http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/very-sekrit-passphrase.html

There were 38 independent bookshops around the land who had Graveyard Book parties. The people at Harpers somehow got it down to 11, and they sent them to me to judge the winner. The winner gets me for a signing in December. I watched the 11 videos/descriptions/ photos. I watched them again. I watched them yet again, this time with Lorraine, my assistant, watching too and saying helpful things like, "They are all so good. Whoo. Don't know how you'll make a decision. Look at that! They're line dancing to Monster Mash! And that Death is on stilts, isn't he. Is that a horse? A horse in a store? These are amazing." The fourth time, Woodsman Hans wandered in from the deep woods (where he is making a pond) and watched them too.Here is Doug Jones and some strange man it said.
Hi Neil,

I am a long-time fan, and have even met you backstage at a Tori show (though that was many years ago!). I am writing to ask a bit of a favor.

About 10 years ago, I appeared on 20/20 with Tori, speaking about sexual violence. Since then, I've stayed close with Tori whose been a mentor of the best kind. I also started a nonprofit, Pandora's Project, that provides support, information, and resources to rape and sexual abuse survivors and their supporters. We operate Pandora's Aquarium, an online support group with more than 20,000 registered members.

Recently, I was named a 2009 L'Oreal Woman of Worth for my volunteer work with Pandora's. I was chosen for this honor from more than 2,500 applicants.

Now, one of the ten 2009 Honorees will be selected as the national honoree through a public online vote. Her cause will get an additional $25,000, and a lot of media exposure. This is the first time L'Oreal has recognized a sexual violence organization, and becoming the national honoree would allow me to shine a spotlight on this issue that affects so many women and women.

Voting is easy - people just need to go to the url below, enter their email address in the box on the right, and click the "submit vote" button. Each email address is allowed one vote, and voting ends November 24.

http://www.womenofworth.com/Honorees/Honoree2009Detail.aspx?nomid=5657c940-425b-47a2-879d-ed3c2d82b56f

I am wondering if you might be willing to send people to this voting link via your (infinitely popular) twitter or blog. I understand if it's not something you can do, but my experience running a small-budget nonprofit tells me it's always wise to ask!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shannon Lambert

I'll plug it happily.

Your correspondent asks "Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the 'oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death' version in which they bring him to the zoo?"

I fear she's in error; in the original version, written by Prokofiev, Peter snares the wolf, then convinces the hunters NOT to kill it, but to take it to the zoo.

I've been researching, and that's what I found out too. Wikipedia has a list of changes made in various versions of the story (Disney, for example, had the wolf not eat the duck). But the wolf was always taken to the zoo...

"DAY-GLO HUMAN UDDERS!"

(I feel I must point out that these are really not what are best in life, and that Molly Crabapple should be arrested and probably waterboarded for making me look at this.)

(And also this.)

(Cowgirls. Honestly.)

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

http://www.bunny-comic.com/1443.html

There is a small charity-related news item below, please do take a look at it, as it's a good cause and the more eyes the better!

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

We've made some additions and improvements to Notes!

The Notes feature has been added to two action-taking pages:

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http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2009/11/wertzone-classics-red-dwarf-iii.html

Three million years into deep space, the mining ship Red Dwarf continues on its lonely voyage home. With the clearing of the ship's radioactive decks continuing apace, Lister and Rimmer have moved into much nicer officers' quarters and are also now able to use the far superior Starbug-class shuttlecraft, whilst Holly, still besotted with his female counterpart from the parallel universe, has undergone a head-sex change operation. Lister, left pregnant by a liaison with his counterpart from the same parallel universe (different physical laws apply), has given birth to twins but sent them back to their home universe. Finally, the crew have recovered the android Kryten, last seen roaring off into the void on a space-bike, from where he has crashed on an asteroid, and integrated him into the crew.


Pretty much all of the above exposition is crammed into a ten-second, ultra-fast-forwards Star Wars-style text scroll at the start of the third season of Red Dwarf, and is then pretty much forgotten in favour of getting on with some stories. For the third year of the show, creators and writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor came aboard as producers; a new, tighter spending regime was enacted (helped by a modest budget increase) and new effects people, set designers, costume designers and musicians were hired. The character of Kryten was also added to the show permanently, with Robert Llewellyn taking over the role from David Ross, whilst Norman Lovett had departed following dissatisfaction with the length of time it took to get to work every day (he lived in Edinburgh, rehearsals were in London and filming was in Manchester).

In effect, the show had a pretty significant revamp in the third season. The show is somewhat faster-paced, there's more action and special effects and even the more sombre title music (meant to evoke a Silent Running feel to events) has been jazzed up with some guitars and drums. As a statement of intent, it made some old-school fans feel uneasy but at the time it won over a huge new audience and began to take the series to the top of the ratings.

Of course, the fact that the show starts with three sequentially brilliant episodes didn't hurt either. In Backwards Rimmer and Kryten fall through a 'time hole' and crash-land on Earth in the late 20th Century, but a version where time is running backwards. Lister and the Cat arrive to rescue their friends only to find they actually quite like things this way around, despite certain bodily functions being pretty disgusting this way around. Given that the conceptual basis of the episode is pretty straightforward - Naylor and Grant had discovered an editing machine in the BBC which could run tapes backwards, including sound - they make the most of it with some classic gags and some huge laughs. Just don't think too hard about if it makes any sense or not. I also remain convinced that Martin Amis was inspired to write Time's Arrow by this episode. Seriously, at one point Rimmer and Kryten even get into a similar discussion about the morality of WWII going backwards.

Marooned, brought in late in the day to replace another script, is somewhat more modest in scope but is even stronger. It's basically a two-hander, with Lister and Rimmer trapped on Starbug when it crash-lands (this becomes a running gag throughout the series) on an ice planet. Lister has to keep a fire going in order to survive and must also make their meagre food stores (a tube of Bonjella gum ointment, a Pot Noodle, a packet of crisps and a tin of dog food) last as long as possible. It's a brilliantly-written, expertly-acted episode (the two actors have occasionally mused doing it as a stage play) about two people who don't particularly like one another having to help each other survive a difficult situation.

Polymorph is much more overtly bonkers. A genetically-engineered lifeform (GELF) known as a polymorph has gotten loose on the ship. This creature has the ability to take on any shape or form to provoke an emotional reaction in its prey, and can then suck out that emotion to feast on it. Needless to say, the dysfunctional, psychologically dubious and highly erratic crew of Red Dwarf proves a tempting meal. This is another superb episode driven by great performances from the regulars who, heralding the beginning of another recurring trope of the series, have to play alternate versions of themselves when certain emotions are removed. The highlight is a scene where Lister is almost killed by the polymorph disguised as a psychotic kebab. Another classic sequence sees the newly-pacifistic Rimmer declaring the formation of the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society to deal with the creature, only to run into acronym problems.

After those three episodes, the rest of the season is less overtly brilliant, but still enjoyable. In Bodyswap Lister and Rimmer discover they can swap bodies, providing Rimmer with the first chance since his death to taste, smell and feel. Rimmer's initial plan to borrow Lister's body to get it in shape goes out the window and he ends up porking out, sparking a battle for control of Lister's body. Timeslides ("Tonight's Special Guest Star: Adolf Hitler as Himself,") sees mutated developing fluid allowing the crew to travel into photographs and thus back in time. As a result Lister tries to change his past so he never ends up on Red Dwarf, but this only causes more problems. Finally, in The Last Day Kryten's in-built expiry disc kicks in, triggered by the imminent arrival of his replacement model, Hudzen 10, and the crew have to decide how to deal with the new arrival.

The third season of Red Dwarf is, compared to its two forebears, brighter, more colourful, funnier and more varied. More action takes place off the ship, various story devices are employed to bring in other characters and the special effect and model work is exemplary, and there's a lot more of it (Starbug crash-lands in three separate episodes). There's even some primitive CGI (this season was filmed in 1989) doing the rounds. The episodes are indeed faster-paced, but they don't really sacrifice the two-hander comedy exchanges either as some fans later complained (Marooned is basically nothing other than a 30-minute-long comedy double-act and brilliant for it), although the focus does move away from the Lister/Rimmer relationship and features more scenes of them paired up with other characters.

There are a couple of problems, and they are problems that later episodes also have to deal with. The introduction of Kryten as a regular is a great idea, giving the writers a whole new character to explore, but his role as a mechanoid means that he seems to get all the exposition and explanation-based dialogue that used to go to Holly. The result is a notable drop in material, dialogue and screen time for the new Holly, played excellently by stand-up comic Hattie Hayridge. Introducing the first regular female role on the series and promptly giving her little to do does not send out a great message, although she does get some good material as the series progresses. There just isn't very much of it. This also ties into the second problem, namely that the Cat's role is also slightly reduced to make way for Kryten, and it's quite some time (until Season 6, in fact) until he gets a new role that gives him more to do in the series.

These problems cannot really challenge the sheer quality of the scripts, the hugely-improved production values and the fact that the writers and actors were on top of their game in this season. Red Dwarf: Season III (*****) is one of the series' finest hours, and worth checking out even if earlier episodes didn't do much for you. The season is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.

It's getting too late to type some more. And it's wise to wait for a show of interest anyway. Does anyone want to know what happened to Foulques d'Anjou?






Je suis d'Irlande
Et de la terre sainte
D'Irlande
Beau sire, je te prie
Par la sainte charité,
Viens! Danse avec moi
En Irlande...



Foulques, premier comte d'Anjou, dit d'abord the Roux, puis le Plante-Genest, rencontra la licorne le deuxième vendredi de juin de l'année 929 et toute l'histoire de la France, de l'Angleterre, de l'Irlande et de Jérusalem en fut changée. Et aussi, à cause de l'Irlande, celle des Etats-Unis, qui reçurent tant d'Irlandais bannis, jusqu'à la grande revanche de John Kennedy. Et, par ce dernier et la lointaine licorne, l'histoire de la Lune fut changée aussi.
( Read more... )

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

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New FCK fixes rich text editor!

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LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

• Constellation 04: Cover for Sag/Cap issue
  "Here's a sneak peek at the new cover for Constellation's Sag/Cap issue out at the end of the month featuring Dame Darcy, Peter James from "Some Secret Place", Pluto in Cap, Travelmania, gorgeous photographs by Christina Labey, & horoscopes based on your inner animus. issue will be available at the end of the month."
  (tags:peopleiknow magazine design covers )
• Holy water dispenser combats spread of swine flu - Telegraph
  "…a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water."
  (tags:cult tech )

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

Because Ariana’s sliiiightly crazy, she’s created a free HAPPY()SAD theme for Tumblr users. This is, of course, based on the HAPPY()SAD t-shirt she and Rich Stevens released yesterday.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

http://www.westeros.org/GoT/News/Entry/3640/

GRRM, cast, and crew are now in Morocco to film for a few more days—a week at most, we believe, from what we’ve heard. There will almost certainly be very little news to share from there, however, so things will be quiet. The scenes there will be Daenerys’s scenes, with Tamzin Merchant as Daenerys Targaryen, Harry Lloyd as her older brother Viserys, Iain Glen as Ser Jorah Mormont, Ian McNeice as Illyrio Mopatis, and Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo.

We do know that filming will focus in and around Ouarzazate, the home of two major Moroccon film studios which have been heavily involved in Hollywood productions. Moreover, we know that one exterior location that will be used is the still-standing set for the exterior of Jerusalem from Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. More recently, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time filled at Ouarzazate, as discussed by Jerry Bruckheimer and the creator of the game Jordan Mechner in this recent interview. Some excellent information about past productions there, as well as the history and appearance of the area, can be found in a travel article from the UK’s Daily Mail newspapwer.

http://www.westeros.org/GoT/News/Entry/3639/

The full transcript of the Esmé Bianco chat at LiveCloud is now available. Esmé was wonderfully forthcoming on all sorts of details of her career and, yes, the filming of the pilot of Game of Thrones.

Some details of the latter sort: she filmed her scene at location, not at Paint Hall, with no evidence of CGI backgrounds or other such details being added in post.  Over the course of her three auditions the production her scene was constantly being rewritten so it was a bit different each time. She says Peter Dinklage was terrific to work with, kept her amused, and no, she wasn’t aware that he wore a wig. She has no idea whether her character will be seen again on the show, but would love it if HBO wanted her to be part of publicity for the production.

Dinner last night was a cauliflower-potato soup -- purple, of course.

1 small-medium head purple cauliflower
6 small-medium blue potatoes
4 medium purple carrots
32 oz chicken broth
8 oz cream cheese
1 medium onion
1 shallot
5 cloves garlic
6 slices bacon
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground ginger
salt, pepper to taste

Separate cauliflower into florets. Peel and quarter potatoes, peel and slice carrots into 1-inch pieces. Throw them all in a big pot, add the chicken broth, and bring to a boil. Boil until potatoes are tender, around 10-15 minutes.

In the meantime, dice the bacon, onions, shallot and garlic. Throw the bacib into a pan on high heat. After the bacon has browned, take the bacon away and add the diced savories. Add the chili, ginger, turmeric and cumin to the leftover bacon fat. Cook until the onions are soft and browned. Add the bacon to the onion mixture and chop in a food processor until pureed.

Once the potatoes are soft, remove from the heat and mash the veggies in the pot with the chicken broth until the mixture is at its desired smoothness. I like it when the potatoes and cauliflower are pretty smooth, but the carrots are still a bit chunky. Salt and pepper to taste. Put it back on the heat, bring it to a low boil and stir in the bacon-onion mixture and the cream cheese. Simmer, stirring, until completely integrated. Continue to cook until it's slightly less thick than the desired final consistency -- it will thicken as it cools.

Serve with toast rounds, a sprig of parsley and a nice extra-sharp cheddar grated over the top. Bonus points if the cheddar is orange.

FUTURE FAIL

This is a sequel to an earlier post of mine, but I assure you, dear reader, I have written it as a standalone, so you should be able to follow along without having to click on the link. Happy? Good! I knew you would be.

As I said before, we Westerners, and more specifically, native English speakers, are so spoiled by our position at the top of the cultural food chain that we often forget little facts such as: it was not always thus. And more importantly: it will not always be thus.

But all of that is so last week. Let's move on.

This time around, I'd like to present to you two books that stick in my mind as being interesting exemplars of each end of this spectrum. Now, I enjoyed *both* of these books a long, long time ago. Therefore, what I will be describing in this post is only my idealised memory of them. I hope the authors' fans will forgive my clumsy trampling of their works.

Book 1is Illium by Dan Simmons

WHAT I REMEMBER: There are two robots who know all of human literature. All of it. From every country and every language and culture. Robot A has used its superior functions to figure out that Shakespeare is the greatest writer who ever lived. The other robot -- slightly less sympathetic -- has decided that Proust is the greatest.

Book 2 is A Million Open Doors by John Barnes


WHAT I REMEMBER: In JB's future history, Alien invaders replace all human cultures with that of the conquerors. Centuries later, when humanity is free again and ready to send out colonies, they decide to base each colony on some ancient human civilization or ideal. Thus you get Commie planets, Religious planets, Puritanical ones etc. etc. They also decide to base three of the colonies on so-called literary cultures. So, they looked through all of Earth's history to try and decide what the three greatest literary traditions that humans ever produced were. One was the Troubadour culture of Provence in the 11th century*; one was a civilization from what is now Sri Lanka. I can't remember the third, but it wasn't European either.


MATTRESS FAIL

So, we got a new bed. The most expensive we could afford with a mattress that should protect from further morning back pains, from tosses and turns, from ominous creaks.

Some guys delivered it and I had a good chance to see how bloody enormous the thing is. These were strong lads, but they sweated and puffed for their money today, I can tell you...

Later, I had to put the bed together. I had the mattress up on its side and when I tried to manoever it, it began to topple forward and it took every ounce of panicky energy in my body to stop it falling on me. Which was vital, because, and I'm not joking, I would be dead now if that had happened. Or at least trapped for a few days, until the Nork, with nobody to feed it found me lying there. As I said, dead.

Bloody hell! Imagine the story that would have made for the local paper. "It was just like the plot of one of his own stupid SF books..."





*I'm not going to cheat by looking it up, so I may well be very, very wrong.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/radio-books-violin-lessons-also-haircut.html

Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.
Hi Neil,

I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.

Thanks for your time,
~Cecily

PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)

I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate...

And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out.

Dear Neil,

Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.

http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg

I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/

Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/

The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.

Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEED

I love how many families were Coraline families, this year.

If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270

Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.

- B. Bolander

What a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American):

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."

"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."

Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."

"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."

"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"

"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.

This morning Natalie and I took Minnie, our dog, to be groomed. Natalie was thrilled the three of us were out together, laughing and giggling the whole time into the store, pulling me along like she knew where we were going. We did all the paperwork and handed the leash to the groomer while picking Natalie up. Well Natalie saw this and lost it. She cried out, "Oh no...Minnie! Daddy, Minnie. Minnie, Minnnnnnie! Daddy, Minnie!" It made me laugh and cry at the same time. She was positively distraught over us leaving the dog behind. We came home and she searched the whole house for Minnie.

I wanted to take Nat to pick her up, but I had a hundred other things to do and dropped her off at my brother in law's, but she was giddy when she came home to see the dog home. It was awesome!

TV is set up and AWESOME...

But that's not my news I've been teasing, which will stop now that it is all out of my hands.


Goodnight!

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Here are the top ten best selling SFF books on Amazon so far in 2009. In my constant efforts to better you, I will ignore the titles for now and print simply to pertinent information for those wishing to make their fortunes as future writers:

Book 9 in a series
Book 11 in a series
An original hard cover
Book 11 in a series
Book 4 in a series
Book 2 in a series
Book 7 in a series
Book 5 in a series
Umteenth book in a series
A sequel -- the beginning of a new series?

10 points if you can figure out the secret of success. Bonus points if the book you're intending to write is a paranormal romance. Go for it! I'll be watching...

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

# Eh b'y: To agree with what someone is saying.
# Where ya to?: Where are you?
# Stay where you're to till I comes where you're at.: "Wait there for me."
# Stay where you're at till I comes where you're to.: "Wait there for me."
# Get on the go: "Let's go" (also, a common euphemism for partying, on the go by itself can also refer to a relationship- similar to a dating stage, but more hazy.)
# You knows yourself: Responding to statement in agreement.
# Yes b'y: Expression of awe or disbelief
# What are ye at?: or "Wadda ya'at b'y?" : "What are you doing?"
# Wah?: A general expression meaning, "what?" The length of the vowel sound varies.
# Luh!: this is used to draw attention to something or someone, often by pointing. It is a variant of "Lo!" or "Look!"
# G'wan b'y!: meaning, "No, really?" or "Are you joking?"
# Hows you gettin' on cocky?" : "How are you today?"
# You're a nice kind young feller" : "You are a nice person"
# Me Son : "My Son"
# You're some crooked : "You are grouchy"
# Mudder : "mother"
# Contrary : Difficult to get along with. Not to be confused with "contrary to popular belief."
# After: A preposition similar to "have." (ie: "I'm after sitting down" for "I have sat down.")


Is this is glossary of Wexfordese? How to get by in my neighbourhood?
Well, you would get by,
Only this is Newfoundland english, the dialect spoken by people widely considered as the biggest retards in Northern America, at least Canada.
It's pretty much pure irish with the typical Wexford b'y (boy) and s endings to all verbs and other things*.

I must conclude that should I go to Canada, I would be jeered at and made fun of as the low IQ I am. F*ck you anyway you snotty maple syrupy snobs, you don't know who the real lights are.

*If it can be proven they use the word "quare" as well, we;d definitely know where the main gene pool lies.