Fiends

14 November 2009 @ 09:00 pm

2012: A Review

I have never before wanted to watch a movie with friends so badly. Because both E.J. and Keffy are, shall we say, big fans of science, and I would want to be there to watch their heads go splodey when the scientists on-screen explain how the Mayans predicted a thousand years ago that a galactic alignment of planets would cause the neutrinos in the sun to mutate.

Watching their heads blow up might actually be better SFX than the movie itself.

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feuders

14 November 2009 @ 08:51 pm

brussels sprouts

People who don't like brussels sprouts can kiss my ass.

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make that double neck guitar a lego

14 November 2009 @ 03:58 am

this is pretty sweet for those who want to play a double neck

It's just a little metal attachment that lets you mix & match any two ministar guitars and basses. And then detach them.

If I were to lego a double neck I would make a bass-star 5 on bottom

and a rockstar ministar on the top

The basstar and rockstar cost $200 and $150 each and the lego part to connect the two costs around $40.

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13 November 2009 @ 05:32 pm

MAC cosmetics

Considering the warm reception that my cosmetics photos got, I was wondering if anyone in my area (S.E. PA) know where I can get MAC cosmetics on the "cheaper" side.

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13 November 2009 @ 05:10 pm

They'll Do It Every Time

When I'm preparing for a trip, I pack my bag full of dense, beautiful books - all those novels I've been meaning to read. And I do read them...

... On the way out.

By the time I board my flight back, I am exhausted, braindead, and lazy, so cracking that book of florid short stories just feels like hiking uphill. I can't do it.

Fortunately, airport bookshops cater to the braindead. So I spend twenty bucks on some idiot pop "science" book like Freakonomics.

This time, however, I've outdone myself. In my lap now is " Rules of the Game" - the bestselling book on how guys can get with beautiful women. "Master the art of attraction!" it claims. And because I want to see what sort of advice seems good to very lonely men, I am going to read it.

I feel dumber already.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Tags: via ljapp

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13 November 2009 @ 09:37 am

Pictures

OK, so like I mentioned last night, I actually had on make up for the first time Wednesday in a long time. Now, it wasn't much.

Here's a before picture:

OK, now that's me normally, without any make up.

( Read more... )

Tags: photos, pics

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Your Personal RPG Archetype

13 November 2009 @ 08:26 am

In my experience as a GM, players are like serial killers: they do what they do in order to satisfy some inner need. And like serial killers, you can extrapolate a lot about their personalities from carefully observing their evidence.

Which is to say that most players, even if they play a lot of characters, generally have some core personality trait that is shared among all their PCs. Take me, for example; I've played characters from a low-life gambler who plays cards with demons for (unreliable) magic powers to a superhero who records his battle-sounds so he can sample them for club mixes later. From an outward description of the guys I've played, you'd be hard-pressed to see what the connecting tissue is, because as a writer I go balls to the wall to come up with wildly differing backgrounds.

Yet all of my PCs share one thing; they're the smartest guy in the room on one issue. Not the smartest guy in the world, mind you, but each character has a gateway to some kind of forbidden knowledge that the other PCs just don't have. Yes, I play a living supernova who burns his enemies with fire... But he's also a physicist. Yes, I'm playing an ex-jock gone to seed who's forced into investigating the Cthulhu mythos... But he also runs a chain of sportswear outlets, and is a master of marketing. The huckster knows magic secrets, the DJ knows the club scene better than anyone.

As a player, I'll be entirely happy if I get the shit beaten out of me in a losing combat if I get to have my secret knowledge mean something during the game. It's perfectly fine if Thermal winds up in chains after the big battle if his physics knowledge was the only way they could have gotten into the villains' lair.

That's what scratches my roleplaying itch. And it's constant.

Likewise, my wife comes up with wildly differing characters from an elf flickering between dimensions to a fire-priestess of a noble kingdom, but all of her characters can be summed up by Thundering Badass Crippled By Dysfunctional Family Issues. If you play with almost anyone for long enough, you'll generally note the ties that bind all their PCs - even if, quite often, they're unaware of it.

So I ask you: What's your archetype? Do you know what need it satisfies? Tell me. I want to know.

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12 November 2009 @ 09:58 pm

(no subject)

Last night was a red letter night. I was actually wearing make up! And it looked good!

And if people really want to see, there are pictures. Maybe I can have my arm twisted into showing them.

And it's all

regalpewter's fault! *L*

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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/very-sekrit-passphrase.html

12 November 2009 @ 10:04 pm

A VERY SEKRIT PASSPHRASE

posted by Neil

There were 38 independent bookshops around the land who had Graveyard Book parties. The people at Harpers somehow got it down to 11, and they sent them to me to judge the winner. The winner gets me for a signing in December. I watched the 11 videos/descriptions/ photos. I watched them again. I watched them yet again, this time with Lorraine, my assistant, watching too and saying helpful things like, "They are all so good. Whoo. Don't know how you'll make a decision. Look at that! They're line dancing to Monster Mash! And that Death is on stilts, isn't he. Is that a horse? A horse in a store? These are amazing." The fourth time, Woodsman Hans wandered in from the deep woods (where he is making a pond) and watched them too.

Then I made my decision. I called Elyse Marshall at Harpers and told her. "Ah," she said. "I'll have to check with the lawyers to find out if you can do that."

So we wait.

...

I posted the Amanda Palmer current East Coast tour dates here last night. http://www.amandapalmer.net/afp/upcoming-shows for venues and details.

Today it occurred to me that in the past when I've had friends on tour, I've often done special "Neil sent me" things, where people who come from this blog get some special free thing, which a) is nice for the people who get the free thing and b) tells the person on tour that people are really coming from the blog. I did it with Thea Gilmore (who is starting a new UK tour next week. People in the UK, go and see live Thea Gilmore, for she is wonderful: http://www.theagilmore.net for dates and venues.) I've done it for The Magnetic Fields, who, incidentally, have a new album coming out on Jan 26th. And then there's the Green Goddess restaurant in New Orleans, where you can mention the "Mezze of Destruction" to tell them you came from here and get sent something wonderful to eat or drink. (It changes, depending on what chef Chris DeBarr feels like making.)

I should do it for Amanda. I called her up and told her.

She called me back. "Beth and I have put our heads together and come up with a code phrase for people from your blog," she said. "So they say it and get a special free thing from the merch table."

"Fire away," I said.

"We think they should come over to the merch table and point to this poster...

...and say 'That chick in the yellow corset crowdsurfing looks kind of hot. I wonder if she's dating anyone?' And then they get something for free."

I said I thought that was a very bad idea, because people might say that anyway, and it was an awful lot for people to remember. And what if they sold out of that poster early that night?

I said, "What about any variant of 'Neil sent me from his blog?'"

"Absolutely not," she said. "That's boring."

I told her to leave it with me.

And then I stared at this screen glumly, with nothing happening in my head, and real work I should be doing starting to nip at my heels. So I turned to the Oracular Orb of truth at http://www.neilgaiman.com/oracle/ and I clicked on the orb and shook it.

It gave me a quote from a few years ago, when Maddy took over the journal and posted pictures from the Hellboy set.

Here is Doug Jones and some strange man it said.

If you go to one of Amanda Palmer's shows on this tour, wander over to the Merch table, and say that you found about it from some strange man's blog. And something good will probably happen. (If they just stare at you, tell them it was me, and this blog. If they keep staring tell them that the chick in the yellow corset in the poster looks like she probably has a really nice boyfriend.)

....

This seemed like a very good cause to me:

Hi Neil,

I am a long-time fan, and have even met you backstage at a Tori show (though that was many years ago!). I am writing to ask a bit of a favor.

About 10 years ago, I appeared on 20/20 with Tori, speaking about sexual violence. Since then, I've stayed close with Tori whose been a mentor of the best kind. I also started a nonprofit, Pandora's Project, that provides support, information, and resources to rape and sexual abuse survivors and their supporters. We operate Pandora's Aquarium, an online support group with more than 20,000 registered members.

Recently, I was named a 2009 L'Oreal Woman of Worth for my volunteer work with Pandora's. I was chosen for this honor from more than 2,500 applicants.

Now, one of the ten 2009 Honorees will be selected as the national honoree through a public online vote. Her cause will get an additional $25,000, and a lot of media exposure. This is the first time L'Oreal has recognized a sexual violence organization, and becoming the national honoree would allow me to shine a spotlight on this issue that affects so many women and women.

Voting is easy - people just need to go to the url below, enter their email address in the box on the right, and click the "submit vote" button. Each email address is allowed one vote, and voting ends November 24.

http://www.womenofworth.com/Honorees/Honoree2009Detail.aspx?nomid=5657c940-425b-47a2-879d-ed3c2d82b56f

I am wondering if you might be willing to send people to this voting link via your (infinitely popular) twitter or blog. I understand if it's not something you can do, but my experience running a small-budget nonprofit tells me it's always wise to ask!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shannon Lambert

I'll plug it happily.

Your correspondent asks "Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the 'oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death' version in which they bring him to the zoo?"

I fear she's in error; in the original version, written by Prokofiev, Peter snares the wolf, then convinces the hunters NOT to kill it, but to take it to the zoo.

I've been researching, and that's what I found out too. Wikipedia has a list of changes made in various versions of the story (Disney, for example, had the wolf not eat the duck). But the wolf was always taken to the zoo...

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marta
[paidmembers]

12 November 2009 @ 02:11 pm

Additions and improvements for Paid Feature

We've made some additions and improvements to Notes!

The Notes feature has been added to two action-taking pages:

You can now add a Note directly on the Add a friend page - handy if you'd like to mark down where you met them or another name you know them by!
On the Ban and unban users page (under Account -> Privacy) you can now add a Note, including to a group of users all banned at the same time (so that next year you won't need to ask yourself "hey, why did I ban these guys?")

Other changes:

When you're viewing your existing Notes they're grayed out; click in a field to activate it to change the text (this page can be found from the header by using Profile -> Manage Notes)
Changes to editing:
- When you're going to create a new Note but one already exists, you'll get a warning that you're editing an existing Note
- You can now delete a note from the "Edit note" pop-up in the hover menu
- You can now delete notes for multiple selected users on the Manage notes page
- When you change Notes on "Ban|unban users" page, they can be edited and saved with "Save Changes" button

Tags: notes

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12 November 2009 @ 11:53 am

A Random Game Poll

When I play through any computerized roleplaying game for the first time, I am invariably the good guy. I make all the morally correct choices, am kind to my fellow travellers, spare my enemies, avoid kicking puppies or harvesting little children, et cetera. I am scrupulous about this, for this is the "official" record.

Then, if the game is sufficiently interesting to play through again, I start a "what if?" scenario where I play the utter bastard, making every greedy choice and slaughtering everyone in town. And I dislike this on some level, but justify it because the first time was what really happened, and this second time is just fantasy. Which is kinda stupid, but there you have it.

However, I know this is not unique. Interestingly enough, my daughter Amy started off Mass Effect with an utter jerk, but within three hours she felt bad and slowly transformed her meanie badass into a sweetness and light hero. Which led to this weird little poll:

Poll #1484469 Roleplayin'
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 305

When I am playing through a computerized RPG of some sort (like Bioshock, Mass Effect, or Dragon Age), I will usually:

View Answers

Start off playing a "good" guy.
207 (67.9%)

Start off playing a "bad" guy.
15 (4.9%)

Go somewhere in the middle between saintly and satanly.
35 (11.5%)

It depends on my mood.
48 (15.7%)

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12 November 2009 @ 09:44 am

Star Wars Ruined My Life

My love of overthinking Star Wars has ruined my writing career. Because Darth Vader is a shivering coward, and practically no one knows it.

Wait, I'll knit those two sentences together in a moment. But first, let's talk about Vader's wussery - and when we do so, we will discuss the only three movies that matter. The word "Annie" is dead to me, and I have no idea what this "mid uh klor ee in" thing is that you're mentioning.

Thing is, in the first three movies, Vader is presented as a total badass. But if you look at what's really happening, truth is that Vader's just a hired gun, and not a particularly great one at that. In A New Hope, Vader's nothing more than Tarkin's bitch. And I use that word in the doglike sense, because not only does he do everything that Tarkin commands him to do ("Hey, stop choking that guy who insulted your whole religion!" "Okay, boss") but Leia actually calls him out. "I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash." In other words, Leia - and, presumably, everyone else in the know - understands that Vader has a leash, and someone's always holding it.

Hey, why does Vader survive the Death Star? Because he was sent out as the lead attack dog to go fight them hand-to-hand. In other words, he survives only because he's one of the most dispensable employees - a glorified Stormtrooper, a special breed of cannon fodder. Where was Tarkin? Back in what he presumed was safety.

Vader's good at killing, don't get me wrong. But "badass" has a certain connotation of freedom and independence, and Vader? Is just another gun for hire.

In fact, Empire, what happens next? Vader's in charge of a task force to find the rebels, sure, but at the end of the film he first attempts to box up his son to bring back to the Emperor without any qualms. Dude, Vader's just a glorified UPS deliveryman - and when your first plan is just to dope-de-ope bring your only offspring back to the Emperor to be brainwashed into being the Emperor's slave, well, you messed up.

And then, when it turns out that his son might almost be able to beat him, what does he do?

He begs.

Oh, don't be fooled by that James Earl Jones voice. Broken down, Vader's cry is, "HALP! I can't beat the nasty old Emperor on my own, 'cause I'm scared! But if you, a one-handed gimp I just thrashed when I got pissy, team up with me, we can do it!"

You think Vader needs Luke to beat the Emperor? Hell, no, Vader does that at the end when Luke's beaten him. No, Vader needs someone to hold his goddamned hand like a six-year-old needs Mommy to cross the street. Vader's a tough guy, sure, but badass? Badasses don't need a cheering squad to help them go off and win the day. Badasses don't beg.

Sure enough, at the end of Return of the Jedi, the only time Vader finally acts? When his son's beaten him, when the Emperor's mocking him and ignored him, when his son's about to die, and when the Emperor has his back turned, Vader finally acts. Could he have done this years ago? Sure. Hell, he's doing it with one hand and a failing life support system. But wimpy ol' Vader was just too frightened of the Emperor to do anything until Luke finally goaded him into it.

Again. That's a guy with a lot of tremendous power, but underneath? Vader's a candyass. He'll take directions from anyone because inside, he's terrified of everything. He goes and beats up people who aren't in his league at all, because he's afraid of real challenges; picture a movie where Bruce Lee only fights mooks he knows he can beat, because he's too afraid to fight the Savage Emperor by his lonesome, and you see Vader's inner scaredycat.

I love that finesse. Because people buy Vader as a badass, because the movie is largely shot from Vader's perspective (something Lucas openly admitted when he went back and, uh, didn't film three awful films). When you start pointing out that Vader really is just a gun to be shot by pretty much anyone with the will to shoot him, they start hemming and hawing and telling you how he's really a threat.

Yes. But a threat is not a badass. Vader's Woody Allen with a lightsaber.

The reason I say this ruined my writing career is because that dichotomy is one of my lit-kinks. I love writing stories from a strong first-person perspective where the lead character is flawed, and completely unaware of it. In other words, I write Vader'fic, where the lead characters appear to be strong and monotone, but underneath there's something else going on.

And that's a weakness right now, because as it is I don't have the chops to pull off something like that. Not one of those stories has sold yet.

What actually happens when I write the story is that people actually buy the lead character's opinion of themself, and they miss all the subtle clues I put in that indicate that whoah, wait a minute, things aren't quite this simple, and instead they see it as a simple "Us Good, Them Bad" story. And I can't fault them for that, because I am writing in a fashion influenced by a man who created a villain who literally millions of people see as the ultimate badass. Which Vader, as I have noted here, is not.

It's an interesting way to try to construct a story. But I need to learn to put in better clues, or achieve deeper characterization so that people can see beyond the surface, or plot better. Because as it stands, for all of its charm any scene from Star Wars makes a pretty lousy short story. I'm gonna have to find a way to either drop this lit-kink or learn to pull it off better.

In either case, I blame Lucas. He's convenient, and rich enough not to care.

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zoethe

12 November 2009 @ 08:52 am

Privilege

As I mentioned before,

yuki_onna and

justbeast flew back in from Russia Sunday night with the intention of driving straight back to Maine. When they landed Cat texted me that they were coming straight to my house from the airport to avoid backtracking, since D's family home is 30 miles further east. In order to expedite their quick departure, I dragged all their stuff out onto the front porch. Just as I finished, Cat texted me again with the news that the car situation required them to go to the parental home first.

Fortunately, it was a warm evening, and dry. Rather than drag everything back in, I just sat down on the porch and read a book on my iPhone. It was midnight and I was surrounded by 2 big suitcases, 2 duffles, 4 large boxes and half a dozen or so paper and plastic bags filled with stuff. I kept the porch light on and the front door open, so I was pretty visible. The sight of me garnered more than a few flashed brakelights as drivers slowed to see what was up.

At about 12:30 a police car cruised by. I know the officer(s) saw me, because I saw the flash of their brakelights just as they passed me. The patrol car continued to the end of the block and turned right.

I wondered if they were circling the block to come by for another look. I wondered if they would stop and ask what was going on. I thought about that Yale professor and wondered how I would feel if they asked to see my identification. I decided that it wouldn't bother me.

They didn't come back.

That fact is at the heart of privilege issues. If I had been a black man sitting on the front porch in this predominantly white neighborhood, I am certain that they would have stopped to question me. And I don't think it's just a matter of being out of place. If I had been sitting on a porch in a predominantly black neighborhood, surrounded as I was with stuff, I suspect that the officers there would probably pass me by as well. Or if they stopped, it would be to discover if I was in any distress myself.

I get to feel like the police are watching out for me, on my side. I get the luxury of it being a novelty if I am ever asked for identification or to explain my actions.

Privilege isn't always receiving a quantifiable benefit. A lot of it is invisible to people who have that privilege. But just because I can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

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Radio! Books! Violin Lessons! Also, a haircut I do not mention anywhere in this blog!

12 November 2009 @ 06:00 am

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/radio-books-violin-lessons-also-haircut.html

posted by Neil

Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.

Also popped in to DreamHaven and signed a bunch of books. The piles of books have grown so high, and the administration was proving so hard for Greg now that he is a one-man operation that I'm no longer personalising books there. But lots of signed books now in for the Holidays at DreamHaven's Neilgaiman.net site.

Spent much of the rest of the day driving around, being a dad, taking a daughter and her friend to violin, all that normal sort of stuff, and listening to Martin Jarvis's Good Omens audiobook as I did so. I'm about half-way through it now. It makes me so happy, especially hearing Adam Young read in something sort of close to Martin's Just William voice. Weirdly, I found it easier to hear what I wrote and what Terry wrote than I could if I looked at the text (which I discovered a few years ago, when I proofread the Harper Collins edition). The text is a bit of a blur, after all these years, but listening I'd find myself going, "Me... Terry.... Me in first draft, Terry in second.... Terry in first draft, me in second.... My footnote to his bit.... His footnote to mine..." feeling vaguely like an archaeologist. Even spotted a couple of tiny continuity goofs we should have caught 21 years ago that I may call Terry about and correct in future editions.

(Edit to add, here's a link for iTunes for the Good Omens book that will, I am afraid, almost definitely only work in the US and territories that buy books from the US.)

I still haven't done the Big China Blog. Until I do, I should point you to Amanda's blog, at http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/240943999/east-infection-china-singapore, which has many photographs of our adventures, and of us, and lots of small anecdotes.

(She has an East Coast Tour on right now -
11.12 Portland, ME
11.13 Northampton, MA
11.14 Brooklyn, NY (SOLD OUT)
11.18 Philadelphia, PA
11.19 Falls Church, VA
11.20 Carrboro, NC
11.22 Knoxville, TN.
Go see her in concert. She's a wonder live. Tell her I said hi.)

Hi Neil,

I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.

Thanks for your time,
~Cecily

PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)

I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate...

And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out.

Dear Neil,

Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.

http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg

I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/

Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/

The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.

Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEED

I love how many families were Coraline families, this year.

If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270

Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.

- B. Bolander

What a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American):

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."

"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."

Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."

"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."

"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"

"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.

Labels: audio books, NPR, Martin Jarvis, China, amanda palmer, The Golden Age

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gandryyne

11 November 2009 @ 06:47 pm

It's Never Too Late

... to THANK a Veteran!

Thank You To Our Brave Men And Women Who Have Served And Made Us Proud!

On a personal note, I was fortunate enough to be aided by a WWII Veteran on my lunch break today. He was kind enough to get something off of a too tall shelf for me. I thanked him both for his help and his service. It was nice to see the resulting smile on his face. :)

Tags: patriotic, veterans day

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11 November 2009 @ 05:01 pm

Quick Notes

11:05 @Luvdbi is his sugar out of whack? *shrug* #

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11 November 2009 @ 02:22 pm

Boosting Signal

From

rollick:

Checking out of the Overlook: 16 Ways to Survive a Stephen King Story. Completely, 100% accurate.

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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/murder-re-enacted.html

11 November 2009 @ 02:21 pm

The Murder Re-Enacted

posted by Neil

The Graveyard Book just won a literary award, which never gets old, and this one came with a medal, and also with a cheque. I thought, Hm. I have to get myself something with the cheque and I have to do it immediately, otherwise it will simply vanish into the day to day bank account of life, and I will never look at anything and go "Ah, that is the thing I got with my Graveyard Book Award."

So I bought this. It's "The Murder Re-Enacted":

It's an E. H. Shepard illustration (he's most famous for illustrating Winnie the Pooh) from Kenneth Grahame's book The Golden Age. Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind In The Willows, the story of Mole and Rat and Badger and of course, Mr Toad, also illustrated by Shepard.

I once read an essay by A.A. Milne telling people that, of course they knew Kenneth Grahame's work, he wrote The Golden Age and Dream Days, everybody had read them, but he also did this amazing book called The Wind in the Willows that nobody had ever heard of. And then Milne wrote a play called Toad of Toad Hall, which was a big hit and made The Wind in The Willows famous and read, and, eventually, one of the good classics (being a book that people continue to read and remember with pleasure), while The Golden Age and Dream Days, Grahame's beautiful, gentle tales of Victorian childhood, are long forgotten.

If there is a moral, or a lesson to be learned from all this, I do not know what it is.

Right. Off to K.N.O.W. St Paul to record the intro bits to my NPR piece on Audio Books, and I will play the Martin Jarvis-read GOOD OMENS on the car CD player all the way there.

Labels: A A Milne, audio books, The Wind in the Willows, fame

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Ode To The Basket Of Halloween Candy On The Shelf Here At Work

11 November 2009 @ 10:34 am

First they came for the Milky Ways, and I did pig out — because I loved Milky Ways;
Then they came for the Butterfingers, and I did pig out — because I loved Butterfingers;
Then they came for the Nestle's Crunch bars, and I did pig out — because hey, it was chocolate;
Then they came for the Babe Ruths, and I did pig out — after searching the remains of the candy dish for a stray Butterfingers or Milky Way;
Then all was left was the Sweethearts — and nobody eats that shit.

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General Taylor - Veteran's Day

11 November 2009 @ 09:10 am

To all who have and who are currently serving their country, whichever one that may be, may I say on behalf of everyone else a big resounding thank you.

I'm going to post the lyrics to a song done at PARF, sung by the Rakish Rogues. Every time I've heard them sing this song, they've introduced it with this: "To all the sailors and the soldiers all over the world, wherever they may be, may they all return home safely".

General Taylor

Well General Taylor, he gained the day
Walk him along, John, Carry him along
Well General Taylor, he gained the day
Carry him to his bury'n ground

[Chorus:]

Tell me way, hey, stormy
Walk him along, John, carry him along
Tel me way, hey, stormy
Carry him to his bury'n ground

We'll dig his grave with a silver spade
Walk him along, John, Carry him along
His shroud of the finest silk will be made
Carry him to his bury'n ground

[Chorus]

We'll lower him down on a golden chain
Walk him along, John, Carry him along
On every inch we'll carve his name
Carry him to his bury'n ground

[Chorus]

General Taylor he's all the go
Walk him along, John, Carry him along
He's gone where the stormy winds won't blow
Carry him to his bury'n ground

[Chorus]

General Taylor he's dead and he's gone
Walk him along, John, Carry him along
Well General Taylor he's long dead and gone
Carry him to his bury'n ground

[Chorus 2x]

Tags: 11-11, song lyrics, veteran's days

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11 November 2009 @ 07:58 am

Questions, I Got Questions

Six-hour meetings always leave me drained, especially if they're productive ones. So I did the "three questions" meme with three friends. (It's the one where you leave a comment asking them to ask you three questions, and then you post the answers and promise to do the same in your journal. I'd always like to play, but if I posted something where I gave three questions to everyone who wanted 'em, I'd be here all day.)

Anyway, their questions:

xhollydayx:

1. What is your next hair color, or are you going to eventually go back to au natural Ferrett?
I'm pretty much choosing my hair colors at random for now, because I am eventually going to go back to au natural Ferrett - which, at the rate my hair is receding, will be a smooth, fleshy pink. I figured I might as well start going wild with the colors before my hair disappeared on me for good. My daughters want bright red, but I'm pretty sure it'd make me look like an evil clown.

2. What do you miss most about having a pet/ferrets?
I'm all kinds of stupid exciteable and goony. Dogs and ferrets can be that way, too, so I'll just go romping with them and making silly noises and wrestling with them until we're both exhausted. Playing with them unfetters my silly side.

Alas, until they invent the poopless dog, I'm about done with having allergies all the time and cleaning up poop. I'm pretty sure I could invent a sort of poopless dog by sewing portions of them shut, but that seems like it would get very expensive after a while, and they really wouldn't be that fun to play with after the first couple of days. Also, I'd get all these nasty looks from the women at the pound. So that's totally not worth it.

3. Have you always been attracted to fuller figured women? Would you be interested in a very slender woman?
You know, I have. My first real attraction on record, a girl called Dana, was a little thick.

I'm always a little weirded by saying that I'm attracted to fuller figured women because, well, that sounds like I have some sort of fetish or something. I have a type (actually, Katie Featherston from Paranormal Activity is pretty much my ideal woman, and I'm going to hate it when she loses twenty pounds for Hollywood), but in real life I usually like women for their personalities. So I could be attracted to a skinny girl, if she was cool and funny and all that stuff.

(In fact, a friend had lost so much weight that she'd wondered if I'd still be attracted to her. The answer: Yeah, because as long as she's strong enough to talk and type on a keyboard, thus transmitting her brainmeat-candy from her to me, there's gonna be an attraction.)

But I dunno. In general, I tend to get along with thick women better, and I'm not sure why. Is it because they tend to be more comfortable in their bodies? More raucous? (I'm not fond of shy women who don't speak up.) Some other hidden signal I'm responding to? I don't want to generalize overmuch, since slotting people into one aspect obscures all the exceptions to the rules - but my attraction to thick women could also be explained by me being attracted to some aspect of a personality that also tends to lead to chubbiness, and I suspect it's more about personality for me.

Or I could be full of shit. I'm not sure anyone can really rationally explain their own attractions; we only justify.

And from

hps_sterling:

1. There can be only one! What is your favorite game?
Ah, such a question! How are we defining "game"? Videogame? Traditional game? Politics and seduction?

If we're going with overall game, I'd have to say at this point based on pure numbers alone, it's Rock Band. Lord knows I've spent more hours on that than anything else. But I consider videogame to be a different category of game, so if I had to choose something a little more Amish, it'd be Apples to Apples, with a good group of friends and our customized, hygrated deck of only the most interesting cards.

(Magic is a close second, and might be #1 if more people played it, but getting folks in for an all-out chaos game of six people is such a hassle that it affects my enjoyment.)

2. Do you like coffee?
I like one coffee: Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee, double milk, double liquid sugar. This is the only way I will drink coffee, and even then somehow the local Ohio branches screw this up two times out of five. It's like drink roulette. Very depressing.

3. What are your thoughts on trying new things that are outside of your comfort zone?
One of my infamous rules is that if I've never tried it before, I have to. This is not a bold claim, but rather an ingrained aspect of my personality that gets me into trouble. I have to try everything once. Newness is my fetish.

So if there's a boundary, I usually try to push it. My comfort zone is actually a little outside of my comfort zone, weirdly, because if I stay in my safe place then I start to feel like I'm in a rut and get panicky. So I try something new, and a little discomforting, and I feel better. It's odd. It's also led me to good places overall, because I tend to take large risks - which don't always pay off, but when they do I get something like the lovely experience of going to the Clarion workshop (six weeks off from work? Really?) or my lovely wife Gini. I'll take those.

If you got questions, ask.

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that fort hood shooter, islam, christianity, and a picture of the buddha

10 November 2009 @ 04:43 pm

awlaki is nidal hassan's priest or imam

Nidal Hassan is a hero. Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal. The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act.

full piece is http://www.spittoon.org/archives/3551

I think it's clear that Islam, the religion, helped lead Nidal Hassan to murder. Specifically, Hassan's priest, Awlaki told him that killing the infidel was a great idea. Thanks Islam.

The Dar al-Hijrah mosque, the one that Awlaki was an imam at is one of the largest most influential mosques in the nation, founded in 1982. It is a mainstream muslim church. This is not a terror mosque. It is a plain old ordinary american mosque.

I'm picking out Islam as the worst religion but that doesn't mean christianity is the best. Republicans like to say this one particular nonsense which is christianity, is the one true religion, and the constitution was built on biblical laws, while liberals are left with this other sort of particular nonsense, this sort of tolerant, all religions are spiritual paths nonsense.

I think it's obvious that while none of the various religions have any kind of truth in them, some are much more harmful than others, and some are less harmful, some might even be slightly beneficial.

Islam (as it is taught in the world today) is a faith of aggression, murder and oppression. Christianity is a bit better. While christians are not nearly as murderous as muslims, christians are still ignorant, fearful and stupid.

And as for people who pursue their own vision of spirituality that's the sort of path which creates all kinds of new fangled nonsense. All you get by following your own vision of spirituality with no guidance at all, is to be able to fall into a dark and twisted alleyway full of unique spiritual nonsense. It's not enough that we have christians who deny stem cell research and evolution, muslims that believe that there can even exist such a thing as a holy war, it's not enough that there already exists a ton of old nonsense, people without any spiritual guidance get to invent all kinds of brand new nonsense to believe. Of all the human endeavors, from cooking to sports to music to literature, out of all of them, spirituality is the single one most likely to lead one to error because it has this patina of truthiness. It is this feeling of truth and rightness which is able to cover the morass of pure nonsense. And because people hold spiritual beliefs so strongly they fight to the death over them, liberal civilized society has decided the best way to handle all of these different brands of nonsense is to just let people do whatever they want, better just let people believe what they want than to fight over it.

I think there is, in fact, a best religion in terms of the least amount of harm it does to the world. That is if you can't abstain entirely from the drug of religion, there is a best choice for spirituality.

Good ole buddha he never hurt anyone. I do think being a buddhist is better than just following your own path to spirituality. The weird things a person can believe due to personal spirituality are limitless.

Some christians say that Jesus Christ never hurt anyone but that's a lie, a more passive aggressive manipulative son of a god, you will not find.

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10 November 2009 @ 04:26 pm

abortion yay omelets

( Read more... )

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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/half-lifetime.html

10 November 2009 @ 05:49 pm

half a lifetime?

posted by Neil

The editor at CBS Sunday Morning asked if I had any photos of my son Mike back at the period when I first had the idea for The Graveyard Book - late 1985. I looked. We really didn't have any. I wandered next door and asked Mary (his mum, my former wife and for these last five years my friend and next-door neighbour) if she had any photos from back then. "No," she said. Then, "Do you mean those transparencies? I have them in an envelope somewhere." She vanished and came back with a large manila envelope from a long time ago. "Here."

Half a lifetime ago -- literally -- I was nearly 25, and working for magazines. Henry Fikret, who photographed a lot of the interviews I did, volunteered to take some photos of me and my family, and he did.A week later the envelope arrived, and I realised that everything he shot was on colour transparencies -- like huge slides -- and I was never sure what do with them, other than being fairly sure I couldn't take them down to Boots the Chemist and have prints knocked out. So they stayed in their envelope, and they kept their secrets, and were forgotten.

Yesterday I had the transparencies scanned, and finally got to see lots of pictures I had never actually seen before of Holly as a baby, Mike at the time that I would have watched him riding his tricycle around the graveyard, and me... at exactly half my age: A young journalist who had sold a very small handful of short stories and two non-fiction books, with dreams of writing fiction and comics. At the time I was dressing in grey, but was getting tired of the way that you would buy something grey and take it home and discover that it was a blueish grey or a brownish grey, and wondering if I'd have the same problem if I just started to dress in black.

And half a lifetime on, it seemed like it might be good to put one up here. I checked, and Mary didn't mind. What odd clothes we wore back then. What big glasses. And look, my hair is practically normal.

So long ago, and it went like the blink of an eye.

...

Birthday wishes are flooding in from around the globe. I wish I could reply to everyone personally, but it would take the next 365 days... so thank you. Thank you all.

And a particular thank you to Garrison Keillor, who announced my birthday on NPR and who also told me that on my thirteenth birthday they burned Slaughterhouse 5, and that on my ninth birthday Sesame Street was born. The Writers Almanac is a marvellous thing.

...

In January I will be part of a free concert for all ages on January 16, 2010, at 7pm, in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, New York. I'll be the narrator for the performance of Peter and the Wolf, performed by the http://www.knickerbocker-orchestra.org (whose website you should visit to get details).

Kissing is about spreading germs (and this is a good thing), a scientist says.

Alan Moore is leaping aboard the Underground magazine bandwagon. Following the success of IT and OZ, Alan's Dodgem Logic is coming out. There's a great interview with Alan at http://www.mustardweb.org/dodgemlogic/

(And enormous congratulations to Alan, who is now a grandfather, and to Leah and John, who are now parents, and Edward Alec Moore-Reppion, who is now, um, born. A Scorpio, like his grandfather and his whatever-exactly-I am, sort of honorary great-uncle or something. Not that we Scorpios believe in that sort of thing, of course.)

Again, thank you all for the birthday wishes...

Labels: birthdays, NPR, Peter and the Wolf, Garrison Keillor, Dodgem Logic, why Alan Moore should be made Wizard of England

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10 November 2009 @ 01:54 pm

piano gear

i gave up on the roc-n-soc drum throne, since I don't have a spare $200. I did have $10 to spend at property disposition for a used birch wood and chrome gas lift drafting chair, it has an old fashioned "old library" look ("old library" is the look I go for in my apartment), and plenty of support.

Now I'm looking at piano lights that I can not possibly justify buying.

The best are the LED piano lights, they are classy, wow, beautiful plenty of illumination, but . . .

Pretty huh? From house of troy. It's all antiqued up.

I think I like this one better tho.

Those are both from the house of troy, going for around $200. for a lamp.

This black and brass one is pretty too.

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zoethe

10 November 2009 @ 10:14 am

The end of an epoch

The Bride and her Beast returned from Russia yesterday. Cat and Dmitri flew back in last night and, anxious to get home and wishing to take advantage of their jet lag, packed up and hit the road at about 1am.

Mindful of their time crunch and their compact car (and, to be honest, desirous of making sure that they managed to get out of here with ALL their stuff), I spent some time yesterday evening packing up their things, removing unneeded packing material and boxes and compacting everything down to the essentials as effectively as possible. I figured that would help them get all their stuff into their car.

What I hadn't figured on was them arriving with their car quite full already.

Foolishly, I hadn't thought about the wedding gifts and other things that had gone home with D's parents. So when we looked at their car and then looked at the large pile of stuff on my front porch, it was with some dismay.

D suggested leaving behind some of the wedding things, like the bouquet. Cat protested because she wanted them at home. I protested because - AUGH!! No more boxes in my house!!! I suggested that they leave behind the suitcase with the wedding togs - after all, it's just one suitcase, and they are going to be back at Christmas. That was a reasonable compromise, and we got to work.

I really wish we'd taken pictures, because mere words cannot convey the special Tetris/Tardis combination required to get everything into a vehicle that clearly must be bigger on the inside. It's kind of amazing how many extra things can fit into the interstitial spaces between and around the large and bulky items. Misha and Babymonkey, if you can, take the time to appreciate their unpacking. It's going to look like a clown car. Just make sure they get all the wine out from behind the passenger's seat before they open the back door or there will be sad.

And if they have to stop suddenly on the freeway, the shifting load will likely kill them. Other than that, no problems!

So now they are gone, which means The Wedding of Bard and Beast is truly at an end. I walked back into the cleaned out guest room to savor its return to our possession.

And by the gods if I wasn't just a little bit sad and lonely. Of course, Ferrett being gone for this week doesn't help that, but the wedding was such fun and so wonderful that having it all gone leaves me a bit nostalgic.

Oh, well, I can always go down to my sewing room and revel in the mess left by the seamstress. That's still there for me.

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Clarionniversary, October Wrap-Up

10 November 2009 @ 09:06 am

Stories Published This Month:

"In the Land of the Deaf," by Electric Spec
Teaser: I really wish you'd get yourself deafened, Geoff's wife Angie signed. It's just too dangerous out there.

The irony was, of course, that Geoff barely heard anything anymore; years of firing his gun in the line of duty had permanently damaged his eardrums. But he was on his way out the door to give the annual recruitment talk, which meant there was no time to argue Angie out of her damn fool ideas again...

Comments on Publication: This is actually one of my favorite stories that I wrote in the first six months after Clarion, and I'm glad to see it find a home. I should also note that Electric Spec has an interesting blog that often critiques the first pages of submitted stories from an editor's perspective.

Also, on an unrelated note, Diabolical Plots listed my story "Suicide Notes, Written By An Alien Mind" on his Best of Pseudopod Top 10 List. Neat!

Stories Worked On This Month:

"Shoebox Heaven" (first draft). My Godson Andy's cat died, and so I wrote a story about him flying up to Heaven to find his kitty. It wound up being a horror story - though not, perhaps, from his perspective. Like any afterlife story, it runs into tricky bits with the mechanisms of Heaven, and preliminary critique from the fine folks at Viable Paradise suggest I need to be more explicit about my views of mankind, but I think it'll be quite nice shortfic when it's done.
"Season to Taste" (fourth draft). My infamous "gay cannibal rhino" story. Much ripped out upon revision thanks to the helpful feedback from The Cajun Sushi Hamsters, wherein I really looked at the character motivations and made them all line up cleanly. Not sure if that made the story better, though I'll keep revising. There's something here. About glorious, beautiful cannibalism.
"The Insecure Cyborg" (fourth draft). This one's a little weird, because I have an offer for it, but I have to revise out a controversial scene and replace it with something else. Difficult, but doable.
A couple of minor starts and dribbles on stories with preliminary titles like "Love Shack" and "Cootie Quarantine."

October Acceptances: One. Being a superstitious man, I don't mention a sale before the contract is signed. That damn near killed me with the Asimov's sale, and it damn near killed me to wait five months before I could say that GUD Magazine picked up "In the Garden of Rust and Salt." Alas, it's in issue #6, and my friends

funwithrage and

ken_schneyer are in #5, so as wonderful as it is to be in GUD, I won't be next to my pals. Alas! And yay!

October Rejections: A whopping eight. One of them, for "What Killed Tyra Herschel?" after saying the same things that everyone else did, convinced me to scrap the story and start over - nobody likes newscasts, apparently. One was for a reprint, so I don't feel too bad. One, from Ideomancer, had very kind, personal feedback; another, from Strange Horizons, told me that they just didn't buy the premise. The rest were generic rejections.

Also, I've got one in a very long wait from F&SF, but I'm pretty sure it's lost in the mail. It's happened before. But you have to wait a while before following up.

Currently In Circulation:
"The Backdated Romance," "The Insecure Cyborg,""...At The End Of All Prophecy," "iTime," "Under the Thumb of the Brain Patrol," "Home Despot," "Amanda Rose's Travelling, Earth-Destroying Circus," "A Window, Clear As A Mirror," "Unreal Estate," "Slaves of Hollywood," "At The End Of The Chain"

Overall:
I just ran dry this month; nothing really seemed exciting to work on, though I had some great ideas. So I took off a week. I'm still on that break, and I feel the tugs of little stories aching at me, but I'm not sure whether the break is from laziness or just that the muse needs some time to recover from 1.3 years of writing constant stories. I dunno; I feel guilty either way.

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A Little Rawer And More Self-Revelatory Than Usual: My Addiction

10 November 2009 @ 08:17 am

I had to destroy several friendships before I realized I had an addiction. And like any addiction, even now I have to constantly guard against it, because the minute I let down my guard I stop existing and the addiction takes over.

It’s not that my addiction is some separate entity, a Tyler Durden waiting to be unleashed; rather, it’s that an addiction is a habit so strong that, unless you consciously work against it, it will drag you down the same paths again and again.

Time can teach you that those paths will destroy the most precious parts of your life. Experience can make resisting a near-involuntary effort, like putting your glasses on the same counter before you go to bed.

Yet relax for a moment, and that desire will take the wheel. You will break promises, break people, shatter all the goodness in your life, simply because some portion of you is broken. You have an inherent desire, and Lord knows where it came from, but it wants to be satisfied all the damn time. It will wriggle inside you, subtly changing your behavior to make sure its goals are met.

My addiction? NRE.

I think about this now because two weeks ago, I had a very good week. Two lovely women were flirting with me, it felt like some connection was being created, and every time I opened my inbox there was something new and friendshippy.

The next week, that stopped. The people in question didn’t abandon me, but real life took over as they had other deadlines, and the emails stopped coming.

And I crashed.

I felt ludicrously depressed and unloved, even though things were stupidly good around me. I had a wife who loved me deeply, I had a house literally filled with good friends, I had two intelligent and beautiful girlfriends, and a load of people complaining that we never had time to spend together.

Yet because last week two relationships had been flourishing, and this week had no new relationships, I felt like I was sliding backwards. I had two people last week, so this week should be three people, and the fact that I didn’t have that meant that I wasn’t any good and everyone hated me, and my God what the hell was wrong with me?

That’s my addiction: New Relationship Energy.

That addiction isn’t necessarily sexual, though it often is. I just like that charge of having a new friendship blossom out. I love falling into somebody new, and I love that thrill of knowing that someone really wants to talk to me so badly they’re thinking of me when I’m not there. I love that initial back-and-forth of OMG, HOW ARE YOU, LET’S TALK SOME MORE.

That charge led me down some pretty dark paths when I was younger, because usually the quick fix for that was sex. That made me an absolute bastard when I was younger; if there was someone who I could be attracted to, why, I would be, because I loved having that connection. And if someone wanted me, well, I wanted to be wanted. And wham, sex.

If those people who wanted me happened to be dating someone else, well… I’d like to say that I couldn’t resist, but that’d be a lie. I could have. But then my desires wouldn’t have been met, and I’d have felt terrible, and to avoid that feeling of isolation I did things I am distinctly not proud of.

I tried to tell myself that the fact of the attraction should be enough - but in the depths of my stupidity, I couldn’t feel that. If there was a potential and it went by, I felt like it must have been an illusion. How could I know that they really liked me if we didn’t go all the way and explore that intimacy? Not the sex, though that almost invariably followed, but the intimacy of spending hours together talking and needing to know and finding out every nook and cranny of the other person.

I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let it go, so I formed unhealthy connections. That hurt people. Sometimes I’d find myself getting into relationships with people who I knew were bad for me just because they, too, wanted that closeness. That hurt me. And then the NRE wore off and I’d need someone new to bond with, and so I’d spend all my time with someone else.

I called it Tarzan-swinging. Just grasping from friend to friend.

And if they dropped off the NRE train first (or just had the normal vagaries of life distract them), then I’d get panicky wondering what happened to our friendship. It sent my mind into tiny little spirals. And I’d do silly things in stupid efforts to make them “prove” we were still friends, performing embarrassing psychodramatic displays that I’m still ashamed of.

As time went by, and my friends found it increasingly hard to defend me, I realized I wanted to be a better person, but didn’t know how.

Thankfully, as usual, God provided.

While stuck in a lonely town, I met a guy who was phenomenal, and he became my best and only friend. We hung out for hours, which was brilliant. Then, three months later, I met his girlfriend. Who was very cute, and we clicked, but I realized that I would ruin both this new friendship and my old friendship by trying to press for full-on closeness in the way I usually did. It would have interfered with their relationship, and I liked my pal so much that I didn’t want to ever do that.

So I became friends with her, and close friends, but not the friendship that squeezed someone dry for that NRE fix. And that, thankfully, was my first step away from my stupidity.

I’ve learned how to cope since then. Now, though I do have close friendships, I can stop at the edge and go, “All right, this doesn’t need to be a 24/7 lovefest where we constantly bare our souls. This can just be cool.” And in many ways, that’s better. I get to keep my wife (who I do constantly have that lovefest with), and have a variety of good friends, and I don’t cause upheaval when the honeymoon period ends and we slide into hey, howya doin’.

Yet I still sense it there, lurking. I still backslide occasionally. And even now, I could do stupid harm. Those people I spent the two weeks talking to? I could do dumb stuff, like sending dumb emails that are a variant on DO YOU LIKE ME? I could try to force a relationship prematurely, which would lead to ruin as this force-grown friendship blossomed in cramped and awful ways. I could try to reach out to new people in attempts to get that charge.

These days, I know. I know that it’s time to step away from the keyboard, and let it go. It’s unhealthy. And so I go back to bed, and I tell Gini what a doof I am, and she hugs me and I realize that this is what’s important. And it’s good.

That tug, though, is always there. It’s been two decades learning my way around it, and it’s still twisting me in unseen ways. It could be argued, and I wouldn’t debate it too heavily, that to a large extent this very journal is a variant on reaching out for NRE. I ask for secrets and post comment-whore threads because, hey, it’s a connection. I like connections.

Maybe too much.

It’s not quite on the destructive level of an addiction like alcohol, thankfully, but it’s as insidious. You have to monitor. Some people think that I think things over too carefully, and perhaps I do, but that’s because I have to analyze my own behavior.

If I’m not careful in my actions, I’ll look back and find that hey, it’s in the driver’s seat again. And for that, I must be vigilant in a way that people who don’t have this internal tugging can’t really understand.

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09 November 2009 @ 05:08 pm

gear

review here:

http://www.slashgear.com/nanovision-mimo-720-s-touchscreen-display-review-2053124/

this one is super cute, it's the nanovision mimo usb monitor. the 720s is the touch screen version which according to cnet doesn't actually work right.

still for under $200 you can't really beat it.

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For those who read this blog for the articles

09 November 2009 @ 06:31 pm

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/for-those-who-read-this-blog-for.html

posted by Neil

(Serena Altschul and some author in July, sitting on the trampoline after two days of interviews. None of which, oddly enough, were done on the trampoline.)

Mr. Neil,

I DVR'd yesterday's installment of Sunday Morning and after zipping through it back and forth multiple times cannot seem to find you, though the description indicated the correct episode. Was it bumped to next week? Have you been sucked into an alternate Neil-less universe?

A concerned reader,
Mary

I'm afraid it was bumped by the Fort Hood Massacre.

I checked: The profile CBS did of me is apparently still going out, probably some time in December, although no-one seems certain when. I was told that we could help ensure that it is broadcast (and possibly make it come out sooner than December) if CBS think people would actually like to see it. Which means that if you do want to see it, you can help the process along if you write or email CBS and (politely) tell them so:

ADDRESS:
CBS News Sunday Morning
Box O (for Osgood)
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

E-MAIL: sundays@cbsnews.com

...

My friend Steve Brust (a fine and brilliant novelist) wrote to Miss Manners about his financial issues, and what having a Donate button on a website means. She replied to him here. There's a fascinating conversation going on about it at his website that I initially missed because I was in China... Most people disagree with Miss Manners. Even I disagree with Miss Manners, and I don't have a Donate button, or use the Amazon links to generate revenue, or have advertising or anything. (That's because Harper Collins set up this website, and they pay for our bandwidth and such. If they stopped, I'd have to think about ways to make it pay for itself.)

...

Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME was one of my favourite books of the year so far. (R. Crumb's retelling of the Book of Genesis is my very favourite book of the year.) So I was pleased to be sent this link to a really wonderful Stephen King poem:

http://www.playboy.com/articles/stephen-king-the-bone-church/index.html

(It's published by Playboy, which means that for some of you the site may be blocked.)

There's also a Stephen King story in this week's New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/09/091109fi_fiction_king

(Needless to say, I only read the New Yorker for the articles.)

...

Dear Neil Gaiman, I ask for half-a-moment of your time (I would not presume to ask for more). This Spring 2010 I am teaching a Topics in Literature class on YOU at Winona State University (Eng 225: Neil Gaiman). Easy enough to select representative novel (American Gods), short stories (Fragile Things), children and YA (Graveyard Book), but here's the rub: I will likely only assign one Sandman graphic novel to students. I have been debating which is most representative, most worthy of inclusion, most amenable to class discussion and student scholarship. Then I thought I'd ask you. I know you suggest above that, for questions of this sort, we consider you a dead author, but I know you're not. When I came to a similar impasse about which of Ursula Le Guin's works to include in another class, she actually replied and offered her input. I extend the same offer to you: which of the Sandman volumes would you like to see on the syllabus?
Thank you for your time,
Nicholas Ozment, English Instructor
WSU

It's a hard one. I think if I were teaching I'd either go for Season of Mists or Fables and Reflections, because both of them have stuff to teach -- those nice chewy bits that people can like or dislike, argue with or discuss. I know a lot of teachers like to teach Dream Country because a) Midsummer Night's Dream won awards, and b) it's short and c) it has a script in the back. Your call. And good luck.

...

I mentioned recently that there were some beautiful new Polish and Russian book covers for my books that I'd seen at signings, which got me thinking. The International Cover gallery on this website is incredibly out of date.

It's at http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Neil's_Work/International_Covers.

And though I get a lot of foreign editions in, and will at some point head down to the basement and rummage around and scan some (this week's mail brought the two-volume Japanese edition of Anansi Boys, on the cover of which Fat Charlie is not only Very White, but also Very Thin, and the complex Chinese - ie. Taiwan and Hong Kong - edition of The Graveyard Book) I thought that blog readers, being, as you are, all over the world, might be a better resource for knowing where to look for foreign covers.

So if you have, and want to scan in or link to foreign covers we do not have posted, or are a foreign publisher and would like your books up, there is now a submission page: http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/covers/ which lets you upload them to the webgoblin, who will put them in the gallery (and on the pages for the books in question). And perhaps we should have them arranged by country as well -- some countries, like the French and the Russians and the Poles, have had so many different covers over the years.

(Also, Absolute Death was published this week. It is amazingly beautiful. Yes, I think they overpriced it too and no, pricing decisions at DC Comics are nothing to do with me. And the audio book of Good Omens will be released tomorrow. It's read by Martin Jarvis. People have asked why it is not read by me, and I have to explain that it is because if I read it I would just be doing my Martin Jarvis reading the William storiess impression, so better by far to have the real thing.)

Was your basement finished when you purchased your home or did you have it finished for your basement library? If you finished it yourself, how difficult was it? Also, I thought I saw a dehumidifier in one of the Photosynth pictures. Do you need one because of the books?

I'm asking because we have a full unfinished basement that we would like to have finished. We are running out of room for our books also. I don't think we don't have as many as you do though. :)

Any other suggestions for such a project would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
C.

No, when we got here the basement had a clay floor that puddled when it rained. We hired some nice builders and spent a lot of money finishing it, putting in drainage tiles, underfloor heating and all. There's a dehumidifier there in the summer and a humidifier in the winter, because after the first few years I noticed that binding glue and leather book covers were both cracking and flaking. There's now the equivalent of a large house in basement rooms beneath this house, filled with books and CDs and suchlike stuff.

And finally, a few photos from the China trip, taken by Ian Ford (or in one case, on his camera). Ian's a travel guide who now lives in China who helped organise my travels, and came along with me for part of the journey.

Amanda and I in the silk clothes that my publisher had given us as a thank you for coming, and because they are terrific.

Amanda, Ian Ford (in the pale top, also a gift from my publishers) and.. my publishers, SF World -- who will be publishing the mainland Chinese edition of The Graveyard Book very soon, and are very excited.

I'm holding the Galaxy Award for this year, given to the foreign author most popular with Chinese reader-voters. This was my second year of winning it, so I have retired from the competition and said that they have to find a new favourite foreign author now.

Labels: China, drainage tiles, Stephen King, the CBS Sunday Morning show and when it will air

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itches

10 November 2009 @ 06:39 am

Dragon Age

I swore that I wouldn't play it on a weekday night, knowing that if I did I might play very late and fuck myself up for the next day of work. I got home at 18:00 yesterday evening, started playing by 18:30 and turned it off at 01:00 the next morning.

I should have known better.

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09 November 2009 @ 08:34 am

Squish

I am terrified of spiders. My wife is terrified by house centipedes.

This morning, we found a house centipede lurking over the TV, so large and furry it looked like a gigantic eyebrow. I squashed it.

It was very fat. House centipedes hunt spiders. And it occurred to me that I'd seen no spiders for the past six months.

I don't want to be rooting for the centipedes. I'd rather we had no creepy-crawlies. But if we have to have one dominant, I'd rather it be the one that doesn't make me shriek like a small child.

Alas, this puts me at odds with Gini, the bold spider-killer. Her position is being rendered obsolete by walking ribcages that make her shriek.

In truth, Gini is much cuddlier than a centipede, though less effective. But I'm not sure I can have both in the same house.

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boutell

09 November 2009 @ 08:16 am

Monday Fourteen

Go. Light a candle. Solemnly proceed
Along the aisle. Sweet prometheus
Stole just a bauble. Later came the seed,
And liberation. Ride the abacus

Down Chestnut Street to Main and come to State,
And plant yourself behind the oaken bar.
Employment is an article of faith
In images. We haven't starved so far.

That might be just an aberration. Taste
The fruits that others gather while ye may.
Debug. Refactor. Analyze and trace
And watch the portrait. Witness Seymour Cray

Grown old in spite of Dijkstra, Knuth and Moore.
There's room for doubt. Enjoy your perfect pour.

Tags: monday fourteen, poetry, sonnets

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09 November 2009 @ 05:59 am

Conversations With Ferrett

Me: "Sometimes, I wonder how many women I could satisfy simultaneously in bed."

Gini: "Well, you have two hands..."

Me: "I think six."

Gini: "...are you counting your FEET?"

Me: "Yeah. I'd have to wear a harness, though. Like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Just for position's sake."

Gini: "You had damn well better cut your toenails short."

Me: "No, no, I'd wear flippers of some kind. Mind you, I'm not saying the women in the lower quadrant are going to have a mind-blowing experience, but I think I could, you know... Well, once, anyway."

Gini: "Are you looking for simultaneous orgasm here?"

Me: "Hey, I'm not crazy."

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itches

09 November 2009 @ 06:15 pm

I have a new lover

Dragon Age owns me now. We're going to run away and get married and become rock stars and be happy forever!

That reminds me. I need to register a Dragon Age Journeys account so I can play a version of when I'm at work and away from my 360.

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08 November 2009 @ 05:03 pm

Wicked Faire

Is anyone here looking for someone to stay with for Wicked Faire? The person I thought I'd be sharing a room with already has rooming plans.

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08 November 2009 @ 04:40 pm

that pinback sound

armistead burwell smith the 4th of pinback plays an almebic bass. This sort of bass has active pickups and a very distinctive sound, it is more like a guitar, clean and crisp. I don't have $12,000 for a signature almebic deluxe 5, so i was playing around with some vst and sound effects to find that "sound."

The bass guitar is a "peaky" instrument. It is one of the few instruments (along with some drums) where it is common to compress the sound before it hits the a/d converter. The reason is that the peaks are so high that if you actually captured them, you would lose too much fidelity in the low end. So you have to compress the signal. So I was listening to the almebics and decided that's where the sound came from, that is, the signal was uncompressed. Normally you can't do this, but if you have active pickups this means you can process the signal before it gets out of the guitar so you can compress or limit the signal and then re-expand it to give back the dynamics inside the bass guitar, and that signature texture of the active pickup.

So here's what I did, I compressed my bass signal as normal and then routed that to an "uncompressor." I tried a dozen different compressors, and finally found one that gives me that "sound."

http://thirtytwoaudio.co.uk/Downloads.aspx

That's the Multi-band expander by 32 audio.

I was able to get something very close to the pinback sound by keeping the sub expansion at 25%, low expansion at 25%, low mid at 100% expansion, mid hi at 0% expansion, hi at 0%.

This is not an eq. An eq just filters (actively or passively) the sound. An expander will make a soft sound even softer and a loud sound louder, but just for particular frequency ranges.

I also tried ampeg's bass guitar cabinet and pickup emulator, guitar rig's bass cabinets and heads by native instruments, redshift's pickup emulator, but none of the emulators gave me the right sound that this multi-band expander does.

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A funny email I got from a friend

08 November 2009 @ 11:06 am

I figured you all would get a kick out of this.

A NUN GRADING PAPERS‏
Can you imagine the nun sitting at her desk grading these papers, all the while trying to keep a straight face and maintain her composure!

PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE WORDING AND SPELLING. IF YOU KNOW THE BIBLE EVEN A LITTLE, YOU'LL FIND THIS TO BE HILARIOUS! IT COMES FROM A CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST. KIDS WERE ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BIBLE WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN RETOUCHED OR CORRECTED. INCORRECT SPELLING HAS BEEN LEFT IN.

1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS. GOD GOT TIRED OF CREATING THE WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SABBATH OFF.

2. ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED FROM AN APPLE TREE. NOAH'S WIFE WAS JOAN OF ARK. NOAH BUILT AND ARK AND THE ANIMALS CAME ON IN PEARS.

3. LOTS WIFE WAS A PILLAR OF SALT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BALL OF FIRE DURING THE NIGHT.

4. THE JEWS WERE A PROUD PEOPLE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY THEY HAD TROUBLE WITH UNSYMPATHETIC GENITALS.

5. SAMPSON WAS A STRONGMAN WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY A JEZEBEL LIKE DELILAH.

6. SAMSON SLAYED THE PHILISTINES WITH THE AXE OF THE APOSTLES.

7. MOSES LED THE JEWS TO THE RED SEA WHERE THEY MADE UNLEAVENED BREAD WHICH IS BREAD WITHOUT ANY INGREDIENTS.

8.. THE EGYPTIANS WERE ALL DROWNED IN THE DESSERT. AFTERWARDS, MOSES WENT UP TO MOUNT CYANIDE TO GET THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

9. THE FIRST COMMANDMENTS WAS WHEN EVE TOLD ADAM TO EAT THE APPLE.

10. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT IS THOU SHALT NOT ADMIT ADULTERY.

11. MOSES DIED BEFORE HE EVER REACHED CANADA THEN JOSHUA LED THE HEBREWS IN THE BATTLE OF GERITOL.

12.. THE GREATEST MIRICLE IN THE BIBLE IS WHEN JOSHUA TOLD HIS SON TO STAND STILL AND HE OBEYED HIM.

13. DAVID WAS A HEBREW KING WHO WAS SKILLED AT PLAYING THE LIAR. HE FOUGHT THE FINKELSTEINS, A RACE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN BIBLICAL TIMES.

14. SOLOMON, ONE OF DAVIDS SONS, HAD 300 WIVES AND 700 PORCUPINES.

15. WHEN MARY HEARD SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS, SHE SANG THE MAGNA CARTA.

16. WHEN THE THREE WISE GUYS FROM THE EAST SIDE ARRIVED THEY FOUND JESUS IN THE MANAGER.

17. JESUS WAS BORN BECAUSE MARY HAD AN IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION.

18. ST. JOHN THE BLACKSMITH DUMPED WATER ON HIS HEAD.

19. JESUS ENUNCIATED THE GOLDEN RULE, WHICH SAYS TO DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO ONE TO YOU. HE ALSO EXPLAINED A MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY SWEAT ALONE.

20. IT WAS A MIRICLE WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND MANAGED TO GET THE TOMBSTONE OFF THE ENTRANCE.

21. THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED THE LORD WERE CALLED THE 12 DECIBELS.

22. THE EPISTELS WERE THE WIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

23. ONE OF THE OPPOSSUMS WAS ST. MATTHEW WHO WAS ALSO A TAXIMAN.

24. ST.. PAUL CAVORTED TO CHRISTIANITY, HE PREACHED HOLY ACRIMONY WHICH IS ANOTHER NAME FOR MARRAIGE.

25. CHRISTIANS HAVE ONLY ONE SPOUSE. THIS IS CALLED MONOTONY.

These have to be from 2nd and 3rd graders

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The whole health care thing

08 November 2009 @ 10:18 am

OK, I figured that it was about time that I offer my own thoughts and beliefs on the whole health care thing. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions and thoughts on the subject. However, if the comments on this entry get too cats and dogs like, then I'll delete it. If any discussion occurs in the comments, it has to be civil and respectful.

On that note here we go:

I think that health care in this country (America) needs a huge over-haul. It is a horrible sucky beyond words system. People should be able to have access to health care that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and a health care system that doesn't come with a thousand and one different "exceptions" and "things that aren't covered".

People should not be denied health care for 'pre-existing conditions'. That is complete bullshit in my book. People have no control over whether they have so-called 'preconsisting conditions' or not. I never asked to have clinical depression or ADD. My 3 year old nephew never asked to have Type 1 diabetes. So why should the health care system punish people for things that are out of their control?

I think that the government needs to create/overhaul the rules and regulations that are in place for the insurance/health care system in this country. The whole buearocratic nonsense needs to be thrown out the window. People shouldn't have to decide between medication and life's other necesseties. Medical bills should not have to put people into bankruptcy because their health care refuses to cover things.

For those who are all "up in arms" about "governmental run insurance", may I just point out that Medicare and Medicaid is government run? So is Medicare and Medicaid horrible and socialist?

I also think that there are many people that automatically assume anything even remotely socialist/government run is horrible and evil and bad is because of all the governmental propaganda from the 50s and 60s and the likes of Joe McCarthy and the "Witches Scare/Hunt".

I also think that some people automatically assume that any kind of change is evil, whether or not it's for the better or for the worse of others.

Now, whether or not what was just passed within the pass 24 hours is the best solution to the problem, I'm not completely convinced. I don't think that people should be fined based on their own choices and beliefs on insurance. I certainly wouldn't want any of the Amish to be fined because they don't have any insurance because of religious beliefs.

However, on the other hand (OK, so I'm being your typical stereotyped Libra here, seeing all sides of an issue), even if I don't agree with what's done, at least Obama is doing something about it, instead of just saying that he's going to promise to change the system and then not do anything.

Tags: government, health care, health care debate

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boutell

08 November 2009 @ 08:14 am

Star Wars Uncut: Vegetable Edition

Watch my contribution to Star Wars Uncut! Whee!

Thanks to Jeremy and

glaucon for their voice talentz, and to Eleanor for the sound effects (she's a mixcraft diva now).

Those who have been under a rock can learn about the Star Wars Uncut fan remake project here.

Tags: movies, star wars, star wars uncut

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the internet eats all retail

08 November 2009 @ 09:46 am

in ann arbor, on hoover street right next to the football stadium there was a store called "Purchase Radio" founded by roy purchase in 1930. After roy retired, he got Dan McCullough, his son in law to run it. For decades people who did their own electronics would go there, you could buy op amps, tubes, wire, transistors, circuit boards, and of course, all kinds of cool shortwave radios. It was a very typical small electronics parts store, which used to be found all over the nation. Home brew guys would go to the store, and sit around talking shop, and would even help you draw up a circuit.

sad pictures here:

( Read more... )

In 2007 Dan retired. Of course, it's easy to find electronic parts you want on the internet. You can go to mouser.com or digikey.com. There are plenty of people to chat with too. You can post your circuits on diyaudio.com, and yes it's cheaper now, of course you have to wait for the mailman to come, and you never talk face to face with anyone.

It's become strangely impersonal, but internet shopping is an irresistible force.

I checked one day to find out how far I would have to drive to buy a power audio ic to fix an amp I had and the nearest place was chicago. I think there are less than a dozen electronics parts stores like purchase radio used to be left in the nation. The internet ate all of the rest.

The internet is busy eating up all the specialty shops like this. But it won't stop there. The internet will eat up anything that can be easily shipped. One day the only retail that will be left will be furniture stores, grocery markets, pet stores and clothing stores (pre-built furniture is expensive to ship, food you eat every day, pets don't travel well, and clothing needs to be tried on).

sears and roebuck was the pioneer of shop at home.

The reason that sears and roebuck catalogs never killed brick & mortar is that it was impossible for any paper and ink catalog to have enough selection. The internet fixed that.

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boutell

07 November 2009 @ 10:27 pm

Interesting medical news

Apparently over the counter pain medications at the time of vaccination make the vaccine less effective.

"Many of the pain relievers in question are classified as NSAIDs or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which act in part by blocking the cyclooxygenase-2 (cox-2) enzyme. Blocking the cox-2 enzyme is not a good idea in the context of vaccination, however, because the cox-2 enzyme is necessary for the optimal production of B-lymphocytes."

So while there can be discomfort with certain vaccines apparently it's best for you and/or your kid to tough it out. Well, it sure beats contracting the disease.

Tags: health, vaccines

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crickie

07 November 2009 @ 08:17 pm

Sprouts

Today, I saw

pacalissanctum when I went to Sprouts. I totally forgot she was working there. It was good to see her. And, it made me realize how long it's been since I've hung out with her. :(

I went there to see if their produce prices were any better than HEB, and they really were. I got a basket full of produce for $19 or so. Plus, at least $3 of that was from a thing of Sour Patch kids that I must admit were not on my list.

I would not recommend Sprouts for full on grocery shopping. The selection of "mainstream" type grocery items was just too small. However, for produce, bulk bins, or vitamins; Sprouts is my new #1 choice.

Current Mood:

AAAAH Allergies!

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Expedia: The Musical Goes Nationwide!

07 November 2009 @ 03:41 pm

A Note To Those Who Read

Dear Bookstore:

I like the fact that you're across the street. I like the fact that you have a zillion books. I want to give you money. So would it kill you to actually stock a few books I want to read?

I'm perfectly willing to understand that people aren't automatically going to have everything. But you didn't have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies when I wanted it. You didn't have the latest Laurell K. Hamilton the third day after it was officially released, leaving my wife bookless. And today, I actively wanted to purchase Crumb's version of the Book of Genesis, a book by a long-standing comics figure that's been written up in most major magazines (including Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly), and no. You were out. Again.

Yes, you can order it for me, I know. But I'm trying to do you guys a favor. I can get it at 10% off with your special order process and then come back and get it, or I can get this latest bestseller 43% off from Amazon and have it delivered to my door. (Admittedly, Amazon is out right now, but the principle still applies.) I mean, I'm actively taking a hit on my own price to try to prop up a local business - can you do your duty and have what I desire? I'm not asking for totally weird stuff.

Trust me. When you had China Mieville's latest book (shelved, strangely, in fiction and not science fiction), I did purchase it. Allow me to recompense you. Let us both profit. Just get the goddamned inventory in, okay?

Love,
T.F.

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zoethe

07 November 2009 @ 11:47 am

USA Today picked up Cat and Dmitri's tale of woe and triumph.

Good job, all you fellow outraged people who called and wrote and retweeted!

Current Mood:

impressed

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gandryyne

07 November 2009 @ 10:12 am

BWAhahaha!

Ewoks Gone Wild...

http://www.comcast.net/video/the-soup-ewoks-gone-wild/1321272771/Comcast/1321484308/

Tags: silliness

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06 November 2009 @ 11:35 pm

Party People

When I was young and at a party, sometimes I would be overcome by sadness. Then I would have to leave the party and sit outside.

Being stupid, I would sit out there until someone noticed I was gone and came and got me. If they did, then they loved me. If nobody did, then I was alone and unloved.

I was very, very stupid.

These days, I know: I just get overpeopled sometimes and need to retreat. That wave of sadness is my introvert circuits ticking over, and I need a bit of space. I thought back then that I was sad because I was lonely; quite the opposite.

Now, I just feel slightly foolish should anyone discover me, alone, in some back room. "I'm fine," I smile. "Just need some time.". And I realize that no matter how good life gets, I am the sort of person who'll have spikes of sadness from time to time, and no matter how beloved or wanted or desired I am, I will occasionally just need to withdraw and contemplate this strange isolation.

I'd like to be at a party and always on. Sometimes I am. Lucky enough, I guess.

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