So that thing I said about my street doing it up for Halloween?



( More ghoulishness behind the cut! )

And here's out house, which still needs pumpkins and cobwebs:

This is like the Ninja Quotient*, only better.

*which uses the number of main characters who would have to be replaced by ninjas in order to improve the story as a measure of literary merit, and I believe is original to Some Guy (lnhammer).

For example, Romeo and Juliet would be a pretty good play if you just replaced the title characters with ninjas, so the ninja quotient is two... oh, wait. That's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, isn't it?

---

Also, scott_lynch has a very, very funny post on weird emails from random entitled people on the internet who think for some reason they own you. Or maybe it's only funny if you are the sort of person who gets weird emails from random entitled people, but it had me on the floor.

(see above, George R. R. Martin is Not Your Bitch.)

Also, apparently Scott (like tim_pratt and yuki_onna) is doing a Donation Model Book On The Internets. As somebody who is doing a donation-model hyperfiction collaboration on the internets, I support this endeavor.

See, the whole thing about this donation-model stuff is that we're trying to figure out new ways to exploit the internet that will get you wonderful stories, and allow us to feed our cats. Writers, as Scott points out, are usually actually Starving Artists, and sometimes we go a long time between paychecks. And the distribution models and so forth are changing--

So basically, right now we're all experimenting, trying to find ways to use our professional skill, acquired through years of practice, to continue making a living. In an era where everything is instantly copyable and DRM pisses people off, it's looking less and less likely that selling paper books for a marginal royalty is going to keep us in pretzels and beer twenty years down the line.

Musicians can go out and gig for a living. But writing in the modern world isn't a performance art, though once upon a time, storytelling was. Maybe the internet is a way to revisit the bardic tradition.

Basically, we're busking. We're trying to give you something awesome, and in the process Not Starve.

Seems like a reasonable trade to me.

---

Mile and 6/10 in 20:18 this morning, including a big hill and a stop to poop in a garden (The dog, not me. Yes, I picked up after him.).

Now, to shower, eat some banana bread, and invent a serial killer. Yeah, it's a pretty good job some days.

via tanaise, Kitten Cam:

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

Mmm. My blood pressure is already falling.

Unfortunately, they will undubtedly grow up to be diabolical creatures of pure ev0l:



(I call this one "Why My Neck Hurts.")

In other news, jmeadows made the most wonderful socks in Sockistan. Look!

Reasons to love kylecassidy, #31.

(He's the one on the left. You might recognize the guy on the right--he blogs as grrm.)

This is totally cristalia's fault. Like Machine-Gun Kelly, I have no agency: a woman made me go wrong.

Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.

Not to be confused with the London Beer Flood.

Mighty God King versus his adolescent reading habits. And, part 2. Oh god, my ribs hurt.


I quibble a little with one of them, though--Lessa's too much of a bitch to be a technical Mary Sue, and I am personally opposed to the ongoing overuse of the term to mean "any female protagonist."

Campaign '08 as an AD&D game. Brilliant.

BIDEN: He has a point. Cindy turned out to be a vampire.

---

Andrew Wheeler with more on why some bookstore chains do not carry some books. This is excellent. if you care about the publishing industry at all, go read it.

You know, I don't always watch Jon Stewart. He is awfully funny when he's on--but the best stuff all makes it to my reading list the next day anyway, and usually at 11 pm at night I'm either writing or hanging around with my friends on the intarwebs or getting ready for bed.

Well, this morning I get to be the guy spamming your flist with Jon Stewart clips. Or more precisely, clips of Aasif Mandvi on the Daily Show, talking to Jon Stewart about whether the terms "Arab" and "decent family man" are mutually exclusive.

And how often do you get to use these two tags together?

I finally got to sit down and watch Obama's Letterman appearance this morning (I'd heard sound bites) and I've gotta say...

...if dude doesn't win, he's got a great future in late night television. Dude is funny.



"Technically--she would be the lipstick."



"It's Disneyland, man!"



Interesting, despite the general hysteria about the polls, that traditionally Republican New Hampshire is tending kind of purple this year. Also, I wonder how effective traditional polling is going to be, in an election where so many people who are very motivated to vote don't have land lines, either out of financial necessity or because they're my age or a bit younger and can't be arsed to pay for outdated C20th technology. (When I called up to cancel my land line, the AT&T rep I talked to sounded absolutely hysterical with customer-retention desire, and was feeding me scare stories. "But what if you need to call 911?")

Having had something of a roller-coaster of a weekend, I have embarked upon the time-approved method of drugging myself with food for serenity. To wit, Friday night the quartermaster's office fast-tracked approval for the requisition and procurement of one (1) devil's-food cupcake for provision of the troops.

The paperwork came through this morning, and, authorization secure in hand, we went forth to realize the cupcake.

It took me two (2) grocery stores to score my cupcake. I finally got a chocolate one with vanilla icing at Whole Paycheck, because Stop and Plop would not sell me one (1) cupcake, but only six-packs of crappy yellow cupcakes with orange icing. Do. Not. Want.

As a direct result of its origins, this thing I have brought home is an Edifice more than it is a cupcake. Somebody built a purple frosting dahlia atop it.

A purple frosting dahlia the.size.of.my.head. On a $4.99 cupcake (uncorrected American dollars). That's government contracting for you.

I'm still too scared of it to start eating, but I'll report back eventually. Unless the sugar coma wins.

at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, 40 Nebula Winners...

In Haiku.

1984 - Neuromancer
1 \X/1|| |-|@><><0|2 j00
\X/17|-| |\/|`/ |_||}3|2|337 $|<1||z0|2$|
This is kind of sad


(And as an aside, Wow. That's a profoundly impenetrable example of L337.)

via hominysnark:





*dies*

Poor Eric.

And now, I am off the internets for the day, as there is Work to be Done, and so I will be walking up and down in the world, and then going to see Jethro Tull in Wallingford.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Hal Duncan takes on  the Zemeckis Beowulf.

Do yourself a favor and put your coffee down first.

---

Today, in the Glamourous Life Of a Writer, I have Cleaned the Entire Apartment. Thoroughly. Laundry still needs to be folded and pies still need to be made, however, and tomorrow I have to read this book I might be blurbing.

I suspect no actual work is getting done until Sunday, dammit.

1) >24 hours later, I am up to June of this year in the Great Email Download of 2007!

2) coffeeem, in the context of an email exchange about music that makes you never want to leave the city again, lest you run into one of the folks in those songs, says: "the evil triumverate... Zevon, Waits, and Cave, Attorneys in Hell." And I thought posterity needed to see that.

3) I need to take archery lessons so I can get a consistent stance. Because when I find the right stance, I shoot rather well. It's just, you know, hitting it. Also, that panic attack seems to have cleared up, finally. Thank god.

4) Jeremy? Is not part of the problem. I would like to point out that Night Shade publishes scads of women, publishes them well, and treats them with respect. If there were a Lois Bujold story in that book, you bet she would have the front cover.

Sometimes, people actually do get listed in order of how much they sell, and thus, how many readers they will draw to the book.

(I am reminded of a recent conversation with some other writers wherein we were discussing the difficulty in deciding who to snuff dramatically when you only have one straight white male out of a group of ten characters, and you need him later, so either a gay character or a character of color, or both, has to get it.... Ahhh, the drawbacks of political correctness... We can't kill the token white guy! Oh noes!)

5) Pond Size Error: Abort/Retry/Splish?

Today on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me," the "It's not my job" contestant is Animal Planet veterinarian Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald. Who tells the tale of how Keith Richards got him into vet school, discusses his former career as a rock concert bouncer, and talks about performing veterinary services for spiders: "Dropping a phone book on your patient is not a practice builder."

Most awesome "It's not my job" since Clive Barker.

Does Eric Van know about this?

Now that's slash as subversion.

MUPPET BREAK:

Johhny Cash. Ghost Riders in the Sky.

Rita Moreno and the Electric Mayhem perform "Fever."

Muppet Labs presents The Gorilla Detector.

Kermit interviews Animal. "EAT DRUMS!"

Floyd and Scooter: "Mr. Bassman." Floyd is so my TV boyfriend.

Beaker sings "Feelings" Animal does crowd control.

Peter Sellers sings "Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Women."

Chickens play piano.

Mahna Mahna.

Rowlf and Victor Borge.

Fifty ways to leave your lover. Electric Mayhem cover. My GOD, Rowlf, this is a KID'S SHOW.

Poor Zoot. "Sax and Violence."

Merpig. And Mac Davis. Oh, my God, it's the Seventies.

Banana Sharpener.

And last but not least. Mummenschanz! Still just as creepy now as they were in 1976, man.

(More. More. More. More.)

via jaylake

Stephen Colbert bakes apple pie with Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem. 

"I like feminists!"