you!

We rushed around a bit too fast, but it was worth it, because in the end, we got to do everything we wanted to do - see the Superhero costume exhibit (Online gallery here), walk in the park on a lovely day, buy shoes, look at yarn (I saw something perfect for a project, leading to the $600 comment that turned into a title), take a look at one of the many street fairs, see the Patrick Stewart Macbeth, and eat at my favorite restaurant.

( The Superhero Costume Exhibit )

( Macbeth )

Cover me - I'm checking the flist for the first time in too long.

Originally published at Dark Territory. You can comment here or there.

Yesterday, Cherie and I went exploring at the old Tumwater Brewery, which is abandoned, tied up in legal troubles and awesomely spooky.  We couldn’t get inside, sadly–that place was boarded up TIGHT.  The exterior shots are worth mentioning, though:

And just to prove how badass I actually am…a picture of the No Trespassing sign from a few steps outside the private property in question!  Take that, The Man!

Lots more on Flickr.

Cherie and I had our usual shopping/gossip/diner food-fest, and while we were partaking of ice cream we noticed we had a visitor…

Clearly, this baby is up to no good.  Clearly.

I’ve made it through about 50 pages of Witch Craft doing sentence/story rewrites, and it’s about time I got back at it.

Seriously, guys.  I’m going to have nightmares about that baby.

I'd really like some help to name a book that I read at school, but my memories of it are v. sketchy!
I think it had a purple cover.  I think it was futuristic.  Something to do with urban and poss. suburban.  There was a big fence surrounding the urban/city and something to do with traffic lights.  I think I re-call something to do with a boy hiding in a cave and poss. a tramp in a hut.  Said it was sketchy!  Thank you in advance.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/292979522/all_commenced_out_and_a_lightn.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/all_commenced_out_and_a_lightn.php

It was commencement weekend here in lovely Morris, Minnesota, and I spent yesterday in a funny outfit posing for parents and going to commencement parties, and this morning was spent ferrying #2 Son to the Twin Cities for his long bus ride back to Madison. It's time to buckle down and finish my grading now.

But on a happy note, I think we can safely close the nominations for this month's Molly already: it's a landslide, and I don't think Kenny has a chance of catching up, and also we should celebrate the winner's birthday somehow. The Molly for May 2008 goes to Etha Williams.

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Here's a blog post by Amanda at ballastexistenz about a particular kind of assistive technology for a condition I didn't even know was a condition. Amanda writes in a hyper-detailed style, so I often skim, which can be a mistake, because I might miss something like:

Anyway, what I was thinking when I got these, is they should do all assistive technology this way. These aren't just functional, they're also pretty. (And for people who can afford it, they even make versions with stones set in them and stuff.) A lot of assistive technology gets hung up on looking like it crawled out of a hospital or something. These splints are taken by most people as just jewelry.

[...]

The interesting thing to me, also, is that assistive technology likely to be used by non-disabled people (which is to say, most assistive technology, of the sort that isn't normally singled out as assistive even though it is) is often already made with aesthetic considerations in mind, whereas assistive technology for disabled people (the kind that is normally singled out as assistive) generally isn't. Since, of course, assistive technology primarily used by non-disabled people isn't singled out as medical, and since, of course, medical seems to mean uncomfortable and ugly a lot of the time when it comes to equipment.

I have about a million thoughts to build off this, but my brain is wrapped in cotton wool from the cold meds and I can't. string. them. together.

Okay, I'll try...compare prescription glasses to, say, wheelchairs. Glasses are an absolutely vital piece of assistive technology for me--they are the difference between being disabled for 10 seconds every morning while I grope around the nightstand for them, and always being disabled.

But, really, that's the wrong way to look at it. I'm still a person with 20/ridiculous-hundred vision when I'm wearing my glasses, but the assistive technology for myopia has hit such a peak of development that it's not perceived as a handicap. Glasses are such a trifling inconvenience that they're considered a style choice, and no one thinks I'm weird for not wanting to be bothered with contacts, or being leery of laser surgery. And when I go shopping for my assistive technology, I can get a style consultant to help me choose from thousands of designs to pick the one that's both most comfortable and functional, and looks best on me.

Wheelchairs?

...Well, fuck. I was going to scan and post the Bloom County strip where the gang goes shopping for a custom wheelchair for Cutter John's birthday, and finds out that the only "custom" option available is mauve armrests, but all my books are in boxes.

NEVER MIND. I DIDN'T NEED THAT TO MAKE MY POINT ANYWAY.

Things we learn about storytelling from watching Indy J movies:

1. You can kill the cute monkey if it's an evil Nazi monkey.


Any others?