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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) jedediah |
| 29 Nov 2009 01:35 |
| Movies & TV lately |
| Public |
http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2009/11/29/12574.html Here's what I've been watching:
- Watched the first two episodes of Glee 'cause everyone's talking about it; interesting and often fun so far, but not sure how long I'll keep watching.
- Watched the pilot of White Collar on Hulu (yikes! They only post the five latest episodes, so the pilot is now gone! Very sad! But it's being rebroadcast this Thursday, so if you missed it, keep an eye out, or buy it from the iTunes Store), and totally loved it—funny, smart, charming; hot male lead; even kind of romantic. I laughed out loud four times in the first twelve minutes—three times at funny bits, once when I saw where the series was headed. It's not quite perfect—I'd like the women to be in less support-oriented roles, and it perhaps overexplains some things. Still, has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, I wasn't at all impressed with episode 2. But will keep watching, on the strength of that pilot.
- Watched the first three hours of the six-hour Prisoner remake/reboot with Kam. They're doing some interesting things, but we're not enjoying it much, and it fails to do a lot of the good things that the original did. (Though it's been 20 years since I've seen the original, so it may be better in my memory than it really was.) We'll watch the rest, but with low expectations.
- Watched the first episode of True Blood with Twig. Intriguing. Would like to see at least a couple more episodes.
- In the past couple weeks, watched Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Monsters vs Aliens. Both interesting, both worth watching, neither brilliant.
- This week, watched BSG: The Plan and Elektra with Kam. Neither, sadly, was all that great, though both had their moments. (And Elektra was better than either of us had expected, though that's not saying much.)
- Watched The Guru with Twig; fun Bollywood/American romantic comedy, though one bit of protagonist bad behavior made me cringe a little. (Not to be confused with The Love Guru, a very different movie.)
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) e_moon60 |
| 29 Nov 2009 03:01 |
| From Twitter 11-28-2009 |
| Public |
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Tweets copied by twittinesis.com
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| pearl |
| 29 Nov 2009 19:23 |
| 15-17th century items found at Songgwang Temple (Songgwangsa) |
| Public |
| jeogori, korea |
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No photos, just a frustratingly brief article in English:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2009/11/148_56001.html
Korean-language news comes with photos though:
http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200911/h2009112322185086330.htm
Looks like the jeogori (jacket) is 17th century, I think it also says there are the female clothes, too.
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| sovay |
| 29 Nov 2009 03:04 |
| I was seven steps from the ghosts on the other side of that door |
| Public |
| Placebo, "Plasticine" |
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Searching for something entirely different, I just ran across the transcribed file of the journal I kept for six days in the spring of 1999, when my high school sent its concert choir and jazz band to England and France for a week and a half. It's very strange for me to read now, even beyond the usual disconnect of no longer familiar language. I'd never kept a diary before and couldn't settle on a comfortable tone; the text is spattered with parentheses and dashes and ellipses, as though I couldn't simply let a statement stand; and even with all the hedging, I can still see some of the places where I was condensing or eliding out of frustration at the time it took me to get anything down on paper. An embarrassing number of parenthetical notes seem to be apologizing for the state of my handwriting. And that doesn't touch the really blackmail-worthy material—it's a credit to J. Michael Straczynski that I compared Versailles to Centauri Prime, but the sentence "Earlier we went to Montmartre, to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and a square where the artists hang out, like in 'An American in Paris'" should automatically disqualify a person from all intelligent discourse. (My brother and I were just looking at Toulouse-Lautrec this afternoon, too.) Still, I am not really sorry that the following was preserved:
I wish we had been able to stay in Canterbury longer. They were Roman ruins beneath some of the buildings, Roman roads beneath the modern streets. There was even a museum—underground, I believe, in a villa that had had the city built over it. Romans aside, I just liked the town. There were old buildings, interesting stores, churches faced with flint next to very modern concrete. (Canterbury was bombed very badly during WWII—made me think of "A Tale of Time City")—I just wanted to stay there.
It's good to know one is consistent in certain things.
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| dsgood |
| 29 Nov 2009 00:47 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
Happy Birthday, spiralflames and quietspaces!!
Apologies to anyone whose birthdays I missed.
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Tuesday November 10, 2009 Veteran's Eve. (Americans don't celebrate the day before Veteran's Day, but might in the future.)
***As I woke up, I thought out the opening for _Dreams Do Kill Themselves_.
***To Savers thrift store on Lake Street, which has a 40% senior discount on Tuesdays. A sign on the door advertised a Veterans Day 50% off sale, but only for clothing.
On Tuesdays, the average age of Savers customers is older than on other days.
I bought a couple of magazine holders. Also a portable CD player.
On to Aldi supermarket, where I bought fruit and peanut butter.
On my way back, stopped in at DreamHaven Books.
Back home, threw out a small wire bookshelf which had become useless.
***MadCon 2010's Guest of Honor will be Harlan Ellison. Mr. Ellison is a difficult person and has been known to find other persons difficult. He has added unprogrammed excitement to several conventions.
***LOCUS makes me feel old. They report that Pocket Books will stop publishing hardcovers and trade paperbacks, and begin publishing mass market paperbacks. I remember when mass market paperbacks were called "pocket books." (LOCUS does say that Pocket Books used to be paperback publishers before they went upscale.)
Possible future: Burger King stops serving hamburgers. And some time later, news stories will say that Burger King will be going to offer hamburgers.
***Culinary experiments: Toast with peanut butter and walnut pieces.
Fried eggs with walnut pieces.
Both okay, but not more than okay.
***Set down an opening for _Dreams Do Kill Themselves_; not the one which had seemed so right while I was waking up
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| yhlee |
| 28 Nov 2009 22:30 |
| last night |
| Public |
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I showed Joe Inform 7. I couldn't tell him why I switched over from I6 to I7--I mean, I'm sure there are technical reasons to, I just don't know what they are. I switched for lemming reasons (i.e. everyone else was doing it). Embarrassing but true.
Also, apparently I7 syntax totally gives Joe the hives. Things like if-otherwise instead of if-else ("Why replace a shorter word with a longer word?" he asked), kinds instead of classes, and OMG he cringed when I showed him my truth states ("What's wrong with booleans?") and the natural-English-like syntax. Then I showed him "Cloak of Darkness" in TADS 3 and he was much happier. (I have nothing against TADS in any form, it's just Inform is what I learned and I'm fundamentally too lazy to switch if I can get done what I want done in the language I semi-know.)
I admit I floundered for a bit trying to remember where I had code snippets to show him because the AIF I'd written for a friend was NOT getting shown to him no matter what. "It's okay," he said, "I can extract out the syntax bits from the smut."
"You don't understand," I said. "This isn't for your protection, it's for mine!"
In unrelated news, I think the sgrieltsu story very probably does not work. It's too much gimmick and not enough substance, and the dénouement, even though I haven't written it yet, sucks. Back to the drawing board...
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| pepysdiary |
| 28 Nov 2009 23:00 |
| Wednesday 28 November 1666 |
| Public |
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1666/11/28/ Up, and with Sir W. Pen to White Hall (setting his lady and daughter down by the way at a mercer's in the Strand, where they are going to lay out some money), where, though it blows hard and rains hard, yet the Duke of York is gone a-hunting. We therefore lost our labour, and so back again, and by hackney coach to secure places to get things ready against dinner, and then home, and did the like there, and to my great satisfaction: and at noon comes my Lord Hinchingbroke, Sir Thomas Crew, Mr. John Crew, Mr. Carteret, and Brisband. I had six noble dishes for them, dressed by a man-cook, and commended, as indeed they deserved, for exceeding well done. We eat with great pleasure, and I enjoyed myself in it with reflections upon the pleasures which I at best can expect, yet not to exceed this; eating in silver plates, and all things mighty rich and handsome about me. A great deal of fine discourse, sitting almost till dark at dinner, and then broke up with great pleasure, especially to myself; and they away, only Mr. Carteret and I to Gresham College, where they meet now weekly again, and here they had good discourse how this late experiment of the dog, which is in perfect good health, may be improved for good uses to men, and other pretty things, and then broke up. Here was Mr. Henry Howard, that will hereafter be Duke of Norfolke, who is admitted this day into the Society, and being a very proud man, and one that values himself upon his family, writes his name, as he do every where, Henry Howard of Norfolke. Thence home and there comes my Lady Pen, Pegg, and Mrs. Turner, and played at cards and supped with us, and were pretty merry, and Pegg with me in my closet a good while, and did suffer me 'a la baiser mouche et toucher ses cosas' upon her breast, wherein I had great pleasure, and so spent the evening and then broke up, and I to bed, my mind mightily pleased with the day's entertainment.
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Setting: Present day, an unspecified but nice restaurant/hotel in Rome
Research done: Google search on Flunitrazepam, corresponding Wikipedia entry (via Google search on "knockout drug," "mickey finn," et cetera), a few entries in this community on this and related topics
My story involves a scene where two characters, a novice spy (who's stumbled into something well beyond his training at this point) and his much more experienced partner, are having dinner at a nice restaurant attached to their hotel. My ideal situation is this: they order a bottle of wine and the novice drinks first, but the wine has been drugged and after a little while he either blacks out completely, or becomes very uninhibited and has no memory of the occasion. His partner has not had any wine by the time that the novice exhibits symptoms, and is able (with help) to get him to their room and wait for him to wake up. Novice regains consciousness after an appropriate amount of time (I can work with just about any time window here, but six to ten hours is what I've been envisioning), with a terrible headache and light-sensitivity. Either way, partner turns the lights off for a while as novice recuperates. My drug of choice for this debacle is Rohypnol/Flunitrazepam, since as far as I can tell, it covers the necessary bases (though if there's a substance that would take effect faster, I am open to that), and assume the person responsible for drugging them knows the correct dosage to get the effect he wants (i.e. incapacitate the two men and capture/interrogate them).
My research so far suggests that Flunitrazepam takes about twenty minutes to start affecting someone when taken orally, and that alcohol can intensify its effects. Would alcohol cause it to work faster, or just make its effects stronger? How soon would a trained observer know that something was wrong? Would the drugged person feel or taste anything right away that he could remark upon, thus alerting his partner, even if it's just an odd taste or texture to the drink?
Would the drugged person pass out very quickly (i.e. twenty minutes pass, and then, bam, he's on the floor), or would he slowly get sleepier/less coordinated over a longer period of time? Same question with the amnesiac effects - at what point would the gap in his memory begin?
One site that I checked said that it may have a bitter taste when mixed with alcohol, but would this be noticeable in something like wine that is already pretty strong? It seems like Flunitrazepam comes in tablets, so would these be crushed and dissolved in the liquid, or is there also a liquid form?
As for side-effects/after-effects, I've read about headaches and digestive upset, so how long would they last after waking up, and how intense are they?
That's an awful lot of questions, so... many, many thanks in advance!
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Setting: Modern day New York City, NY.
Research: searched Google for "working in landfill, firsthand experience of a dump, maps of new york city dumps, new york landfill regulations", posted my query on Yahoo! Answers
What I Need: My story, as I stated above, is to take place in part in a landfill modern day New York. My character is a young woman about 20 years old who is a close friend of the dump's owner, but in order to pay back what she feels she owes to him, she works in the dump 5 days a week.
The most useful source I could get my hands on would be a firsthand account of landfill work, including the hierarchy of a waste management facility and the work expected of a laborer. It would also be very helpful if this information could be relative to New York, or at least a similar American city. What guidelines define the placement of city landfills? How close are they allowed to be to the waterfront? What is day to day life like? Is there more traffic during certain days of the week?
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Setting: Sci-fi, a few hundred years in the future, on an ice planet with year-round winter (think Hoth, or Delta Vega if you're so inclined).
Searched: Any combination of terms to do with hypothermia and sex, but apart from a lot of fiction I'm not really finding the medical stuff I need. This book helped, but I'm not sure if I completely understand what it's saying.
So, I have two (precariously) romantically-linked medical professionals trapped in a storage room (which is empty) (and is structurally composed of ice and snow a la sundry Ice Hotels). Both of them have cold-weather gear on but have no medical supplies, and they'll be there for hours if not a full day or two. I'm pretty happy with my research on the actual effects of hypothermia, I think I've got that down pat, but what I have a bigger problem with is: how feasible is it that they would resort to having sex to keep warm? How long would it take, probably, for them to reach that step? What kind of, you know, practical/technical issues should I be concerned about? Anything you've got to offer on the subject would be so useful.
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My character get's shot from behind and the bullet enters on the left side, doesn't hit any bone or organs, but it doesn't exit. the guy lost a lot of blood, as he had to find help before anybody examined him.
how would a healer in the 17th century in the scottish highlands (not a doctor) have proceded
1. to get the bullet out
2. to stop the bleeding
3. to lower the possibility of an infection
Thanks for helping
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The Edward Cullen Underpants Conundrum
"Robert Pattinson talks shit about the projects he is in. Robert Pattinson is honest about the fact that he is not the best actor. And Robert Pattinson’s main source of employment is facilitating his own objectification, which he does, but also complains about all the time. Robert Pattinson is… Megan Fox, basically! But, you know. A man version.
But the issue of Our Cultural Discomfort With Objectifying Robert Pattinson, which is a very important phenomenon that I just made up and decided that we should focus on, is perhaps best illuminated by how different it is from our generalized Cultural Discomfort with MF. Because we have no problem with objectifying Megan Fox, really! We just have a problem with everything she says, and specifically the things she says wherein she takes issue with being objectified. We just hate her. Whereas people don’t hate Robert Pattinson, really. At least, not outside of the inevitable superfans in various Internet comment sections, who take issue with him not loving Twilight like it is his own sweet mother, and most of their ire is reserved for Kristen Stewart anyway. And superfans just yell about shit all the time. That is how they show their love. People outside the superfan matrix don’t tend to have strong feelings about The Pattz, but they do tend to get all squirmy and giggly and uncomfortable with the way that so many women relate to his filmed image (for example, by screen-printing it on their underpants) and/or his person.
Because those women are acting in a way that is typically reserved for men. And they’re treating Pattinson like a girl. (....)
Because Edward Cullen is porn. Weird, pre-sexual, socially conservative, deeply repressed and fucked-up porn, but in a world where ladies’ sexy feelings are fenced in with shame and warnings of danger from Day 1, is it any wonder that porn which consistently ties sex to death and fear and the urgent need for repression is selling to the girls? (....) He is an object designed for the gratification of female desire." Very cool article - brings up some meaty stuff.
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Anyone remember that news story a few years back about how ''Lazy' Finns developed ice skates to conserve energy while moving'?
I believe this is the publication it was based on:
Federico Formenti and Alberto E. Minetti (2007). "Human locomotion on ice: the evolution of ice-skating energetics through history" The Journal of Experimental Biology 210(10); 1825-1833.
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/210/10/1825
Free PDF download.
They also produced a 2008 paper, which focuses on Finland specifically:
Federico Fermenti, Alberto E. Minetti (2008) "The first humans travelling on ice: an energy-saving strategy?" Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 93(1); 1–7.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119394158/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Also free PDF.
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In past years, I've made homemade, hand-stamped holiday cards, but alas I don't have time to do so this year. However, I did pick up a few boxes of cards while at the store today, and I'll get more if I need to!
Text box replies are viewable only to me, so your name and mailing address are confidential. Please don't forget to include your state, zip code, and country (if you're not in the US).
Poll #1491725 Holiday Cards
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 5 If you'd like to receive a holiday card from me, please leave your name & complete mailing address in the box below (max length 250 characters) I've got two styles of store-bought cards this year. Would you like Christmas or Generic Wnter? Pick one.
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| beadslut |
| 28 Nov 2009 22:49 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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I am experiencing serious schadenfreude, I am really not a nice person
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In what order were the towers of St.Basil's Cathedral built? Did the Trinity Cathedral burn down before St. Basil's was built or Is the Central Tower The Trinity Cathedral and the towers around it were added on later and it is called St.Basil's Cathedral collectively? One source says St. Basil's was built in 1555-1561 and was built on top of the Trinity Cathedral which Burned down 1583 which makes no sense. How could the middle tower burn down and not the others? It also says that the nine towers were built to symbolize nine successful attacks by Tsar Ivan IV on the city of Kazan. Another source says that The ninth Tower(supposedly the green one with yellow pyramids) was erected later in 1588 By Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich to house the tomb of St. Basil, but that contradicts the symbolism of the nine towers theory, there would have to have originally been eight towers to symbolize eight attacks. It also says that this ninth tower upsets the symmetry of the building, but I don't see how. The four larger towers were set at the compass points and four smaller towers at diagonals surrounding the central tower. It would upset the symmetry if it wasn't there! Did St. Basil die before or after St. Basil's cathedral was built? Sense it's Original name was the cathedral of the intersession of the virgin on the moat, I figured that he died after it was built and so the cathedral was nicknamed after him after he was buried there. I also read that he was buried both in the central tower and in the side green tower added by Tsar Fyodor (supposedly). I also read that is was originally completely white with gold onion domes to match the Kremlin and was painted so colorful until 1860, but I have yet to find any evidence that proves this. It would be interesting if I did, though. All my sources are either vague or they contradict each other. I really wish there was an official website I could refer to.
Any help is appreciated, as long as it's from a published/ proven source, otherwise It will likely confuse me more.
Sorry if I come off sounding angry, I've just been trying to figure this out for several hours now.
Thanks for looking!
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I'm not sure how, but I almost deleted my Yuletide fic!
Thank God for Undo!
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The 15 Sexiest Vampires in Hollywood History ever, fifteen of them, and never once does the article mention or show the truly sexiest vampire of them all, Spike from Buffy. What can they be thinking?
My second pick would be Frank Langella, and third would be Kiefer Sutherland (both of whom were quite yummy in their respective movies), and I do look forward to seeing Johnny Depp as a vampire even though I don't like Tim Burton movies.
But... Spike? Such a glaringly obvious ommission.
And though the title doesn't specify gender, interestingly, none of these vampires was female. That seems like an omission, too.
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Another awesome day in the historical area, this time with no freezing rain. ( Read more... )
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| warren_ellis |
| 28 Nov 2009 19:45 |
| To Buy Templesmith’s New Comic CHOKER |
| Public |
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Print, fill out and deliver to your local comics shop: 
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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jsmooth goes there on the latest fiddy/jayz/beanie siegel beef.
ok now yo know i could care less about rap beef (the marketing tool) but this had me falling the hell out, so i recommend watching.
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Govt minister says Indonesian disasters caused by immorality
Some of our ministers - both kinds - say things like this too. There's no evidence that God judges people who say such things particularly harshly. The Pope promoted the priest best known for saying it, and of course Johnny Hagee is still doing pretty well.
Whenever someone says something like that, there is an outcry from the enlightened - mainline, bourgeois, liberal - religious. "That's not the God I know" is the usual sentiment. But it's a mistake. Christians (not just Christians, anyone who believes in a benevolent God) have to believe that natural disasters are divinely justified. Otherwise the theodicy is broken.
There's a lively philosophical literature on theodicy and natural disasters. Disasters come under the heading of "natural evil", evil not human-caused, and the question is whether they are "gratuitous" - that is, evil that is unnecessary, without justification. If any natural evil is gratuitous, there is a problem for belief, because it's a knock-down argument against the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. Such a God, to fulfill that definition, would have to produce a maximally good world, that is, a world in which no evil exists which is not justified by a further, greater good.
That is how theodicy deals with human-caused evil. In some way, a universe in which humans have the free will to commit evil, even spectacular, immense, monstrously depraved evil, is better than one in which no free will exists; the thesis usually being that without free, responsible beings, the world is somehow without possibility of morality, a sort of ethical zero-point. God would not have done better to make us moral zombies or passive soma addicts. Similarly, evil that strikes the wicked is understandable, because that is compatible with justice. But evil which is not human-caused, and which injures the wicked and the good alike, is harder to explain. Even if a population is generally malefic, why is Gideon not spared?
There are only two alternatives. Either natural evil is really neither natural nor evil, but divinely justified and necessary - or the traditional concept of God has to go.
There is, of course, a cynical way out: to forbid the argument, to place an immense appeal to ignorance in its way. What's remarkable is that this fallacy is heard most from mainline liberals who want to believe in a good God but cannot reconcile that with what God does.
Whereas the fundamentalists, the ones who are supposed to be so irrational, are the ones able to reconcile God and God's world within a logical whole. They have the intellectual courage of their (appalling) convictions. They are willing to inquire into why natural disasters are good.* Whereas more liberal religion simply averts its eyes.
I took the other way out. I don't believe that God - whatever else God might or might not be - is good. God is therefore not worthy of worship. (God might be venal, or amoral, or beyond good and evil, or disinterested, or too weak to act, or not an agency at all, or not anything at all; I don't know.) Of course, understanding is harder than obeisance, and probably a better tribute, even for a creation wondering about its creator.
__________
*Of course, they're only good when they strike people fundamentalists don't like. When they hit closer to home, God is suddenly a very mysterious cat indeed.
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http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2009-11-29
Today's biography from the Oxford DNB:
Ward, Mary (1585-1645), Roman Catholic nun and founder of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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| madrobins |
| 28 Nov 2009 16:37 |
| Sweat Equity |
| Public |
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A year and a half ago, when we redid the kitchen, we had the old wallpaper in the hall removed and the hall painted, all nice. Makes a huge difference. The one thing we didn't change at the time was the carpet, which covered only the stairs and upstairs front hall (a nine-foot by four foot stretch from Avocado's old room to my bedroom, with the front bath on one side and the entry to the livingroom on the other). This carpet--cream colored, give or take, was not in pristine condition when we got here. After five years of occupancy and one dog, it was pretty awful. About two months ago the Spouse and I ripped up the carpet in the hall, which revealed hardwood with an inset pattern to match the living room. Not in brilliant shape, but certainly refinishable.
This weekend we have ripped the carpet and calcifying carpet pads up from the stairs. Whoever put down this carpet (or the several generations of carpet we think must have occupied the stairs) worked on the theory that you cannot have too many staples. Cause, God knows, this is earthquake country, and your carpet might shift and destroy the world or something. It has been today's job to pull out the staples, some of which were so far into the risers that they had to be gouged out. The stairs, unlike the front hall floor, are not in excellent shape; our plan is to sand them, paint them, and put braided carpet treads on them.
I have a wee puncture on one finger, a scrape on another finger, and a big-ass blister in the palm of my hand which came from wielding the screwdriver to prise out staples. Spouse is finishing up the job.
Bit by bit, we are returning some of the charm to this house which was originally surgically removed.
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Hey everyone,
I was wondering if there was anyone in this community who was going to the AAA Meeting in Philly and could accommodate an extra female roommate. My housing fell through at the last minute and I'm in a bit of a bind. I would only need a place to stay Friday and Saturday night (Dec 4 and 5). Please let me know. Thanks!
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Even before I mention this week's Camelotting, I must note that it's been an eventful week for shippers of all stripes. On the minus side, UK/US shipping has jumped the shark, apparently. On the plus side, good news for fans of The Wombles, because it seems that Bernard Cribbins ships Uncle Bulgaria/Madame Cholet. And since he did the voices, that makes it virtually canon, right? Wellington/Orinoco shippers are still waiting for a sign, sadly, but 'twas ever thus.
Now it's time for my weekly trip to the land of Merlin, with ( some thoughts on what Sweet Dreams was made of... )
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A couple days ago janni posted a wise and reasonable opinion on the value of readers having space to talk candidly about books with other readers, without being afraid that the writer will be looking over their shoulder.
I agree with much, and possibly all, of this post. One of the things I miss is being able to talk candidly about books here in my own blog. Alas, experience has shown that I hurt the feelings of people I know when I do that, so I don't. Readers who don't know A Lot of science fiction and fantasy writers, but who read a lot of books of which they have opinions, shouldn't have that problem, particularly.
We all know not to respond to nasty reviews -- even those which are gratuitously and specifically mean to the author -- because that's 'way more trouble than anyone wants.
But.
What about the folks who make the. . .effort, I suppose it is, to write an email to a particular author specifically to complain about an aspect of the writer's work? I'm not, note, talking about readers who want to know What Happens Next (though, really, I'm not going to tell you in an email; that's what books are for) or who have questions about plot, world building or character. All of those communications express interest and involvement in our work -- and that's a Good Thing in my view.
What I'm talking about are the folks who write to say that they find the fact that Priscilla goes topless in the privacy of her own home offensive. Or need to share that they dislike Miri because she has bad grammar. Or who are compelled to say that their least favorite books are those dealing with Val Con, because they're so violent. Clearly, these are opinions held by these readers, but am I the reasonable recipient?
My inclination has been to throw away communications like the above, unread. Certainly, an honest response is not appropriate in such cases (see "We all know not to respond to nasty reviews..." above), and it would seem that we have a case of, "If it sounds like a griefer, and disrupts like a griefer, it's a griefer."
Does anybody else get these sorts of emails? How do you deal with them?
Progress on Ghost Ship
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Who would have thought this was a bad idea?What I didn't know was that this was being done on borrowed money. Silly me. I thought it was paid for out of oil revenue or something. A dumb waste, but not a speculation. But it was, and now banks in Asia are back on the brink. Makes our real estate bubble look like the height of reason; at least ours mostly consisted of real estate, rather than open sea with nothing in it.
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