annathepiper: (Dib WTF)
Y'all know this already, of course, but yay, back ahead of schedule! Here, have some linkage to celebrate.

I believe the correct word for this is "shiny".

Isn't [livejournal.com profile] blackaire's forthcoming cover for Street Magic breaking some sort of Law of Urban Fantasy Cover Art by actually having two figures? Who changed the Cover Art Law when I wasn't looking? (Props to [livejournal.com profile] mdhenry for sharing the goodness, though!)

And for the two or three of you out there who might not have actually seen it yet, the first full official trailer is out for the new Trek flick. I have to admit... I'm really rather geeking out about this now. From a worldbuilding standpoint I'm curious to see what they'll keep and what they'll change, and whether it is actually biologically possible for someone to play James T. Kirk and not channel William Shatner. Zachary Quinto looks like he's totally nailed Spock. And I want to see Simon Pegg being awesome as Scotty.

ETA 9:26pm: And in the admittedly cool even if it means your spam can follow you all the way to Mars kind of way, NASA is testing an early-stage interplanetary Internet.

Also, here, have a cat riding a Roomba!
annathepiper: (Martha)
It is good to know that the Onion can still bring the Funny: Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Progress

I particularly like this part:
Carrying a majority of the popular vote, Obama did especially well among women and young voters, who polls showed were particularly sensitive to the current climate of everything being fucked.

Some contemplative election thoughts )
annathepiper: (Blue Hawaii Relaxing)
Given that I was given today off as a "cope with getting laid off" day, [livejournal.com profile] solarbird and I took advantage of the opportunity to head out just before lunch and make with the voting.

Our polling place was active although not too crowded. All the booths were in use when we got there and there were only a couple of people queued up ahead of us. Dara spotted a count of 247 on our way out, which is pretty high for our particular polling spot, and certainly as of that early in the day. And, of course, we got the stickers.


Got On My Voting Hat


It should surprise none of you that my ballot came out a strong shade of blue. About that I really need not say much else, though I will say to my fellow Amurkins that even if you don't happen to be of my particular shade of blue, and you got out and voted, I'm still proud of you. I'm seeing news all over the place about record voter turnout. This is a good thing. And if anybody tries to make any sort of move whatsoever to get between you and your vote, raise a mighty stink about it.

We got flu shots on the way home, which seems oddly appropriate on Election Day. Between that and a shot of the Glenlivet that [livejournal.com profile] technoshaman brought us Sunday afternoon, I figure I should be well inoculated against the evening even though I'm sure I'll be glued to the incoming results along with the rest of you.

Well, the war's been won
All the fights are fought
And you find yourself in just the spot
It's a place where everybody's got
A song to sing
Just like the final movie scene
The prince will find his perfect queen
The hero always saves the world
The villains get what they deserve
The boy will always get the girl when I am King

All these things when I am King will appear around me
The world will sing when I am King
The world will sing when I am King

Sadly, I still will not be able to vote for Alan Doyle for King.
annathepiper: (Viva Las Vegas WTF)
I'm seeing this all over my Friends list already, but let me add my voice to the chorus of sorrow at the passing of George Carlin.

I have very early memories of Carlin being a favorite of my father's, in no small part because Dad was frequently told by people that he reminded them of George. They were correct. Dad had the same sort of lean, wiry build that George did, the same sort of attitude, and many of the same habits and sense of humor.

We had two old Carlin albums in Dad's record collection: On the Road, which has some of George's most hysterical material ever, and Take-Offs and Put-Ons, notable for the "Wonderful Wino" sketch as well as "Indian Sergeant". Later on I picked up a tape of What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, and A Place For My Stuff.

I still snicker at "A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it!" and "Now, an announcement from the National Apple Institute: FUCK PEARS!"

But really, my favorite sketch of his ever, which is sadly apt with this news, is the one he did about death on On the Road: "I don't wanna be buried when I die. I don't wanna be cremated either. I wanna be BLOWN UP!" And, "There's a little known--and less understood!--portion of death called the Two Minute Warning."

Gonna miss you, George. I hope you used those two minutes, man.
annathepiper: (Dib WTF)
[livejournal.com profile] kathrynt just gave me the heads up that Dennis Kucinich is reading articles of impeachment against Bush live, on C-Span, this very minute.

We just tuned in at the Murk. And we're all whomperjawed. Wow. And here we thought Congress was going to not bother with this since there's so little of Bush's term left. Who knew the Dems had a stealth impeachment campaign underway?

Anybody see any news articles on this out there yet? I'm scouring my usual sources, but no sign of any breaking news yet.

ETA 6:08pm: Link from [livejournal.com profile] mdlbear: Kucinich has thirty-five articles of impeachment lined up.

ETA 6:20pm: Ah, this may well have triggered this: Scott McClellan has agreed to testify in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. And apparently he's told Keith Olbermann on his show to his face that he'll testify that Kucinich's articles are true.

ETA 6:42pm: Yahoo's news site now has the first AP Wire report I've been able to find. I expect this will show up on other major news feeds with similar content before we get more substantial articles.

ETA 7:34pm: Links from [livejournal.com profile] mistwolf and [livejournal.com profile] grian_ruadh: DailyKOS is liveblogging the matter here and here.

ETA 8:05pm: Up to Article 30 in the reading, and the news is finally starting to make its way around the Net. News.google.com has the first few articles showing up here.

ETA 9:17pm: And, now that we've gotten to the House adjourning for the evening, time to see how this hits all the news sites tonight and tomorrow morning.

ETA 9:40pm: [livejournal.com profile] solarbird has of course gotten way more data on this than I have; check out her post here.
annathepiper: (Something Beautiful)
Okay, I might have me some breast cancer, but all things considered, I'd much rather have that than the BRAIN EATING AMOEBA. I mean, damn. I've SEEN those episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Here are some other things I am grateful for, in the meantime:

  • [livejournal.com profile] jessicac came over last night, armed with a piece of apple pie and an entire peach pie, and some Haagen-Dazs cinnamon dulce de leche ice cream. That ice cream is, I'm here to tell you, ecstasy in a spoon. Also, Jessica's little girl is unbelievably cute with [livejournal.com profile] solarbird's red house slippers jammed onto her hands, and crawl-clomping all over our kitchen floor, babbling nonstop in fluent Baby all the while. I'm just sayin'.

  • For round two of Snacks and Cute Babies Therapy, [livejournal.com profile] kathrynt came over today with her cute child and a box full of cupcakes. Lillian is not quite as fluent in Baby as Moira, but she's got that speed-crawl down now. She also clued in very quickly to the Find Anna's Face Behind Her Hand Game, and she was absolutely fascinated by each and every object on our coffee table. Most of which were not baby-safe in the slightest. Except maybe the wooden coaster. We let her have that.

  • Tomorrow there will be Russell Crowe and Christian Bale double-barrel-shotgun goodness in 3:10 to Yuma. This movie could suck like a great big sucking thing (not that I think it will, 'cause Russell's generally pretty good about not being in movies that suck), and I'd still enjoy watching these two boys for two hours.

  • Tomorrow there will also be a Murkworks Kitten-Finding Expedition. Given the current circumstances, [livejournal.com profile] spazzkat has bumped up the priority of getting some kittens into this household. We're in definite pet shortage around here, and we've got a multi-kitten situation at hand, definitely. If we're lucky, we should have cute kitten pictures to share with the world in the next 24-48 hours.

  • Sunday, hopefully, there will be a meeting of some cross-section of our household and [livejournal.com profile] technoshaman's to make music. There are plans to play around with the recently released songbook of Heather Alexander songs and to indulge in the snacks kindly provided by the aforementioned Jessica and Kathryn.

And I made me a new version of my "Something Beautiful" icon tonight, partly because Alan Doyle is always good for the easing of my heart, and partly because "Something Beautiful" is a song that's really called for right now.
annathepiper: (Default)
I'm not a Jordan fan, but still, this news is sad: apparently Jordan's passed away tonight. Pertinent links:

Official announcement on Jordan's site

John Scalzi's post about it

Fandom Lounge report over on JournalFen
annathepiper: (Thinking)
I don't have any immediate kith and kin in Minneapolis, but for those of you out there who do, after reading about the bridge collapse tonight, I'm very much thinking of folks there tonight. From what I'm seeing in the articles coming over the news sites, that whole situation is just absolutely unreal and scary.

I've always been a tad bit nervous about driving over bridges, just because I can't swim worth a damn. It's never been a real phobia, mind you--just an occasional little nervous thought. But a little nervous thought is one thing. The actual reality is something else entirely.

I know I've got folks on the Friends list who are in that area, so please know, again, I'm thinking of you folks. Hang in there as best you can and take care of yourselves.
annathepiper: (Blue Hawaii Grin)
Some very cool news coming across the Web tonight about the latest extrasolar planetary discovery: the most Earth-like planet yet, which may well have favorable conditions for water. I do stress the presence of potential conditions favoring water and life, here, which is important to keep in mind--but still. That this is now on the radar makes me just generally Happy. I am delighted to live in an age where we are actually discovering other planets that could even possibly support life.

And of course the first words out of the mouth of my beloved [livejournal.com profile] solarbird regarding this discovery were "Class M"! Yea, we are truly a house of geeks. ^_^

BBC: New 'super-Earth' found in space

CNN: Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet

Seattle Times (via AP Wire): Potentially habitable planet found

More here and here!
annathepiper: (Default)
I'm just sayin', after plowing through the DVDs of most of Season 2 of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, all I can think after reading this story about a robot that's going to explore a hole into the Earth's crust at the very bottom of the sea is "this has giant radioactive submarine-grabbin' sea monster written all over it".

I mean, seriously, the rock down there is even dark green. Irwin Allen couldn't have asked for a better setup!
annathepiper: (Loving You Grin)
For the [livejournal.com profile] jimbutcher fans on my Friends list, especially the local ones: Jim is going on tour to do signings for the latest Dresden novel, White Night. Local people, he's going to be at the University Bookstore on April 3rd! This may in fact warrant me buying my first Dresden hardback!

In science news, I have found myself intrigued by the reports of chimpanzees being observed using spears to hunt prey in Senegal, as well as other research pertaining to how they may have used hammers up to 4,300 years ago. Part of me finds this all incredibly cool, and wants to cheer the chimps on and welcome them to the society of tool-using mammals. The rest of me (the Elfquest fangirl part, specifically), having seen photos of the critters they've been observed hunting, wants to go, "But, but, treewees!" and sniff.

In local news, apparently Starbucks is looking for its lost soul. And all I can think is, they could always do what Spike did.

I have been entertained by reading John Scalzi's blog, accessible to LJ users via [livejournal.com profile] scalzifeed, and have finally picked up a copy of his book Old Man's War. I'm not normally into military SF, but I figure what the hey, I've been reading Patrick O'Brian, not to mention [livejournal.com profile] naominovik, so it's not entirely out of left feed for me. And speaking of Patrick O'Brian, I am currently in the middle of reading the seventh Aubrey-Maturin, The Surgeon's Mate; further remarks on this will be forthcoming.

Last but not least, [livejournal.com profile] solarbird went downtown today on a quest to buy stuff: we got her a new backpack and new shoes at REI. We are amused that her shoes are the exact same shoes as mine, both in color and in size. We dig the Merrells, but unfortunately REI carries them in just one color. So we'll have to remember that her shoes are the ones that look newer, or else mark them with Sharpies or something.

It turned out that Seattle was a very small town today, as we ran into both my uberboss and Dara's Japanese tutor. And it must also be observed that the people opening up the new LUSH store in Westlake are tempting tantalizing bastards, as the store looks more or less ready to open but still has paper up on all its windows. But some of the paper had come down, so you could see all the LUSH-y goodness inside and how there were a couple people in there apparently doing employee training or something. And the lovely LUSH-y scents were wafting right out into the shopping area, smacking us right in the face and insisting that we come in and purchase things. Except we couldn't, because they WEREN'T OPEN YET. Dara pawed at the door and meowed piteously. It didn't help. Tempting tantalizing bastards.

Anyway, it has been a Good Day, and I hope the same has applied for you all.

Miles since the 18th: 16.7
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1790.5
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 481.5
Miles to Isengard: 2.5
annathepiper: (Loving You Grin)
And now, to make up for last weekend, I'd like to post about some things that don't suck.

I have once more begun to try to cut down on my soda. I am trying not to get too ambitious about the goal here or to make long-term plans, since my luck with that lately has been kind of sketchy, but for the last two days at least I've limited myself to two cans of soda a day. At the same time, I'm trying to take myself off the Trazodone since I have reason to believe it's messing with me, and I've stayed off that for the last two days too. So far I have noticed an immediate lessening of the general background noise of tension I've had in my system for a while. This is a very good thing indeed. And I need to remember this feeling for the next time I start getting way too interested in the diet Dew.

I got a surprise letter from the College of Veterinary Medicine at WSU yesterday, informing me that Ravenna Animal Hospital had made a donation to them because of Polly. And Polly has been added to the list of pet names here. That was an incredibly sweet gesture of the vet, and made me feel rather misty.

A story on our site made me feel kind of misty, too. A couple of days ago we'd run this article about how lack of dental care is leaving the poor in agony, and as part of that article a picture had been run of a guy who was sobbing in the dental office since his blood pressure was too high for them to give him anesthetic. Apparently this prompted an outpouring of offers to help from Times readers to get this guy the dental care he needs. That really made me go "awww". Sometimes, every so often, people don't suck.

As y'all have seen over the last week, I've been more aggressively reading. Which has meant that I haven't listened to stuff on my iPod as much, and that means I have yet to actually listen to the new podcast from Great Big Sea! *blush* I really must correct this little problem this weekend. I may lose my GBS fan cred if I don't. ;)

What I have been listening to, though, is Carbon Leaf. I am seriously grooving on Ether-Electrified Porch Music. I may even like it better than Echo Echo; so far every single track on it is striking me as potential repeat-play material, which puts it out ahead of Echo Echo. This will require a few more plays to give it a proper judging. And I've been slurping up the classical music compilations I've got, too; I have found that they seem to unwind me on a fundamental level. The same level that's been feeling quite good with the hard cut of caffeine over the last two days, in fact.

TV-wise, although I have not yet posted an in-depth post about it, I did like the second episode of the Dresden Files. I don't think I'll do in-depth posting about it this weekend just because I want to focus on getting some writing and editing done, but I did want to at least note that yeah, the episode was good. I liked it a little better than the premiere; it felt more like a Harry story to me.

Movie-wise, courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] boxer_ferret I hear tell that Russell Crowe has been signed in a new take on the Robin Hood story--playing the Sheriff of Nottingham. As a good guy, even, investigating a string of murders for which Robin Hood is the suspect. This should be entertaining. And this weekend I hope to meet up with [livejournal.com profile] mamishka and go see The Painted Veil, which promises to be full of fun socialness and English-Patient-y romantic angst with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

Last but definitely not least, I'm slowly closing in on the five-month mark with Faerie Blood in the e-slush pile at Baen. And trying to remind myself that this doesn't mean much, since their turnaround time is like 9-12 months... but still. It feels satisfying that they haven't told me no quite yet.

Miles from 1/20 up to today: 31.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1730.4
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 421.4
Miles to Isengard: 62.6
annathepiper: (Blue Hawaii Grin)
Meanwhile, for all the non-Americans on my Friends list as well as those of you who would just rather not read about politics, here, have a collection of recent interesting news stories!

The BBC reports that UK scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by fusing human DNA with cow eggs. Tsk, UK scientists! Aren't you guys having enough of a problem with mad cow disease over there? I mean, geez. You're just asking for a mutant human-cow hybrid to go rampaging through downtown London. In a bear suit.

Meanwhile, I saw word today that a couple of cops are suing Burger King for getting served hamburgers laced with marijuana. Best news quote of the week: "It gives a whole new meaning to the word 'Whopper,"' the officers' attorney, Sam Bregman, said Monday.

Fun astromony news doubleheader: Mercury is about to make a rare transit across the sun, and Titan studies are hinting at how early life went on Earth.

For all of my fellow fangirls who became Doctor Who fen courtesy of the Ninth Doctor, I bring you the reason why Christopher Eccleston REALLY quit the role! Link snurched from [livejournal.com profile] filkertom.

And last but not least, because this wouldn't be an Anna post without GBS squee: the B'ys sent around a new newsletter tonight, with a loverly, loverly way to whet the appetites of all of us anxious for the coming of Courage & Patience & Grit: a new DVD exclusive page for members of greatbigsea.com, with outtakes from the DVD shoot! Whee!

Days till A Good Year: 3
Days till Courage & Patience & Grit: 14
Thursday through Tuesday miles: 16.7
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1515.6
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 206.6
Miles to Isengard: 277.4
annathepiper: (Sleepy)
So since I'm running low on leeway for time I can not be at work, I promised to come back in this week and start acting like I have a job again! Here I am, therefore, at my keyboard and slogging through two weeks' worth of backlogged email, trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do to be productive today. Especially since the one major project that's on the board for attention seems to have slipped. It is very strange being back in now--there's a temp that they've brought in to help cover for me, so now I need to work with him. And I'm all "oh right, I WORK here". And I'm trying very hard to not faceplant in the keyboard, especially since I've already managed to spill a soda this morning all over the keyboard on the Mac. Fortunately, we had a spare keyboard.

I can at least start getting back into posting about more normal things, though! For example, I have to just giggle and giggle that I am a big enough web testin' geek that I sent in a bug report to the greatbigsea.com tech people to inform them that they had a layout issue on the OKP in all browsers except IE. I even sent them a screenshot. I got a kindly note back from one of their folks pledging to send the report on to their tech people, so yay. Definitely the geekiest thing I've done all month, though. ;)

I have of course heard about Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet, which is still making me kind of boggle. I'm vaguely disappointed--I think it would have been way cooler to bump Ceres, Charon, and 2003 UB313 to planet status. It'll be fun to see if the ruling gets reversed; I've been seeing references to pissed-off astronomers all over the world bitching about the vote being hijacked.

I have also heard we've finally gotten the first hurricane of the season, and about the jet crash in Lexington. Yowtch. One of my Lexington friends says his company lost three people on that plane.

[livejournal.com profile] solarbird-wise, we're waiting on the word as to when we can move her from the hospital to PT. She really, really wants to do something outpatient, but from what the social worker was telling me this morning that isn't really going to be an option, since they're recommending inpatient PT. Which means she can't come home quite yet, but what can ya do. Dara flat refuses to do inpatient in Tacoma, anyway, so I also told the social worker that we need to push for the Everett facility. And even though we'd all prefer to get Dara home, this'll be better not only for her but also because my boss just went on vacation, so I can't really make her authorize letting me work from home (and therefore be available to take Dara to and from PT).

Dara is at least online this morning and has been IM'ing me every few minutes with "goooooooo hooooooooome home home". Though as of the last little bit, she said a PT person had shown up, so hopefully we'll have some new news soon.

ETA 10:47am: Dara reports now that she has in fact been cleared for water and normal food! Hurray! She also says she passed a cognitive eval as "high end normal (har)". Translation, Dara is still Smart!

Still no word from Bantam, not even my postcards. I hope they've actually opened the manuscripts. I'm starting to get paranoid about whether they actually got them, and whether I didn't somehow forget to include postage on the postcards and envelopes.

And here, have a miles to Rauros Falls update!

Miles back on the 16th: 2.3
Sunday miles: 0.4
Monday morning miles: 1.4
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1301.5
Miles out of Rivendell: 843.5
Miles out of Lothlórien: 381.5
Miles to Rauros Falls: 7.5
annathepiper: (Default)
Word is going around the news sites today of amusing fossil discoveries in northern Australia of creatures being dubbed "killer kangaroos" and "demon ducks of doom". The MSNBC story is here, the BBC story here. Me, I have but one word to say regarding this scientific achievement, and that word is:

QUACK

Meanwhile, I bring you the story of a brown dress on the lam. That its owner, Alex Martin, had been doing a year-long thing wherein she wore that same dress every single day as a statement on consumerism is cool all by itself--but apparently when she had the party for her "undressing" at the end of the project, somebody swiped the dress! And is now sending her email and photos about it. That's hysterical. :D

And speaking of further amusing blogger stunts, for those of you who haven't seen this story yet, I further bring you the tale of a man who started with a paper clip and bartered his way to a house.

ETA 10:32am: Oh yes, I forgot to add this one: this year's winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. I particularly like this one: It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller," except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.

Monday miles: 3.4
Tuesday miles: 3.2
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1208.9
Miles out of Rivendell: 750.9
Miles out of Lothlórien: 288.9
Miles to Rauros Falls: 100.1

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