The Book Inventory...

We plan to have professional movers handle most of our move. We're getting old, our friends are getting old, et.c. So, starting this week, I have companies coming out to give us an estimate.

We collect books. I estimate we have somewhere around 15,000 books and another 2,000 magazines. We haven't done a real inventory in a while, but I have spent part of the last few days inventorying the bookcases.

I found we have 69 bookcases, and about another 10 random book shelves over doors and the like (book collectors understand the need to use as much space as possible!). To complicate this slightly, we also have one large built-in bookcase and one small built-in one, so we have to account for the stuff in them, and remember to buy/build that many more bookcases when we move. We will probably be getting rid of some of the books at an upcoming yard sale, but I don't expect we'll get rid of all that many.

We have at least 890 shelf feet of books and magazines.

But wait, there's more.

Jim has already packed about 30 boxes of books, magazines and misc. papers. So that means, you guessed it, building/buying even more bookscases so we can put everything out again.

Jim builds nice, study bookcases, and we plan to build a few between the time we close on the house and the time we move in a few days later. The house has modern heating and cooling, so while we won't have to worry about radiators, we will have to worry about floor vents and having many more electical outlets than we're used to.

But, it will be nice to be in a house big enough to display the collection without everything being so cluttered.

We Bought a New House!

Tonight, we bought our brand new house in the country. It's a neat, large house and it has woods. It's out past the airport, but it's only a half hour to downtown Pittsburgh.

We definitely will not be at Codclave.

We'll probably be at Midwestcon, but maybe just for Saturday night.

We'll be at Confluence, but we might have to commute.

We expect to be at LAcon, but will probably skip the post-con trip to wine country.

We'll be closing in just over six weeks and will probably move sometime in May.

If anyone's looking for an inexpensive, conveniently-located home in Mount Lebanon, drop me a line.

I Really HATE to be Sold to...

Jim and I are considering buying a new house (details when we know something for sure). The problem with buying a new house (or anything that's at all expensive) is dealing with "sales representatives."

Now, most of the real estate agents/builder's reps I've spoken to over the last couple of months have been pretty nice. Until recently, I've always stressed that we're "just looking." We didn't get really serious until recently. So far, I have no real complaints.

However, I can say without a doubt that when we do go to get a mortgage it will not be from one particular mortgage company. I'd rather not mention names, in case it turns out this guy is something of a loose cannon. But we put our potential mortgage information in through LendingTree.com. While the builder we're likely to buy a house from has a mortgage plan, we feel it's in our best interest to comparison shop (and, so far, the builder's plan is coming in cheapest anyway).

So we got a bunch of offers from Lending Tree. We even had one guy call, so I called him back as the rate he quoted was comparable to our builder. We talked for about five minutes. I stressed we were only looking for a 15 or 20 year mortgage, and we wanted the loweest rate we could qualify for.

And then he said something like, "There's really no problem with paying more interest..."

And then I said, "If that's the way you feel, then we really can't work together," and I hung up.

Now, granted, that's kind of abrupt and rude on my part, and I don't apologize for that at all. I said what I wanted - I wanted to pay as little interest as I could. I was very specific. We have a good credit rating and we'll be making a good-sized downpayment. We don't need to play the "Gee, what if I don't qualify?" game. I know we will qualify.

So the guy called back, and I said, specfically, "Do Not Call Back." And then I hung up.

The bottom line is, you cannot sell me. If you try to sell me, you will lose me as a potential customer.

And this is the bad thing about buying a piece of property. I know the selling thing will only be worse in the future. At least once we do commit ourselves to a piece of property, I can say, "We have no money to buy anything."

Oscar and Life Notes

I haven't been writing much online lately for two important reasons:

* I'm really, really close to finishing my novel
* Jim and I have seriously looking for a new house

So these two priorities are taking over everything else for the time being. But I promise I will be ready for next weekend's Confluence Brainstorming at the PARSEC meeting.

My other typical priority for this time of year is to write a little essay on the Oscars and make predictions. I will watch the Oscars tonight, and here are my predictions for the evening:

Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Actress: Reese Witherspoon
Supporting Actor: George Clooney (but don't count Jake Gyllenhaal out!)
Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz
Animated Feature: Corpse Bride
Art Direction: King Kong
Cinemetography: New World
Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Directing: Ang Lee
Documentary Feature: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Documentary Short: The Mushroom Club
Film Editing: Constant Gardener
Foreign Language: Joyeux Noël
Make-up: Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Music: Memoirs of a Geisha
Song: Traveling' Through
Picture: Good Night and Good Luck
Short Film Animated: Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Short Film Live Action: The Six Shooter
Sound Editing: War of the Worlds
Sound Mixing: King Kong
Visual Effects: King Kong
Adapted Screenplay: (this may be the hardest category...) Brokeback Mountain
Original Screenplay: Good Night and Gook Luck

While movies, on the whole, weren't so hot last year, some were, as usual, exceptional. Brokeback Mountain was such a mornful, spare movie, and Jake Gyllenhaal's superb performance was generally ignored (except by the BAFTAs). History of Violence was a real grabber, and given that Cronenberg, Mortensen and Bello were ignored for their excellent work, the movie could wind up with best Adapted Screenplay. But I do think George Clooney will win at least one Oscar tonight, and if he looses Supporting Actor, he'll probably take Original Screenplay.

Pittsburgh Girly Blogger Lunch

Christina recently called for another in an erratic series of Girly Blogger Lunches. I noted that the day she planned it for was Mardi Gras. And thus, a theme was born. Anne and I both brought beads, and we were generally a little sillier than usual.

Bloggers represented included Vanessa, me, Susie, Christina, and Anne, and Cynthia via cell phone.

The blog lunch was fun!

The job I got back in January did not work out so I quit. My unemployment happened at a good time for an important reason. Within a week of being unemployed, I started writing again and am pretty close to finishing the novel. I first wrote a chapter that I've since gone back and dumped, but it at least got me writing again. I'm finally within about 15,000 words of finishing!

James Madison Predicts George W. Bush 206 Years Early...

I've been doing some research on James Madison over the last year or so. Why? Well, other than an interest in history, I'm writing a novel. A subplot of the novel involves making a movie about James Madison (by people who believe in historical accuracy).

In doing some Web research, I found the following quite fascinating quote:

Just as important to his countrymen, Madison had not used the occasion of war to expand executive power or to create a vast patronage machine. “Of all enemies to public liberty,” Madison himself had written in 1795, “war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded…” As “the parent of armies,” of course, war encouraged “debts and taxes,” which republicans recognized as “the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” But as Madison so powerfully argued, the danger was especially acute in relation to a particular branch of the government. “In war, too,” he added, “the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.” War always nourished the potential for corruption…

So everything that Madison wrote in this quote was written in 1795.

And when did the writer quote Madison?

At some point before 1989. The quote is from The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy, written by Drew R. McCoy and published in 1989.

Fascinating how a former president in 1795 and a historian in 1989 predicted the behavior of Bush and the neo-cons...in 2001....

Thanks to Amazon for its "Look Inside" program, otherwise I might never have found this quote.

Boskone 43 At-Con Registration Report

Preliminary Registration Statistics

618	Prereg/Program/Guests
174	Full-at-the-door
34	Friday
192	Saturday
61	Sunday
10	Special
5	Kid-in-tow
1094	Warm body count
195	Prereg/Program not picked up
1289	Total Registration

We also sold at least 10 Boskone 44 memberships, and probably a few more.


Many thanks to: Dave Grubbs and Ann Broomhead for pre-con assistance
Kim Williams
Judson Lohr
Carol Downing
Rachel Downing
Leslie Turek
Alexis Layton
Peggy Rae Sapienza
Woody Bernardi
Irene Harrison
Richard L. Schmeidler
for working at the con

The badges looked great!

Issues:

I needed to have been a little more on-the-ball about "training" because I thought the forms were self-evident and, apparently, they weren't. I didn't realize until Sunday that one or two clerks weren't filling them out properly.

Treasury and at-con-registration should review the form together
before they are printed. Someone thought that we shouldn't have been selling B44 memberships, but the form did have a field for selling them, so I did.

I should have recruited more people for Sunday morning. Luckily, both Peggy Rae Sapienza and Leslie Turek stopped by. (Thanks!!!)

What "Sci Fi" Crew Are You?

IMDB linked to this quiz today. Even though the quiz did two things I disliked (uses that archaic term "sci fi" and throws a pop-up ad on your computer), it was one of the more interesting, detailed "junk" quizzes I've ever taken. Also, I particularly enjoy the results:

You scored as Serenity (Firefly).

You like to live your own way and don't enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you.

Serenity (Firefly)		88%
Moya (Farscape)		75%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)		69%
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)		69%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)		63%
SG-1 (Stargate)		63%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)		50%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)		50%
Enterprise D (Star Trek)		50%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)		44%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)		31%
FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)		25%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

[[Note: To make this appear properly in a narrow Weblog column, be sure to
delete the outer table from the auto-formatting, otherwise...well, try it and see.]]


I hope I'll be coherent when I see some of you later today - due to my bronchitis, I've had a miserable few nights sleeping. Since the "Dayquil"-like drugs have done the best job at suppressing my cough and nasal congestion during the day, I risked taking a dose of it at bed time (for whatever reason, a "Nyquil"-like drug failed to work three nights running). Well, I'm pretty sure there is some sort of stimulant in it, because even though I was down to one coughing attack overnight and my congestion was better, I only slept about two hours...

Into Writers Block/Out of Writers Block

I never know when I'm going to be in it out out of it. It's maddeningly random.

Except for a few short scenes and some word-changes here and there, I pretty much stopped making forward progress on my novel just before Worldcon of last year. Oh, I'd have days where it seemed like things were happening, but nothing much ever did.

I started doing some restructuring about a month ago, and liked what I saw. I've done more, and while I've thrown out about 10,000 words over the last two weeks, I've written about 15,000. And that "third act" (of a "four act") work that's been giving me nothing but headaches for over six months is finally falling into place.

I've also been sick now for nearly a week, with bronchitis (again) and I'm not sleeping. So the fact that I'm making any progress with anything right now is heartening, to say the least.

I even queried my second agent. I got turned down by one a while ago, decided to get more finished before querying again.

Congratulations Steelers!!

Well, I'm not a big gung-ho sports person, but it was fun to see the Steelers win the Superbowl today. Glad to see both Hines Ward and Jerome Bettis have pretty good games. And congratulations to Hines Ward on his MVP!!!!

I've always been a fan of Bill Cowher, the only professional coach I've ever seen sit in a bookstore and read an actual book... ;->

The one bad thing about being in Pittsburgh tonight is I have a bad feeling a lot of people will get in their cars and start driving around and honking...

Finally, one for the thumb!!

Oscar Nomination Thoughts

Well, it's kind of an interesting Oscar year. While last year was generally a weak movie year, there were some fine movies out.

The biggest Oscar omissions for me were Constant Gardener and History of Violence. Both were strong, fascinating movies, in a genre ("thriller") that I normally don't much like. While I'm happy for Rachel Weisz, Ralph Feinnes gave a brilliant performance in Constant Gardener. I've always had mixed feelings about David Cronenberg as a director, but History of Violence was such a well-constructed movie, I was hoping it would get a little more notice. Both Maria Bello and Viggo Mortensen were incredible. Keira Knightley probably got an Oscar nomination for being a better actress than people expected in Pride and Prejudice, but as far as I'm concerned, she took Maria Bello's spot. William Hurt, who gave a small and over-the-top performance, did get a supporting actor nomination for History of Violence.

I adored four of the "top movies" of last year - Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck and Walk the Line.

This will probably be a "catchup" year - Ang Lee has been owed a directing Oscar for a while and will probably win for the fine Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback is a painful, austere little movie, and Lee has shown himself to be the master of fine photography with repressed characters.

I'd like to see Reese Witherspoon win for actress as she really energized Walk the Line. Amazing to think she didn't believe she could sing and had to be convinced by director James Mangold that she should. I liked Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line, but I do think Philip Seymour Hoffman deserves the award for Capote. Nothing against Heath Ledger, but he seems so laconic in real life that he's really not too far divorced from Ennis.

George Clooney will probably wind up winning for Best Supporting Actor because he got so many other nominations and is very unlikely to win for screenplay or direction. Supporting Actress category is tricky. I liked Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain, but Catherine Keener plays so far against type as Harper Lee in Capote that I'd like to see her win.

The biggest "surprise" nomination for me was for Woody Allen's Match Point script. It was a good script but not a great script; his Crimes and Misdemoners was a much better interpretation of many of the same themes.

William Tenn Event - Saturday, January 28, 7:30pm, 937 Liberty Ave

Benefit for the Production of a Documentary Film on William Tenn
Malacandra Productions
presents

An evening to benefit production
of the documentary film
William Tenn: a Writer's Life

The story of a legendary American social satirist
and icon of science fiction's golden age.

Performances will include:

A live reading by
Pittsburgh's own
William Tenn

A reading of
Tenn's short masterwork
"Bernie the Faust"
by members of
The Parallax Second Players

January 28th, 2006

Reception: 7:30 PM
meet William Tenn (Phil Klass)
refreshments will be served
Performance and reading: 8:00 PM

937 Liberty Avenue, downtown Pittsburgh

Admission: $15

Reservations: (412) 281- 8723 Ext. 24

Malacandra Productions presents
"William Tenn: a Writer's Life" written and directed by David Brody
produced by David Brody, Laurie D. T. Mann and John Regis


Complete flyer

More Red State Family Values - Censoring Brokeback Mountain at a Utah Multiplex

I'd really like to see Brokeback Mountain, a movie that has yet to reach Pittsburgh for some reason or another. Interestingly, it's hit states like Utah before it hit Western Pennsylvania.

Well, it hit parts of Utah, except for at least one suburb of Salt Lake City. Y'seen the ever-alert manager of the Megaplex 17 at Jordan Commons in Sandy, Utah decided at the last possible minute to not play the movie. This was after he signed a contract saying that he would play it.

Naturally, this marketing whiz did not say why he chose to not play an award-winning movie. While he had no comment, AP/CNN quoted a local activist group:

Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said not showing the film set an example for the people of Utah.

"I just think (pulling the show) tells the young people especially that maybe there is something wrong with this show," she said.

Well, it's good to know that the Utah Eagle Forum claims to know "wrong."

Let's take a moment and observe what Megaplex 17 at Jordan Commons does deem acceptable to play this weekend shall we?

• Casanova


• Cheaper by the Dozen 2


• Désolation magnifique: Marcher sur la Lune


• Fun With Dick & Jane


• Grandma's Boy


• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire


• Hostel


• King Kong


• Memoirs of a Geisha


• Munich


• Rumor Has It...


• Syriana


• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe


• The Family Stone


• The Magic of Flight


• The Producers


• The Ringer

(This movie listings are according to IMDB Showtimes.)

So this theater will readily censor a well-made, unconventional love story. But it will not hesitate to make a buck from a movie that glorifies torture and murder (Hostel) or a movie where a heterosexual leaps from woman to woman (Casanova), or a movie where, some people claim, every gay character is portrayed as a preening stereotype (The Producers), or a movie that, some people claim, promotes Satanism because it involves magic (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

Now there are some red state family values for you!

In a online message board from the Salt Lake City area, a few people have reported that Brokeback Mountain is doing well in the other cinemas that it's playing in. And this movie, still not playing nationally, has broken into the top ten moneymakers for the weekend.

And the most popular movie in the country? Well, this weekend it was Hostel, a movie that's basically a slaughterfest. And that's a more acceptable movie for teens to see than Brokeback Mountain? What's wrong with this picture?

New Job, New Nephew and Applesauce Gingerbread

OK, so this is something of a mix of things!

This has been an interesting week. I started a new job with a very small company on Monday. It has flexible hours, something like 30-35 hours a week, but it's an interesting place, and, frankly, I'd rather work 30 hours a week than 40.

On top of starting a new job, I've been sick and wound up leaving work earlier than expected yesterday. I've had a very persistant sinus infection for the last five weeks, and finally went to the doctor this week to get antibiotics.

Jim's brother Bill and his wife Heather had a baby boy on Wednesday night. He was over eight pounds and his name is Cameron Anthony Mann. So now Leslie has three first cousins, after many, many years of having no first cousins.

I'm running Confluence program this year, and we had a useful meeting today. We had more than three people at our house for the first time in ages, so we served them lunch. I made applesauce gingerbread for Christmas a few weeks back, and froze a pan of it for today's meeting. It's from the Joy of Cooking with a slight modification - I tripled the amount of ginger and doubled the amount of cinnamon. I added about a half cup of raisins and, I think I also added a little nutmeg. This recipe is even good for you! Christina particularly enjoyed it, so I promised to blog it for her.

Preheat oven to 325.
 Boil
   1 cup of applesauce

Remove from heat and stir in:
   1/2 cup molasses
   1 tsp baking soda

The mixture will foam and bubble vigorously.
Cool slightly.  Sift together:
   1 1/2 cup flour
   1 tsp ground ginger
   3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
   1/4 tsp ground cloves
   1/4 tsp salt

In a large bowl, beat on high speed until 
thick and pale yellow, 3-4 minutes:
   2 large eggs
   2/3 cup sugar

Gradually beat in
   1/3 cup vegetable oil

Fold in flour mixture in three parts, 
alternating with the applesauce in two parts.  
Scrape the batter into a 9" x 9" pan.  Bake until 
a toothpick inserted into the center comes 
out clean, 40-45 minutes.  Let cool in the 
pan on a rack for 10 minutes.  Slide a thin 
knife around the cake to detach it from the 
pan.  Invert the cake, let cool right side 
up on the rack.

Meme of Four

I enjoy doing mini-surveys/quizzes, though I like to try to trace them back to see where they started. I still haven't found the actual genesis of this one, though it seems to have been making the rounds for at least three weeks.

• Four jobs you've had in your life
  
  
  
  • Technical typesetter
  
  
  • Tecnical writer
  
  
  • Bookseller
  
  
  • Web developer
  
  
  
  



• Four movies you could watch over and over
  
  
  
  • Lord of the Rings trilogy (Jackson)
  
  
  • Star Wars IV-VI trilogy - first three only!
  
  
  • Howards End
  
  
  • American Beauty
  
  
  
  



• Four places you've lived
  
  
  
  • West Boylston, MA (13 years)
  
  
  • Mount Lebanon, PA (12 years)
  
  
  • Northboro, MA (6 years)
  
  
  • Pittsburgh, PA (4 years)
  
  
  
  



• Four TV shows you love to watch
  
  
  
  • Lost
  
  
  • House
  
  
  • Scrubs
  
  
  • Inside the Actors Studio
  
  
  
  



• Four places you've been on vacation
  
  
  
  • Maine
  
  
  • Vermont
  
  
  • England
  
  
  • Scotland
  
  
  
  



• Four websites you visit daily
  
  
  
  • Yahoo News
  
  
  • CNN
  
  
  • Google
  
  
  • IMDB
  
  
  
  



• Four of your favorite foods
  
  
  
  • Chocolate
  
  
  • Breadworks whole wheat ciabatta
  
  
  • Red wine
  
  
  • Swordfish
  
  
  
  



• Four places you'd rather be right now
  
  
  
  • London
  
  
  • New York
  
  
  • New Zealand
  
  
  • Tahiti
  
  
  
  

Happy Holidays!

Saturday Morning Edition's Scott Simon read a wonderful piece on this morning's show called "A Modern Day Mary and Joseph." The transcript isn't online, but the audio portion may be (though my RealPlayer couldn't play it this morning). But try to take a listen, it's both somewhat amusing and very moving.

Jim is cooking Christmas dinner again this year, and is making a crispy orange duck.

Senator Specter: Begin Impeachment Proceedings NOW

Dear Senator Specter:

I am horrified by the way our civil liberties are being trampled by the Republican party in general and by our administration in particular.

We have a president who's been incompetent and close-minded. I know that those are not impeachable offenses. However, we also now have a president who has completely ignored all semblances of checks and balances. You and I know that America had a long tradition of not torturing its prisoners. You know and I know that the wiretaps ordered by the president were grossly illegal. These things were true, at least in the America I was raised in.

In the past, there have been times when you've shown yourself to be an independent-minded representative. We need people like you to stand up to the administration and begin impeachment proceedings now.

Sincerely,


Laurie Mann
Pittsburgh, PA

* * *

Oh, and now the government is trying to "protect us from PETA." Geesh. I'm not a fan of PETA, but treating them like a terrorist group just crosses the line...

* * *


One small sign that rationality still exists here and there in the goverment - a federal judge in Harrisburg said that "intelligent design" cannot be taught in a science class. Given that it's not science, that shouldn't have surprised any thinking person out there. But, we increasingly see that there are fewer and fewer thinking people in the goverment every day.

I have to thank pro-science bloggers like Michael Burstein and John Scalzi for highlighting this gem from Judge John E. Jones' ruling:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

Unsurprisingly, the former school board members are not going to appeal!

Temporary Domain Problems

If you've tried to access anything at dpsinfo.com, you might have seen a temp page from Network Solutions. If you've been expecting E-mail from Jim or me, we're not ignoring you delibeately.

I goofed and let my domain lapse. I've since paid for it to be reinstated, but, in the meantime, I have no E-mail access.

If you've stumbled over this blog, you probably have my IP address somewhere (it's http://216.92.255.170). All (well, at least most) of my site is accessible from the IP address.

Network Solutions has been spamming/junk mailing/telemarketing me for a while. However, they've been doing this with all of my domain names, most of which are through another registrar. So, stupidly, the one time I should have paid attention to them, I assumed it was junk and blew it off. Oh well, live and learn.

Wicked Legalized Ticket Scalping

We had high hopes of being able to see Wicked when it came to Pittsburgh this winter. We knew tickets would go on sale on Monday, December 5. Since we were coming back from Portland that day, Jim went over to the Benedum before lunch on Tuesday.

They were already "sold out."

Now, of course, if we wanted to pay over $200 a ticket, we could go to one of the many ticket resellers on the Web that claim to have plenty of tickets to see Wicked in Pittsburgh. But, as much as I'd like to see Wicked, I don't believe in supporting ticket scalping, whether it's "legal" or the guy trying to sell an overpriced Steelers ticket on a corner.

I've written complaining letters to the Stephen Schwartz Company (the production company of Wicked), to PNC (the local sponsor of Broadway in Pittsburgh) and to the Post-Gazette (local critic Christopher Rawson had also written about the overpriced tickets). The original tickets for Wicked should have cost between $29 and $72. They are available on the Web between $140 and $400. Unbelievable...

Tigra, 1993-2005

Our cat recently turned 12 and seemed in pretty good shape. About two weeks ago, we noticed she was having trouble getting up the stairs. We described her behavior to the vet, and she thought it was a bad muscle pull.

On Halloween night, she went into convulsions. That was pretty scary. We took her to the vet who did a bunch of blood work on her and sent her home. A few days later, they said to bring her in, as her blood work showed an increase in some liver enzyme or another. She was in the hospital for three nights, had a bunch of tests (including at least two sonorgrams). They said she had some sort of gall bladder inflamation, gave us some drugs and sent her home.

She continued to fail since she got home. She died around 3 this afternoon. Ironically, Jim was at the vet's when she died, picking up some more medicine. He was the one who realized she'd died (I was in the next room over and hadn't heard anything unusual).

This really isn't "cat blogging" - I'm really not an animal person to begin with and it turned out I was quite allergic to her. Still, it was sad watching her be so sick at the end, and trying to figure out if we needed to take her to be put down or not. But she died at home next to one of her favorite heaters.

Howard Dean Comes to Pittsburgh and Why I Am a Registered Democrat

On a rainy October night, Howard Dean showed up at a very well-attended fundraiser. Since I've been unemployed for most of this year, I hadn't been giving anyone any money for anything (beyond tsunami and hurricane relief). But, now that I have a contract job, I made a donation to the DNC so I could attend the party, shake Howard's hand and hear him speak in person.

I'd actually gotten pretty close to Howard once before. How close? How's this:

This was at a pro-choice rally in DC in late April 2004. There were nearly a million of us there that day, so I hung back a bit (besides, I was something of a volunteer).

A few days later, I was in Vermont attending my Dad's brother Winslow's funeral. I arranged to meet-up with my Mom's cousin Alice for breakfast the next day. We started talking about her years in the Vermont legislature, as a representative from Burlington. I mentioned I'd seen Howard Dean in Washington a few days before.

"Why, I used to commute to Monpelier with him in his old pick-up truck," she said.
They both served in the legistlature at the same time, driving from Burlington to Montpelier, which was something like an hour away.

What a great story!

I've always loved stories about local politics. Unlike many state legistatures, Vermont's is still small enough that the representatives don't have elaborate staffs. It was like that back in the '80s when Alice and Howard served together, and I suspect it's like that still. When my Uncle Winslow, a longtime Vermont state employee died, I heard people saying that the state office buiding had shut down that day so people could attend his funeral. Now, that may have been a slight exaggeration, but...

There's also a long tradition of "citizen service" in Vermont state government. People don't live to be "lifelong" politicians. They serve for a few years, and then they go home. I had a grandfather serve in the Vermont legislature during WWII, and a great-grandfather as well. I think that's the way it ought to be, I think that's the way the founders envisioned public service.

But back to Howard Dean. I gave him money early in 2004 because I thought he was the most interesting of the presidential candidates. And, frankly, I thought he was the most likely to speak his mind and be very honest. His honesty wound up biting him in the end - God forbid that a politician be too open and honest (and, heck, even exuberant!). His taking the reigns of the Democratic party is, frankly, a good thing, but I would rather have seen him or John Kerry or almost anyone other than Bush as president. So when I was invited to donate to a Democratic fundraiser for the sole purpose of meeting Howard Dean and hearing him speak in person, I jumped at the chance.

And I did get to meet him. While Howard is something of a "perpetual motion machine," he really isn't quite this blurry in person. I shook his hand, told him we had a slight connection, and mention my cousin Alice's story about commuting to Montpelier with him.

He looked a little perplexed at first, then said, "Why how's she doing?"

"Fine." Alice is almost 80. I was in awe of all the activities she was doing last year.

"Why she was more liberal than I am!"

"My mother always says I take after her side of the family." And we both laughed a little while I got this picture taken, and he went on to the next folks in line.

Howard gave a pretty good speech to a group of something like 200 attendees. When he specifically mentioned the importance of having a competent government and how the Democrats shouldn't behave unethically either, I started applauding before anyone else!

I was going to give Howard a letter about why I am finally a registered Democrat and a photo of Alice, but I didn't. Instead, I'll put the letter here:


Dear Howard:

I’m a Democrat because I believe in responsible governance, and leaders who demonstrate imagination rather than myopia. While I do not expect the Federal government to “do everything” for me, I do expect a Federal government to provide rational leadership and coordination for the state and local governments.

I’m a Democrat because I believe that taxation for the public good isn’t an abject evil. Responsible taxation funds our schools, our defense, our roads, and rebuilding in times of national emergencies. Responsible taxation spreads the burden so that those more capable of paying taxes pay them, rather than taxing the poor into destitution. If America truly is a society where fairness matters, it is so much fairer to tax responsibly than to spend and spend the country into generations of deficits.

I’m a Democrat because I want to be part of a party that doesn’t fear facts, constructive change, science, technology and the future.

I’m a Democrat because I don’t want my government demonize minority groups

I’m a Democrat because I’m well aware of history, of why the Founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution the way that they did. I understand why they insisted upon a separation of church and state while acknowledging a Creator. I understand why they instituted the concept of “advise and consent.” I understand why they insisted on an independent judiciary. These are vital issues, ones that the Federal government must understand and act upon rationally.

I’m a Democrat because I do not expect my government to go to war without just cause.

I’m a Democrat because I expect appointments to be based more on the competence, merit and experience of the individual rather than his or her political connections.

I hope you can help to lead the way!

A Little Novel Progress

As it typically goes, I fall in and out of fiction writer's block with great regularity. This year, I've written more fiction than I ever had in my life and still haven't finished the novel. And then I fell into writer's block (again). And then, I started a full time (but temporary) job and started travelling every single weekend.

Of course, now's the time I've been starting to write again. At a time when I have absolutely no free time. When I can find the time, I'm compressing some sections, dumping a few extraneous characters, generally tightening things up, and finishing the middle. I wrote most of the opening scene nearly five years ago, and the ending about three years ago. It's the middle that's been problematic.

I've renamed the novel yet again. I don't know if this is a good or bad sign. The title for most of this year was Unexpectedly. I've changed it to IRL, because that plays off the major theme of the novel (what real life is, and what other peole say it it).

I got a little feedback when I put some early excerpts up, but decided to put up the complete first five chapters (it currently constitutes about 20% of the novel). So feel free to read the beginning of the novel. If you're so inclined, drop me a line if you have comments, questions, whatever.

Busy, Traveling and More Busy...

I've been pretty busy lately, as my lack of posting here can probably indicate.

I started a full-time two-month contract job, helping to transfer and repair intranet files. Microsoft CMS is somewhat buggy, but it's really not too hard to learn. I enjoy working in downtown Pittsburgh, and the work is actually more interesting than it may sound.

Nice to have a paycheck again! ;->

I had a wonderful time last weekend, going to a small con (or "Moot") of Lord of the Rings fans who collected in Indianapolis to see the wonderful traveling exhibit from the Jackson movies.

I roomed with TORN's grammab, who wore such an appropriate set of PJs that I asked her if I could take her picture in them - and she agreed. She also wrote a detailed report about the exhibit.



Kudos to Susan and Kathleen for organizing the weekend, and to thanks to Shannon who spent Saturday afternoon testing out the libations at the Alcatraz Brewpub with me:



Susan, Kathleen, Shannon.

Here's a bunch of us at dinner on Saturday night:



More Moot Photos: At the Rathskeller in Indianapolis on Friday, at the Museum for the LOTR exhibit Saturday, and at Loughmiller's Pub for dinner. Since I'm not sure if I'm going to wind up identifying the folks in the photos, Shuya posted her photos to TORN and did a fine job identifying the people in her photos.

After being in writer's block pretty solidly for close to two months, I think I'm starting to make some progress with my novel again. But that's another reason I've been pretty invisible online lately - I really want to finish that book!

I've been complaining for a few years about persistent insomnia and severe short term memory problems. The insomnia has improved slightly since August - I'm back up over five hours of sleep per night. I've seen some improvement in short term memory over the last month as I've been taking a double-dose of folic acid every day (over 800 mcg rather than 400 mcg). We'll see how it goes!

My Letter to the President Re Harriet Miers

Dear Sir,

The notion of nominating an individual without any experience as a judge to our highest court is completely appalling. However, this does not surprise me in the least. You continue to show that you cannot learn from your mistakes. It's ridiculous to appoint yet another political hack rather than someone with experience. Is Harriet Meiers the next Michael Brown?


Laurie D. T. Mann
Pittsburgh, PA

Marching in Washington Against the War

While I've been to a number of rallies in DC over the years, this is the first anti-war rally I've been to. During the Viet Nam era, I was an admitted hawk. But the thing that made me want to go to DC this time was the government response to Katrina. It was deadly, embarassing, and made the Bush administration look really bad.

I took a chartered bus from Pittsburgh (we sent something like 15 busses), and we arrived in downtown DC around 11:30. The march was due to start around 12:30.



Drowning the People Billboard



Various Signs Including: Bush's War Refutes Intelligent Design

I wandered around to some of the pre-march rally, looking for buttons, for people whom I thought might be there. I found the rally somewhat disappointing as there was a fair amount of anti-Israeli rhetoric by some of the speakers. There's plenty of blame to go around for the mess in the Middle East. However, even though I felt those kind of speeches sent the wrong message, I was certainly in complete agreement with the speakers about the mess the Bush administration has made of things!

My favorite button/sign of the day was: Make Levees, Not War.



Dead Men's Boots



Axis of Evil: Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld (that's a poster of Casey Sheehan inthe background)



Cheney the Puppetmaster



Shot of the Crowd at the Pre-March Rally



Washington Monument

Getting the march started seemed to take a while. Often, these things start late.
Around 1:15, I went to see if there was any way to get in place for the march. The intersection where the march was due to start from was jammed with people not really moving anywhere. I got pushed around by the crowd a little (which shows you how densely packed everyone was - I am not a little person and I don't get pushed around that easily). After a bit of this I started to feel a little claustrophic, so I followed along with a line of people trying to cross the street and wound up back near the mall.



Rally Near the Washington Monument

So, I decided to visit the National Book Festival. The National Book Festival was one of the few good ideas to come out of the Bush administration, and, wouldn't you know it, it was probably Laura Bush's idea. I mostly wandered down the mall, got a free book bag, visited some of the exhibits, took photos of the massive line Neil Gaiman had (probably at least 400 people), listened to George R. R. Martin talk, and finally returned for the March. By then, you could just join the marchers without being completely crowded; the densely-packed part of the march was long gone.




There were a few hundred counter-demonstrators. They were loud, obnoxious, but exercising their right to free expression. We booed and kept on walking. One of the counter-demonstrators had a sign that read something like "Fighting for America's Freedom in Iraq." Well, no. The last war that Americans fought in that had anything to do with America's freedom was probably World War II and that was sixty years ago. Maybe Korea, but that was over more than fifty years ago. But the recent spate of wars has had nothing to do with America's freedom and everything to do with America's control.

It was late afternoon. I was exhausted and starved and tried to find some lunch. Eventually, I lucked into finding Red Sage, my favorite Tex-Mex place in DC. And I lucked into finding a seat in the bar area so I didn't have to wait over a half hour for a table. I had a civilized lunch and went back out to finish the march.



Iraq Veterans Against the War



One Last Look at the March

I'm not sure how many people were at the march; I'd estimate over 100,000, possibly up to 150,000. Certainly over 100,000 more than the "pro-Iraq war" rally got!

I know marches are merely symbolic acts. We have a government that's shown time and time again it doesn't give a damn about American's dissent. It doesn't mean we shouldn't dissent.

Whad'Ya Know?

Yup, if you listened to Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know, broadcast over NPR from Cleveland this morning, that was me at the end of the first hour. I'd always hoped to get to play trivia on Michael's show, and came pretty close during his last trip to Cleveland seven years ago.

So I was excited to play...

More excited to win...

But, the biggest thrill for me was completely accidental. I got to insult former FEMA director Michael Brown while trying to get my phone-player teammate Tom to agree with me on the answer for a particular question. Even better - a packed house laughed at this.

First, a little background.

I've been a longtime trivia fan. I've flunked the Jeopardy test twice so far, but I did make it to the University of Pittsburgh College Bowl team in 1979. College Bowl hasn't been televised in years, it still existed as a series of regional tournaments. The Pitt team placed second in our region. I have way too many versions of Trivial Pursuit and other trivia games in my house.

In about 1996, I started listening to Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know on NPR. It's an amusing radio show that's part short-interviews, part humor and part trivia. While the show is usually broadcast live from Madison, Wisconsin, Michael takes the it on the road probably a dozen times a year. In 1998, he brought the show to Cleveland. Jim and I went. I really wanted to participate in the quiz part of the show. I even got Michael's attention just before he started the quiz. Unfortunately, it was before he was ready to invite someone from the audience to participate in the quiz. So, when he started talking to me, I just talked about the old Cleveland-Pittsburgh rivalry.

And I got booed. A little. But that was to be expected.

So Michael brought the show back to Cleveland today. Jim decided not to go (his uncle is in town), so I drove up to Cleveland early this morning. When this radio show travels, they decorate the theater stage with some large props relevant to the area. The stage had two large guitars on one side (from the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame), and bunch of space-related displays and a space suit (from the local NASA office) and a race car (I wasn't sure why, but there was probably a reason for that). I wound up with a seat in the middle of the audience. However, I timed myself much better this time, and Michael called on me to come out and participate in the quiz.

"Y'know, Michael, you and I have exchanged E-mail recently," I said.

"Really?" "I'm the curator of Dead People Server, and you sent me a correction on your birthday." He thought about that for a moment and grinned. "Right," then briefly explained my site to the audience. "And why do you want to play the quiz?" "Because I've been dying to."

So he invited me to join him on the stage.

Onstage, we talked about my Web site, my unemployment and my novel. He then invited callers, as the quiz involves two people - someone from the audience, and a caller who answer questions as a team. If you want to participate as a caller, you need to answer a trivia question. Unfortunately, almost all the trivia questions that morning were related to Cleveland. In fact, I can't even tell you what the qualifying question was, or what its answer was. I only remember that, after several calls, a lawyer named Tom answered the question and became my partner. Luckily, it turned out he was from the Cleveland area, so at least we had a chance.

Michael asked, "What is the female to male ratio of the students at Case Western University: 4:4, 4:5 or 4:6?"

"Hmmm..." I responded. "I know it's still a pretty big engineering school, so it's probably either 4:5 or 4:6. Tom, do you have any idea?"

"None."

"4:5," I guessed.

"Oh, sorry, it's 4:6." So we missed the first question. In the Whad'Ya Know quiz, you have to answer three questions correctly to win, but if you miss two of them, you've lost.

Michael asked, "Does the ambassador to Germany need to speak German or have any diplomatic experience?"

The audience giggled, a sure sign that the answer was "No." That would have been my answer anyway, but it's good to have the audience back you up.

Tom said, "Yes, he does."

I responded, "I don't think so."

"Of course he does."

"Look, we just had a director of FEMA whose sole experience was that he ran horse shows, so I don't think an ambassador needs any experience."

The audience laughed. (Hey, I wish I could be consistently funny - I've always been something of a frustrated class clown. So having about 2,000 people laugh at a joke that I told so fast I didn't even think about it was a thrill for me.)

Tom didn't say anything, but I don't think he was convinced. However, one advantage of being the "live" player rather than the "phone-in" player is that you can give the final answer. "I'm sure the ambassador needs no experience."

"You're right!" said Michael, ringing his bell. (Ambassadorships, whether for Republican or Democratic administrations, tend to be major sources of politcal payback. It's simply wrong, no matter which administration does it. It turns out that the new ambassador to Germany is from the Cleveland area and doesn't speak German or have any diplomatic experience.)

Michael asked, "What percentage of Clevelanders have been photographed in the nude, 9%, 14% or 20%?" (I don't remember the actual percentages, but they were something like that.)

I said, "I have absolutely no idea."

Tom immediately jumped in with "9%."

I didn't disagree, and that turned out to be the right answer.

The last question turned out to have no Cleveland connections and was something of a major gift. "A study at Princeton proved that bar snacks like peanuts and pretzels make you want to drink more. True or false?"

"True, because they're salty and make you want to drink more," I said.

Tom agreed.

We won. I forget what Tom won, but I won a Great Lakes Brewery jacket, a soft-sided Great Lakes brewery cooler and five pounds of organic fertilizer. Two of the three gifts were very fitting as Jim and I tend to go the Great Lakes Brewery whenevery we're in Cleveland. And, in fact, I had plans to go there after the show, which I did. I ran into more people who'd been to the show there, and we chatted a little.

After lunch, I drove back to Pittsburgh and went to a Pirates game. The weather was perfect for baseball (it had been raining and dreary in Cleveland and for most of my drive) and the Pirates even won.

Here's a page with a link to the Real Audio version of the show. I'm on at about the 15 minute point of the Part B. I found the episode where I met Michael the first time. I'm on Part D, about 3 minutes into the segment (this show was taped in June 1998, and rerun in March 2002)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on Whad'Ya Know?'s show from Cleveland. The paper apparently included a photo of me, but that didn't seem to show up in the online edition.

Government by Gumby

"My brain hurts!" (the Gumbies on Monty Python)

We've long suspected that the average IQ of the average member of the Bush government appointee is much lower than the national average. If there was any doubt about this, it was washed away by the government's response to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

There were a number of painful, deadly boners committed by our government this week. The real "award winners" in this area are, of course, George Bush himself, his FEMA appointee (and former horse organization firee) Michael Brown and his Homeland Security Secrety (and former judge) Michael Chertoff.

The biggest problem is that we have a federal government completely lacking in any imagination at the top. Parts of the government, "privitized" or just gutted by the Republicans just aren't functioning very well. The Republicans have trained millions of Americans to throw tantrums whenever the phrase "raising taxes" is mentioned. Sorry, folks, if we hadn't been giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, and if we had a government that had a clue about the importance of maintaining infrastructure, the levee may not have broken in New Orleans. Even if it had, the National Guard might have been better prepared to handle the mess that followed.

George Bush said, on national TV this week that we could not have forseen the collapse of the levee. Michael Chertoff said that the "Katrina scenario did not exist." Michael Brown couldn't figure out that people were collecting at the Convention Center when we'd been watching them do that for two days on TV.

The notion that the government could not have forseen this calamity is patent bullshit. Scientists have been warning of this very thing for years - but we have a government that does not listen to scientists. Those of us who bother to read magazines like National Geographic read about this very possibility less than a year ago.

Their brains just hurt to much, they were too bogged down by their own lust for power that these "pro-life" Republicans have killed off hudreds if not thousands of American citizens in New Orleans. It'll be shown that most people in New Orleans did not die during the storm, but in the total collapse of the infrastructure following the storm. People died from drowning, asthma attacks, poor sanitation, heart conditions, murder, accidental killings from overwrought Nation Guard troops (there's a particularly tragic rumor about a man being shot to death by a National Guard when he tried to get their help to prevent a rape). It was a failure on local, state and federal levels, but, in theory, the federal government is supposed to be capable of assisting localities in major emergencies like this one.

Special notice, of course, must be given to the members of his government who viewed staying on vacation as being more important than dealing with a major regional crisis. So we should never forget that George Bush stayed in Texas (when he wasn't out going to political fundraisers) until two days after Katrina levelled the Gulf Coast, and that both Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stayed out of Washington until at least Friday.

This is not the way the government of a civilized society should be reacting. I want a civilized, rational American government again. I wish "incompetence" was an impeachable offense, because we have more than enough evidence of that now!

Dead: New Orleans and the Myth of the Responsive Government

Well, there's no doubt about it now - if you are poor, and there's any kind of emergency, there's no such thing as a government safety net. New Orleans this week is getting shockingly little federal aid, despite all the FEMA folks claiming over the weekend that "supplies are being stationed just outside of the hurricane zone." Yeah, right. Would that be in Seattle, Washington or Portland, Maine?

The hurricane was over days ago; the flooding, while horrible, isn't as bad as it could have been, and yet people are still isolated and desperate. I don't excuse the looting for TVs and guns and liquor because the behavior of some of the individuals in New Orleans has been horrible. But why did Wal*MART leave things like guns in their stores when they knew looting was a strong possibility? And why not just distribute necessities like food and diapers and medicine and the like when it was clear the electricity was going to be out for a while?

But the "promises-promises" of the federal, state and local government(s) to the people of the South have been reprehensible. So you can understand that desperation of people who haven't had basic sanitary facilities in a few days, who see busses and boats go away without them on it. Some of the local preparedness has been less existant than I would have expected. I'm still floored that hospitals didn't have adequate generators, water or supplies for all this.

People have been dying all over town and the bodies have been left to rot.

So where is our federal government in all this?

Apparently, they've been too busy guarding the various Federal Buildings in New Orleans to help with relief efforts. And, lets not forget, our National Guard troops are thousands of miles away.

What about the state and local governments? Who knows? I've seen relief workers out in rural areas, checking for bodies and the like. I've seen very busy people in New Orleans, rescuing people by boat and helicopter over the last few days. But why didn't they ensure the SuperDome and Convention Center had emergency supplies BEFORE TELLING PEOPLE TO REFUGEE THERE???

When people say how wonderful it is to live in the South, I've, frankly, always been stunned. I like to visit the South - I've been to New Orleans and Florida at least four times apiece over the last 17 years. But, live there? Sorry, give me blizzards over hurricanes and tornadoes any day. I don't plan on buying any land around Lake George, the former New Orleans.

If you have a solid home and any cash at all, make a contribution to the Red Cross. We already did, but I want to do more. The "Liberal Blogsphere" is a way to funnel your cash to the Red Cross. As I've added to the Katrina Relief ad you'll see on every page of my Web site, I'm donating all the dpsinfo GoogleAd revenues to this fund on 10/1. Now, most months that would be about $50. But consider making an ad click or two during the next month at this site so I can send even more money.

People can help even with a government rapidly sinking to third world capabilities due to Bush and buddies. Yet another example of getting the government we deserve...

As uggabugga pointed out this morning (by capturing a great photo of Bush's latest photo op) Bush bored with the whole affair:

More Junk Movies...The Emporer Has No Clothes

I'm a movie fan. I used to go to at least 2 movies every month in the theater.

Until this week, I think the last movie I'd seen in a theater was Batman Returns, which I liked more than I expected to. But nothing since then has interested me. During this year, in general, I've probably only been to about a movie a month in the theater. Netflix and buying videos has picked up the slack. This summer's movies have done nothing for me at all.

Now, I do expect that to be a little different this fall, as, suddenly, I'm seeing trailers and reading about movies that sound either like fun (Just Like Heaven, Prime and In Her Shoes) or that they could be really good movies (Little Fish, Elizabethtown, Serenity, The Fountain, Match Point, and King Kong). But this spring and summer have been a joke. Yeah, sure, I looked forward to Revenge of the Sith, after waiting for 28 years to see the first Darth Vader-Obi Wan showdown, but still! While the fight itself was pretty good, so much of the rest of the movie was an over-long video game that I wanted to scream!

This week, I made the serious mistake of seeing not one, but two movies in the theater. The first one, Must Love Dogs, I saw only because I've always liked John Cusak, Diane Lane and Elizabeth Perkins.

Big, big, big mistake.

It was hard to empathize with any of the characters. Oh, sure, with Diane Lane a little. But hearing Lloyd Dobler's (Cusak's memorably lovable slacker from Say Anything) dialogue come from a 40ish man was disconcerting in the extreme. The characters were all over the place, but so were the reviews for this movie. So while this chick flick disappointed me, I wasn't really all that surprised.

On the other hand...

Many reviewers from Cannes talked about how wonderful Bill Murray's latest, Broken Flowers was. It's still (as of 8/28/05) ranking an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes from 130 reviewers, and a comparable 8 at IMDB from 1,748 voters.

How???

After a year of mostly disappointing movies, this movie is just another of a pretty bad lot.

Don't get me wrong - I love quiet, well-observed movies. I love movies where there's no real violence. I love movies where weird characters wander in and out. I love Robert Altman-style flicks. I don't even mind movies without a real conclusion. I should have adored this movie.

I came close to hating this movie, but I stayed with it until the end (which is an odd reflection of the vastly better Tom Hanks film Castaway).

At least one person in the small audience watching walked out of this movie after 20 minutes, never to return. A number of people at the end kind of went "What happened?" Makes you wonder how the critics universally loved this movie, because there's nothing (and I mean nothing) there, beyond some cryptic performances by some of our better actresses.

I'm not the biggest Bill Murray fan, but I liked him in Groundhog Day and in Lost in Translation. With the right material, he's an interesting actor. This was categorically the wrong material. The problem is much more with the writing and directing than with the acting. But the acting just doesn't make the material any more interesting.

Here's the problem - the movie is, from start to finish, absolutely and completely illogical. There isn't a true moment anywhere in the movie.

Maybe it's a movie about a man who never really had a life and has a long nightmare about "what might have been." What if a woman I'd been involved with came back and told me I had a child I never expected to have?

First problem - Don Johnston (Bill Murray). People keep talking about him as a "Don Juan," and that point is further driven home by the fact that Johnston is watching a movie about Don Juan. But he completely fails to relate to people (men OR women) on any level. Granted, he is shown to be financially well-off. Money certainly can make many people attractive. But he was apparently involved with these women earlier in his life when he wasn't wealthy.

Second problem - Winston (Jeffrey Wright). At first, I thought Winston was Don's paid assistant. Turns out, he says he works three jobs, has aspirations to be a writer, is married and has five children. How in the world would he have the time to help Don to the extent he does? I liked their friendship, and the way Winston was trying to get Don to get involved in his own life rather than be a passive observer. But does Winston simply never sleep?

Third problem - Lolita (Alexis Dziena). Like Jeffrey Wright, my problem is not with the performer, but with the way s/he is written. The kid is named Lolita. So how does she behave? Exactly like Lolita. It was like she walked out of the book/movie of that name. And, at one point, she just walks naked in front of Don. In real life, have you ever heard of a 15-year-old girl walking naked in front of a 55-year-old male stranger? (In front of a hunky, 18-year-old male stranger, maybe, but in front of someone old enough to be her father or even grandfather? I don't think so!)

Now, there's a point later in the movie where Johnston dreams of that moment. It might have made a little more sense for him to have dreamed of her naked then - that he was never "Don Juan" but might have wanted to be. True, a moment like that would have looked like it dropped out of American Beauty, but I think it would have made more sense.

Fourth problem - Dora (Frances Conroy). Dora is so repressed that she makes Ruth from Six Feet Under look like a wild woman. So how can Dora, who seems even more repressed and internal than Don, have had a relationship with Don? You can kind of understand the "opposites attract" relationship that Don and Laura or Don and Penny must have had. But Don and Dora? A photograph Don seems to have taken of a younger Dora implies that they were rather different people in the mid '80s (even if Dora looked more like a '60s flower child than an '80s woman). But what happened to them?

No matter how much you enjoy Frances Conroy or Jessica Lange or Sharon Stone or Tilda Swinton (who's only very briefly in the movie and is completely unrecognizable), it isn't worth going to this movie to see them.

Eleven years ago, many of us found Four Weddings and a Funeral very enjoyable. That said, many of us were wildly frustrated by the character of Carrie (Andi MacDowell), who behaved quite illogically. Imagine a movie where none of the characters are quite so colorful and all of them act completely illogically. And there you have the problem with Broken Flowers.

Another problem is with the "road trip" itself. You see Bill Murray getting on planes and "flying around the country." At one point, his rental car seems to have a Colorado license plate. It's obvious from the scenery that he never really leaves the Northeast. It turns out to have been completely filmed in upstate New York and New Jersey. No surprise there.

So maybe the whole movie is just one man's "fantasy trip." If that's the case, the movie was just impossibly dull, dull, dull. And maybe that's why so many Cannes reviewers loved this movie - they're mostly 40-something white guys who can relate to Bill Murray. Sorry folks, this 40-something white woman was totally and completely bored by the exercise.

Will anyone ever make an interesting and/or enjoyable movie ever again? I've been thiking about going to see Constant Gardener as I do like both Ralph Feinnes and Rachel Weiz. But is seems to be marketed as a "thriller," though many of the reviews make it sound like an interesting chracter study. I'm not prepared to go to the movies only to be pissed off again. I might just wait until I can see the final version of Serenity in about a month (I saw the prelminary version in June and it was extremely promising). I might even wind up going to Cronenberg's A History of Violence only because I really like Viggo Mortensen and feel Maria Bello is one of our most underrated actresses.

I should add - I'd never paid directly to see a Jim Jarmuch movie until today, and I'm unlikely to ever do so again. I've never paid directly to see a David Cronenberg movie before, though I saw Dead Zone on cable and adored it and generally liked The Fly as well. I don't like violence (in movies or IRL), and it apparently spills out of A History of Violence. On the other hand, this flick is apparently one of the few to "dare" to depict sex between a married couple, something that's not even inferred in many movies these days! So, maybe I will see it in the theater. Consensual sex ought to be much more common than violence in movies, and it is either rarely seen or poorly depicted! At least History of Violence is unlikely to bore me to tears the way Broken Flowers and Must Love Dogs did.

How Well Travelled Are You?

OK, this one is Charlie Stross's fault...

Your Travel Profile:

You Are Extremely Well Traveled in the Midwestern United States (100%)

You Are Extremely Well Traveled in the Northeastern United States (86%)

You Are Very Well Traveled in Canada (80%)

You Are Well Traveled in the Western United States (58%)

You Are Well Traveled in the Southern United States (54%)

You Are Somewhat Well Traveled in the United Kingdom (38%)

You Are Somewhat Well Traveled in Western Europe (21%)

You Are Mostly Untraveled in Eastern Europe (20%)

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My Armadillocon Photo Report

We had a great time at Armadillocon in Austin, TX over the weekend.

Report from Texas

I'm DONE with My Novel!

Well, almost!

Before I went to Scotland for Worldcon in late July, I was looking over my novel and realized that while I was doing a good job of "showing, not telling" through the first 20 chapters or so, much of the last 20,000 words was "telling, not showing." That's a problem. In non-fiction writing, you want to explain things directly. In fiction writing, you want the reader to pick up the clues and figure things out for him/herself. But I was compressing the text because I didn't want the book to go on for too long.

So, after thinking it over, I've decided Unexpectedly is either two short novels or one long one. The first short novel had a very natural ending at the end of Chapter 19. The themes came together very well there, and while there are a few loose ends, it stands on its own.

8-17-05 - I sent out a query letter to an agent saying I had finished my first novel.

By saying "I'm done" with the first 19 chapters means I can focus better on the second related novel (or "the rest of the novel").

I don't think this is going to go on and be one of those "never-ending projects." I think it'll top out in the 150,000 - 170,000 word range. Unexpectedly wound up running 83,000 words (384 double-spaced pages, which I think means it would be about a 190 page novel). The second novel (Even More Unexpectedly? - need to come up with a similar title that evokes a connection without sounding too silly) is probably also in the 80,000 word range. Or, who knows, maybe I will be able to publish this as one longish novel (is 400 pages too long for a first novel that isn't heroic fantasy?).

Some Novel Progress

I've felt pretty crappy since coming home from Scotland, but, gradually, I've been doing some work on my novel. Probably not the bunch of work I need to be doing late in the novel, but a little work on the beginning. I updated my Novel Experiment site this morning with some updated old material and a little new material. I think today will turn out to be more of a writing day. And, it has been. After a few weeks of "treading water" between being on vacation and being sick, I broke 100,000 words today.

Jim and I will be fan GoHs at Armadillocon this weekend, so I asked for a reading and got one. It'll be at 10:30 on Saturday morning, and I expect to be reading some of Chapter 3 and maybe a scene from Chapter 5. While the book definitely has some speculative stuff happening late in the novel, the portions I'll be reading are pretty much contemporary novelish. We're on a bunch of good program items over the con, and it's starting to sound like my voice will be in better shape than it was at Worldcon.

While I spent an awful lot of Worldcon being sick, I came back with my feet, legs and back in much better shape than usual, despite a huge amount of walking on Wednesday and Thursday. This was probably due to the fact that I've been walking more this summer, and I invested in a pair of Hush Puppies "Bounce" shoes. (Photo of me and my shoes - the BBC's Simon Willis is on my right - thanks to Keith Stokes for taking the photo.) Yes, they look like your mother's or grandmother's shoes. But I'm really glad I got them, and will probably always have something similar in the future for times when I'll be doing a lot of walking.

Photos from Interaction

Slowly, I'm starting to add photos from Scotland to my site.

I have some up at: http://www.dpsinfo.com/sf/inter05. I tend to be very chronological in my photography. These photos are of the con between Tuesday and Saturday. However, I took most of my photos on Sunday.

If you're a fan from TheOneRing.Net, I have Alan Lee and TORNsib photos up too.

I've made almost no progress on the novel since returning home. I just haven't felt very well. I'm sleeping a little better, but that could be because I take Nyquil at night to help me with my cold/laryngitis/et.c. I hope I'll have my voice back before Armadillocon!

Scotland was COOOL!

If you wonder why none of my Web sites have been updated, it's because we were in Scotland working on the World Science Fiction Convention AKA Interaction. Courtesy of USAirways, we lost a day of our vacation (GROAN!). But, we finally got off to Glasgow (via three different airlines), then took a bus to Edinburgh.

We LOVED Edinburgh, a very historic city some 40 miles east of Glasgow. I took an obscene number of photos, and will try to put a few up tomorrow.

Worldcon went surprisingly smoothly and most people seemed to enjoy themselves. This is a good thing. I got to liase with the press (I appeared on a BBC news program last Thursday night, talking about Worldcon), with Alan Lee (who was Interaction's special guest and was just a great guy) and got to meet Susanna Clarke (who won the Hugo for her giant magical novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell) and Ian McDonald (who didn't win a Hugo for River of Gods, but who looks great in a kilt). And Charlie Stross, who won a Hugo himself, also looked great in a kilt!

More soon, but, first, some sleep...

(Yes, my throat is better - thanks!!)

Results for the "What Kind of Novel Should I Write?" Quiz

HISTORICALS! - Adventurous and somewhat dark, but
that's true adventure. From the heart of Olde England, or the Caribbean isles, adventures in the past, are a fire that burn in your soul to be written. History books, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Alexander Dumas are your inspirations!


What Kind of Novel Should I Write?
brought to you by Quizilla

This quiz is probably pretty accurate (even though most of my first unpublished novel is set in 2003). My second novel, however, will all be set in the past, with quite a lot of it set in medieval Edinburgh.

The True Story of How I Did Not Meet Billy Boyd

This is a true story. Swear to Ghu, even though we have no photos to back it up.

I bought a ticket to see the Pittsburgh Symphony perform "The Lord of the Rings Symphony" a few weeks back, after having been on the fence for a while. I bought a ticket the night Billy was announced as a performer, and went for the left box seats. The really neat box seats near the stage. His "Mist and Shadows" solo was a particularly lovely part of the music for Return of the King, and I wanted to hear it live.

A few days later, Sue (who goes by the name Eomer's Woman on The One Ring.net) and I started talking about getting together at the Pittsburgh concert. We met with her traveling companion Chris for lunch on Friday at Joe's Crab Shack which was fun.

On Friday night, we met up in the lobby of the concert, and found we were sitting in the same box! Wow, talk about a weird coincidence in a hall that seats about 2,000 people.

We went to the pre-concert Q&A: Billy Boyd, Conductor John Mauceri and local classical music commentator Ken Meltzer:



Just before the concert started, a Heinz Hall employee stopped up in our box. "Back up during the fifth movement of the symphony" she warned the two people in the front of the box. "Billy Boyd is performing his solo from this box."

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!

So Billy was performing the world premiere of his live version of "Mist and Shadows" two seats in front of me, and three seats in front of Sue.

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!

It was a major thrill, and he was great. But we couldn't take a picture or record it, for obvious reasons. So you'll just have to take our word for it.

I went to last year's LOTR Symphony in Pittsburgh, conducted by Howard Shore, and I was somewhat disappointed. The symphony wasn't as together as usual, and the "first" seat players were not to be seen. This year, John Mauceri, conducted a better performance. While the "first" seat players were still missing, the orchestra was much more together (after the first five minutes or so, which was kind of mushy). The Two Towers/Isengard part was stupendous - even better than the London Symphony version.

If you're in the area, this is definitely worth seeing. The first show was very close to being sold out (the hall was probably about 90% full).

Since I had bought the expensive tickets, it included a ticket to the post-show reception. I wanted to meet Billy, partially because I admired his LOTR work, but also because I wanted to get him an invitation to attend the upcoming Worldcon, which is in his hometown of Glasgow in less than two weeks.

During the reception, I spent time talking to other fans from The One Ring.Net, and talking a little to John Mauceri (the conductor) rather than standing in line to meet Billy. When it occured to me that I should stand in line, I started getting really, really tired (I have insomnia and have been averaging under 4 hours of sleep a night lately).

Now, it turned out that Sue and her friend Chris had gone to the pre-concert dinner. And they had wound up sitting at the same table for dinner as Billy Boyd and his sister from Glasgow. So I asked if she could show me who Billy's sister was. She could. I asked her to introduce us, and she did. Billy's sister has the most charming Scottish accent I've ever heard, and I handed her a letter from Interaction, and a small gift for Billy (a snapbook of some of my Return of The One Party photos).

(Note - this in no way means that Billy will be at Interaction, it just means he's been informed that the Interaction committee would like him to drop by.)

After I left the stuff with Billy's sister, I felt really tired so I walked back to my car and started it up, blasting the air conditioner. And then I got my second wind, so I went back and managed to get a fairly close-up picture of Billy:



Unfortunately, the autograph line was closed, so I had to be content with the photo.
Then, I found Sue, and partied with some fans after the reception. And here's our party, after the dinner, after the Q&A, after the concert, after the reception and before too much of the drinking got started. On The One Ring.Net, these folks are commonly known as DJDeathkiss, her husband, Wednesday Addams and Eomer's Woman (seated)



One of our partiers shared an elevator with Billy and his sister in the hotel. However, he was so flummoxed he forgot to invite Billy and his sister over for a drink... But we had a good time anyway! Most of us are going to try to be at the IndyMoot in October, to visit the LOTR museum exhibition.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Review of The Lord of the Rings Symphony performance for 7/22.

Astronomy Delivers a Real SensaWonder Sighting....

space.com's report of the discovery of a planet in a triple sun system is one of the most wonerful things I've seen in a long time.

Triple sun planet.

Leave it to scientists to find the really interesting things!

And a possible sunset on this planet.

Awesome!

Fire Karl Rove

Teagan Goddard's Political Wire had a link to Fire Karl Rove, a petition urging Bush to fire Rove since it looks like (to almost no one's surprise) that Rove is the one who disclosed a CIA agent's identity. While it's a waste of electrons, I signed it to go on record. Here's what I said:

President Bush, please show us, at least once, that you can be a man to keep your word. Firing Rove for outing a CIA agent would be a very small step for you to acquire an iota of credibility, because you have none with most of us.

Projects/Projects/Projects

Last week, I was working very hard on getting the Interaction schedule ready for the Web. Unfortunately, various things have conspired to hold it up, but I hope do have one up in the next few days.

I am merely Interaction staff, so it's not up to me when the schedule is posted. When I am in charge of something, I always want to publicize as much information about it as soon as I can. I've found that people would like to see a draft of a schedule earlier, rather than "the final" schedule later. And while you always get a few people who can't comprehend the difference between a "draft" version and "the final," it's always a good idea to get the draft up early anyway.

I've also been working on the Pocket Program and Restaurant Guide for Confluence. They'll be printed tonight.

I've been tinkering with the novel a little. Lately, I've been editing and changing a major character's last name about four times. After doing that, I went back to his original last name, even though it was "phony." Somehow, it sounded better than any "real" last name I could give him. I was "trapped" in Chapter 17 for a while, and am now quite happy by how it turned out. I am sort of trapped by Chapter 19 currently, but think I may have just figured a way through it. I'm no longer sure I'll have it done by Worldcon (yuck), but I still have almost two weeks, so who knows...

We're Not Afraid!

I saw a neat Web site today:

We're Not Afraid

It encourages people to thumb their noses at fear. A splendid idea:



We're still traveling this summer, and, if I was working, I'd still take the subway.

I don't believe in letting the idiot terrorists and fearmongers win this one. I never have.

I haven't been doing too much work on my novel, as I've been doing fanac (for Interaction and Confluence). I did do some editing over the weekend, and the novel is now back to 86,000 words.

Was anyone else out there as unsurprised as I was that Karl Rove has a direct connection to the whole Plame outing? This is news?

Yes! Even I Can Canoe Ten Miles and Live to Tell the Tale!

No, I'm not quite one with my laptop and recliner. Having heard how great the weather was going to be, Jim and I decided to drive up to Cook State Forest and canoe yesterday. There's a very gentle river in the forest (the Cook River, one imagines) and lots of places to rent canoes. We did the four mile canoe trip two years ago, survived it, and decided to try the ten mile trip yesterday.

Cook State Forest is a little over two hours northeast of Pittsburgh (79N-80E-66N-36S). We got up there a little before 10am, and were suprised to see no line for canoes. This was a little confusing to us, given the phenomenal weather and the holiday weekend. The last time we'd gone on a Saturday, there was about a half hour wait in line just to rent the canoe.

After enough canoers arrived, they loaded us in a van and drove a few miles up the river. Then we got in the canoes, and, with a little help, took off down the river. The first mile or so, the four canoes stayed pretty close together - there was almost no one else in that part of the river. It was a brilliant blue day and I wish my digital camera had been working!!

After a bit, however, the river got very shallow, so we kept having to get out of the canoe and carry it through the shallower water. As Jim and I had never done that before, it really slowed down our trip. So that could exaplain why there were relatively few canoers on that part of the river - they knew canoing in shallow water wasn't much fun.

Eventually, we got back into deeper water, and wound up making fairly decent time. It took us under 3 1/2 hours to paddle 10 miles downstream.

Jim got a wretched sunburn on his knees, but I managed to apply the sunscreen as needed and emerged reasonably unburned.

We didn't see any interesting animals - no deer or bears or anything bigger than vacationers' dogs. We saw lots of birds, particularly woodpeckers, and the occassional butterfly.


I had plans to go to one of Jim's cousins picnics today, but woke up with a bad sinus headache. While I didn't feel like going out to be sociable, I actually made very good progress on the novel today. Last night, I'd finally finished the infamous Chapter 17, a chapter that's been taking me ages to write and has changed more dramatically than any other part of the book. I also updated my Word story submission template, based on the Writers Market suggested format, and integrated all the novel chapters into one long Word master document. So the novel is currently 94,800 words or 442 double-spaced pages (I think that corresponds to about a 220-page book). I think it'll top out at about 110,000 words.