john, i've been bad and they're coming after me.
mood: 
drained
drainedmusic: They Might Be Giants - Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love
1) Profound and heartfelt thanks to everybody who offered opinions on my Quest for a New Laptop. I'm still not sure what I'm going to wind up with; I suspect I need to go down to a computer store and bang on keyboards a little. I even contemplate trying out a Mac for longer than fifteen minutes, on the theory that that might be long enough to get over my visceral revulsion for the interface, though how I'd manage that I'm not sure.
2) Thanks for the congratulations on the prematurely released Hugo nomination.The complete list of Hugo and Campbell award nominees is here. Congratulations to
scalzi, autopope, scott_lynch, casacorona (**points! MY EDITOR! MINE!), pnh, ianmcdonald, ellen_datlow, maryrobinette... and whole bunches and bunches of people who are not on livejournal. The Campbell Tiara (yet another opportunity to look like a demented elf prince!) may be viewed here.
"Tideline," my nominated story, may be read here. And I'm guessing Asimov's is likely to put it up on the web too, and I will link it if they do.
3) Latest Criminal Minds fandom kerfuffle over leaked information from an upcoming issue of EW: my personal inclination is that the most entertaining possibility is the one where nobody on the team knows who the Daddy is, and they have to wait for the DNA test to come back...
Oh, wait. That's As the World Turns. ;-)
4) Livejournal boycott:
I'm not participating (obviously), and I won't be packing up for InsaneJournal any time soon--for a number of reasons.
One is because well, LJ hasn't actually done anything in contravention of their terms of service, and the revelation that this company is run by grasping money-hungry capitalists who disrespect their user base makes it exactly like every other company in the world. Corporations have no conscience. They are inherently sociopathic.
Two is because I have a permanent account, which means that not only is LJ not making any more money off me (except indirectly, by way of people coming to LJ to read this journal (God knows why you'ddo that) and thus encountering their ads), I don't have to look at their damned advertising.
Three is because, well, I have looked at InsaneJournal. Which site is exceedingly advertising-cluttered.
5) It's spring!
***
1) I might make 40K on the book today. Please God, let me make 40K on the book today. If I didn't have two conventions between now and then, I might actually be able to finish the dratted thing by April 21. Since I have I-Con and Penguicon to contend with, it's looking likely to be May. And then I have a novelette and a novella I have to write on exceedingly short notice.
Also in here somewhere, page proofs on Hell & Earth and All the Windwracked Stars. And finishing up "Ballistic" with the team, and doing the really real final draft of "Overkill."
So, in other words, Deathmarch continues until further notice. Or, as
coffeeem and I have taken to saying to each other lately, "I'll think about that in June."And then I get to fall down. And take a break until I have recovered enough to work on the edits on By the Mountain Bound and start plotting out Grail. Oh, and revise One-Eyed Jack & the Suicide King, if Roc decides they want to buy Promethean Age #s 5 and 6.
2) Am I signing up for programming at WisCon? I dunno. I have to decide this weekend. And figure out what my schedule for driving to I-Con is.
3) Today I have to go to the grocery store, cancel my old gym membership, call a DMV, and call somebody else I've forgotten I'm supposed to call, but I have it written down.
4) And then write eight pages. Or preferably a little more, as tomorrow is a busy day, and I suspect there will be minimal wordcount. Maybe I should buy some beer while I am at the grocery store. I should definitely buy some more naproxen.
5) But first, I have to shower for my massage therapy appointment. Because nobody likes a smelly patient.
*heads off to read Tideline*
I'm not boycotting either. I mean, it's a business. Why get up in arms because they want to make money? ::shakes head::
All that other stuff, i have no idea what the hell you are going on about, but don't care.. (insane journal???)
whootwhootwhoot.
Tiara? Dude dont look much like a princess.. I thought only princess wore tiaras.
Shows all i know.. Modern times are so confusing
And the BBC Radio just declared SF dead. All Star Trek all the time... Pshaw...
I declare the BBC the wrongest organization in the universe, with the possible exception of anything in Zimbabwe. Make that everything in...never mind.
Technically, the Campbell Tiara is a diadem.
Picky fussy.
a. Congratulations!
b. Yay! Penguicon.
c. Puppy and I get two more season 1 CM DVDs today from netflix!!
d. If you were here, I could just give you the leftover beer from having people over, because I always forget that none of my friends really drink beer, and then I buy too much. You could just HAVE ALL THE BEER. In fact, it'll probably still be here when you come for Penguicon. You can just take the beer home with you.
e. It's spring, but it doesn't look or feel like spring here. It's 26 degrees F right now.
b) Yay!
c) Yay!
d) I'm fussy about my beer, I warn....
e) Boo. I have 38 and sunny, with the most AMAZING wind.
2) ...And figure out what my schedule for driving to I-Con is.
If I may offer some unsolicited advice based on attending for the past 5 years? (I approach this on the assumption that you haven't been and don't know this. If you do, ignore me!)
Ignore the nominal driving time listed in any mapping service. Throw it out. It's based upon fiction. You are passing in the vicinity of Greater New York City. Accidents, $h!t and other things happen to slow traffic. It's approximately a 3 hour trip to SUNY Stony Brook and vicinity when nothing goes wrong. I have found that if I leave my house in CT, slightly west of where you are, and get onto the Long Island Expressway before 3 PM that I get there easily with little hassles unless there's construction delays or an accident. It's if you hit the LIE when NYC empties out that its a SNAFU. (Whoo, acronyms!) Then it can take a long time to get there.
Now, the convention never opens before 6 PM on Friday. (Kinda weird their scheduling, but I guess it's based upon classes using the space.) So if you arrive circa 4 PM, then you're at loose ends for two hours. I like to use this time to check into my hotel, grab dinner with friends and then head in. Usually this is because I have a game that I'm DMing right at 6 PM, though lately I've pushed that back to 8 PM to try to get to the Dealer's Room and Art Show, both of which are in one space. Yay!
On campus, the parking is a tad confusing. It's all spread out. Some spaces are restricted. The map in the program is oriented differently from how you arrive by car, so you can get thrown off. Once you find a comfortable parking spot though, you're good for the weekend. If you're staying at the Official Hotel (some 20 miles away at the airport, go figure), you can take a shuttle. They run once an hour I believe back and forth, well into the wee hours of the night.
I know you're busy doing authory things all weekend (and maybe I can get to a panel), but if you're free and you want to join one of my D&D games, please come by!
as someone who lived on long island for the first 27 years of her life, i can attest to this target being key to your plans. rush hour on long island starts like a giant brick wall at 3p, because that's when the two airports (among other places) have their shift change. the cars pour onto all three major E/W roads (LIE and the northern and southern state parkways) like a giant flood of lemming-scarabs.
I think you'd look great with the tiara and your bow : Warrior princess!
As for lj : I'm with you. They don't get more money from me, and I expect a business to act like a business. Or they wouldn't be in business long.
IJ's permanent account were $40 when I bought mine. I grabbed it then because who knows? I was not going to pay another $125 (or was it 150) for a blog... I consider it a cheap investment in order to no see the ads ;)
ETA : spring? Where?
Edited at 2008-03-21 03:10 pm (UTC)
Spring! Vernal equinox! Enough for everyone!
I registered for Worldcon a week ago and missed the nominations, but I get to vote on the final ballot, right? This will be a first for me.
Yes you do.
Incidentally, I didn't get a chance to get on the Hopkins campus this week, but I've spoken to my boss, and she's sending her assistant over to the autopsy room with a camera. (She also knows a few pathologists, so if there are any other details you need...)
In the US they're required to be sociopathic by law. This is not, by the way, a good thing, but it shouldn't surprise anyone.
Re: Death March. Please stop doing it if it gets too much. I'd rather have a little less of your work per year for a lot longer, than have a brief burst of greatness and then nothing. Also, isn't it a little too late to die young? You're covered on the good-looking corpse part, although that tiara couldn't hurt *g*
And may I also say that it is a lovely, lovely tiara. Even on Scalzi.
And REALLY styling on Cory.
1.3--*lol* Hmm. Maybe that's JJ's secret weapon for getting the press to cooperate. She doesn't just tell them they need a better tie...
1.4--I agree with you. LJ is a business. If people don't like how they do business that much then go elsewhere. I may not like how they do things sometimes, but well. I'm still here.
I do have an Insane Journal acct (mostly so I could get the username "slashgirl") but it's very hard to navigate. The ads aren't an issue for me, since I have opera and can block them, but I just see it eventually going the way of LJ. It will get popular and someone will come along and wave enough money under the owner's nose. He'll sell out and then there'll be IJ wank as well as LJ wank.
1.5--Spring? *looks at snow falling outside* Could you send it up here, too? *lol*
*mails a care package of Spring*
Of course, by the time Canada Post is done with it....
Writers are either class-A self-mutilators, or egomaniacs. Either way, praise is necessary.