New guppies enter

Sue has been busy. I spotted the first baby guppy near the beginning of the month, realized there was two just over a week ago, and finally got a picture. Sort of.

Feeding the squirrels

This is the view from my office on a rainy Sunday: a squirrel raiding the difficult bird feeder. Usually they go after the easy one, the post feeder, but that’s gone empty for a few days (poor things). You might be able to make out how they pop the cover off and get inside and […]

Re: Mars: A Traveler’s Guide

“Mars, A Traveler’s Guide,” by Ruth Nestvold is pretty dark. Funny, but dark. You realize quickly that you are reading the data feed from an online help system. The unseen human is stranded with no better help than a wiki. It reminds me of the old Bob Newhart routines, where he used to tell stories […]

Re: Trophy Wives

In “Trophy Wives,” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ylva Sif has a history of estranged marriages, but now lives with a mental link with another woman, Alanna Brigid Kinnowar. Alanna is married to Gwelf, a wealthy man who both tolerates the two women and supports them. Then Ylva goes to market to buy perberries and comes […]

Another busy backson day

My new fruit trees (a mulberry and two hazelnuts) arrived yesterday, I have too many stories to read, a big one I’m writing, and I’m about to head out the door for the second night of NERAX. I feel like I should feel like I’m caught in the middle of too much, but right now, […]

Asteroid to meteorite

Last fall I posted about 2008 TC3, an asteroid that was spotted just in time to watch it break up in the atmosphere over Sudan. It turns out they went out there and picked up the pieces.

Rawr! I’m a sock

It only took four tries over the course of a week to figure out how to knit the bit of triangle that shapes the heel. Now it looks like a purple stripey mouth gaping to eat up my time. Too bad, sock monster. No knitting for you for a few days.

Re: The Button Bin

I don’t automatically reject second person, but I’m always surprised by its use. It’s such a strange, almost invasive way to tell a story. I need to think about why it was used. In the case of “The Button Bin,” by Mike Allen I think it serves as an extended metaphor for the final image […]

Bird fruit

To a cat, the most important fruit that a tree bears are birds. Here, for example, is a crop of fat juicy sparrows waiting to get another chance at the bird feeder. Too bad there’s a fluffy white cat sitting under it, looking hopeful. I told you he was evil.

Hugos pile on

I’ve barely started reading the Nebula nominees, and the Hugo ballot has also been announced. While I find reading both lists interesting, the Hugos are the ones I can actually affect. I even got my act together in time to sign up and nominate a book: Anathem. Not surprisingly, it’s the only work on the […]