And it only costs a grand...

I would sooo get this for my dad for Xmas if it wasn't as much as a car (or a computer) and actually useless. Not to mention, its probably so heavy he'd get winded trying to open the cork screw. Is that an antenna in there? Does it do FM radio??

From Boing Boing Gadgets...

Be aware, the "Giant Swiss Army Knife" from Wenger is now available at Thinkgeek for a cool grand. It features all 85 tools currently available in various other knives from Wenger....and includes a key ring.

Tie a Blue Ribbon Round my Basement Tech

For two years I've toiled with my desktop PC and its spontaneous crashing and rebooting.

For five years I've worked happily with Windows XP.

Yesterday, all that changed. Fed up with the desktop, I did a little shipping around and found out that Best Buy actually had a great deal on a couple of Quad Core systems. These are computers running an Intel Core 2 Quad G6600 chip. It's like four CPUs in one. Kinda. It's fast, anyway.

And, Gateway actually had a retail version with not just a dual-monitor-ready graphics card (a must for me) but also 3 GIGABYTES RAM. For less than a grand (before tax).

Having never in my life using more than a Gig of RAM in a computer -- a big mistake, always max it out -- I went for it.

I've found out two things: Windows Vista, much as everyone bitches about it, sure is purty. Using XP now makes me feel like I'm using Windows 3.1.

Second, I got a trial version of the new Microsoft Office 2007 with the system. This version got rid of menus at the top in favor of a "ribbon" of graphical choices. And I frickin' love it. Drop-down menus are so 2003!

I'm writing this blog entry in Word 2007 and posting it directly -- a dream come true, assuming it doesn't choke to deal on smart quotes and em dashes. [[UPDATE: the graphic didn't work (of course) and it didn't like the em dashes nor the fake Word ellipsis, but we did okay on the quotation marks.]]

[[UPDATE 2: Inserting graphic with link to outside works fine.]]

If you want an inexpensive desktop system that will probably last you a while, Gateway's GT5628 is worth a look. You could do worse.

Me, Hanging with CHAD

Tomorrow afternoon I'm doing an interview with the creators (or at least one of the creators) of Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager, for a story I'm doing in PC Mag.

My job totally rocks.

Almost a Just Punishment

Sweet...from The Ithaca Journal:

The former Cornell University student who pleaded guilty to beating and pouring bleach on a dog named Princess, was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail and five years of probation.

Shame he couldn't have some bleach in his eyes, too.

Perdition's Bitchiest Bitch

I mentioned before, while at Viable Paradise, we had to a writing exercise (or multiples) to do. The more stuff you could fit into the same exercise, the better. This is mine. [[Link pulled, as I may actually, I dunno... submit that story somewhere. We'll see.]]

The highlighted parts are meant to show the stuff I was required to put in. For example, I had to use a person, place, and problem that was randomly assigned to me, and put them all in the same sentence. I got "Kid Dracula or Vampire" as person, the Inferno as a place, and "lost" as a problem. That set it all off. It also had to include "non-mammalian reproduction" and include several bits taken from the Evil Overlord list of no-nos... you know, the stuff Doctor Doom and Lex Luthor never learn. There's some other stuff highlighted I had to include which I don't even remember now.

My thanks to Jim McDonald for liking it so much. I hope he'll be saying "Perdition's Bitch" for a long time to come.

Anywhere is Possible!

[[Killing the auto-loading video... it's damned annoying. go see it at http://www.jumperthemovie.com/jumper_video.swf]]

Is this movie anything like the book? No. But does it look good anyway, despite the fact that it stars Anakin Skywalker? Hell's yes.

In the BlogHaus

I almost missed this post from Sept. 29, but the folks at PC Mag Blogs put a pic of me up from the Digital Life trade show I worked with them and the rest of the PC Mag Network staff. I'm in the second shot. DigitalLife 2007: Bloggers in the Haus - Gearlog

Slice and Dice

You know what feels great? I scratch on the eye lid, from walking through the "screen curtain" on my back porch and managing to catch the ragged edge that was heading for my cornea. Yep, it's certainly a pick me up. Who needs caffeine?

The Return of -- ZOT!

Just read on GalleyCat:

Scott McCloud's Zot!, one of the best independent comics of the 1980s, has been sold to HarperCollins as a 576-page graphic novel, which will include several issues from the original comic book that have never been reprinted. in trade paperback. The book's publication in the summer of 2008 will coincide with the San Diego Comic-Con.

A Week in Paradise

When I was a kid, I went to camp exactly once. It was some kind of ecology camp, meant to teach us outdoor skills and a smattering of how to save the world. What I remember most: I dreaded going and hated arriving, as I was convinced I'd never get to know anyone and everyone hate me. Of course, by the end of the week I never wanted to leave.

(I also learned how to curse in Spanish.)

Viable Paradise was, for me, a lot like that camp. I dragged the wife with me down to the common room on the first night, afraid to be alone. That room would be our base of operations for the next week of lectures, collegiums, meals, and games, but that night it was just a big circle of chairs with little cliques already forming. The comfort level I'd have in, say, a trade show or vendor meeting, where I'm the journalist everyone wants the attention of, was completely gone.

Ah, the life of a geek. You either have the fear of being judged or you extrovert yourself beyond any ability to feel embarrassment anymore.

I barely remember who was there now. It didn't help that things were getting off to a late start. Dinner, scheduled for 6, didn't come down until 7:30 or so. Then the instructors -- authors and editors all -- trickled in, making grand entrances. It's hard to beat a 6'6" guy like Jim MacDonald walking around in bare feet preparing a bucket of margaritas.

The discomfort didn't last. Our getting-to-know-each-other night was spent playing the group games Mafia and Thing. Hard to stay nervous when accusing strangers of being lying shape-shifted monsters.

We segued quickly into Monday morning group critique sessions on our individual books/short stories. I had to stay up until 2am to read the first two stories to critique. I think I got my first friend at the conference (Hi, Kim!) after reading her book.

That first day I also got my first professional critique of my own book (called Beta Test), and was relieved to find that, overall, the idea is sound and the execution, as is, needs (minor to severe) tweaking. That's pretty much how it went with my book throughout the week. Some had stronger feelings than others about various aspects: Go with a first person protagonist. Make the protag an actual AI. I may also have inadvertently ripped off a video game I have never played (Hi, Benjamin!). It's always something.

The consensus against my using [SPOILER!] "God" as a first person narrator, however, is strong. But everyone likes that God is a platypus. (My dream cover on that book is a simple drawing of a swimming platypus with a halo...)

I got to know some great people, both the students and teachers. Author Laura Mixon is one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life, hands down. My admiration for Cory Doctorow and what he does on boingboing.net went up a notch as I realized he was working throughout the conference, hand-coding HTML entries for the uber-blog during lectures by others and yet still chiming in when appropriate. There's a reason why a simple google of "cory" brings him up in the first results, even before the Haims and Feldmans.

Steve Gould, author of two my by favorite books (Jumper and Reflex, mentioned a LOT in this blog if you're paying attention) and husband of Laura M., gave a couple of great talks, one a preview of what we can expect out of the upcoming movie adaptation of Jumper coming February 2008. In short, don't expect the same story. His attitude about it is the right one, namely, "So what, the book is still out there." Plus, he's got kids that need a college fund. He even "sold out" and wrote a book that's a prequel to the movie version of the story, to which I say, good god-dammit. Better he get the money than someone else.

Still, Hayden "Anakin" Christiansen as Davy in Jumper? It's a damn shame. But maybe he'll be as good as he was in Shattered Glass. I'll see it opening weekend either way.

Steve signed my copy of Jumper saying "I knew you when." Here's hoping.

[Trivia that will astound: I only watched two hours of TV all week (Chuck and Heroes). It's a testament to the quality of the week I had that I don't feel I missed out on much.]

Students (well, most of us) had to write a story or stories for some assignments given out early in the week. It was tough to fit in around the meeting schedule, but I managed to crank around five thousand words combining most of the assignments in one big story. And based on the suggestion (Hi, Chris in Brazil!) that monkey's improve everything, I included some. Because of the bad-guy's living persuasion (vampyric), and his use of said simians as minions, it became known as the "vampire monkey story." I'll post it here later.

I'll never, ever be able to watch an actual full production of Richard III after our "Beer with Billy [Shakespeare]" night, in which every third line of the play became charged with homoerotic comedy after Cory started yelling "OW" after the stage directions when more and more men entered each a scene. When the "village-cock" crowed, the room almost melted.

Five days of intensive talk about writing, books, writing, publishing, stories, writing, business practices, and writing can take its toll… and by Friday I was perhaps a bit burned out. I walked to lunch with some of the other students (Hi Marta, Julia, and Dorothy, and Kim again!) and got back an hour late and in the middle of an open session covering everything from how to fire an agent to how to tag along with writers at conventions who are going to dinner with their editors. Perhaps a bit premature to contemplate, but nice that the instructors thought enough of us to think it could happen.

It was a constant mantra to us: we're already better than most of the people in the slush pile (the stack of unsolicited manuscripts on the desk of every agent and editor in the world). Partly that's because of 50% of them are from people with severe mental illness, according to Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who teach every year with wife Teresa. Both are editors at TOR Books, arguably the best known SF/Fantasy book imprint in the U.S.

[Little known fact: I applied for a job in the marketing department at TOR while still in college. The interview went well, but then I had to go home to Ithaca and write a press release about a new book they were putting out. I thought it was good, but it wasn't good enough to get the job. How different things would have been if I'd got that job and not gone into tech publishing.]

Patrick and Cory both said, when I told them I've got an agent already for my first novel, that while it's out I shouldn't work on it anymore -- it's time to work on the next project. I need to talk with my agent, hopefully tomorrow, and see what she thinks. I'd like to throw myself into Beta Test for a while and have something to show her in a few months, in hopes that she'll want to represent that book, as well, but I don't want The Random Chance Chronicles to languish either. Kim said she (and maybe her 10 year old daughter) will read TRCC through as is and maybe give me some ideas on where to tighten it up.

That's the crux of the week right there. Having people to talk to, to show things to, writers in the same boat. Lord knows, without out the inestimable Josh Roberts, my friend, colleague, and first-reader in all things, I'd be nowhere. My wife -- whom I call Squanto -- has no equal as a common-sense sounding board. But I can't continually go back to them with the same things and bug the crap out of them.

On our last night, a number of us -- 20 at one point -- gathered in a guest room in the Island Inn and told "origin stories." Laura was asked how she and Steve got together. After that, the stories kept coming. There were tales of heart break via video store accounts (Hi, Mark!), tales of being stalked by online fans (Hi, Leonard), tales of stalking at DisneyLand, and more. I told of how I was led to Squanto, as if by destiny. Always nice to get a laugh when I bring up the backrub I gave as she scooped tuna-fish in the walk-in meat cooler. It was a great night. However, it did piss off my wife that I didn't come back to the room until 1am.

[Tip for future VP attendees: if you bring a spouse, at some point they will get short shrift or you will ignore your new buds. Either way, you lose. Keep it in mind.]

Squanto and I drove Kim and Mark to Logan Airport yesterday morning after VP came to a close. I then drove up to Beverly, north of Boston, to visit Josh and his family (Hi, Penny and Ethan!) in their beautiful house. As he cooked us burgers for lunch, I told him: if he doesn't submit something to get into VP himself, I'll kick his ass.

I'd recommend it to anyone with a science fiction or fantasy (or tangential) story telling jones to get in there. (Historical fiction counts: Hi, Rachel!)

If you can't do VP, try Odyssey. Or Clarion, if you can take off six weeks from work or life. It's a life changing experience and one you won't regret.

The End

it's 1:30 am, I'm a little buzzed and a lot energized, which ain't good, as I need to sleep, but I'm also bummed, cause it's over. All but the travelin' back to the real world. Blargh.

More on my VPXI (that's what we hip kids call it) when I land. safe to say, it was a defining week of my life.

Celeb Siting!

The wife-- whom I call Squanto! -- reports she saw CARLY SIMON at the Stop & Shop here on Martha's Vineyard today. In fact, she almost ran into her, literally. But they smiled at each other and Carly stepped out of her way.

That's right, my woman gets right-of-way against super-star musicians.

World Building

I'm 48 hours into the most intense writing week of my life. Not that I'm doing much writing (though I'll be doing more than I thought, to be honest). It's just that it's all about writing. Which is great.

One thing is clear after having just a couple of critiques from pros here at Viable Paradise -- including one of the biggest name editors in the world of science fiction and fantasy -- is that I need to get with some people on a regular basis for live critiques. Where are all the white males in Ithaca with desires to be the next Neil Gaiman? I can't be the only one. (I'll never be Neil, but I'm shooting for Christopher Moore.)

So far it's all been overwhelmingly positive, both the reactions to my story as well as the experience in general. The first night went from mildly uncomfortable -- geek introversion syndrome, punctuated by the occasional overcompensation into ultra-extrovert -- to raucous with games of "Mafia" and "Thing." I'm not even going to try to explain them (see Wikipedia) but suffice to say, it's a good way to get to know strangers and call them a lying backstabber at the same time.

Since then, it's pretty much been critiques, sleep, reading, and lectures. All good stuff and there's some wireless access so I've been able to check email for work a bit during downtimes. I even heard from my own agent while I was here, bringing it all full circle. Here's hoping I have a new book to show her by the end of the year based on the feedback I'm getting here on Martha's Vineyard.