The day's tweets. Because you don't get enough of my minutiae already.

• 09:01 Mmmm biscuity goodness. #
• 13:07 grocery shopping with baby is fun! Everyone loves baby! #
• 18:27 Pasta and garlic bread tonight, gumbo tomorrow night, fajitas this weekend, turkey bean soup... it's nice to have food in the house. #

So. Steve (the greenbottle fly, if you remember him) continues to persist. I think he's even gotten most of the coffee off of his body.

Brief update, mostly for a couple of links. WoW friends will appreciate this, courtesy wired_blogs: "From MMO to CEO", a rather belated article covering the transfer of leadership skills learned in online game guilds to the workplace. When I presented "Warrior Queens of the Cyberworld" at Immersive Worlds last year, one of the questions from the audience had to do with precisely this -- whether workplaces are beginning to recognize the immense leadership skills necessary in managing massive online guilds. It looks like they are. Future resumes will list typing WPM, educational training -- and how many wipes it took your team to take down Onyxia.

My last contribution to Inside Job at the Escapist went in last night. I think it's a good one. It's been a very interesting ride. Perhaps more thoughts on this on Friday, if I'm not dead (I think I may be picking up jsridler's cold).

Between Settlers, other writing commitments, work, and visa-related real life garbage, I managed to get into a serious crunch for about the past month, a side effect of which was aggravating the mild RSI in my left neck/shoulder. Saw a massage therapist for it on Tuesday, and am in for apparently multiple more such sessions, but after a couple of days of soreness I'm finally feeling a bit looser. I hadn't even realized how much mobility I'd lost in my neck. The therapist asked if I had trouble driving, with turning my head, and I said no, I didn't think so -- but my neck now turns significantly easier and farther than it did on Tuesday. Yikes. I think I am too young for this shit still.

cristalia has posted eloquently on writing business and why stories like Michael Cisco's should be shared. Obviously, I tend to agree. This was actually the main reason I came over here to post in a timely manner, in case I'm reaching anyone who hasn't already read Cisco's account with Prime Books. I, too, have heard a similar experience with some of the folk there, and have been trepidatious as a result.

It's a complex thing. There is so much fear, in writing and in the games industry, of taking action that may threaten one's career. The thing is, and this applies equally to both, when you really get down to it, there are enough GOOD people working in both businesses that it is never worthwhile to hide or sabotage yourself in order to avoid offending a lousy employer. It is the Sanders thing in a new iteration, though certainly less clear cut. But the principle remains the same. Anyone telling you to shut up just for the sake of shutting up probably has a less-than-noble motive for doing so. Keeping lousy treatment (or, in yhlee's case, truly egregious coffin-nailing wackjobbery) silent because speaking up Just Isn't Done is a great way to perpetuate said lousy treatment. Kudos to Cisco for taking the uncomfortable step and sharing his experience, here's hoping that the full truth comes out. And for those who truly wonder whether speaking up can jeopardize a career, I can tell you that all it does is cut you off from people you really shouldn't be working for in the first place. I actually find it a rather excellent sorting mechanism.

We are all worth more than this.

I finally finished the possum-skull "voodoo" doll I've been working on for a couple of weeks now. It's the most detailed and, I think, nicest one I've ever made. However, maddeningly, it still isn't up for auction. While I like most things about my new all-in-one office machine (the Hewlett Packard OfficeJet 6310), its scanner leaves a lot to be desired. When I try to scan the drawings I do in copies of my books, the images often come out streaked with weird stripes of light that aren't present on the actual drawings. As for three-dimensional objects such as the doll, it cannot scan them at all. I know flatbed scanners aren't really meant to scan three-dimensional objects, but my old one did a pretty good job of it, e.g. this Little Blue Heron skull I found on our first post-K trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast:



Obviously, before I sell any more dolls or other hand-crafted items on eBay, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and spring for a digital camera that can take decent closeups of small objects. My current antique -- a Vivitar Vivicam 3650 I bought in, I think, 2003 -- is remarkably forgiving of my poor photography skills when it comes to taking regular pictures, but its closeups are useless blurs. I know some of you have been waiting to see this doll, and I'm sorry about the delay. I'll try to upgrade my equipment soon.

I did manage to put up some regular book-type auctions: a copy of greygirlbeast's and my collection Wrong Things; a copy of the Gauntlet Press limited edition of The Lazarus Heart with an original ink drawing by me; a copy of the increasingly rare Con Party of Hotel California chapbook; and a copy of Plastic Jesus. As always, all items are signed and signatures can be personalized. I also added some inventory to my eBay store, including four copies of Alcool (the newly published French edition of Liquor). Please take a look and make a bid (or just buy a book) if you can -- thanks!

[ETA: Since many of you are probably at least as sick of this subject as I am, I'll just say that yes, I know all the comments are gone from the Best of New Orleans thread about Chris' departure, and I'm sure it happened because somebody got his widdle designer briefs in a wad and went crying to management. I don't think it matters one way or the other; as far as we and most of Chris' regular customers are concerned, the Delachaise is toast.]

My son sits in his high chair (white
plastic from Ikea), face smeared with organic
summer vegetables in baby-friendly
mashed form, and in between bites he

speaks.

Open-ended vowels, a few
consonants here and there: Ah na
na ma ma mum. He looks very serious but
then he occasionally giggles, and I
wonder if he's commenting on the quality
of the food (which I sampled; it's
pretty foul). Eight months old
and already a critic. I think about
how, after a day of unusual excitements
(a plane ride, a book signing, one
of the too many times he's had surgery
already on his eyes), he shouts and
babbles and grumbles and earnestly
explains. My wife and I always say he's

telling us about his day. It's amazing

watching him drink down the world, and is
it any wonder he tries to talk
it over, talk it through, talk to us
the way we talk to each other? He's trying
to invent a common language from first
principles. He's unlocking
one of the great secrets of the human
universe here, and kid, believe me,

I'm listening.

Letters to Myself: So That's Karen Page

The day's tweets. Because you don't get enough of my minutiae already.

• 09:33 finishing the August issue of A Certain Magazine. #
• 11:45 is daydreaming about Maui. #
• 12:34 gets a free burrito soon! This job has its advantages... #
• 15:08 Another issue done. Shame we have to start on the next one IMMEDIATELY because of a short schedule due to Worldcon... #
• 22:43 Man, I need to go grocery shopping, or we're having mushroom risotto and peanut butter for dinner tomorrow night. #

It's not loaded. Please don't sic PETA on my ass.

Frankie insisted on the grainy, B/W, assassin-in-the-newspaper filter. He also says his next victim is going to be a certain ferret-faced little social climber who co-owns a trendy Uptown bar and -- in the latest dramatic twist to this increasingly stupid story -- has been telling his wine guys to discourage other restaurants from hiring Chris because of Chris' alleged "unreliability" and "family problems." Of course, the wine guys just grin and nod as one tends to do in the presence of a loony, then call Chris to laugh about it.

Live-Action Cowboy Bebop Film in Development at Fox

So Hollywood now has plans to poop on Cowboy Bebop AND Macross (well Robotech.. so it could be an adaptation of one of the other 2 series). I guess I can at least be thankful that a Hollywood adaptation of The Legend Of Black Heaven is VERY unlikely.

.. i can see it now.. brilliant casting like Shia LaBeouf as Spike Spiegel! Jack Black as Jet Black! Hallie Berry as Faye Valentine! and Dakota Fanning as Ed! *grumble*

Anyone else have a nightmare cast? Who's the worst possible "hot" actors that Hollywood could get to play these characters?

Letters to Myself: It Seems Ignorance Is, In Fact, Bliss

I'm thinking of contacting one of the trash TV networks and pitching a reality show called Delachaise Wives. God knows there's enough material there to rot the brain of anyone who enjoys that sort of thing. In the latest development, one of them finds it necessary to pose as an expatriate Delachaise fan who just happens to have meticulously gleaned my blog for material to provide personal insults couched in smarmy fake sympathy. (In a nutshell, I'm a has-been druggie who takes advantage of my poor, stupid readers' generosity and blows money on guns and designer cats while whining about how poor I am. Maybe I'd be less poor if the owners of the Delachaise paid Chris the money they owe him -- or, here's an idea, had paid him what he was worth in the first place instead of using his talent to subsidize their drinking -- but never mind.)

Ah well ... if I was married to an abusive alcoholic whose bar couldn't even make a Top 85 list, I guess maybe I'd want to pretend I lived in Belgium too.

Here's a very simple message for Evan, Trace, Ed, and Joanne. When Chris departed, you told R.J. that you dreaded seeing what I would write about your place. Until the anonymous posts started, I had no intention of saying anything other than that Chris had left. Despite the hundreds of petty roadblocks you threw in his way (e.g. Trace, the Delachaise's nominal "designer," refusing to lay out and print the menus because she and Evan had had a fight), the job was a wonderful opportunity for him and I truly didn't want its aftermath to turn ugly. Believe me, I'd be really fucking happy to never think about any of you yuppie wetbrains again. There are only two (2) things you must do to get me to shut up about you and your place forever. Both of them are things anyone with a modicum of class would already have done without prompting, but since it's you, I'll spell them out:

1. Pay Chris the rest of the money you owe him.

2. Stop making cowardly anonymous posts on food message boards, blogs, etc. in which you pose as impartial customers who just happen to be building up the Delachaise by taking potshots at Chris. If you have something to say about Chris' tenure at your establishment, find the balls to say it under your own name. Even if you had the brains and/or verbal skills to disguise your intentions, you still give yourselves away by saying the same things over and over in posts that purport to be by different people. The major reason Chris left a job he had enjoyed and thrived in is because he couldn't stand to work for stupid people anymore. If you want to make your previous acts of stupidity look like drops of spit in the ocean, then by all means just keep talking.

=================================

GLOSSARY FOR THIS ENTRY, in case the addressees don't have a dictionary handy:

Meticulous (adj): Careful; thorough.

Glean (v): To gather slowly and patiently.

Nominal (adj): In name only; named as a matter of form, rather than due to any actual value.

Modicum (n): A moderate or small quantity.

Tenure (n): Period or term of holding a position.

Spit (n): Fluid produced by the salivary glands; also, what the one cocktail (a bourbon & soda) I ever ordered at the Delachaise tasted like.

Settlers is done. Not yet submitted, but done. The excitement begins.

I have been largely underground and thus was remiss in not mentioning a couple of things, though those of you that read the other Homeless Moon journals already saw this.



The folk at The Homeless Moon and I -- that would be jsridler, scott_h_andrews, boonofdoom, and the_slow_train -- decided last year to put together a chapbook of our work. Most of them are being much more clever in their descriptions of this undertaking, but it's 2:30am and I want to go to sleep. So I'll just say that some of the initial proposal for the chapbook was to show what we could do to the big ol' world, but mainly we just wanted to put together some stories and appear in the same publication, something that, barring blackmail or other unsavory tactics, was not likely to happen fast enough for our chum-like impatience.

John Klima very kindly blogged about the chapbook on the newly-revealed Tor.com -- looks like a snazzy site indeed, breaking many a mold for previous expectations of online speculative fiction fare.

Anyway, re the belatedly mentioned chapbook, I'm honored to be sharing page-space with these stories, and you can, as the site page says, download an electronic copy of the chapbook for free if you weren't lucky enough to snatch a copy at ReaderCon.

Speaking of which, I was not there. I neglected to mention that here, and in particular I owe an apology to elenuial, whom I conned into applying for Odyssey and should just now be recovering from the shell-shock of the six week experience. I'd intended to go to ReaderCon and harass various folk -- lesser_celery, cristalia, time_shark... I shouldn't have started to name names, there are many more. But. 2am. Visa issues and Canadian Immigrations put the abrupt kibosh on this plan, causing jsridler and I to forfeit our already-paid-for Pricelined hotel, and more irritatingly to miss the con and the opportunity to see rarely-seen folk and hang out with the HM guys for a few days. We are also not at TNEO due to the chaos of preparing to move out west. Next year, however, all of this will be corrected. I understand ReaderCon was pretty cool, as always, and congratulations to those who pulled Rhyslings or one of the new shiny Shirley Jackson awards.

More updates when I have had sleep. A parrot update is long overdue, with photos of Smeagol's semi-new cage. Vasya is in her annual summer super-molt, but recently began voluntarily taking baths, almost, and has polished up her beak. I wonder who she's trying to impress.

A particular greenbottle fly has been buzzing around here for the past three days, being generally annoying and doing its fly thing, bouncing off monitors, chasing food, etc. About an hour ago I heard a persistent buzzing; it had kamikazed itself into my coffee cup from this morning and was in the process of noisily drowning. A-ha, I thought; nature at work. The stupid irritating buzzing will be no more.

Then in about two seconds I sighed and realized I was not in fact going to let it come to a messy end in stale coffee and non-dairy creamer. So, without much help from the fly itself, I fished it out on a second attempt with the end of my pen.

It has been fastidiously drying its wings, perched on a copy of Julian Dibbell's Play Money, for the last hour. I have named it Steve.

Wow, two illuminating (and not necessarily conflicting) quotes on religion in one day. This one is from nellorat's excellent new entry about an experience, or series of them, from her twenties:

I also emerged convinced not only that there is a G-d, but that I had experienced a meeting of sorts. But being an agnostic seemed more socially acceptable. I only half jokingly wailed to a friend, "Only weak, stupid people believe in God!" And he said the perfect thing: "As weak as Martin Luther, as stupid as Augustine...."

I'm comfortable with friends who are way more religious than I, and comfortable with those have come to their own informed conclusions that the whole religion thing is a load of delusional crapola. But the "socially acceptable" aspect of it -- people who look down on you, or assume that you'll now look down on them, or expect you to be this entire new holy and insufferable person because you have joined a church -- that is a "public" aspect of religion that I find very bizarre indeed. Just as I'd never attempt to inflict my beliefs on anyone, I find it hard to fathom that anyone is bothered by my beliefs. I'm still me. Nobody brainwashed me (well, except myself, if that's how you see these things). I freely admit that the Catholic Church is a deeply fucked-up institution, but I'm not in it for the Pope or the Vatican; I'm in it for the personal comfort and peace I find in the ritual of Mass. Yet there are people who don't like me anymore simply because I am Catholic now. I've been fortunate enough not to hear from many, but it's so strange that there are any at all. And I can't help wondering how many of these same people would find it perfectly acceptable, even downright nifty, if I had chosen instead to be initiated into the hugely Catholic-influenced practice of Voodoo ... because that's, you know, cool. (Just to be clear, no one I know who actually practices Voodoo has expressed or insinuated such feelings. I suspect they'd realize how silly it would be, because Voodoo, especially as it is practiced in New Orleans, is so intertwined with Catholicism that many people -- including the famed priestess Marie Laveau -- have practiced both and seen no conflict.)

I just read the following quote on (of all places) Letters From Johns, a site where men talk about their experiences with prostitutes, which I happened upon thanks to susiebrightfeed:

... that line that Anthony Hopkins used in Legends of the Fall ... "Organized religion is for those who have no internal morality compass and need outside assistance."

I haven't seen the movie and have no idea whether this quote is accurate, but -- in my case, anyway -- it's pretty close to the mark.

Au Diable Vauvert's edition of Liquor (titled Alcool) has just been published, and there are interview questions from three French magazines lurking in my e-mail. I tried to get Chris to answer them for me and even offered to pay him, but he wouldn't go for it, that bitch.

Letters to Myself: A Menace So Powerful

I finally got pictures of River, week 36 up at Flickr. Enjoy!

Back home from Northern California, having blasted through San Francisco, overnighted in Fort Bragg, and stayed a few nights in Calistoga. Had a terrific time. Probably gained sixteen-googletymillion pounds from all the awesome food. Ready to sit down and get back to writing.


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Image by dynomoose.

This is just a quick post to show my finished Genis costume for Ricky for our epic Tales of Symphonia photoshoot. Ricky has been away on buisness so I didn't have him to model for me. I was cleaning up my dressform and threw this on to see if I could get a decent picture. Its not the best picture but you can get this idea.

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Still on the road ...



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