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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | ||
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neversremedy |
4:14p | Dollhouse I need to watch this with audio (I'm at work), but wow ... Joss Whedon's doing it again: Dollhouse Trailer via ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} darkphoenixrisn |
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poems [ b_r_a_c_e ] |
7:14p | Shadowing I got that tune all in my head I know the words my fathers said I see the footprints on the floor Of those who walked this way before |
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davidlevine |
4:15p | 5/15/08: Another sale! Last night's reading at Powell's went very well: just about every chair was filled, with people from all my various communities (fandom, writing, work, square dancing, Clarion, neighbors, and even a few people I don't know). I read my story "Nucleon," an old favorite I haven't read in a while, and signed bunches of books. The 36 attendees bought 27 copies of Space Magic, out of 32 in stock, plus 4-5 other books of mine (um, by which I mean anthologies containing one story of mine each). Peter from the bookstore says that's some kind of record for proportion of attendees buying the book. I'll post some pictures when I get them. And then today I got an email indicating that Esther Friesner is buying my story "Midnight at the Center Court"</a> for her anthology Witch Way to the Mall. Two sales and a book launch in one week, not too shabby. Other things are happening, though, some good, some not so good (maybe very not-so-good). More news as the information becomes available. |
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karenkay |
6:13p | Whew My book is done. |
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mt_yvr |
4:10p | Been thinking Yes, normally that's a bad sign. I've been thinking. This summer, I think I'm skipping Pride in Vancouver. I've not gotten what I want out of it for a long time annnnd it normally leaves me feeling incredibly depressed. Because it also happens to be my birthday. Yeah, look at that, I'm talking openly about that day. After years of not. I think? I'm going to go to Seattle for the August 1st long weekend for my birthday. Or maybe San Fransisco. Or maybe both? No Pride to contend with, no asshats for friends who can't be bothered, no obligations other than waking up and making my transportation on time. Yes. I do think I shall look into this. Oh. And in case I'm being wildly opacque? THIS IS A HINT. (laugh) Iffin y'all are interested, I'd love to see people while I go rampaging around. |
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nfnitperplexity |
4:12p | I looked up "hoyay" and, by a long and winding series of links, found myself here. Personal favorite. |
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saint_monkey |
4:11p | |
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woodwardiocom |
7:08p | Books: Dragons, Oaks, Hypervelocity, Devastation Fallen Dragon by Peter F. HamiltonI think a certain branch of science fiction has fallen into a trap where the MacGuffin of the plot is always, without fail, a mysterious and ancient alien artifact whose powers can radically reshape the destiny of mankind. It's a good and solid way to achieve sense of wonder in SF, but it's showing its age. It was showing its age 20 years ago.Fallen Dragon falls into this category. That said, I found it to be a page-turner, fun, and lacking in predictablity. The plot: Earth has colonized many worlds, which are not showing a return on their investment. To try and wring a profit out of them, Big Mean Megacorp sends warships to these worlds, with orders to land, establish control, grab anything worth the trouble of shipping back, and leave again, ideally without firing a shot, and definitely without wrecking the world for future "asset realization". Our main protagonist is a sergeant on one of these piracy raids. The author does an excellent job of not handing out too much information too quickly, and also of making all the good guys and bad guys have sympathetic points of view (if not sympathetic methods for achieving them). So, moderately recommended. War for the Oaks by Emma BullOne of the classics of urban fantasy, this book suffers from being one of the classics of urban fantasy. I.e., it's been imitated again and again, particularly by my one-time publisher, White Wolf Games. I found it difficult to stop rolling my eyes, despite knowing intellectually that she wasn't being derivative. Plot: A down-on-her luck rock singer/guitarist finds out that she's pivotal in a battle between the Light Fae and the Dark Fae, and gets a charmingly annoying pooka as bodyguard. Lots of descriptions of music rehearsals, concerts, Fae battles, and what everyone is wearing, every day, in detail ensue. Like I said, it's been done to death in the 20 years since it was published, but it is still quite definitely worth a read. Strongly recommended.Iron Man: Hypervelocity by Adam Warren, Brian DenhamWhat with the movie being so cool and all, I picked up a few of the comic collections. This is a self-contained story by Adam Warren (Empowered, Dirty Pair, Gen13, Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone), with Denham on( Cut for spoiling the end of Chapter 1. ) Plus, in how many comics do you get to see Iron Man try to sneak into a club while wearing a Honda? Transformers: Devastation by Furman, Su, Roche, MussoVolume 4 of IDW Comics' reboot of the Transformers mythos, in this one their covert war on Earth finally spills over into the open, as every faction (Autobots, Decepticons, Reapers, Machination, and the U.S. Government) decides to start kickin' skidplate. This is the volume where the threads Furman has been weaving throughout the first three volumes, and the companion Spotlight series, start coming together in chaotic glory. If you think giant robots are cool, highly recommended. |
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wordweaverlynn |
4:06p | Four Years and Several Months Ago . . . Gavin Newsom celebrated Valentine's Day by opening marriage to same-sex couples. rmjwell and I joined dozens of other volunteers to help celebrate marriages in San Francisco City Hall. People were coming in from all over. I get teary-eyed just at the memory -- the joy was palpable, and shared among so many people.Now what we did then has been upheld by the California Supreme Court. We now have marriage equality -- if we can fight off the various attacks on it. A deep, deep joy. Current Mood:  jubilantCurrent Music: He's a Rebel - The Crystals |
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imtboo |
3:54p | Woohoo and also... This is once again a case where an apology would have been necessary. It's great to correct a mistake but it's pretty hard for people to even notice that you are correcting your error in judgment if you don't apologize for the fuck-up. In this case the fuck-up being made of " we don't think gay people are people too." I am thinking instead of saying "oh nevermind we were wrong, they are people too ; now everybody clap" they needed to really really really apologize for all the years of injustice, have that land and then maybe announce the change in law. But the state is not people... the state is the state.... the state doesn't need to apologize. WRONG. Thank you owldolatrous for really helping me see something important about the issue. . They didn't do it so here it is : I am very very very sorry that for all these years the state of California treated you like you weren't real. It's not a celebration. It's fucking common sense people. Equality is common sense, not some sort of gift. |
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redbird |
6:52p | gall bladder recovery Today was better than yesterday, despite the bits where the incision in my navel hurt; some of that seemed to be the result of getting up and walking around at lunchtime, but that was also long enough after I took the morning's painkillers that they'd probably worn off. This morning my boss said she didn't really expect me to work a full day until next week, and indeed, I left the office around 4:15. The difference is that yesterday, I left at 4:00 because I was in significant pain. Today, I left at 4:15 because I was feeling warm and vaguely out of focus, which isn't nearly as bad from the inside (though both states are detrimental to working accurately and carefully). julian_tiger just spent about 15 minutes sitting on my lap. He hadn't done that since before the surgery: the day after I came home from the hospital, he tried to get on my lap, stepped on my then-very-tender belly in the course of trying to get settled, and I had to push him gently off. He hadn't tried since, until today.I suspect that one reason today went better is that instead of pants, I wore a dress with only a vaguely defined waist, so no constriction anywhere on the abdomen, and all the weight supported from the shoulders. It's also a very bright, colorful garment, and got quite a few compliments. (If I wear a dress tomorrow, I doubt it will be as praised; I think the next option is a sort of cream-colored thing. I don't own a lot of dresses, because most of the time I much prefer pants. This is not much of the time.) |
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pleonastic |
3:40p | it's about time unexpectedly (at least for me), the california supreme court ruled today that homosexual couples have a right to marry. this is a conservative court, with 6 of 7 judges republican appointees. the ruling went 4:3. OMG, yay! SF mayor gavin newsom said, "It's about human dignity. It's about civil rights. It's about time." indeed. i know this might be short-lived because of the bloody ballot initiative, but wow. so good, at least for now. |
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kimuro |
6:40p | Current scenario For the past few months, I've been creating scenarios on top of the entertainment center in the livingroom - as a way to keep the others from cluttering it up inartistically with dvds and videotapes. Here's the current scenario. ( search for Atlantis ) |
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anghara |
3:37p | Happy impending book day, Kelly McCullough! Kelly McCullough, a fellow SFNovelist, had the first novel in the WebMage series, WebMage, released by Ace in 2006 to considerable critical praise. A second, Cybermancy, followed in 2007. His newest release, CodeSpell, will be out May 27th 2008. And a fourth book, MythOS, is slated for late May '09. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Weird Tales, Writers of the Future, and Tales of the Unanticipated. His illustrated collection, The Chronicles of the Wandering Star, is part of a National Science Foundation-funded middle school science curriculum, Interactions in Physical Science. For more information and samples of some his short stories you can check out his website: http://www.kellymccullough.com/. Kelly blogs regularly on writing topics at http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/ along with several other members of his writing group including well known authors Eleanor Arnason, Tate Hallaway/Lyda Moorhouse, and Naomi Kritzer. He also occasionally posts at http://sfnovelists.com/ – usually on the 9th of any given month. Here's what he had to say on the subject of the new book: 1) Why this book? What made you want to write this story? That's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. This is the third book of a series and certainly part of my motivation for writing it is that this is a fun world to play in and I like these characters enough to want to spend more time with them. Part of it is that I had what I thought was a fast fun plot that continued the story in a way that would be entertaining to write and to read. But probably the most important part of the equation for this book is that actions have consequences. The things that Ravirn did in books one and two have ongoing repercussions and I wanted to see how they played out and how Ravirn would have to grow to respond to them. 2) Which authors inspire you? Has that changed over time? Different writers teach me different things at different times. Zelazney and Tim Powers are probably at the top of the list of writers who've affected my work most visibly, though Powers is less present in the WebMage stuff than he is in some of my other, darker work. Norton and McCaffrey and Tolkien are in my bones. Martha Wells is wonderful and so are Robin McKinley and Lois McMaster Bujold. 3) Why genre? Is there something special about science fiction or fantasy that draws you to write in the field? I was pretty much raised to be a fantasy and science fiction writer, though that certainly wasn't the intent of the process. I'm a third generation fan of the genre and some of my earliest memories are of having the Lord of the Rings, Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and A Midsummer Night's Dream read to me. I learned very early to love story and genre and once I found out that I could maybe make a living by telling the sorts of stories that were told to me I was pretty much lost. 4) What do you find most interesting about Ravirn? Why write about this protagonist? What I love about Ravirn is his combination of idealism and cynicism. He expects the worst of a situation but won't let that stop him from working toward a solution, even when he knows the attempt is probably doomed. That and his sense of humor. I come from a family where humor, particularly black humor and sarcasm, are fundamental coping mechanisms. Sometimes life hands you a situation where you have to laugh or cry, and given any choice in the matter I'll always pick laughter. It may not solve the problem, but it sure lightens the load. 5) You're a writer. What else are you? What are your interests? Hobbies? Husband and cat-wrangler are probably at the top of the list for other self-identifiers. My wife and I are coming up on twenty fantastic years together and over that time two cats became three cats, became four cats, became five. I love to read and play video-games. I've got a Gaiman, a Pierce and a Blaylock on the active books pile and I just finished playing Portal and Drake's Fortune. I also like hiking and biking, and since it's spring, I'm at the front end of the annual garden madness. 6) Did you have to do any special research for this book? What did you need to know in order to write it that you didn't know before? Do you have some special preparation you do for your writing? I didn't have to do a lot of new research for this book. After finishing two novels set in the Greek gods plus computers reality of the WebMage I have a pretty good grounding in this world, and I really only needed to touch up my memory of a couple of the myths involved in this specific story. On a more general note, I read non-fiction voraciously. I just finished a great book on plants in traditional Hawaiian culture as part of a Hawaiian history and mythology kick. I read several science and technology magazines on an ongoing basis and I'm looking around for some good references on the Canadian Maritime provinces in general and on Halifax in particular. 7) I see a lot of computer and programming stuff in the WebMage series. Is that something that really interests you? Or is it more driven by the needs of the story? Mostly it's the needs of the story. I love my laptop and the web and I tend to be a technology early adopter if I can afford it, but I'm not really much for programming or hacking. While I have been immersed in computer culture from a very early age since my mother became a bug-checker when I was about ten and has been working as an analyst and programmer ever since and because I've got a lot of close friends in IT, it's not something I'm much involved in outside of writing the books. 8) Ravirn displays a lot of physicality, constantly getting himself into life-threatening situations and back out of them in ways that involve all sorts of death defying action. I'm guessing that's not something you the writer have an enormous amount of experience with. How do you make that convincing? Do Ravirn's solutions reflect the sort of things you might do in a similar situation? I'm much more of a thinker than Ravirn, especially as I've gotten older, but I've got to admit to a certain amount of speaking from experience when I have him do something big and physical and stupid like climbing a building and then jumping off. It's not the sort of thing I'd do now, but when I was in my late teens and early twenties I was something of an adrenaline junkie. I was into martial arts and mountain climbing and all sorts of things that are moderately safe when done responsibly and less so when done the way I did some of them. From fifteen to twenty-two I averaged two trips to the emergency room a year, and as I've gotten older that's led to things like a couple of knee surgeries and other corrective measures. 9) What are you writing now? A couple of things. I just sent off book proposals for a fifth WebMage and for two books that I would like to write as a successor series to the WebMage/Ravirn books. I've also got a YA I want to work on–the second in a series that my agent is shopping around now–because I'm in love with the story and the world. That's the main front burner stuff. But I've got five complete novels and nine proposals out with various editors and any of those could get moved up the list if they sell. I'm pretty busy at the moment, and I love it that way. There's really nothing I'd rather be doing with my life than what I'm doing right now. 10) How did you become a writer? Is this what you saw yourself growing up to be? Or did it take you be surprise? Short answer: I quit theater. Longer version. I set out at the age of eleven to be an actor and was well on my way when I met the woman I would eventually marry. At that point, I realized how incompatible theater was with having a long term relationship and I went looking for something else to do. On something very like a whim I wrote my first novel and fell head over heals in love with writing. Now I can't imagine myself doing anything else. 11) Do you have a writing routine? Talk process for a moment, how do the words get on the page? I write between two and eight hours a day five days a week. On a typical day I get up around eight in the morning, stagger downstairs and collect a unit of caffeine–could be soda, could be tea, it doesn't really matter since it's a delivery system. Then I hop on the treadmill and websurf and read email and the like for an hour or so. At that point I'm mostly awake and I do things like respond to the email or other writing and life maintenance tasks. That can take anything between twenty minutes and two hours. Then I write. Less than a thousand words is a bad day. More than two thousand is a good one. Oh, and, I use a laptop so that I can work where the whim takes me. 12) Office? Closet? Corner of the living room? Do you have a set place to write? A favorite? How does the environment you write in affect your production? Your process? In summer I write in a second floor screen porch. It has a gorgeous view over the park that abuts our backyard, and that sort of near outdoor setting is my preferred setting for writing–I'm hoping to have a more permanent solar built to replace the porch soon. Until then, my winter office is our upstairs sitting room which gets southern light and is a pretty comfortable substitute for my screen porch. 13) Is there anything you especially like to work on in a book? Anything you hate? I love world-building and plot-twisting. Figuring out how a system of magic might work and then figuring out ways to game that system fascinates me. And yes, I was a rules lawyer back in my role-playing days, why do you ask? Likewise building a plot and then coming up with ways to add twists or bits of misdirection is a joy for me. I don't really have any hates. There are things that I used to find more difficult, character chief among them, but I'm getting a steadily better handle on the whole process and I just love writing. I even love rewriting, both the sentence level stuff and the bigger more complex story edits. 14) This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there. Well, primarily it's the WebMage stuff. WebMage, Cybermancy, and now CodeSpell with MythOS finished and forthcoming and a proposal in for SpellCrash after that. On the novels front, as I mentioned above, I've got five more books and nine proposals out, so that could change at any moment. I've also had a number of short stories published, including an illustrated collection as part of a big middle school physical science curriculum that's been adopted by several states. But that doesn't make an enormous amount of sense outside the classroom setting it was written for. 15) Do you see fiction as having a purpose? Generally? How about your own work? Transcendence. I think that human beings need story. We need myths and legends and tales that lift us out of ourselves and that fiction supplies that need. That's another reason I do most of my work in fantasy-if I'm going to be a mythmaker for a living I might as well write the truly mythic. Sales info: Amazon: CodeSpell: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A Cybermancy: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A WebMage: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A Barnes & Noble: CodeSpell: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse Cybermancy: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse WebMage http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse Dreamhaven (signed copies): http://dreamhavenbooks.com/mccullough.p Hide quick tip X Quick Tip: Link to Other Wiki Pages Use the Link function to link to an existing wiki page, a new wiki page, a document, or a URL. |
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reddig |
3:35p | Party/Work Weekend May 23-24-25 Hello all, With the summer here in force and many tasks about the property and many friends who we have not seen in a while, I have decided to have a party next weekend, with a work theme. ;) Basically many little things including: fence along back property line to contain the chillens Garden tilling and planting New fencing around expanded garden including access gate and arch Climbing Wall updating Cementing in flagstone floor of pergola Spreading gravel in driveway Spreading bark mulch in some flower beds Spreading top soil and planting grass along new wall. Craft Room Organizing Deck Treatment Roof mold scrubbing Now even if you are not feeling the need to work, you are still welcome to join us for a nice weekend or any part of the weekend. Other activities may include Gaming (Strategy, Apples to Apples, poker) BBQ Beer Brewing Climbing wall hi-jinks Playing with childrens and cooing over babies will most likely be possible. Maybe a little fire pit in the evening to sit around and shoot the sheet. If you are coming from farther away than Portland we definitely have room, at least 2 guest bedrooms along with inflatable matress in office and futon in the climbing shed if needed. Please RSVP if you are at all interested and I can ensure we have enough food drink and materials. Current Mood:  hopeful |
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bearfuz |
6:32p | |
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wintersweet |
3:20p | Just an FYI for privacy-loving websurfers If you click on a link from your friends list to visit a website that's running Google Analytics, the Google Analytics user gets your username (because the referring link is whoever.livejournal.com/friends). If you want to avoid that you can just copy the link into your address bar for a small modicum of privacy. Well, generally when websurfing you can't consider yourself anonymous unless you work at it, but anyway, hello to all my LJ friends who visited talktotheclouds.com ;) I just posted an intro to RSS and a couple links for Burma and China aid. |
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tenacious_snail |
3:09p | Officiating at Weddings I used to officiate at (non-legally recognized) same-sex weddings on a regular basis. I'm considering re-obtaining the credential that I'd need in order to officiate at weddings. It is something that I've really enjoyed doing, and that I think would be fun and meaningful for me. There also may be a lot more people planning weddings now. Out of curiousity, would any of my friends want me to marry them? Also, I've charged between nothing (for a partner's sweetie) to $250 (when planning the ceremony and doing premarital counselling), though that was more than 10 years ago. How much would you expect to pay for an officiant? ETA: I found that weddings usually took at least two two-hour meetings, and if I were writing a ceremony, it could take up to another 10 hours of work. Some of that was work that the church I was working for needed me to do. I'd have to decide for myself what level of premarital counselling I'd feel was responsibly appropriate/necessary. Comments screened so feel free to say what you wish. |
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redbird |
6:07p | Yay California! The California Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry under the state constitution. 4-3, but that's good enough (one of the dissenters basically said she's in favor of marriage equality but doesn't think the state constitution guarantees it). Also points to the BBC, for the headline "California lifts gay marriage ban," with the pleasant suggestion that allowing same-sex marriage is not only the right thing to do, but the normal thing, with the rule against it having been the anomaly. (The UK offers same-sex civil partnerships, not called marriage, but I'm not sure precisely what the differences are.) My mixed-sex marriage is in no danger from this ruling, of course: my beloved cattitude and I are staying together because we want to, not in order to distinguish our heterosexual relationship from homosexual ones.[That makes two US states that will perform same-sex marriages, I think three that have "civil unions," and at least one (New York) that does not perform same-sex marriages but recognizes such marriages legally entered into elsewhere, including outside the U.S.] Current Mood:  pleased |
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mhari_lindhaven |
3:07p | Holy @#$% Batman! 106 degrees! *whimper* |
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thette |
11:59p | There's a Doctor at the gate... One thing I really like about Human Nature/The Family of Blood: the Sister got the same theme music as the girl Dalek commander in Remembrance of the Daleks. Self-homage FTW! And how can you not love a show that has a theme for scary little girls? Joan says practically the same thing to the Doctor as he said to Rose in Doomsday, about living an ordinary life, and the "Can you change back?" conversation mirrored the one in the Children in Need special from 2005. |
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lyonesse |
6:02p | re: my brain my pda doesn't seem to be ringing and dinging as it should :( if i have missed an appointment/meeting/message/vmail from you, please to reschedule/resend? i still can't find my camera either. yrs on lameass standard time.... |
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planetalyx |
2:53p | Two events on May 31st... Love is in the Air and DIRT A Vancouver Women's Chorus is having its concert on Saturday May 31st--it's called "Love is in the Air," it'll be held at the Moberly Arts and Cultural Center. Admission is by donation, and the Vancouver Men's Chorus will be putting in an appearance too. As the title suggests, we'll be singing about love: new love, old love, break-ups, passionate reunions, passionate kisses, and the happily ever after so many of us dream of.  Or, if that's not your bag but you do want to go out that night: "What is it about feeling dirty that shames us into silence and disgust?" asks director Meghna Haldar in the feature documentary Dirt. From the slums of Kolkata to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to a barbeque join in Central Texas - everyone has a difference story. Dirt isn't just a four letter word, it contains a world of meaning spanning the divine to the profane. A quixotic odyssey into all things unclean, featuring animation to make Hieronymus Bosch blush, tracks from Godspeed You! Black Emperor and an experimental soundscape by Clinker, Dirt digs deep to illuminate the positively filthy experience of being human.  |
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coraa |
2:49p | lost bread.... I finally got my copy of The Aphorisms of Kherishdar by M.C.A. Hogarth today, and I am enjoying them very much. It's a slim book, and I could read it in one great gulp, but I don't think I will. I think it lends itself better to a few today, a few tomorrow, a few on Saturday.... In the meantime: bread! On Monday I made French bread and ate the first loaf fresh, on Tuesday I made pizza with the second loaf, and yesterday we had half the by-now-somewhat-stale remaining loaf with soup. The last half-loaf is by now pretty stale. Does anyone have a favorite thing to do with good but stale bread? Croutons, french toast, breadcrumbs? |
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cakmpls |
4:50p | Thank you! To all who wished me happy birthday in their own LJs or in mine: thank you! |