Hey Genius!

On the move

2006-01-15T16:27:00.000-06:00

So I've bought a domain name and hosting and all that good stuff. I've copied all my blog posts to the new site, and from here on out I think that'll be where I'll be updating stuff. The new address is http://www.patrickjohanneson.com/deardiary/ . Hope to see you there!-pat

Happy B-Day...

2006-01-13T21:03:00.000-06:00

...to Trogdor.Three years old today.Yeah, I'm a nerd.

brief movie reviews

2006-01-11T16:54:00.000-06:00

In the last week and a half I've seen two movies, Thumbsucker and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. What did I think of them? Well, Thumbsucker was an adolescent-angst movie that proved to me that while Keanu Reeves may not be a brilliant thespian, at least he can act like someone other than Ted Theodore Logan. Also, just because you fill a movie with Big Names

Ramblin' man

2006-01-05T23:07:00.000-06:00

Well, the Evans starts up again soon, so my weekends are getting crowded again. We had coffee with a bunch of the Evans crew tonight, after supper (home-made lasagna--mm mm good).It's a little weird. In the summer, when the Evans doesn't run, I rent movies every week or so, but when the Evans is on, I usually don't bother. Maybe it's not so weird, given that I volunteer at the Evans, which

Happy New Year!

2006-01-02T11:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I certainly have been slack so far this year. We had a bunch of people over for New Year's Eve, and then yesterday we went south with Kathleen's parents for a Sprott New Year's Day fest.And this year I hope to do at least a page a day of writing, if not more. I have to figure out some way to force myself to keep to a schedule, though. Suggestions?

Funny SNL skit

2005-12-24T10:10:00.000-06:00

...which sounds like an oxymoron, I know. I haven't watched Saturday Night Live since, oh, forever. Sometime in the middle '90s I gave up on them, when I realized that they really couldn't do a skit in less than twelve minutes.But a cow-orker sent me this link, which has apparently become an Internet hit. Enjoy it, if you haven't already seen it.Note: It's a "rap video", so if you're in the I

New submission

2005-12-23T19:45:00.000-06:00

I submitted "Outside, Looking In" to the Intergalactic Medicine Show about two minutes ago. Wish me luck!And speaking of writing: Check out The Writer's Database. Online submissions tracking! Nice!

Better late than never

2005-12-21T23:23:00.000-06:00

...really late. Our tree is up now.And I listened to the Christmas CD I made a few years ago, with such classics as What's This? by Jack Skellington, Ça Bergers by Some French Chick, All I Vant for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth by The Count, and about a dozen others. Having grown up in French immersion school, a lot of the carols I know are really hard to find. Ça Bergers is a long-time

All uphill from here

2005-12-21T07:44:00.000-06:00

It's the shortest day of the year, here in the Northen Hemisphere. From here on out the days just get longer.Maybe someday I'll be headed to work after the sun has risen, and go home before it sets. At least I've got windows to look out of during the day.

Reminiscences, #3

2005-12-10T21:59:00.000-06:00

I don't know why I was thinking about this one today, but here it is.Geography Primer—At the university where I work, my cow-orkers and I often sit on an indoor bench on a fairly well-used pathway during our coffee breaks. This allows us to all sit together—there are about eight or ten of us on the bench at a given time, usually—and it also affords the people-watchers among us a rich tapestry of

Why can't they make good SF movies?

2005-12-03T17:43:00.000-06:00

So last night I got an email from a friend of mine (let's call him Kevin, since that's his name):Subject: Aeon FluxI knew some people might not like it. But this review is ridiculous:It was so uncomfortable to watch this film, I felt like I was desperately holding back a bout of extreme diarrhea while having dinner with my girlfriend’s folks for the first time. While the feeling kept ebbing and

Compy is here

2005-12-03T08:37:00.000-06:00

Our new computer arrived yesterday. Dell had a special that we just couldn't resist. We got a new PC and 17" LCD monitor for about what we paid for our previous computer, which came without an OS (the new Compy has Windows XP Home onboard). Much much faster. The old machine was bought about 2000, if memory serves.So yeah. I've set up the old machine upstairs in the library, with a wireless

Done-diddly-un

2005-11-29T21:07:00.000-06:00

I "won" Nano!I've got good ol' Rob in the CD player right now, and here's the lyrics that were playing as my Winner icon came up:knock it niceand smoothstep back andwatch it flow yeahnever gonna stop menever gonna stopnever gonna stop menever gonna stopscream if you want it'cause I want more—Rob Zombie, "Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy)"And I didn't even have to put in a "Screw Flanders", as

More Nano text

2005-11-27T21:17:00.000-06:00

47,700 words now. In the home stretch, word-count-wise. Story-wise, too, I think.du-Razh was a pale circle, swelling even as he watched. Igraine was snoozing in her chair. Part of him wondered if she wanted to be wakened for this pass; the rest didn't care. Let her sleep.The display shifted a little, automatic corrections to their trajectory. He'd puzzled out enough of the drifted Englisch to

Writing

2005-11-24T22:21:00.000-06:00

So I haven't been posting here much lately. Nano has kind of taken over.Here's a sample, if you're interested:In the slice of time between heartbeats, civilizations were born, flourished, grew corrupt, collapsed into warring nation-states. Continents crawled across oceans, met, rose heavenward in himalayan mountain-building.He could see the slug, could see the eye-searing brilliance of the

On the downhill slope

2005-11-19T11:02:00.000-06:00

28,000 words so far in my NaNo novel. I'm hoping to get about 5,000 this afternoon, too, if all goes well.

More Radio-Call-In Genius

2005-11-09T17:17:00.000-06:00

I've already documented my odd ability to request songs. Today I used my superpower to help a co-worker score tickets to a concert.Some background: I have a co-worker--let's call him Greg--who is the biggest fan of the band Queens of the Stone Age. He's going to the upcoming Nine Inch Nails show, not to see NIN so much but to catch QOTSA, who are opening.So last week, a radio station said that

All right, here's the scoop

2005-11-03T22:33:00.000-06:00

Doug has convinced me to try Nano* again this year. I'm starting three and a half days late, but that's ok, because I'm not sure I'm shooting for 50k this year. The story I'll be working on—"Salyx"—has a novella feel to it, so I will be happy if I hit 20k words. Still. If I can make 50k, I won't complain. We'll see how it develops.Anyways. Starting... now, don't expect much blogging out of

"Explain," said the interrogation machine...

2005-10-31T17:17:00.000-06:00

..."Describe their culture.""They have an important celebration," said E.T., "called Hollow Bean. Everyone carves faces in fruit squashes and dresses up in sheets.""Who holds this celebration?""The children, who actually rule the Blue Planet of Earth. They are more intelligent than the older people and outrun them on bicycles."The machine whirled around him again. "And what is the purpose of

This weekend

2005-10-28T07:58:00.000-05:00

Judo tournament Saturday. I won't be competing; I wasn't at class for essentially the month of September, due to The Siding Project, and I've also still got enough of a cold to affect my breathing a little. (Not enough that I notice in day-to-day life, but it's important to breathe properly when you've got 220 pounds of opponent on your ribcage in osae-komi*.)We'll be moving mats today after

Can't blog. Writing.

2005-10-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

I've decided to enter a non-fiction contest, and I have to have the story in the mail by Nov. 1st, so I'm kind of up against a deadline. The theme of the contest is "A Memorable Voyage"; my entry, in about its second draft, is here. You'll need a password, too: it's winnipegosis. Read it, if you'd like; let me know what you think. (It's short, only about 1100 words.)I finished Last Light of

Brandon Life

2005-10-23T18:16:00.000-05:00

The very definition of "slow news day": Rescued kitty feeling better.We went to see As You Like It, performed by the local 7 Ages theatre group. I quite enjoyed it. Kathleen, who saw it last night as well, said that the performances were much improved. The fool Touchstone stole the show, capering and dancing, muttering and miming. As usual, it took me awhile to get the hang of Shakespeare's

Bein' sick sure sucks

2005-10-22T17:43:00.000-05:00

Head cold. I spent the day on the couch, essentially, alternating short naps with playing Abe's Oddysee and watching a couple episodes of Firefly. The Western vibe of the latter makes me want to say things like "Bein' sick powerful sucks", but I'll try to restrain myself.And now I have to go to the Evans, to show the early show (My Summer of Love, it's called).What are you doing* for the

A trip to the farm

2005-10-20T21:34:00.000-05:00

We went last weekend (the weekend after Thanksgiving*) to my grandparents' farm, up by Winnipegosis. While we were there, Grandpa H celebrated his birthday, and we went into town to visit Grandma J, too. (My parents grew up about fifteen miles from each other.)Plus my wife bought me the coolest cookies possible the other day:__________* The Canadian kind.

Sci-Fi Movies redux

2005-10-20T21:31:00.000-05:00

So my wife went over the list of movies that John Scalzi considers canon. Turns out she's a bigger nerd than me. She's seen twenty-seven of 'em, two more than I have. Hee hee!

My First Meme

2005-10-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

...here, anyways.From John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, here's the "Canon", with the films I've seen in bold:The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!AkiraAlienAliensAlphavilleBack to the FutureBlade RunnerBrazilBride of FrankensteinBrother From Another PlanetA Clockwork OrangeClose Encounters of the Third KindContactThe DamnedDestination MoonThe Day The Earth Stood

Reminiscences (2)

2005-10-18T18:17:00.000-05:00

So Michaëlle Jean, our new Governor-General, is making her first official visit as the Canadian head of state*, and she chose Manitoba, my province, as her first official destination. ("Travel Manitoba! Just like the queen-by-proxy! See the sights!")They welcomed her with a twenty-one-gun salute, which reminded me of an exchange I had with a friend back in my university days. He'd just

Movies

2005-10-14T18:45:00.000-05:00

I watched Serenity again on Tuesday. It's still a great film, especially if you love SF. I would love to see it a third time, but I don't know if I can justify it. (Maybe I'll just do it anyway. The hell with justifying everything.)My wife and I went to see Wallace and Gromit last night. I loved it. Right from the moment the theme music started up, I was in my Happy Place™. I've been waiting

Reminiscences (#1 in a series to come)

2005-10-09T13:47:00.000-05:00

My wife reminded me of this one the other day.When you're lovers in a dangerous time,Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime.Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fightYou gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. Back when I lived in rez at the University, I had the uncanny knack, on request nights, of being able to get through to the radio station on the

Corpse Bride

2005-10-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, we went to see Tim Burton's latest oeuvre, Corpse Bride. The movie was good, but there was something missing. I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but I think I may have set myself up for a fall.See, I have a bad habit of reading about films before I see them. The reviews I've read for CB were all very positive, and so I went in with high expectations. These hopes, while not dashed,

Winter has arrived

2005-10-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

It's snowing today. Which is made doubly amusing by the fact that, at lunch today, my eye fell on a headline in yesterday's paper: Forecasters predict warmer, drier winter. Nicely done, I'd say.In the twenty minutes since I took that photo, the garden has turned completely white. No wonder we've got a Heavy Snowfall Warning from Environment Canada.Oh well, time to bundle up and go back to

Serenity

2005-10-04T07:55:00.000-05:00

We saw Serenity on the weekend. I've seen a few episodes of Firefly, and I quite enjoyed the way the film extended the series and gave closure on a couple of things. We went with a few friends who hadn't seen Firefly, and they all enjoyed the movie immensely as well. Viewed as a piece of the whole Firefly universe, the movie succeeds very well. Viewed simply as a science-fiction movie, it

Siding (done)

2005-10-02T09:58:00.000-05:00

Done! Photos -- well, you don't really need more photos, do you? Now all that's left are a few trips to the dump, and returning some materials.Huzzah! It's done!

Yes, but is it Art?

2005-09-28T22:42:00.000-05:00

Or actually, is it Literature?I've started a short story that I think will end up being submitted to the lit mags when (if) I finish it. The title is "Sons and Daughters of the Builder", and the first paragraph (still first draft) is Whenever people ask me if my father is God, I say no. I learned a long time ago that the true answer—"maybe"—was an opening for any number of further questions,

The weekend

2005-09-26T21:10:00.000-05:00

We went to Winnipeg this weekend. Had a lovely time. We saw Batman Begins at the Imax, went to the museum (my favourite display remains the Nonsuch), headed over to the Forks, and wandered the Bears on Broadway, which are the result of a Cancer Care Manitoba fundraiser.I've got a bunch of photos on my Flickr site, right about here.Siding: continues. Soon we'll be done. Soon.

Siding (6)

2005-09-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

We're breaking for the weekend; then we'll be in the home stretch. We're at the point where we need the scaffolding to be fifteen feet high. The theory is that while we're up there, we'll put in the soffits & fascia too.My wife and I are going to the Big City this weekend. (And what's that say about where I live, that a city of 600,000 or so is the Big City?) Just a break from the house, and

That old double-edged sword

2005-09-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

The downside to submitting stories to potential markets electronically is that you can get rejected pretty damn fast. The upside to submitting electronically is that you can get rejected fast, so you're not sitting for three months, wondering.Neo-Opsis didn't want "Outside, Looking In". Apparently the story was too sneaky and underhanded:[It] seems to be done in an artsy style that keeps the

Submission

2005-09-19T21:56:00.000-05:00

I've submitted "Outside, Looking In" to Neo-Opsis. Wish me luck!

Siding (5)

2005-09-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

My house is turning blue again. That is all.

New story

2005-09-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

Well, a new version of an old story. I've been revamping "Fimbulvetr", and parts I-III are up here, with part IV yet to be completed. Let me know what you think. (Gabrielle, if you're still out there, you might like this one...)

That was fast

2005-09-16T19:51:00.000-05:00

Outside, Looking In has been rejected again. Lenox Ave. had nice things to say ("Honestly, it's a beautifully told story"), but it didn't quite match up with what they're looking for. On to the next one.Is it bad form to write a thank-you note for quick turnaround and kind comments? I hope not, 'cause I did.Tomorrow we should be able to start putting siding on. Tomorrow.

Reading

2005-09-15T22:51:00.000-05:00

I've finally finished Accelerando, Charles Stross's novel. For those that want a look, it's available via a Creative Commons license—just click on the link.It's the story of four generations of the Macx family (I think; things get a little tangled, what with the clones and the eigenfamilies and the ghosts and whatnot) and their varied adventures, on Earth, in the outer system, and flitting 'twixt

Siding (4)

2005-09-15T19:53:00.000-05:00

So. Siding arrived at about 8AM. Insulation on the north wall proceeds apace. We need about two more full sheets on the second layer (we're achieving 2-inch foam by using 2 layers of 1-inch foam, offset at the seams to dissuade wind), then we can take down the scaffolding and get started on actually putting up the siding. The end's not in sight yet, but it's actually starting to look like we

Siding (3)

2005-09-14T23:11:00.000-05:00

It never ends.Today: we rented scaffolding. We've got the front done, the south side done, the back done, and the north side about ½ done. (And when I say done, I mean covered in white foam insulation to a depth of two inches.) (Well, one inch on the south side.)The siding? Promised today. Didn't show up. It's somewhere in town, though. Tomorrow AM I'm going to call and yell at my

Siding (2)

2005-09-12T22:34:00.000-05:00

Siding is ordered. Should be here tomorrow or Wednesday.Got the whole house wrapped eight feet high in one-inch foam board. Tomorrow: the second level, I guess.In the news—Brian Mulroney is the greatest self-promoting megalomaniac since Sir John A. MacDonald:his legacy as the greatest prime minister since John A. Macdonald.Dear BM, there's a reason that Will Ferguson put you in both categories

Scribblings

2005-09-12T00:26:00.000-05:00

Submitted "Outside, Looking In" to Lenox Ave. Wish me luck!

Siding

2005-09-12T00:17:00.000-05:00

We're re-siding the house, so I'll probably be a little bit sparse on here.Here's the progress for day one:Things I've learned:- Just because the guy says he ordered the damn siding doesn't mean he actually ordered the damn siding.- The Large Orange Home Store has a fine sense of irony. As I wander about, trying to find the guy who half an hour ago went to check something on the computer for me,

After the weekend

2005-09-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

Well, we had a good BBQ weekend. I got hooked on Monday when Space ran all the episodes of Firefly all in a row. I watched about four of them, all told, throughout the day.There was much drinking on Sunday, and some unhappy fallout on Monday morning, but the less said about that the better.School started today. My wife was a little harried at work last night, working as she does in the shoe

The BBQ weekend

2005-09-03T10:17:00.000-05:00

Lisa (reading)"Come to Homer's BBBQ, the extra 'B' is for BYOBB".BartWhat's that extra B for?HomerThat's a typo.So this Sunday we're having some folks over for a barbecue (BYOBB, you bet), and then on Monday evening my wife's cow-orkers are having a get-together featuring a barbecue too. To make the trifecta, I'll be barbecuing tonight. It's getting down to the end of the summer, after all,

One for Doug

2005-09-01T21:48:00.000-05:00

...or maybe Karen, his wife.Last night I caught the last half of The Nature of Things on CBC. It was, specifically, this episode, and so naturally I thought of you two. It was a fascinating show, and even in the half hour that I saw I learned a couple of things. (I didn't realize, for instance, that the tarantula has existed for 350,000,000 years.)I don't see anywhere on the site where you can

All right

2005-09-01T19:31:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of waiting for .geek to recover. They've been down for over 168 hours now, and so...Unfortunately, I can't seem to get in to retrieve the stuff I've got in their database. I don't have a recent dump of the stuff. So I've been forced to restart Fantômes from scratch.The first offerings? My first two "Gunslinger Esau" stories, both initially written for Fantasy challenges at The

Camping

2005-08-30T07:44:00.000-05:00

We went camping on the weekend. [edit: The photos are now posted.] I'd never been down to the beach at Minnedosa. It was a lovely spot, and the stars at night as we walked back to our tent were amazing. We were right down on the beach, too, which was still as glass, reflecting the lights of the town on the far shore. Everything was perfect......except.There was a wedding in town, and a bunch

As promised...

2005-08-25T21:51:00.000-05:00

...my two "Gunslinger" stories are available over on my writing blog, Fantômes. Enjoy![edit] Except now, of course, the host that I have my writing blog set up on has been unreachable for 12+ hours. Brilliant.

New story

2005-08-24T23:35:00.000-05:00

So I sat and wrote for about 2½ hours straight. I neglected my wife, I have a wicked case of numb-bum, and I have a new 2500ish-word story, a sequel of sorts to an earlier work. Tomorrow I'll probably post both of 'em over in Fantômes. Right now it's time for bed.

By the Numbers

2005-08-22T19:50:00.000-05:00

I almost titled this one "8y 7h3 Numb3r5", but then I remembered how much I hate 1337speak.So. I went for a bike ride tonight, a nice little jaunt that took me in a big circle (well, a square) (well, a polygon of some kind) from my place down to 34th street, then south and east to the mall, then north to Park Ave, west down to 22nd, and then a straight shot north back to my house.Some

Maybe it's genetic

2005-08-19T12:56:00.000-05:00

Does sneakiness run in the family?My nephew:

1000 words at a time

2005-08-17T22:35:00.000-05:00

A thousand words tonight, in about an hour. My novel-in-progress, Earth Fleet*, is now at 10,000+ words of a projected 120,000ish.Snippet:Cabrell hadn't been to the hub since the pressgang order had come into effect. He'd almost forgotten, this morning, had in fact been sitting down to a large breakfast when some little angel had whispered in his ear those magical words: weightless vomit.

Mmmm....

2005-08-17T18:18:00.000-05:00

All day my house has smelled like beef stew.I guess that's the peril of owning a slow cooker.

Loud obnoxious goodness

2005-08-15T20:04:00.000-05:00

Bought Rob Zombie's Past, Present and Future album today. It's his greatest hits compilation CD/DVD, and has stuff like "Thunder Kiss '65" and "Dragula" on it. Great tunes, if you like that sort of thing. The man (and his band, the now-defunct White Zombie) pretty much invented grindcore, I think. And if they didn't invent, they surely refined it and brought it to the People. Or

Short book reviews

2005-08-14T13:50:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceJ. K. RowlingLike everyone else on the net, I found this to be a darker work than what came before. There were fewer descriptive passages this time around, which allowed a greater focus on the action. I understand that, at 1Gsec+ of age, I'm not the target audience for this book, and that the target audience probably has read the preceding five books

1 GSec; Why I'm not a samurai

2005-08-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

Sometime in the last few months I turned one billion seconds old. I think the cake requires tiny blue LEDs rather than candles. Don't want to burn down the house...I went to judo tonight, but nobody showed up. Not a huge surprise -- it's summer, and there are a couple of our members at the Legion camp at the Peace Gardens. Sat there and read the intro to Ideals of the Samurai. I'm going to

Snug harbor

2005-08-09T07:55:00.000-05:00

So the Shuttle is down safely. I can't help feeling that the media are somehow subtly disappointed. Tragedy seems to be "better" news than joy...I did a few hundred words in my NiP last night. Not anywhere near as many as I'd've liked to, though. It just wasn't flowin'. Hopefully it'll be better tonight; I'm done one chapter and on to the next one.

on to the next one

2005-08-05T17:49:00.000-05:00

Rejected. Again. F&SF doesn't want "Outside, Looking In". So... who's next? Perhaps I'll shoot for Interzone. (Actually, I think I will.)I'll post more later this weekend. I have family in town, so I should hang out with them.

Wednesday Night Geekery

2005-08-03T21:07:00.000-05:00

First off: Duh. chmod.Sorry. I was struggling with a PHP script that was supposed to upload an image to a server. It would upload fine, but then it wouldn't allow me to copy the file from the temporary location to the location where I wanted it. It was throwing an error related to permissions. Tonight I got the bright idea to set the directory's permissions (using the

The wedding

2005-08-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

My wife's cousin got married this weekend. Click the picture for more.We got a new digital camera, so we got lots of photos. I need to learn a bit about low-light shooting, though; several pix from the reception/dance came out dark and blurred.Our new camera died the next day, and I couldn't get it replaced till today, so unfortunately I have no shots from the Johanneson family reunion at

This weekend

2005-07-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

It's a long weekend, and good thing too. I have a wedding to attend, a wedding to skip (sorry, Glen & Katie), and a family reunion to attend in a town 2½ hours from here, the town where my parents both grew up. So... don't expect to hear much from me for the next few days.We bought a digital camera yesterday, too. So now we're firmly in the 21st century, almost.

The Arm

2005-07-29T07:37:00.000-05:00

Now that the space shuttle is in the news again, I've noticed a dichotomy between the Canadian and the American reporting on one particular item. While the American media have referred to the shuttle's articulated robot arm as "the giant arm" or "the robot arm" or the like, every single Canadian newscaster has called it the "Canadarm". I'm trying to decide who's got the complex here. Is it

Mmmm, chocolatey...

2005-07-27T19:04:00.000-05:00

We went to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night. Being someone who (a) never read the book and (b) never cared much for the previous celluloid incarnation, I was pretty lukewarm about the whole idea. I enjoyed the movie, though. It was a more entertaining ride than the trailers had implied. Johnny Depp was quirky to the point of freaky, and Tim Burton's curlicued set design made my

The Emptiness of Wal-Mart

2005-07-26T16:52:00.000-05:00

My wife works at the local Wal-Mart, one of the anchors of the local mall. Wal-Mart is pulling up stakes and moving to a new location, a congeries of box stores on the flood plain named the Corral Centre.So Wal-Mart is in a period of rare transition. The store at the mall is still open, but it's nearly empty. The shoe section has about 1½ aisles open, but all that's left are women's shoes on

Quickie

2005-07-25T23:02:00.000-05:00

Just a short one tonight. I spent the evening working on PHP -- apparently my free PHP host has some non-standard permissions set, which means that my image upload script fails at the last moment. I'll have to find out what kind of permissions magic I can do with PHP, but that'll be tomorrow, I think.I also posted the rest of what I've done on "The Ash of Memory" to my writing blog, so if

Potter has pulled me in, and other ramblings

2005-07-24T17:58:00.000-05:00

—I've been reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for the last few days, and today I suddenly realized that I'm halfway done. I must admit, J. K. Rowling knows how to keep my interest. Things are moving along, and it's kind of fun to see if I can correctly guess what's coming.—The B-man and I chainsawed the fallen tree into liftable chunks last night. I have a friend that has a

Bike ride

2005-07-23T15:03:00.000-05:00

I went for a bike ride today. Pedaled for about an hour, cruised through town. There are sections in one of the parks, down near the river (which is still mighty high), that are rather frighteningly muddy. At a couple points I was praying I wouldn't have to put my feet down, since I was wearing sandals and I didn't really want to feel river muck squelching between my toes. I should've brought

Notes from Friday

2005-07-22T18:53:00.000-05:00

ReadingAccelerando: 11%.Harry Potter: partway through Chapter 4 (I think).Blogging—I've started another blog, too, one that I intend to use largely for my fiction at this point. If you want to see it, it's right over here. It's using a software package called WordPress, PHP/MySQL based, and so I'll probably be fiddling with it on and off.Writing—I've done a bit of work on "The Ash of Memory",

Technology

2005-07-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

So I downloaded Accelerando, Charlie Stross' new novel, which is a collection of the Macx stories from the past few years. I grabbed it in Plucker format, and installed Plucker on my Palm M105 to read it. This is the first e-book I've ever read, and so far it's going well. The text size is just right, and in two days I've read 3% of the book, according to the little info-bar at the top of the

Harry Potter; Irony

2005-07-20T07:45:00.000-05:00

My wife finished reading the new Harry Potter book the other night, so I've started in on it. I'm two chapters in and already I'm intrigued. Without spoilers, suffice to say that certain characters' motives and, well, characters have been cast in a brand-new light.I also just noticed, the other day, a delicious, secondary level of irony in my choice of library books: I mean, seriously, Going

Canada Post and Library Books

2005-07-18T19:11:00.000-05:00

So I was listening to CBC Radio today, and heard a tidbit on the news that made my jaw drop. Apparently Canada Post wants to hike their Library Book Rate, which currently sits (if I'm reading this right) between about 81¢ and $1.74 (plus a weight charge), to—sitting down?—$14.00. That's roughly a 1000% increase. Madness, I tells ya.Found a link to the storyThis would be disastrous to the small

The Visit

2005-07-17T22:45:00.000-05:00

So my sister, her husband, and their two boys (aged five-years-less-a-week and two) came to visit this weekend. We had fun. We read, we played video games, we went down to the mall, etc etc. I got to break out my Lego and build some cool stuff. (I'm known as the Lego uncle; I still get the occasional set for Christmas or birthday gifts, and it's only recently that we've stopped giving the

Randoms

2005-07-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

I've got family coming to town this weekend, so to all my Constant Readers, don't fret if I don't post much. (Not that it'll be easy to tell, but I'm trying to get in a minimum of one post every other day.)Also, I have a friend with a wood stove and a truck who's willing to take my felled tree for firewood. Now I just have to cut it down small enough that I can lift it...Later!

Sometimes a screwdriver just ain't enough.

2005-07-14T17:04:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you really just want to disassemble the computer with a sledgehammer.A machine died at work today, and because it's a web-facing one, I got called about it. Looks like the motherboard is broken, but subtly broken; everything spins up, the keyboard lights flash, but there's nothing else, not even a POST beep, and the reset button doesn't do anything. Great. So I've put the drive into

My day

2005-07-12T21:49:00.000-05:00

Went to the bank today to finalize the loan we're getting to re-side the house. Likely some of the money will end up in the basement, too; we've got some mold in some of the drywall, and so that'll have to be rectified.Did some writing tonight while the laundry was running. There's a "Clichés in SF" special issue coming up of Subterranean Press, and I had an interesting idea today involving a

Mood: Not Thrilled

2005-07-12T00:31:00.000-05:00

Well, it rose up and bit me on the ass. I always hoped it wouldn't.I got a rejection letter from an online magazine today. I'd sent one of my short stories there. The rejection isn't the reason I'm a little upset, though; the reason* for the rejection is.Turns out that the editor reading my little tale, as what I assume is a matter of course, did a Google search on some relatively unique terms

Photos

2005-07-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

As promised...Click the photo to see the rest.

So here's the way it is

2005-07-08T22:17:00.000-05:00

In the town where I live, we normally get about 70mm (almost 3") of rain in the month of June. This June, according to Environment Canada, we got 280mm (about 11"), no lie. So the ground's already freakin' saturated.Last night, in a little more than two hours, we got (you sitting down?) another 71.2mm. So in, say, 150 minutes, we got thirty days' worth of precipitation. Flood city.

Water downstairs, redux

2005-07-08T07:10:00.000-05:00

I keep telling myself it could be worse, but when you see that sheen of water on the basement floor, you wonder how.Then you turn on the news and you see London getting bombed* and hurricanes hitting far poorer countries, and you go, "Oh."But we lost a tree last night. Pictures coming soon. (Like once they're developed. (Yes, I'm that primitive.))*No, not again. Not that I know of, anyway.

Inspiration

2005-07-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

London—If I have my time-zone calculations right, then as I lay ensconced and asleep in my comfortable bed, people were dying in London. By now this is news to no one, I'm sure.I don't know what to say. I just don't know.Here at home—I've been struck by the Inspiration Fairy (or maybe I should call her my muse, or maybe it's even Terry Pratchett's Inspiration Particles at work). Of all things,

Happy Canada Day

2005-07-01T14:38:00.000-05:00

And an early happy 4th to those of you stateside.

Things I can do in my basement

2005-06-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

Sprinkle rice seeds and develop a paddySet up a mosquito farmSet up a dragonfly farmGet some wee, twee waterskis, one of those tin-toy boats that run on baking soda and vinegar, and lay out a little waterski course for small insects (I could even put little Herb/Fishy/Gaspode, the betta fish, into the water as a shark hazard, and re-create the Jump the Shark moment from Happy Days)Sigh, put on

My wife's been calling me "Lex" lately.

2005-06-25T12:09:00.000-05:00

Not quite sure why.Any guesses? Anyone?

The latest from Earth Fleet

2005-06-18T19:33:00.000-05:00

From my NiP, hot off the presses*:Verne's death wasn't over yet. It would be days before all his systems failed, and even then the derelict would remain, kilotonnes of metal and plastic and vacuum-formed ceramic, hull plating and observation windows, sensory apparati and hundreds of kilometers of wire. Tanks full of silvery sand, short-range lasers, all of it gravitationally enslaved by RCS4481

That's a weight off

2005-06-12T00:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I finished the first draft of a long short story / short novella I've been working on for about five years, if not longer. It's probably the darkest thing I've written, and it clocks in at about 9,000 words.It's about the nature of resurrection, dog breeding, and some off-screen kinky-ass sex.Anyone that's interested in reading it, leave me a note.

Submission [Fimbulvetr–>Strange Horizons]

2005-06-08T22:18:00.000-05:00

Sent "Fimbulvetr" off to Strange Horizons today. Here's hoping (but not holding my breath)...Wish me luck!

Weather

2005-06-02T22:50:00.000-05:00

Ahem. Take a letter, please, Miss Maple."Dear Saskatchewan and North Dakota:Please keep your freakin' thunderstorms and hailstones to yourselves.Your friend,Pat"And now for something completely different.Sample from today's writing:They set up the projector in one of the chairs in the small conference room, balanced on the black leather seat. Antoni turned away while Cabrell punched his auth

First Draft

2005-05-27T20:47:00.001-05:00

Finally.Started my first draft today. My target is 1,000 words a day, 120,000 words total, but we'll see how that goes...1,000 words today, though. So that's good.Excerpt:The empty city by daylight was one thing, but at night it took on an added dimension, a new and wholly alien face, and it gave Cabrell an odd kind of spiritual vertigo, even though he was the mayor.Even in the daytime it

Slack writing day

2005-05-24T21:47:00.000-05:00

I should've done more, I know it. But I ended up blanking out in front of the tube, playing Crash Bandicoot. At least I wound up getting a couple gems.I did "flake out" a half-dozen more scene snippets, though. Sometimes it flows, and sometimes it stops, and hopefully it'll flow more tomorrow and tomorrow.

I have no idea either.

2005-05-20T09:50:00.000-05:00

I'd say "now I've seen everything", but every day on the Internet teaches me that you can never really say that and mean it: Crying While Eating.Seriously, Pom-Pom, I'm about to pee my pants. « A shiny new nickel* to whoever can tell me who said that._________________* And by "nickel" I mean "nothing". Sorry.

Saved!

2005-05-17T10:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I've got a new drive, and a co-worker was kind enough to take my old, dead hard drive home and extract all the data off of it. So I have my stories back, calloo, callay.Now to find out if there's still a warranty on the toasted drive, which is toasted so well that my co-worker couldn't even format it...

O Discordia!

2005-05-13T10:47:00.000-05:00

My computer crapped out last night. My hard drive no longer seems to recognize sector 0, which means it's non-bootable. I hold out hope that I can at least retrieve files off of it.It might still be on warranty, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.Fortunately, I have most of my writing on a USB memory stick. All but the last week or so.Still. Dammit.On the plus side, I have a spiffy new

On to the next one

2005-05-10T07:47:00.000-05:00

Submitted "Outside, Looking In" to Asimov's Science Fiction last night. I waffled a bit, but the guidelines said that "borderline fantasy" is ok. I think my story kind of squats on that borderline.Five weeks is their stated response-time guesstimate. So... June 13th-ish.Wish me luck!

An Early Draft

2005-05-06T11:37:00.000-05:00

For those that're interested, click the title to see the 13,000-ish word novella that I'm expanding into my "snowflake" novel Earth Fleet. The text at the link is about half the basis for Part I.It's very rough draft, and the ending really isn't what I wanted, and there's probably going to be some confusing parts, and I'm not really selling it very well, now am I? But if you want a sneak peek

Rejected again. Damn.

2005-04-25T13:10:00.000-05:00

From the rejection letter:Thank you for submitting "Outside, Looking In" to Strange Horizons, but we've decided not to accept it for publication. This is an intriguing and poetically written piece; we all liked it (I felt the story really hit its stride at the point when the protagonist showed up on Earth). But overall it didn't really hold together for us.At least they liked it enough to give