http://www.avclub.com/articles/november-11-2009,35160/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=type_savage-love

The last couple of days have been filled to the brim with errand-running and stuff-doing, including (but not limited to) - grocery shopping, post-office visiting, bank dropping-by, University Book Store stock (and mail order) signing, print framing, house cleaning, laundry washing, official correspondence exchanging, outline jotting, fish tank changing, and event preparations.

That last one may have you wondering … what event?
Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already!
Here, let me refresh your memory.

This coming Thursday, at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea on Capitol Hill,* I’ll be hanging about and signing books and basically having a marvelous time at a most excellent party being thrown by some of my awesome friends. No, seriously. Ellen, Suezie, and Psynde — these three have knocked it out of the park … and into the local establishment where there will be music, costumes, prizes, booze, caffeine, and snacks for the ordering. You can click here for details or heck, just show up some time after six o’clock and join the fray.

Bring your books and I’ll sign them if you like, or buy them at the event. Or forget the books, and just swing by to be social. I’m always happy to meet new people, and Mark Henry will be MC’ing the event. If you’ve never heard Mark MC anything, then you must absolutely not pass up this opportunity. If you have, then I’m already confident that you’ll be in attendance, unwilling to miss it.

This will be an all-ages event, since (a). it’s open to the public, and (b). Boneshaker is a bit of an adult/young adult crossover. Or so I am told. In any event, lots of young adults seem to be reading it, either by swiping it from their parents or nabbing it from a friend. Let me be the first to say I APPROVE OF THIS BEHAVIOR. Please do carry on.

Anyway. It’s coming up on suppertime here and the husband just got home from work, so I’m going to wrap this up and go get myself some noms. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope I’ll see some of you locals later on this week!

[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/half-lifetime.html

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/for-those-who-read-this-blog-for.html

Amanda, Ian Ford (in the pale top, also a gift from my publishers) and.. my publishers, SF World -- who will be publishing the mainland Chinese edition of The Graveyard Book very soon, and are very excited.

Today Caitlin and I hopped into the Cookie Monster for its inaugural jaunt out of town. We headed out to Snoqualmie — not the pass or the casino or the subdivision acres, but to the tiny frontier town with its adorable old train station, museum, and “downtown” strip.

(I don’t use the quotes to mock Snoqualmie’s downtown. The quotes indicate that this strip is pretty much one street. But it’s a lovely street, and I rather like the place. I’ve been there half a dozen times now, just to hang out and poke around.)

Anyway. The main official purpose for the trip was to acquire some new author photos for yours truly. Caitlin has an awesome camera, and she does a most excellent job of photography … and she works for peanuts. Or for lunch and a ride, and a cup of tea — as the case may be.

I’m going to place the results of our pictorial excursion behind a jump, because I’m just not quite narcissistic enough to want to see several big pictures of myself every time I load the page. I know, I know. I must be getting old or something. Anyway, click the link immediately below this paragraph to take a peek at them (or merely scroll down, if you’re reading this via a feed or direct link.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, finally, finally I think we’ve gotten our vehicle situation sorted out. Finally. Why yes, we DID buy the new (to us) vehicle a couple of weeks ago now. And no, we haven’t been driving it all this time. It’s been this epic Sierra adventure game of how we need to get one thing fixed, but we can’t fix that one thing until we do this other thing, and we can’t do that thing until yet another thing has fallen into place, and that wouldn’t happen until we drank the grog and entered the spitting contest with the pirates, and that can’t happen until more than three people get this joke, which probably won’t occur, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

But. It seems to be sorted out now, down to the insurance and the maniacal giggling. The “Cookie Monster” (as I’ve come to call it) still needs a tiny bit of belt work, but I’ll see if I can arrange for it tomorrow afternoon or Monday, and it shouldn’t be a big deal. Point is, Cookie Monster is ours. Fair and square, in the clear. Now I just have to clean out the old car and call up the PBS donation folks, and then we’ll be back down to one vehicle — it is to be hoped, one vehicle that works pretty much consistently. We pray.

Anyway. I regret to admit that due to the epic run-around and outstanding asshattery from the repair shop,* I got virtually nothing productive accomplished today (except some day-job work, but even that wasn’t as extensive as it should’ve been).

In order to wind down and quit seething, I cleaned house and did the floors, and started some laundry. Now I’m just waiting for the hubs to get home, and I hope he brings booze, because hot damn I could use a drink right about now.

[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

There will be plenty of small-time nutcakes making fools of themselves . . . but the more well-known and respectable rightbloggers are soiling themselves as badly as any of those.

The reason's simple, and the same as it was during 9/11: they think soiling oneself is a sign of patriotism, and consider those who pants are not full of shit to be traitors.