My tweets from yesterday for non-Twitterers:

• 16:40 Wow--amazing deep orange-red sunset, & I almost missed seeing it. It's so far to the south! Only 5 weeks to Solstice! #
• 16:41 Graphic for title page of *Krymsin Nocturnes* is really shaping up well, but it's one of those, "huh? when did it get to be Thursday?" jobs #
• 01:52 I can do my writing/publishing/design work, or I can write/tweet/blog about writing/publishing/design...but I can't do both. It's Option A. #

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Inspired by this AFP article: NASA on crusade to debunk 2012 apocalypse myths.

Why I'm no doubt going against the flow (deliberate pun) and didn't like the new episode is behind the spoiler cut...

( big spoiler )

First of all: EEE YULETIDE!!!
That is all.

( Webreadings: writing, books, conlang, miscellany. )

The online poker school I'm in sponsors a weekly tourney, and I won it this week.

It wasn't a huge tourney - 128 people exactly. I made two big mistakes, one of which should have knocked me out of the tournament, but I sucked out on the turn instead. The second mistake came when there were 4 people left, and it did cost me a third of my stack, and let someone triple up to take the chip lead instead of doubling up to leave me with a comfortable margin.

But for the rest of the time, I both played pretty well, and several people decided to kamikaze against me. And in the latter stages, I was just stealing blind after blind, with nobody wanting to make a stand. All in all, a lot of fun, even if I'm still under the weather.

In the mid 17th century there lived a notorious pirate named Captain Cox.

Cox was a master of disrupting the Transatlantic Triangular Trade. The captain was known for ruthlessness, cunning, and wealth.

But a tragically common girl crosses paths with our captain and learns a secret with the potential to ruin the captain's entire career.

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2277654/1/Of_Love_and_Plunder

Rated M - Mature for an older audience.

On a mailing list I inhabit, discussion turned to the wondrous new scanner-pens that captured handwriting and notes while writing on paper. Some of them may have sound recorders too.

Actual question by a list member, and my reply follows:

How about people (and most academic lecturers fit into this category) that don't want to be recorded?

I'm pretty sure that the point of an academic lecture is to learn things, and that students have been recording notes with pen and paper and tape recorder and digital sound recorder since each of these technologies became feasible.

But, let's say that you don't want to be recorded.

Step one. Announce that you don't want to be recorded. Place notices at the doors, too, so you don't have to repeat the announcement for latecomers.

Step two. If that didn't work, retaliate. Speak an incorrect version of the lecture while writing the truth on the board. Erase after every sentence. If you see someone with one of those pesky cellphone cameras...

Step three. Active denial. Scan a laser around the room. When you get a lens-reflection, stop the laser and increase power until you burn the CCD. Turn on white noise generators in the back of the room. But some of those evil people are no doubt equipped with eidetic memory so...

Step four. Speak in cipher. Only those equipped with the proper key will be able to decipher your words.

Step five. Sue your customers.

The RIAA is now looking for step 6.

Miledrop
47,775 / 110,000 words (43%)
NaNoCheaMo total: 16,729

About 1850 new words today. All new, no revision, kind of a slow slog. I'm not sure how much I'll end up keeping -- the drive to produce words in quantity in order to legitimately beat NaNo this year is at war with the desire to not end up with another very long draft of crap that'll take me years and years to revise into shape again. If I can find somewhere in between those two, I think I'll be happy.

( another excerpt, in all its first-drafty awkwardness. )
[relevant]

I've been sick. Doctor thinks it was H1N1 but didn't actually want to see me. Tamiflu and Albuteral were my friends this week. I'm pretty much over the being sick part, but I am so darned tired and I'm sure that's just the afteraffects.

I will not be doing 100 minutes war....

I am trying to find out about BBM/Bergental Yule.

Still looking into SMoking Rocks 12th Night.

Then it's Arisia (all confirmed for that)

Then Birka (not confirmed yet)

After that, I'm not sure.

Just thought I'd let people know what i was up to.

Found this one at a second hand store:

Do you guys know if there's a dress code for The Colonial Theater? 'Cause, you know, I'm seeing Avenue Q on Wednesday.

I'm very pleased~

Oopsie!

Over Easter of 2004, I was a fan guest at Minicon in Minneapolis. Dealing with fan guests is always tough, because there's just not a lot you can do with them as a general class of people if their fanac is mostly in convention running. So Minicon, through their ambassador (my liaison and friend gerisullivan), got a bit creative.

First, Minicon asked if they could put together a chap book of things that I'd written. While I didn't think there would be enough useful stuff, my friend gerisullivan built "Recipes for Disaster," and filled it with various bits I'd generated: bid stuff, press releases, an article or two, and several actual recipes. (Blogging had not caught my interest, then, so there wasn't a lot to choose from.)

Minicon sold the chapbook, and at least a few people bought it because they'd tasted the end product of the sweetroll recipe it contained. Minicon let me use their con suite kitchen, and I baked *a lot* that weekend -- it was, after all, my sweetrolls that people had confidence in. So I killed 10 lbs. of flour, 5 lbs. of butter, a jar of yeast, and various other things dead and produced something like 13 or 14 sweetrolls. The end products went to the con suite, and they all seemed to disappear quite satisfactorily. (Thank heaven for the loan of lsanderson's Kitchen Aid, or my arms would have fallen off.)

They're not my sweetrolls; they're mom's. She is the one who found the recipe, made them for many years, then passed the recipe along to me. She is the one whose kitchen spoke of love and welcome for all of our friends when we were growing up (and, now, for her grandchildren). Mom was tickled that the recipe had been printed, complete with my somewhat sardonic commentary. It's still online. (The pictured sweetroll, in raspberry, is ~14" across.)

Today, I pulled out one of the copies of the chapbook that sit on my cookbook shelf so I could make a double batch of sweetrolls for the freezer (one each of apricot, Dutch apple, almond, and cherry). (Mom's going to be here in 8 days, so of course I'm baking for her.) Every time I bake sweetrolls, I appreciate all over again what Geri did in making a permanent record of that recipe...and what Mom did in teaching me how to bake and how to make a kitchen a great place to hang out.

While I'll never do another guest of honor stint, this chapbook is likely to be around until I'm no longer capable of baking.

Here are a bunch more images.

I didn't really chronicle my journey last time. I probably can't do it justice now, but here's the thumbnail sketch of what I've been up to:

I flew home from DC, sitting next to a couple very nice and chatty women who were down for some BATF meeting. I got home did some laundry, and watched an interesting Stargate Universe episode, and after a while went to sleep.

I got up at 5 and drove back to Logan, where there was plenty of parking. On the plane, I got about three hours sleep (yay, I needed that), and eventually landed in SF, and then drove to La Honda CA to visit Ann & Ruth. After lunch we went to walk through the Redwoods, and then went on to Neil & Cara's for dinner and some Baroque music. We returned to La Honda, slept, and then went out for some short hikes. Ruth has some heart problem that is putting fluid in her lungs, so we didn't do anything really strenuous.

After that, we had lunch, did some gardening, and otherwise had a good time.

Shortly after I got to the hotel tonight, I got some great news from munchor .

A snippet from tonight's output, with the villain's name blanked out to prevent spoilerage:

-------------------------------------------------

XXXXXXX brandished his rapier. "What would you have me do," he said, baring his teeth. "Simply ignore the insults done to me?"

"How did Jane Billings insult you?" Poe said, eyes locked on the blade in the other man's hand. "What in God's sake could she have said to you that made her deserve such a death?"

"That little trollop thought she could get around me by getting in pup by Stiles, and her slut of a mother thought that she could blackmail me into pressing a suit between Stiles and the youngest bitch of the family," the younger man said, as if it were obvious. "I merely taught them both a lesson they richly deserved."

The writer imagined Mrs. Billings' gore-stained mouth, and grimaced. "And Maggie?" he demanded. "What did you plan to do to that innocent child?"

XXXXXXX chuckled, a hideous sound. "That's quite the rich statement, coming from a jumped-up colonial who married his thirteen-year-old cousin," he taunted. "A fan of green fruit, are you? Did she weep when you breached her on your wedding night? Beg you to leave her be? Cry for her mother?"

Poe clenched his teeth, fighting down a surge of rage. "Mention my late wife once more," he grated, "and it will be the last thing you do with that foul tongue of yours."

"Oh, gracious. My apologies, sir." XXXXXXX bowed mockingly, waving his sword like a conductor's baton. "And pray tell, how do you intend to enforce this injunction?"

There was no more time. Poe took his Malacca walking stick in both hands, pulling on the handle. Two and a half feet of razor-sharp Toledo steel slid out of the wood. "A gift from my current wife," he said grimly.

A gleeful smile suffused XXXXXXX's features, driving out all semblance of sanity. With a cry he leapt forward, his blade thrusting for Poe's throat. Poe parried, stepping backwards with the surefooted gait of a West Point swordsman, and the clash of steel on steel rang in the night air.

1. I have nothing eligible for a Nebula, so you'll have to wait and nom me for a Hugo instead. (-:
2. I won't be at Arisia, because I couldn't get a hotel room.
2a. This also means Eldest won't be making her first appearance in the art show as she'd hoped.
3. I don't know about Boskone yet.

Also:
4. Discovered that the door of my toaster oven was made of safety glass.
5. Reconfirmed long-held belief that one's feet are the best way to find broken glass.
6. Did not let the babies test #6 themselves, despite immediate opportunity.

Also also:

7. WTF, Oster? The toaster oven was barely over a year old and has been in no way mistreated, so I don't get how the simple act of opening the door should cause it to suddenly turn into an outwards explosion of glass bits all over me, Eldest daughter, and as far as the sprogs in their high chairs.