Here's a meme with pictures

I saw this on Andrew Wheeler's blog, and it was so cool I wanted to play. (You realize of course these blog posts which are all pictures are actually more work than the ones where I just type a bunch of stuff, right?).

Image meme: Plug your answers into Google Image Search and post the first image that comes up.

1. Your age on your next birthday:










2. Your favorite color:








3. Your middle name:
It's Ann. I'm not sure who she is; the world's most popular Ann, apparently.








4. The last meal you ate:
It was actually a bowl of oatmeal, not a plate of oatmeal cookies. It pays to be specific when Googling, I suppose. It was also a lot of hours ago; I'm doing this while I'm waiting for my very late lunch to come out of the oven.



5. Your bad habit:
I'll leave it up to you to decide what my bad habit is...





6. Your favorite fruit or vegetable:









7. Your favorite animal:
Why the suitcase? I don't know. It just came up first for "cat". But then again, cats universally do this, don't they? My cats fight over which one gets to sit in the suitcase.



8. The town you live in:
Minneapolis, MN of course.






9. The name of your pet or last pet:
OK, technically he's name for Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, but there is a reason why I've been known to call him my little blondie bear.




10. Your SO or best friend's nickname:
My husband is very anti-nickname. This is what came up for "Quin". Weird.







12. Your crush's name:
My first response was more "as if! Happily married, thank you!". Then I remembered that my habit of watching stacks of movies back to back which feature the same actor has led Quin to refer to these actors as my crushes. (I could probably word that better if I weren't so stinkin' hungry - three hours at the dentist!). In that vein, Jet Li is my current crush. As soon as my chicken's done it's going to be the start of a ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA marathon.


13. Your occupation:
That's even the same style of Dictaphone as I use! I actually prefer this picture, most of the runner-up images were insanely happy "workers" fake posing for the camera. She looks like she really does this for a living (although what she's doing with her hands there, I'm not sure. Waiting for the doctor to finish that cellphone call he answered without stopping the recording, I bet).

14. Your birth city:
Since this would be the same as #8 (and doesn't that just make it seem like I've never been anywhere!), I Googled just "Mineapolis" this time. I'm probably biased, but I think it's the prettiest skyline ever, especially when you're looking at it from across one of the lakes.



15. Your favorite song:
It's not everybody who's favorite songs are made into movies starring the Coreys. Actually, this movie isn't bad. The idea and the set-up are really quite cool, but the ending is a total hackjob. And the sequel? Complete waste of time. This is one of those movies I like to watch as a writer and try to figure out how to fix it.

My March book report

Technically, tomorrow is the last day of March, but since the weekends are an endless slog of work for me without time to read let alone blog, I'm turning this in a day early.

For those of you playing along at home, I set myself a goal of reading all of the books I own which I haven't read yet. There are 252 of them, so I have my work cut out for me.

Trips to the library are not helpful in attaining this goal; alas, the first book I read in March (after the ones I've already talked about from my vacation) came from the library. It was Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXI, a collection of fantasy short stories with female protagonists. I liked quite a few of them (Lee Martindale's "Necessity and The Mother" about an inn run by ex-mercenaries was my fave). This was mostly in the interest of research; they are accepting admissions for Volume XXII and I wanted to see if the story I'm working on fits in or not. It's sort of a faux-Sumerian setting, and these are largely European, but not exclusively. Well, we'll see how it goes. From the stand point of a reader and not a writer, this was enough of a taste where I'm curious to read the first 20 volumes. I shall abstain; I have 252 books to read first, right?

So I'm a huge fan of Ursula K. LeGuin. I've read the Earthsea novels over and over, and her books on writing are a constant resource for me. I'm particularly fond of the Tao te Ching she did (I have quite a collection of Tao te Ching translations, and they are all a bit different. Of course the multiplicity is itself a rather tao thing. The Tao that can be translated is not the true Tao...). I've been remiss with her sci-fi, though. I did buy nearly all of her sci-fi novels over a couple of Christmases (ah, gift cards), and I read The Left Hand of Darkness (still my fave, actually, for sentimental reasons. Which means it made me cry, and books generally don't do that to me). I got halfway through this one:

Worlds of Exile and Illusion, but stopped for some reason, then got all distracted with Miles Vorkosigan books (and there are a ton of those, and they get better as you go so there's no stopping until you're done). So the first thing up was to finish this off. It's actually an omnibus of three short novels: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. They're minor works from her, really, but they all had touches I liked. The sci-fi version of the faery story in RW, where the woman goes under the mountain and what seems like an evening to her is decades to the rest of the world when she returns (because she was travelling at relativistic speeds); the years-long winter of PofE; the taoist ideas which culiminate in the MC becoming two people and yet one at the end of CofI (I liked that one the best).

Still, if you want to see what LeGuin can really do, start here:

From a nonemotional point of view, I would say this is a better book than Left Hand of Darkness (although, as I mentioned, that's still my fave, what with the crying and with the wintery landscapes. I bet you never knew I loved wintery landscapes...). Certainly it made me feel completely inadequate as a writer. There are so many ideas here. She blends physics, politics, and philosophy together, and she does it with real, human characters who are not cardboard cut-outs fronting for various ideologies. I don't like utopia stories, and I seldom like dystopia stories; they are often just novelizations of straw man arguments. This is not that. There is ambiguity here. If the anarchists on Anarres have a utopia, it is one that requires its members to constantly fight against the pitfalls that group dynamics will inevitably fall into (although I'm suddenly intrigued - what would a pro-bureaucracy novel look like?)

(Monkeying around on Wikipedia led me to a new phrase "libertarian socialist". I've never heard of such a group. The human ability to divide groups into subgroups and sub-subgroups never ceases to amaze me).

Next up: The Word for World is Forest. I've always adored this title; apparently it wasn't LeGuin's choice. She called it Little Green Men, which actually fits the story better. And yet the title it has now (which Harlan Ellison came up with, from a line in the book) is so evocative, it would be a tough call. This one is very short, I think technically a novella. The ending is killer. I managed to convince my husband to read it (if you knew how little he reads these days, you'd appreciate what that means; I think it helps that this is so short).

It's not hard to see that this is a book about the Viet Nam War, but I didn't find it dated at all. I'm almost ashamed to admit, but I liked the character of Davidson. Now, if I met this guy in real life, I wouldn't have such positive feelings, but as a character he's really a guy that lives in his own skin, if you know what I mean. And the way his self-delusion builds as the story continues is quite a trip to read.



Last Book: The Telling. This one is basically a thinly veiled novelization of the last century of Chinese history, when the People's Republic of China took over. The old ways are outlawed, there is a push for one unifying language and an alphabetic writing system. There were a lot of little touches I liked: the way everyone pretends to like coffee because they're supposed to, the library in the caves high up in the mountains. But in the end this is a book I admired without really engaging in it much. I might have had a different impression if I hadn't read it right after The Dispossessed and The Word for World is Forest. It was good, but not great.

I thought I might just be Ursula'd out, but then I started the book I'm reading now, The Lathe of Heaven and knew from page 1 that was definitely not the problem. "...as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moondriven sea." See my arm? Goosebumps.

So the tally at the end of the month (and I have it on an XCel spreadsheet because I am such a geek): I now have 249 books left to go. *sigh* Yes, a couple of books sneaked in the door so I didn't net much. Still, there's always April and six more LeGuin books to go. I'm debating where to go next: Diana Wynne Jones or William Gibson?

Check it out!

Linda Cambier (a member of my fantastic critique group SFFEditors and a fellow Backspacer, so you know she's cool) has a story up at Quantum Kiss. It's called "The Ultimate Vacation" and is well worth the read. Click the link, you know you want to...

Marie Brennan is the coolest

She's practically making my mission statement here. And she sounds just as pissed off by these attitudes as I am (it's a good thing, that pissed off feeling, it fuels the writing). Key quote for me:

How much future-oriented SF out there (as opposed to, say, alternate history) includes religion as a part of the daily lives of the characters? How much of it involves religion for the protagonists, instead of the aliens or Those People Over There? Some, but the prevailing idea seems to be that we'll have gotten over the religion thing by then.

I also like what she has to say about the magic vs. technology fallacy (have I mentioned I love the way she does magic in her novels? Oh yes, I have.). Although it doesn't get directly stated in my current WIP, one of the underlying rules of the world my novel is set in is that magic and science can achieve the same goals (for instance, time travel), they just work the problem in different ways. (The novel I wrote a few years back which is sitting quietly under my bed will potentially someday be reworked as book four or five in this series, if it ever goes series. I mention only because this is how I know the world setting of the WIP so well; I've been immersed in it for eight or so years now).

Well, I just had to share that. Back to work!

It's a good thing I like to read

I mentioned in my last post my desire to get my to-be-read stack down to a manageable 50 or so books. That got me wondering, how many books do I own which I haven't read yet? It's a metaphorical stack, you see, I tend to shelve things right away because I'm anal. So I took out a yellow pad and went shelf by shelf, counting everything I've not read which I intend to read (so this isn't counting reference books or my husband's architecture books or my boys' books unless I'm intending to read them cover to cover).

The final tally: 252.

Good lord.

OK, lest you think I'm a total impulse buyer in bookstores, a good chunk of those are books of my husband's which I didn't buy myself but do intend to read (the Niven, Heinlein, and what have you), and an even bigger chunk is books that my mother-in-law gave me a year or so ago: all her books from college. It was a wealth of riches, particularly for someone like me with an interest in history and period literature, especially from ancient Japan, China, and India.

Still, 252. You realize if I read a book a week (which is about my average), it would take me five years to read them all. And that would be assuming I didn't buy anything new (which isn't in the realm of possibility; I have five things on preoder from Amazon.com coming in April-August). Plus there are all those China Mieville books I haven't read yet, and I'm dying to check out John Scalzi (his blog rocks). Then there's this novel I'm supposed to be writing...

At any rate, I intend to make updates at the end of the month of what I've read and what the to-be-read count stands at now. You all can help keep me honest. I've got my work cut out for me!

...in which I go to Las Vegas and bring the snow with me

So I'm back from my weeklong vacation. I didn't read three novels in a week like I did last time, but I did read two and some change.

As mentioned previously, we had some blizzard-type weather just as we were leaving town. It dumped on Minneapolis a few more times while we were away, but now that we're back it's in the 40s and it's all starting to melt. Yep, we missed all the fun. Happily, one of our neighbors quite unexpectedly snowblowed our driveway for us, which is really appreciated when you get home at 1:30 in the morning because the flight home was delayed and you've been dreading hauling suitcases seemingly full of bricks and sleeping children (they always seem heavier when they're sleeping) over a couple of feet of snow into the house. So thank you, Patrick!

Of course the flight out of Minneapolis was more delayed than the flight in, although this apparently had nothing to do with the weather; we were waiting for our plane to make it up from Mexico. We spent nearly four hours in the airport play area watching our departure time get bumped back again and again. This play area seemed designed to magnify any sound made within it, and the little girls waiting to go to Orlando were playing some sort of game that involved lots of shrieking.

But that's OK, because I was on the banks of the Mississippi, eating catfish and biscuits in a house on stilts listing over the water. In my head, anyway; I was reading Jon Clinch's Finn. It's based on Huckleberry Finn, of course (it's about his father), but stylistically it's something else entirely. It's dark and completely engrossing. I was particularly fascinated with the dialogue. Not only are there no adverbs in the dialogue tags (she said gleefully), there are no tags at all. And the punctuation for dialogue is all periods and question marks, no ellipses or dashes even when someone trails off or is interrupted. It's all implied. Very minimalist, very cool. I would recommend reading it just to enjoy all the nuances contained in the words "I know it".

I was halfway through with that before we even landed in Phoenix (did I mention we waited in the plane for an hour before even taking off, waiting our turn to get our wings deiced? I'm just grateful this all happened now that my youngest is five and capable of dealing with it. If this had happened when he was two or three, it would have been a complete screaming nightmare.)

I finished Finn in snatches while we were on the road. We went to Hoover Dam and took the dam tour, took a lot of dam pictures. The boys were quite impressed. We also saw the work they're doing to build a bridge so traffic can bypass the dam. It's way too far up there; there is no way you're ever getting me to drive across that thing once it's done. It needs to be built, though, and apparently it's quite the feat of engineering. No trucks have been allowed on the dam since 9/11 and all other traffic passes through a security check first. The horse trailer in front of us had been inspected, but the door hadn't been latched properly afterwards, so we drove through the curves and turns of the road leading to the dam watching this door loaded with tackle swing open then shut, open then shut. Nothing got that guy's attention; not flashing your headlights or pedestrians gawking and pointing. He crossed the dam and kept going past the parking lot; I have no idea when he discovered his door was open. For someone like me who can't go to bed with the closet door cracked open because it's supposed to be closed, it was an exquisite form of torture.

Then we went to Vegas. As we crossed the pass and started down into the valley we could see clouds hanging over the city. As we got closer it started to rain. Then the rain got slushy. Then, just as we pulled onto Las Vegas Boulevard and got our first glimpse of the Luxor, it honest to god started to snow. It only lasted a minute and of course it didn't stick to anything. I just have to say, I went to Vegas and it snowed for me.

We spent the next two days running around Vegas. It's like Disneyworld for grown-ups, only it doesn't cost anything to roam around, provided you never get thirsty or hungry or buy anything in the shops. Everything costs twice as much as a midwesterner like me thinks it ought to. I can put Michael Jackson's million dollar Las Vegas shopping spree in some context now (I mean, it's still nuts, but it's nuts in context). We went through the Venetian, which has a canal running through it complete with bridges and gondolas, false fronts on the buildings and a ceiling painted to look like the sky. The Luxor was cool too, all done up like Egypt. There was someplace else that was all Roman (yes, already it's all starting to blend), and lots of things were covered in decorations for Chinese New Year.

In short, it made me really want to play Tomb Raider again.

(You're getting the edited highlights here; we also drove down some parts of Route 66, which is Oliver's avowed favorite part of our vacation, and we saw a replica of the London Bridge in Arizona which is certainly a cooler tourist stop than the biggest ball of twine).

So then we were back in Phoenix and had a few days to just mellow out. I specifically had left this book on my unread stack to bring with on vacation. I had read Marie Brennan's first book, Doppleganger, on my last vacation, so I wanted to bring the sequel with this time. The cover is an improvement over the last one. The book is a perfect follow-up; it widens and deepens the world in lots of cool ways. I like a well thought-out magical system, where the way things work makes logical sense, but where the people using it don't necessarily understand every aspect of it (like physicists working on string theory, for instance). The first book hinted at things which are more developed in this sequel about where their magic comes from and how it works. All I can say is: wow. I like the sense of magic as where science and religion meet; if you're intrigued by that idea you're definitely going to want to check out Marie Brennan. 'nuff said.

I mentioned I only read two and some change this time, the "change" was the first chunk of Temeraire. This is actually a 3-in-1 from the Science Fiction Book Club, a compilation of Naomi Novik's series of dragons in Napoleonic times. Sort of Master in Commander meets Eragon. I was intrigued by the idea and had her name on my "to be bought when I've worked the to be read stack down to a manageable 50 or so books" list for a while now, but when SFBC offered it as a 3-in-1 I caved and bumped her up to the top. Also, Peter Jackson is making the movie version. Apparently he has a thing for trilogies. I'm only 80 or so pages in (mostly read on the plane back from Phoenix; the upside of night flights, it's easier to get some reading in when someone is sleeping on your shoulder rather than asking to go pee every 15 minutes). It's already caught my fascination. Lucky me, I still have another week off of work which should be enough to polish this off.

Then back to my own novel. Sadly, I can't polish that off in a week...

But, but, I *need* my vacation!

Winter Storm Warning in effect from Friday evening into Sunday evening...we are still on track for a major winter storm.
If the metro area sees a foot of snow (still very possible, we are predicting 10-12") it will be the first foot of snow ever reported at MSP in February (records go back to 1891).
Heaviest snow comes Friday night and again Saturday night....a few isolated locations could wind up with over 15" by Monday morning.

Normally this would be very good news, I'd be tremendously excited. But not when I'm supposed to be flying. I hate flying. (Actually, I should amend that; I hate being a passenger. I've taken aviation classes before, and the hour I spent in the pilot's seat of a Cessna was a lot of fun and not at all scary. Plus, I'm not much good in the passenger seat of cars either; just ask my husband). I was hoping for a smooth trip this time; last time the pilot had "one of those lights" light up and had to slam on the brakes halfway down the runway, then we started hydroplaning and fishtailing. Then we had to get back in line to do it all over again.
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You know what would be worse than taking off in an ice storm? Waiting around in the airport with two kids for hours before taking off in an ice storm.
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Mostly I'm grumpy because both of the boys have had the stomach flu this week. Of course this always hits in the dead of night, and not the same night either. Aidan is a big enough kid now to get himself to the bathroom in time, but Oliver has this thing where he has to hide the fact that he's sick for as long as he can, so he pukes in the space between his bed and the wall. This morning has been all about scraping half-digested kidney bean husks off the walls and floor. Thank god the Lego totes around his bed all have covers now. The last time he did this, he puked into open totes.
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I really need this vacation. I don't like to talk about my day job, but let's just say the last week has been one of those where anyone would want to get very far away from one's coworkers for a spell. Plus my brain is just fried. Yesterday I got another rejection for a short story, so as usual I reprinted the story right away with a cover letter, stuck it in an envelope with an SASE, and took it to the post office. Then I got home and I can't find that rejection letter anywhere. I'm afraid I know where it went to. *sigh*.

OK, it's official

I've signed the contract and everything. My short story "Of Tapestries and Daemons" will be published in the Fantastical Visions V anthology. This isn't even a magazine, it's an actual trade paperback (link for the curious). I have volumes II and III; I'm pretty geeked I'm going to be in V. Yay me!

Pretty much sums it up for me

I'm not sure if this link will work, some blogs on Myspace are only viewable if the person has already friended you (take that, English language!). At any rate, I found this quite in line with my own thinking, except that it's all poetic and I'm not. I would add only my pity for the baby girl who now has no mother and too many men looking to be her father. Poor girl. I hope she beats the odds and finds a happy ending.

I do believe I'm about to be published again...

...and it's the story I've had out there the longest (I wrote it over two years ago). It's a weird thing, a fantasy story where the magic is based on some things I've read in Brian Greene's books about string theory. Of couse since it's not a modern-setting fantasy, the characters have no idea that what they're doing is based on string theory. I was beginning to think the thing was unpublishable (and had in fact taken it off my board of submissions in my office). But it was a WOTF quarter-finalist, and was the source of the coolest rejection note I've gotten yet, so it must be weird in a good way.

I'm still awaiting the final word, but when I know, you'll know.

Another meme

Here's a meme I took from Andrew Wheeler's blog (which I highly recommend if you're looking for some recommendations on spec-fic books; the guy reads a ton; of course he ought to, working for the Science Fiction Book Club and all).

Here we go:

Science fiction, fantasy, or horror?
Fantasy.

Hardback, trade paperback, or mass market paperback? I only have a few things which I buy in hardcover, things I want to read right away and can't wait for the TPB, things with long waiting lists at the library. Basically Rowling, Snicket, and Martin. Most things I read in hardcover from the library then buy the TPB to keep when it comes out a year later. I only get mass market if that's all there is.

Heinlein or Asimov? Heinlein by a nose.

Amazon or brick-and-mortar? Amazon. Yes, I'm evil. Actually, if I ever wrote down my daily schedule for your perusal you would a) think I'm insane and b) understand why I don't have the time to hit brick-and-mortar stores.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Whichever I happen to find myself in is fine by me (although I will quickly complain about how nothing I want is currently in stock, which never happens when I shop at Amazon.com. Apparently everything I read is just too obscure or something).

Hitchhiker or Discworld? Hitchhiker, but only because I haven't read Discworld yet (it's on that list, you know).

Bookmark or dogear? Bookmark. Not that I'm opposed to defacing a book. I underline, highlight, write in the margins, but I never dogear.

Magazine: Asimov's Science Fiction or Fantasy & Science Fiction? Depends on the month, actually. As far as spec fic mags go, I much prefer Farthing, although for straight-up sword and sorcery, nothing beats Black Gate.

Alphabetize by author, by title, or random? There is a system, and it is grouped by author (and chronologically within author), but alphabetical? No way. I couldn't explain the system, but there is one, I promise.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Throw away? Throw away?

Mostly keep. Occasionally donate to worthy causes. I haven't tried to sell anything since the one time I brought six grocery bags' worth of books to a used book store and got $5 for the lot. Scarcely worth the effort.

Year's Best Science Fiction series (edited by Gardner Dozois) or Year's Best SF Series (edited by David G. Hartwell)? Dozois, but I've never actually read the Hartwell, so...

Keep dustjacket or toss it? Keep it.

Read with dustjacket or remove it? Remove it.

Short story or novel? Novel.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? I couldn't possibly pick here. It's like asking what I Iike better, lemon poppyseed muffins or Killian's Irish Red? Well, I don't want beer for breakfast, but muffins don't really go with basketball.

In a pinch, I'd say Potter.

Stop reading when tired or chapter breaks? I've been reading in five-minute chunks of stolen moments throughout the day for so long, I'm not even sure how I would answer this question! Probably tired.

"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"? Once upon a time.

Buy or borrow? Buy (well, the library is technically borrowing. I haven't borrowed a book from a friend in years.)

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation, or browse? Mostly I buy writers I already like. I also subscribe to Locus and like to read the descriptions under Books Received and if I like the sound of a novel, I jot down the title. Of course that's now a list of 30+ books...

Lewis or Tolkien? Tolkien, no contest.

Hard SF or space opera? Space opera.

Collection (single author) or anthology (multiple authors)? I don't know; I kind of like both. Collection, by a hair.

Hugo or Nebula? Er, no opinion?

Golden Age SF or New Wave SF? Ahem, I'm still learning what these labels mean.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? It depends, standalone or series? A cliffhanger on a standalone - that's just mean.

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading? See above about the stolen moments thing. I read whenever I possibly can.

Standalone or series? Series, all the way.

Urban fantasy or high fantasy? High fantasy.

New or used? New. I only buy used if I can't find new anywhere. Writers don't see a dime from used book sales, so that's a gesture of writer solidarity.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? I don't think I've read a book of which nobody else has heard.

Top 5 favorite genre books read last year? (in no order) Like I remember what I read last year. OK, here's a guess

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde
Lud-in-the-Most - Hope Mirrlees
Doppleganger - Marie Brennan

Top 5 favorite genre books of all time? (in no order)
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Earthsea Trilogy - Ursula K. LeGuin (I have an omnibus; I'm counting it as 1 book)
The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul - Douglas Adams
The Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold
American Gods - Neil Gaiman

5 favorite genre series? (in no order)
Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin
Harry Potter - JK Rowling
Sandman -Neil Gaiman (do graphic novels count, you ask? Why yes, they do).
Dragonlance - Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman
The Miles Vorkosigan books - Lois McMaster Bujold

Top 5 favorite genre short stories? (in no order)
The End of the World as We Know It - Dale Bailey
A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman
Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light - James Tiptree, Jr.
The Little Goddess - Ian McDonald
"All You Zombies-" Robert Heinlein

Those last few were tough. If I took more time, I fear I'd be changing my answers from now until judgement day. And I think I've procrastinated enough for one day.

Minnesota vs. Everyone

A bit of silliness my mother e-mailed me:

Minnesota vs. ...Everyone

60 above zero:
Floridians turn on the heat.
People in Minnesota plant gardens.

50 above zero:
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Minnesota sunbathe.

40 above zero:
Italian & English cars won't start.
People in Minnesota drive with the windows down.

20 above zero:
Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.
People in Minnesota throw on a flannel shirt.

15 above zero:
New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Minnesota have the last cookout before it gets cold.

Zero:
People in Miami all die.
Minnesotans close the windows.

10 below zero:
Californians fly away to Mexico.
People in Minnesota get out their winter coats.

25 below zero:
Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Minnesota are selling cookies door to door.

40 below zero:
Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Minnesota let the dogs sleep indoors.

100 below zero:
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Minnesotans get upset because they can't start their Hummers.

460 below zero:
ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale.)
People in Minnesota start saying..."Cold 'nuff fer ya?"

500 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
Minnesota public schools will open 2 hours late.

The bit about driving with the car windows down made me laugh. I routinely do this when I'm alone in the car. As a matter of fact, I think my husband started plasticking the windows in the fall to keep me from opening all the windows in the house in the middle of January because I need the fresh air. Give it an hour to get that clean/cold smell all over the house, then shut the house back up and turn the heat back on. It's back to 68 degrees by the time he gets home from work, so what's the problem? Well, the boys do freak out a bit...

Random Musings

Between Christmas and my birthday, I usually make a pretty good haul in bookstore gift certificates. It's my favorite shopping trip of the year (OK, I do it online, so perhaps it's my favorite shopping "moment").

This year I bought a monster stack of John Constantine: Hellblazer trade paperbacks. I already had a few, but I had bought and read them out of chronological order. The day after Christmas I bought every single TPB out which I didn't already have (plus some Ursula K. LeGuin novels I didn't have yet - it wasn't all comic books). Last week I assembled the whole Helblazer stack, old and new, and read them all from start to finish.

Wow. I love the stories, and he's a singularly cool character, but the cumulative effect of all that John Constantine was a bit of a downer. At least I have something else to be thankful for: I'm not a member of the working class holding on by my fingernails during the Thatcher administration.

I finished the last one yesterday afternoon, and as I've mentioned I was a bit glum. The Constantine effect was made worse by the shadow of the upcoming Timberwolves game against the Phoenix Suns. Now granted, the Suns spanked us last time in large part because Kevin Garnett and Ricky Davis were both suspended (for acting like toddlers, frankly). But the Suns were on a 17 game winning streak, and the Timberwolves were on a 6 game losing streak. We didn't stand a chance. Well, at least it's always fun to watch Steve Nash play, I told myself. There's always that. (He must be psychic, he can always find the open guy even if he can't actually see him.)

I should have had more faith in my boys. Kevin Garnett's 44 points and 11 rebounds.... well, that's while they call him the Ticket. But it wasn't just him. I couldn't believe how well Mark Madsen was playing. He tried the sort of spin in midair and shoot move that's KG's signature move, and he nailed it!

If only Rashad McCants had been able to play, it would have been the perfect game. He's been suiting up the last two games, but only because Justin Reed is in Mississippi and we need the bodies on the bench as a technicality. They keep saying one more week, just one more week and he'll play.

But I suppose this is more frustrating for McCants than for me.

I'm Mr. Spock, that's all there is to it.

I took a "What sci-fi/fantasy character are you?" quiz. I am Mr. Spock. I tried it again, and changed some of the answers I was either/or on. I was Mr. Spock again. I guess I really am a Vulcan.

I was hoping I could be Galadriel...

It's called juvenilia

This whole bookshelf thing has had a trickle-down effect in terms of reorganizing things around here. I've gone through every closet in the house and decided what to keep and what to toss. *yawn* At any rate, I was quite pleased to find two immense folders stuffed with things I'd written in my schooldays. I had thought it all long ago thrown away.

I have for sometime tortured my husband with fond rememberings of an assignment I once did for Humanities. The assignment was to write the "missing scene" from Hamlet. You could do anything (my friend Kim had the ghosts of Polonius and Ophelia talking in the graveyard, which was quite good).

Mine had Dr. Who. Which is odd, as I never watched much Dr. Who in my younger days (I used to think it was an appallingly small amount until I started watching the new episodes with my husband, who was bragging up the many episodes he had seen until it came to light that he didn't know what a Dalek was. How much Dr. Who could he have possibly seen and not know what a Dalek was? Less than me, I'm guessing). In my memory, this Hamlet scene of mine was a work of brilliance, playing Hamlet's depression against The Doctor's joie de vivre.

I kind of regret finding it now. It was much better in my memory. First off, this is the incarnation of The Doctor I chose to work with:

Not the choice I'd make now, I tell you. And it had none of the clever playing off of world views I was remembering. It mainly involved The Doctor showing up to mess with Hamlet's head. I'm not sure what exactly I was going for. (I got an A on the paper, though, since it was mostly being graded for things like punctuation and having a plot, and my teacher surely had no idea how badly out of character The Doctor was behaving).

I did find something that holds up better, if only because I don't remember it as being a staggering work of genius in the first place. It was also for Humanities (all the cool assignments were for Humanities). Exactly what I was assigned to do I can't quite recall, but it was a play I remember performing before the class. I played Holmes; it was almost certainly Kim in the role of Watson. Here, for your delight or torture, it is:

THE SOLVING OF A CRIME - or - DR. JOHN WATSON BECOMES AN EASTERN THINKER

Set: The scene takes place on a path that leads up to a river in the distance.

NARRATOR: In another parallel dimension, a man very much like our ficitional character Sherlock Holmes existed. However his companion, Dr. John Watson, was a little bit different. The two of them are on their first case together when our story begins.

(enter Holmes and Watson)

HOLMES: Observe, Watson, as I gather the clues that shall solve this case. (Holmes produces a tape measure and begins to measure footprints).

WATSON: I say, Holmes, what are you doing?

HOLMES: I'm measuring the distance between these footprints. I shall be able to mathematically derive the height of the suspect. It is always my first step in cases with footprints available.

WATSON: But Holmes, don't you realize how subjective measuring is? It's a marvel you ever solve a case at all with such methods (scoffingly).

HOLMES: I am the world's finest detective! My methods are impeccable! I've successfully solved every case I've ever had. I assure you, my height predictions are flawless, whatever you may say about my measuring.

WATSON: Don't you realize how much human judgement is involved in measuring even the simplest of distances? Look, can we agree that human judgement always has a margin of error?

HOLMES: Mine being phenomenonally small, of course.

WATSON: But existent all the same?

HOLMES: I suppose so.

WATSON: I know you're a bit of a mathematician. Can we also agree that two points never lie in the exact same spot in space?

HOLMES: That's a commonly known fact.

WATSON: So the object of measuring is to get the points on your tape measure to be as near as possible to lying consecutive to the edges of the footprints?

HOLMES: Of course. I see what you're saying. I have to judge between the marks on my tape and the points between which I'm measuring. It's impossible for them to occupy the same space, and therefore it is impossible to achieve an accurate measurement of the length between. However, this is irrelevant to the case at hand. The culprit is six foot one, plus or minur a half of an inch for your uncertainty factor, Watson. You'll note the wild patterns in the dirt here where the body first hit the ground. He was struggling and therefore was alive at this point.

WATSON: Alive? What do you mean, alive?

HOLMES: Are you daft? I mean he was alive, as in not dead. Sheesh!

WATSON: How do you know he was alive?

HOLMES (barely containing his annoyance): I just showed you. I think we can agree dead bodies don't generally put up much of a fight.

WATSON: My dear boy, I'm merely trying to tell you that you cannot decide if something is living or not because your decision would be too heavily based on your preconceived notions of what is living, which are most certainly wrong.

HOLMES: How do you know they are wrong?

WATSON: I don't. I only want to say that you should base your judgements on what you've experienced, not what has been inferred to you from teachers and other sources.

HOLMES: I was right; you are daft. Are you sure you're a doctor?

WATSON: Let me give you an example of the problems of language. How do you define life?

HOLMES: The qualities by which a plant or animal differes from stones or water or dirt. At least, according to Webster.

WATSON: How do you know this stone is not living? Maybe life to a stone is lying very quietly wherever they happen to fall.

HOLMES (cynically): Let me guess, their life's ambition is to be a paperweight?

WATSON: Possibly.

HOLMES: All living matter is contracted from carbon compounds.

WATSON: So coal is living? And diamonds?

HOLMES: No, coal and diamonds were once living, or so I've been told by countless geologists.

WATSON: This brings us back to the same point I made earlier. All of your famed decisions are based on your preconceived views of how things are. You yourself have stated many times that you owe most of your success to the repeating of patterns. You've read nearly every criminal record there is. This isn't your experience; it's someone else's. Therefore, your view is already going to be as biased as that of the records you've read, and then you add your own bias.

HOLMES: You are a singularly irritating man. As far as my biased views are concerned, this man was living at this point, okay?

WATSON: If you say so, although I must insist you quit bragging about your methods when they are so far off base.

HOLMES: Humph.

(they walk a little further down the trail.)

HOLMES: All right, here he quit struggling. He's dead now. The body must have been dumped in the river up ahead. If we can find the body, we'll be able to ascertain the cause of death.

WATSON: How?

HOLMES: Through the marvels of modern science. You claim to be a doctor; surely you know.

WATSON: "Modern science" is hardly what I'd call marvelous. It has many set backs.

HOLMES: Such as?

WATSON: It's much too left-brained to be accurate. Not everything can be explained by equations or fit into neat mathematical relationships. Some things just are.

HOLMES: Such as?

WATSON: Life.

HOLMES: Not that again.

WATSON: Where I was brought up, I was taught not to quantify and label everything I saw. If only I accepted it and let its essence flow through me, I would understand it. I can't explain it, but I Know it.

HOLMES: You mean to tell me you know the meaning of life, but you can't tell anyone about it?

WATSON: Precisely, Holmes.

HOLMES: Well, there's no need to go on with this, then.

NARRATOR: And so you see in this dimension, Sherlock Holmes gave up his life of crime-solving. He and Watson moved out of 221B Baker Street to the Mystic East and spen the rest of their lives never speaking, but understanding.

No, I can't remember what I was reading at the time, but it probably had "Tao" in it. The Tao of Physics or The Tao of Pooh or The Dancing Wu Li Masters (OK, there's no Tao in that title, but it's about Tao). I do recall really enjoying saying the line "You're a singularly irritating man."

(Aside to my fellow writers - can you appreciate how hard it was to copy-type that without trying to fix it?)

The post with all the pics of the bookcases - because you demanded it

Well, some of you did anyway. The bookcases are set up and the books are in place, but we can't use the word "done" just yet; the shelves need frontpieces to match the face frame, and the whole thing needs to be sanded and finished at some point when we don't have plastic on the windows. Still, I'm very happy with how they look:

Also, there will be doors on the bottom row to make cabinets, so we won't be looking at the puzzles and games and Playstation wires. Yes, the TV is huge, but the books still dominate. At least I figured out how to turn off the blue circle around the ON button so the TV isn't glowing at me all day.

The bookshelves which were formerly in the living room are now done in my office:

This is where I keep all those Heinlein, Clarke, and Niven books I fully intend to read sometime soon. It's also where I store Christmas presents for people I haven't seen since my birthday (*hint, hint*). I moved the tall bookcase from my bedroom down to the office as well since it matched the others and allowed me to have two whole walls of books in the house, so this is what my reading nook in my bedroom looks like now:

That bookshelf next to the rocking chair is my Backspacer bookshelf. The keen eye can pick out the Ally Carters, Mark Bastables, MJ Pearsons, Lynn Sinclairs, and a Jackie Kessler (I have some other Backspacer books as well; that's off the top of my head).

Now, part of our extensive pre-marital negotiations was a break-down of the big jobs we both like to do. Quin got furniture assembly (good thing too, now that we're out of the semidisposable stage of our furniture buying), I got electronics. So here's what I've been doing all week.

The keen eye will see that the computer desk in the living room is now on the other side of the piano; this was so I could hook the computer up to the stereo. Good-bye, 5-disc changer; hello, iTunes! Plus the new TV hooks up to the computer as well, so we can browse record covers from the couch (or anywhere in the room since we have a wireless keyboard and mouse). Every CD in our collection is now on there (even the stuff I can't stand like Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary). 7604 songs, it would take 20.7 days to listen to it all. Of course I can't complain about the folk music too much; to Quin's chagrin, even if he unchecks the songs so they won't play he can't make the album covers go away, and by virtue of staring with an apostrophe, this band is always on top:

I'm not sure how much we'll actually use this "see what's on the computer using the TV" feature. A hi-def plasma TV is very much overkill for your average YouTube video, but it is perfect for those episodes of Veronica Mars (season 3) I downloaded so I could be all caught up when the new episodes start up again next week. But I'm sure the most common function will surely become:

I'm so ashamed

I mentioned some months ago my intention to see the M. Night Shyamalan movie Lady in the Water at the first opportunity because the reviews were so scathingly bad, I just had to see it for myself. Quin, who just doesn't know how to enjoy bad movies, was out of town Sunday night so I took the opportunity to pop in the movie, kick back, and prepare to enjoy the badness.

.

Only...

.

I kept waiting for the badness, but somewhere in there I got swept in and forgot it was supposed to suck. I just really liked it.

.

Now, everything Roger Ebert said in his review is completely true. The "rules" are over explained, and it bothered me that the Korean woman who spoke no English was the authority on things called "narfs" and "scrunts". I don't speak Korean but I've heard it spoken, and those don't sound like Korean words to me. (I think it would have added an interesting twist if the Korean woman was telling a bedtime story she thought was American or European and none of the other people knew what she was talking about - a sourceless story that was foreign to everybody. But that's just me). The storyline involving the critic as the arrogant person who contributes nothing was really heavy-handed and makes M. Night seem like a bitter writer getting back at his "enemies".

.

But...

.

I can't help it, I liked it. I blame the actors. Paul Giamatti was charming, and the other inhabitants of the apartment compex made a distinctive, interesting bunch. M. Night casting himself as the writer felt more logical than egotistical (I think it's true of most writers; we secretly hope to inspire someone else to greatness).

.

Now this isn't a recommendation. I'm not surprised most people hate this movie. As I see it, there are two kinds of fairy tale movies these days: movies like Shrek or Ever After that put modern attitudes into fairy tale times, and movies like this one or The Lake House that put fairy tale attitudes into modern times. The latter tend not to succeed as well as the first category, I think because they require you to suspend all disbelief to enjoy them. No one is going to explain how the time travel works or where the Blue Lands are. You either buy it or you don't.

.

Me, I have no disbelief to suspend. This is probably not a good thing. But what can I tell you? I love a fairy tale.

"Seagull and Raven" is now up at Allegory e-zine.

Here's the link: http://www.allegoryezine.com/ and it's free to read!

RIP 1-2-3-4 Jackson

Our fish jumped out of the net when I was moving him into his newly-cleaned bowl. I picked him up off the floor and got him back in the water before Spike could eat him, and he seemed OK for a week, then not so good for a week, and then stopped moving yesterday. It would be more of a loss if the rest of the family hadn't forgotten he existed months ago (all except me, who fed him and kept his bowl clean, and Spike, who desperately wanted to play with him).

Farewell, 1-2-3-4 Jackson. You were a good fish, as fish go.

On a completely unrelated quote, I found a new internet toy. Not a quiz this time, a generator that puts words you choose (like your name) into movie quotes. This is what I got:

Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the Kate.

Which movie was this quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Which science fiction writer are you?

I suspect being a female science fiction writer wasn't an option no matter which answers I picked, but other than that, I'm quite pleased to be:

I am: William Gibson The chief instigator of the "cyberpunk" wave of the 1980s, his razzle-dazzle futuristic intrigues were, for a while, the most imitated work in science fiction.

Which science fiction writer are you?

(Dude, how old is that picture? He's just a pup!)

Who put me in the Kobe Bryant section?

I got to go to my yearly live Timberwolves game last night. My husband got the tickets from work; his company has season tickets in the lower deck behind one of the hoops - pretty close to where Jesse Ventura used to sit, so nice seats. It's kept hush-hush when they let employees use the tickets so there's no keeping score and finding out who's the boss's pet or whatever, but I think Quin gets the best tickets. I mean, last night we played the Kobe and the L.A. Lakers, last year we saw Shaquille O'Neil and the Miami Heat (although Shaq didn't play), and the year before that it was Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns (the single most painful sporting event I've ever witnessed, hands down). All good opponents. Now if he could just score tix again in March when we play the Celtics so I can see Wally play again...

Well, the first three quarters were fun. Ricky Davis made some amazing shots, including an across the court 3-pointer at the buzzer at the end of the first quarter, but they choked in the fourth. If you follow the Wolves at all, this is hardly surprising; it's their M.O. They didn't completely buckle like they did in the Suns game, but they got beat 34-7 in the last quarter with Kobe on the bench the entire time (I think he got in and scored one point in a free throw). I think Casey waited too long to put the A squad back in, and Mark Blount in particular. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when no one is getting any rebounds? Keep the tall guy in the game! He gets the rebounds and as a bonus, he makes a few baskets too! But what do I know?

The most painful thing was that I was completely surrounded by Kobe fans. And these weren't casual Kobe fans; they had all already ponied up for new "24" jerseys; not an "8" among them. Lots of cheering at the wrong moments, frankly. And the three in front of us had brought cameras with enormous telephoto lenses... to shoot the scoreboard. Honest; they were digital cameras and I could see the screen on the back. What is that all about? How many shots of a scoreboard does one need?

Well, at least I got a cute Santa hat with a Timberwolves logo on it. The night wasn't a total loss.

Still my favorite band ever

And thanks to the internet, the fact that they don't have US distribution no longer matters so very much.

For fans of Avatar, the Last Airbender only!

Because I love these little quizes, here's another. I'm Uncle Iroh mainly for my love of tea, but any character voiced by Mako is inherently cool. (see also, Aku from Samurai Jack and of course the chronicler from Conan the Barbarian)

Which Avatar Character are You?

Find out @ Distant Horizon.

A post five days in the making...

Blogger has been grumpy about uploading pictures again, and when one only gets a few minutes a day to do things on the computer, that can be very, very frustrating.

At any rate, this pic is a picture which is not of my new built-in bookcases. They won't be done until after Christmas (but I've been assured they will be very nice when they finally turn up). Never get two perfectionists working on a project together, that's what I'm thinking.

I have asked why we absolutely had to move the old bookshelves out, and dismantle the entertainment center, and paint the wall before the wood was cut and ready to install. Strangely, I don't quite get an answer to that. I'm reminded of one of my favorite scenes from Mad About You when Helen Hunt is trying to get Paul Reiser to say he was wrong about something and all he'll admit to is "It's not the most right I've ever been." So the tree went up against the lovely brown wall and the echo is distracting, but it's just for a few more weeks.

(My other favorite scene from that show was when her sister was begging her to make some gravy. "But what are you going to eat it on?" "A plate.")

The boys in the pic are being hypnotized by this new show on Noggin called The Upside Down Show. It's technically for preschoolers, but it really is hypnotic. These two Australian guys pretend to do things, pantomiming and making their own sound effects, and pretend like they are being controlled by a remote control you're holding. They'll both fall down and say "Please don't press the stumble button." Oliver laughs and laughs. For a preschool show, it's surprisingly watchable. It's not as hypnotic as this, however:




I found a few other pics on the camera when I was downloading that shot of the not-bookcases, pretty old ones, too. I've been camera-neglectful. At any rate, my kids are both Lego Maniacs. If they had no other toys than Legos they'd be perfectly content. My eldest can build anything out of Legos. I've shown a few of his previous constructions before (and now I'm not digging up the links now, no time!). This one is an ATST. This is not a kit, this is his own design (the pieces come from other Star Wars sets, which is why the colors are mostly correct).

This one is Luke Skywalker on a speeder bike. Some of the colors are off, but the overall design I think you'd have to admit is very nearly spot-on.

And here is the boy in question, on his ninth birthday, with the pumpkin pie he asked for rather than a cake.

Also known as lazy blogging

I took another quiz, on what Tarot card I am:

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Is it just me, or does it sound like if I take drugs or alcohol, I will cause irereparable damage to the drugs and alcohol? Maybe the "them" is my past mental problems; I wouldn't want to damage those.

I also have a list of the 50 Most Significant SFF books (1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club). I'm supposed to bold what I've read, strike-through anything I hated, italicize anything I've started but never finished, and asterisk anything I loved. So here we go:

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien.*** I've read this book at least every five years since I first read it at 14. I don't know if I'll keep that up in my 90s, but it's been about five years and I've been hankering to dig into it again.
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov. But in all honest, I liked his robot series with Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw better. I know, I'm a heretic.
3. Dune, Frank Herbert. I've even managed to stay awake through the movie version once!
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein.*** 4 times. I keep intending to read all of Heinlein's books, and I keep getting sidetracked reading this one over and over again. My husband's cat is named Valentine after Valentine Michael Smith.
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin.*** I would love to see a Peter Jackson version of this. I didn't bother with the Sci-Fi channel disaster.
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson.*** 4 times on this one as well. Our second cat is named Molly, which is a shared reference to the Molly in this book and Molly Bloom from Ulysses. (The third cat is Spike, a shared reference to Cowboy Bebop and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is totally not literary. I should be ashamed).
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke. Eep. Actually, I have a list of authors whose work I plan to dive into next, and his name is on it. Honest, I fully intend to read this.
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick. And this too. I actually already own this, I've just never read it.
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley***. When I first read it, it absolutely blew me away. The sequels haven't come close to Mists, but frankly that bar may be set too high. This book is brilliant.
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe. Wolfe is also on that list. I've read a lot of his short fiction and a couple of his novels, but not this one.
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. I've read this at least twice. The first time was when I was in junior high; I'm fairly certain this was the first straight-up sci-fi I ever read (although I was a fiend for sci-fi movies, even the crappy ones).
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov. Oh there you are, Caves of Steel.
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett. Pratchett's name is on the list (I'm telling you, it's a mighty long list. I started with the women writers, most of whom don't even appear on this list. I'll get to the list-making men someday).
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison . No, but this one is on my list for Christmas (a large portion of my gifts received are in bookstore gift certificates, so I start making my lists now. I don't want until Dec. 26 to spend those gift certificates!).
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison.
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester. Another one I own but have not yet read.
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card. Italics for this one, although I still intend to finish it someday.
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling.*** It's probably best if I don't tell you how many times I've read this one. Everytime a new one is coming out, I re-read all the previous ones back-to-back. I read them all again everytime a movie is coming out. Since this is the first book in the series, I'll let you do the math.
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.*** Second after Canticle in my sci-fi reading. I was quite popular in junior high for being the only girl anyone knew who'd read this and could quote it like it was Python (I was going to say "Shakespeare", but I'm pretty sure I was the only one also quoting Shakespeare) (also, the word "popular" here refers to a very restricted social circle. I was popular with the geeks).
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice.*** 3 or 4 times with that one as well. To be honest, I like her Mayfair Witches books better. (yeah, heretic again).
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin.**** Quite possibly my favorite LeGuin, and that's saying something. Love is not strong enough a word.
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke. Yes, I'm ashamed not to have read this one. It's on the list!
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven. I own this but haven't read it yet. I've read 6 other Niven books, though.
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien. I don't know anyone who's finished this. How did it make the list and no The Hobbit?
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester. Another one I own but haven't read yet.
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein. 3 times. I could get a lot more reading done if I could stop reading the same books over and over, eh?

47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock. Own it, haven't read it.
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks. I've never seen the appeal. Dragonlance gets sneered at, but those books are nowhere near as badly written as the Shannara books. Sometimes I just don't understand human behavior.
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

16 out of 50, plus 3 I've never finished. Better hit the books!

My Very First Sale!

My short story "Seagull and Raven" was just bought by Allegory e-zine! This ends it reign as my most rejected story; that title now passes down to "Cold Water Drowning". This is a particularly exciting first sale, as "Seagull and Raven" is part of the backstory for the novel in progress, Tao of Troth. Nah, really it's just exciting because someone bought something I wrote! It will be up on the Allegory site in January 2007; I'll post again when it's live so you can all check it out and recommended it to all your friends (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Oh how I love this record

As some among you may know, I adore Cat Stevens. I've loved his music since I saw the movie Harold and Maude way back in high school (I of course knew "Peace Train" before that, but to be honest, that's not in my top 10 Cat tracks). I loved the songs in that movie and had to hear more. Sadly, my entire Cat collection was on LP and I no longer have a turntable (or even the records, actually; there is no room in this house to store stuff. I'd kill for a house with an attic). But a few years back my husband got the Cat Stevens boxed set for me for Christmas, and that has almost all of the good stuff on it. (and "Peace Train").

So anyway, Cat, who is now Yusuf Islam, has a new record out this week. It took me a while to find it on itunes, as he is going just by "Yusuf" for this one, and the sucky itunes search engine didn't realize that this record could in any way be what someone typing the keywords "Yusuf Islam" or "Cat Stevens" might be looking for. I presume the one name thing isn't a bid at Prince or Madonna hipness, and I sincerely hope it's not a political thing. I imagine it has to do with why he hasn't done any new music until now: he wants to separate the spiritual and secular sides of his life, and this record is meant to be secular.

I say "meant to be" not because it's secretly meant to proselytze you. Cat is like George Harrison; his spiritual journey is too much of who he is for that not be what the music is really all about. (See: it's about the journey, not the destination. If it were about the destination, that would be proselytzing).

Now I liked his single from a few years back "Indian Ocean", but I was doubtful whether a whole new record would manage to strike a chord with me. It's been decades since he's recorded, it might have sucked. Happily, it doesn't. It's not quite Tea for the Tillerman, but it can stand next to it without shame. And he still has the most amazing voice. I've only had this record for a couple of days, but I can already tell I'm going to be playing this one a lot. If you like Cat, definitely pick this one up.

(You know, I just can't bring myself to call these things "CDs". I don't know why. It just doesn't seem to encapsulate the creative product like "record" does. Maybe it's like with writing. I don't think of myself as writing a "book", I'm writing a "novel". I dunno, just a ponder.)

What Buffy character am I?

I thought for sure I'd be Andrew, as no one ever remembers my name, but as it turns out I'm....

(And no, there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about these great huge spaces and empty lines. I've tried, but I can't fix it. If only I actually knew something about HTML!)

Tara Maclay 45% amorality, 36% passion, 63% spirituality, 63% selflessness

What a woman! (Or man, as it may be...) Tara is a moral, centered, spiritual and selfless person... rather, I suspect, like you. People like this make those around them love them. Congratulations! (and stay away from windows, just in case) THE 4-VARIABLE BUFFY PERSONALITY TEST

Cautiously optimistic

That pretty much sums up my feelings for the Timberwolves this year. I like how the Boston boys have been playing. Ricky Davis exemplifies team spirit - is there a player who's less selfish with the ball? - and Mark Blount has turned out to be the polar opposite of Olowakandi. He's much better than we were told he would be when that trade went down, and I'm very pleased with his blocking, rebounding, and scoring (although being such a tall fellow he can't run and dribble at the same time. My husband keeps insisting that Kevin Garnett is a freak in his ability to do this at his height. I guess it's true). Our first round draft pick Randy Foye seems like a slow starter, but he did manage to nail a few last night. He'll be worth the effort if Casey gives him the time to develop, I think. But I'm blown away by Craig Smith, our other rookie who plays like an NBA veteran. 20 points against Denver? Didn't see that one coming.

Team-wide, turnovers are still a problem, and I don't think Marko Jaric has quite found his place yet. It's better since he knows he's not a point guard now, but I think he's still trying to find his niche. He's mean on the steal, though. I'm liking Mike James as our point guard; I'm so glad they scared up some veterans to complement Kevin Garnett. This is a team built around KG, and if they can't make it happen for him I'm afraid MN is going to have to let KG go. He wants that ring, man, and who can blame him?

But my fave to watch is still Troy Hudson (when he's not hurt). Yes, he takes a while to prime up. You have to let him biff a bunch of big shots, but just when you're ready to tear your hair out, he'll start nailing 3-pointers. And nailing them. And nailing them. Plus, I like his hair. I liked it better last year when he was doing the pigtail thing. I tried to find a pic, but the internet let me down. I did find this one of T-Hud and Shaq which I find amusing:

On a final basketball note, my heart goes out to Wally Szczerbiak, who's been playing his butt off in Boston, but to no avail. 33 points he scored last night - 33 points! - and they still lost. That's gotta suck.