This is important

Standard

It’s common to hear that the current financial crisis was caused by government meddling, specifically the Community Reinvestment Act. This is a Big Lie.

It’s important to fight these sorts of lies; they cripple our ability to fix the problem and to avoid a repeat in the future. Never mind holding guilty parties responsible, we need to have an accurate model of the way the world works.

Read that article and spread the word. It’s important.

Update: Comments are closed, even though I don’t have a plug-in that would allow me to turn them off without deleting comments already posted. Take the discussion elsewhere, please.

Well, this is craptastic

Standard

My MacBook will no longer connect to the internet through airport. There’s no wifi ability at all.

Worse, it’s out of warranty by at least a year.

It would be nice if this were easily fixable, but I sorta doubt it. I’ll give it the old college try tonight (although I’m not sure how). After that I have to decide if I should just carry an ethernet cable with me to the library to enable my Dropbox backup, or Pikachu help me, buy another.

It’s really the wrong time for my sturdy little laptop to not be so sturdy.

The Nazar

Standard

A family friend (in the bg of this picture) returned from her trip to Turkey with a gift for me:

Photo 25

It’s a nazar (for protection against the evil eye). Now I can resist all your evil sendings!

Food and Other Issues (a weight loss post)

Standard

I figure pretty much everyone has food issues of some kind, even if they’re relatively mild or benign, and I consider myself lucky that mine are pretty mild. Continue reading

Just passed the 20K mark on A Blessing of Monsters

Standard

Remember when I said this epic fantasy was definitely going to be complete in one book?

Er…

I’m going to have to slow forward progress on it while I revise the opening chapters and work up a pitch for my agent. Hopefully she’ll be happy with it and this new book by “George R.R. Martini” will be available sometime in 2013. God, I hope so.

Meanwhile, I have to go back and add more setting. I also need to change one of the viewpoint characters, who is not the sneaky trickster I wanted her to be.

Also, let me ask a question: Why is NaNoWriMo in November? Is it because the “No” in “Novel” matches the “No” in “November”? Because it’s hugely inconvenient, especially for folks in my country. Thanksgiving falls right into the end of the month, which is a time-consuming, exhausting, complicated holiday, and it also marks the start of the Christmas season.

Why doesn’t it run in January instead? Most of the big holidays are done and people are all jazzed about new beginnings and resolutions. Besides, the solstice will have passed and we’d be enjoying longer and longer days.

Anyway, for those who are taking part, remember, there is no rule but this one: “Be interesting.”

In which I repeat myself

Standard

Everything I want to say about NaNoWriMo would be a repeat of my advice from last year.

Can I add that I have been increasing my productivity, and that those goals no longer seem like such a strain.

Zangoose and his sidekick Captain Weekend

Standard

IMG_5032

IMG_5038

Candy haul was modest and the boy didn’t get to meet up with his best buddy, but I got to eat a really good pizza.

For the record, three adults recognized that my son was dressed as Zangoose and four more pegged him as a Pokemon. Only two kids recognized him as a Pokemon and none guessed the type.

I’m sour on Halloween

Standard

Once I got past a certain age, Halloween supplanted Christmas as my favorite holiday of the year. This was years ago, and it wasn’t because of the candy. I liked the monsters, the costumes, the old horror movies and novels, the smell of autumn, the whole thing.

Then it seemed that everyone else joined in and shit all over it. Horror movies and novels turned all gory, costumes became things adults wore to bars, and everyone else started to get into the spirit.

And the zombies. God, I can’t stand the disgusting zombies.

What had been a time when an introvert could enjoy a feeling of solitude as things became chillier and the world around us slowly died, when you could watch a spooky movie or delight the neighborhood kids by dressing up and scaring them, well, it just started to feel crowded.

I’m sorry to say that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for it.

And that makes 20. Thanks, Scott Lynch

Standard

Actually, 21, but I was going to wait until I dropped at least 20 pounds before I blogged about it. Continue reading

Randomness for Halloween

Standard

1) The World’s Most Controversial Lego Model.

2) The Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents. Some nuance on comic art that I hadn’t heard about.

3) Mount Rainier casts a shadow on the clouds.

4) “Dude,” I said. “These people aren’t protesting money. They’re not protesting banking. They’re protesting corruption on Wall Street.”

5) Dahlia Lithwick earns respect for this article on Occupy Wall Street and modern media messaging.

6) Only remaining martial arts master searches for a student worthy of learning shastar vidya.

7) Creepy Old-Time Halloween Photos. Yeah, it’s a slide show. They’re still really creepy.

Bonus death-themed #8 because it’s Halloween and not all of these are holiday-related: A fantastic obituary.