Gay Marraige Moves Forward 4%

Slowly, but surely, we're winning. Vermont has overridden the veto of its governor and passed same sex marriage. I don't know that we can hope for any more states this year, but this is real progress. It is particularly gratifying since this comes so close on the heels of the Iowa Supreme Court decision.

With all of this going on I have real hope that in 2012 the ban on marriage in California can be overturned by amendment to the state's constitution. I mean it could shame 2% of voters into changing their mind and with the death of older voters that too favors same sex marriage.

I also think that it is realistic to think all of New England could legalize same sex marriage by 2012 when the Republican governor of Rhode Island has to retire. For that matter it could be the year that we get the first openly gay governor given the competence and popularity of the gay mayor of Providence. Though that's more of a long shot than getting gay marriage on the books.

A long ways to go yet, but progress is being made.

Do The World A Favor And Stop Writing

Hey, howdy - no need to buy anything from me. I came across your blog as I was looking for fellow nerd-ish Denverites, and was thinking "Hey, this guy should really come check out my blog"

Howsabout it?
-The comment "Joel Wyatt" left on my blog entry enthusing about Lackadaisy.

One of the real dangers of self promotion is that you might run across someone who takes offense. Or someone like me who is just as self-centered and is annoyed not so much by the self promotion itself as the ineptness of the act. I mean really, "Hey, this guy should really come check out my blog"? That's his come on? Not even a patently false, "We have a lot in common"? If a person is to so brazenly self promote he should at least give the person he's trying to entice a little ego stroking in return.

So instead of the nice private brush off I have given to dozens of aspiring writers over the years who wanted me to promote their book for them I'm going to give Ted Campbell (the writer behind "Joel") exactly what he wanted, space on my blog's front page.

Ted Campbell has written sixteen parts of a blog novel that he conceitedly describes as, "One part "Soon I Will Be Invincible", one part "Wild Cards", a healthy dose of "High Fidelity" and just a dash of "Hitchhiker's Guide" for extra flava." Yes, Flyover City is just as bad as you might expect from such a description. It is a universal rule, I think, that books compared to other more famous works simply will not measure up. When the author himself, rather than some advertising department lackey, is so deluded as to compare his work to that of famous authors before it has even been professionally edited it is like a big writing toxic waste warning sign.

His writing wants desperately to be funny, instead it comes off like the pale and flabby imitation of his betters. This is not the worst writing I've yet to come across since I've been sent many self published novels over the years. That's one of the dangers of being the Director of the Denver Area SF Association, people with low reading comprehension think that it is a good idea to promote their 'cutting edge and revolutionary! science fiction novel' with your reading group even though it isn't a reading group. Since he's doing essentially the same thing as the people who think that self publishing will lead to fame and fortune without even paying a scam outfit to print the book it should come as no surprise that Flyover City can stand up proudly among the worst of the genre.

Boring, hackneyed, trite, and dull are all words that I would have used in the ad copy for this particular work. To say it sucks would be a monumental unfairness to all wonderful men I've met over the years who were fantastically good at sucking, not to mention myself. He wants to be some sort of Hunter S. Thompson of superhero writing, but instead of having punch or interest it is just boring. Take this first paragraph:

Existentialist philosopher, chain-smoker, and all-round party animal Jean Paul Sartre ended his 1944 play “No Exit” with the denouement “Hell is other people”. I don’t know whether or not JP ever worked in a call center for a global telecommunications company (his Wikipedia entry doesn’t say - har har) but sitting here, tethered to my cubicle by a telephone headset, musing over the details of his life while Mrs. Marci Duncomb of Lakewood, Colorado screams in my ear about not being able to find her “stories” among the 682 channels offered with the Vaig Broadband Deluxe Package, I can definitely say I feel a deep, profound connection to the guy. Is it bad faith to declare kismet with an existentialist? Sort of like the Dalai Lama announcing to the world that he was reincarnated from a Catholic saint?

After reading several more pages rather like that I felt deeply in need of a beer. This guy is less funny than I am, and that's saying something since my sense of humor was surgically removed during my youth. True story.

So the long and the short is that your writing is bad, go back and try again, and your self promotion style is worse. No sane publisher would touch you with a 10 foot pole. I don't say that no publisher will because I've read The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb. Quite possibly the worse novel to be professionally published.

To sum up: Don't waste your time.

Lackadaisy Vol.1

It isn't exactly charity, but as part of being employed I have started buying stuff from people who put neat things on the web free for people like me to enjoy as long as we have internet connections. Being employed helps with that too. As such I recently purchased Lackadaisy Vol. 1 from 4th Dimension Entertainment.

You should go read Lackadaisy. Go on. Trust me. Sure it is anthropomorphic cats, but it is neither self indulgent furies or Disney's Robin Hood. I mean these cats run around shooting at each other with machine guns and some of them actually end up dead. Plus there is lovely prohibition booze.

Butt Hurt Conservatives Talk Revolution

I think and expect that the right wing in America will calm down and stop spouting rhetoric like, "How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?" A year or so and it will become apparent that it is just talk like the mutterings about escaping to Canada did for most liberals after Bush was elected.

Different people deal with disappointment in different ways, that's a key to understanding this. Some people think or talk about hurting the people they perceive as hurting them as a way to vent. I think what will actually happen is that most of the crazy people will go as far as buying a gun or two and making intemperate postings to the National Review Online about doing 'something' about gays, feminists, scary furrieners, blacks, and other liberal 'traitors'. A few people will take the rhetoric seriously and there will be some shootings and bombings with finally one getting so much attention that the movement will die due to backlash and the government doing something about it.

In other words I think sometime in the next three years there is going to be an event of the same impact as the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. It is more or less inevitable given how much the conservatives are made nuts by the thought of a person with as much melanin as Obama in the White House. What will it be? No idea, but it is coming as sure as Rush Limbaugh saying something provocative.

It will fail because unlike in a Latin American country there are not a huge number of people with nothing to lose here combined with (and this is critical) an army that has a tradition of taking over/overruling the government. Because no matter what they might dream in their fevered imaginations militias cannot overthrow governments. Private citizens are just never as well armed or disciplined as units funded by the government. It is worrying how many right wing types there are in the army, of course, but the question is how many of them are led by officers willing to cross the Rubicon? Not many I suspect.

Could I be wrong? I suppose so, but unless things get much, much worse than they are right now the seeds of civil war will fall upon parched ground.

Reposted on Dreamwidth
 

FestiviTea 2009

If you are local to Denver and I have forgotten you in the sending out of invitations to my birthday party on the 11th I apologize. Drop me a note and I'll correct the oversight.

The 2nd Annual FestiviTea Extravaganza!

•What? A tea themed celebration of Mishalak's Birthday
•Why? Because he really likes tea.
•When? Saturday April 11th from 3pm until people drop dead from fun or go home.
•Where? My apartment (send an email for address directions, etc.)
•How? I intend to bake at least two cakes and some cookies as well as having brewed black tea on hand and at least one bottle of bubbly for later. Please RSVP, but you don't have to declare a specific time and you may bring anyone with you as a guest.

•Hobbit Presents? Yes! I will be giving away books because I have far to many. Take a book, I insist!

•Questions? Comments?
No, you don't have to stay the whole time. In fact I imagine the party you experience will depend upon when you come and how long you stay. I expect it to progress towards alcohol of every variety as the sun sets so for a tamer party come earlier. For debauchery come after eight.

Yes, my birthday is actually the next day but some of you might have plans to do things with family that you don't want to miss on Easter. So as tempting as it was to have an Easter themed birthday party I'm going to put off that plan. Though interestingly my birthday is within a week of Easter in two of the next three years and falls on Easter again in 2020.

Also there is a DASFA Dead Dog happening the week afterward at our place just in case you want to attend that as well.

Lemon Chiffon in the Afternoon Tastes Like Victory

I love tea and cake in the afternoon. You know, one time we had a half a dozen people over, for 4 hours. When it was all over, I finished off the last piece there in the warm afternoon light. The taste, you know that delicate flavor of lemon chiffon with the bitter tea, the whole afternoon. Tasted like... victory. -Lieutenant Colonel Tetime

Yesterday was wonderful. I cleaned and after a while Richard went out to deal with a parking ticket and pick up his friend Stacy. She's going to stay with us for a short while before she heads back to Georgia on a permanent basis and she's nice enough to help out a bit in return. A little later Sibohan, a friend from the library, arrived and I finished frosting the cake that I started while I was cooking. Lemon chiffon cake is my favorite and I'm going to bake one of them and an orange cake for my birthday party on the 11th.

We had a wonderfully wide ranging talk about adaptations of fantasies and which ones worked better in movie than in books. I mentioned The Prestige in this category as while the book is good I think the movie was better for having simplified the plot. Stacy mentioned that she does not watch dramas because she has more than enough drama in her own life, I wonder if that is true of most people. The Lord of the Rings was talked about again and that moved us on the the subject of when computer-generated imagery overwhelms a movie rather than serving the plot.

After all the tea and cake was done and over with I finally cooked up the pork loin for dinner with Stacy and Rose. It was good paired with some asparagus I got at Costco the other day. And now I'll have good leftovers for a few days that can be turned into soup, sandwiches, and the like. Double duty cooking as suggested by Cook's Illustrated. And after all this cooking the apartment was still pretty well put together. And I'm going to make a bit of progress on "spare 'oom" today. Both for Stacy's comfort and so that I can get people in here to start hauling away the books.

Five Buttons

I went to get a new pair of Levi 501s the other day and was very disconcerted to find that the pair I tried on had four buttons instead of the five that have been on them. I did not have a pair to compair with me at the time, but upon arriving home found that I'd been correct in thinking that all my other pairs have five. Is this an error on all the 30x34s at this particular store or some new standard they are going to? I don't know but it seems to be something no one else has noticed yet. But how could someone not notice, it was jarring to expect another button and not find it.