More Pictures and a Video

My Mom’s side of the family, the Beans, have a bit of a rocky history lately with Xmas celebrations.  A lot of us were able to get together this year at the Bay Valley Inn, which I hadn’t been to since I was Hunter’s age.  Check out some photos that my brother took here.

One more video is up, entitled Aidan’s 3rd Birthday Party.

Pretty sure that I’ve got my gift card (from Mom & Dad) spent in my head.

Photos and Videos

Apparently, I’ve got a backlog of these. :)

Here’s a photo set of our Meet the Baby event back on August 4.

I’ve just posted a new video on my YouTube page, entitled Home Video.

More are forthcoming. :)

P.S. – I’m sitting in Theio’s, wearing my chain mail bracelet (from Cindy, the mother-in-law) and have updated GoodReads with my review of the first hardcover graphic novel of Warren Ellis’FreakAngels (from Mom & Dad). I’ve also been browsing MicroCenter‘s site, trying to decide if there’s anything I should pick up with my gift card (from Mom & Dad).

XMess was awesome, plain and simple.

I’m using my new laptop lap desk (from Nikki) right now, and am relishing the ability to use my mouse while sitting in my new-to-me recliner (from Peter) while watching the first five episodes of the 1984 Transformers series (from Hunter).

Pictures are worth thousands of words, so I’ll let them and the videos speak volumes about my holiday celebrations. :)

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The Simpsons Movie

When I was a kid, I had quite a selection of Simpsons t-shirts. Bartman, Don’t have a cow, and a couple of others. This series has been around since Detroit’s channel 50 joined the then-fledgeling Fox network. I remember sitting down and watching the first episode in my parents’ family room. Circa In Living Color, if I’m not mistaken.

That said, even I can have my Simpsons tank fill up. The movie was pretty much a Simpsons episode, but longer and being given full reign on screwing with the setting. It was entertaining, and for that I give it three stars.

28 Weeks Later

What? Dr. Rush from Stargate: Universe? What’re you doing here? *shakes head* Getting chased by rage zombies, it looks like. This one seemed like a sequel for sequel’s sake, nothing more. It was entertaining, the acting was good, and there were two shiny ideas thrown in for good measure – carriers (infected, but no symptoms) and parental instincts vs. TEH RAGEZ0RZ. All the characters that I wanted to see survive didn’t, and then they go to France. Three stars.

Horoscopes

9 December 2009
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The evidence is incontrovertible: You have definitely acquired more power in 2009. Whether that means you are now sitting in a corner office bossing around a gaggle of subordinates, I don’t know. What I do know is that you are in greater charge of your own destiny. You know yourself much better, and are smarter about providing yourself with what you need, when you need it. You have gained access to enormous new reserves of willpower, in part by harnessing the energy of your obsessive tendencies. Blind fate just doesn’t have the same control over your life as it used to. More than ever before, you’re making decisions based on what’s really good for you rather than on your unconscious compulsions.

16 December 2009
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Scientists say that pretty much everywhere you go on this planet, you are always within three feet of a spider. That will be an especially useful and colorful truth for you to keep in mind during 2010. Hopefully it’ll inspire you to take maximum advantage of your own spider-like potentials. It’s going to be web-spinning time, Taurus: an excellent phase in your long-term life cycle to weave an extended network — with you at the hub — that will help you catch an abundance of the resources you need.

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Fresh off the presses

It’s been three and a half years since I put anything to print. Too long. A couple of months ago, I decided to change that.

I gathered together the Dr. Celestine’s Carnival of Souls posts that I’d written about Todd. I went over them again, editing out typos and considering whether I should keep or omit the song lyrics. I contacted Gil to pitch my idea to him. No profit coming to me, novella will be at cost, POD through Lulu.com, and your copyright and credit will be there for the setting and the Carnival’s characters. He was so geeked about it, he put together an incredible cover. I refined the document in OpenOffice to include a gutter in the margins, slogged through the cover creation process (three different editing applets to get what I want!), and created a wonderfully melodramatic blurb for the item listing page.

And then I published it.

It’s available now. Right here. Sixty-five pages of dark modern fantasy novella goodness. So, I come to you guys with a conundrum. Sure, I’ll be bringing copies to Penguicon to sell and to sign. I’ll sign any that people bring to me, too. Since it’s material that’s been available on the internet for a while, and it’s non-profit, I’m thinking that a release signing might not be the way to go. Should I just say order your copy now and bring it to me at Penguicon? Should I chuck caution to the wind and hold a release signing? Or should I get my pen back in contact with the page writing the sequel?

If it tickles your fancy, go and buy one! At under US$6.00, you can’t beat it. If you want to read it first, all of the posts are linked to in order here.

Thoughts From the Day Job

Holy wow, someone gets it.

Horoscope for 2 Dec 2009:
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Dear Rob: Last night my son and I were star- gazing. When we focused on the constellation Cassiopeia, an owl started hooting. Then a brilliant shooting star zipped by as a huge bat flew right over our heads. Was this a bad omen? Bats are creepy — associated with vampires. And in Greek mythology Cassiopeia got divine punishment because she bragged that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the sea god’s daughters. But I don’t know, maybe this blast of odd events was a good omen. Owls are symbols of wisdom and shooting stars are lucky, right? What do you think? Are we blessed or cursed? -Spooked Taurus.” Dear Spooked: The question of whether it’s good or bad luck is irrelevant. Here’s what’s important: You Tauruses are in a phase when the hidden workings of things will be shown to you — the mysterious magic that’s always bubbling below the surface but that is usually not visible.

First revision of the cover for the Todd stories is AWESOME. I shall nibble on my fingernails during its resizing.