Grab the nearest book. Find the 5th sentence on page 23. Append it to the paragraph below. Append your name to the list below of people who have contributed to the paragraph. Post the result to your LJ.


They also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and their being the victims of an unjustifiable war. Brandy, and Tom got increasingly close-mouthed and sour. Although a certain sense of tripartite society survived down to Christian times, the three classes described in the Eddic poem "Rigdthula" bear little resemblance to Dumezil's three. It is often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong,it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practice. At its nearest point the wall was little more than one league from the City, and that was south-eastward. When he saw Jack Hare jump towards the fire, and the Practical Man brandishing the toasting-fork, Sir Isaac grabbed the strings of gravitational force that bound Jack to his destiny and PULLED--- That's a seventy-four gun privateer, besides. To honour a group of British nobles, treacherously slain at a conference by Hengist's guards, Aurelius decides to erect a great monument near Amesbury. That being so, he did not chortle when he went upstairs. Let stand. This ensures that when the garbage collector runs, it has complete access to the memory in the heap and can perform its tasks safely without the threat of being preempted by another thread. And then you may begin to laugh. The data are stored in Column 1 and renamed "Age." Pull your hand back. I don't remember that any secrets were revealed to me, nor do I remember any avid curiosity on my part to learn something I wasn't supposed to--perhaps I was too young to know what to listen for. You don't remember how awful it is being normal. Highlight the desired state tax table and press Enter. Abraham had now reached a ripe old age, and the LORD had blessed him in every way. This doesn't alter either string, any more than 2+3 alters either 2 or 3. But then, Lukys would have had quite a bit to say about this entire disastrous escapade if he'd known about it.


1) Ranger Rick - 2) Rialian - 3) Elenbarathi - 4) Starsandfishes - 5) Echthros - 6) Doltaghey - 7) Ebonhost - 8) Tibicina 9) Browngirl 10) ceo 11) roozle 12) quietann 13) Dale (achinhibitor) 14) tigerbright 15) autographedcat 16) kitanzi xvii) annonyno חי)thnidu - 19) kgbooklog

British magazine SFX did a survey of their reader's favorite SF authors, and several bloggers have been commenting on it (I heard of it from Andrew Wheeler). I'm not going to comment (there are a couple names I've never heard of), just italicize ones I've read, and bold ones I recommend (half-formatting means I only read/rec one work of theirs).
( Names, names, names... )
Is urban fantasy not popular in the UK? Or is it only popular if written by a man? Rowling is the only female author of UF on this list, and yet they've included every male writer I can think of except Steven Brust and Stephan Zielinski.

I first heard of the WCCAs last year, and wondered then (and now) why some comics kept showing up over and over in many different categories. I think Girl Genius is the greatest webcomic ever, but should it be shortlisted for 7 categories? Shouldn't other comics have a chance too? With 20,000 eligible webcomics, shouldn't we be able to find more than three to nominate for Best Dramatic Comic? So I decided to count how many times each comic was nominated each year, quickly realized that GG didn't dominate this year's awards: Gunnerkrigg Court had 8 nominations, and Phoenix Requiem (a comic begun half a year ago) was shortlisted for 11 awards. Going back in time, Inverloch (by the same cartoonist as PR) had 12 in 2006, and in 2003 Megatokyo had 14 nominations and Penny Arcade 12.

[ETA] Fixed some numbers, added some numbers, links, and a table of categories. I also decided not to count awards that only had one nominee.
( the raw numbers )

I woke up this morning to see snow on the ground. We sometimes go for years without seeing snow, and now we get it in March??

( politics )

(I've complained about this before, but it's something I'm still bitter about.)

I like complex stories about well-drawn characters dealing with the consequences of their actions, and so I prefer series of thick books; short fiction just isn't long enough to satisfy me. I will seek out shorter works that are part of a series I like, but even if I enjoy the story, I'll still wish it was part of a novel rather than a separate story.

And lately I've noticed authors going out of their way to add shorter works to existing series, especially in urban fantasy. I'm not going to read any more books by MaryJanice Davidson, since she has already done it at least twice (introducing new characters to the series both times). What worries me is that of the 10 authors currently writing contemporary fantasy series that I like, only two (Laura Resnick and Kat Richardson) haven't yet added any shorter works.

Why are they doing this? Sure, this may help sales of the anthologies, but if those sales are poor, it's probably because of people like me who prefer novels, and punishing us for that is more likely to cause us to stop buying the novels too.

The Webcartoonists's Choice Awards were announced today in an online ceremony which is cute, appropriate, and damn slow on dialup. It also has a bad link between the Artist and Writer categories and no links for the runners-up (and many of these comics have common names, and one you have to misspell the name before Google finds it).

( WCCA 2007 )
[ETA]I've now finished looking at everything that was nominated, and have adjusted the formatting accordingly.[/ETA]

Taken from le_trombone(who despises the word "meme"), the rules are:

Copy and paste.
Bold the ones you've read.
Add four recent reads to the end.

( Book list )

I like big, thick novels. Even better, I like series of novels. The more pages, the more time I can spend with the characters and setting.

So there I am, five chapters into the second novel of a series I like, with characters I like, and just as I'm getting interested in the new conflict, I find unambiguous evidence that I missed something important. Checking the author's website, I find that there's a novella set between the novels. Now, I'm not saying authors shouldn't write shorter works, but I don't care for them (they always leave me unsatisfied), and libraries are less likely to carry anthologies than novels, so if an author does write one, it should be optional. (And in this particular case, I don't see how any story worth writing about the protagonist could also optional.)

And worse, this seems to be the hot new trend in urban fantasy. I'm not going to read any more books by MaryJanice Davidson, since she has already done it twice (introducing new characters to the series both times). Charlaine Harris has done it once (that I know of), but that wasn't too bad (I was more upset by Sookie having an ability that doesn't appear in the novels). Jim Butcher also seems to have done it, but that at least fits my idea of "optional" (which is good, since the anthology won't be published until several months after the novel that mentioned the events).

Why are they doing this? Sure, this may help sales of the anthologies, but if those sales are poor, it's probably because of people like me who prefer novels, and punishing us for that is more likely to cause us to stop buying the novels too.

Via od_mind:

Instructions:
Bold the ones you've read.
Italicize the ones you have wanted/might like to read.
* Another book by this author read, but not this
?? Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of??
*** I’ve tried it and abandoned it
XXX Life Is Too Short


( list of questionable origin )

Years ago, I must have told someone I was Republican, and they put me on the official mailing list and started phoning me saying they needed my help "to keep liberals and Democrats out of Congress" etc. And I haven't seen any way to get off the list (I don't consider the Democrats much better, not that there are any around here), until now...

In today's mail was a "census" (I think they meant "survey") from the Republican National Committee:
... your answers will represent the views and opinions of all Republican voters in your voting district.

Mwuhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

For those of you who didn't get one of these, I'm enclosing the list of questions in case you want to answer them yourself (their website should have mail and email addresses).

( I am not making this up )