Archive for January, 2008
« Previous EntriesDecay
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Sweet Juniper!, which has been enthusiastically added to the daily reading roll, has an excellent Flickr photoset and accompanying blog post detailing the decay of the Detroit Public Schools Book Repository. I noticed, as Dutch did, that a lot of folks commenting on Flickr felt some sadness at these views of collapse and ruin which, [...]
ConFusion 2008: The Con Report
Monday, January 21st, 2008Wow what a great con. Great Idea #1: Volunteering. Had a blast doing some scut work for my friend Jeff, which meant a number of crazy interactions with a certain dude named Brian. I’d met him the year before at Penguicon and had heard 10 words out of the guy. Not nearly so reticent this [...]
At ConFusion! Hey!
Saturday, January 19th, 2008I met John Scalvi and he said to me, “Sheep I can handle.” He is also, as I understand it, a Shakespearean understudy of no ill repute. Otherwise, so far, it’s been a hell of a time. I’ve been volunteering, and schmoozing, and will be panelizing shortly. Stayed up late last night (to good effect), [...]
Worldbuilding Dichotomy
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008As a blog-world farewell, M. John Harrison posted some of his final thoughts on the evils of worldbuilding as he saw them. Or, at least, his final blogged thoughts. I doubt that this is all he has to say on the matter. It’s been almost a year since I took on the topic, so it [...]
Apple Makes The Funnest Toys
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008And now for your regularly scheduled Apple/Macintosh commercial. In case you missed it, today was the Macworld Expo keynote address by Steve Jobs, usually a highly anticipated event for big profile product launches and introductions. The iPhone bowed at last year’s event (though it wouldn’t be available for another six months). I’m most excited about [...]
ConFusion 2008 Schedule
Monday, January 14th, 2008In case anyone is curious: 11 AM Saturday – Dennison I/II – Fantastic Sports Organized sports are a vital part almost every culture on the glove. But sf and fantasy novels tend to overlook this key aspect of world-building. We examine what sports are and what they tell us about a culture, and dig up [...]
Weekend Round-Up
Sunday, January 13th, 2008It’s Sunday night, and I should be going to bed. — We had my daughter baptized this afternoon, at a one-month delay on account of her being throwy-uppy sick the night before our first scheduled date. It was a nice little event, with two other babies getting the holy water-and-oil treatment, and afterwards back to [...]
One Of Those Things
Saturday, January 12th, 2008A friend’s recent ordeal reminded me of one of those odd things about being in the military, that’s really tough to wrap one’s head around, even if it happened to you. And that’s wanting to go. Wanting to be deployed. It happened to me twice. Or, rather, over two significant spans of time. Once was [...]
Studio System Collapse?
Thursday, January 10th, 2008So, now, three of the smaller fish have bailed on the unified studio collective and cut their own deal with the WGA to end the strike for them. A lot of smaller studios and producers and whatnot were exempted from the strike in the first place, but it’s been interesting to see how has broken [...]
What Is Science Fiction?
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008SF Signal recently asked a plethora of today’s science fiction authors that very question. And here’s their answers. What is an oversight is that they neglected to ask up-and-comer Jeremy Tolbert. Well, and they didn’t ask me, but I don’t have an answer, while Jeremy certainly does. Oh, and if you’re not reading Jeremy’s LiveJournal, [...]
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