He’s back with his littermates now, having dinner in a kittypile.

Thanks, Janiece, a lift was much needed this afternoon and these were a wonderful surprise.

• Is anyone else completely surprised that Bush didn’t pardon Uncle Ted in his final days in office?
• If I were Michelle Obama, I’d wear jeans and sweatshirts as a protest until the media gets off the ridiculous (and traditional) fashion coverage kick and starts focusing on what’s really important.
• Why did the powers-that-be choose Microsoft Silverlight for streaming the inauguration festivities – which is inaccessible to the 15+% (and growing) of users that are on the Mac platform?
• I should probably write something profound and reflective about the the inauguration, the new era, but I’m just not feeling very profound lately.
• Since Facebook’s most recent upgrade, I’ve been unable to get the Wordbook plugin, which sends my blog posts to my Facebook news updates, working. I deleted and reinstalled – and now it won’t even activate on my blog. Argh.
• I really need to upgrade my MBP to OSX 10.5, and clean up my hard drive. Again.
• I spent MLK day – I took a floating holiday – puttering about my newly cleaned up workshop finishing up several metalsmithing projects and starting a new one.
• Why do they set the demo ladies at Costco up on the most crowded days so that they block the aisles? This does not make sense. And why are there no demo men?
• My doggie is much improved after her visit to the vet – the antibiotics and pain pill helped a lot.
• My nephew just had his pet hamster die, which is very sad. Still, I don’t understand wanting to keep a rodent as a pet. The work-vs-reward equation doesn’t make sense to me. My condolences, though, to him.
• We just saw the movie Defiance which was quite good – I recommend it, and not just because it stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber.
• My ideal movie cast would be Clive Owen, Daniel Craig and Liam Neeson. It would probably not be a period piece or a chick flick.
• We had roast pork loin for dinner. (yum) Why do the folks that make roasting racks make then enamel-over-steel, which always peels and gets gross, rather than stainless steel?
• Chocolate chocolate chip ice cream sounds really good right now. It’s a good thing I have none.

It sure beats a gold watch or a signed desk set!

The GIPOD 200 Foreman Grill with Ipod/MP3 attachment not only grills, but it can also provide music to help set the mood, whether romantic or fun and festive during a party. (After all, nothing says romance like George Foreman.) For music capabilities, the unit comes equipped with a 10-watt speaker and the ability to be used with an iPod or MP3 player. Other highlights include an adjustable temperature-control probe, 200 sq inch cooking surface, and exclusive George Tough scratch resistant coating.

I personally feel that my steaks are happier when they get to listen to classic rock while they grill, although I’m always worried about mixing up my temperature control probe and my MP3 connector cable.

Crystal’s challenge, as I paraphrase it, is to come up with a modern day version of a locker door pinup collage, depicting our goals, hopes, obsessions.

Since I never can do an assignment exactly as requested, I twisted it to suit my current focus. My ‘locker door’ is my NaNoWriMo novel in progress, and my graphic representation is a cover mockup for the book. In best cover art tradition, it’s mildly cheesy and is only tangentially related to the actual content of the book.

I have no title yet, but it’s a volcano disaster novel so I used the tongue-in-cheek working title “It Blowed Up Real Good”. (The other working title option was “We Ran Out of Virgins”, but I thought that might be a bit obscure.)

The dream it represents? That someday – in the near future – I’ll get this book or another novel edited into shape and published.

Happy Monday.

This week, her challenge was to come up with a creative representation of your own ghost.

My first thought was to screen print my computer’s routing table. That would be all too poetic – my daily existence as represented by IP addresses sent wirelessly through the ether. There are probably security issues there, plus it’s not a very visually compelling picture.

So I got out the Photoshop and played, and voila – my ghost, haunting Yellowstone.

Image notes: I cut an image of myself out of a picture using the polygon select tool, feathered 5px. I inverted it, added a 30px outside glow, and reduced the layer to 60% opacity.

I then layered the waterfall image behind, selected solarize on that layer, set lighting to ‘difference’ for dark and contrasty but not too busy.

Happy Halloween!

Presidential Debate on Energy
On Monday, October 6, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will welcome representatives of both presidential campaigns to discuss their respective energy plans in a presidential-style debate. I think this geeky discussion may well be more interesting than the more prosaic candidate debate scheduled for Tuesday.

The Project that Tracks Big Projects
Tracking the projects labeled project is a project in itself. Here is Wired magazine’s fave five. I wouldn’t want to be PM on any of ‘em!

The Vertical Bed: Power nap in the middle of the street
The vertical bed comes with light-blocking sunglasses, noise-canceling headphones, a neck-pillow for comfort, and an umbrella to keep you dry. It stays upright thanks to hooks that will lock into subway grates, and braces and concealed harnesses that keep your legs and back supported.

Mad Cow Sound Check
For Janiece. Did her illustrious employer participate in any of the engineering? Surely there’s some potential for contact center technology here.

Top Ten Emerging Technologies for 2008
Technology Review presents 10 emerging technologies that they think are most likely to change the way we live – and I think they might give NaNoWriMo writers a few ideas as well.

Enjoy these – and let me know if you’ve seen any cool stuff yourself!

It’s mid-August, 90 degrees, and I’m at the game. No, not baseball – the Seahawks are playing their first home preseason football game. I’m seeing far more skin on my fellow fans than I’m used to – and the concessionaires are selling an awful lot of beer. Scary combination!

First play of the game – if you don’t count the kickoff.

Update 1: The Hawks are ahead, 6-0, as we near the end of the first quarter. Since both teams are playing backup players, the score is no big deal, still, a win would be great.

Update 2: 9-5, Seahawks, at the half.

Update 3: 19-9 Bears, at the end of the 3rd quarter. We lost 40 yards because of a brutal penalty, threw an interception which the Bears promptly ran into the end zone for a touchdown, then failed to block a punt return for a 75 yard touchdown. This is painful.

Update 4: 29-26 Seahawks in OT. Go Seahawks! I guess this means our third string is better than the Bears’ third string.

Note: please pardon the small, blurry pictures. They’re taken on my BlackBerry at 5x digital zoom so I can upload them from the game. I think in the future I’ll use my regular camera and wait until after the game to upload for the sake of decent image quality.

Anne, Tania, Jeri and Janiece surround author John Scalzi as Janiece presents him with a ceremonial UCF t-shirt. He looks a little nervous, doesn’t he? Congratulations, Scalzi, on your Best Fan Writing Hugo!

The convention was, on the whole, well run, compared to my ultimately very frustrating experience with Norwescon. The venue was spacious, almost all sessions were adequately sized and supported, and organizational support was really very well done. The only exception was guest of honor Lois McMaster Bujold’s (totally awesome) reading from her new Miles book – which they booked into a small event room, and was standing room only by 15 minutes before start time.

Janiece and Anne have stuff signed by Lois McMaster Bujold. The always-hilarious Jay Lake is the author next door.

The dealer & art gallery room upstairs was a great place to hang out (except that it was far too easy to impulse spend). It had the usual assortment of great book dealers, t-shirt sellers, SF novelty items, jewelry and art, costume and fan paraphernalia – plus some snack vendors off to one side and some big old oversized pieces of (rental?) furniture in comfortable groupings down the middle for sore-footed readers to curl up in.

Things I learned:

• Utilikilts are not only popular in Pioneer square – they seem to be a hit with SF fans too. My favorite was the wildly tie-dyed one, worn with a matching t-shirt, like a crazed deadhead.
• Corsets are fiendishly expensive. (I know this because a friend tried one on – they are not to my taste.)
• Corsets really look silly on men, although there is a line made for them and I saw a few worn.
• What’s with the small-furry-animal on the shoulder thing? Is it an Honor Harrington tribute, or something else?
• Heinlein panel discussions tend to end in fireworks. I don’t know why – but folks debate his work as fiercely as they do theological works.
• I go to a panel discussion to hear the panel members’ opinions – not the audience’s. The audience contributes questions, not their own opinions, which is a concept that many attendees did not seem to grasp. (Exceptions, of course, for notable authors or professionals who happen to be in the audience.)
• I love the author “dress code” and want to dress like that when I grow up. (Many male authors wore cargo shorts and t-shirts or Hawaiian shirts. Women dressed more in a very creative version of business casual.)
• Many SF authors are tremendously personable and patient with their fans – Elizabeth Moon, Lois McMaster Bujold, John Scalzi, Robert Forward, Charles Stross, and more were completely patient with us being gushing fangirls.
• If I hang out near the dealer room, I buy. My haul includes signed first editions of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles, Mystery & Mayhem, Greg Bear’s Slant, Charles Stross’s Saturn’s Children, and an postapocalyptic anthology called Wastelands. Plus assorted t-shirts and a couple of cool semiprecious gemstones for jewelry making.
• SF fans are a tremendously friendly bunch and it’s usually great fun to strike up a conversation on any subject with an assorted group of total strangers. Asking to pull up an empty chair at a big table is a great idea.
• I want to do this again!

The supremely, amazingly awesome author Charles Stross, signing my book.

As Janiece mentioned, we did talk about using the Worldcon as a forum for UCF folks getting together in real life, whenever timing, budget and the city of choice appeals to people. 2009 is Montreal, with guest of honor Neil Gaiman – which sounds fun but somewhat spendy. 2010 is Melbourne, which sounds fun but way-the-heck-out-of-my-league spendy. If Seattle is selected for 2011, I hope many choose to make the trek westward. My spare rooms, couches, air mattresses, and maybe even a tent or two in the back yard will be available.