10/7/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1 hour
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.25 hours (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 238.4
Yesterday’s chemo/post-op stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: The Exile Kiss by George Alec Effinger
[polls] The Sky That Wraps caption contest voting poll
Time for another caption contest voting poll, to celebrate the release of my new collction from Subterranean Press, The Sky That Wraps. I declared a caption contest on the following photo:
I have now embedded the comments into a voting poll. Unfortunately, some of the longer witticisms are truncated by the poll code. Usual rules apply. Prize after the voting poll will be an inscribed copy of The Sky That Wraps. Additional prizes may be awarded at the judge’s discretion.
Which caption best suits this photo of Jay laughing?
Alex J. Kane - If you're going to do that, sir, the law prefers that you do so in the center of the city street with one hand on the arse of your horse, for the sake of balance. (17%, 8 Votes)
markbourne - "Jay rolled his eyes, an action he usually avoided because putting them back in again tickled like the dickens." (13%, 6 Votes)
delkytlar - Jay's spirits get a lift when he learns that everyone at WorldCon actually thought his new hairstyle was a hat. (6%, 3 Votes)
elizaeffect - Wonka's new tomato-flavored chewing gum sounded disgusting at first, but was a surprise hit at the Lake compound - until the transformation began... (6%, 3 Votes)
Gerry Huntman - Jay Lake, wearing on his shirt the extremely rare, but fragrant, Euphoric Daffodil, the only plant known to exude, even after picking, nitris oxide. (6%, 3 Votes)
H - "No really the view of the sheep is out of this world! Here, lemme lend you my eye." (6%, 3 Votes)
goulo - Because his cap is ribbed for extra pleasure. (6%, 3 Votes)
deza - "You think a published author makes how much?" (4%, 2 Votes)
cjmarsicano - I don't need the silly turban and the sealed envelopes to do Johnny Carson's "Carnac The Magnificent" routine. (4%, 2 Votes)
catjuggling - "I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror, when I farted." (4%, 2 Votes)
Steve Buchheit - Jay Lake reads the Pledge for America. "Funniest piece of comedic fantasy this year," says Jay. (4%, 2 Votes)
Don - SCHOLES…. Ken… Please put pants on! Man, I did not need to see THAT this early in the morning. (4%, 2 Votes)
etcet - "Your attempt at enacting a remake of Scanners' definitive scene tickles. OH MY GOD, THERE IS A SPARKLEPONY DANCING IN MY SINUSES." (4%, 2 Votes)
ubiquitous_a - Wow, that squirting flower gag just never gets old! (4%, 2 Votes)
dsmoen - No, I'm sorry, you cannot do that with me AND the COLOSSAL SQUID! (2%, 1 Votes)
kimberlywade - "It's not cancer!" (2%, 1 Votes)
garyomaha - "Oopsie. Here I stand, all in a fit..." (2%, 1 Votes)
Andrew Nicolle - Whereupon we witness, first hand, the after effects of Jay's little-known New Zealand clown allergy. (2%, 1 Votes)
Deven - Jay: "'Damn pleasure ta see ya, mate?'" Giggles. "Sorry for the TMI, I thought you said, 'Did'ya please yer mate?'" (2%, 1 Votes)
jennifer_brozek - "Wait! Wait! This always works at home. I will split the bottle with my mind." (0%, 0 Votes)
horace_hamster - Nobody can tell a better joke than a daffodil lapel pin. (0%, 0 Votes)
skidspoppe - And now, using only the power of my mind, I will cause my facial hair to grow... (0%, 0 Votes)
little_foxy - You were just given your first pair of velcro gloves! And then had to have it explained to you why you need them! (0%, 0 Votes)
elizaeffect - You are thinking of...PFFFT! Seriously? AHAHAHAHAHA! You are thinking of a...*sporfle* HAHAHAHA! I can't even say it, I'm la...laughing too hard! (0%, 0 Votes)
e_bourne - Could someone please ask the Klingon to put his pants back on? (0%, 0 Votes)
dr_phil_physics - "I traveled halfway around the world to New Zealand and you call THAT a joke?" (0%, 0 Votes)
dbroussa - The CLAW!!!! Oh No, not the CLAAAWWWW!!!! (0%, 0 Votes)
daibheid - No, seriously...what the heck just squirted out of my eye! (0%, 0 Votes)
cuddlycthulhu - The kangaroo put what where? (0%, 0 Votes)
John Gibbons - Ha! When you asked "How were things Down Under?", I thought you meant... (0%, 0 Votes)
First prize is an inscribed copy of The Baby Killers, going to madrobins for:
“I admit to its utility,” said Miss Penderghast. “But the steam-powered corset-laundry will not catch on until it can be rendered small enough for the ordinary household.” with 15% of the polling, or 12 Votes.
Runners up are:
shelly_rae: Fortunately the colonoscopy scope has improved in the modern era and no longer requires a team of horses. It just feels that way. (11%, 9 Votes)
cjmarsicano: The Lime Observatory apologizes for the embarrassment caused by an intern pointing our telescope at the nudist beach in the next county. (10%, 8 Votes)
madrobins and cjmarsicano, please contact me with your postal addresses. (I already have shelly_rae’s.) Everyone else, go check out the other contestants if you haven’t done so already. Some funny stuff there!
Dear Rev. Graham: Obama was not born a Muslim and neither is anyone else — Those Americans who insist on seeing Obama as a Muslim are othering him, and probably are using religion as a proxy for race. Since the Civil Rights movement, it has been unacceptable in the United States for a public figure to engage openly in racist discourse, as shock jocks Dr. Laura and Don Imus discovered. But apparently it is still all right to be a religious bigot, so Islam is being scapegoated by the Republican Party, as its ability openly to play on racial fears is being increasingly constrained.
?otD: What would you do if this were the last day of your life?
8/22/2010
Writing time yesterday: 3.5 hours (revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute suburban walk to come
Hours slept: 8.25 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Destroyer by C.J. Cherryh
[personal] Miscellaneous updatery is all part of my rock and roll fantasy
Despite the title on this post, I had a Banarama moment in the shower this morning. And let me tell you, nothing convinces one that one needs a shower like a day of colonoscopy prep can do.
Bits and pieces:
Speaking of colonoscopy prep, I’m off to the clinic Real Soon Now, in the care of calendula_witch. And no, anent suggestions from several helpful souls, vodka was not an approved part of the clear liquid diet of the past 30 hours.
I figure on being done with Endurance sometime this weekend. Then I’ll be working on the Kalimpura outline and trying to sweep through some WRPA and a few short fiction projects in fairly short order.
Next Tuesday I am in an audio studio for a little while. It will be my first time recording with pro equipment. Too bad my voice is so iffy…
Cancer second opinion consultation will take place at M.D. Anderson in Houston, Texas, probably in early October. Watch this space for updates.
I’d like to do another contest/book giveaway for the upcoming release of The Sky That Wraps. Should it be a caption contest, or shall we do something else?
Time for another caption contest voting poll, to celebrate the release of my steampunk minim opus, The Baby Killers. I declared a caption contest on the following photo:
I have now converted it to a voting poll. Unfortunately, some of the longer witticisms are truncated by the poll code, so take the time to pop over to those links and look them over before you vote! Usual rules apply. Prize after the voting poll will be an inscribed copy of The Baby Killers. Additional prizes may be awarded at the judge’s discretion.
Steampunk caption contest.
madrobins: "I admit to its utility," said Miss Penderghast. "But the steam-powered corset-laundry will not catch on until it can be rendered small enough for the ordinary household." (15%, 12 Votes)
shelly_rae: Fortunately the colonoscopy scope has improved in the modern era and no longer requires a team of horses. It just feels that way. (11%, 9 Votes)
cjmarsicano: The Lime Observatory apologizes for the embarrassment caused by an intern pointing our telescope at the nudist beach in the next county. (10%, 8 Votes)
TVining: Well, ya'gotta reinforce the collar fittings, and she'll need a new coat of paint, but I think she'll fire again. (9%, 7 Votes)
burger_eater: Steampunk: Brass, goggles and phallic symbols. (8%, 6 Votes)
Maurine Starkey: The opening of the new steam power station has been delayed until crews could finish with the faux aged and distressed decor. "Dystopian aesthetic is the standard in today's society (6%, 5 Votes)
jaborwhalky: In aether, no one can hear you scream (4%, 3 Votes)
frozenrhino: D00d, this thing is gonna be the best waterballoon cannon EVER! (4%, 3 Votes)
robling_t: Upon reflection, Shelley decided that "Look on my cock, ye mighty, and despair" was a bit on-the-nose and did some rewriting... (4%, 3 Votes)
lagbolt: His right ankle needed oiling, and the paint was peeling on his foot. (4%, 3 Votes)
tanuki_green: Prepare to fire the Steam Cannon, Mr. Biggles! (3%, 2 Votes)
RJ: It is said that the number of rivets required for the main penstock feed to the great binary reckoner was the last, great calculation made by the brute force of men's brains. (3%, 2 Votes)
L Cohen: Magnetic Alignment Collars (MACs) on the TransContinental Accelerator (1909). Colloquially known as Mrs. Planck's Garter Belts. (3%, 2 Votes)
jenntheamazon: Well, time to paint the aquaducts again *sigh* (3%, 2 Votes)
goulo: Weeks after our gallant troops suppressed the local insurrection, the spice duct still showed vestiges of the vain spear attack on that fateful day of Prince Higgenbotham's coronation. (3%, 2 Votes)
dionysus1999: Smokestack Lightning: because a 50 foot metal man's smoke has to be proportional to his other brass assets. (3%, 2 Votes)
Randy Henderson: She think you mighty man when your pipe look like to this. Buy Doctor Miracle's magical unction and put you the steam back in your punk!!! (3%, 2 Votes)
will_couvillier: Steam Blaster - not just for paint removal any longer! (1%, 1 Votes)
will_couvillier: Use GlowMite - The finest in radiation reflective paint! (1%, 1 Votes)
will_couvillier: Whoa! Who snapped the crank handle off? (1%, 1 Votes)
Randy Henderson: Behold, man's final monument to the dawn of his own destruction the remains of the BP oil pipeline. Alas, it outlasted its creators. (1%, 1 Votes)
pmrabble: Jay's idea pipeline is getting a tad overworked. (1%, 1 Votes)
martianmooncrab: Blowback from the mighty Air Rail Gun was highly corrosive, and if the Gun Crew didnt follow proceedures, casualties would rise. (1%, 1 Votes)
Deven Atkinson: Pictured are the frozen roller bearings of the Niagara Falls Power Company's primary penstock. Lack of rotation these past two weeks has caused the pipe to begin filling with sediment (0%, 0 Votes)
Ellen Eades: The Kiln Veterans. (0%, 0 Votes)
erikthenude: Well, the utility company said that if we bought 3 household appliances that they would hook our home up with gas for free. (0%, 0 Votes)
Randy Henderson: You put the lime in the Majestic Mechanical Material Mixating Marvel, and mix it all up. Add coconut to taste. (0%, 0 Votes)
selfavowedgeek: I stormed Aqaba, and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. (0%, 0 Votes)
Ruthanne Reid: NOW let's see that dog get in here! (0%, 0 Votes)
paulcarp: For dessert, I'll try the key Lime pipe. (0%, 0 Votes)
I must confess to being pleasantly surprised at the response to yesterday’s reader poll. Some terrific comments there. I wasn’t surprised at most of what the poll is telling me, but the “new content” section is useful and I will take note.
No, no Twitterstream will appear. I might start a second blog just as a place to archive it, but that will be for my own benefit if so. And no, no Pajamas Media. I don’t really envision syndicating myself to anyone — my daily content is too idiosyncratic to appeal to a wider audience, I’m pretty sure, though I always thought I could do some good stuff with a weekly column somewhere — but even if I did, it would not be Pajamas Media or anything of that ilk. Wrong politics for me. I’d have to wash a lot more often to get the grime off.
As a side note, several people commented on the politics of talking about politics, as it were. The risk being, of course, that one might alienate a section of one’s readership. Doubtless I have done so here, in holding strong political views that largely correspond with the American definition of Left. I have a couple of thoughts about that.
First of all, the writer is not the story. My fiction is neither didactic nor political. My worldview certainly infuses it, but that’s talking about issues of personal responsibility, for example, not the rubric of American electoral politics. Some people might decide not to investigate my writing, based on their reaction to my politics. Too bad for them. Just like it’s too bad for me I won’t read Orson Scott Card any more, for essentially same reason.
Second of all, passion is personal. Even passion one disagrees with. And personal can be more interesting. When I first starting blogging as a writer in the early 2000s (not counting my protoblog Web posts from the late 1990s) I was very careful not to be political or cultural. It was very important to me not to be controversial, for fear of offending potential readers. I held that principle for several years, then one day got fed up with something (a school shooting, I think) and cut loose.
My readership doubled in six weeks.
Oooookay, I thought.
Yea, a few of my regulars promptly dropped away. But a lot more showed up, and some of you have stuck around ever since. I looked around at blogs and bloggers I like and admire — John Scalzi with Whatever, , Making Light. All of them have substantially larger audience footprints than I do. All of them talk about what stirs their passions, most definitely including politics. And it certainly doesn’t seem to have hurt careers.
So I took some validation and some courage from that example, and I’ve let it hang out since. Because, as so many of you have pointed out, this is my blog, and I should say what I want. It’s not like you have to read it.
My goal on this blog is to amuse, entertain and educate myself. That so many of you choose to come along for the ride is a source of great pride and pleasure to me. Thank you.
The Year of the Assassin — A leftie semirant which I found pretty interesting. Lots of comments on the American attitude toward war, including this gem: if we are no nation of warriors, from the point of view of the rest of the world we are certainly the planet’s foremost war-makers.
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