lolindid

In the event that the Baby Jesus Game manages to spontaneously commence due to no one's direct actions, I need everyone to know that my current nativity is the one I made for my mom when I was a kid, and she displayed every year of her life since then. So, if Baby Jesus were to disappear, I would need him to reappear again and in one peice. The caldron or the angel box under the tree would be appropriate places for His miraculous Transfiguration.

Cause it had to come along today to reinforce my dreams.



We sail the sea (Yeah!)
We fight the storm (Yeah!)
One hundred men caught by endless passion


This post could also be called: What do angels do when they are bored of tormenting the cats? Possess Pandora.

They play poltergeist with the cats.

It is the number one most asked question of me in Metaplace and it really pisses me off. It didn't occur to me until today to wonder why it pisses me off so much. I was reading some info Brooke passed along about Operation Sex Change in FB that it dawned on me. I was not inspired to do as they ask and change my sex in FB for awareness. Not that there doesn't need to be awareness. But...I don't know. I personally feel my orientation is irrelivant. I got to clicking around on the grand wiki links of terms and found there are many more orientation definitions out there than I realized...including one that I am beginning to believe sums me up better than the one I have been using.

Unfortunately, this doesn't help my problem in MP. I have tried everything. I randomly change the sex of my avatar. I engage in conversations about online dating, orientation and relations that have caused little girls to run away screaming. I have posted warnings in my profile and entrance to all my worlds. I am seriously surprised I haven't been reported on.

Whats the answer?

It was he who would chance the perilous journey through blistering cold and scorching desert, traveling for many days and nights, risking life and limb to reach the dragon's keep, for he was the bravest, and most handsome in all the land, and it was destiny that his kiss would break the dreaded curse. He alone would climb to the highest room of the tallest tower to enter the princess's chambers, cross the room to her sleeping silhouette, pull back the gossamer curtains to find her- gasp!

*sings along with Accidentally in Love*

I used to hate this song. I used to think it was blasphemous. Actually I still do.

But really, how many songs do you know that you could recite any line from...

In monotone...

And you'll get a roomfull of people respond with a resounding  "Reach out and Touch Faith!!"






In fucking unison.



Let us contemplate that a moment.

This is the day several abstract doors opened all at once.



This is the day that began the building of burned bridges.



This is the day Micheal's laughter turned into uncontroled giggle-fits and I had to stuff him in the box with Honey.



This is the day Uriel smiled.



Let us just say...the tank...is NOT CLEAN.

check out the second part of the second definition...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shinigami

Or....How to have common interests with your children in this technological age.

I was in high school when I first read Lord of the Rings. I suck with names so every time I came across a difficult one, I bleeped over it. As you may imagine, this is one book that this tactic is bound to backfire on you in a big way. Hell, when I saw the movies I realized there were main sections of lore that I thought all these years happened in different locales.

As it turned out, Kevin and I both found Bleach completely independant of each other.  I have netflix deliver me one disc at a time, and he watches it online. Kevin's father hates when we get on it. But at least now he knows how I feel when the whole family talks about hockey.

So today I am trying to explain to Kevin which character I decided is my favorite. If we had been face to face, I could have made grunts and funny noises along with important gesturing and he could have figured it out. Instead he had to endure my lack of memory and bad thumb typing skills.

So Kevin...for the record, my new favorite Bleach character is Tatsuki.

And the red head was not Renji hitting Orihime. But you thinking so again makes me wonder if she and Chad are going to take that road. No, I meant the little red haired girl from school, Chizuru, that kept hitting -on- her. LOL. Afterwhich Tatsuki would beat the tar out of her.

And your right. Its getting interesting. But don't expect me to remember all these silly names!

Do it because I do not believe the most wonderful Jesus Christ, son of God...... is the only way to God.

Do it because I believe we are 100 percent responsible for our actions. No magic pill or dark confessionals.

Do it because I laugh at Catholics for not believing in common day miracles.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation)

Do it because I have a current obession with the song, Personal Jesus.




But don't do it because I talk to angels.

Just call me senile. Alz does run in the family, after all. *smiles*



"Reach out and touch Faith."

Holidays suck. They are too commercial and turn people into the ugliest side of selfish. Don't worry, I am not gunna even get started on Christmas. Let's take us a little look at Halloween.

This is my first holiday completely on my own. Outta the house...legally divorced....in control of my own environment. So how am I going to celebrate my favorite holiday.....-my- way? Never really decided, which turned out to be a good thing cause my brakes are shot and I have no money right now.

It was also a good thing because you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice.

Hm...so. I am too old to go trick or treating. Health keeps me from doing a lot of drinking. I did make me some fox ears, but I am the type of person/geek who would wear those any ol' time. *plans on springing them on the monthly D&D group next week* So here I sit at my desk and I am reminded that google is my friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

The infamous sage known as Wiki doesn't tell me anything I don't already know. But it is a nice reminder. My brain moves so fast and is so pictorial, I forget much of the simple things. And this fast, pictorial mind had been in panic mode over finishing a world at least enough to not be embarrassed at the opening of the Halloween Bash. Now that the panic is gone, I have just realized SM Haunted Trails is far less a haunted trail and more an impression of my childhood fall memories in Indiana. For ghosts in my life have never restricted themselves to October 31. Or November 1, for that matter.

My older baby brother died before I was born. My very wonderful aunt died 8 years ago. My closest net friend, 5 years ago. My mom earlier this month. At least now the ghosts in my life are ones I know. (Quit laughing Micheal. I am saving the angels discussion for Christmas, and just wait til they get a load of you. You can go back to your Halloween candy sugar high now.) (*shuts Uriel up before he can remind me that ghosts, like angels are not restricted to linear time and space and all that nonsense*)

Whatever you call it...whether its October 31 or November 1....this is the time of rememberence. I sit here on November 1 and realize it happened in a glorious way....without my even realizing it.

The photos I submitted to MacZ's art gallery are the rememberance of the year I spent with my wonderful daughter in the UP. The world I built, of my childhood. Raph's live concert pulled so maybe strings, I cannot even begin to recount. Let's just say I am not the type of person to sit and grin...really grin, for two hours straight. I laughed. I cried. I sang at the top of my lungs. Then I went to bed happy, and promised my angels I would spend some time with my crossed over family in the morning. Then I dreamed. I dreamed of my mother. Then of my mother and my aunt. Then I had a dream I've had before about a little girl who was drowned and the boy who had to stand trial for it. This time though...the dark spirits that were tryng to intervien were angels in disguise. (Yes I know Cassiel, you always look like that.) Then the dream about the kittens with birth deflects which is just too weird to explain in mixed company....

So...it just happened...right before my eyes. The perfect Halloween.

(Thank you Raph, my cousin Paul for being on my mind lately....Mom, Aunt Reeta, Jon Wade...Deb ....my muse....and of course Cassiel, Michael, Raphael...and Uriel for keeping his steel-tipped boot out of my gut for a few days.)





("WHICH IS WHY your ghosts always felt so familiar as a kid." Cause god knows there is no stopping Uriel from saying what he's gunna say.)

If you've been wondering what this Metaplace thing is that I have sunk so much time into, nows the time to see! We are having a huge, Metaplace indorsed, multi-world Halloween Bash this Saturday from noon til 7pm Metaplace time.

That's Saturday, October 31 at 12-7pm pacific! There will be World tours, music, art, and readings... check the schedule. Wear a costume for contest!

First thing you'll need to do is go here: https://metaplace.com/verify/register/friend?referrer=lostbetween

Register for a free account. There is no download and its absolutely free!! Once that is done, Metaplace will ask if you want a VIP membership and you can say no. Then it creates a world for you to build. Even if you are just wanting to go to the party, I would suggest doing the tutorial to learn how to move around. First you will make your avatar...my personal favorite part. Then you'll go thru the basics of moving around and how to earn Metaplace coins...which can be used for your costume! The mandatory part of this tutorial is very short before it gives you a list of choices to learn or to just exit the tutorial. If you want to look at costumes, go to the bottom bar and press GO. You'll see a line of boxes appear on the bottom bar of worlds that are popular right now. Usually 'The New You' is the second one from the left. Press that box! At this point you won't have enough coins to buy much, but if you register before the event you'll have time to earn coins for some interesting clothing and costumes. My favorites are the new retro options.

Now your set! When the time comes, enter this link in your browser: http://www.metaplace.com/MetaHauntedHouse/play

This will be the start place for the event. You will experience live music, and a tour of worlds what will allow you to see what average players are building and the kinds of things you can do in Metaplace. There is also an art gallery of Halloween themed works done by Metaplace artists. Sit back and enjoy!

SCHEDULE
1PM- and the rest of the day: hay rides & world tours @ Riverbeer
2PM - 4PM DJ music by Superbad @ Lotus Room (Amethyst will be available for setup ahead of time)
4PM - 6PM Story telling & music by Raph @ The Stage
6PM - 7PM DJ J-Digital @ The Stage

My name in Metaplace is lostbetween.

And....make sure you check out my gallery of photo shots of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Fall, and my new world: Spooning Moons Haunted Trail!

Today we had Cory Doctorow in Metaplace, and he was a fascinating speaker! Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author and blogger at BoingBoing.net. He's known for his activism on DRM and copyright, and for providing his books for free on the web through Creative Commons licensing.



Cuppycake: As many of you are aware, Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author and blogger at BoingBoing.net. He's known for his activism on DRM and copyright, and for providing his books for free on the web through Creative Commons licensing.
Cuppycake: We're excited to have him in Metaplace today!  <lj-cut>
Cuppycake: Hi Cory :)
doctorow: Hi there!
Cuppycake: First question
Cuppycake: You are a huge proponent of giving away electronic forms of your books. Can you talk about why?
doctorow: Well, there's a few pieces to that
doctorow: First: it makes good commercial sense. Ebooks are poor substitutes for print books, so giving away ebooks is more apt to entice someone to buy than to replace a print book (or as Tim O'Reilly sez, "My problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity"
doctorow: Second, It makes artistic sense. It's the 21st century. Copying is not getting any harder, Making art that you don't intend to have copied by your audience is quaint and historical, but it's hardly contemporary
doctorow: Finally, it makes moral sense. I've copied my ass off all my life. So does every other artist I know, Telling people off for copying is just hypocracy
Cuppycake: Hahaha
doctorow: If ti wasn't for mix-tapes, my entire teen years would have been celibate
Cuppycake: Hahaha!
Raph: haha
Cuppycake: So you're basically making mix-tapes for reading :)
doctorow: Something like that
Cuppycake: That's kind of how I feel collections of short stories, which you seem fond of writing.
Raph: Your teen years would have been celibate except for short stories?
Cuppycake: You seem to be a fan of writing short stories, given your collection “A Place So Foreign and Eight More.” What unique challenges do you come across when working on short stories
doctorow: Indeed -- short stories are great experimental vehicles. You can take lots of risks without worrying that you're going to blow a lot of time on a failure
doctorow: The biggest problem is keeping them short -- exercising the self discipline to leave stuff out
doctorow: It's like Brian Eno said, "Be the first person not to have done something"
Raph: Where do you publish short stories these days anyway?
doctorow: I'm working on four anthology stories right now; one for a Jonathan Strahan YA anthology of Mars stories; one for a Kelly Link anthology of YA steampunk; one for an Open University coursepack and one for a YA collection set in the Broderlands universe
doctorow: And I just finished a short for my new collection
Cuppycake: That's a lot of young adult stories! What is it about writing for young adults that appeals to you?
doctorow: They're fun to write because everything is so dramatic -- there's a lot of drama in doing something for the first time -- telling your first lie of consequence, or making your first noble sacrifice
neojabule: cory, can you tell us about your latest publishing experiment ?
doctorow: Sure -- it's a DIY short story collection being made available in a variety of forms, from free download to $250 limited hardcovers and even a $10,000 commissioned story.
Cuppycake: Wow!
doctorow: The idea is to get some facts on the ground about how much money a writer like me stands to make from a variety of different publishing possibilities
doctorow: And to compare this income with the income from a mainstream publisher
doctorow: I'm publishing all the financials, and doing a lot of stuff that really pushes out the boat for print on demand -- different covers, realtime updates to the text (if you send in a typo, I'll fix it and give you a footnote on a page)
Cuppycake: Huh, that's really unique.
doctorow: There's a lot of supposition about what a publisher does and can do, and how valuable that is to a writer. I'd liike to start building a robust data-set that others can contrbute to
Cuppycake: Very cool :)
cyberf: Can you tell us what the commissioned story is about?
doctorow: Yes -- I'm podcasting it in installments atm. It's called EPOCH and it's about the shutdown of the first AI. It was commissioned by Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu/Canonical fame. It's a comic story, but also poignant, and turned out to be a bit of an exegesis on game theory and politics and operatig sy
doctorow: stem design
Cuppycake: Carlton would like to know: Cory, when your work is peer-edited online, how do you ensure due credit?
Raph: For those who don't know, Cory talks that way in real life too.
Raph winks
doctorow: I'm not sure if you're asking how you make sure no one rips off your idea (answer: doesn't matter, ideas are easy, executiion is hard) or how everyone gets credit for the typos they fix
Cuppycake: I think credit for the typos they fix.
doctorow: If the latter, it's never really been practice to give detailed acknowledgement to peer groups ("Thanks to Dave for that fix on p2, thanks to Alice for that typo on p5")
doctorow: Usually you just add something like "Many thanks to the Foobar Workshop for their invaluable assistance with this story"
Cuppycake: He says "not just typos, but actual creative input"
doctorow: Again, you never really give detailed ackowledgement for that sort of thing from a writing group -- "Thanks to Dave for suggesting that I make the main character a Wookie, etc"
doctorow: It's understood that everyone in a workshop makes suggestions, the writer takes those away and figures out how to make sense of them in a way that is uniquely her own
Cuppycake: Great. :)
Cuppycake: Quick moderation interruption/reminder:
Cuppycake: Feel free to ask questions in the Backchannel tab of your chat window
Cuppycake: Our moderation queue is cutting messages off for some reason.
Cuppycake: Cory, Lobo7922 is wondering, there is a fear that science fiction is turning towards near future too much. What are your thoughts?
doctorow: I think that sf has always been about the present, using near future, far future (even recent past, e.g. SPOOK COUNTRY or distant past e.g. SYSTEM OF THE WORLD) to talk about how society TODAY is relating to technology
doctorow: Writers don't always know that that's what they're doing, but I think you find in every prediction about the future a great deal of information about the predictor's anxieties and hopes about the present (but not much about the putative world of tomorrow)
Cuppycake: Thanks :)
Cuppycake: Pinkbagels asks, With everyone fairly literate, why is it the publishing industry seem to dictate what readers want? Likewise the 'formula' for writers--Why are they so constrictive with creativity?
doctorow: I don't know that I agree to either proposition. In the first case, there is a vast world of publsihing outside the literary mainstream (for better or for worse). The LEFT BEHIND novels sold millions of copies without support from mainstream booksellers, distributors or a publisher
doctorow: In the second place, if there's a forumla in trade fiction, I haven't seen it. I read a LOT and I find all kinds of stuff being published
Cuppycake: Several of the audience are wondering - is it working for you? Has giving your books away for free turned into lots of sales for you?
Cuppycake: (I imagine it's certainly turned into lots of PR for you, which in turn helps to sell a few)
doctorow: Well, it's a hard question to test emprically -- I can't go back in time and re-release the books without the CC license and see how they perform. But Little Brother's had 90,000 hardcovers pressed in the USA over 9 printings, and continues to sit in Amazon's top 10,000 most days, more than 18 month
doctorow: AFAICT this puts it in the top 1% of all books -- but would it be doing better if there wasn't a CC license? I certainly can't prove it
Cuppycake: That's impressive.
Cuppycake: So it's working for you, but whether or not it's working better is still a question. ;)
doctorow: What I *can* say is that others who've had more controlled experiments (e.g. Baen, which publishes a lot of series with well-understood sales arcs)
doctorow: suggest that it works
doctorow: And what's more
doctorow: It works for me artisticially. There's no practical way
doctorow: o prevent copying of books on the net
doctorow: so I can either ignore it, wet my pants in anxiety over it
doctorow: or embrace it and see how I can exploit it
Cuppycake: Carlton is wondering - " Cory, what effect do you think the give-away model will have on more traditional journalism, newspapers and so on?"
doctorow: I think that the main impact of the net on newspapers has nothing to do with "give away models"
doctorow: The main problems newspapers are facing are:
doctorow: 1.The rate-card nosedived. They used to get $50/1000 readers for display ads. Now they get 1/10 of that -- because there are better ways to advertise to the same readers, and advertisers weren't placing newspaper ads in order to support the 5th estate
doctorow: they were placing them in order to sell stuff and newspapers are second-best for that
doctorow: 2. Most of newspapers came off the wire services
doctorow: Once every newspaper was online, it because abundantly clear that 90% of the day's paper
doctorow: was nearly identical in every city
doctorow: just copy lazily pulled off the wires
Cuppycake: Good point, didn't think of that!
doctorow: and that makes sense when we all read papers by looking at the newsprint on our doorsteps
doctorow: but it doesn't make sense when you're logging into the web to read them
doctorow: Newspapers dug their graves by overrelying on the sugar-high they got from running wire copy and charging big bucks for advertising
doctorow: and systematically underinvested in investigative journalism and local news
doctorow: Now that they've worked out that people want this stuff, they're going around
doctorow: declaring themselves to be the world's great champions of local and investigative
doctorow: but they drove the spikes through the hearts of both
doctorow: Note that this applies mostly to US/Canadian papers
doctorow: Other countries' papers are Different with a Capital D
Cuppycake: They're also slow, right? I pick up a newspaper and I read things I've already known for 24 hours because of Twitter, RSS, blogs like yours, etc.
doctorow: I don't have any problem with the idea of newspapers as being home to more synthetic, less time-bound pieces
doctorow: I LOVE sitting down on Sunday morning with the Observer and reading the whole thing cover to cover
doctorow: Seeing the synthesis of all the week's stories
doctorow: *Disclosure: I write a column for the Guardian, a sister pub to the Observer
Cuppycake: I'm picturing you with a cape and a coffee, reading the newspaper on Sundays.
Cuppycake: S
doctorow: *Disclosure But I read the Obs on weekends before I got ont he payroll
Cuppycake: Speaking of...
slackerlord: Has the whole cape and goggles thing started to get old yet?
doctorow: Not really! It's really funny -- I go to lots of places and find myself being given capes and goggles to wear
doctorow: I look good in goggs, too!
Raph: We were looking for some for you here right before you got here :)
doctorow: Saw that!
Cuppycake: Neojabule: cory, do you have any idea how far the creative commons licensed books are spreding in other than english langage ?
doctorow: I wish I did! The crisis of being an English speaker is that there's so much stuff available in
doctorow: my native language that I don't actively need to look to
doctorow: foreign languages to fill my in box
doctorow: and so it's easy to get lazy and just miss the rest of the world
doctorow: I know that the non-English CC projects are doing great work
Cuppycake: Haha
doctorow: Esp Spain, Brazil, France, Italy...
EricaJaneMP: Love the idea about demystifying the value add. Are there any other artists you know that are doing similar things in different industries?
doctorow: Well it's certainly the case that musicians are leading the charge here
doctorow: David Byrne, Trent Reznor, Amanda Palmer
doctorow: Jonathan Coulton etc etc
doctorow: Jonathan Worth, the photographer, really has the bit in his teeth on this
doctorow: And Roger McGuin and many other great folkies are all over this stuff
doctorow: Plus there's the movie people -- Kirby DIck, Brett Gaylor, many others
Cuppycake: ledflyd asks, Cory, do you predict that a "little brother" scenario could play out in a present day United States and, if so, how confident are you are with this prediction? How much would you wager?
doctorow: You mean, could we end up in a situation in which US citizens are spied upon without warrant or suspicion
ledflyd: to the scale in your book, yes
doctorow: In which terrorism suspects are denied due process and subject to torture?
doctorow: In which people are arbitrarily detained, denied habeas corpus
doctorow: In which your association with people who are believed to be terrorists makes you a terrorist in the eyes of the law?
doctorow: That doesn't sound like a prediction of the future; it's a description of the present.
doctorow: Little Brother described a matter of degree, not a fundamental shift
Cuppycake: Lots of publishing questions here :)
Cuppycake: Freon asks - "I read most books from a library. Yours I've been able to download and read without going to the library. Why are so many other authors scared of offering free downloads if their books are already free at the library?"
doctorow: Well, a lot of writers think that libraries should be banned, too! Margaret Atwood said that it was the equivalent of car theft!
doctorow: I think that writers -- and other artists -- have a precarious existence that's optimized, by and large
doctorow: for the technology that used to exist, not the technology that
doctorow: exists now. It's easy to forget that last year's technology
doctorow: screwed up the livings of the artists who predated it
doctorow: And that today's incumbents are yesterday's usurpers
doctorow: Every pirate wants to be an admiral
doctorow: "What I did was progress. What you're doing is theft."
Cuppycake: Do you think libraries are still as valuable?
doctorow: I think that there's never been a more important time for libraries and librarians
Cuppycake: I just read in the news that some city (I can't remember which) was closing down all of their libraries to save money.
doctorow: Libraries aren't just buildings full of books
doctorow: They're places where information literacy is taught
Raph: It was the Philadelphia Free LIbrary, and it was saved actually
Cuppycake: Oh good ;)
doctorow: Where skilled researchers help the public navigate the space of human knowledge
doctorow: As the space expands -- or at least, the part of the space available to us expands -- there's never been a time when
doctorow: we needed more expert navigators
Cuppycake: ledflyd: Speaking of advertising and newspapers, does Cory think the advertising model will be able to keep funding the web 2.0? I've heard predictions that this cannot last.
doctorow: Advertising was artificially inflated by the cheap money bubble, which enabled advertisers to try ot sell products by bankrupting their competitors in spending wars
doctorow: The uninentional beneficiaries were the sites that were ad-supported
doctorow: Who got a windfall from this runaway spending
doctorow: But the cheap money bubble is over
doctorow: Beggar-your-neighbor is dead
doctorow: And so the rate-cards have contracted
doctorow: But here's the dirty secret of Web 2.0: it doesn't take much capital (if any) to start or run many of these online businesses
doctorow: So while they may not warrant $30MM investments on $300MM valuations and turn into businesses generating $20MM/month in profits
doctorow: They MAY be founded by people on a couple credit-cards, run on overheads of $5000/month and generate profits of $15000/month
doctorow: Split among a couple founders as a regular source of income
doctorow: E.g. even if there aren't many investment opportunities in W2.0, there's still lots of jobs
Cuppycake: Reminder: Please ask your questions in the backchannel if you have any for Cory :) We'll try to get to them before time is up!
Cuppycake: Obo asks, Being an advisor to Metaplace and with your recent novel Makers, do you see Metaplace being in the same spirit as the maker/hackerspace community in driving creativity?
doctorow: Yes -- I think that's the thing that makes Metaplace so exciting. Cheap and easy creativity, low cost of failure, high degree of experimentation.
doctorow: All that stuff is a recipe for inventing awesome stuff.
Raph: The above question was not planted by Metaplace staff. :)
Cuppycake: Cory, a question from our web lead. He's wondering what you think of the new Disney keychest?
Cuppycake: (which basically says, you buy a movie of ours once and you have the right to view it on as many devices as we provide it for)
doctorow: Keychest is a way for entertainment companies to limit what you can watch movies on.
doctorow: I don't understand why customers would pay for this
doctorow: Though I understand why Disney execs wish customers would pay for this
doctorow: If Disney execs were the primary customers for Disney movies, this would be a great app
doctorow: But Disney execs don't pay for Disney movies today
doctorow: And even if they did, they're not much of a mass audience
doctorow: Right now, if you buy a DVD, you can (illegally, but easily) rip it
doctorow: We ripped d's fave 20 Disney movies
doctorow: put them on a USB stick
doctorow: on an SD card
doctorow: We can play them anywhere
doctorow: No pre-roll ads (over 30 mins of pre-rroll ads on Disney DVDs!)
doctorow: (try explaining THAT to an impatient toddler)
Cuppycake: That's less than a child's attention span...yah
doctorow: And what's more, we get the DVDs with all the copyright rights intact, including the right to buy and sell, loan and give them.
doctorow: In fact, I bought half of 'em used from Amazon -- bought, not stole! -- for an average of about GBP5 each
doctorow: So the important question for me, as a potential customer for Disney's new offering
doctorow: is, "What's in this for me?"
doctorow: Higher prices, less flexibility?
doctorow: Does DIsney really think that parents around the world woke up this morning and asked themselves
doctorow: I wish there was a way I could do less with my kids DVDs and pay more
Cuppycake: haha
doctorow: I wonder if Disney's got anything like that?"
Cuppycake: Phew, so many questions and we're running out of time.
Cuppycake: last one from Lobo7922 - "What sci fi authors are you reading this days? who do you recommend?"
doctorow: I really enjoyed Lev Grossman's THE MAGICIANS, a kind of anti-Harry-Potter
doctorow: And I'm looking forward to reading Lethem's CHRONIC CITY which is here on my desk
doctorow: I LOVED the forthcoming AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton
doctorow: As well as the forthcoming short story collection by Mary RObinette Kowal
Cuppycake: And real quick, what are you working on right now? What can we expect from you soon?
doctorow: Well, my next novel, MAKERS, is in stores this week,
Raph: And it is very very good!
doctorow: and there's the new short story collection WITH A LITTLE HELP, which is looking like Q1 10
doctorow: but may be out for Xmas
doctorow: And there's my next YA novel, coming in April, called FOR THE WIN
doctorow: That's about it!
Cuppycake: Great Cory! Thank you SO MUCH for coming out to chat with us today!
Raph: Tell them what FTW is about!
doctorow: Ah! FTW is about gold farmers who form a trade union across Asia and the US and Eastern Europe and change the macroeconomic landscape!
Raph: It kinda has relevance for the audience. :)
doctorow: And Raph helped me get the game stuff right!

For some reason I can't upload these to FB, so will it this way for now.



















Hmm...that avatar pic of Gwendel could be me and my muse...

Mom thought DeAnne was her Mom this morning, and then her mind cleared. DeAnne told her it was alright to go, that her Mama and Dad were waiting for her. She could see Jon Wade again. Mom was gone within and hour.

There will be no ceremony, DeAnne wants to keep the ashes until she herself goes. So there is no time table in my going out to AZ. I am thinking Mom's birthday next month. Will talk to LeDelle to see if I can go out to CA after that to do what I need to do for myself.

I am fine. In fact I am good. She is free of disease, pain and fear. And I made my peace with her at the hospital. Whatever comes next in our lives after death, I beleive for her it will be good. She's had a rough one, something I was not completely aware of until she got alz and lost her inhabitions about talking. And now I know how I will be spending All Hallows Eve.

Frankie, your off the hook if you want to be off the hook. If you still want to take family leave, think about latter November.

Paul, I would really like to see you too if you can swing it.

Take care everyone. Make your peace.

Last night my mom was transfered to a rehabilitation facility. It was during one of the few times I wasn't at the hospital and by the time DeAnne and I got there I figured we would have one angry mama. All I could think of was the last time I went thru this with mom when we were still back in Indiana. We got there and she was content and comfortable and ok with the information that she would be there until she got stronger.I think I slept better last night than I have in a month and a half. DeAnne's sudden illness disappeared.

What needs to happen is this. She needs to regain steady walking and basic self care. And she needs to start eating. We can live with a soft diet if needed, but she HAS to start eating. In all the time I spent with her in the hospital, I was not sure this would happen. 15 minutes with her last night changed my mind. She was very content today when I visited with her. She will have gotten her initial assessment today, but I told the nurse that she was taken off her alz meds for the pacemaker and seems to be more confused about understanding instruction and simple things like swollowing.

PT at the hospital said her insurance will cover 30 days of physical therapy at a facility. If she remains ok, we have a couple appointments to get her to this week, then I can come home.

I swore to DeAnne today that the next time I come...it will be for a VISIT.

Finally was able to get a ticket out to AZ to help my sis with Mom. Frankie had multiple problems this week getting money wired to Frank that he owed. I guess the plan is to wait out the weekend, then 911 her to emergency, since she is still refusing to go. Cardiologist says she will be stronger for longer with the pacemaker.

Oh and I guess my sister's husband is still mad at me about the car my sis left out here that broke down. Yeah, like I can pay for that right now...Between him and Mom not wanting me there, it should be interesting.

I emailed my boss about the situation and he emailed me back saying he was going to let me go in favor of opening up a couple in house artist slots to some college kids, and to go ahead and uninstall my liscenced copy of Grome. Nice timing, eh? So I emailed the head guy at Grome and asked if there was a limited liscnse I could purchase when I got back so I could at least finish the projects I have going until I could afford a liscence of my own. He said to keep the liscence I have and he would let me have it for half price whenever I could afford it. So really, as much trouble as this all has been, he did me a favor by firing me. I was begining to doubt any money would come from this anyways. So at least I can get some good stuff in my portfolio when I get back.

Wish us luck with Mom.

http://spooningmoons.com/Becca/Dastrin%20Campaign/Grome/Finished%20Shots/greginpen01.png (1-16)

Now...do I want to start on Balwood's Edge? Or start playing in Daz?