Whatever Skin You Wear Almost Done. Back to The Stupid Novel [16 Jul 2009|07:37am] eugie [ mood | working ] Getting close to fork sticking on "Whatever Skin You Wear," I think. Waiting on one or two more critiques before sending it out. In the interim, the plan is to resume flogging The Stupid Novel. post comment

Poll Time! [16 Jul 2009|05:30am] jeffstrand Hey, if you're one of those whackos who have bought stuff like the hardcover limited editions of DISPOSAL, THE SINISTER MR. CORPSE, GLEEFULLY MACABRE TALES, THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR, or my various other pricey books and would consider buying them again, would you be a sweetie and take 7 seconds to answer a poll on my website? It's about e-book versions being made available before the collector's edition print versions. Thanks! http://www.jeffstrand.com     post comment

Tall Ships today... [16 Jul 2009|06:03am] steve_vernon Tall Ships begins today, down at the Halifax Waterfront. I'll be down there tonight, at the Carrefour Emporium at Historic Properties, (right beside the life size folk art Pierre Trudeau), signing copies of my books from 6-8pm. Hope to see some of you there. post comment

Diet Soap Podcast #14: Anarchism and Art [16 Jul 2009|02:26am] douglain Allan Antliff is this week’s guest on the Diet Soap podcast. Antliff is the author of the book “Anarchy and Art” and a self described anarchist. We discuss art history and the possibility of an anarchist future. Also included are clips from Negativland, Philip Glass, Noam Chomsky, and a Titanic factoid. Download this week’s episode at dietsoap.podomatic.com or from iTunes. Originally published at Diet Soap. Please leave any comments there.

New Comics Day 7/15/09 [15 Jul 2009|08:42pm] lurkerwithout [ mood | good ] Another week where I manage to still buy most of the comics I want. Which tells me one thing. I was going out for fast food WAAAAAAY too often before... Starting this week with a new RASL. Dimension hopping, duplicate loves, some dude who looks like a lizard, the Philadelphia Experiment and Tesla. This is such an odd book... Lockjaw & the Pet Avengers has our group of heroic animals venturing from the bottom of the sea to the White House in search of the Infinity Gems. Also I didn't know Namor had two sea turtle side-kicks who can create air pockets... The Hulk guest stars in Agents of ATLAS after one of the less well suprivised ATLAS projects grabs the wrong drifter to experiment on... Franklin Richards Son of Genius School's Out! is another fun one-shot by Eliopoulos featuring young Franklin and his robot H.E.R.B.I.E. Plus guests! Like Katie Power and Squid Kid and Puppy the Teleporting puppy... Incognito has Zach teamed with his dead brother's girl, perpetual teen Ava Destruction as they learn more about the origins of their world's super-humans. And the Overkill brothers specifically... With the Literals cross-over finally done, Fables returns to Mr. Dark aka the Boogeyman. The secret of his entrapment and the Witching Cloak is revealed. And we're also introduced to the Boxers, the Empire's elite anti-Legendary Fable group... Scalped starts a new story arc as well. With Red Crow cutting his ties with the Hmong and tasking Badhorse with finding the FBI rat in his organization... DMZ meanwhile continues with the "No Future" arc and broken killer Tony M... And we finish with this week's Wednesday Comics. The "Teen Titans" and "Superman" pages are probably still the weakest writing wise, but the art is still great all-around. And Gaiman (Metamorpho) and Pope (Strange Adventures) both do a great deal with the single page serial nature of the title, as does Caldwell (Wonder Woman)... post comment

Thyroidectomy [15 Jul 2009|08:46pm] marcy_italiano As G said, "It looks like someone tried to decapitate you and only got half way." Then I think of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Heh. But I'm less the left half of my Thyroid. I have a headache, a neck-acke something wicked, my throat is sore from the tube and the neck muscles in front are not happy AT ALL. I have stitches under a clear bandage. Clear. That's useful in decreasing the possibility that people might think you tried to off yourself. Apparently the gland was swollen and harder to get out, it took an extra (did I hear) hour? The doctor asked G why it was swollen. Um, shouldn't he know things like that? I didn't know, didn't feel any different lately. I'll have to look that up some other time. They did a test and made sure that my voice was fine. This is good. I'll be hoarse for a while, but my voice will go back to normal. I can't talk on the phone yet. My MIL and Auntie watched the kids all day - what troopers. Auntie looked a little freaked out when she saw me. I heard later that they had fun with the kids, it was a nice day out. But I think the rain is going to roll in soon. Let's see how long this fucker takes to heal. 1 comment|post comment

Day 207 [15 Jul 2009|07:08pm] darkfluidity Tell me what you think I'm thinking. Originally published at DarkFluidity. post comment

Out of left field [15 Jul 2009|10:33am] bev_vincent I like the new auto-upgrade feature in WordPress. I just clicked a button yesterday and now I’m running 2.8.1. Easy as pie. I don’t follow baseball closely, usually not until the end of the season, but I did watch the first four innings of the All Star game last night. It was very cool to see the president in jeans, interacting with people with that comfortable ease he has. He is an odd mix of stiff formality and casualness. He was obviously very much at ease in the broadcast booth for half an inning, joking and commenting about a sport he’s never played but seems to know fairly well. Okay, so his pitch almost didn’t make it to the front edge of home plate, but at least it was on the right trajectory. And he wore jeans–when’s the last time any president has done that for a public event that didn’t involve turning over the earth? This is a guy who is just a month or two younger than me. Regardless of anyone’s political views, I can’t help but think that it’s a good thing for this country to have someone of his (i.e. my) generation calling the shots for a change! I’m still listening to the new Green Day album. The song Peacemaker reminds me very much of a narcocorrido, as described in Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novel Queen of the South, the ballads written in tribute to Mexican drug smugglers. One was also featured on a later episode of Breaking Bad this season, three men strumming guitars and singing about feats of daring. An interesting shocker at the end of Raising the Bar last night. That’s one way to close off a storyline that seemed bogged down. Not a great thing to experience on a first date, however. It wasn’t a bad episode, and at least the case-du-jour had a conclusion, unlike with previous episodes this season. And is the D.A. growing a heart? He’s starting to treat his employees decently. So far I’ve been hanging tough on my decision not to watch Big Brother this summer. I skipped Sunday’s episode and only watched the first two minutes of last night’s episode before switching over to the baseball game. They might have been trying to recreate the high school experience this time out, but I didn’t see anyone on the first episode that I wanted to watch for more than a few minutes. I think I finally have my 2500-word essay in the shape I’m looking for. I moved paragraphs around, restructured paragraphs, reorganized sentences and it now seems to have a logical flow. Another few editing passes and I think it will be ready to ship off to the editor, which leaves me with only one more piece for that project, a 500-word essay that is about half done. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. post comment

[15 Jul 2009|10:30am] raw_dog Jodi Lee recently interviewed D. Harlan Wilson about submissions, rejections, critiques and other writerly subjects. Check out the interview here. post comment

Gaming Offer [15 Jul 2009|06:11am] lurkerwithout [ mood | unsure ] So the former roommate has offered to get me into his bi-weekly Thursday gaming group. And it is a good offer. But I'm tempted to turn him down for a couple of reasons. 1. They play a 3.x D&D game. I play in one online and I've played in them in the past, but I really just do not LIKE the system... 2. The group drinks while playing. While I'm not someone who demands people cut out table chatter and joking and just game, I do appreciate if people stay sober enough to concentrate on it. Plus the years of working the Scottsdale hotel in the middle of a club district have left with me with a distaste for drunks... But neither of those is a total deal-breaker, they're just annoyances. And I would REALLY like a gaming group and a way to get out of the house to see other people socially... 7 comments|post comment

Adventures in Lawn Mowing [15 Jul 2009|08:02am] aimeempayne I know it sounds kind of wimpy and girly, but I mowed the lawn for the first time since I was about twelve years old on Monday. It went okay. Before starting, my biggest concern was whether I would be able to get the mower started. But it started right up. Since another ten minutes of unchecked growing would turn the back yard into the Great Plains, I started there. Oh. My. God. I thought I was going to die. It was so much harder than I remembered. Of course, when I was a kid we lived in the country. We had a riding mower and a self-propelled push mower. As the oldest, I was most often the only one allowed to drive the riding mower. So there I was sweating like Seabiscuit, my shoulders aching from heaving a hunk of metal around the back yard. Then I realized, if I pulled back on the metal handle, the damned thing would propel itself. Gah. Once I actually used the technology at hand, the job went much easier. By that time, though, I was ready to collapse. I stumbled into the house. Since I was sweaty and had grass and sand stuck to every exposed surface, I had to hold myself upright long enough to shower. At least there weren't any snakes. 2 comments|post comment

Half-Blood Prince [14 Jul 2009|09:42pm] davidbain Scored tickets to the Harry Potter midnight show, going with my son & daughter! 6 comments|post comment

Lots o' Stuff [14 Jul 2009|08:10pm] jeffstrand For those of you who've asked, my next "serious" novel is called DWELLER, coming March 2010 from Leisure Books. I got a sneak peek at the cover art today, and it's perfect. Way better than what I asked for, which I guess is why I'm an author and not a cover artist.  I found out that my novella KUTTER has been moved up two months, from February 2010 to December 2009. The book should go up for pre-order fairly soon, and the day before that happens I'll post a blog about the process of writing it. At this very moment I'm waiting for a glimpse at the first piece of interior artwork...it could show up in my e-mail any second now...the suspense is unbearable... Meanwhile, the interior illustrations for THE SEVERED NOSE are weird and wonderful things, drawn by Melanie McVey. This one's set to ship in the next two to three weeks, so if you didn't order it before because it was months and months away, now's the time to reserve your copy!  When I finish a piece of writing, whether it's 500-word flash fiction or a 75,000-word novel, my response is "Yeah! I'm done! Huzzah!!! Woo-hoo-hoo!!! I'm doooooone!!! Cha-cha-cha!!!" THE SEVERED NOSE is the only thing I've ever written where I was kind of sad when it was over. It's easily the most fun I've had with a project for at least the past few years. The tone is sort of like a dry-humored, extremely dark piece of sketch comedy, with characters who are extremely polite in the face of ghastly events.  I've shared the opening bit here before, but it's been a while, so... "When you kill people for a living, you get used to finding the occasional body part lying around your home. I do not kill people for a living, and so I freaked." Pre-ordering links are conveniently located here (paperback numbered edition)... http://www.horror-mall.com/THE-SEVERED-NOSE-by-Jeff-Strand-Limited-Edition-Chapbook-p-19132.html And here (hardcover lettered edition)... http://www.horror-mall.com/THE-SEVERED-NOSE-by-Jeff-Strand-Lettered-Edition-Chapbook-p-19135.html Tell the economy to suck it! Order your copy today! post comment

John Ostrander [14 Jul 2009|05:18pm] lurkerwithout [ mood | hopeful ] Comics legend John Ostrander recently had surgery to try and save his eyesight. Of course his insurance didn't cover all the expenses incurred in doing so. His friends and colleagues are working to raise funds to help him. If you loved Suicide Squad or Grimjack or any of his many other works help if you can. Even if its just passing along these links... 1 comment|post comment

40 True Blood icons [14 Jul 2009|06:37pm] horroricons [iconfluence] ICONS 40 from season 2 { THESE + 37 MORE @ citadel_icons } post comment

Fence [14 Jul 2009|07:09pm] darkfluidity Upon every journey, you will reach a fence. You must stop, of course, perhaps for only a breath, perhaps only to devise a means of crossing. Some fences are bigger than others, or topped with barbed wire, or electrified. Sometimes, you take your breath, and you keep on going. Originally published at DarkFluidity. post comment

Daughter of Botu: Honorable Mention in Year's Best SF 26 [14 Jul 2009|05:10pm] eugie [ mood | ecstatic ] Just learned from Douglas Cohen (douglascohen) that my story "Daughter of Bótù" received an Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best SF 26. Squee! (Shameless plug: You can read "Daughter of Bótù" in Returning My Sister's Face, now available at Amazon.com for the sweet price of $10.75 in trade paperback—discounted from the cover price of $11.95.) 12 comments|post comment

New Tales for Old Byways [14 Jul 2009|05:16pm] adele_cb New Tales for Old Byways Originally uploaded by __Adele__. My next event - so jot it in your diary now! 1 comment|post comment

Lame ideas [14 Jul 2009|09:58am] bev_vincent I hate it when an otherwise good TV show relies on terribly faulty logic to further the story. Last night’s episode of The Closer is case in point. In order to give the wannabe cop access to detailed information about cases, the writers established that there was a new web site that contained up-to-the moment details about ongoing investigations. The entire case  file, in other words, including the names of suspects and witnesses. How daft and irresponsible would that be, if it were real? They rushed that detail past viewers so we didn’t get to ponder it too long, but it was crucial to the way they trapped the guy. They added the false name and address of a witness to the online case file, knowing that he was monitoring the site and would rush right over there as part of his misguided investigation. Totally uncredible. I was also bothered by the fact that no one seemed to glom onto the fact that the victim and his producers seemed guilty of arranging and committing serial date rape. The actor who played “Dick Tracy” was delightful–he really made the most of the part–and the episode had some good moments, but there were some underlying major flaws that made me dislike it overall. Got to the point in Caught Stealing where we learn what the “dingus” that everyone is looking for is. No lacquered bird, this. It’s the midpoint of the book, and there is a very long scene where a guy who has been mostly absent from the book until now–though his actions are what got things going in the first place–explains all of the backstory to the protagonist. It’s a very long scene of exposition, punctuated only by the fact that the guy is suffering from a concussion and the protagonist is sorting through a very large pile of cash. I’m not sure that there would have been a better way to handle all this backstory, but it does tend to go on and on. Better now than toward the end of the book, I guess. Received an ARC of Sarah Langan’s third novel–can’t wait to get into it! Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. post comment

Skipper Dan [14 Jul 2009|07:38am] lurkerwithout [ mood | sleepy ] New Weird Al yoinked from yendi 1 comment|post comment

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