A Gallimaufry of a Post

So, do I buy Paul of Dune from the SFBC just so I'll have a complete collection? I have all the other books by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Guess I will, but I'm worried that this one might disappoint as it is set in the time between the stories that Frank Herbert actually wrote - and he didn't feel compelled to write about that time or its stories.

I'm going to grit my teeth and watch the VP candidate debate Thursday night. I don't want to, but since I moderate a politics and current events forum, I feel I must. In the back of my mind I keep hoping that Tina Fey will be there impersonating Palin instead of Palin...And Thursday night has both CSI and Smallville - I wonder if they'll get bumped.

Snow on Mars!

A clip of a great gag from the old Candid Camera show - the last bit is best. I've been watching AMC's Mad Men and for some reason I'm starting to wish men would go back to wearing hats. (This would make more sense if you watched the clip. If not, just go with it, but it isn't as much of a non sequitur as it looks.)

I'm not sure why, it's not like men wore hats all the time when I was growing up - they'd pretty much stopped by the time I was old enough to really take notice of fashion. I have seen pictures of my grandfather in a hat, but I don't seem to have a true memory of it. My dad, being in the Air Force, wore a hat a lot of the time, but hat=uniform and so it didn't apply to civilian clothes. However, if getting men back into hats meant women would have to wear them, too, and gloves, and those horrible, full, flouncy slips (crinoline? what are those?), I'll pass.

I've been listening to archived shows from This American Life lately. There was one particular one about music where David Sedaris was featured. In it he sings a number of commercial jingles imitating the voice of Billie Holliday. The whole thing is marvelous, but that part was really funny.

My other favorite episodes were the one where they visited the USS Stennis in 2002, the one about babysitting and the one about The Giant Pool of Money - something I highly recommend you all listen to - it's very enlightening about the roots of the current mortgage crisis.

Just watched this clip of Palin talking to Katie "slow pitch softball" Couric.

First reaction - really, that's Tina Fey, right? No, come on, stop pulling my leg...that's really Palin giving that answer?

Second reaction - Come on, just name one news magazine. It's easy, Newsweek, Time, US News and World Report, heck, even say People for goodness sake. Is she afraid she'll say the name of a magazine and get in trouble with her campaign handlers?? Yes, all the Palin defenders will say I'm being unfair, but really, that was not a tricky question. I'm a middle of the road leaning to conservative voter who has been a registered Republican since the early 80s, so I actually went into this election cycle really hoping that McCain could somehow convince me to stay with the party. His VP choice completely killed that hope. Even if I agreed with every other thing he says (which I don't) I think it's a sure sign of loss of mental acuity that he would pick her.

Aston West has tagged me with a little meme. I like Aston, even if he does drink unusual (as in not familiar to me as a Trekkie, like Klingon Blood Wine or Romulan Ale, or even Tranya) beverages.

Here are the rules, my answers, and the next six people who get to take on the challenge.

The rules:

"If you’ve been tagged with the Meme Game from Twitter, you must post 6 things no one knows about you on your BLOG. Then you have to tag 6 more people. (Don’t forget to let them know they’ve been tagged.) Leave me a comment letting me know you’ve accepted the tag."

My answers (caveat - these are things that most people who haven't grown up or lived with me for any length of time wouldn't know, not "no one knows" ):

1. I broke my nose when I was 5, and it was all the fault of a green crayon.
2. I once crocheted a nose warmer with a tassel on it in my HS colors and wore it to an away game (I was in pep band and we had to play at the game) where the temps were below freezing for all of the game.
3. I have a little bump on my left ear that makes it look vaguely Vulcan (at the right angle under the right light).
4. I can't stand to get cake crumbs in my icecream but I love icecream sandwiches.
5. I have never finished reading anything written by Ernest Hemmingway, no matter how hard I've tried.
6. I hated the Rolling Stones but enjoyed listening to my parents' Andy Williams records...when I was a teenager in the 70s. (of course I wore headphones to make sure nobody knew it)
   

Feel free to feel tagged if you want to and pass it along.

Last Post of May

I followed a link the other day from a comment on Making Light (thanks, Marilee!) and am now reading through the archives of yet another new (to me) webcomic, Two Lumps! There's a series of strips featuring the Two Lumps cats and a Roomba-like device! (keep clicking 'next' for the whole story-arc). I really believe you can't go wrong with the Roomba + cute mammal combo.

The comic is hosted on Keen Spot, which I can subscribe on my reader, unfortunately I have to scroll through all the strips I don't read to get to the ones I do (and so far there are two, Two Lumps and The Devil's Panties.

Do you remember the fads of your youth? I'm thinking of things like when I was in elementary school and everyone was doing those origami type folded paper "fortune" games - you picked a number (after the paper device was opened and closed in the proper ritualistic sequences) then a letter (more ritual) and finally got to lift the folded paper inside to find something written like "your secret crush knows you love him" or "you're the teacher's pet" (and the spelling wasn't always that good).

Then there was the jacks fad - could you ever get to tensies or higher? We didn't have superballs then, we used these little red rubber balls that didn't bounce all that high.

There was a brief time when all the girls would play on the parallel bar, spinning around and around it until you got sick or wore a hole in the sweater you used to keep from sticking to the bar and scraping all the skin under your knee off.

These days it's LOLcats and all the permutations thereof. LOLpresidents (at FARK, which may not always be SFW), LOLgerbils (hosted at LOLgay) (who spell it gebril and I love that to death - as well as the gebrils which are just so damned cute), LOLPilgrims, for the literate and an entire comment thread on Making Light of literate lolisms...apparently we've reached LOLsingularity.

Finally, for tonight that is, I had read a rumor that said:

On Monday, Publishers Weekly reported that Bookspan, acquired just six weeks ago by Bertelsmann, will cut 280 positions and close some of its book clubs, which include Book-of-the-Month, Doubleday and The Literary Guild. It looks as if the 54-year-old Science Fiction Book Club, which offers a selection of graphic novels and comic novelizations, will be among the casualties.

Although there haven’t been any official announcements, science fiction editor Jonathan Strahan reported on his blog yesterday that SFBC’s only editors — Editor-in-Chief Ellen Asher and Senior Editor Andrew Wheeler — have lost their jobs at Bookspan. Strahan says Bertelsmann probably will merge SFBC with its Doubleday Book Club.

However, an update post raises hopes that this is not the case.

I would be very sad to see the SFBC close. I have been a faithful member for over 30 years. I've been so loyal that about 15 years ago they took me off the "you better send in your card that says you are opting out of the monthly selection or we're gonna send it to you anyway and charge you for it" membership to "you just buy our books when ever you like, no worries about that selection response thingie". And I do buy from there, a lot. I hope it stays around for a long time.

dawno