Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption
Suspect I may be listening to this a lot tomorrow…
’cause I’ve already started humming to chorus to myself every half-hour or so:
PeterMBall
21/08/2010
’cause I’ve already started humming to chorus to myself every half-hour or so:
Or as we in Australia like to call it – the day we head out and vote. I did my civic duty a few hours back, so now I’m waiting things it in tentative fear about the possible result. Elections are always a time of fear for me. I’m a fairly moderate lefty whose spent most of my adult life enduring the seemingly endless reign of the Howard Years when the country routinely decided they preferred a very different ideology at work running the country. And I’ll be honest here – in most of those years I could at least respect the country’s choice on some level. One of the things that always struck about Howard was that he was the kind of idealist that people seem to think of as the exclusive domain of the left; he just idealised a very conservative viewpoint. Even when I railed against him for being an evil fucking bastard, there was at least the
If you’ve never read the Persistence Pays Parasites entry of Cory Doctrow’s Locus column then I heartily recommend dropping over and taking a look. The short-version, for those without the time or attention span, runs something like this: Doctrow is a smart and internet savvy guy, but he got himself phished despite his high awareness of such scams ’cause they hit him when there was a short-lived crack in his defenses. Actually, let me quote the key message of the column, ’cause it’s worth repeating: Phishing isn’t (just) about finding a person who is technically naive. It’s about attacking the seemingly impregnable defenses of the technically sophisticated until you find a single, incredibly unlikely, short-lived crack in the wall. ‘Course, I still recommend going over and checking out the whole thing. It’s interesting stuff and it’ll make you rethink the way spam e-mail works (at least, if will if you’re like me and you assumed Spam merchanters were going after net-surfing
Yesterday started out okay with the job interview. Then it kind of downgraded a bit. Then the following happened and it downgraded a lot. On The Sudden Discover that Your Parents Live their Retirement in the Same Way Most People Live their Early Twenties A Play in One Act Peter is at home, working on a few things after going to an interview. His parents are overseas. They’ve been taunting him with postcards from Vienna, because Peter has this thing for Vienna after watching The Third Man and Before Sunrise too many times. Peter’s Parent’s are classy like that. They send him pictures of Viennese food. They’re not actually in Vienna anymore, because old-fashioned postal systems aren’t as instant as e-mail. They’re meant to be coming home soon. The phone rings a few times. Peter rolls off the couch and answers it. Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Hello? Peter: Hello? Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Hello? Peter: Yeah,
There are fourteen days between me and Worldcon, which means there’s fourteen days before people can get their hands on Bleed. Much as I’m all unsubtle about my desire for you all to give in to your base, capitalist urges and consume for the good of the economy (and, lets be frank, my rent-paying ability) there is still a tiny part of me that isn’t quite ready for people to see Bleed yet. And yet I stay calm. Almost zen-like. Mostly I’m doing this by pretending its not going to happen, so if you see me at worldcon and I’m all surprised that there’s a book out with my name on it, you’ll know why. And now I must go clean the house prior to write-club, and wait for a phonecall from my sister so I can explain the latest not-a-calamity.
And so we have hit the slice of my calendar marked “The Cliffs of Insanity.” For the next two weeks my days are packed – there are meetings to go to, there are house-cleanings prior to the arrival of guests, there are trips to the airport, and through a variety of circumstances there are now job interviews to attend. I generally don’t talk about being unemployed online because a) it’s a downer and no-one needs to hear me whinging; and b) because the spam-bots come a-calling as soon as you say the word “unemployed” in an effort to convince you that you too can make thousands of dollars for a big company if you only you send them one…little…e-mail. Besides which, there’s only so many body-shots your ego can take, and when you’re skill-set largely covers “writing” and “reading” and “saying semi-intelligent things about a select sampling of the Gothic literary movement” your ego takes a battering in the current
And rejection 16 for the year arrived in my inbox this morning, which means there’s an outside chance that I may hit 20 rejections before the end of August. I like those numbers, . They mean things are starting to pick a bit on the writing front, especially since eleven of this year’s rejections have arrived in the last three months. And, honestly, I was going to do a longer post on rejection and laziness and how nice it is to have the regular stream of people saying “no, not for us,” amid the occasional “yes, we like, we’ll take it”, but I’ve already wasted my hour of blogging time thinking of the right way to say it. Suffice to say that I love my rejections – they make me want to get back on the computer and belt out a new story – and now I have to go and write a bunch of words on the novel *without deleting
One of the nice things about the internet is that occasionally a friend will be all “dude, you have to check this out” and I’ll be all “dude! WTF? LOLS!” Today is one of those days. I give you the Call of Cthulhu, summarised in two minutes or less in fluent Valley Girl. For real, dude. Total WTF? LOLS
– There’s a bit of this going on this morning, for I’ve had my second short story acceptance for the year. Details to come once I’ve signed contracts and such, but it looks like this one might see publication sooner rather than later. – If you’re not following the Drive-By Interviewsover at Angela Slatter’s blog, well, you really should. – Ditto The Coode Street Podcastfeaturing Jonothan Stahan and Gary K. Wolfe. There’s something immeasurably pleasurable about getting to hear two very knowledgeable people talk about the history of SF, publishing, reviewing, and (perhaps most importantly) the BOOKS YOU DON’T NEED TO READ in order to understand out field. After listening to one of their earlier episodes, I feel myself utterly absolved of having to finish the rather dire Princess of Mars. – And, hell, lets throw out the rather fine fortnightly podcast from the Galactic Suburbia crew, for I’m a fan of that too. – Also, if you’re interested in scoring
The dreaded paperbaghat is one of my many bad habits; I seriously end up wearing the damn things for a half-hour every time I leave one laying around the house, largely because it’s the only way I remember to throw them out. It’s one of those things that you can do when you live alone. Or that you end up doing when you live alone. I’m not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg in this situation. In any case, most days I remember to take the dreaded paperbaghat off and depositing it in the bin *before* I answer the door. Unlike, say, today when I forget I was wearing the dreaded paperbaghat and answered the door to chat with the nice missionary types who were trying to convince me that I should fear the forthcoming apocalypse or something. -facepalm- Stupid paperbaghat.
And so I have hit the point where I need to tackle that debacle that is my writing desk, which has been looking like this since I got back from my cat-sitting adventure: The irony of this is that I rarely spend much time writing at said desk, even when it is cleared off. I can chug along quite happily for weeks, writing in bed and on the couch and at the computer set up on the computer desk. Cleaning off the desk is a mindset thing more than anything else – having the dedicated space where I can retreat where’s there’s no internet or television or, well, sleeping to be done is a large part of doing more than the bare minimum of writing. ________________________________________________ Current Writing Metrics Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 4 New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30 Rejections in 2010: 15/100 Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)
So this morning my phone beeped away to remind me that there’s but three weeks to Worldcon, which triggers a metric buttload of anxiety in me because I’m so not ready for Worldcon to be three weeks away yet. Especially since it marks the imminent arrival of house-guests in two weeks, my parents return to the country in one week, and the attendance of the most excellent Trent Jameison’s book launch in twenty-four hours. The hours, they are running away from me, and it is only be checking the calender twice daily that I remember what I’m meant to be doing at any given time. In any case, today’s entry on the calender demands I remind of two things you may wish to swing by the dealer’s room and pick up at Worldcon (if you’re in attendance) or pre-order for the home-delivery goodness (if you’re not). Item the First: Bleed So that unicorn book I wrote? A bunch of people were