I have been trying to figure out how to post about this without slaying my mother with mortification. She would no doubt beg me not to, but I think it is hillarious and sorta cries out for sharing.
That said, I’m about to offer you Too Much Information. To make this somewhat more palatable, I will use euphemisms from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue as well of placing the rest of the post behind a cut. Be warned, I shall talk about trouble with my “fruitful vine.”
Last night, Rob told me that the milk carton had sprung a leak and that he’d had to transfer the milk into other containers. So this morning, I got up and poured a milk out of a cocktail shaker. Mmm… milktini’s anyone?
Y’know, the thing that people overlook in the zombie epidemics are the swarms of kids that will be coming out of schools. So, this is important information to know.
We now have twenty new volunteers to help out with SFWA. Huzzah! A hearty thank you to:
Beth Bernobich, Leah Bobbet, Scott Danielson, David de Beer, Aliette de Bodard, Guy Anthony De Marco, Rachel Dryden, Nancy Fulda, Dave Goldman, Chris Hansen, Jed Hartman, Jim Johnson, Neal Levin, Jeremy Lewis, Joseph McDermott, Cat Rambo, Scott Roberts, Peg Robinson, Meg Stout and Carrie Vaughn
I’m starting to get volunteers paired with tasks.
For instance, I asked one of our graphic design volunteers if he wanted to whip up a t-shirt in response to something Jim Hines said. I quote from his comments.
I asked earlier about reasons for joining and staying with SFWA. The best answer I’ve seen all day was posted in the newsgroups tonight.
While talking about SFWA’s PR today in the newsgroup, I made the following comment:
“I’m not trying to say we need a bunch of SFWA cheerleaders running around sprinkling happy dust and farting rainbows at people…”
I have four projects due all of which use the same program. So. You can imagine the utter joy I felt yesterday when one of the projects decided to freeze. When I tried to restart the program, it was corrupted. Curses.
And yet, no problem, because I have the disks so I just reinstalled it and voila! It was still corrupted. It was as if I had done nothing. Next, I searched the registry and cleaned out the remaining bits. Reinstall.
Corruption!
After arguing with it for awhile and getting exactly nowhere, I decided that, fine, I would just do a full system restore. I’d been meaning to do that anyway and this was as good a time as any. I backed up my documents. Uploaded my fiction, just in case, and did the restore. I love how zippy my computer is right after a system restore.
I was less excited this time about how my computer would no longer connect to wireless, but a mere two hours later, I’d managed to download all the MS patches that were required for it to function normally.
Another two hours went to restoring documents. Then came the program files. I was resolved to only install the things I actively use, which accounts for a surprising number of programs. Finally, only eight hours after I’d started, I had the system restored.
I opened the offending program. And it collapsed in exactly the same way as before. GAH! I had a clean install! Nothing would fix it, so I finally downloaded the newest version of the software. My bet is that some lovely little MS update patch conflicts now with my old version.
A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice off Antarctica and began sinking, but all 154 passengers and crew, Americans and Britons among them, took to lifeboats and were plucked to safety by a passing cruise ship.
The stricken MS Explorer finally disappeared from view Friday evening, about 20 hours after the predawn accident near Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands, the Chilean navy said.
I wonder if they tried turning the boat off and back on again to see if restarting it helped.
I collect etiquette books, so if you ever need to know what kind of gloves to wear to an afternoon wedding in 1851 or the proper way to say goodbye to a guest in 1907, come to me. One of the prizes in my collection is The Jolly Book of Funcraft by Patten Beard in 1918. It is a book of ideas for parties and the table of contents includes such things as:
The Party Made From Almost Nothing At All
The Thanksgiving Fun Making
Carrot Fun
A Plasticine Party
The Faggot Party
Oh yes, my dears. What could be more fun, than a Faggot Fun Party.
[audio:faggotfunparty.mp3]
The thing that makes me laugh most, is the stunning poem at the end and the way it shows just exactly how much words have changed.
My husband and his friend stand in the kitchen talking about wine. I’m typing and I hear his friend says, “It’s a little dumb on the nose.”
This makes me laugh. It’s not quite as good as the time someone sniffed a glass, looked intently across the room and said, “I smell stress.” I wondered if he could smell fear as well.
(Tor Books — August 21, 2018) Continuing the grand sweep of alternate history laid out in The Calculating Stars, The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well-established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course, the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, […]