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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Sunday, July 6th, 2008 |
nihilistic_kid
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3:57p |
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nihilistic_kid
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3:43p |
Secret Minds of Editors? Ellen Datlow, Mort Castle, and I were interviewed by the online magazine Dark Scribe. It may be of interest to some people. Check it out, though it isn't quite a "roundtable" but really three distinct interviews using the same questions: Genre Roundtable: Revealing the Secret Minds of Editors. |
nihilistic_kid
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3:17p |
Showing the place Always interesting what people ask about. One guy wanted to know: if the bay windows were a southern exposure? how much home heating oil will cost in December of this year? whether I was taking my table? (The only good thing in the house) whether I was taking my couch? (The weird orange bamboo thing with the flat pillows) whether I was taking my bed? (ew) whether the cable leading to the TV was the cable TV? whether I was taking my computer printer? if I had any "spare dishes and pots"? Meanwhile, as ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) strangebint and kest look for a place in the Bay for me, the questions I ask are, "Is the place on the same block as a crackhouse?" and "Well, does it look like a bad crackhouse?" |
jaylake
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11:52a |
[help] Clarion West is back on beam Per kate_schaefer’s post at clarionites:
Due to the swift and generous response of the SF community, Clarion West has now received nearly enough money to replace the four student laptops stolen July 4 from rooms at the workshop residence. Clarion West staff, volunteers, and students all express their thanks for your very timely help. They especially want to thank BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow, Jay Lake, and many more for their generosity and for alerting others to the need for money and laptops. Donations began coming in from around the world just hours after the theft.
“If we collect funds that are much in excess of the cost of replacing the stolen computers, we will return them proportionally to the donors,” said workshop administrator Leslie Howle. “The use of PayPal makes this relatively easy to do.” She added, “We are all overwhelmed, and the students are immensely grateful. They were devastated by this theft, and it’s been amazing to see the community rally to support them.”
I am very pleased to see them on course, and the losses made whole. While I appreciate the shout-out, all I really did was pass along a message from albionidaho. A perfect example of our field’s networking and mutuality at its finest, and my congratulations to all concerned.
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there. |
michaeljasper
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1:36p |
Update to stolen laptop entry... All the stolen laptops have been replaced!!! The awesome people in the SF community banded together immediately to donate enough money to pay for replacement laptops. How awesome is that? And now, I've got to figure out the last 1/3 of my novel -- it's all in knots right now... Later! |
rsheslin
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9:48a |
So much for making things easier
I am a minimal effort, incrementalist gardener.
For the past few years, I've been dumping my vegetative kitchen scraps in a specific corner of the garden. My theory was that, at the point that I ever get around to planting something there, the scraps will have turned the dirt into yummy, plant-growing soil.
Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, I may have shot myself in the foot.
See, the local varmints (primarily rabbits and ground squirrels) have discovered where they can get the All-You-Can-Scrounge free food. And, as amused as I was to find a hole in the ground stopped up with the too-large remains of a rotted apple, this means that I will need to dig up the entire area and put down chicken wire before I try to plant anything in order to keep the critters from eating my plants.
So much for "minimal effort." :P |
sarah_prineas
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10:42a |
In a file on my computer, I have a word document that says, in huge letters,
Let it go.
It does not matter.
Let it go.
Sometimes I open up the file and read the words, and they make me feel so much better.
It doesn't matter. Let it go. |
jaylake
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8:04a |
[personal] Update-o-Rama, with bonus medical TMI the_child and I spent the first part of the weekend at the beach house my parents own with lillypond.
(Details and next steps, including medical-digestive TMI:)
( Read the rest of this entry » )Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there. |
jaylake
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7:47a |
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jlundberg
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10:08p |
young lady in thailand Young Lady II (2007, 80 x 120cm, lacquer on wood) by Nguyen Lam When Janet and I were in Phuket several weeks ago, I picked up a guide to local art galleries and shops in the area. On one of the very first pages was an advert for D Gallery in the Royal Phuket Marina. Which, unfortunately was all the way on the other side of the island from where we were. Unfortunate because at the top of the advert was the above painting by Vietnamese artist Nguyen Lam, which was so striking that both Janet and I were overcome by Me-Wantee Syndrome. But neither of us felt like taking a taxi all the way east just on the off chance that they might still have the painting we wanted, and we also had no idea how to get it back to Singapore without it costing a bundle (we certainly couldn't have carried it on the plane, and shipping would have been pretty nasty). So we'll just have to covet from afar. Pity. The artist has three other painting at the D Gallery site as well, very similar in execution and theme; the site is completely in Flash, so there are no permalinks, but from the homepage you click "Artists," then "Vietnamese Artists," then "Nguyen Lam." |
jlundberg
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7:33p |
the dalai lama turns 73  Today His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama turns 73 years old. Happy birthday! A good way to celebrate is to pick up The Open Road by Pico Iyer.  An incredible look into the life of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and the current political and religious situation in both Tibet and Dharamsala. Through Iyer's 30-year relationship with the Buddhist monk, and his insightful and considered observations, the reader is provided with both the public and private sides of the Dalai Lama, and of the continuing insistence on using compassion, patience, and nonviolence in dealing with China and the rest of the world. Fascinating reading. |
tim_pratt
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1:05a |
Tweetledees
The day's tweets. Because you don't get enough of my minutiae already. |
rsheslin
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12:22a |
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dustchick
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12:16a |
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| Saturday, July 5th, 2008 |
nihilistic_kid
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11:39p |
Lucky *BLAM* Star
Finally back home. I got on the bus at 3PM but we lost a tire and severed a line for coolant, so we spent two hours at a rest stop in Connecticut before a repair van was sent up from Chinatown.
Blech. |
gregvaneekhout
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8:04p |
Pig The most interesting thing I saw on today's walkabout:  |
jimhines
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8:45p |
Saturday Updates 1. As many of you have probably seen by now, four student laptops were stolen from the Clarion West writing workshop. This is awful on two levels. There's the financial side, since students at the workshop take six weeks off of work or else quit their jobs entirely, not to mention the cost of attending. There's also the loss of your work, both what you've already written and the potential work still to come during the remainder of the workshop. If you've ever watched a junkie go through withdrawal, you have some idea what it's like to be a writer who loses his/her ability to write. Cory Doctorow has more information in this post, including a link to donate and help the students. 2. Public Service Announcement: As of 1:30 this morning, it was no longer the 4th of July, which means y'all probably could have quit setting off firecrackers in the street and let us old farts get some sleep. M'kay? 3. Today I writed many words, including a rough draft of the introduction for the German collection. I decided to go with a short introduction by me in the beginning, and then to do a brief dialogue between Jig, Veka, and Grell to introduce each of the individual stories. Some of those bits work better than others, but I think I like this approach. I miss writing for my goblins ... they're such fun characters. 4. Does anyone know why the arm where they missed the vein hurts more than the one where they actually got the vein and drew blood? That seems backwards, somehow. (This was for my regular labwork to make sure the diabetes hasn't killed me yet.) |
sarah_prineas
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2:07p |
Same thing
Me, in comfy chair, working on revisions.
J: I see you've got a book under your laptop.
Me: Yup.
J: I suppose that's to protect yourself from the heat of your laptop?
Me: Yup.
J: I guess a book would work really well for that. Because of its low thermal conductivity.
Me (with raised eyebrows): Low thermal conductivity? You are a geek.
J: No, I'm a physicist. (long pause) Same thing, I guess.
end
##
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gregvaneekhout
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11:11a |
Sweep the Leg
It's quite possible that I'm the last human on Earth to see the music video for No More Kings' "Sweep the Leg." If so, I'm kinda resentful that nobody told me about it sooner.
Directed by and starring none other than Karate Kid's Billy "Johnny Lawrence" Zabka, and featuring cameos by Ralph Macchio and Martin "Cobra Kai Sensei John Kreese" Cove, it's a tribute to perhaps the most gloriously dorky martial arts movie of all time.
When my kung fu instructor back in Phoenix revealed that Karate Kid was the movie that first inspired him to learn martial arts, I knew I'd found a school to call home.
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| Sunday, July 6th, 2008 |
jlundberg
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1:12a |
what did we do today, brain? Your humble narrator...Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter |
| Saturday, July 5th, 2008 |
lisamantchev
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9:33a |
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jlundberg
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11:24p |
laptops stolen at clarion west About 85% of my friends-list has posted this news already, but I'll also pass it along, just in case you haven't yet heard. My friend Maggie Lance (whom I published in Scattered, Covered, Smothered) is currently attending Clarion West in Seattle. Like the original Clarion that I attended at Michigan State University in East Lansing (and which can now be found in San Diego), Clarion West is an intensive six-week writing workshop, where pretty much all you do is write, read, critique, eat, and sleep, mostly in that order of priority. A lot of people try to write a brand new story each week, so that you can have the chance to get at least one piece of fiction critiqued by each instructor (the instructors are professionals in the sf field, writers and editors who know an incredible amount about writing). As you can imagine, this entails a lot of time spent writing. Yesterday morning, some complete asshole decided that it would be a good idea to sneak into the sorority house where the Clarion West attendees are staying, and steal a bunch of stuff. This included four laptops (one black Dell Inspiron 1520, one silver colored Sager with a 17" screen, one silver/red Dell XPSm1710, and one Sony Vaio Sz780), some bags, clothing, and possibly other items. Maggie and the other participants are okay, but she emailed me to let me know what had happened, and asked if I would pass it along in case people want to help. It's not cheap or easy to go to Clarion. Hard enough to even get accepted (it sounds like the competition was pretty fierce this year), but to be able to take six weeks out of your life is a non-trivial undertaking. That's time spent not working, and therefore not earning money. It's time spent away from your loved ones. More than a few people quit their jobs so that they can go (it's what I did). But there's also the expense of the workshop itself, and housing, and food. All told, it's a significant drain on anyone's financial resources. And so, the people whose laptops were stolen are very likely not going to be able to pop over to the nearest electronics store and spring for a new one. Plus, they've just lost any writing that they may have been working on, and anything not backed up. Apparently, they've been given loaner computers for the short-term, but it doesn't look like that'll work for the whole six weeks. If you think you can help, please contact Leslie or Neile, via info@clarionwest.org. If you want to contribute a money donation, cmpriest has the skinny: Money donations can be made directly here, through the Clarion West website. If you’d like to contribute, please do so through that paypal button and mark it for Computer Replacement, or something like that — so the recipients know it isn’t part of their regular drive. All donations are tax deductible; Clarion West is classified as a non-profit educational organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Federal EIN 91-1352168). Clarion can be a life-changing experience; please help make it a positive experience for the affected writers at West. And also, please pass this along to anyone you might think would be interested. |
michaeljasper
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10:46a |
Got a spare laptop? from http://albionidaho.livejournal.com/85598.html: This morning someone came into the Clarion West house where we're staying and stole four laptops, some bags, clothing, and possibly other items.
Of course, these are our lives, especially right now.
We are all okay, and the house is secure, even more so now, but I was like to ask the SFF community for help.
Those who lost their laptops will not be able to replace these without detriment to their financial situation. These are essential for our writing, particularly over the next four weeks.
If you would like to help donate laptops or funds to those students who had their laptops stolen, please contact Leslie or Neile at infoATclarionwestDOTorg. More donation information may be forthcoming.
Thank you. You know, stealing a laptop is one of the dumber things to steal. Just logging in will probably be impossible, so all you're going to be able to do is sell the thing for parts. Idiots. I'm wondering if I can get one or maybe both of my old laptops up and running today... Later. |
sleigh
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9:22a |
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jaylake
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6:07a |
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lethargic