Words    Words    Words

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

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

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…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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“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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Check out my grandson!

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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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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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…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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Precision in language is vital for stuff.

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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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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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…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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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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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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Another place to talk about the book.

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A place to talk about the book.

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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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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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