Buckle in, y’all, this is going to be a long one.
Short form summary: my current work machine is a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro. And it has been driving me fucking spare because it keeps kernel panicking. If there are any MacBook maintenance gurus out there who could help me out with this, I’d appreciate it.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Crossposted from annathepiper.org. Original post: http://www.annathepiper.org/2020/07/15/ongoing-frustrating-macbook-pro-kernel-panic-issue/
I’m seeing the Internet explode all over the damn place today, thanks to the new reveal about Captain America in the Marvel comics.
I’m not even reading Cap’s title right now; my exposure to him in the comics so far has been his periodic appearances in the titles I have been following. Notably, Black Widow and Captain Marvel, at least prior to the recent universe reset. The vast majority of my experience with the character has been via the movies.
But Cap’s also one of my favorites. I like him for many of the same reasons I like Superman: to wit, I actually appreciate the morally upright “boy scout” type heroes, when they’re done well. And Chris Evan’s portrayal, particularly in the recently released Civil War movie, has always been about his rock-steady moral center.
This new reveal? It’s bullshit. It flies in the face of everything the character has always been about. Not to mention that taking a character created by a couple of Jewish guys and doing this to him is just full of NO.
The reveal in question, I’m putting behind the fold just in case you haven’t managed to see it yet and care about spoilers.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
One of the oddest little details about my medical history is a childhood injury I had to my left ankle that never healed right, and which left me, throughout my adolescence and into my adulthood, with this weird-looking lump on my ankle. I no longer have a clear memory of when exactly I injured it, date-wise. But I do still have a memory of a bad fall about six blocks away from my house, on one of those long walks when I was heading either to the little convenience store where I liked to get candy when I was a kid, or to the shopping center that required me to cross Preston Highway. (I did a lot of walking as a kid, yeah. Which contributes a lot to why I’m used to doing it as an adult.)
That fall, as I recall, either badly sprained my ankle or maybe even broke it. I had to limp home. And since my family was poor, we couldn’t really afford to get it properly treated. So it healed up weird and has had this lump on it ever since. I have a band picture of me holding a flute from sixth grade, and the ankle bump was showing in that. And that’s been why I’ve always been a little self-conscious about wearing sandals and pantyhose, because it makes my weird-looking ankle really obvious. This has been the main reason as well that I wear hiking boots, aside from how I do a lot of walking on my daily commutes–high-topped hiking boots give good protection to my ankles.
Over the years I’ve had to explain the ankle to various doctors, chiropractors, and massage therapists. It’s been x-rayed repeatedly, and the overall verdict was that I’d developed a bone spur in there. But it’s never interfered with my walking, so I haven’t bothered to get it seriously treated. It’s never really hurt either, though historically, it has bugged me if it takes a direct impact.
Which brings me to why I bring all this up in the first place. At Thanksgiving this year, I happened to slip on the floor heading into the kitchen, since there was a slick spot right in front of the oven. I let out quite the yell when I hit the floor, startling our various guests–particularly when it became apparent that I had a nasty bruise right on the bump on my ankle. And I had to explain to said guests that actually, the lump had already been there. I wasn’t as badly injured as I looked.
The bruise faded away after a few days. And in general it didn’t even hurt much at any point–again because of those hiking boots I wear providing the ankle good support and protection when I’m out about my daily business.
But here’s the thing. I’ve noticed in the last couple of days that the lump has been shrinking. Significantly. It’s not entirely gone, but the shape of my ankle has distinctly changed. I can also feel much smaller bumps in the greater bump, which I don’t recall having had there before.
In other words, an injury I’ve had since childhood has shown some signs of actually maybe finally healing. This is weirding me right out, though in a good way. And it hasn’t been hurting either, though I can feel periodic weird pulses in there–something akin to how I felt nerve pulses when my hand was healing, the summer when I broke my arm.
I’m not expecting the bump to go away, though it’d be really neat if it did. It’d be nice to have symmetrical ankles for once. In the meantime though it’s kind of a neat mystery, trying to figure out exactly what’s happening. I’ve been wondering whether the bone spur in there happened to take enough of a hit that it broke up some. Dara is wondering whether the new medication I started taking in September, Singulair, is contributing to reducing lifelong inflammation in the surrounding tissue.
(I got put on the Singulair to reduce some of the chronic rhinitus problems I’ve been having, and it’s been helping with that considerably. But it’s also been addressing various other dermagraphia-type problems I seem to have, so I apparently have issues with inflammation all over the place? So it wouldn’t be entirely out of left field if the Singulair’s having an effect on the ankle, too.)
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Saw this news breaking on various sites today, so as a PSA I’ll relay it here: Adobe Digital Editions 4 has got significant privacy problems, to the tune of transmitting data to Adobe servers about books on your library in plain text. Some evidence points to this even including stuff not only in your ADE library, but elsewhere on the hard drive as well, such as in Download folders and Calibre’s standard library location.
I’ve seen this reported on in the following places:
If you use ADE at all, you should doublecheck that you’re not running ADE 4. If you have an earlier version, do not upgrade. The various links are all reporting that the earlier ADE versions, while they do still transmit a small amount of data to Adobe servers, are not doing it to the scale ADE 4 is.
I do use ADE, but only sparingly, and mostly as a means of checking out books from the library. This has mostly been trumped by me going directly to Overdrive apps on my various devices, though, and right now I’m really not seeing any reason to change that practice. I recommend anybody with an interest in checking out ebooks from libraries should do the same if at all possible.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Saw this news breaking on various sites today, so as a PSA I’ll relay it here: Adobe Digital Editions 4 has got significant privacy problems, to the tune of transmitting data to Adobe servers about books on your library in plain text. Some evidence points to this even including stuff not only in your ADE library, but elsewhere on the hard drive as well, such as in Download folders and Calibre’s standard library location.
I’ve seen this reported on in the following places:
If you use ADE at all, you should doublecheck that you’re not running ADE 4. If you have an earlier version, do not upgrade. The various links are all reporting that the earlier ADE versions, while they do still transmit a small amount of data to Adobe servers, are not doing it to the scale ADE 4 is.
I do use ADE, but only sparingly, and mostly as a means of checking out books from the library. This has mostly been trumped by me going directly to Overdrive apps on my various devices, though, and right now I’m really not seeing any reason to change that practice. I recommend anybody with an interest in checking out ebooks from libraries should do the same if at all possible.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
I saw this post on Thought Catalog going around Facebook tonight, and decided I’d take a look at it–only to be whomperjawed at the first quote I saw in the list.
It’s attributed on that page to N.K. Jemisin, but actually, it’s mine. From this post of mine back in February, during the SFWA Petitiongate brouhaha. I got asked at the time by one of the commenters on that post if I could be quoted, and she in fact quoted me over here on Jim Hines’ last post on the matter.
Dara and I did a bit of searching and as near as we can tell, the point of confusion might be this list of quotes on Goodreads on political correctness. The quote appears there–attributed to both me AND to Ms. Jemisin, although she appears higher in the list than I do. So perhaps whoever entered that set of quotes on Goodreads mixed up their attributions.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a very healthy respect for a lot of the powerful things Jemisin has said about the politics involved with the SF/F genre online in the last couple of years, and I’m hoping to get into reading her actual novels. I know I don’t operate even remotely on the same level as a writer as she does. And in a funny way I’m kind of honored that my words are getting mistaken for hers.
But, y’know, they’re still my words. And a writer’s words are, after all, her entire reason for calling herself a writer in the first place.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
I saw this post on Thought Catalog going around Facebook tonight, and decided I’d take a look at it–only to be whomperjawed at the first quote I saw in the list.
It’s attributed on that page to N.K. Jemisin, but actually, it’s mine. From this post of mine back in February, during the SFWA Petitiongate brouhaha. I got asked at the time by one of the commenters on that post if I could be quoted, and she in fact quoted me over here on Jim Hines’ last post on the matter.
Dara and I did a bit of searching and as near as we can tell, the point of confusion might be this list of quotes on Goodreads on political correctness. The quote appears there–attributed to both me AND to Ms. Jemisin, although she appears higher in the list than I do. So perhaps whoever entered that set of quotes on Goodreads mixed up their attributions.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a very healthy respect for a lot of the powerful things Jemisin has said about the politics involved with the SF/F genre online in the last couple of years, and I’m hoping to get into reading her actual novels. I know I don’t operate even remotely on the same level as a writer as she does. And in a funny way I’m kind of honored that my words are getting mistaken for hers.
But, y’know, they’re still my words. And a writer’s words are, after all, her entire reason for calling herself a writer in the first place.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Let me tell you a thing about having an iPad, Internets: it means I’ve become way more of a comics reader than I used to be, back in the day when the only comic I had any real interest in was Elfquest.
Dark Horse has contributed a lot to that–not only because they’ve picked up Elfquest for its resurrection, but also because they’ve produced excellent material for the extensions of the storylines for both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. I’ve even dabbled some in the comics adaptations of the new Trek universe, wherein they’re telling stories more along the lines of what I am NOT getting out of the new movies: i.e., some goddamn Star Trek, with obligatory strange new worlds and exploration and such. In the last few years I’ve enjoyed a MacGyver miniseries from Image Comics, the three-part Anne Steelyard story, and the graphic novel for the Thrilling Adventure Hour.
But it’s been because of the Mary Sue and their coverage of certain Marvel storylines, combined with my growing general affection for the Marvel movie universe, that I’ve committed to following some actual superhero comics for the first time in my life. These are the current storylines for Black Widow, Captain Marvel, and the new young Ms. Marvel, that last in no small part because I really like that Marvel’s trying to branch out with some religious and ethnic diversity in their superhero lineup.
See, ’cause here’s the thing–I’ve been all too aware and very sad about how a lot of the comics industry these days is infected with rampaging sexism. But dammit, I like superheroes. I have ever since I discovered the X-Men when I was in middle school. I loved Christopher Reeve as Superman way back in the day, and Michael Keaton in the first of his Batman movies. I adored the first season of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. And I am full of nothing but love for the extended DC Animated universe, that connected all the episodes of the Batman, Superman, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. That was some damn fine storytelling, and to this day, Mark Hamill’s brilliant voice work for the Joker makes his version of the character my all-time favorite.
And it’s very worth mentioning that in the Murkworks, we very, VERY much like She-Hulk. In fact, Dara played her in an RPG we did in Kentucky, back when we were still having our Saturday gaming nights.
So when I see news like this about how one of the people involved with the still-unnamed sequel* to Man of Steel (the one in which Wonder Woman is finally going to have her first big-screen appearance EVER) says some hugely insulting things about She-Hulk and about geeks in general, I feel my blood pressure spiking. Because this? This gives us a two-fer, a slam not only to a beloved character, but also to comics geeks of both genders all over the country.
And make no mistake, the questions he was asked shouldn’t get a pass, either. “Slut-Hulk”? SERIOUSLY?
And I can’t even muster rage about it, because it’s so goddamn exhausting to see this attitude again and again and again.
But for the record, let’s lay it out:
One, women can like superheroes too. Seriously. We CAN. We DO. And it’s hugely, hugely offensive to dismiss the women in your character lineup as “porn stars”, i.e., only there for the gratification of the men, because HELLO, we’re buying these comics too.
Two, enough already with the tiresome stereotype of geeks and nerds as losers who can’t get dates, who live in their parents’ basements, etc., etc., we’ve heard it all before. And y’know what? If your reaction to our interests is to point and laugh at us as socially inept and unfuckable, you know who we definitely won’t be going out with? YOU.
If you need me, Internets, I’ll be over here, consoling myself with the coming of Agent Carter–and with comics that aren’t belittling my gender. Or belittling me for picking them up in the first place.
* Editing to add: ah, apparently the film actually does have a title now: Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I am still not filled with confidence here. Not much room for it with all the PUNCHINGS.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Got up this morning to see there’s yet another SFWA explosion. How many are we up to now, then?
There’s a petition going around, it seems. A petition protesting that the SFWA Bulletin is instituting procedures to try to avoid things like what happened this past summer, during the LAST round of SFWA explosions. Apparently, some people out there are still upset that people might, just might, be justifiably cranky about sexism in the genre.
I first spotted the news when James Nicoll posted about a Twitter thread on it, here. Then I went out to run some morning errands, and when I came back, Dara reported that the petition alluded to in that post had in fact surfaced. James talks about it here, linking in turn to Radish Reviews’ in-depth post.
Radish Reviews has reported that there are in fact two versions of this thing floating around, and addresses both of them here. I read them. And I knew I was in for some hurting the instant I saw the phrase “politically correct” bandied about right out of the gate. In the petition TITLE, even, as well the first paragraph.
Oh, and it gets more fun from there. I particularly like how scare quotes are thrown around “sexism” and “offensive”. And by like, I actually mean, if I facepalm any harder I’ll give myself a concussion.
I’d rant further on this if I could think of anything to say that I haven’t posted about a dozen times already–about how, if the first words out of your mouth are to cry “political correctness!”, that chances are very, very high that you are in fact part of the problem. But then, people who are inclined to cry “political correctness!” aren’t going to put much credence in what I have to say anyway.
So I’m going to simply stick with noting that yeah, I’m still feeling pretty much at peace with my having decided that I’d just as soon stay out of any organization that continues to be this toxic.
Further commentary on the matter:
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Got up this morning to see there’s yet another SFWA explosion. How many are we up to now, then?
There’s a petition going around, it seems. A petition protesting that the SFWA Bulletin is instituting procedures to try to avoid things like what happened this past summer, during the LAST round of SFWA explosions. Apparently, some people out there are still upset that people might, just might, be justifiably cranky about sexism in the genre.
I first spotted the news when James Nicoll posted about a Twitter thread on it, here. Then I went out to run some morning errands, and when I came back, Dara reported that the petition alluded to in that post had in fact surfaced. James talks about it here, linking in turn to Radish Reviews’ in-depth post.
Radish Reviews has reported that there are in fact two versions of this thing floating around, and addresses both of them here. I read them. And I knew I was in for some hurting the instant I saw the phrase “politically correct” bandied about right out of the gate. In the petition TITLE, even, as well the first paragraph.
Oh, and it gets more fun from there. I particularly like how scare quotes are thrown around “sexism” and “offensive”. And by like, I actually mean, if I facepalm any harder I’ll give myself a concussion.
I’d rant further on this if I could think of anything to say that I haven’t posted about a dozen times already–about how, if the first words out of your mouth are to cry “political correctness!”, that chances are very, very high that you are in fact part of the problem. But then, people who are inclined to cry “political correctness!” aren’t going to put much credence in what I have to say anyway.
So I’m going to simply stick with noting that yeah, I’m still feeling pretty much at peace with my having decided that I’d just as soon stay out of any organization that continues to be this toxic.
Further commentary on the matter:
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Internets, if like me you follow The Mary Sue and/or the fine ladies over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, you may have seen one of the scariest phrases the Internet has provided us since Transformers fandom gave us “muffled clank”: i.e., “dinosaur erotica”.
Because this is apparently a Thing That Exists. No, I am not in fact kidding. And RedHeadedGirl, one of the regular guest reviewers at the Bitchery, has valiantly taken one for the team and reviewed Ravished by the Triceratops.
COMEDY. GOLD. Particularly the parts in the comments where she informs the rest of us “I HATE YOU ALL” and how the last thing she reviewed for the site, i.e., the were-hedgehog paranormal romance, was actually better than this.
THEY FOUND A THING THAT WERE-HEDGEHOG PARANORMAL ROMANCE IS BETTER THAN, INTERNETS.
If you need me, I’ll be over here giggling helplessly until my brain recovers. This may take a while.
Further coverage at the Mary Sue and Jezebel, because BWAHAHAHAHAHA.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Internets, if like me you follow The Mary Sue and/or the fine ladies over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, you may have seen one of the scariest phrases the Internet has provided us since Transformers fandom gave us “muffled clank”: i.e., “dinosaur erotica”.
Because this is apparently a Thing That Exists. No, I am not in fact kidding. And RedHeadedGirl, one of the regular guest reviewers at the Bitchery, has valiantly taken one for the team and reviewed Ravished by the Triceratops.
COMEDY. GOLD. Particularly the parts in the comments where she informs the rest of us “I HATE YOU ALL” and how the last thing she reviewed for the site, i.e., the were-hedgehog paranormal romance, was actually better than this.
THEY FOUND A THING THAT WERE-HEDGEHOG PARANORMAL ROMANCE IS BETTER THAN, INTERNETS.
If you need me, I’ll be over here giggling helplessly until my brain recovers. This may take a while.
Further coverage at the Mary Sue and Jezebel, because BWAHAHAHAHAHA.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Um, Internets? I just found a thing checking my Google Alerts. Somebody check me here. I’m not seeing things, right?
I’m not seeing MY BOOK mentioned in an article on usatoday.com?!
Because it sure as hell looks like I’m getting mentioned. Down at the bottom, in an article predominantly about shapeshifter paranormal romance, BUT STILL.
I… wha… um. I think I need to sit down.
*sits down*
ETA: Because seriously, people, this isn’t even COMPUTING in my head! I’m all “wait wait WHAT? People who AREN’T ME, and who DO NOT ALREADY KNOW ME, are aware that this book now exists? As an actual THING that can be bought and read? And they’re POSTING about it? On a site that people outside of fandom might actually browse?”
With a side helping of “wait wait wait I’m the ‘fantasy’ after-dinner mint in an article otherwise all about paranormal romance?!”
This is what just happened to my head, Internets:
GIR’s Head Explodes
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Um, Internets? I just found a thing checking my Google Alerts. Somebody check me here. I’m not seeing things, right?
I’m not seeing MY BOOK mentioned in an article on usatoday.com?!
Because it sure as hell looks like I’m getting mentioned. Down at the bottom, in an article predominantly about shapeshifter paranormal romance, BUT STILL.
I… wha… um. I think I need to sit down.
*sits down*
ETA: Because seriously, people, this isn’t even COMPUTING in my head! I’m all “wait wait WHAT? People who AREN’T ME, and who DO NOT ALREADY KNOW ME, are aware that this book now exists? As an actual THING that can be bought and read? And they’re POSTING about it? On a site that people outside of fandom might actually browse?”
With a side helping of “wait wait wait I’m the ‘fantasy’ after-dinner mint in an article otherwise all about paranormal romance?!”
This is what just happened to my head, Internets:
GIR’s Head Explodes
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Barnes and Noble is apparently overhauling its self-pub system–they’re rebranding it as NookPress and giving it a new UI and everything. So they’re asking all the PubIt! authors to move their accounts over into the new system as part of the NookPress launch.
Which is all very well and good except for the part where it’s apparently buggy as all hell.
I went through the steps to port my account over today, and right off the bat a big glaring UI bug leapt out at me. On the account login screen, when clicking the checkbox to have it remember my login information, I wound up with something that looked like this.
But I was willing to live with that as long as I was able to get logged in and get at my data. Which was. Mostly. I had to re-add stuff like my payment information, and the category to which Faerie Blood was assigned–i.e., Fiction -> Fantasy -> Contemporary.
Then I ran into the bigger, even more annoying bug. When I re-entered my category information, I noticed a huge lack of anything obvious to click on to save that data. There was a “Put On Sale” button up at the top, which Dara proposed was supposed to be the new Save button. Except when I clicked on that, it threw up a huge (and uninformative) error that basically said “well, gosh, something’s broken! Damned if we know what!” And, of course, when I tried to click back to the Category dialog, the changes I’d tried to make were gone.
But you know what I do for a day job, people? I test web pages. And I immediately had a nasty suspicion that I knew what was wrong.
When I opened up Winnowill to boot into Windows 7 and fire up IE 9, I discovered I was right. The missing Save and Save & Continue buttons did in fact appear in Windows-based browsers, where they did not in the Mac-based ones.
Seriously not impressed by this. UI wackiness I can handwave, but big glaring functionality problems like that?! How did this get past their QA people? DO they have QA people?! I mean, seriously. Even aside from my annoyance as the writer trying to save her book’s data in this scenario, my professional pride as a QA Engineer is offended by that big a problem having been missed.
The long and short of it is, right now Faerie Blood‘s not available for the Nook. I think I got it successfully updated over in my Windows install, but as of this writing the book’s marked as “processing”. And I don’t know when that processing is going to complete. It may finish in another few minutes. It may not be done until tomorrow.
I apologize for the inconvenience to any Nook owners who try to buy the book and can’t find it. I will be happy to hand-sell any Nook owners the book myself in the meantime, for its current price of $2.99 USD, sent to my Paypal account.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Barnes and Noble is apparently overhauling its self-pub system–they’re rebranding it as NookPress and giving it a new UI and everything. So they’re asking all the PubIt! authors to move their accounts over into the new system as part of the NookPress launch.
Which is all very well and good except for the part where it’s apparently buggy as all hell.
I went through the steps to port my account over today, and right off the bat a big glaring UI bug leapt out at me. On the account login screen, when clicking the checkbox to have it remember my login information, I wound up with something that looked like this.
But I was willing to live with that as long as I was able to get logged in and get at my data. Which was. Mostly. I had to re-add stuff like my payment information, and the category to which Faerie Blood was assigned–i.e., Fiction -> Fantasy -> Contemporary.
Then I ran into the bigger, even more annoying bug. When I re-entered my category information, I noticed a huge lack of anything obvious to click on to save that data. There was a “Put On Sale” button up at the top, which Dara proposed was supposed to be the new Save button. Except when I clicked on that, it threw up a huge (and uninformative) error that basically said “well, gosh, something’s broken! Damned if we know what!” And, of course, when I tried to click back to the Category dialog, the changes I’d tried to make were gone.
But you know what I do for a day job, people? I test web pages. And I immediately had a nasty suspicion that I knew what was wrong.
When I opened up Winnowill to boot into Windows 7 and fire up IE 9, I discovered I was right. The missing Save and Save & Continue buttons did in fact appear in Windows-based browsers, where they did not in the Mac-based ones.
Seriously not impressed by this. UI wackiness I can handwave, but big glaring functionality problems like that?! How did this get past their QA people? DO they have QA people?! I mean, seriously. Even aside from my annoyance as the writer trying to save her book’s data in this scenario, my professional pride as a QA Engineer is offended by that big a problem having been missed.
The long and short of it is, right now Faerie Blood‘s not available for the Nook. I think I got it successfully updated over in my Windows install, but as of this writing the book’s marked as “processing”. And I don’t know when that processing is going to complete. It may finish in another few minutes. It may not be done until tomorrow.
I apologize for the inconvenience to any Nook owners who try to buy the book and can’t find it. I will be happy to hand-sell any Nook owners the book myself in the meantime, for its current price of $2.99 USD, sent to my Paypal account.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Most of you out there probably are aware already, but just in case you aren’t, be advised that we have serious snow on the way here. Therefore, as is often the case when we have wacky fun weathertimes, connectivity to Murkworks.net and resources we house may be impacted. Our power may go out, or even if we stay up, connectivity via Comcast may be affected if there are any issues with ice on power or phone lines.
Assume therefore that if you can’t reach any commonly accessed Murkworks.net resources, this will be why. This will include the Murkworks MUSH, WordPress sites and other web pages, mailing lists, user logins, and mail.
Follow Cliff Mass’ blog for ongoing weather developments if you’re interested. His last two posts on the situation are here and here. The Times has an article up here.
If we do go down and you need to reach me, you can do so via my gmail addresses, annathepiper or angela.korrati.
Mirrored from annathepiper.org.
solarbirdrollick
Its whole point is apparently to point and laugh at the “trannies” by letting you insert pictures of “trannies” in allegedly hilarious poses into your own actual photos. Because pointing and laughing at the transgendered is so much of a laugh riot!
(Protip: Not so much.)
I’m quite disgusted by this, and I say this as a geek who’s typing this post as she speaks on her MacBook, and who carries around an indispensable iPhone in her pocket at all times, and who is seriously wondering if she wants an iPad. But this kind of bigoted crap being allowed to get onto the Apple app store is exactly the kind of crap that makes me think that maybe my next computer should be running Linux, and maybe my next phone should be a Droid.
I’ll be calling to voice my displeasure in the morning, to back up Dara on the phone call she’s already made. She has the appropriate number to call in her post, but I’ll echo it here as well: +1 (408) 974-2042.
Please spread the word. Thanks.
Mirrored from annathepiper.org.
As y’all probably know, one of the big reasons I like to work downtown is that I get a really nice walk through Pike Place Market and along Elliott Avenue on my way to my workplace, and back again in the afternoon. Gives me a nice view of the water, and the sidewalks are wide and relatively uncrowded. Bit of a bitch during the fall and winter when it’s windy and rainy–but on gorgeous days, you can’t beat the view.
I particularly like cutting through Pike Place since the fruit vendors are friendly, and I’ve started buying fruit and veg from them, often enough that they’ve started introducing themselves to me and cutting me discounts. (That one of them is also quite cute is bonus. ;) )
Last night in particular the older gentleman who runs the table I like to stop at gave me a really nice discount, five bucks for a (huge!) Asian pear, three cute little Clementine oranges, and late season raspberries. The aforementioned cute guy was also there, and while he was talking to other customers, I happened to jump in and assure the lady from Portland that why yes, their Asian pears were awesome and I bought them all the time.
The customer lady was amused and said to Cute Guy, “And she’s not even paid! Or your girl, either!”
I can’t swear to this 100 percent, but I’m pretty sure Cute Guy said, “Not yet.” To wit, lulz. And also *^_^*;;
That was the Good Exciting part of the walk.
The Bad Exciting part of the walk was that apparently, about an hour or so before I got to the market, somebody got shot. :( I heard somebody going by me saying something about a shooting, and then after I stopped at my marketboys’ table and went around the corner to head to the bus stop, I saw the area was still taped off. There was a uniformed guy on duty and I asked him what had happened; he said he didn’t know.
So I cut through the alley between 1st and 2nd to get over to Union so that I could reach my bus stop. A woman stopped me to ask for change or cigarettes (which I couldn’t give her, although I did offer her one of my oranges), and she said as well that “some guy got shot in the head”. To wit, um, yikes.
So yeah, that was unnerving. Second and Pike is right by the market and is right along my usual walking route, and I am very, very relieved that I and llachglin
Mirrored from annathepiper.org.
I suspect that many of you who’ll see this post are already following the fine ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books. But in case you aren’t, SB Sarah put up this post today with the last round of what’s been an ongoing saga of WTF from Dorchester, a romance publisher that’s been in severe financial straits.
Dorchester’s been handling this in very strange ways, and the latest round of it is quite alarming, especially if you happen to be an author: many Dorchester authors haven’t been paid royalties for their titles for years now, and others are beginning to report that despite the fact that rights for their works have reverted to them, Dorchester is continuing to digitally sell them as well as offer them for free as Kindle downloads.
This is unacceptable. So if you’re a romance reader, please be on the lookout for Dorchester titles, and avoid buying them if you can. (SB Sarah provides links off to other posts about the topic, and the affected authors she mentions are posting in the comments, asking readers to refrain from buying the freely offered books and instead sit tight until they can provide digital copies that they’re selling themselves.)
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
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