Riddle me this, Mac Users!

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Does anyone know what to do with applications that simply won’t start? I click on something in, say, a finder window, the correct icon appears in the dock, bounces two or three times as though it’s going to start up, then shrinks down to nothing.

I have an application that I need to use, and it’s one of the ones that doesn’t works. I don’t even know if it used to work, because I’ve never tried to open it before. FWIW, I’m using a Mac Mini G4 with 1.4 Ghz and 512 MB RAM. The program that won’t open (iCal) came with the computer.

I’ve already tried repairing disk permissions and I’ve reinstalled the bundled software from the installation disk. Am I missing something?

Yay! Starred review in PW!

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Child of Fire just got a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Here it is, reprinted via them.

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STARRED REVIEW: Child of Fire Harry Connolly. Del Rey, $7.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-345-50889-8

Connolly’s gritty urban fantasy debut is not so urban: it takes place in Hammer Bay, Wash., where residents are thankful for the toy factory that stimulates their economy and are apparently oblivious to the frequent magical immolations of local children. Convicted felon Ray Lilly works for the mysterious Annalise Powliss and the Twenty Palace Society, hunting down people who use magic and the otherworldly predators whose power they channel. Callous Annalise and hard-nosed Ray have a complicated personal history that gradually comes to light as the Society faces off against factory employees, local law enforcement and other corrupt forces in the town. Unique magical concepts, a tough and pragmatic protagonist and a high casualty rate for innocent bystanders will enthrall readers who like explosive action and magic that comes at a serious cost. (Oct.)

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Holy crap, what a tremendous relief that is. Please do well, little book! Find lots of readers!

Mementos

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I brought some things back from the San Diego Comic-Con that I probably shouldn’t have: the folded cardboard name “plate” (what are those things called, anyway?), the program, the souvenir book, and so on. I couldn’t just toss them away, so I packed them in my luggage and now… here they are.

Thing is, I don’t have a place for them. And I won’t look at them again later, not really. At the moment they’re just sitting near my desk, getting in the way.

I couldn’t just throw them out, but now that I brought them home I resent them a little.

More pages to be done today.

this is not a subject line

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Finished today’s work and yesterday’s, too. The book wants to be written now, and is helping me push it along.

I also “finished” some promotional stuff Del Rey asked me to do for Child of Fire, for certain values of “finished” that involve another read-through to polish it up.

I was supposed to also work on Cool Thing That Would Be Awesome If It Worked Out, but time has already left, and so must I.

Books I have read. Books I will read.

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First things first: I’m not usually a fan of Megan McArdle’s political blogging, because it often seems like a triumph of preconceptions over evidence.

However! This interview with Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth, is pretty interesting stuff. I wish I’d seen it before I hit the bookstore today.

What’s that, you say? Bookstore? That’s right. I was about 12 pages from the end of The Patriot Witch by C.C. Finlay and it was so freaking good that I had to rush out and buy the next two, just in case they vanished from the bookstores or something. Now that I own them, I can read them at leisure (which means: right away).

I also bought Breakthrough Rapid Reading and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading (because I’m a complete idiot). I’d tried to read the former once before, but I borrowed it from the library and I had to–no joke–return it before I was done. No, really, I’m not kidding.

I think, in an effort to embarrass myself into learning to read faster, I will blog about my attempt to learn speed reading. Nothing like a little humiliation to goad the lazy.

You know what I need?

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Organization.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been writing a book and I had to stop myself with a Wait a minute. What car is [protagonist] driving?

Because he has his own, but sometimes he’s forced to leave it somewhere and “borrow” someone else’s. Has he gone back for his little Ford or is he still driving that stolen Land Rover?

And what about cell phones? I know he ditched his early in the book, but he stole one, didn’t he? And his boss gave him a new one. Has someone else taken it from him since then?

I don’t even want to start on guns.

I need a simple way to keep track of the things Ray carries in his pockets. I could leave a separate file open on my desktop with a running tally of the things he’s picked up and discarded, but I know myself: I’d forget. What I need is bookmarks or footnotes or something.

Also, I’m planning to write an essay for John Scalzi’s “Big Idea” series, centering on Al Held’s painting “The Big N”. Lots to do and so little time.

OMG

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I hate Microsoft Excel so much.

Mac Hate

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Before I left for L.A./San Diego, I was half-convinced I’d need to replace my desktop computer. It’s a refurbished Mac Mini G4 that I bought 4 years ago. It’s as slow as… well, me, and let’s just say that iPhoto 5 is not quite up to the task that I’ve set for it.

Worse, just before I left it stopped writing to DVDs.

That’s a deal-breaker right there. If my computer can’t save files to discs, it’s outta here.

And now we have the current heatwave (according to local news sites, we are in triple-digit temps right now, a new record) which is always great for computers. Mine is sitting on my desk in a poorly-ventilated corner of the apartment, and I’m sure it’s hotter inside than out. Luckily, I shut it off this morning before I left for work (where our a/c is a freaking joke).

Anyway, my Christmas present was half of a new computer, tbbl (to be bought later). My birthday present was the other half. I have a new machine coming, and it will have Time Machine, Boot Camp and a number of other sources of wonder (including the latest iPhoto), but I have to wait for my credit card to stop smoking from my trip, and I have to wait for the heatwave to break.

This is one bit of shopping I’m half-dreading, half-loving.

I return

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My plane got in last night, and far from the cool summer of the Pac NW I was expecting, we had temps in the 90s. Today we’re supposed to be in the triple digits, which is rare stuff for this part of the world. Sitting around the table with my family last night at 10 pm, sweat was running down my face.

Luckily I’m currently at work, where we have “air conditioning.”

And! To commemorate my return, I give you a pair of links: Maker Time and Manager Time and the Freakonomics blog entry on the article. Personally, I think you can train yourself to enter maker time in short bursts. It’s not easy and it’s not optimal, but it works (and has worked for me).

I’ll never catch up with my whole friend’s list, but I’m reviewing it. If there’s something you think I should know about, let me know.

Finally, my weirdest moment at Comic-Con: I was signing books at the Del Rey booth, and a father brought his son to the table for a signed copy of my book. I’m terrible at guessing ages, but I’d say he was 8-10 years old–imo, way to young for the book I wrote.

His father had a copy of his own, though. Would he read it himself first? It’s not really my place to make that decision for them. I just signed the book and handed it over. Still, it felt wee erd.

I can not be trusted

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When City of Heroes was released… was it five years ago? (Hmm. Wikipedia says it’s four) I was very very close to buying it for myself. Very very close. I love superhero stories, and everything I heard about the game suggested they did away with most of the level-grinding I’d experienced with Dark Age of Camelot.

I decided against it, though, for one reason–a reason I love very much.

But here I am in Studio City in my friend’s apartment, having created a character on his account, and I played for hours last night. I was up until 3 am playing. And I dreamed about it, too. I woke before he and his girlfriend did and would have been back online finishing missions this morning if I knew the password for his account.

Yikes. I can not buy this thing.

I fly home tonight. It’s been too long since I was with my wife and son.