In the comments to  <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/mass_market_genre_surprise.php">this article</a> on the recent explosion of supernatural romance novels, someone by the name of Stephen Couchman made the following observation:

I live in Portland, Oregon and recently overheard two Powell's employees discussing this phenomenon. One was explaining to his new-hire charge that "Supernatural Romance" is the largest growing, hottest selling category in fiction right now, a subgenre he described as "women committing every imaginable act of lust and perversion with vampires, werewolves, demons, Lovecraftian tentacled rape gods, basically anything you can imagine as long as it's not a normal human man." Selah.

Yeah. That.

snippy and I went to the beach today. She'd been feeling down lately so we needed to take her to the beach and plug her into the surf to recharge. I don't think I can overstate the mood-elevating effect of the ocean on her. Just seeing it makes her feel better; taking off her shoes and wading in the surf is even better. It's kinda the opposite of exposing Superman to Kryptonite.

It's a two hour drive each way, so we can make the trip there and back in a day with time to spend on the beach or in the little seaside town. We may try to make this at least a monthly event. Something we will try not to do is get a speeding ticket on the way there or back.

Like I did today. Oops. Racing along in the passing lane at, uh, a rate of speed in excess of the posted 55 mph, I zoomed around a curve and up a hill--and there, by the side of the road was a black police car. I tapped the brakes, but short of a tire-smoking, screeching application of the brakes (which would kinda give the show away in addition to being unsafe), it was too late. He turned on his lights before I passed. So I slowed down and pulled over.

Got the classic "Do you know how fast you were going?" question. I said, "Not exactly." So he told me. Yeah, that sounds about right. Handed over my license, registration, insurance card. He ran them. Came back and gave me my ticket. My insurance card was expired (I'm insured, but we apparently don't have the current card in the car), but I can mail proof of insurance to the court so that's not an issue. The fine is kinda steep, but again, since my driving record is good, I can probably get it reduced.)

snippy said she couldn't even get mad at me for this one. "I'd have been speeding too."

Oh well. It's only my second speeding ticket ever.

I made cornbread for dinner last night, and snippy made some black-eyed peas. It was a delicious dinner, thank you very much.

And now I can't wait to get home from work and scarf up a corn muffin or two with butter. Partly, that's because it'll be good. But a big part of it is that I'm hungry now. Alas, I'm fasting until 6 p.m. so I can't eat. Most days it's not too difficult. But today is not one of those days. I'm haunted by all the things I could eat if I were willing to break my fast. I keep thinking of how good cornbread and butter would taste.

But I won't give in. Dammit. I'm gonna stick it out. (Giving in means you eat, and then you're not hungry. But it's not like you won't be hungry again later, and you'll have failed to boot. Given in. Wussed out. Keeping that in mind helps.)

Mmmmm. Corn bread.

A pointer from Instapundit leads to a link here. It's the abstract of a paper regarding the use of nanotechnology to control the spin of a single electron within a carbon nanotube--an artificial atom, in effect--to replace a conventional semi-conductor transistor. Or in other words, it could function as magnetic memory in a computer.

It's the 21st century, people. We're living in the future. No, there's an appalling* lack of personal jetpacks and flying cars, but in many other ways the world is more futuristic than I ever imagined it would be back when I was a kid. I remember reading Engines of Creation many years ago (not as a kid, long after I was grown) and marveling at the idea of nanotechnology and how it migh revolutionize life on earth. I also remember reading a lot of things that poo-pooed the concept as pie-in-the-sky dreaming with no connection to reality.

And to be fair, a lot of thing written about nanotech no doubt were just that. It's not magic. It has limits, especially now at the beginning. But over the years lately I've seen more and more innovations seeping into my awareness, innovations based on the use of nanotech. No single huge breakthrough, but in dribs and drabs it's beginning to show up in different fields, showing amazing possibilities.

Very cool. I like living in the future.


*Or, you know, maybe not so much appalling as worthwhile. You know how bad many drivers are. Do you really want them flying over your city, or your house, or you?

Snagged from sophiedb:

Comment on this post and say YO BABY ! I WANT TO DO THAT INTEREST MEME or something like that. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

( Clicky clicky to read the awful truth... )

Baaa, baaa, baaa, here we go. Ganked from seawasp.

( Click here to read the awful, awful truth! )

Me have marshmallow brain.

I'm very tired. I worked all week despite still recovering from this nasty cold (my lovely and talented wife is a week ahead of me and she's still not entirely over it). I was up late last night, then got up early this morning to drive two hours down to Eugene with snippy to attend The Grandson's birthday party. We stopped at Oneson's place to pick up the proud parents and the grandkid to drive them to the pizza place where the party was being held.

It was...a party. Aside from immediate family I didn't know anyone there, though the maternal grandmother and a couple of other people looked vaguely familiar from earlier encounters. We ate pizza. We drank soft drinks. We cooed over the baby. Presents were unwrapped and displayed by the parents (The Grandson is only a year old, not yet old enough to have grasped the joy of unbridled greed). Cake--well, cupcakes, actually--were presented and distributed. The babies (Grandson had several peers present as well) engaged in the traditional rubbing cake and frosting over everything they could reach and even managed to eat a little of it. Lots of photos were taken.

Eventually all the children and their parents retired to the restaurant's playroom. Snippy and I remained in the reserved seating area to escape the noise (and the wearying presence of numerous strangers) and read for a while. We also rounded up the presents and moved them to the trunk of our car. Everyone returned eventually, and more cake and soda were consumed. The party broke up eventually and we drove the parents and child (and loot) back to their place.

Where we assembled our gift--a ride-on rocketship with buttons that light up and play entertaining recorded messages. (Fortunately, there are both volume control and on/off switches for the sound chips on the bottom of the vehicle.) Not that the kid had any interest in riding it--he much preferred playing with his toy cleaning kit* (mop, broom, dustpan & brush, soap dish, and cleaning supply bottles). Still, by the time we left he was having fun playing with the buttons on his rocketship...even if he still showed no interest in riding it.

snippy has been lusting after a Wii of her very own for over a year now. The kids have one, so we played with it for a while. Then Onesone found a local "for sale" listing on Craigslist (I believe) offering a Wii for $400. He called and offered $300. They settled on $350. So he and my lovely wife drove to a bank to get cash, then went and checked it out.

I stayed behind with the Grandkid and his mom. Grandson napped. I didn't nap, but I dozed--I was in no mood to go anywhere by then, except home. So I rested and waited for the Wii buying expedition to return so we could get the heck out of Dodge.

Oneson gave the Wii a thumbs up (it's in fine shape and everything works) so they bought it. As of tomorrow, when we set it up, Snippy will at last have her Wii.

The trip home was uneventful, though I was very glad to get here. Now I'm feeling braindead and tired. I look forward to SLEEP!

*His latest faddish interest is cleaning, so this was a great gift.

From a discussion on samizdata.net regarding crime in the United Kingdom. Specifically, the young woman who was kicked to death by hooligans trying to defend her boyfriend, who ended up in a coma but survived. One of commenters put the gist of the argument very succinctly:

Civilization is built on the blood and tears of barbarians.

The mark of a civilzation is it doesn't apologise for maintaining standards, nor for inflicting whatever pain is necessary.

My lovely and talented wife has commanded me to post. I am nothing if not obedient. And so:

1. I see that it has, in fact, been two weeks since I last posted something. Specifically, my open letter to Cthulhu. I must say I was disappointed not to get a single comment on that. I really thought somebody would say something. But nooooooooo!
2. I feel mostly recovered from the creeping crud, i.e., the nasty cold I caught from above-mentioned lovely and talented wife. I might have a relapse, I suppose, but at the moment it seems that it won't have knocked me on my butt as long as it did her. Not that I'm entirely over it. I've got a wicked cough still.
3. I am being exiled to the front bedroom. Apparently I coughed up a storm last night, including sitting up in bed and whooping. Which disturbed my lovely and talented wife repeatedly. The thing is, I have absolutely no memory of this. As far as I remember, I slept quite well and didn't cough at all. So it's the front bedroom for me now, at least for a couple of nights.
   
4. I got an upgrade at work. I am now working with the newest versions of Outlook and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Presentation) 2007. We'll see how it goes. They've reorganized the toolbars into "ribbons", so rather than drop down menus there is a line of tabs, each of which presents you with the options in an open array. Will it work better? Stay tuned.
5. Meanwhile, at home, I'm experimenting with Jungledisk, an on-line backup program that works with Linux, MS and Mac. I've backed up all my documents, pictures, spreadsheets and whatnot to Amazon's servers (they're the folks behind this). I have it set up to run overnight doing incremental updates if/when any of the files in the directories I've designated are changed. That's a heck of a lot more convenient than burning all those files to DVD periodically. (Which isn't to say that I won't still do that, though less often. Just. In. Case.)
6. There is no six.

Oh Mighty Old One,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you. I wish that I could spare you this (and spare myself the wrath that I am sure will follow), but in good conscience I simply cannot remain silent any longer. It would do me no credit and do you no good to continue to pretend to believe when I no longer do. The Truth is the truth, and the truth, it is said, will set you free--something I know you've aspired to for ages. For far longer, in fact, than you've aspired to be President.

And so we come to the crux of the matter. It's time to give up your Presidential aspirations. I urge you to quickly and publicly renounce any interest in the 2008 Presidential campaign--or any future campaigns.

I know, when you first threw your hat into the ring it seemed like such a terrific idea. Inspired, even. Your campaign slogan--"Why choose the lesser of two evils?"--was brilliant. It seemed inevitable that mankind, or at least Americans, would see the folly of their ways and vote you into office. We could skip the middleman and get right to global genocide.

And yet. And yet.

I can no longer remember when you first announced your candidacy. I still see bumper stickers supporting your campaign. I still see graphics on the internet as well, and references to your campaign--your slogan--in conversations in media of all kinds. But while your campaign slogan has clearly caught on with the public, it has failed to inspire them or to motivate them in any substantial way.

Quite the contrary, in fact. Your campaign has become--I almost fear to say this, but I must--your campaign has become something of a joke. You are dangerously close to becoming a perrennial Presidential loser, a lovable but ultimately foolish butt of jokes like Pat Paulsen or Ralph Nader. (Paulsen, to his credit, at least intended to be seen that way.) That is not what you want.

Some damage has already been done. There are humans even now who have the temerity to sell plush stuffed Cthulhu figures! They're mocking your awful majesty and profiting from it at the same time! I don't doubt that they will all suffer unspeakable tortures eventually, but...it's unseemly. And unnecessary. But your repeated and unsuccessful runs for the Presidency have contributed to a diminishing of mankind's proper awe and respect for you.

Please--drop out of the race. Devote your time and attention to rebuilding the aura of mystery, menace and terror that was once yours and, with time, can be again.

Your humble and obedient servant

It is teh insane! ( A collage supposedly representing what I've been posting about. )

Slept in this morning. Got up, called in sick to work, went back to bed. Dreamed.

Dreamed about SG-1 visiting a planet shortly before it was overrun by bad guys. They spent several months helping to organize a revolt. Oddly, throughout most of this dream I was simply an observer, I wasn't part of the story. When the moment came for the sudden revolt, suddenly I was part of the story. Even as the dream story was unfolding, I was thinking about nitpicks that bothered me.

Like how did the good guys manage to maintain (or acquire) all the weapons they had stashed around for the big revolt? Sloppy work on the part of the bad guys. Ditto for allowing them as much freedom as was clearly required to plan and organize this revolt without being noticed. I can't even enjoy a dream anymore without my internal critic pointing out logic problems with the story!

Anyhow. Lots of shooting and fighting all around. I captured a weapon from a dead bad guy. I was a little disappointed that it turned out to be a submachine gun instead of something cool like a blaster. Nonetheless it worked. I walked around doing headshots at the bad guys.

Including, I must point out, bad guys who lying on the ground already. Clearly I am a firm believer in the coup de grace. I don't want "dead" bad guys getting up and causing more trouble. A few people objected to my bloodthirsty approach, but I paid them no attention.

Then I ran into one of the senior bad guys by surprise. We looked at each other. I pointed my gun at his head and pulled the trigger. Click. He tried to draw his gun, so I grappled with him. I remember thinking, "This is why Cassandra* uses a sword! Swords. Don't. Jam!"

Not to worry, I killed him real good.

*A character I write in a game who uses--surprise--a sword! Also a gun if she can get one. But still....

Smallville really earned it's household nickname (Stupidville) tonight.

( Yea, verily, there be spoilers below! )

• 08:02 Standing in line for donuts.
• 08:07 Bought two donuts. Sales clerk very cute.
  
• 08:14 Donuts were delicious! Wish I'd bought more.
• 08:32 Now at work. *sigh*
• 10:34 Break time! Reading She-Hulk trade paperback. Mountain Dew & Cheetos. Yum!
  
• 10:48 Back at work. Oops. Don't tell anyone.
• 11:04 Have to have a boring meeting. Boring manager Rob.*
• 11:11 Rob says my code isn't functional or elegant. What do I think?*
• 11:13 I think maybe Rob wants to write goddamn log-in page himself.*
• 11:14 I don't say it out loud. I'm proud. Not stupid.*
• 11:47 Damn. Maybe Rob's right. This is crap.
• 12:31 Anybody up for dim sum?
• 12:44 Holy shit! Sirens everywhere.
• 12:44 Gunshots! Running now.
• 12:46 Police yelling at guy thru a loudspeaker. Very Dog Day Afternoon.
• 12:51 More shooting.
• 12:52 OMG! I'm shot! I'm fucking shot!
• 12:52 Bad guy did grisly dance of death. Talk about hail of bullets.
• 12:55 Shit, I'm bleeding bad.
• 12:57 No. Really. Blood all over keypad.
• 13:01 Whoa. Dizzy now. Big crowd
• 13:02 So cold
• 23:23 Nauseous from anesthesia.  Drugs good. No pain. Cute nurse.
  

*With apologies to Jonathan Coulton, Code Monkey.

So last night I had my second yoga class. I'd intended to go to a second class on Sunday morning, but...well, I dint. This week, I hope.

Anyhow, the class was similar but different. By which I mean we did a lot of the same routines, but there were some new ones as well. Yoga is more work than I expected. ("Duh!" says my lovely and talented wife, snippy, when I mention this little revelation.) I always thought of yoga as stretching or balance practices. Which it is. But holding a lot of those poses takes effort. I'm enjoying it, though. I end up warm and sweaty by the end--and with my muscles relaxed.

I signed up for a "new student" introductory deal. Three classes for $21. The third class will be Sunday or next Tuesday. Then I'll have to pay the regular rate. Yoga classes aren't hideously expensive, but they're spendier than I thought when I first got the idea to take some lessons. I also want to try some other classes to see which ones I like best. They'll be starting a new round of Hatha 1 & 2 on Monday evenings at the end of March and I think I'll try that one.

After two classes I can now say with certainty that some poses are easier than I expected, and some are more difficult. But only one makes me go "Ow!" That would be the one where you lie on your side in a curled up fetal position. (No, smartass, that doesn't hurt.) What hurts is when I put my hand down on the floor and push up to sit up. That makes the muscles in my lower back and along my spine there sit up and take notice. Lying flat on my back and just sitting up doesn't bother me--it's that twisting motion that does.

Clearly I need to work on strength and flexibility in that area. I think I'm going to have to start doing a little yoga here at home between classes, especially if I only get to a class once a week. I don't really think I know the forms well enough to do them correctly on my own yet--but a week is too long between sessions. Though I'm pleasantly loose at the end of the class, a week later I feel tight as a drum again.

...I'm back. We took a break for my lovely and talented wife to show me a simple side to side stretch. Holy Jeez! I feel like the Tin Man in Oz. ("Give...me...oil...") But it's something I can do early and often, to maybe keep myself a little more limber. I'll be careful not to overdo it (Kami), but working on this sort of thing is exactly why I decided to take up yoga.

A recent addition to my Tivo season pass list is Shockwave, a show about disasters and accidents and whatnot caught on tape. Like all such shows, it's short on actual footage and long on endless looping replays of the video clips with lots of overwrought narration. What I like about it, though, is that they also use computer graphics to go into the details of how the events happened, and how the individuals involved survived these seemingly lethal incidents.

( A story that sounds like the plot of a comic book. )

More than a month after deciding to start taking yoga classes*, I finally had my first one last night. I attended a "Yoga for Body Acceptance" class at Yoga Shala. It's a class for, well, let me just quote the class description:

This gentle yoga class can help you reclaim your health and well-being by increasing body awareness and promoting self acceptance. A supportive environment is created for students to use props and adapt poses to safely explore yoga. Students are encouraged to move at their own pace and to honor their body’s needs. All levels are welcome.

( Did I shatter like fine crystal? Click here to find out! )

So a couple of months or more ago, I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on my computer. I tried to upgrade from 10.1 to 10.3 but I had a bad install file* so I ended up with a hosed system. I reinstalled 10.1, downloaded the 10.3 install file again, made sure the checksums matched this time, and installed 10.3. I installed it because by all accounts 10.3 was much better than 10.1 or 10.2.

And for the most part it is. It's more stable, cleaner, easier to update, boots faster--everything they said about it. Only one problem. OpenOffice crashes whenever I try to launch it. As does the screensaver. There's some kind of bug in KDE that causes these applications (and probably others I don't use) to crash when you try to launch them.

I googled for information and discovered that others reported the same issue. They even pointed out the suspect--a single file that requires a different file extension on another file it calls. Supposedly you can edit the file to make that change, but damned if I've been able to make it work.

So I've given up. 10.4 is supposed to be coming out in a few months, so I'll upgrade to that eventually and see if it works like it should with OpenOffice. In the mean time I've had to find another word processor for my writing. I started with Kword (part of Koffice). It's not a bad program otherwise but...when you have more than a few thousand words saved in a file, the program slows to a crawl. You find it adding a single character per second (or two). UNACCEPTABLE.

I recently installed Abiword. And so far it works great. When I open my January 2008.odt file (wherein I was trying to write 1000 words a day this month), it does not slow to a crawl. It will keep up with me as I blaze along in my writing. Yay!

So. To sum up: Kword, not so good. Abiword, good.

That is all.



*It was my own fault. I thought I had checked the MD5 but apparently I was mistaken. The file was bad. So trying to install it was a complete botch.

Gakked from killabeez, the meme consists of a single question: So, if your characters wrote fanfic, what would they write?

Well, canonically (in my canon, at least) Xavier St. Cloud would write romance novels. Best-selling romance novels. Under the nom du plume of Robin Masters. Yes, the never-seen Robin Masters on Magnum, PI was none other than Xavier St. Cloud. Why did he do it? Because it amused him.

Michelle Webster** writes Magnificent 7 fic because she loves her some slashy fic, she does. Also the occasional slashy LOTR action between, well, all the guys at one point or another. Plus occasional forays into the Buffy/Angel universe, where she can write both slash and femslash, 'cause girls need slashy loving too.

Benny Carbassa*** writes Marty Stu X-Files fic with himself in the Fox Mulder role. Ditto for 24, Supernatural (in which he plays the "Bob" part, saving the two youngsters from their own foolishness).

Ashley J. "Ash" Williams writes "... vs the Deadites" stories in every fandom he's even passingly familiar with. They aren't Marty Stu stories, but the protagonists have an alarming tendency to speak and act as Ash himself would, regardless of their usual personalities. Only the women respond to them as Ash wishes they would instead of the way they usually do.

Georgia Lass writes exceptionally readable Highlander, Supernatural, BSG and LOST fanfic. Also Jane Austen pastiches. All very thoroughly researched and painstakingly written in complete secrecy and posted anonymously to various archive sites. She loves reading good reviews and comments, but sulks for days when she gets the rare bad one.

Chloe Sullivan writes Marvel Universe**** fanfic, focusing particularly on Spider-Man and Mary Jane. She is royally pissed off by One More Day, which has retconned her Mary Jane's marriage to Clark Peter Parker out of existence.

*From Highlander
**Also from Highlander, though she only appeared once.
***Ditto. What's that? Why yes, I do like taking minor characters from established fandoms and running with them.
****Well, she lives in the DC Universe, so that's the only option.

I've been tagged in a blog game by Kami, aspiring novelist. I will discharge my new duty to the best of my ability.

The rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.

• Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.

• Post the rules on your blog.

• Share the seven (7) most famous or infamous people you have met. Or go with the original 7 weird things about yourself. Or with Sandra's change and list your 7 favorite writing websites. Lots of choices!

• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post.

• Include links to their blogs.

• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

Hmmm. Seven most famous or infamous people I've met? Most of them are people that the people I hang out with would recognize, but not necessarily anyone who doesn't read science fiction. They're only celebrities in a very limited circle.

1. Larry Niven. SF writer. I've met him at Orycon.
2. Steve Barnes, another SF writer (and collaborator with Larry Niven in the past). Also Orycon.
3. Steve Perry,  (local) SF writer. Orycon.
4. Barbara Hambly. I asked her once how she came to write Ishmael, a Star Trek/Here Come the Brides crossover novel. She declined to tell me, saying it was "personal."
5. Gardner Dozois, long-time editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.
6. Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi on ST:TNG) at Worldcon in 2006.
7. Vincent Price, many years ago. I attended a one-man show he did at the Ford Theatre in Washington, D.C. with some college friends who lived in the area. Afterward we met him at the stage door and got his autograph. He was a very charming man.
   

My seven victims. Let me think. I choose you fikgirl , weirdweb , starborn_scribe , ithildyn , kickair8p , sophiedb and jedibuttercup.

Godzilla was pretty clearly a metaphor for America, don't you think? A giant, nuclear-powered monster which came from the Pacific to rain destruction on Japan. An unstoppable juggernaut against which the entire Japanese military was helpless. It crushed people, tanks, warplanes, warships and cities alike, and literally rained nuclear fire on them.

And yet, eventually, Godzilla came to be Japan's friend and ally. Its protector. It defended Japan from other members of the nuclear club the monster brigade, monsters which were still hostile to Japan. Godzilla, which could not be defeated by all of Japan's military might was tamed by friendship.

Is Cloverfield a metaphor? I don't know. Looking back, the metaphorical nature of Godzilla seems pretty clear to me. Was it obvious at the time? I dunno. But Cloverfield is a pretty darn good monster movie. I went to the 10:30 showing last night on a sudden whim. I'd have waited to go with snippy but I'm sure she wouldn't want to see it. The "shaky cam" thing would undoubtedly make her ill--I occasionally wound up watching the corner of the movie screen when it was particularly bad. (I agree with the reviewers on Ebert & Roeper--future film-makers who want to use the "amateur video" motif should  keep in mind that people have been using videocams for a long time now. They've largely learned to avoid the worst of the shaky-cam jitter by now. Don't overdo it.)

Does Cloverfield make light of, or play on, the events of 9/11, as I've heard it suggested?

No. Film makers have always tried to make their special effects as realistic as possible (at least, given the constraints of time and money). Independence Day also showed us New York City being destroyed, but it was released in 1996. We saw buildings exploding, crowds running for their lives. But not the immense clouds of dust billowing down the streets and engulfing everyone and everything, nor the flying debris. Cloverfield shows us that, not to play on the memories of 9/11 (in my opinion) but because 9/11 showed us what it really looks like when high rise buildings collapse. The latter film was made more realistic by incorporating those real world consequences into the special effects.

Cloverfield also put us squarely in the shoes of people on the ground during a giant monster attack, which is the main thing that makes it stand out. We don't get an omniscient viewer's understanding of events. We don't get to see where and how the monster came to be. We don't get hear what scientists, generals and Presidents are told, what they theorize, what they're planning. We simply find ourselves watching ordinary people reacting to an impossible, horrific situation as "something terrible"* attacks the city.

We follow the adventures of Rob, Jason, Beth, Lily, Marlena and Hud. They're all at a going-away part for Rob, who is about to travel to Japan to take up a new job. During the party the power goes out briefly and the building shudders. They learn from the television that an oil tanker has capsized in the harbor, which isn't far away. The party crowd goes up to the roof to see if they can see anything. They're there when the oil tanker explodes (the immense fireball we see in the trailers), and thus starts the worst night of their lives.

( Here there be spoilers. Beware! )