How’s Winter Treating Me? Just Take A Look

Scalzi, with his enormously dry (and warm) sense of humor posted a pic of what I presume to be a wide open, unburdened by snow, not covered by ice, Ohio farm field. And then he asks ‘so how is the first day of winter treating you?’

Here’s how:

That’s out the back door. Perspective is funny, but you are looking at about 6 inches of snow (over an inch of ice) on the back steps. That’s Saturday.

Here’s more how -

That’s Karen retrieving Bo. We let him out in the backyard and stupidly stood there watching as he walked through the (now open) gate and started heading up the driveway to the street. Karen said something like “Look! He’s heading into the backyard!”. I nodded, thinking to myself – ‘well duh, where else is he gonna go?’, happily snapping pictures of Bo as he hop-hop-hopped off through the snow. Then if finally clicked – we opened the gate so the gas-delivery guy could get to the tank and – forehead slap – open gates work both ways! Fortunately, Bo wasn’t making it through the drifts too quickly and Karen was able to grab ahold of him before he got too far.

That’s out that back door one – ONE – day after the first out the backdoor pic above. Sunday.

A few two and three foot icicles…

A couple that are nearly 4 feet long…

Compare this to the car pic with Karen in it. Yep, Sunday.

That’s the (plowed) driveway. You get some idea of how high the natural fall, as well as the plow drifts, are.

That’s what three days of nearly uninterrupted snow will get you.

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Voyage to the Spaghetti Sauce Planet

Wait…

see more

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PICTURE MONDAY

I love digital cameras. Yes, new technology, but sometimes you have to go with the flow rather than bucking the trend.

The biggest advantage I see is ‘unlimited picture taking’. Snap away, hope for the best, you can always frame, tilt, crop and alter later.

I used to have one of those analog cameras, a Kodak 110. 800 some odd pictures later and a lost bag of exposed film rolls turned me off to picture taking entirely for years.

Of course the wife has the better, newer, fancier digital camera (I get to use it on trips), but in the meantime, I’ve got a hand-me-down that does just fine for most subjects.

A few selections from the latest dump are below:

That’s October’s full moon, rising above the 1852 inn across the street. I’d been out walking the dog earlier and the sky was so clear and the full moon so huge I had to get a picture. Of course, taking a pictures means the loss of the optically-illusioned GINORMOUS full moon.

Karen has been ‘crafting’ with papercraft for about a solid week now; here’s a wreath she built. On the left is our award-winning photo of Bo, the Wonder Yorkie.

More papercrafting with the money tree. The idea here is that on each of the 12 days of Christmas, Karen’s sons get to come over and pick a bill off the tree: might be a $1, might be a $100 – you never know.

Of course the point of the exercise is that her boys MUST come for a visit each and every day…

Here’s a closeup of a heart. The ball in the foreground is Bo’s.

Karen’s is beginning to find her stride. This time, paper orchids.

My mother send BO a Halloween shirt (glow-in-the-dark).

Now this is is interesting. You know those winged tree seeds? We’ve got a shedder in the backyard, as well as a wrought iron picnic set. It seems that the holes in the grid are just large enough to catch the seeds when they land.

Here’s one from the underside:

Ooooo. It’s Halloween and the ghosties and ghoulies are out!

Just coming through the door are Quinn and Eric (Eric is Karen’s youngest) – dressed up in their Dog The Bounty Hunter and his Big-Boobed Wife costumes. You can just make out Bo sitting on the couch.

But what’s all that ethereal, ghosty, Halloweeny stuff partially obscuring the picture? It is Halloween after all. Did the spirits decide to put in an appearance? Should I be calling up Skiffy Tube and seeing if we can’t get our house on some paranormal reality show?

Note to pranksters: One digital camera, one operating flash on said digital camera and one lit cigarette held between the fingers of the hand supporting the camera will probably be enough to get you lots of attention from the paranormal reality types…

That’s Dog (Eric), Big-Boobed Loudmouth (Quinn) and Dog (dog).

Bo absolutely adores Quinn (he runs into traffic to go see her) and it was quite funny to see him suddenly realize that the woman who’s face he couldn’t see from the floor was actually someone he knew.

More (and better) papercrafting from Karen. Everything with the exception of the kitchy lamp, jewelry stand and dresser was handmade.

***

A few other housekeeping chores:

Joe (high school buddy and former roommate) asks me to publicize one of his latest insane ideas – not because he’s promoting it, but because he wants to make sure that he has a legal basis for bringing suit just in case someone else does decide to do it. We are speaking here of a reality TV show concept, who’s name is:

DANCING WITH DEATHROW INMATES

Rest assured, if any of you reality show types wants to use the idea, permission will NOT be forthcoming.

Joe is also my compatriot in launching a new social awareness organization onto the internet. T-shirts will be forthcoming. I speak now of the CHECKOUT LINE VIGILANTES, a national organization of volunteers dedicated to insuring that people standing in the Ten Items Or Less line at the supermarket actually have TEN ITEMS OR LESS in their baskets.

Don’t be surprised if you see a CLV monitoring your aisle, making sarcastic comments about adults who can’t count, badgering checkout girls (and boys), calling for a manager or slipping things you don’t want into your basket.

It may not be the biggest issue facing mankind right now, but express checkout line abuse HAS GOT TO STOP! The man-hours wasted must number in the millions, if not billions.

READ THE FRICKIN SIGN people. If it says ‘Ten Items or Less’, that means ten. Not 11. The same number of items as most people have fingers. Two items of the exact same thing DO NOT count as one, they are two. (A bag of multiple vegetables is still one.) A ‘five for the price of three’ special does not count as three – it counts as FIVE.

We’re on to all of you cheaters. We’ve been watching you for years, secretly recording your tricks and slight-of-hand moves. And now we are preparing to take action. BEWARE of checkout line embarrassment, because we’re going to deliver it in spades!

Smokers – if you have ten items in the basket and then ask for a pack of smokes, YOU’RE OVER THE LIMIT. Ten items PLUS cigarettes is ELEVEN.

LEARN TO FREAKIN COUNT! people.

If you’d like to join the CLV, just email me. We need all the help we can get. EXPRESS CHECKOUT LINE ITEM ABUSE MUST STOP!

If you’d like to become a member of CLV, or just want to help support the cause, visit our new Zazzle store

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Top Ten SCWiPS From Weird Tales Magazine

Well, the paintball website was up and operation for half the weekend, but now it seems our old nemesis DOSATTAK is back.  It never ends.

On a more positive note, I’m closing in on finishing up the rim worlds site re-do. I’ve got about a day of links to finish up on the magazine section, some fiddling with the Chandler section and then I can start working on the ads – ad words and ebay affiliate stuff.

Then we’ll see how traffic does, maybe jigger a few things and, after that, start sending out solicitations for the in-house ads.

Speaking of pulps – BACK TO THE COVERS!

A little while back I offered the seminal Scantily Clad Woman in Peril, an illustration from the first issue of Tops In Science Fiction Magazine.

Now it’s time to really kick off the SCWiPreview with a bang, and there’s no pulp magazine that does this concept better than Weird Tales!  Some of these illos are from the inestimable Margaret Brundage, a female artist who definitely seems to have a particular scenario in mind…

I’m particularly astounded (no pun intended) by these covers, many or most of which would be behind plastic and paper wraps, behind the counter if on display on today’s newstands.  If WalMart had been distributing Weird Tales today, they’d have yanked it from the racks.  Amazing that nearly a century ago, near naked women in S&M scenes were considered so commonplace that they were free for the viewing to anyone walking down the street.  Raises all kinds of questions regarding freedom of speech, so-called ‘community standards’ and what-all. 

REALLY makes me wonder when the thought-police squads are going to get around to charging some of the pulp magazine websites: I don’t see a single ‘of-age’ notice, nor do I see any attempts to keep such ‘filth’ out of the hands of minors…

But reading my ramblings is not what you’re here for, so, to the cover!

April 1927

Hey, yo!  You’re supposed to bonk her on the head with the club and then drag her back to the cave by her hair! 

October 1927

 ”It IS the latest fashion from Paris. It’s SUPPOSED to fall off like that!”

June 1929

I think I just saw the exact same thongs in a Fredericks of Hollywood catalog…

July 1929

Here, revealed for the first time ever, George Lucas’ inspiration for the ‘Leia as Jabba the Hut’s slave girl’ scene.  Lucas’ own script notes detail the decision to render Jabba and his entourage as aliens rather than humans.

October 1932

Brass brassieres. Given the current situation, I think a cuirass would have been more appropriate, but not nearly as enticing.

June 1933

Honey, when that stone god awakes, I don’t think you’re gonna be getting what you’re looking for.

This is a Brundage cover. While I haven’t researched this one in particular, she was notorious for requiring a bit of airbrushing to her anatomically correct figures.

April 1934

“Where the white women at? Oh, there they are!”

I bet this one just drove the clan crazy, huh?

November 1935

Not to be outdone, Steven Spielberg sought out his won Weird Tales covers to be inspired by. This one turned out to be the genesis for the “Snakes, I hate snakes!” scenes from Indiana Jones.

March 1936

Another Brundage, and another whip.  This style of cover would later be rendered on the covers of True Crime and Confession pulps with live models.

May 1938

You know, it’s ALWAYS the barefoot ones that get tied up.  Maybe this is the reason so many women have a thing for shoes. It’s security, not fashion!

You can find a very fine display of all of the Weird Tales covers here.  And more information on Margaret Brundage here.

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“Existence is Futile”

You all know the cliche.  The aliens inevitably say “Resistance is futile”. They then go on to illustrate this in some horrifying manner (melting the dog, eating someone’s brain) after which our hero dutifully demonstrates the limits of futility.

Today, more people are telling us that existence is futile.  Eoghann over at Solar Flare says there’s no SF Fandom anymore; the folks at TOR are analyzing the implications of feces found floating in cool aid on ‘Hard’ SF and the classics have become historical documents.  (While on the email list WHOSE NAME SHALL NOT BE MENTIONED, some people are saying that historical documents are unimportant.)

Oy. Vey.

Eoghan highlights the splintering of fandom. From the FANS ARE SLANS ’30s and ’40s (when FAN meant you shared letters with other fans, communicated through fanzines and letter columns and everyone was intersted in SCIENCE FICTION) to the niche-market, electronically-isolated present, where, apparently, the purpose of fandom is to find individuals who are exactly like you. So you can all agree that some television show featuring SF stereotypes IS, in fact, the MOST brilliant thing to ever have been created and why oh why are they cancelling it and how oh how can we get them to create more direct-to-DVD episodes – so we can watch them and then sit around discussing how it is, in fact, the MOST brilliant thing ever created…

Somehow, fandom has migrated from a small click of nerdy, geeky, opinionated, argumentative, often strange, always creative individuals into a gaggle of gum-popping California girls who all wear the same fashions, all have a poster of the same teen heart throb over their vanities and who spend endless hours text-messaging each other about how like, awesome, like, each other are.

I always thought fandom itself was the niche. The purpose of being was to

 A: confirm the fact that you weren’t the only one in the world who was crazed enough to read and enjoy that stuff

B: confirm that, not only weren’t you not crazed but, in fact, you were an extremely enlightened, forward-thinking individual, smarter than the average primate, someone with special insight into the future and an asset to the community. You were a resource, not a drooling village idiot

C. express yourself. If that meant orgies in room 714 – what the heck, you’re an enlightened member of society. Those not interested will be in the lobby or sitting in the hall (along with those not invited). This was FANDOM. Normal societal constraints do not apply.  We’re going to a better place called ‘the future’, check your mundane reality at the door

D. to find someone to argue with. Argumentation hones the critical thinking skills, the debate skills, even social skills. Arguing with the wage slave on the bus to work over whether Stranger in a Strange Land really was the best thing ever written in the history of mankind is just. not. satisfying. You can have a knock-down, dragged-out barroom brawl with a kitten, but is it really going to satisfy your ego in the morning?  FANS are intelligent, critically thinking animals.  You want to try and convince one of them that your favorite author is better than their favorite author? Bare knuckles time, folks.   Besides, it is NOT possible to discuss the relative merits of 16 different proposed methods of FTL travel with the average man on the street.  Nor is it socially acceptable to invent new religions whilst simultaneously trying to win an elevator race.  

Interaction.  INTER. It used to be that the only ‘shared’ interest was this nebulous thing called Science Fiction. What that encompassed was up for discussion – lots of discussion.  Now we’re expected to focus in on one television show, or one movie, or one anime or one game, find the other people who are equally hypnotized by that same thing and isolate ourselves from everyone and everything else so that we can wallow in the wonderousness of our fetishized fetish.

Seems like the only cross-fertilization that’s still going on is that orgy in room 714. To which no one was invited.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what to call the activities that take place at an unattended orgy.

***

I agree with Jo. The singularity is not going to happen and authors concerned about having to explain why they still have real people inhabiting their stories post-singularity should just relax.

Why won’t it happen? Because most of the takes on ’what the singularity means’ are Frankensteinian horror stories, and as we’ve seen time an again, new technologies are never expressed by their extremes; TNT didn’t blow up the world, nor is it being used solely for the benefit of mankind.

Machine intelligence and human augmentation will likewise express themselves in some middle ground.  The self-aware Skynet that evolves itself past all human understanding is just as likley to develop the viewpoint that respect for all intelligent species is the proper moral position as it is to develop the idea that we can be used as batteries.  Some people will become augmented beyond all recognition, but if they get too uppity, the billions of non-augments scraping out existence in their forgotten slum worlds will pull them down.

But mostly I believe that eventually, the majority of human beings will recognize that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we ought to do something.  Oh hey, I can be tied into the net 24/7! Boring. You know what?  Today, I’m going for a walk in the woods and I’m not even going to share the experience on YouTube, or Twitter or Flickr or Photobucket. I’m just going to listen to the birds chirp and the brook babble

People only think that they’re ‘multi-tasking’ or making themselves more aware and more tied in with the devices they carry, the filters they set up, the bots, the aggregators. In actuality, they are creating a more LIMITED awareness for themselves. The necessity of having to create filters in order to be able to handle the data overload doesn’t enhance, it restricts your awareness to what you think you need to know right now. The problem is, none of us knows ‘what we need to know’.

Like the new generation of fans that’s only interested in what they’re interested in.  They’ll never be exposed to the next great thing because they’re too busy obsessing. 

We’ll wake up. Eventually, being a person will be more important than being tied in.  Besides – do you really want to electronically ‘experience’ an orgy comprised of nerdy, geeky, opinionated, argumentative, often strange, always creative, individuals?

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THE CONCLUSION OF PULP COMIC FAIRY TALE!

Now at long last, thrill to the exciting, fantabulous and awe-inspiring conclusion of PULP COMIC FAIRY TALE!

Don’t miss out on a single episode of this galaxy-spanning rollercoaster ride of intrigue, love and betrayal!

PULP COMIC FAIRY TALE – “is a stunning display of science fiction stereotypes and genre tropes” – Iasi Mov, Trantor Literary Review; “I laughed so hard coffee came out of my nose!” - Anson MacDonald, HK Luna Free Press; “Absolutely STUNNING! artwork” Frankrp Aul, Amazing Heavy Metal Stories.

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More SMOF Secrets?

Hey – maybe SFAwards Watch and IO9 will want to pick up on this one:

Glyer reveals in File 770 that the Secret Masters of Fandom have been talking about something called SCOOTERS.

I haven’t puzzled out the entire acronym, but I’m pretty sure that the first two letters stand for Secret Code.

Mike cleverly conceals whatever hidden message there is to be found in his entry by placing SCOOTERS into the context of a supposed conversation about handicap access at conventions. Of course, we have no real idea of what he’s talking about because the message itself can only be found on the SMOFs reading list which is, you know, kind of SECRET.

I’d really like to know what this passage is code for -

“So the problem for the Worldcon is not the expense, but having to front the money…”

Could this have anything to do with Hugo voting restrictions? Front the money from whom, to whom and for what?  It’s further illuminated by this later passage -

“Denconvention seems to have given that help to fans who planned in advance. The question really is what future Worldcons should provide for these last-minute needs, if anything.”

Fronting money?  ‘Help’ to fans? Could Worldcon be paying fans to join so that they’ll “vote the right way” come Hugo Awards time? 

I’m thinking that the ‘advanced planning’ referenced in the above means ‘smart enough and connected enough’ to get on the SMOFs list. So that you can request a payout.

Don’t believe me when I say something is up? Check this out:

“The best suggestion I saw in the recent discussion on the Smofs list was Sharon Sbarsky’s idea…

(Sharon) “…If the idea catches on, then more spare scooters could be rented.”

‘Spare Scooters’ indeed.  Don’t need the code book for that one! But in case you do – ‘spare scooters’ is obviously the insider’s outlandishly punny name for ‘non-worldcon-attending fans’ and ‘renting’ is the stand-in for buying their vote…

You could check me on all of this, but you’d need to be a SMOF to get at the source material, and we’re all sworn to secrecy…

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Remembering the Weird Idea

Why is there a picture of a colon alongside edible insects at the top of this post?

Glad you asked.

Something (can’t remember exactly what) finally triggered the memory and I remembered the weird idea I wanted to write about.

Several years ago I was conversing with a patent theorist (ivory tower patent experts:  these are the guys who write the opinion and strategy pieces). I asked him what he’d done previously and apparently he came from the nutritional science side of things.  I mentioned my weird idea and he thought enough of it to suggest that someone ought to do a study. (Maybe they have since a number of years have gone by since that conversation.)  Now its your turn.

I was impressed by a report that stated that the incidence of colo-rectal cancer was increasing significantly among Asian populations.  Particularly the emerging wealthy classes.  Hmmmm, I thought, what do wealthy Asian populations have in common with Western populations?

A better question to ask is: what don’t wealthy Asians and Westerners eat?

Insects.  Other than the occasional errant flying bug, the diet of Western nations includes few, if any insects.  On the other hand, go take a stroll through an open air market in Thailand (my current favorite Asian nation) – a market that isn’t next to as McDonalds or KFC – and what do you see?  Insects for sale.  Live insects, fried insects, insect paste, bucket-o-bugs (suitable for snacking). Lots and lots of things that most of you would run away from, step on, drown in DDT or have Indiana Jones style nightmares about.  And never, ever think about eating.

Our forebears were at least part time insectivores. Our primate cousins go ga-ga for termites and the occasional centipede. 

I think someone ought to do a study, even if the end result may be that Doctors will routinely recommend that you ‘take two cockroaches and call them in the morning’.

This particular thought runs in line with other evolutionary hangers-on that I don’t think we pay enough attention to.  For example, they once recommended sleeping exactly 8 hours a day and now have backed off. They recommended eating at regular intervals and have backed off. Backed off of drinking so much water every day, flooding your system with vitamins every day, on and on.

Every single one of those things runs counter to what I believe the evolutionary legacy to have been.  Think our ancestors at a well balanced meal at the same three times day?  Think they measured their sleep and water intake with standard measures?  I doubt it. They ate when there was food – gorged themselves in fact, and it was usually a single food item. They drank as much as they could hold when they were at the watering hole. They probably hardly ever slept through the night, and even if they did, I’m pretty sure they went to bed when the sun set and woke up when it rose, despite the changing length of season.

And our bodies were adapted over millennia for just such an existence.  Today we get the protein – tomorrow or the next day we’ll get the greens and the vitamins.

Its pretty clear.  We need to introduce a super-predator back into our civilization.

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