Date night

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Last night was “date night”, the biweekly ritual in which my wife and I suddenly realize, at about three in the afternoon, that our regularly scheduled baby sitter will be there in an hour and a half and what the hell are we doing to do together all on our own?

My wife wasn’t keen on yet another restaurant trip and I couldn’t blame her. Instead we went to the Henry Art Museum in the U District: The PanOptos exhibit was pretty damn cool. This is one of the photos I took. I’m not sure why, except that I like the imperfections.

And James Turrell’s Skyscape sculpture, Light Reign, was wonderful (and I immediately tried to think of a way to build it in Minecraft, which only shows you what a saddo I am). I would have spent much longer in there if it hadn’t been so chilly (it’s installed in the courtyard).

Dinner came immediately after (and, since we had it in the U. District, the less said about it the better) and then we hopped over to the UW Bookstore to catch Cherie Priest’s reading of Bloodshot. I’m dubious about vampires, but her excerpt sounded pretty good, and when she talked about the book afterward she tempted me even more. Still, vampires. Hmm.

From there we took the crosstown bus to Ballard for dessert in a nice Italian place we found. My wife’s cannoli (she loves cannoli) had a chocolate coating on the shell, unfortunately, but my tiramasu was pretty dang good. Then it was home to watch the Lego animation my son had worked on.

In short, fun. And of course we spent a good deal of time talking about Important Things. For instance, we have a trip to Lisbon that we’ve been wanting to take forever, but when I bring it up it turns into a flight to Amsterdam, then a train trip to London, followed by a tour through Barcelona and Madrid and finally…

Me, I just want to go to Lisbon and check it out (we have family there). My wife thinks she’s being restrained because she’s ready to put off Paris and Rome until the next go ’round.

On top of that, I’ll be going to Readercon this summer (Hello, convention-going people. I’ll be at Readercon this July. If you’ll be there too, please introduce yourself. It’ll be my first sf convention and I’m not entirely sure how I’ll do). For my wife, this is a chance for all three of us to fly out early and check out historical sites. While I’m at the con, she and the boy would tour around the city, learning about the American Revolution and so on.

Nevermind that I’d miss out on those tours. Nevermind also that she’d like to immediately fly from Boston to Amsterdam, etc. Jeez, give that woman a transcontinental flight and she takes a month-long international jaunt.

Randomness for 1/26

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1) Which TV jobs go to which character?

2) The Comics Code Authority is dead.

3) I feel safer knowing this woman is in prison. Great work, authoritarian assholes!

4) The United States of Shame. Although I have no idea why Iowa, Ohio, or Utah should be ashamed of those things. (Go WA state!)

5) Dine like a Basil Fawlty customer (for some reason).

6) “If there’s a camel up a hill then it’s Gong Li with me…” Video. I laughed so hard at this that I actually cried, I kid you not.

7) A more serious video on redesigning medical information. Hell yes.

Five things make a post.

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First, early reaction to the sample of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark is pretty good. I have to write much more of it before submission (it’s about 30% finished) but early signs are positive.

Second, there’s a gorgeous sunrise outside my window, all blue and pink. The sun will be above the cloud level soon, turning the day into the usual dismal gray, but this was nice.

Third, I’m making good progress on the synopsis of The Twisted Path aka Twenty Palaces 4

Fourth, I’ve seen exactly two of the movies on the Oscar nomination list, and both of those are up for less showy awards. I’m not particularly embarrassed by this lack but it does mean that I’m unable to take part in the blog discussions of it. See also:

Fifth, I skipped last nights State of the Union address, so I can’t comment on it. See? No blog material.

Back to work.

Randomness for 1/25

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1) A dating service for people who like white hats with anchors.

2) A hotel that’s free to stay at… but it’s decorated with beach trash.

3) You should date an illiterate girl.

4) From boiling water to instant fog. Video. Now that’s cold.

5) Casting the 1940’s version of Harry Potter films. Too many of the biggest stars of the day, but fun to think about.

6) Phelps family protests the movie RED STATE. A counter-protest breaks out. Some NSFW text.

7) Five Angry Birds status updates.

No Norwescon for me this year.

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Again.

Norwescon, I guess

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In 2009 at the beginning of December, I received an invitation to Norwescon. For whatever reason, my response to them wasn’t received and it’s very likely that was my fault. I interpreted the lack of response as a “Never mind,” and by the time it was straightened out I had family plans and couldn’t attend. Next year, I told myself.

Well, next year is here. I sent an email to the same person (at the same address) who contacted me before, inquiring about attending the convention, but so far I’ve received no response (again). It wasn’t one of these official contact addresses, though; it’s someone’s personal email address.

I plan to try one more time, but I’m not sure which of these addresses I should use. To be clear, I’ve attended the San Diego Comic-Con but I’ve never been to a “real” science fiction convention, and everything I know about how they work has come from skimming other people’s LiveJournals. So I’m turning to you good folks, because I know many people reading this have much more experience than I do: Which address, if any, should I contact? Or should I just take the hint?

Thanks.

Added later: Email sent! Thank you, everyone on my blog and LJ for the advice.

In most excellent news…

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I haven’t mentioned this before (I was going to wait for the cover art, but like Inigo Montoya, I hate waiting) but how excited am I that Circle of Enemies (Amazon.com | B&N | Book Depository | Indiebound | Mysterious Galaxy) is going to have a blurb from Charles Stross? Pretty freaking excited, let me tell you.

But I’ve discovered that his quote might actually be moved to the back cover because the front will sport a blurb from Charlaine Harris. (!!!)

That’s a helluva one-two punch, coming from different directions. Go, little book, go! (No, seriously, go! Daddy needs sales!)

Survivor’s log, days 332-365

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Day 332- Was struck by an arrow again last night. The cursed skeletons come out of the sea after sunset every day now, more and more of them it seems. Where they come from I do not know, but I have found evidence that make my previous ideas seem like a child’s daydream.

While exploring a nearby island, I discovered a cavern at the shoreline. Upon descending, carefully, out of the daylight, I came upon a strange cage set into the beach sand. Within burned a fire without fuel and a small, spinning spider-totem. I loitered past sunset to confirm my suspicions and yes, spiders appeared fully-formed in the vicinity of the cage as though they had been transported from some other dimension.

Are spiders the only creatures summoned thus? Perhaps the zombies and skeletons are not, as I suspected, created from the corpses of my previous “deaths” and also the deaths of others who might have lived here previously. Perhaps they are summoned here by other cages, and perhaps, most horrible of all, there is a cage buried in the sand where I am continually reborn. Perhaps if I dig a certain distance, I will discover an unquenchable fire and a tiny, spinning figure of myself.

In a sudden, blind rage, I nearly smashed the spider’s cage, but fear stayed my hand. Continue reading

“Quiet on the set!”

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While I work on the notes for book 4, my son has roped a handful of neighborhood kids to do voice over to his latest Lego animation. They’ve already had to rewrite because one of the “artists” didn’t know (and couldn’t say) the word “apocalypse” as in “zombie apocalypse.”

It’s hard to focus, what with all the cute.

Waddayano. I’m a Google ebooks author

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Apparently Child of Fire is available in the Google ebook store. They even have sample pages from the beginning of the book. If you look at it as “scanned pages” (iow, laid out the way the printed book is) you can read up to page 37. If you set the sample to “flowing text” you can read a little farther, and can change the font, font sizes, and line spacing too. It’s pretty nice. I haven’t had the opportunity to read a book on an ereader; is this what it looks like, usually?

Interestingly, Game of Cages isn’t available for sale there. I’m not sure why. Maybe it just takes time to load the books in.