Video clips

You've undoutably seen this Rube Goldberg Machine music video already (6 million views) but pretty entertaining!

I hadn't come across Pigeon Impossible before, but anxiously await other Walter Beckett cartoons.

(Both pointed out to me by Matt Baum -- Thanks!)

Future of Publishing

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future by Jason Epstein provides an interesting take on cultural implications of digital publishing in current issue of New York Review of Books.

San Deigo Zoo Wild Animal Park

So this was pretty cool: the Lorikeet Landing exhibit at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.

Tigana reacts to Lorikeet landing on her.

Kasia with Lorikeets



I love how my kids are enthusiastic about things others find less exciting (e.g., man behind Tigana, who is clearly less pleased with the birds mobbing people).

We were in San Diego over Reading Week in Feb.

Gift Registry

Okay, going through my computer throwing out old files, came across this notice of a great lamp. I would sooo buy this!

Mary Runte -- Associate Professor

So my wife, Mary Runté received Tenure and promotion to Associate Professor today. The committee met, I am reliably informed, for about six minutes -- three of those spent introducing the External, and going through the paperwork, so not a lot of debate over whether she had made the bar for either tenure or Associate. The comments from all the external reviewers were basically rave reviews without a single reservation (something almost unheard of!), and the fast turn around in the meeting was another form of validation, so Mary's feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I always knew that she was a slam dunk to get tenure and promotion, even given the occasional nonsense politics that interfere with the process in some departments/faculties, but its always nerve wracking until its official.

Walking the Dog

Two quick dog stories, sort of.

So I'm out walking the dog the other night, when a flicker out the corner of my eye draws my attention to Orion's Belt. And I am just in time to see the three stars of Orion's Belt peel off to the right and zoom across the sky. And I'm thinking, "That can't be good!" Because I'm pretty sure we have been tracking those three stars in particular for about 5,000 years. Another star gets up and moves, maybe it was a piece of space junk or just a passing plane, not a star at all, so no biggie. Or even if there was an object that we had thought a star but turns out to be an alien observation station, if it decided it was time to leave, well, maybe they were hoping we wouldn't notice and maybe we wouldn't so much. But I can pretty much say that if the aliens running the three stars of Orion's Belt decided it was time to go, and they go off in formation like this, that really can't be good.

Then, of course, I eventually worked out -- say 20 seconds later -- that they haven't moved at all, and that I have been tricked by the 'moving train on the other track illusion' -- that is, Orion's belt has stayed safely stationary, but the two other stars in the background against which I had been tracking their motion turned out to be two planes travelling in parallel have an arc apart. But the illusion was a very powerful and convincing one, right up until the planes moved to far out of the field to maintain the illusion. And for the record, 20 seconds is a very long time when you think you're watching the end of the world....

In a completely unrelated incident, my dog has been driving me crazy, barking in the backyard. Mostly she is a quiet, calm, wonderful dog, but whenever the neighbour behind us lets her dog out into her backyard, Jackie goes berserk trying to break through the fence to kill it. The neighbour's dog is the size of my hand, so no threat to Jackie, but either she doesn't know that (it's a solid fence with no eye holes); or she's seen the dog and mistaken it for a barking rabbit. Whatever the case, Jackie's barking is enough to wake the entire neighbourhood so Mary and I will go out onto the deck and call Jackie in. Jackie rushes back for Mary, but studiously ignores my shouts for her to "come!"

On one recent occasion, I was at the back door when Jackie started up, my shoes were upstairs at the front door, the backyard was under three feet of snow, and it irked me that Jackie would come for Mary and not me, so I might have allowed the tiniest bit of an edge into my voice as I shouted "Jackie!" repeatedly. Louder and angrier, "Jackie! Jackie!, For God Sakes, Jackie!" After about 5 minutes of this, the neighbour had retrieved her dog, Jackie had stopped barking, but was still refusing to acknowledge me, merely sniffing along the fence for the spoor of the hated dograbbit. "Jackie! Jackie!" I continued shouting, in what I might in hindsight now confess to be slightly shrill tones. When a peeved voice a couple of houses down answers, "What? What already?!" And it occurs to be in one illuminated moment that (a) The neighbour two houses down on the other side of the lane is named "Jackie"; and (b) I have not had occasion to introduce her to our new dog, "Jackie".

Oops. So now I am careful to shout "Come! Here girl! Good Doggie!" rather than my dog's name when yelling into the back yard. Or, you know, saying, "Hey, Mary, the dog's barking in the back yard again! You'd better go call her in..."

interview with me at Five Rivers

Interview with me by Lorina Stephens at Five Rivers Publishing blog today. Mostly about how I expect to fit in at Five Rivers, bit about my writing, and so on.

Tigana on the news again

Tigana was once again interviewed on local news, this time about a school activity. We don't know what Tigana actually said because she has become so blasé about her media exposure that she forgot to mention to us that she was on TV until after the fact, and while Global News does have the clip online (thus the above photo), the sound was wonky for her piece of the clip. Maybe just as well....

CodeOrgan Review

Okay, this is an immensely entertaining time waster... Heard about it this morning on Q so tried it out and it is hilariously intriguing. Basically analyzes any website to produce that page's theme music. I know the algorithm is strictly mathematical analysis of number of letters etc, but it somehow seems to come up with music that fits. My desktop page (just a series of job related links etc that I use daily) gives a horribly boring and mechanical tune; my curricular websites gave appropriately lively and intriguing music; Five River Publishing page gave great book theme music, again entirely appropriate to the tone of the place. Great fun. Try it yourself:CodeOrgan

Interview with Casey Wolf

My interview with SF writer Casey Wolf is up at Strange Horizons today (Feb 9). My title for the piece, "Nice Makes Write", made Casey wince, but otherwise I think it came out okay!

Tigana Santa and Kasia

The The Impotence of Proofreading

..." by Taylor Mali is an amusing poetry read via Youtube, worth 3:31 minutes of your life. (Warning some language, may not be suitable for viewing at work.) Brought to my attention by author Simon Rose, via SF Canada.

Anthem for SF Writers

Mark Shainblum nominates this for science fiction's national anthem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

Pure Speculation

I attended the Pure Speculation conference in Edmonton on the weekend and was pleasantly surprised by how much it has grown. I was especially pleased with the Friday evening entertainment at Happy Harbour, which included an excellent performance by author GoH and professional singer Edward Willett, and a fascinating talk by Rick Green on Prisoner of Gravity series.


me with author/singer Edward Willett. He's only two years younger than I; so why does he still have hair and look so fit? And that voice! The man definitely has stage presence. (Photo by author Barb Baller-Smith, whose book Druids was released at the convention.)


Me with authors Ann Marston, Edward Willett, Aaron Humphrey, and Nicole Luiken (Humphrey) (Photo Barb Baller-Smith)

Awaiting my turn to speak on one of the panels. (Photo by Ron Sannachan)

Vancouver

We stayed at the Delta in Richmond, which was being renovated in time for the Games in Feb, and a good thing too. Our room was annoyingly tiny and crowded, a sharp contrast to our last Delta room. But no biggie, we just needed a place to crash.

So, some shopping (Lulu Lemon outlet store—I even bought myself a hoodie and a jacket. I hate to admit it, but the brand really is worthy of the hype. There is almost nothing that my wife or daughter tried on that didn’t look fantastic on them. If they’d had kid sizes, I’d have dressed Kasia in it too.) visits with the Vancouver relatives; a day trip out to White Rock (lovey!); Flying Wedge Pizza; a Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant; White spot burgers; and Mary took her niece clothes shopping, my brother-in-law being a single dad with no sense of style....


Mary and the kids on our day trip to White Rock