Weblog
Friday, March 31, 2006
Greetings to readers of bynkii.com
The quote that brought you here came from a book I wrote a while ago called Spock's World, which was the first hardcover Star Trek novel. If I remember correctly (it was a good while ago...), Spock's future mother uses this particularly evocative Irish curse in front of his future father.
More than this, deponent saith not. :)
*The book is recently back in print as part of a "twofer" volume -- Ann Crispin's Sarek being the other half of it -- entitled Sand and Stars.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/31/2006 12:04:00 AM | link to this post
Thursday, March 30, 2006
"Out of Ambit" about to be reworked a little
Now that DianeDuane.com finally has a server, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to start stripping some of the less bloggish stuff out of OOA, including the ancillary blogrolls and linklists, and relocating them over on the website. So things here may disappear abruptly, or look very weird, while I'm restructuring stuff. Apologies for any inconvenience.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/30/2006 08:01:00 PM | link to this post
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Ooh, rhinobots!
And railsnails and cogfrogs and other cool mechanicities. The artist is from Kazakhstan. (Thanks to BibliOdyssey for the link)
(I also love the index-page Flash animation. There are other witty and handsome animations on the site as well -- from the front page, click on the figure with the top hat.)
Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/29/2006 05:56:00 PM | link to this post
Some more "Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King" feedback
Aww, I can't resist.Dark Kingdom. Based on this old Norse/Germanic tale about the Ring of the Nibelung. It was pretty nifty. The Queen of Iceland was awesome.
So true.So I just finished watching Dark Kingdom on sci-fi, that lovely mini series and I really liked it, especially Brunhild, the amazingly beautiful, ass kicking, double-bladed axe wielding valkyrie. Yea......she is great, the whole package really. Nonetheless, in the second part of the series, her lovely new husband, whats-his-name, who is in total: a overweight, rapidly aging, greedy and immoral, sterile fool who had tricked his good friend, the true love of Brunhild, amnesiac Siegfried into taking her belt of power and letting her fatty husband have his way with her, while she was tricked! Tricked I say!
Yep, I'd say that just about sums it up.Dear Sword Wielding Super Hotties,
I wanna marry you. Stop killing yourselves, there really is a guy for you. He's me, and I got Valhalla in my bedroom.
You don't need to break the cycle of hate, nor slay yourself at some punk's funeral.
Just come on over and get horizontal.
Erm. (backs away slowly)The second part was definitely a lot better than the first part. Probably because Siegfried died.
Brunhild (Kristanna Loken / Queen of Iceland) kicked a lot of ass. I wish she had kicked more ass, but she did cut off the evil adviser's head and it doesn't get much better than that.
No argument there.Dark Kingdom = Saga of the Volsungs (or the German version, anyway). Was pretty cool. Brunhild kicked so much ass. That chick rules.
And I missed Boston Legal!
(sigh) So did I.Dude, I was so looking forward to Dark Kingdom with Samuel West and Alicia Witt. Even after like ten gazillion name changes that kept delaying it's appearance, I still waited. And waited. Was I disappointed? I some ways, yeah, but it was so teh funny, eh? It was like the laughfests I have with Christopher Lambert movies. Then again, what was Slutbunny, er, Sam doing in it? Ah, all's chaos and confusion!
The name changes. Don't get us started about the name changes. (two heads meet many, many times with two desks, more or less in unison)...dear God, did Siegfried REALLY speak with that unspeakable accent?
(And there was this... moment... when he stands up to the two roaring Saxon kings and utters the immortal words: "You killed my father!" At which point both [info]rdeck and I sat up and said in unison, "My name is Inigo Montoya... prepare to die!")
So did we. Often.So just finished watching my show, "Dark Kingdom," on the Sci-fi channel. Robert was in it That's the only reason I watched it. It was actually kinda cheesy. But Rob made it all worth while. Speaking of Robert, like my new icon? Isn't he beautiful? Wouldn't we make beautiful babies? Wow, if Orlando falls through I'll gladly take Robert.
See, now, there's the spirit. Always have a plan. :)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/29/2006 03:02:00 PM | link to this post
The morning after the nights before: "Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King"
Well, so it's finished airing...and SciFi is very pleased. From our producers this morning:The premiere of Dark Kingdom averaged a 1.8 HH rating and 2.109 million total viewers (P2+).
This is the most-watched Monday program ever for Sci Fi in any second quarter.
Dark Kingdom delivered 1.181 million P25-54s, the #8 cable program for the day on Monday on this measure.
...Over on the BBs at SciFi there's a certain amount of approbation, a lot of confusion about where the story came from, and some indignation at the ending, along the lines of "How dare this not have a happy ending, it's a fairy tale, right, a fantasy, where's our happy ending?"
Ah well. We have ours. :) On to the next miniseries!
(The funniest remarks over there so far: (1) "There should be a sequel!" (Whoops, sorry, we seem to have killed everybody but Kriemhild. (2) "We want a series!" (Argh! But now that you mention it... NAAAH.) ;)
Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/29/2006 11:13:00 AM | link to this post
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Early "Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King" responses
A mixed bag, as I kind of suspected. (But nearly all funny, one way or the other. My favorite (surprise, surprise) comes from the paper of record:It's all a little reductive and soap-operaish, and viewers unfamiliar with the source material may find themselves a little puzzled about the relationship between the evil characters Alberich and Hagen, or even to learn, almost as an afterthought, that bathing in the dragon's blood has rendered Siegfried invulnerable. On the other hand, "Dark Kingdom," which was shown on European television nearly two years ago, is not unwatchable. Made for about $25 million, it looks as if it cost much more, with lots of Nordic-seeming ice and mist, and a dragon that, for once, really looks like a dragon, squatty and lizardlike. The director, Uli Edel, who also made the 2001 Arthurian mini-series "Mists of Avalon," has a feel for scenery and pageantry, and for the most part he tells the story straightforwardly, without condescending or camping it up.
By far the best thing in "Dark Kingdom" is Brunhild, played by Kristanna Loken, Arnold Schwarzenegger's nemesis in "Terminator 3," who was a molten, shape-shifting cyborg that most often assumed the form of a blond hottie. In "Dark Kingdom," with her furs, her blond dreadlocks, her martial-artsy way of wielding a spear, she's fierce and sexy -- a true Valkyrie, a warrior both on the ice floes and in the bedchamber. When King Gunther, who has won Brunhild's hand by deception, tries to claim his husbandly rights, he is instantly unmanned with weakness and performance anxiety.
(chuckle) "Not unwatchable": that'll do nicely. ...And herewith a few responses from out in the blogosphere:This feature premieres as a mini-series on SciFi this week, but it's also being released on DVD at the same time. I scratched my head when the commercials hyped it as the best story to pre-date the Lord of the Rings. With the world's blandest title, I somehow doubted it. After doing some research, I see that its original (European) title was Ring of the Nibelungs. Now that makes more sense. Yes, the germanic myths that were the basis for Wagner's operas did have a certain influence on Tolkien. I guess the SciFi Channel didn't trust its audience to watch anything with "niebelungs" in the title.
Ding! Correct. (Probably, anyway, since this complaint kept coming up as regards other English-titled versions. We kept hearing from Channel Four in the UK, "No titles with 'lungs' in them. Sounds too gross.")I'm in the middle of the Sci Fi channel's "Dark Kingdom" miniseries. The story looks good, but the leading actor can't act for crap. I think they were going for Viggo Mordenson and had to settle. At least he's kinda' pretty to look at.
(innocent look) No comment.Oh crap it's back on. *cries* Wait wait, no, NO! I'm going to watch it anyway! I've waited this long, I'm at least going to see what comes of things!
Exactly how I felt about year three of this project.Just finished watching Scifi's Dark Kingdom. Pretty generic fantasy story but I enjoyed the lounging time with the cat anyway. Gotta love naked men bathing in dragon blood (ewww) and meteors that make women horny. LOL! It sure seemed to me like every character, male and female, were so arrogant. I will check out tomorrow's installment since I don't work until late.
You have no idea how much trouble they had with that blood. As for the meteor...ah well. Never mind about the meteor.They have switched the parts around completely! *returns to head palm* It is not Kriemhild that Siegfried loves - it is Brünhild. Oh, and Siegfried arrives in 'Burgundy' (Worms? oh, where's that?) a peasant son of a Blacksmith. Hagen is still his wonderful Hagen self. Fafnir has been reduced to an overgrown Iguana. And Alberich is now a Gollum wannabe. Only hairier, and thicker (I mean he is a dwarf after all... lol).
But that's the problem with the Nibelungenlied. No matter which version of the story you try to tell -- and there are many -- you absolutely aren't going to be able to please everybody.It has Sam West. In chainmail.
So true.Vera Farmiga (especially when she was in "Roar") and Benno Furmann (from "Dark Kingdom: the Dragon King") should play twins. They have the exact same eyes and facial structure -- it's eerie!
Note: This should in no way be taken as an endorsement for Dark Kingdom! There's only so much Julian Sands one can take (although he's somewhat more fetching as a brunet).
That's the first time I've seen anyone use the masculine version of "brunette" in years. You get a gold star and a cookie.The movie is surprisingly awesome. I just didn't know what it was going to be about.
Fair enough. Occasionally, in mid-rewrite, neither did we. ;)
...And there are many other comments out there, both positive and potentially crushing. Good thing we're both in the middle of other movies at the moment, and don't have the time to get particularly crushed.
This one, though, I have to wind up with, from the SciFi boards. Re Kristanna Loken:I would very much like to enjoy her company in the meteor burrow of her choice.
Ding!Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/28/2006 11:01:00 AM | link to this post
New challenge grant goes up over at the "Big Meow" weblog
For those who're interested, another challenge grant has just gone up. A kindly donor has pledged $400 toward the completion of the Big Meow project...if subscribers / donors match it.
The last challenge was completed in something like three hours. Let's see how long this one takes... (And to all of you who've already subscribed or donated, thanks again. Chapter Two of the book is running to schedule and -- assuming that we hit this chapter's subscription "break-even point" on time -- will be available to the subscribers on April 3.)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/28/2006 10:27:00 AM | link to this post
Monday, March 27, 2006
What a great name for a blog: "Statistically Improbable Phrases"
I ran into this on Amazon this morning while adding something to a wishlist. Down at the bottom of a book's listing you'll find this data, harvested (I'd guess) from the "Look Inside" feature.
So I went immediately to find out what some of mine would have been. (Anything to put off a little longer the trauma of another wrestling match with the Big Meow mailing lists. Yes, we're about to shake the can again: another challenge/matching grant will be turned loose shortly.)
From Wizards at War: otherspace pocket, spell diagram, dog biscuit box, royal sire, annoyed breath, transit circle, blaster fire, mobile weapon, giant bugs, manual functions, other wizards, pup tent
From The Book of Night with Moon: ehhif wizards, sixth claw, flirted her tail, malfunctioning gate, patent gate, neural inhibitor, lashed her tail, tenth life, stretched fore, other wizards, string structure, tail lashed, main concourse, young wizard, flea powder
Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: fairy gold, residence tower (Sheesh, is that all??)
Must look into this further...Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/27/2006 11:40:00 AM | link to this post
More "Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King" fallout
Or rather, just news. Apparently there was a US Premiere party for the miniseries in one of my old home towns, Philadelphia: Phillyist covers it. And will you look at the outfit Kristanna's wearing. Zowie!
(Even Peter's mum, watching a DVD of the original cut, was heard to remark, "She looks good even when they've made her wear a rug.")
It's great to see her looking so well: Kristanna is a very sweet person...and very smart. I hope all this publicity does her endless good.
(I really wish I could see this thing tonight, but the European side of SciFi isn't carrying it, alas. Somebody let me know if they cut the nude scene.)(Oops, did I say too much?) ;)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/27/2006 10:58:00 AM | link to this post
Sunday, March 26, 2006
We hit the front page of the New York Times TV section...
Even though our names didn't get mentioned... who cares? It's still our baby.
(Probably this article requires a subscription to read. But here are our favorite lines:)Ms. Loken, who plays Brunhild, thinks that tough female roles find her, and not the other way around. After touching down naked on Rodeo Drive as T-X, the killer cyborg, in "Terminator 3," a barrage of scripts found their way to her, but couldn't hold her interest.
"And then this script came along," she said from her home in Los Angeles, "and I couldn't put it down. I read it in one sitting with only one break -- to use the toilet."
:)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/26/2006 10:19:00 PM | link to this post
"In the mansion of free speech cartoons have an honourable room..."
My favorite article from the Times this morning...A free society survives partly because the powerful are mocked, and their pretensions undermined. Religions, which guard their own illusions carefully, are particularly ripe for satire. And they should be...
Orwell once remarked that one reason fascism never took off in Britain was because the sight of a goose-stepping soldier would prompt your average Englishman to giggle. Someone is now silencing the giggles. And our world is a lot creepier because of it.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/26/2006 01:25:00 PM | link to this post
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Not bad: not bad at all
Not only a kindly review, but kind of a funny one. From Variety:Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King
(Miniseries -- Sci Fi, Mon.-Tues. March 27-28, 9 p.m.)
Filmed in South Africa by Tandem Communications. Executive producers, Rola Bauer, Tim Halkin, Andreas Grosch, Andreas Schmid; producer, Konstantin Thoeren; co-producers, Volker Engel, Marc Weigert; line producer, Marlow de Mardt; director, Uli Edel; writers, Diane Duane, Peter Morwood, Edel.
Eric/Siegfried - Benno Furmann
Brunhild - Kristanna Loken
Kriemhild - Alicia Witt
Hagen - Julian Sands
King Gunther - Samuel West
Eyvind - Max Von Sydow
By BRIAN LOWRY
Produced two years ago for German television, this nice-looking two-parter explores elements of the Nibelungen saga peripheral to Wagner's "Ring" operas, and it ranges from kind of good -- along the lines of Robert Halmi Sr.'s older made-formade-for-TV epics -- to pretty awful, though sometimes in an entertaining way. Those willing to view the performances and dialogue with a "cut them some slack" attitude will be rewarded with some stylish action sequences, as well as a big, frothy Dark Ages soap operasoap opera. Of course, popping in any "Lord of the Rings" DVD would be a perfectly rational alternative.
It's to the credit of the original myths that every aspect of this story feels familiar, down to muscular star Benno Furmann making like a young Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger in "Conan the Barbarian" and yelling in a Germanic accent, "You killed my father!" Adding to the parallel, "Conan" co-star Max Von Sydow is on hand, bringing a touch of fatherly class to the proceedings.
This barbarian is a prince, separated from his parents when they're killed during his childhood and he's cast, Moses-like, into the river. There, he's found by a kindly blacksmith (Von Sydow), who raises Prince Siegfried as Eric, a brawler whose swordsmanship is unparalleled.
Eric demonstrates his skill by fighting and besting Queen Brunhild ("Terminator 3's" Kristanna Loken), endowed with divine power by the Valkyrie and committed to wedding only a man who can overcome her in combat. Sworn to Brunhild but separated from her, Eric, now Siegfried, journeys to the kingdom of Burgund, where his broad shoulders catch the eye of Princess Kriemhild (Alicia Witt).
Siegfried also impresses her brother, King Gunther (Samuel West), by slaying a local dragon, in a sequence highly reminiscent of the movie "Dragonslayer" but nevertheless well conceived and executed. In doing so, he wins the treasure of the mystic Nibelungs, unleashing all the jealousy and avarice that the promise of great riches tends to engender.
It's around here that the saga takes a turn into "The Young, Teutonic and Restless," as Princess Kriemhild conspires with Gunther's evil adviser, Hagen (Julian Sands, in Snidely Whiplash makeup), to magically cause Siegfried to fall in love with her. Once smitten, Siegfried becomes drawn into Gunther's attempts to wed Brunhild, using magic to win her hand.
"Dark Kingdom" drags a bit through these sequences, and some of the dialogue sounds plucked from an old Steve Reeves movie. Still, director Uli Edel remains true to the tragic nature of the myth, and it's a handsome enough production, shot in South Africa for more than $20 million.
Fans of the genre will go through finding their favorite movie parallels ("Hey, that was in 'The Vikings!' "), but setting cynicism aside, it's a worthy enough exercise in "check your brain at the door" fluff. And on the plus side, nobody needs to fight an icy Norse warrior queen for the privilege of watching it.
Camera, Elemer Ragalyi; editor, Roberto Silvi; music, Ilan Eshken; production designer, Albrecht Konrad; visual effects directors, Engel, Weigert; casting, Carol Dudley, Sharon Howard Fields, Cornelia von Braun. 4 HOURSTags:
posted by Diane: 3/23/2006 10:54:00 PM | link to this post
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Just a note in passing regarding something that came up
I ran across this reference to the Big Meow project in a nice weblog called Everyday Literacies:Online narrative writing practices, especially those associated with fanfic writing have spawned a reading and peer editing process generally referred to as 'beta reading'. Basically, the process involves the author posting a narrative, or a chapter from a more extended narrative, to a relatively private public space like a blog before publishing it in a wider or more formal venue, including as meatspace novels, and asks for reader feedback on work done so far (e.g., the novel,Four and Twenty Blackbirds was written this way). Now, Diane Duane, a writer of young adult fiction, is posting online installments of her latest novel, Feline Wizards 3: The Big Meow, for readers to review and provide feedback on....
Erm. Can I clear something up here (before the mailbox starts filling up with kindly offers)? I'm not posting the chapters "for readers to review and provide feedback on." I'm publishing them to publish them. :)
...Oh, doubtless there'll be some critique and comment here and there; but that was never the point of putting the chapters up. (Nor would I dream of trying to blanket-pressgang beta readers in such a manner: it'd smack too much of trying to get other people to do my work for me.) The idea has been (a) to let people see the material as it would go to an editor in first-draft form: (b) and just plain to let them read and enjoy it, since a lot of folks clearly want access to it the very minute each chapter is ready. (BTW, editorial is handled: I've already hired a professional editor -- one I've worked with before on more conventionally published books -- to assist me in going over the material when the book is done.)
So if anybody sees anything in the pages on the Big Meow website suggesting that I'm soliciting beta-readers, please let me know where it is so that I can get it out of there. I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea of what's going on.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/22/2006 09:03:00 AM | link to this post
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Chapter One of "The Big Meow" is now online for free viewing
The subscribers saw it a week ago: now everybody else who's interested can go take a look. Chapter One of "The Big Meow" is now online at:http://www.the-big-meow.com/ch1/ChapterOneGateway.php
So far it's only available in HTML and PDF formats. If anyone's interested in seeing any other formats go up, let me know and I'll see what we can do.
Meanwhile, have fun!
(And also, thanks and a tip of the virtual hat to the excellent Cory and Neil; and greetings to the many fellow readers of BoingBoing.net and Neil's journal, who they've kindly sent in this direction.)
...BTW: one of the "extra goodies" for subscribers referred to at the website is going to be access to my research blogs. (Try to figure out what the writer's going to do!) I use Onfolio to organize these. Onfolio is essentially a smart bookmarking tool; it allows you to save whole webpages (or just links to them) and is able to store them either in your own computer, or online, or both, so that you can access them via RSS, or just plain as weblogs, from wherever. This one, for A Wizard of Mars, would be typical:http://www.owlsprings.com/marspublic2/
Obviously there are also ones I don't make public. :) (And probably a fair number of people hoping I'll slip and post something sensitive to the non-sensitive ones. It could happen...)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/21/2006 11:22:00 AM | link to this post
From Peter: the l33t version of WWII
He forwarded me this link this morning. Once again, tea all over the keyboard...Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
Etc etc etc...Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/21/2006 09:18:00 AM | link to this post
It's spring!!
And about bloody time, if you ask me.
(runs off to get all vernal)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/21/2006 09:15:00 AM | link to this post
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Ooh, pretty
posted by Diane: 3/19/2006 02:47:00 PM | link to this post
Friday, March 17, 2006
Two quotes for "the day that's in it"
Stand them next to each other and see which one you like better. I know the one that I prefer. (And not just because the source was Irish, either.)
Quote 1:"If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection, and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type..."
Quote 2:"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not."
Footnote: "...The $100 laptop [for developing countries] running on a free Linux operating system -- not on Microsoft Windows -- is being built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's media guru Nicholas Negroponte with support from Microsoft rival, search giant Google. ...Some of the low-cost devices are expected to include a hand-cranked generator so that they can be charged-up in developing countries where electricity is often scarce. The generators are expected to yield about 10 minutes of computer use for each minute of cranking.
"...One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organization created to further the cause of the $100 laptop, has said 5 million to 15 million units will be launched via pilot programs in China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. The organization is expected to start rolling out the laptops in 2007."Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/17/2006 11:59:00 AM | link to this post
Thursday, March 16, 2006
What part of the cow does corned beef come from
We've had about twenty queries about this today. We always get these this time of year.
(sigh) I surrender.
Corned beef comes from the brisket and silverside (just under the topside) of the cow. Both of these are tough cuts requiring either long, slow cooking, or pickling in brine, or both -- hence their use in corned beef. See this article for lots more information.
And I don't know anyone in my part of Ireland who will be eating it tomorrow. It's usually seen as poor people's food. It's a pain to cook properly, and most people don't have the time or inclination, these days. The above article will tell you more about that, too. (Once again I checked the supermarket to see if I was possibly mistaken about this. And once again I found the usual result: three packages of corned beef, eighty packages of assorted pork and boiling bacon.)
To all those of you about to go Drown The Shamrock: Yes, yes, for tomorrow you're all Irish. Enjoy. (But be warned: when you get over here, no matter how many Irish ancestors you have, even this one, twenty years won't be anything like enough to make you really Irish. And don't think an Irish passport will matter: the neighbors won't be fooled. ..But you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.)
Enjoy anyway. And don't dye the beer green. That's one of the things really Irish people really don't need to do. The green is either in your heart, or it's not. Putting it in your liver won't matter a bit. :)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/16/2006 08:44:00 PM | link to this post
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
"The Big Meow" Chapter One: access info has gone out
Just so that everybody knows: access information for Chapter One has gone out to all TBM subscribers.
The mailing list software is still acting up, so I've had to gang-email everyone by hand this morning. If you're a subscriber and you do not receive your access info today, please mail me and I'll see what's going on. (In particular, I've had to hand-compile the subscriber lists, so there's always the chance that an address might have gotten mangled or dropped out.)
Thanks again!Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/15/2006 11:18:00 AM | link to this post
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Chapter One of "The Big Meow" is ready
I'm formatting it at the moment, and it'll be going up shortly. There'll be two versions to start with -- a PDF version (printable) and an HTML (web-friendly) version.
After it goes up, I'll start sending out passwords to the subscribers and donors so that they can read the chapter. Please be patient with me about this, as the password-making program is having teething troubles: it may take some while to get it running (and if I can't get it running by 1 AM my time, please forgive me, but I'm going to go to bed and deal with it first thing in the morning).
Thanks!Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/14/2006 10:41:00 PM | link to this post
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Not the real thing
This guy does some of the most astonishing trompe l'oeil / spoof-the-eye chalk drawings I've ever seen. (I assume he has a web page somewhere, but I didn't know where until a few minutes ago: it's here.) Anyway, the images linked to above came to me from one of our Swiss friends this morning. Thanks, Res!
Res says: "Julian Beever is an English artist who's famous for his art on the
pavements of England, France, Germany, the USA, Australia and Belgium." I can get a sense of why that would be...Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/08/2006 08:50:00 PM | link to this post
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
A nice new button
As someone who frequently indulges in pastimes like the writing of epic fantasy that involve the extinction of humanity (or various other important species), this button strikes something of a chord, as it deals with a slightly more challenging variation on the theme...
(snicker)
The whole website is one of those quiet labors of love that you sometimes stumble across on the Web. (like VillainSupply.com, now gone, alas...) Thanks and a tip of the hat to Fern at Spectator Mode, without whom I wouldn't have found it.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/07/2006 02:16:00 PM | link to this post
Monday, March 06, 2006
Just weeping with laughter
Or: How Babelfish will not necessarily solve all your translation problems
(It's a menu. But what a menu. Some of the dishes in it sound more like attack moves from Sailor Moon.)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/06/2006 05:54:00 PM | link to this post
(chuckle) I've been tagged (also: new challenge grant)
(Just a quick note: Those of you who've been following the Big Meow situation may want to know that there's a new challenge grant up and running now, courtesy of another [for the moment] mysterious donor who's put up USD $1000 for other donors to meet. Details here at the Big Meow weblog.)
Meanwhile, I see that I've been tagged by Gerard at Presurfer. I've been fived!
The Five Things Tag
What were you doing ten years ago?
*Just coming back from our first Fasnacht in Switzerland. (We couldn't make it this year, too much work pressure...annoying. Otherwise I'd be in Basel right this minute, sleeping off the Morgestraich.) Probably also writing the ST novel Intellivore and the Feline Wizards book The Book of Night with Moon, and finishing work on my final Spider-Man book.
What were you doing one year ago?
* March 6th of '05...Blogging about the taxonomy of biscuits, apparently. (See, this is what blogging is good for....)
Five snacks you enjoy:
* Chocolate (in nearly any form, with a definite preference for Lindt bittersweet and the little hot praline waffles from what's its face in Brugge)
* Wise potato chips (...enjoy them entirely too much, in fact. It's probably a good thing I can't get at them that often.)
* Goldfish crackers
* Pretzels
* Bacon rinds (of the Bac-N-Ets variety)
Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
This is an area where I don't particularly shine. However:
*"The Star-Spangled Banner" (having once very much impressed a bunch of sozzled Swiss soldiers with it: they asked me to teach it to them, as they really liked the high notes, at which they excelled. "It's originally a drinking song," I said. "It helps to be drunk." Fortunately we were all most of the way there already...)
*Beethoven's "Ode to Joy": but only in German
*The aria "Sempre libera" from the opera La Traviata
*The Oscar Meier Wiener Song
*The English-language version of "I'm A Pioneer" from the second season of Tenchi Muyo. (It'd make a great theme song for a "Young Wizards" TV series...)
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
* Dump a whole lot of that money onto various children's, animal and cancer charities
* Buy houses in Leukerbad, Chur and Geneva, a townhouse in New York and an apartment in Paris, a hill house in LA, and a house in Ireland (you practically have to be a millionaire to do that these days...)
* Charter this boat for an entire summer of cruising the Med with an ever-changing crowd of friends (Protagonist 3 sleeps 11. We saw her in the harbor at Hydra some years back, and I fell in lurrrrrve with her. A big girl's toy!)
* Buy a ticket on Virgin Galactic
* Take a year off to meditate
Five things you like doing:
* Gardening
* Eating out in a restaurant I've never been to before
* Watching TV with Peter
* Staring with thinly-disguised satisfaction at a finished book
* Sitting by the fire and watching it snow (cognac optional)
Five things you would never wear again:
* The fake chinchilla coat that was really soft and cozy and warm and made me look like a linebacker
* A student nurse's cloak with the cross-straps across the front
* Come to think of it, a nurse's cap. Starching those things is a nuisance
* A gym suit
* Shoes with pointy toes (I can't wait for that fashion fad to go away. I hates it, my precioussss...)
Five favorite toys:
* My Sony Clié
* Ryoh-Ohki I...
* ...and Ryoh-Ohki II, my Sharp laptops (even if I is still mostly dysfunctional due to having sake poured into the keyboard)
* My iPod
* My Nokia 6600
...And now I have to tag five other bloggers. Oh me...
I choose:
*Ailbhe
*Anita
*Nic
*AC
*DónalTags:
posted by Diane: 3/06/2006 09:55:00 AM | link to this post
Sunday, March 05, 2006
How the Internet made me laugh today
And before I even made it out of bed.
In the inbox (because my Google address finally, inevitably I suppose, made it onto somebody's mailing list):
"Compliments and Greetings. Please kindly allow me introduce myself. My names are Alan Backford, I am an accountant, by age 31 Years, graduate of the American Open University in Dubai, I am an English and I have returned to England for one reason; for the up bringing of my children in an English orientation. I was the head of the account department of a Private Bank in Netherlands and I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you...."
Yeah, I just bet you would. Alan dear...let me intimate you with certain facts. (a) If you are "an English", your school must be waaaaaaaay down the league tables. (b) The Powers that Be and I will be working fairly closely together in the coming weeks. So if you abruptly come down with a plague of boils, don't be surprised. It'll stop the minute you stop spamming.
(An "English orientation"? Is being English a lifestyle all of a sudden? I feel a Python sketch coming on. "Yeah, I went to this party...and somebody asked me if I, you know, wanted to try some tea...and then one of them took me out back and...and said, ''Ere, mate, come on, let's play some cricket...'")
Then, in the referral logs from EuropeanCuisines.com, this query to Google that brought someone to our site:
"What country does Swiss cheese come from"
Oh my gosh. And who's buried in Grant's Tomb? (But later Peter pointed out to me that the most likely answer to this question is "America" -- as, in Switzerland, the cheese with the big holes is Emmentaler. The Swiss themselves [oh, all right, the Raetii then, be that way] haven't had a caseus Helveticus since Julius Caesar's time. [And that was probably Sbrinz anyway.])
Well, I hope we were of some assistance with the question.
...And there was something else as well, but it's slipped my mind at the moment, as it was jarred out of place by something cutting Siff'hah suddenly said to Arhu, and I had to stop and write that down.
It's good to start the day laughing...Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/05/2006 09:31:00 AM | link to this post
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Uh oh, it's March again: here comes St. Patrick's Day...
In any given year, between about the 5th and the 17th or March, the stats at EuropeanCuisines.com go through the roof. I try to pay attention to the site, then, and put the links up here and there for people who're interested. But what with one thing and another, I'm going to have zero time to deal with this next week: so for the bloggers among you who're looking for Irish food tips in advance of The Day, here are the links for you...
The EuropeanCuisines.com website's single most popular recipe, with more than 500,000 "hits" over the last five years: Peter's Mum's Soda Bread Recipe(s)
To supplement the above article, we're offering a two-part video tutorial. Here it is in .wmv (Windows Moviemaker / Windows Media Player) format:Part 1, "Cake" Style Soda Bread (29 megabytes) Part 2, "Farl" Style Soda Bread (40 megabytes)
The AVI version:Part 1, "Cake" Style Soda Bread (62 megabytes: suitable for streaming video) Part 2, "Farl" Style Soda Bread (81 megabytes: suitable for streaming video)
Part 1 contains ingredient measurements and other advice for soda bread in general. Part 2 contains instructions for "farl" and a very small dissertation on Irish tea. Before viewing either video, please read the article first!
Also, because so many people ask for it: The Original Irish coffee recipe, developed at the old flying-boat base at Foynes (near the present Shannon Airport). The most important words in it: no whipped cream! (You're supposed to use the heaviest pouring cream you can find.) The second most important words: no stirring!
(Links to our Irish recipe collections and the Irish cookbook guide can be found on the main Irish page at EuropeanCuisines.com.)
And a final, favorite side note: Why our site doesn't have any recipes for corned beef and cabbage. And won't.
(sigh) Now I can get back to cat-wizard things.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/04/2006 08:35:00 PM | link to this post
Yet another reason why the youngest wizards would be the most powerful...
Makes perfect sense to me:Infants as young as 18 months show altruistic behaviour, suggesting humans have a natural tendency to be helpful, German researchers have discovered....
...Many scientists have argued that altruism is a uniquely human function, hard-wired into our brains. The latest study suggests it is a strong human trait, perhaps present more than six million years ago in the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.
And the younger you are, the less chance you have for older human primates (i.e. adults...) to have talked you out of one of the behaviors that probably contributed to the survival of our species.Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/04/2006 08:29:00 PM | link to this post
Friday, March 03, 2006
Just too cute for words
Video: Kitten and chicken are friends!
There should be a book. There should be a development deal for a series. Or a feature. Yeah, that's the ticket... :)
posted by Diane: 3/03/2006 11:27:00 PM | link to this post
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Not sure how I lived without this
The Housewives' Tarot.
I love the kitchen timer. I love the retro art. And the toaster on the "goodies" tab scared the cat right off the desk when it popped. (snicker)Tags:
posted by Diane: 3/01/2006 11:11:00 AM | link to this post
And one other thing...
Please take note...
What's this all about?
That being the case, sometimes I want to talk about anything but writing (at least, writing per se).
This is the old Blogger version of where that would happen. Click here to see where it happens now.
Biography
Bibliography / filmography
Favorite Worldcon Bid
2008:
The Geneva Convention
A few pictures
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Recently released
A Wind from the South Die Nibelungen / Ring of the Nibelungs / Sword of Xanten** | HSX: KNGTWOOA Archives
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Journalfen version
Previously on "Out of Ambit"...