links

Signal Boost

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Support rape crisis centers and enter to win an Advance Copy of Red Hood’s Revenge, by Jim C. Hines.

Randomness for 4/2

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1) Quentin Tarantino is playing a smurf? Um, okay, I gues.

2) Protecting IP the stand-up comic way. One of my friends was (unfairly) accused of joke-stealing. It was painful to see him (voluntarily) ditch a ten-minute routine about sitting at the big table over Thanksgiving because someone else had a single joke about it. This probably deserves its own post, but I’m not the one to write it.

3) I liked Speed Racer, too. However, I don’t have to call it an “art film” to justify that. It was definitely inventive and non-realistic, and it had a powerful emotional affect on me. I’ve been meaning to rewatch the ending to examine that a little more.

4) Insectophobes, do not click! That sucker is two and a half feet long. If you drown in deep waters and your corpse sinks to the bottom, that thing will be one of the creatures feasting on you.

5) Batman goes to jail for stalking L&O actress. Fate of his two daughters, Harleyquinn and Batgirl, undecided. (More seriously, if you’re a famous person, you get stalkers–freaky, creepy ones–and the only way they hit the news is if they’re colorful in some way or it’s a slow news day.)

6) Beautiful new library in Battery Park.

7) Big house vs short commute time: Which will make us happier? It’s interesting how this just assumes people will be in cars. I wonder what variables public transit adds in? Personally, I like my bus time; it’s pretty much the only dedicated reading time I have left.

Randomness for 3/31

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1) Non-Adventures of Wonderella is awesome.

2) This one is NSFW: Forehead Tittaes. via SmartBitches

3) A horror film that calls YOU!

4) Somehow I think this is not an official traffic law.

5) This made me laugh myself sick. via barbarienne

6) “He thought if he could save one chubby girl, he’s done his job,” Lutz said. Pft. That’s what every guy going crazy with a hunting knife thinks.

7) You know what? This shouldn’t have been a TV show in the first place, let alone a damn movie. Did you know that box office poison smells like almonds? It’s true.

How about that

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There’s no DVD release of CAST A DEADLY SPELL, the Lovecraftian private eye movie with Fred Ward and Julianne Moore, but it is on YouTube.

It’s better than I remember, but still disappointing in some of the choices.

Randomness for 3/27

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1) The fully compiled results of Jim Hines’s First Novel Survey.

2) Marriage vs. PhD. via @ccfinlay.

3) I’m sure this guy can get a divorce at the same court appearance when his wife gets her conviction.

4) President Obama’s Facebook page, HCR edition. “I smell Democrat.”

5) Literary troll is trollish.

6) What can surprise Werner Herzog? “It’s not a serious wound.”

7) The future of text?. They’d like you to think so.

Randomness for 3/25

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1) This makes a school bus trip seem like a delight. Actually, I’d probably homeschool.

2) Guys who pay women to play video games with them.

3) Alien vs. Pooh.

4) And, as an antidote to those of you who were annoyed by the critique of police procedure in CASTLE: A show that get’s the procedure right. FYI, I don’t post these links to harsh peoples’ buzz on their favorite shows; there’s a lot to learn here for writers and readers.

5) What happens when a critic really hates a movie.

6) Carrie Vaughn explains why she and her best-selling series will not be published by Grand Central any more, by her choice.

7) Take the Cruel Epiphany poll.

As I write this

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This book has a better sales ranking than mine.

Randomness for 3/23

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1) Zombie attack flow chart.

2) “… Bloggers aren’t real writers…”

3) The Strange Sad Death of Alan MacDonald.

4) How to take surreptitious photos on the planet Belvedere.

5) The lonely life of a super-hero.

6) Casting call for Pirates of the Caribbean 4: No fake boobs.

7) A review of the police procedure on Castle.

The world is full of story-fodder

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I was going to drop this into the latest random link compilation, but it’s too cool to be buried there. Check out this news report on a story from more than fifty years ago in Scotland.

Yes, hundreds of children hunting vampires in a graveyard after dark–a vampire “with iron teeth” no less.

The story ideas that little news piece prompts are undeniable. The two simplest ideas would be to tell it from the POV of one of the children, if only for the chance to write about kids high on adrenaline because they’re doing something forbidden and dangerous. Some other writer might be able to write it from the POV of the vampire as it’s being hunted, frightened by the attention being drawn to it and indignant at being threatened by children.

It’s the POV of the parents that I find most interesting, naturally. A village where every kid has to be home by dark, and no one will talk about the local undead nasty, but what happens when the little ones find out on their own, and decide to be heroes?

I wonder if I can steal this for my next project.

Five things make a post

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1) Apparently, Twitter prestige is based on the ratio of followers to following. I’m not prestigious. #statingtheobvious

2) That’s the first hash tag I’ve used. I can never seem to remember to include them in a post tweet. I also realized that my Twitter bio was too wordy. This site might actually be good for me.

3) I wish it was more obvious when people retweeted things I write. Or maybe it is and I just don’t know where to look.

4) And because I don’t want to talk about Twitter all the time: additional good news about the health care reform bill is that it carries an amendment that will cut billions of dollars in waste from government student loan programs. ::crossing fingers::

5) Back to Twitter (@byharryconnolly, btw). Maybe it won’t be all that good for me after all. It very much encourages the “Any new messages?” impulse that caused email to take over my life. It’s nice that the browser tab shows the count of new tweets without clicking on it, but I may have to exercise *gasp* self control.