In Common with Humans

Seems appropriate at the moment! Gakked from ancientkhan and kradical.

political spectrum meme

Happy Birthday, octoberland!!

Good thing I checked! I’m off of one panel and on a new one.

I’ve been reprieved from the 10:00 a.m. panel on Monday morning, “The Perils of Looking Up from the Keyboard.” No, I had nothing against the topic or my co-panelists, it was just earlier than I hoped to be scheduled. I am now on “Science Fiction Film Scores” on Sunday evening at 9:00 p.m., with Eric Van…and no one else. Hey, that should be fun! I have a shelf full of vinyl LPs of film music. Maybe I can rip some quick cuts to use as examples. I’ll have my netbook with me. Does it have an output for speakers?…indeed it does. And I have a set of speakers I can bring with me. 🙂

Gakked from kradical:
question meme

I’ve gotten three very overdue reviews written and posted on Blogcritics, if anyone is interested in checking them out. I reviewed the new, reissue editions of two iconic novels in the vampire genre, and a DVD.

DVD Review: Inside the Actors Studio: Robin Williams

Book Review: The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers

Book Review: The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas

It was the power outage that finally enabled me to read the books, because I couldn’t do much else. (The Powers book is 427 pages long and is actually set in smaller type than Mortal Touch. I know that doesn’t sound possible, but it’s true! *wry grin*) I have to say that vampire novels are enhanced when read curled up in a recliner in front of a fire, in an otherwise freezing cold, dark house, with an icy wind whining outside and the only light a camping lantern, oil lamps and candles. All I needed was a few bats to come down from the attic and flit around, but they, sensible things, are hibernating until spring. 🙂

Happy Birthday,
sethanikeem
and
sarajlarson!

Well, I don’t really know what to think about all this kerfluffle that LJ might be about to shut down any second. LJ has posted this comforting there-there statement, but what else would they say? “Yes, folks, your suspicions are correct, we’re fucked, run for the hills now?” But didn’t several of the big financial firms put out essentially identical statements asserting their good health not long before they crashed and burned?

I spent a surprisingly short amount of time last night exporting my entire LJ to xml files, going back to 2005. (Wow. Time sure flies.) I then checked out several alternatives, including deadjournal (costs money), insanejournal (doesn’t allow importing LJ posts), Blogger (supposedly allows importing but wouldn’t let me do it on an experimental attempt–and anyway, I have four blogs on Blogger already), and WordPress. WordPress allowed me to import my LJ posts–and vyrdolak was available as a user name, which it isn’t on LJ. (Some asshole is squatting on it.) I do not want to keep blog posts on Facebook. I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming over there but I still don’t trust it. I haven’t tried MySpace to see if I could import my LJ files there–but I’m not sure I’d really want to.

I can’t save comments with LJ’s export function, but most of my posts don’t get any comments. I could go through and manually save the posts that acquired comments I want to save. I really want my posts archived for my own reference, not necessarily online, and now all my LJ posts for just over three years are backed up–so I guess something good came out of this mini-panic. I suppose I’ll add LJ to my nightly backup routine just in case I get up some morning to find that LJ has gone south. *sigh*

Happy Twelfth Night/Epiphany/Three Kings!

It’s always something!

Giles knocked an entire glass of tea right onto my laptop keyboard. Ker-splash–tea everywhere. Most of it did not hit the computer, I know, because I was mopping it off the table and floor. But the computer keyboard got a good solid dunking.

I instantly jumped to my feet and flipped the computer over. Amazingly enough, it seemed to be okay. But when I mopped it off externally, two of the rows of keys were combining signals. I shut the computer down, removed the battery, removed the keyboard, gently dried anything that was visibly wet with tea and set everything to air-dry in the kitchen. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there won’t be any damage–I’ve gotten liquid in keyboards before and dried them out okay. The keyboard has a tight plastic backing and sits on a metal sheet, and it doesn’t appear that any liquid got further than the metal–and very little got under the keyboard.

Stupid cat. 🙁

I’m glad that I’m addicted to plain cold black tea and not soda or coffee with sugar or anything else that would be a hell of a lot harder to mop up. I don’t want to replace the stupid keyboard again!

I’m typing this on the netbook, but I didn’t get a chance to back up today’s work, and I was in the middle of a book review. Arrrrgggh.

Well, the first day of 2009 hasn’t been too bad. I’ve sold three copies of Mortal Touch today, one paperback and two Kindle editions! Total sales ticked up for December, too. Mortal Touch has been out for 17 months and sales are chugging right along, getting stronger rather than flagging.

I just got another five-star review on Amazon–from Harriet Klausner. Ms. Klausner is an extremely prolific reviewer who was actually profiled in Time magazine a couple of years ago. I tried to get in touch with her last year when I was sending Mortal Touch out for reviews, but I couldn’t find solid contact information for her and I’m not sure I reached her. Evidently, Mortal Touch finally sailed into her radar screen, because just before the ice storm she e-mailed me asking for a review copy. I sent one out just before the holidays. She’s already put her review on Amazon! I’m not sure where else it might appear, her reviews tend to pop up all over the place. But that makes eight reviews on Amazon now, all five stars.

I recently sent a PDF out to another reviewer who asked to see it, as well, so I hope I’ll have another new review before too long. Meanwhile, I have three reviews to write and get up on Blogcritics!

I tried a culinary experiment: cheesecake without sugar, refined grains or corn syrup. I used Neufchatel cheese and honey, and for the crust I crushed some reduced-fat Triscuit and mixed the crumbs with melted butter, honey and cinnamon. The cheesecake came out really well! Spongier and a little more “custard” flavored than your classic New York cheesecake, but extremely tasty. Recipe on request if anyone is curious.

I actually got an e-mail from Dad! I’m stunned! The last e-mail he sent me is dated May 14, 2008! That clinches it–2009 really is going to be different! *g*

Just to balance things out, I gained a whole 1.2 pound yesterday (drinking white zinfandel wine and eating too many tortilla chips and cheddar cheese 🙁 ), it’s just as bitterly cold tonight as last night–but at least the wind is dying down–I discovered that two squash in my fridge have spoiled, and I finally learned that I did not win the Massachusetts Center for the Book award for 2007. That was the very last contest entry I hadn’t heard about. Oh, well! I may not bother with any more of these contests, their impact on sales seems dubious. No one’s opinion really matters but that of my readers, bottom line! Therefore, the only promotional efforts that are worth doing are the ones that my readers actually see. At least Mortal Touch is on the “census” of Massachusetts-related books for 2007, and it isn’t that long a list. In fact, I’m first on the list because it’s alphabetical by author’s last name.

I hope everyone has been having a relaxing New Year’s Day. Aside from going out to shovel snow, haul in firewood and get the newspaper in a wind chill of -5 degrees (brrrrrrr!!!!), I have! Except that now I need to quit procrastinating and go do a workout. I’m trying to find a treadmill free or cheap because I’m bored to death with the exercycle. January 1st, unfortunately, is not the best time to look for exercise equipment!