Links To Nice Things

I really should be sleeping right now. I might even post again right after this one.

Welcome to new followers, Wagnerian, Phil and John! The army grows. Wag, you're gonna be pissed, but I didn't even see you sneak in there.

John, that is to say, Follower 14 John, and I were involved in The latest Mind Meld on SF Signal the other day: Which off the air science fiction show deserves a remake? What changes would you make to update it? You can read ours and other answers here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/02/mind-meld-scifi-tv-shows-that-deserve-a-remake-with-videos/

Thinking about that reminded me that I forgot to link to a guest spot I did on SF Signal last month on R.E.B.E.L.S. So go read that here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/01/guest-post-matthew-sanborn-smith-on-how-space-opera-meets-superhero-comic-in-rebels/

This week in Sofa-stuff there's an audio version of what I wrote here in my last post, but more importantly, there's an audio version of Paolo Bacigalupi's Nebula-nominated story, The Gambler. This was the first Bacigalupi story I read that didn't make me want to slash my wrists. I don't want you to think I don't like his stuff, because I love it. It's just a bit, shall we say, like an abyss of despair? (I'm very happy that his novel, The Windup Girl is nominated for Best Novel. Awesome book. Go read.)

Aural Delights No 121 Paolo Bacigalupi

Guest Editorial: The Hugo’s and Podcasts by Amy H Sturgis

Main Fiction: The Gambler by Paolo Bacigalupi

Fact Article: A Hugo For StarShipSofa by Matt Sanborn Smith

Narrator: Geoff Michelli

Great Stories From Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi and Night Shade books have made three of Paolo's stories available as a free pdf for a reading group called Think Galactic. I'm sure Think Galactic would appreciate your participation, but you don't have to join in to enjoy the stories. You can download the pdf here. I believe it's only available for a limited time, so get over there and grab it. Paolo Bacigalupi is one of my favorite writers and Yellow Card Man, which is included in this pdf, is one of my favorite stories. Enjoy!

You Tweeted Me, You Tweeted Me

Hey! I just sold The Creepy Little Mailbox Man to Everyday Weirdness! Yay! It should be up on March 22nd for your eyeing pleasure.

If you're wondering about the title of this post, first off, you have to sing it to the tune of Anne Murray's You Needed Me. Secondly, it's there because people were tweeting lots of things I wanted to share.

@paolobacigalupi linked to this excellent article: The Gospel of Consumption.
For the past couple of months I've been asking people and just plain wondering, in light of what we see in the economy, is it impossible to run a healthy economy in which people can also save their money? I had my suspicions about how it could work and this article confirms them. Our economy today is based on businesses which want to make as much money as possible and consumers who feel the need to buy way more than they need. Dump as much money as you want into the system and it will all flow to the top given our current behaviors. Of course, when we dump all the money into the top in the first place, the people don't even get their products, they're by-passed completely. So, please, if you want to save, do so. Empowering the current economic model to screw you isn't your responsibility.

@expatpaul tweeted a link to this, and when you think about it, it fits in the last item. The media convinces us that what the government and corporations want is good for us:

Nobody tweeted this, but I think I might:
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. - Stendhal

@jfmarchini tied it all together in a brilliant summation by Bill Watterson (It's a Calvin and Hobbes comic so click on it already): https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiV-UaiqGZYeP1MA-4BtAqxBMCGeo4GBBG5WGX76bGITYyfL7rBQpNZjI7Kp_vfyeU_Vj0UQiFnaKLPEZ89MoyP66a-Z2WRgaVbiVGq7BjR9UuzRqoCyVtJPTe3GLOumrePS4d/s1600-h/CalvinHobbs.BM

And on a fun, non-economic note:
@steveattwitter turned me on to this yesterday. Found it on youtube through HuffPo so I could embed it today and it seems to be popping up all over the web. Steve is a trend setter:


Lastly, I worked an early shift today and my co-manager turned on the 8os Muzak before we opened the store. I heard this song which I hadn't heard in over twenty-five years and had forgotten it even existed. It's a wonderful little thing to rediscover something like that:


I've got sheep, I've got Split Enz. Grant's going to think this is all about him. I just realized I mentioned Calvin and Hobbes and Stendhal in the same post. I'm the living embodiment of Generation X.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

I'm on vacation this week and it will be like the song says except for all the fun stuff. It's a writing vacation. Wheeee! But seriously, this is the type of vacation I've wanted to take for years and haven't. I've taken a week off while everyone is in school and I plan to do a lot of writing. I'm shooting for about forty-five hours and that's probably more than I've ever done in a week, even including NaNoWriMo. It's not all actual writing, there's going to be an awful lot of revision, really. And I like revising a hell of a lot more than Mur Lafferty or Paolo Bacigalupi, I can tell you that. I'm finally going to have a draft of Process Five that I can show to first readers in a day or two. I'll probably take care of Fiction Crawler 6, do some work on my novel and who knows what else? It'll be a big nerdy good time. I'll celebrate on Saturday by seeing Watchmen with the former wife.

In Twitter news, I'm starting a question of the day. If you're on there and feel like answering, have at it. If you're not on there, get on there. You can find me on Twitter as upwithgravity. No, I am not disheartened by the fact that nobody answered my first question today. I posted it at an odd time and maybe it wasn't a very good question. These things take time to catch on.