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The Dream Café Weblog

Entries from July 2008

Loiosh is with me

July 31st, 2008 · 47 Comments

The first time I walked into Poking You Tattoo, about three years ago, I was impressed with how clean it was. Today that was reinforced. While I should be raving about the skill of the artist, Derek (and he really is an exceptional artist and easy to work with), the thing that blew [...]

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Tags: Steve

Book Update

July 31st, 2008 · 26 Comments

I really like to plow straight through the first draft, however often the plot suddenly turns on itself and surprises me, figuring to fix it in the rewrite.  Sometimes, however, there are just too many unexpected changes, and I have to stop and get things in line before I got on.
Iorich just did that, around [...]

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Tags: Books · Steve · Writing

We have a winner!

July 27th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Matthew Klahn was the 17th entry.  Thank you to all who offered.
(Now I have to read the thing, and I hope get some of the answers I need for the my next project).

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Tags: Books · Steve

Contest Redux

July 27th, 2008 · 6 Comments

Just wanted to mention that I still haven’t gotten 17 emails.  A signed personalized copy of Jhegaala will go to the 17th person who offers to send me a copy of Colin Turnbull’s The Forest People.
 

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Tags: Books · Steve

Chords Wanted: “Spoon River”

July 25th, 2008 · 14 Comments

Google fails to turn up the chord progression for “Spoon River” by Michael Smith.  Does anyone reading this know it?

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Tags: Music · Steve

Brust’s Law of Mathematical Formulations

July 25th, 2008 · 29 Comments

The probability of someone making a mathematical formulation on a non-mathematical subject is inversely proportional to its usefulness.

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Tags: Logic · Steve

New song lyrics, waiting for a setting.

July 21st, 2008 · 18 Comments

…or some other song it can be sung to. Anyway, *ahem* here’s my latest chart-buster:
My TV is on the food channel
Looking for new things to eat.
But when that music starts
It goes straight to my heart
Which stirs, shakes, and then skips a beat.
The palms of my hands become moist
I reach for fresh pepper to grate
I [...]

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Tags: Music · Steve

Just felt like quoting…

July 21st, 2008 · 32 Comments

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed,–that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor.  Hence . . . labor is the superior–greatly superior–of capital.” — Abraham Lincoln

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Tags: Politics · Steve

In more important news….

July 19th, 2008 · 12 Comments

Check out my grandson!

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Tags: Family · Steve

Contest

July 19th, 2008 · 23 Comments

I’m running a small contest here. Two prizes, both of them signed and personalized copies of Jhegaala (now that I have my copies).
One copy will go to the seventeenth person (only one entry per person) to email me offering to send me a copy of The Forest People by Colin Turnbull. I [...]

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Tags: Books · Steve

Any medical types out there?

July 19th, 2008 · 21 Comments

The one weakness in the Mexican Healthcare Experience was the aftercare was a bit sketchy. Should I be using ice to reduce the swelling where the stitches are?

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Tags: Health · Steve

In other news…

July 19th, 2008 · 17 Comments

…that Steve is too shy to tell you about himself — Jhegaala’s first printing has already sold out and gone to reprints.
p.s. Watch Dr. Horrible today. Tell your friends.
Correction: PNH very nicely wrote to me to say that what has happened is that actually orders from bookstores exceeded the initial amount printed, and Jhegaala has [...]

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Tags: Books · Steve

And your language skills fail and negativity just won’t pull you through.

July 19th, 2008 · 4 Comments

Doctor Natera came by, I think around 9PM. He’d been delayed by a sudden inrush of patients, I think at the other clinic, where he treats those who can’t afford the services of “Star Medica.” He asked if I was in pain, and we had the “little pain?” conversation. He convinced me [...]

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Tags: Health · Steve · travel

…and it’s surgery time, too.

July 19th, 2008 · 4 Comments

I think it was around 11:30 or 11:45 at that point.  The anesthesiologist explained that he was going to give me a tranquilizer (or did he say sedative?  I can’t remember), then numb me from the waist down.  I swallowed and nodded, mostly thinking at that moment of long, long needles inserted into me in [...]

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Tags: Health · Steve · travel

When you’re lost in the rain in Jaurez . . .

July 19th, 2008 · 3 Comments

As Reesa said, the couple who picked us up to drive us from El Paso to Jaurez were exceptionally nice.  Up until then my arrangements with the medical group (medicaltourismco.com) had been very professional in feel; but this felt personal and family-like; in part because of the child car-chair in the back seat.  I suppose [...]

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Tags: Health · Steve · travel

Further Border Adventures

July 17th, 2008 · 16 Comments

Your first time or two visiting somewhere else, it’s hard to avoid comparing it to what you know at home. With some expected naysayers bleating about this medical venture of ours (usually quite racist in their tone), we’ve definitely been alert to perceiving the differences as well as the similarities to American culture in [...]

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Tags: Health · Reesa · Steve · travel

Across the Border Adventuring

July 16th, 2008 · 6 Comments

Too many roadtrips, too little sleep. Our reserves haven’t recharged so what we think will be 10 hours straight through divided between two reasonably well-rested drivers becomes a struggle for both to keep eyes open throughout the night.
 
We pulled over at a couple of points last night to doze for a few minutes, but [...]

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Tags: Health · Reesa · Steve · travel

Off to Mexico

July 15th, 2008 · 38 Comments

So, it all started with a standard STD check, when the doctor said, “How long have you had that hernia?” Never at a loss for words, I instantly shot back, “That what?” “Hernia,” he said, apparently unphased by my wit. “That’s a hernia.”
This was, you understand, two days before I left for [...]

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Tags: Health · Reesa · Steve · travel

Kit’s poem, “The Green Lady,” to be published by Aberrant Dreams

July 14th, 2008 · 3 Comments

My poem, “The Green Lady,” will be published by Aberrant Dreams in 2008. It is great to work with AD again, and I am very pleased they liked this poem.
My review of Stephen Jones’ H.P. Lovecraft in Britain: A Monograph was also recently published by the SF Site.

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Tags: Writing

Thought For The Day

July 13th, 2008 · 13 Comments

Precision in language is vital for stuff.

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Tags: Steve · Writing

Thanks to Txanne…

July 12th, 2008 · 6 Comments

I now have a copy of Jhegaala.  The cover is lovely, and the graphic representation of the Cycle came out great.  My thanks to Steve Hickman, Silver Croft, and Tor production.
The copy is signed.  The person to whom I signed it Knows Who He Is.  Now I just need his address and I can send [...]

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Tags: Books · Steve

Jackson and Obama

July 12th, 2008 · 6 Comments

This concerns the bruhaha over Jessie Jackson’s recent remark concerning Obama that he’d like to “cut his nuts off.”  The entire article can be found here.  I just wanted to quote a paragraph I especially enjoyed:
“The broadcast of the remark, which was not intended for public consumption, could have been dealt with quite easily by [...]

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Tags: Politics · Steve

In Which The Writer Breaks His Arm…

July 11th, 2008 · 7 Comments

…patting himself on the back. Jon Lincicum, on the Dragaera listserve, said this:
“I am convinced that if Steve had written the Bible, it would not contain the words ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’, and while Moses might get mentioned, he would only ever appear offstage.”
Heh heh heh

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Tags: Books · Steve · Writing

While the stomach turns

July 9th, 2008 · 8 Comments

Okay, check this out:
Toby Buckell: You go, dude!
The sort of blatant, obnoxious racism displayed by the editor of Helix makes me, as Bear says, ashamed for my genre.  Hypocrisy would be an improvement, because at least it would indicate some degree of embarrassment for attitudes and beliefs that no one today should be able to [...]

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Tags: Books · Politics · Steve

Another Koan

July 9th, 2008 · 4 Comments

One day a broilerman said to Alton Brown, “How can I find true love?”  And Alton Brown said, “Do not fear the salt.”  Thus the broilerman achieved enlightenment.

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Tags: Food · Steve

Jhegaala – Spoilers

July 6th, 2008 · 126 Comments

Another place to talk about the book.

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Tags: Book Discussions · Books · Steve

Jhegaala – No Spoilers

July 6th, 2008 · 63 Comments

A place to talk about the book.

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Tags: Book Discussions · Books · Steve

Catwaxing profit: Notes from 4th Street Friday panel 1

July 4th, 2008 · 3 Comments

My fellow members of the Society of Voluptuaries who were with me at the con type much faster than I do, so they took on the task of attempting to transcribe the panels. Which they should be finishing up for sharing any day now. (Hint, hint.) My job was to write down [...]

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Tags: Conventions · Reesa

Shadow Unit Reruns

July 1st, 2008 · 11 Comments

I’ve been watching the reruns, and among the things I didn’t notice the first time around is the episode where Worth shows up with a cast on her arm, and there’s no explanation for it, and nothing ever happens with it and no one comments on it.  Is it a clever bit of backstory, or [...]

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Tags: Friends · Media · Steve

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