This is a short podcast about this cartoon. Bear with me!

Please find attached a podcast interview with Leon Dale (of leondale.com ) about The Human Flag.

Check out his websites for more about The Human Flag.

Link for the podcast is here

The first one I heard about is Nathan Lowell's Ravenwood. The URL for his website is http://www.lammaswood.com/

Here's a blurb about Ravenwood:

Tanyth Fairport makes one last pilgrimage in her quest to learn all she can about the herbs and medicinal plants of the world before settling down to write her magnum opus. Her journey is interrupted when she stops to help a small village and learns that much of what she knows of the world may not be quite as it seems.
This is not another science fiction novel set in the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, but a fantasy set in a whole new world where magic is madness and adventure isn’t something you seek out.

Also there is Paulette Jaxton's The Empress Sword which is at http://empresssword.com/

Here's the blurb about Empress Sword:

A Prince, a Dragon & a Magic Sword – all the elements of a classic adventure story.

Unfortunately for Prince Aster of Caledon the dragon in question may not be the evil beast he thinks it is, and the magic sword might not even let the adventurous young prince touch it. When Aster discovers the price he must pay to save his kingdom, he’ll have to make a choice no self-respecting adventure book hero would even consider.

This is not your father’s epic fantasy story, but it might be you’re cousin Trudy’s.

The Empress Sword, it’s Eragon meets Twelfth Night.

I look forward to listening to you both!

Well, I am very happy to know she's alive and hope that she's having a Happy Return Upon the Day.

She is the youngest of my children, and now all three of them have passed that magical 18 number.

Congrats, Genevieve!

I have just finished reading all "The Song of Ice and Fire" books published to date. They were excellent. George RR Martin does an incredible job of building a world, peopling it with characters both fair and foul, and telling a big story using scenes that build on each other over time. Hints are dropped, plots are planted, story seeds that bloom in blossoms both beautiful and terrible. These are adult-level fantasy stories; there is corruption, the morality is typically gray, and a character you hate may turn out to be someone you like, then someone you hate again.

That is no surprise: I read a lot. The surprise is this:

If I had not had the opportunity to read these books in a digital format, I very much doubt I would have ever finished them.

There's a lot of people who swear they'd never read a digital book of any kind, in any format. I read the Song of Ice and Fire series on a ipod Touch, which is a device roughly the size of an iPhone. The screen was not very large, but due to the awesome work done by the people who put together the Amazon Kindle iPhone app, I could easily read the words. Each screen was a tiny amount of an entire "page" but I could page through the little screens very, very easily.

The best thing about the reading, though, was this: my book was always with me. In line at the supermarket, the bank, on the train, for my lunch break at work, laying down at the end of the day, whenever I had a few minutes I could quickly and easily pick up exactly where I left off and read.

I heartily recommend the Kindle app, because it takes an already useful item (the ipod Touch in this case) and makes it even more useful and entertaining. Don't knock it before you try it!

Welcome to a long-delayed SambearCast! I had the distinct pleasure to sit and talk with Gary Motley, an accomplished and puissant Jazz Pianist who has played on stage with Brubeck, produced an album tribute to Oscar Petersen called "Renaissance" and happens to also teach at Emory University. He impressed me with the way he can pack knowledge into a paragraph with no effort whatsoever, and I really enjoyed the hour I spent talking to him.

This interview was for an article at Leon Dale's website, so I invite you to go over there, see wonderful photographs of his work and read my article, then if you have time go deep and listen to the podcast. It's a "you are there" sort of experience; sit with Gary and I at a coffee shop across from Emory and have some fun listening to what we chatter on about.

I encountered this soda fountain yesterday in my regular travels. When I first went to fill my cup, I selected Coke, then Cherry Coke. It said, "Choose another selection." Um. OK. Why did you offer me the icon for cherry coke if you don't have it? I understand that when the analog Cherry Coke fountain runs out of syrup or whatever, it's over, you just have to taste it to know. But at least I recognize that. In this case, I'm sitting there thinking "OK, if you show me the icon, darnit, I want to be able to use the icon."

The soda fountain person spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to not only refill the cherry flavor cartridge but also how to make the machine realize that, while it was sleeping, the cherry cartridge had been replaced. This was a little harder than it might seem to be.

One of the soda brands offered on the screen is "Dasani." Dasani is "water." Dasani is actually specially filtered water, right? Do they have a special water filter in the machine, or is this really just tap water? I asked the guy, and he wouldn't say, his eyes got all glassy and he just sort of wandered off.

I can predict what's going to happen here. Eventually they will stop buying flavor cartridges, and eventually people will have to hunt around five or six screens to find even the main brand of drink they're looking for. This is fine because it is the way of things.

But it is kind of nifty looking, and I got a chance to see the operating system. I think they are using a linux backend on an embedded XHTML-based front end but don't quote me on that.

I do know that clicks are being counted. So, in a while, Coca-Cola will have market research live, direct from tens of thousands of locations, as to what people actually prefer to drink given their druthers.

For myself, I'd rather just have Cherry Coke. And I did, eventually, once the machine realized that it was cherry-full again.

It didn't taste like Cherry Coke, which is a bit of a blended flavor. It tasted like regular coke with some kind of generic cherry flavor added.

Oh, and by the way, somebody needs to tell the designer of this thing that the ice flows down into the trough and then out onto the floor and gets all over everything. This is suboptimal for people who don't want to slip and fall.

Ah well, at least its innovative!

Rowan, I hope you're celebrating tonight. Happy birthday, I'm glad you're in the world.

Sam at Dragon*Con 2009 from Sam Chupp on Vimeo.

I can define this alert for you, MARTA.

MARTA was supposed to be free. Back when it was first created, the idea was that you should be able to waltz on to the train / bus combo and waltz off without paying a red cent.

That changed. The fare hikes have been coming throughout the years, and now this October 1st, MARTA claims they're going to go up to $2.00 a shot.

This is after they posted PROFITS over the last two years. This is after they just launched a brand new website (the "System Alert" function of which is...um...not working yet?)

I'm alerted. I'm alerted that someone is playing power politics - I don't know who. I'm alerted that, yet again, poor people are going to be shouldering the bulk of the burden to keep the roads clear for the expensive gas guzzlers.

So much for the Green Economy. The only color green at work here is that Dollar Bill shaded color. It doesn't matter that it's a better idea to put your money into mass transit, INCREASE service, LOWER fares than it is to BUILD MORE ROADS.

I just don't understand.

Why is MARTA quoting the fact that they got back-up money from the stimulus package as a means of explaining why they are raising their rates? That is a complete smoke and mirrors argument.

Here's why your rates are going up:

1.) Transportation costs are going up because of the cost of oil, and MARTA hasn't reinvested in enough infrastructure to cut down on the costs over the long haul by switching to electricity and other alternative fuels.

2.) The State Legislature couldn't give two figs for MARTA - they see it as an Atlanta city problem, not as a state problem.

We've gone so far away from the original vision of MARTA: a free transportation system for everybody. If we funded MARTA like we fund our schools, then nobody would have to pay and there would be posh velvet seats on every bus and working elevators and escalators on every platform.

Where are our priorities, in a bad economic time? They shouldn't be "Make it harder on people who can't afford / choose not to contribute to our growing bad air / carbon problem."

Good thing the goblins were fed before I arrived!

I got to Leon's studio and was impressed at his set-up: professional ring-lights and the like with a neutral background.

Leon gets into this creative fugue when he works, and as he set up the shoot, Janean interviewed me. She asked a lot of interesting questions that had me thinking before I answered.

He did a lot of "product shots" using old books I've written, to warm up.

Basically the whole experience was awesome and made me feel like a rockstar for a short time - a great time, and a great result.

If you're interested in more of his work, check out his photography here.

1.) Google their own name.

You may be surprised that your phone number and name are out there in Google. You may realize that the first link for your name is a website that shows you waterskiing while drunk. Just play it careful - you can do things to protect your identity and you should. At the same time, we are all living 100% in the clear and everything we do is reflective of who we really are on the net.

2.) Do something artistic.

This is hard, and I admit it's something I have a hard time keeping up, but I would really love it if all the people I cared about took the time to do something artistic. I'm not saying "be a great painter" or "master hurdy-gurdy music" - just something small and interesting and artistic. Like coloring, needlecrafts, writing a poem, learning to tie silk ribbons, whatever.

3.) Drink more water.

You're probably dehydrated right now. Get yourself a glass of water. You'll feel better.

4.) Do something with your significant other* that is fun and has nothing to do with bills, children, chores, or money.

This is vital. Lack of this is what makes couples feel like just room-mates in their own house. Make it a date and keep the date. You can do this even if you have newborn babies - you should do this especially if you have newborn babies.

5.) Try something new.

A new food, a new way home, a new book, a new article of clothing, something new. Try it, please.

6.) Teach someone what you know.

You can show your nephew how to make biscuits or videotape yourself laying down tile. Show us what you know, the inside game of the things you do.

7.) Tell me what's up with you - the good and the bad.

Many times I think that journals and the like show the "press release" version of people's lives. Kind of like holiday newsletters: it seems that all the kids are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the women are above average.
I know, I've been that way myself, and it's a struggle to find a balance between seeming like you're whining continuously and actually publishing the truth. Hey, if I'm your friend, I want to know about you, warts and all. I can handle the truth!

8.) Practice listening first to understand.

This is hard for me to do, too. Listening first with the objective of understanding means you have to slow down, take your time, pay attention. It means hearing the whole of the statement rather than just the first 20 seconds of it. It requires an attention span that some people just don't have, but I'm encouraging you to try. It helps. It makes everything better.

9.) Call me on my fails, praise me for my wins.

Yeah, if I screw up and hurt you, I want to know. Yes. I also want to know when I do something that pleases you or tickles you or makes you grin.

10.) Write a list like this for me.

Please? I want to know more about you. Even if I know you really well, I feel like life is a journey and I'm damn glad you're along for the ride with me.

* If you don't have a significant other, make sure you're taking good care of yourself for me, OK?

I suspect that Twitter is more for old farts than anyone else.

I recently had the opportunity to meet about 80 newly minted college grads. These folks were close to the top of their class, and in the process of interviewing them about their IT needs, the session leader asked them about Facebook and Twitter.

Apparently everyone in the audience "had a Facebook" in the parlance that was used, but when they were asked about Twitter, there was a lot of groaning and grimacing. I was quite amazed to see such a negative reaction. My expectation after listening to podcasts and reading LiveJournal was that nearly everybody loved Twitter, but apparently not among successful college graduates with Bachelors of Arts and Science degrees here in Georgia.

Now I realize that Clay Shirky says that social innovation can only take place on technology that is so commonplace that it's boring. These days, that means blogs, email, forums, and the like. Getting into Facebook and Twitter is still such a weird thing for a lot of people.

My mom's on Facebook, though. And, I wonder, how many of these students' parents are on Twitter? Older, hipper brothers and sisters?

Of course, I realize that I am in the heart of Atlanta. So maybe this is just an East Coast - West Coast thing. I'm really sorry that this group of bright people have seemed to completely reject Twitter and I wonder what it is that drives them away. Perhaps it is that Britney, Oprah, and Fitty have arrived there before them? Perhaps they're just tired of hearing about it and they've never actually given it a try.

I had a conversation with one of them, where they were talking about why they couldn't understand Twitter, couldn't get why people would want to talk about their lives 140 characters at a time. I asked her if she ever updated her status on Facebook, and she said, "Yeah, all the time. But that's different."

There's no difference, really, between the two. In fact, the TweetDeck program allows one to post directly to both at the same time.

I'm wondering now if we'll even have a Twitter this time next year. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll keep up my Friendfeed, my Tumblog, my Twitter, my Facebook, Goodreads and everything else. I love this stuff - don't plan to stop any time now.

I'm sambearpoet most everywhere, if you want to follow / read me

Every time I see this logo, I get a shudder. Cows are not supposed to be this skinny, so a skinny cow is a sick cow.

What's next? The Scabrous Pig?

It just drives me crazy.

I've visited a lot of coffee shops in Atlanta. Not every one of them. Not yet. But I have done it as much I could on my budget and with the time allotted to me, and keeping in mind that my life partner, Cynthia, and my step-daughter, Katie, don't really drink much in the way of coffee. OK, I take that back; Cyn loves herself a good ol' raspberry vanilla venti mocha when the mood sets. And Katie has been known to partake of The Chai, as they say. However, I don't think it really occurs to Cynthia to actually make a coffee shop as a destination; it's more of an add-on to any other activity. For me, though, going to a coffee shop is a treat.

It is a bit difficult to judge the coffee shop. I've written a few reviews on Yelp (and plan on writing more later), and I notice that other people write a lot about the coffee and the snacks they serve. To me, though, the snacks are secondary and the coffee and service are noteworthy but not the primary thing.

The thing that really gets me is how the establishment lays out fixings for the coffee. I can immediately tell a lot about a coffee shop from just that.
First question: do they have half and half? All health considerations aside, half and half is the stuff I put into my coffee. If they don't have it readily available, then I might as well not even order coffee.

Second is their sweetener assortment. In most of the indie coffee shops around Atlanta, I am used to seeing things like sugar syrup (which apparently is cane sugar boiled into water?), raw sugar (which is sugar with the molasses unextracted), stevia or its commercial equivalent, honey, and sometimes arcane and mystic sweeteners that may have been decanted in some unholy but satisfying process birthed in the lower depths of the abyss (like, say, sweet n' low).

Then there's the Stirring Mechanism. Stirring is a vital step in doctoring any drip coffee. One cannot just dump their sweetener and cream into the stuff and have done. So, I've noticed a range of means to address this problem. The spectrum goes from incredibly environmentally unfriendly to extremely environmentally friendly. On the unfriendly end of the spectrum we have ittle wooden stirrers that are undoubtedly rendered from Amazon rainforest trees. It is impossible to stir one's coffee with one of these things, so it requires three or four or more bundled in one's fingers just to get enough surface area to stir, which just exacerbates the fact that more precious Amazonian rainforest is needed per cup of coffee. Next to that are plastic coffee stirrers; once again, one stirrer is not enough to do anything with, and as an added benefit the billions of them will still be around 20 years from now, making a kind of plasticky thatch somewhere in a landfill. Still a bad solution, in my opinion.

As are plastic spoons, for roughly the same reason.

One very intriguing solution to this problem I found at Danneman's in Old Fourth Ward district. They make available to their patrons long sticks of dried plain fettucini as a means of stirring. The stuff biodegrades, it's cheap, it doesn't change the flavor of the coffee, and the blades of fettucini make for a better stirrer than the rainforest-wood kind or the plastic. I still needed three of them to get any motion going in my coffee, and I started having fantasies about coffee-flavored fettucini, perhaps served with a bit of sun-dried tomato and pesto. I suppose it is a bit of American arrogance to use what is effectively a food product to stir our coffee and throw it away, but at least it is better than plastic-thatch.

Getting close to the other end of the earth-friendly spectrum are spoons. The only downside to spoons is the disposal of the dirty spoons. Now, most places have clearly labeled bins that say "CLEAN" and "DIRTY", and at that point you need to just depend on the intelligence and / or literacy of your fellow coffee drinker that they understand the concept. I find spoons with clean and dirty bins to be the best of all stirring worlds; I use one spoon, I get my coffee stirred, and I put it in the dirty bin, and at some juncture a nice person with hot and soapy water cleans the spoons, and nobody has to put up with anything in the landfill. I would think that the cost of doing this alone would be a no-brainer for any coffee shop owner, but I'm still amazed to find rainforest sticks and plastic stirrers everywhere.

I realize that washing the dirty spoons must be a pain, and that, probably, not everybody gets the whole "clean/dirty" thing; a few times I've had to transfer a potential spoon from clean straight to dirty, without touching the coffee.

Still, I am certain that the cost of 40 metal spoons is not as much as the boxes and boxes of plastic and wood stirrers people use.

There are other coffee shop considerations. I like places that use fair trade coffee. I enjoy places that offer big ol' coffee mugs instead of paper cups as a first option. Drinking coffee out of a mug is infinitely preferable, if you can afford the time to wait, than drinking out of a paper or plastic cup.

The worst places I've been to really don't care about their fixings. They put out non-dairy creamer powder, or just 2% milk, or whatever. Or, like one coffee shop, they don't bother to refrigerate their dairy and the half-and-half is sitting out in a box on the countertop, getting warm. When I asked the barista about this, he admitted that he didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and that he rarely has to throw out any, but I like my half-and-half to be cold and reasonably free of bad bacteria.

As I mentioned in my Method Coffee post, if the coffee is good you really don't need any additives. But I love them - they help make the whole experience.

Method Coffee. What can I say about this place that has not been said? Well, one thing I know is this: the place is clean. The place exudes this simplicity, this cleanliness that makes one feel calmer already. It is, really, coffee for OCD people. I don't mean that in a bad way. The way that attention is paid to small details, it's wonderful. The way that everything has been measured to within certain parameters, it's perfect.

Along the back of the counter are these curiously shaped brewing flasks. Someone took a cone and stuck it point-first into a fairly normal-looking coffee carafe. When you examine it you notice that it is all one piece of glass, continuous. They use oxygen bleached filter cones. They have small glass pitchers that are just exactly the right size, so that the volume of water they hold is exactly the right amount of water for the brewing process. They have small airtight glass containers into which they have measured exactly the right amount of beans per cup of coffee.

One container, one cup's worth of beans. They grind it right there, they put the grounds into the cone, the cone into the brew flask. They then pour hot water, flash-heated by an element to the precise necessary temperature, into the flask's cone. They do it in a circular motion, slowly pouring the hot water so that the cone's contents are equally saturated. The water drains through the filter and the grounds into the brew flask.

They have coffee mugs that are exactly the size necessary to handle one cup of perfect coffee. Prior to pouring the hot coffee, the barista pours hot water from the same source into the mug, and lets it sit, so the mug will be hot enough to accept the coffee. Then the coffee is decanted into the mug, and you have an amazing cup of coffee there.

How amazing? Is it really any different from a drip coffee maker? Yes. Yes, it is. Definitely. This method creates a flavorful cup of coffee that tastes pure. Normally I get a burn in the back of my throat from coffee a little while after ingesting it, I didn't get that this time. There is the "coffee" flavor, yes, but the tastes are complex enough so that if you swirl it around on your tongue you will get hints of all kinds of other flavors. It's like holding a prism up to a light and realizing the full spectrum of possible color.

Yes, the coffee is expensive. Yes, it is worth it.

I can imagine that some people might be intimidated by going in to a place that is so passionate about coffee, but please don't be. If you don't want to coffee geek, you don't have to. In fact, I had no idea what to order, and I just said, "I'd like something that's smooth and doesn't have much acidic taste." I was mentally adding, "Unlike Starbucks'," and maybe he picked up on that. And the barista knew what to do, where to guide me, and he gave a good choice.

Katie had a cup of La Parisienne dark sipping chocolate and seemed very, very happy with it. Just watching her as she excavated every last chocolate molecule from the small sipping-chocolate cup was a delight. She makes me smile when she's so happy. She also took the lovely picture you see here!

Now, to mention the surroudings, etc. They exist in the same location as Caribou Coffee used to be in Emory Village, right next door to Everybody's Pizza. The staff are pleasant and helpful, and like I said, the place was clean. I would love to see what they do with tea.

The price is not cheap, but it is worth it. Lots of value here for your money, in my opinion, but your mileage may vary.

So what exactly is revolutionary about Bing? Looks like Just Another Broken Search Engine, to me.

Oh, and by the way, microsoft? If I type bing.microsoft.com, I damn well expect to get Bing. Will you fix that?

This here's a rework of RE: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton. Check out Jonathan's wonderful music here.

I think Mur should use this for her Zombie Takeover podcast, only I think it's wrapped already. Oh, well.

In case you were wondering whether all this booty-shakin' in the podcastosphere on behalf of our favorite podiobooks.com authors is working, certainly Amazon has figured it out! Woot!

Flirty goodness, love, mischief and beauty is in the air. Time to be and feel alive and awake and aware of your own energy, and if you are an adult, to own your senses and your passionate power. Mmmm. Good holiday. Happy Beltane!

Thanks in advance for your help!

(BTW, I found their website already, I'm just looking for people who can speak to the experience and who may even be attending this weekend's event)

Because I am adopted, I have a lot of deeply felt emotion regarding these people, my bio-mom and bio-dad; but it is so deep that it has taken years of introspection and therapy to get through to it, and I really don't want this to be a post about my biological parents. (I've done that, here. It's very emotional and very intense, so you've been warned.)

So, who are my father and mother?

One theory is, "My father and mother are the people who are biologically related to me." Well, that is true in a scientific sense, I suppose. But those people, whomever they are, had very little to do with the person I would later become.

Another theory is, "My father and mother are the people who cared for me and adopted me. The people who reared me." And that is true too, very true. More true perhaps than the first idea. My adopted Dad died in September of '08, and I have yet to truly process what all that means. I'm still grieving for him. I feel this grief no less because he was someone who chose me, rather than someone who got my mother pregnant. My adopted mom, whom I basically just call "mom," and I are rebuilding our relationship after a lot of estrangement. I am thankful for this, because in my head she fits the slot of "mom" more than anyone. She is my Mother, and I love her dearly.

And then there is, "My father and mother are the people who nurtured my soul, guided my path, gave me inspiration and beautiful dreams." This is also true. So, I can name many fathers and mothers then. I name Barbara Jean Fant, I name Robert Heinlein. I name Gary Gygax. I name Starhawk and Luisah Teish. There are many, many others I could name. I'm grateful for them all.

That leaves the question, "Who are you nurturing and guiding, who are you a mother or a father of?"

I have the kids I have claimed as my own: G and Rowan. Certainly the States of Georgia and California think they are my children, as I paid child support for them and continue to pay for G. And, truth be told, it doesn't matter what the State or anyone else thinks: they are my children, plain and simple.

As a younger man, my life was very strange and many things were completely chaotic. But I reared my kids, and, even if we have been distant since they left my house, I still love them without reservation or condition as my daughter and son. If you are a guy and you change a person's diapers, hold them when they cry, discipline them, and take care of their boo-boos, and you do this every day until they can stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves, I truly believe that you are that person's Daddy.

I was there for them, and I would never give up those memories and those times; they are precious to me.

I have Katie, who is my step-daughter-in-heart (the daughter of the woman I'm life-partnered to), who lost her own biological father and came to live with us and has now lived longer with me as her male-authority-figure than she did with her father.

And then there are other more nebulous children: the children of my mind and spirit. Who are they? I have no idea. But I would love to know if I do.

And, speaking of nebulous children, if I knew that I had a biological child out there in the world, I would want to at least acknowledge him or her, and do what I could to show them love due to our tie of blood.

Certainly, I am the proud father of two novels, two games, many podcasts, and several blogs, and what are they if not children of my mind and spirit? I have hope that something I do in this lifetime will spawn life, love, hope, and future for other people.

So I invite you to ask yourself, "Who are my fathers and mothers? Who am I a father or mother to?" and think outside the normal definitions. You might be surprised who you name, or who names you.

I don't have aspirations to be some kind of incredible chef, however. I just want to take care of people, feed them, give them a place where they can get out of the world for a while and enjoy an experience that lifts them up out of their noise, trouble and stress.

People who know the business tell me that I am describing a sure fire method for losing a lot of money: the best way to get more bucks in the food business is to move people through as fast as you can.

I have to believe that there is some happy medium between that model and the concept of people enjoying a meal, taking their time.

Anyway, I am hoping I will have time to realize this dream. In the meantime, I am always learning, as much as I can, about the restaurant business. I've even thought of taking a job as a busboy on the weekends so I can learn the business from that angle.

That brings me to talk about Hell's Kitchen. I don't usually watch Reality TV shows. Something about them really ticks me off, but that's a different rant for a different post.

However, Hell's Kitchen season 5 has caught and keeps my attention. On one hand, I am constantly astonished by the amount of emotional and mental abuse Ramsay levels on his participants. The entire show seems to be designed to put him in situations where he freaks out and screams. Like a bad, rage-a-holic father, Ramsay continues to berate people, push their buttons when he can find them, and does everything he can to increase the stress and pressure in the kitchen, in order to cause other people to freak out. Time and again, I heard the chefs saying that they didn't know why they were making dumb mistakes. A fellow who works in a steak house couldn't even grill steaks right!
This guy reminds me of a person I worked for once. By yelling and screaming and threatening people in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, he manages to put everybody off their A game. It's not surprising that people who cope best with his management style are people who were themselves abused as children; in an abusive relationship of any kind one learns the necessary skills to deal with irrational people.

So why do I keep watching? I think it is partly a therapeutic experience. Exposing myself to this kind of abusive situation lets me tell myself how I would respond in the situation. I can talk back to the feelings created. I can root for individuals who are competing and empathize with them. At the same time, some of it is truly informative.

It's possible that I will drop this pastime pretty soon, but for now I think it does provide both entertainment and an opportunity to recognize the craziness and flaws of management through rage and destruction. The show is about shredding 16 potential chefs, and in the end, there is only 1 who emerges victorious. That's a 6.25% success rate, which is a terrible statistic if you think of the show as a teaching experience. If we could replace Ramsay with a chef who cultivates, not eliminates people, how many awesome world-class chefs would be created? It would be more than just 1, but I think that the main problem is that building people up is not as interesting television as breaking them down.

A side note: I see that most, if not all, of the restaurants Chef Ramsay has helped in his other show, Kitchen Nightmares, have all but failed. The shows seem to represent him as being a godsend, but ultimately I feel as though his ideas and "help" are just as toxic as his personality.

Lately, they have been undergoing a thoroughly mystifying infrastructure upgrade. They are resurfacing the bus intake area, where the buses drop off and pick up passengers. This means they've had to create a completely separate bus transfer area.

They did a pretty good job of crafting a bus shelter out of PVC pipe and plastic sheeting. They sunk PVC pipe into buckets of cement, and used those as the supports for the structure. They kitbashed a single line as a support for the top. All of this was set up in an adjacent parking lot.

The asphault in this area is abysmal, however. I don't know enough about things like asphault, so I can't really tell you what is wrong with it. Suffice it to say that the surface in the parking lot is eroding away at an alarming rate. In order to address this problem, many large steel plates have been put down over the surface wounds of the parking lot. You've seen these plates in cities covering potholes. They look as though they would make great armor for personnel carriers as well. Anyway, the net effect of these plates is that the bus sways like a schooner on the high seas whenever the driver drives over them. It is a sensation one is not accustomed to when riding a bus, but it is an interesting feeling nonetheless.

All this to say this: whomever got the contract to originally surface this parking lot must've been related to someone important. That's all I have to say about that.

I am constantly and continuously surprised at the total lack of entrepreneurship in and around train stations here. Why doesn't MARTA have little kiosks for people to have a cup of coffee or whatnot while they wait for their train?

Of course, I've been stuck on a train a few times with some individual who had liberally interpreted the gray area between "Transporting Food" and "Consuming it on the Train," so I understand the urge to not make food and drink too available. However, for the most part, the land around most train stops is mostly devoid of restaurants. There are a few notable exceptions, and I'm going to post a link to this really cool website that talks about those exceptions.

I remember when I was living in New York that there was this coffee stand on the street. All you had to do is have a dollar bill ready, walk up to the window, say, "Cream and sugar" and hand them the dollar bill. Or two dollars, I can't remember how much it was, but it was a fairly negligible amount of money. This was a very cool, simplified business. They took beans and water and made coffee. They sold the product plus dairy and sugar, and no BS. If you wanted this stuff, you would go to that window, you would get it. There were no lattes, no half-cafs, no double-cafs, no mochacinno java chips. This was serious coffee for serious people who wanted to get it fast. You could obtain coffee in just about as much time as it took to decide to get some. In fact, if you were walking down the street and saw the coffee stand you could just turn that direction with money in your hand and, in mere seconds, be on your way with a fairly amazingly perfect cup of coffee. Now, realistically these guys did not care about coffee prep technique and I would hate to see the interiors of their urns, but the coffee was good, hot, relatively fresh, and not too bitter. And it was frickin' fast.

That's what I want. Coffee that's a heartbeat away. Not to put down my little French press, which is super delicious, but really, having someone else go to the trouble is very compelling.

That reminds me. I have been thinking about the kind of beverages people find in fantasy and science fiction, the wakeful beverages of those genres specifically. The Liaden books have a lot to do with wine and tea. These people drink an awful lot of wine, and they seem to also imbide a great deal of specific kinds of tea. Really, what you drink in the Liadenverse is very important. It's almost like it's a mini-personality test: are they going to choose the red, the white, or the green? And the fact that the nasty bad Liaden traders make their crew drink fake coffee....*shudder*. That tells you everything you need to know about their inherent evil.

And coffee is a big theme in the stories of Nathan Lowell, Quarter / Half / Full Share, etc. It's coffee making that sets our young Ishmael apart from his crewmates.

In the fantasy realm, klava is a drink that seems to be based on hungarian coffee, the preparation and ingredients of which are not to be believed, really. It is intriguing, however, and I think I might like to try it someday when I have regular coffee close at ready hand and I want to waste some ingredients.

I've made some reference in my gaming and my fiction to some special drinks, but I have not yet put down any recipes. There is a hot Amishkan drink called kafva or kav, which is of course very much like coffee. The Lunargenti and Sydalians love their cider, hard or soft. Distilling alcohols is a favorite pastime of alchemists and sorcerers, and places where magical people are welcomed will have these spirits in bars and the like. I've yet to come up with something truly fantastic, however.

All this talk about drink is making me thirsty. I wonder if there are any fantasy or science fiction drinks I'm missing? Ok, yes, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Anything else?

Note: Since I first wrote this, it has been announced that MARTA will possibly start doing concessions in some of their stations. More on that as it develops.

I post this in memory of him and offer these links for those who are unfamiliar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Murphy_(podcaster)

Edited to add: If you are moved to contribute, please visit the Leiomyosarcoma Direct Research Fund site at http://lmsdr.org

(Thanks, PG!)

Check out http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay for more information about this post and about this wonderful day!

I want to write, today, about my co-worker Olga. She came to America from the Ukraine, and when I first got to know her, she was not an expert in technology. However, over the course of time she has both taught herself (through experience) and learned (in college and from reading) from others to the point where, now, she rightfully can claim the title of computer technician in her own right.

This woman can troubleshoot a laptop problem in a heartbeat, and every new angle she learns to repair, reform, or cleanse a machine of its imperfections she retains seemingly effortlessly. She grabs bright shining facts and holds on to them like a magpie; that she can correlate a lot of disparate elements and keep them all in her head is of major benefit. She follows processes and always has suggestions for improving them.

Although she told me that she worries about an excess of automation in the future (so do I), she said that she enjoys having the wealth of knowledge available to her through the Web.

I asked her what, if anything, she has to say to girls about technology. Here's what she said:

"Technology field is no longer for man only. Being a network or computer engineer was not considered a job for a woman, but I believe that if this is what interests you and where your heart is, go for it."

Go for it, indeed, Olga. You and Ada share a great deal of sisterhood.

Thanks for lending us your skills, your intelligence, and your knowledge at work!

(Note for my boss & other interested parties: This was written over the course of many days, just pulling the trigger on it now)

I have recently begun playing City of Heroes again after several years' off. I still have my old, old characters that have been idle, it says, for over 728 days, and I have not recently logged them in.

City of Heroes / City of Villains is a game where you play a super hero or a super villain. As a hero, you have super powers, you run around and beat up (incarcerate) bad guys, and you have missions in place of what is normal for this genre of computer game, "Quests." Instead of gold pieces, we get a currency called "Influence," which enables us to buy cool gadgets and add-ons to our characters. Characters get experience points which add up to more and more levels, as you get levels, you get more super powers, and so on.

The same thing is done with villains, only the villain stuff is branded for them. So, instead of Influence they get Infamy. Some of the powers are the exact same, except that, for example, Villains don't get to use a power called Empathy which is all about healing and helping people (they have a similar power set called Pain Domination, which is not as powerful as Empathy in my opinion), and heroes don't get to use powers like Poison, which is available to a villain character.

Surprisingly, there are a number of co-op areas in the game where heroes and villains can fight a greater bad guy together, which is interesting.

Anyway, back on track here. I've been playing City of Heroes, and in that game, I have come to know some folks who have become increasingly special to me, that is to say, they are my SuperGroup.

Yeah, I'm part of a super hero group like the Justice League or the X-Men. I'm a member in good standing of ICONS. Yes, we have a super base. Yes, we have a cool costume. But the most important thing about ICONS is the community it represents.

We all chat verbally online with each other using software called TeamSpeak. My microphone is set up to detect my voice and go "live" in time to catch what I'm saying, so all I have to do is speak and my team-mates will hear me.

This helps us when we are fighting bad guys. We coordinate our attacks and the powers we use so that we are more effective.

But more importantly, we have social time, too.

Let me be clear, I haven't met most of these folks in real life, but I feel as though I know them, and they are serving, for me, as a social outlet.

This is ideal for me because I can be at once both "at home" and in "social space." I don't like to be away from home much; my family needs me. This means that I can be social in a positive way without being totally unavailable to my family.

Now, time will tell. But I extrapolate this concept of a group of people, loosely connected through the power of our voices, and I see all sorts of interesting possibilities for the future.

In a short story I wrote recently, I was adamant that some people we meet and know online are just as real to us as people we meet in person. Over time, we in the super group come to know and trust each other. We know what's going on with each other's lives, we pull together like a family does. If one of us is sick, we'll yell at him until he gets help. We offer support and understanding to each other, and honest critique; something I've come to really value over the course of years.

I think the time is past to redefine what it means to have an affiliation with someone. If the word "tribe" applies, what does that mean?

I think that it's important to think about this and to be conscious of it. So much is just disregarded because it is not face-to-face, and I feel that is egregious.

"There's not a word yet / for old friends that just met." - says Gonzo from The Muppet Movie.

I love that idea.

Online gaming wasn't nearly as fun until people like the ICONS, and my friends the Old Fartz, started meeting regularly to play.

P.S.: Wanna see my oldest City of Heroes characters? Click to see the gallery.

Those of you who are used to the old samchupp.com will probably come here wondering "What the heck?"

For those of you who want the same ol, same ol' samchupp.com, click http://samchupp.com/oldsite.html

If you're looking for my old blog, you can find it at http://sambear.livejournal.com.

Did it have a problem with downloading a virus definition update? No.

Did it catch a nasty virus? No.

Did it detect someone 0wnz0rring my PC? No.

It is detecting that there are 14 days or less left on the year license I bought.

That's just not fair. I have become conditioned that Orange Eset icon = bad. Now every time I look at it, it looks orange and that just bothers me.

I think they should be required to just pop up a little notice and go back to blue. After all, there's nothing altogether wrong. I have time left on the license.

I've sent a bunch of people their direction, and I'll still stay by them as the anti-virus and anti-spyware of choice.

But I'm not happy about the "false orange" thing.

This week has left me feeling contemplative. Nothing specific doing it, just taking a moment. You know, writing is frickin' hard. I've been sitting and staring at a cursor a lot on the train.

I know the words will come. Just takes some time and focus.

I find that, as I grow older, the stuff that I used to get up in arms about still ticks me off, but I don't get as upset. I would prefer to wait and see what happens, and learn from the outcome.

Anyway, that's pretty generic. And it is Friday. I try not to fall into the trap of worshiping Friday, but I gotta say this is a very welcome one.

I'm looking forward to the weekend; spending time with Cyn, playing some great Ravensong with her, and some City of Heroes with my old and new friends.

BTW, if you play City of Heroes, you should listen to the City of Heroes Podcast. Just sayin'. It rocks.

(And I have a total platonic voice crush on Viv! *blush*)

So, I would encourage all of you of a roleplaying bent to go out and get this game, play it, and feel its awesome.

Here's the link:
http://indie-insurgent.livejournal.com/39752.html

One of the reading elements that used to come up a great deal for me was a rune that meant "Consider the uses of adversity." Something I always took as a euphemism for "you're screwed!" But lately I have begun considering it as a literal concept.

Ryan Macklin was on a podcast I enjoy just recently (no, not his own, although I like that one too), one called Stabbing Contest where he talks about failure in game design and how it's a good thing.

I think this dovetails also into the rather poignant interview Jeff and Judd had on their podcast Sons of Kryos with the folks who did the Ashcan Front this year. The AF guys were reporting that sales of ashcans were down, and that designers who weren't at the Front didn't sell as many games as those who were willing to sell the ashcans in person. What was also discussed was that only one of the 20 or so games that have gone through the ashcan process has "graduated" into a published game. (I suspect that Rob Bohl's game "Misspent Youth" will be the next game that graduates, but that's just me.)

What struck me was that the Ashcan Front people say that they don't count success as being that 1 game, rather, they won a mental victory by getting people to agree to draw out their game design process and craft a complete, well-put-together game instead of rushing it to completion before Gen Con.

I myself feel shot down quite a bit when either a.) I find out that the idea that I had spontaneously and was in love with has already been done by people like Luke Crane in "Burning Wheel," Vincent Baker in "Dogs in the Vineyard, or Fred Hicks et al. in Spirit of the Century and b.) when a line of design just doesn't go anywhere useful or c.) I get told that the game I made wasn't a game even though I think it's perfectly playable.

Getting shot down means you failed, and you have to take off again to the skies to try again. I hear a lot about the idea of "Fail Early, Fail Often," concept and, at least, I can be assured that I am following this maxim!

I am still, however, committed to bringing the visions I've had of games to come to life. I've made a good effort in good faith. If I hear the Red Baron of Failure's bullets rip apart my engine, if the black smoke of failure starts billowing, that just means that I've just got to learn from that impact, and try again.

So here I go again...wish me luck, I'm off to find another Sopwith Camel.

*Now, Blum created that system out of whole cloth, utilizing other oracles like the I Ching to help him figure out what each of his 25 runes meant. I've had practitioners of Asatru tell me that his rune interpretations are full of crap; however, I think that what I've learned from interacting with all such oracular systems is this: Tarot, astrology, I Ching, etc. - these are all just means for the subconscious mind to talk to the conscious mind. All mysticism aside, this is a psychological tool for me to get at deeper structures in my brain.

I hope all the naysayers will give him a honeymoon period to prove himself before they weigh in against him.

I'm picturing in my mind the same scene that happens at the end of The West Wing TV show, where Bartlett leaves the White House for the last time while the new president moves in. This is going to be a great day for the nation!

1.) I was in an adult production of "Godspell" on a military base in Atlanta when I was 8. I sang the song that started "On the willows there, we hung up our lyres..."

2.) I was in a terrible car accident when I was 16, and broke my nose so badly that I had to have plastic surgery to restore it to anything that looks like a nose. The surgery freaked me out so badly that I never went back under the knife to have it further corrected, which is why my nose looks like I've been beaten in a boxing match.

3.) I once bought a $200 down overcoat for $50 in the Empire State Building, thanks to the intervention of my then-soon-to-be-ex.

4.) I once spent an entire day riding rollercoasters at Six Flags Great America with the guy who did the Friday the 13th movies (Sean S. Cunningham) and my best friend.

5.) I ran a LARP for 40 kids at an expensive new age summer camp in upstate New York.

6.) I was part of the recruiting team instrumental in hiring a Vice Chairman for Ernst & Young.

7.) I love to make peanut butter sandwiches from toasted bread so that the peanut butter liquefies from the heat. If I can have this with freshly brewed, ice cold sweet tea, I am in heaven.

8.) I once used an Excel spreadsheet to plan my romantic life. Not any more, mind you!

9.) I have travelled through many of the American states. I've ridden horses in the Colorado mountains, seen the Grand Canyon from a helicopter, been propositioned in Las Vegas, had a fantastic hot tub in New Mexico, and I saw the King's house in Memphis.

10.) I walked in a protest march in Forsyth County, GA, back on January 24th, 1987 along with 20,000 other civil rights activists.

11.) Many of the dishes I can make that I love to eat have been taught to me by lovers of mine: biscuits and baked ziti, for example. And yet, before 1986, I had no idea how to cook anything, even boiling water was a mystery to me.

12.) Among my Facebook friends are friends I've known since I was in kindergarten, including more than one childhood sweetheart.

13.) I have been growing beards since I was 17 and in a production of "Man of La Mancha" in high school. We had to grow out our beards because we were all supposed to be prisoners. I played "the Governor" or "the Innkeeper," and my solo song was "Hail, Knight of the Woeful Countenance"

14.) I am totally mesmerized by redheads, especially redhead women - but my life partner Cynthia is a brunette, and I actually prefer her that way.

15.) I once put a three year old to sleep by reading aloud the environmental hazard rules in the 3rd edition D&D Dungeon Master's Guide. In fact, I am known in my family as the baby whisperer, because I can make just about any baby go to sleep safely and peacefully.

16.) I am hell on earbuds. Despite trying to be careful, I always end up catching them in car doors or something, even though I've bought doodads to help me keep the cords tight. So I go through about one pair every two to three weeks. It's ridiculous. One day, I hope to have a bluetooth transceiver so I don't get my cords tangled in everything.

Sixteen people to tag? OK. Technomom, Katie, Hope Evey, Waya, Redcub, James, Amazon Blonde, Bill, Cunning Minx, Debbie, Eddy Webb, J.R. Blackwell, Natalie, Ebony Pearl, Rikibeth, and Wendi

Please don't feel any obligation to do so: this is all in good fun.

Get yours here.

I hear from her mostly though Facebook these days, she's living with her mom in the Bay Area, but I am very happy to have that Facebook thread. I hope she has a most excellent day. She was a wonderful Solsticetide gift to us, and I love her so much, no matter where she is in the world.

I was speaking to a new friend who was telling me about a disabled friend of hers, who effectively has checked out of the human race by making the focus of his life be virtual reality. I was immediately struck by two gut-level reactions; the first was "that poor guy, he needs human contact, needs to be dragged out of his shell, maybe have someone take him out to see the beautiful sky and feel the sun on his face and take in a play or have a hot chocolate." But then I thought about things from the Stross / Vinge perspective. Here's a person who is very happy in his VR world, whose *mind* is perfectly able, whose sexuality and social life exists online. It seems to be conventional wisdom that if you don't use your brain you lose it, and here he is shaping his life around something that gives him stimulation.

In the VR world he has lovers and friends and is active and admired for his personality and presence. I think that guy deserves to be happy as long as whatever's making him happy doesn't hurt anyone else. I think my first impulse had more to do with my social model of what my Grandma would've wanted to do to "help" him. Not that he needs my help!

I think that if we are going towards a singularity, it's possible that disabled / differently-abled / handicapped people will be the early adopters. They are getting the first neural implants, I'm certain. I know that Cynthia has from time to time asked for a new body - Goddess knows that I would give it to her if I could. Makes me wonder if she (or really, anyone) would still be with me if her body was 21 again, but I would jump at the chance to get her a pain-free life. I know that in our own private virtual world - the world of words she and I create together - she is a lot happier when she's visiting there.

I am still withholding judgment on the whole singularity idea. I'll pause while you Google it if you need to. OK. There are people who praise the coming of singularity as if it's going to be the salvation of the human race and there are people who feel the whole idea is creepy.

For me, I am still on the side of the hot chocolate and the sun on my face. But, having visited VR worlds in my head since 1985, I can tell you that I totally understand the siren song of bits over atoms.

If I had glasses, I would be looking over their rims at you, Tech Sector. Give me a break. Get the man a new Blackberry. Why is this hard? He could probably even put in a good word with the FCC for you, get the thing approved early.

Mr. President-Elect, I would like to say that I think you should ditch the Blackberry and hire a tiger team of Google Android nerds who could do just that for you on the new Google phone. Their platform is more open, anyway - the only way we're going to be certain your security is good is if you publish the platform and have all the security experts try to break it.

I wouldn't even bother try to get RIM to play ball; this is a company with a glacial change strategy and an awful proprietary system.

Good luck, President-Elect Obama. Keep fighting for your own tech, your own personal working style. I'm rooting for you.

The other day I procured a very inexpensive Bodum French Press coffee maker. It says "3 cups" on the box, but it should say, "3 faerie pixie sized cups" which should translate as "1/2 Bear Coffee Bowl Mug." 

But who cares? I didn't need that much coffee in me, anyway. Here's the thing; regular readers of my blog will have known that I have a Coffee Bot in my house. The Coffee Bot stores, grinds, and then instantly brews wonderful hot coffee into a thermal carafe. Unfortunately, the years have not been too kind to the Coffee Bot and its front basket access door has become somewhat difficult to open. No matter how much work I do to clean it and make it better, it's still got this door problem. It's a real problem - one has to literally force the door open!

The other problem with the Coffee Bot is that it doesn't make small batches of coffee well. So here I was, making a whole pot of coffee every day which happened to be about 3 times as much coffee as I drank every day. I was pouring a lot of coffee down the drain and that did not make me happy from a "Carbon Footprint" saving the earth kind of perspective. I mean, think of the expense to just get the coffee beans to the Bot. Now think about how I'm only really using 1/3 of the output of said Bot. Very wasteful, to my mind.

Here is where the Bodum press comes in. I've been reading about French Press coffee for some time and have wondered about it. I'd never had any until I procured my little 3-cup wonder. I love it! Yes, I have to get geeky and use a thermometer to see if the water has been heated to 200 degrees in my spinny-teapot. Yes, I have to wait 4 minutes while it brews. Yes, it is a little messy to clean out, but not so messy as the basket in the Coffee Bot! Yes, it gives me just one lovely mug of coffee. But that coffee is so.....wow. It's smooth. It's free of bitterness. It's the kind of coffee I imagine that Ishmael Wang made in "<a href="http://solarclipper.com">Quarter Share</a>" by Nathan Lowell. It's really good. 

So now I get to have many, many more cups of coffee from a bag of beans, I get to have geeky water temperature science fun every day, and I get to have a really good cup of coffee. Not bad for me, my wallet, or the planet!

i think, though, that socializing will require me to get a bigger Press, cause this just makes one mug at a time. Luckily, Bodum makes 'em!

With a little judicious hacking around, I can find any number I'm looking for.

Today, I finally got an answer for a question I've been asking myself every time I've come to work.

"Why is the Peachtree Plaza Hotel still looking like it has just been in a tornado?"

I asked that of the front desk person and she said that the reason was that the windows on the Peachtree Plaza Hotel are all 30 years old, and nobody makes 30 year old windows.

Nobody is able to create a replacement window that will exactly match the tone of the windows around it.

Isn't that amazing?

As a result, the hotel looks like a tubular version of those old time computer punch cards with lots of punches taken out of it.

Apparently the only working strategy to repair the look of the hotel is to replace every single one of the windows on the outside of the structure. Can you believe that? Every single window replaced!

If it were me, I'd hire an artist to turn the bad windows into some kind of cool design.

Anyway, this could be definitely a big symbol. It means you can't fake authenticity. It means you can't replace old things for new and not suffer.

But it could also be a symbol for a lack of planning. Didn't the hotel think they might one day want replacements for these windows? If so, why didn't they lay in a stash of windows? I suppose they would've needed to be exposed to the same environmental conditions or something, to be exactly the same.

It is definitely a symbol for the current economic times. In younger days, they would've replaced all the windows right away and damn the expense! Not today. Hotels, especially big tall hotels, are probably not as profitable as they once were.

This hotel was for a short time the tallest hotel in the world - it's not at all anymore. It rises up and dominates the Atlanta skyline, though. I love that hotel, and I hope they get it back to looking right again. But I have a feeling it's going to take a few years.

But at least now I won't be wondering every time I pass it by!

Obama has my vote; it has been recorded and sent on. We may not change history here in Georgia tonight, but I am hopeful that all those who voted for him throughout the country will make their mark, cast their ballot and create an everlasting moment in the yielding sands of time.

No matter what other conflict, trouble, or difficulty I find myself in today, I know that I have done something today dedicated to lasting and sustainable change.

Obscuring fog drifts in for me. I really like this Creative Commons-Attribution photo of a Canadian foggy day, and it reflects some of my current feelings. A new novel like my Eulalie project, requires a huge amount of creation. World creation, character creation.

My last book, Heart of the Hunter, was easier in many ways in that I was already familiar with the characters from a previous novel attempt (a NaNoWriMo novel that got to about 40,000 words and then collapsed) and I was certainly well versed already in Cora-Ni, the fantasy world I've been creating and discovering since I was 8 years old.

Eulalie means that I have to get to know these people, these characters who have started to speak to me. It also means that I have the real world to draw from. Now, you may think that makes it easier for me, but it doesn't. I frequently have a hard time thinking of the real world as being full of the narrative juice that makes writing fun for me.

So I can linger in text over the complex machinations of a sorcerer preparing a spell, but the day-to-day life of a social worker trying to make ends meet leaves me with a certain kind of ennui. If I am not intrigued and interested, my readers surely won't be.

My own advice to someone in my situation is "write what you love." And the thing of it is, I love Eulalie House and all who live in her. I'm just trying to pick up on the literary grammar and syntax of how one creates a story in this toolset.

I think that's what I should stick to: why do I love these people? Why do I care about them? What happens to them and how can I explain it in a way that will get the reader to care about them? Good questions to keep coming back to.

It's a post about two guys, Matt Selznick and JC Hutchins, who both bear consideration should you or your company be up to hiring ONE or TWO New Media Geniuses. It's not like New Media Geniuses are thick on the ground!

Take a look at KJ's post and see what I mean.

Give me 10 minutes of your time, if you will, to learn more about Blog Action Day and what you can do to help.

Blog Action Day info is here.

I am planning on humbly submitting the completed work to http://podiobooks.com just as soon as I figure out their naming convention and fix one or two of my files.

In re-listening to my work, I think the story hangs together pretty well. I don't know of any loose ends or, at the very least, ends that are annoyingly loose. If you have any questions about the story, the characters, or anything - let me know. I would love to put up a "Q&A" show like some podcast novelists do.

The last half of the book...from about episode 14....is better than the first half. That's the way it is with first drafts. I am going to be going back and revising, editing, chopping off chunks here and there. For my "agent submission draft" I intend to make it as tight a story as I can.

But that is not now. I need some distance from the work to be able to go back to it and treat it like a stranger as I disembowel it and re-arrange it and make it as close to perfect as I can. Don't get me wrong: I am pleased and satisfied with the draft I've turned out. This is a complete story. And the audiobook format means people don't quite so bored with 120K words as they would if they were holding it in their hands. But I want it to be smaller - around 80K words - and tighter, more fast-paced. This may mean cutting some of my favorite scenes. That's OK, that's what editing is about.

I have already begun writing on the project I will call Eulalie. Eulalie is a code name for what I really want to call it, but I am holding off naming the project publicaly until I can afford a domain for it. That may be silly but that's what I want to do. Cynthia says that Eulalie is a very silly name - and I have to agree, but it definitely has a Southern belle feeling, which is what I really like about it.

Eulalie is radically different from Heart of the Hunter in that it is set in the modern day and it is more of a magic realism / urban fantasy / supernatural romance story. I don't want to talk about it too much, because writing about it peripherally diminishes the need to write the novel itself.

I am discovering characters right now who are quite talky and well-formed. A plot has yet to show itself, but that will come. I'm excited about the story and I'm looking forward to working on it. The best part is I have not yet once been tempted to hang White Wolf Storyteller game stats on these characters. This means, to me, that I have finally been far enough away from WW stuff to have my own cool urban fantasy story ideas. Yay!

After "Eulalie" is in first draft form, I intend to write another novel which will be set in the same world as, and have a similar timeline to the novel "Heart of the Hunter." Once you hear the name of the book, you'll start to pick up on a certain pattern. Once again, I want to wait until I have domain name in hand to announce that book. I have plenty of stories I can tell in the Cora-Ni Chronicles and all of them will be contiguous and share a milieu with "Heart of the Hunter."

So, go on over to http://heartofthehunter.com and subscribe, download all 27 episodes, and listen to them. I think you'll have a great time!

Take-a-Picture Meme

Originally uploaded by SambearPoet

Meme reads like this:
Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

I love how quickly I could do this on my break. XMLRPC is your friend.

Here's the tale of the tape:
27 Chapters
112,874 Words
303 Pages 1.5 spaced 12 point Times New Roman

Writing Time:
Background writing (for character studies) took place in November, 2006, over NaNoWriMo.
Writing the novel itself started January 9, 2007
Writing duration: 1 year, 9 months, 14 days

Now, I just have to record the last few podcasts, and I am done.

So what's next you may ask? Editing! Then Agent Search!

And more writing!

Oooh, to talk about that, I'll have to wait until I get the URLs secured

What a great first date it was, too. We plan on celebrating after the 15th, when I get paid. I'm tinkin' the new French restaurant in town, but we'll what she wants.

This relationship literally represents my longest running one. And yet, I am just as enchanted with her today as I was 10 years ago.

Here's to you, love! Let's have 10 more! And 10 more! and 10 more after that....and after that, 10 more! (and so on!)

I really enjoyed my time this year and here's why:

• David Moore from The Game Master Show podcast stayed with me, hung out with me, and defrayed the cost of getting to and from Dragon*Con and bought me some meals. Yay, David!
• Hope Evey came to visit unexpectedly, which is a delight past all imagining.
• I got to meet Jack and Theresa Jaffee from 12 Volt Theater. They are a wonderful couple we had a great time trolling the various huckster booths at Dragon*Con together.
• My time on staff at the Podcast Track was pleasant and not at all onerous. I probably would have spent the time there, anyway, so it was wonderful.
• I got to play Spirit of the Century with some cool new gaming friends, plus the aforementioned Jack and Theresa.
• My Second Life panel went well, though we had a griefer kid show up and proceed to heckle us from a prone position in a whiney voice. I guess you have to have the griefer experience to really understand Second Life, anyway.
• Thursday, I had dinner with PG Holyfield and his wife, Liza; Rick and Anne Stringer from the Variant Frequencies podcast, Thomas (cmdln) from The Command Line podcast, Kimi from the Tale Chasing podcast, and her partner Soulhuntre.
• Friday, I had a very loud dinner with Jack, Theresa, Kentucky John, Katsuhiro, and Leon Dale - it was at a diner with karaoke.
• I got to see my friend Gary, his wife and friends of his and another guy from my UGA days: Thom Luthman! Also my old White Wolf compatriots John and Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg!
• I ended up the 'con with a fantastic dinner with a whole bunch of really cool podcasters: JC Hutchins, Tee Morris, John Cmar and his wife Laura Burns, Chris the Fixed Kitty from the Adult Space Child Free Podcast (and her partner, Henry), along with Rick and Anne Stringer (who seemed to be bookending the Dragon*Con experience for me!) and Anna  from Washington fromVirginia. Then we got to play some Mad Scientist's University back at the Hilton before it was time for Katarina and I to go home.

And that's that. If I've forgotten someone, let me know and I'll be glad to update this post

A Simple Request

Reviews on iTunes help podcast rankings, which helps make a podcast findable by people who haven't heard them before. Some of my podcasts have reviews on iTunes, and some of them don't. If you've enjoyed them, I would like to ask you if you would please leave a review on iTunes.

It will help other people discover them, and it doesn't cost you anything but a few minutes of your time. I've left a few podcast reviews myself on my favorite podcasts, and it takes a little time for the iTunes staff to release the review postings, so don't expect to see them show up for a little while.

Here are some iTunes links for my podcasts, just to make it easy for you.

• The Bear's Grove
• Heart of the Hunter
• Dragonkin
• The Square One Podcast

This is my funeral for him, in part. This post.

I wish I could've given him a proper Viking funeral, with all the pomp and circumstance, and a 1,001 drunken warriors singing off-key at the top of their lungs, "The Devil's Mad and I am Glad, Glory Halleluah!" Which was one of the songs he used to sing to taunt us when we were ticked off at him.

I loved him. I didn't like him much, but I loved him as much as any little boy can love his Dad. And now I choose to remember all of the parts where we didn't conflict, where I respected him, where he amazed me with his abilities and his powers of fixing things, making things go.

And that which is remembered, lives.

<a href="http://www.cuil.com/search?q=%22Sam+Chupp%22">http://www.cuil.com/search?q=%22Sam+Chupp%22</a>

My home page isn't even on there! None of my blogs! None of my podcasts! Man, what a waste.

Not that, you know, anybody but me is going to be doing this search.

Oh! Another thing! Internet Explorer hates WordPress? What? I can't post to WordPress through IE7. Ballmer must've ticked off the WP guys.

In case you don't listen to <a href="http://heartofthehunter.com">Heart of the Hunter</a>, my fantasy audio book, I have announced that there will be a Heart of the Hunter "Gypsy Tea" event at Dragon*Con. 3:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Hilton.

All but the Tlini Tana are invited (and the Tlini knows who they are, or should by now!)

I've been re-listening to the book and I gotta say there are some bits that I really want to go back and re-record. Especially an episode that was either recorded in the rain or during a particularly fierce period of <a href="http://technomom.com">Technomom</A> typing.

I hate not being able to talk about the book to people because it's spoiler city for those who wanna read it. There are, I'm told, people who are waiting until the entire thing is done before they'll listen. OK. Maybe I'll have a Sekrit Forum somewhere that I'll use to discuss the book after it's up in its entirety.

Eep at the time. I'm gonna have to go to work now. Bye!

But I wanted to point out only a small sampling of the podcasts that I have really been enjoying:

Double Share by Nathan Lowell. Nathan's got me hooked something fierce. His stories bring a smile to my lips, makes me long for a time I've never had before. He's over on Podiobooks.com - and I am very sad for some of you who don't have the ability to sit and listen to your stories, because that's the only way you can get his work right now. He isn't about to release via Lulu or some other e-Publisher, he's waiting for a traditional publishing situation to happen. That's OK, but it just means that you can only get his stuff by listening to it.

Shadowdance Podcast with my friend Chris Miller and his good friend (and my acquaintance) Michelle Belanger is one of the most reasoned, rationalist podcast on psychic vampires and the occult that I've ever run into. I would enjoy listening to these two discuss their laundry, but when they talk about fascinating topics they're interested in, it makes for a very agreeable listen.

You'll always get a fairly balanced view that includes the skeptical and agnostic of us who aren't entirely sure there's anything magical going on at all.

Listening to Chris talk about his personal experience on the most recent Shadowdance, it just makes me like the man I know even more: he and I have have had many of the same magical experiences, many of the same conclusions have been drawn.

And, by the way, I am still a huge fan of The Sixty One. Finding musicians like Grace Buford (Cylindrian Rutabega) Nance Brody, Scooter Pietsch, and Hannah has been a sanity-restoring blessing.

Check out my imbedded little Sixty One widget in the sidebar for more info.

Until later, big hugs to those who want them!

Lots of music sort of in the background on this one.

Credit where Credit's Due:

Cassandra Kubinski

Rebecca Loebe

The Lascivious Biddies

And many, many more!

And on the NanoMonkeys podcast, I have a writing podcast up.

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/21/podcasts-for-today/feed/ 0 http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/20/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-20/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/20/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-20/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:00:09 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=22 Here is a bit of a rant on Thanksgiving!
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/20/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-20/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Here is a bit of a rant on Thanksgiving! Here is a bit of a rant on Thanksgiving! Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/19/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-19/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/19/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-19/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:00:19 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=21 This is me, ranting about customer service issues.

Definitely earn me some Mature tag here. NSFW

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/19/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-19/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This is me, ranting about customer service issues. Definitely earn me some Mature tag here. NSFW This is me, ranting about customer service issues. Definitely earn me some Mature tag here. NSFW Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/18/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-18/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/18/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-18/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:30:49 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=20 Here is a very short, not very good podcast with great music at the end from Cassandra Kubinski (Her website is here) The song is called "Cradle the Moon"
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/18/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-18/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Here is a very short, not very good podcast with great music at the end from Cassandra Kubinski (Her website is here) The song is ... Here is a very short, not very good podcast with great music at the end from Cassandra Kubinski (Her website is here) The song is called "Cradle the Moon" Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/17/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-17/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/17/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-17/#comments Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:20:27 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=19 This is my little shout out to my fellow NaPodPoMoans
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/17/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-17/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This is my little shout out to my fellow NaPodPoMoans This is my little shout out to my fellow NaPodPoMoans Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/16/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-16/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/16/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-16/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:00:24 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=18 A bit about hair, and a little Second Life.
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/16/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-16/feed/ 0 00:01:01 A bit about hair, and a little Second Life. A bit about hair, and a little Second Life. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/15/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-15/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/15/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-15/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:00:36 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=17 Gaming! I finally manage to mention it fully!

Check out my gaming podcasts The Bear's Grove and The Square One Podcast

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/15/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-15/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Gaming! I finally manage to mention it fully! Check out my gaming podcasts The Bear's Grove and The Square One Podcast Gaming! I finally manage to mention it fully! Check out my gaming podcasts The Bear's Grove and The Square One Podcast Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/14/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-14/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/14/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-14/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:00:04 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=16 Yet another Bear Cast! About Pecha Kucha towards the end

http://www.atlantapechakucha.com/

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/14/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-14/feed/ 3 00:01:01 Yet another Bear Cast! About Pecha Kucha towards the end http://www.atlantapechakucha.com/ Yet another Bear Cast! About Pecha Kucha towards the end http://www.atlantapechakucha.com/ Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/13/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-13/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/13/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-13/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:31:00 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=15 This is about music and features me singing a little at the end. Yipe!
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/13/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-13/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This is about music and features me singing a little at the end. Yipe! This is about music and features me singing a little at the end. Yipe! Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/12/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-12/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/12/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-12/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:00:04 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=14 This one is a soundseeing tour of my favorite coffee-and-other-stuff-cafe shop, Kavarna

Also, please go and wish Technomom (Cynthia) a Happy Birthday today!

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/12/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-12/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This one is a soundseeing tour of my favorite coffee-and-other-stuff-cafe shop, Kavarna Also, please go and wish Technomom (Cynthia) a Happy Birthday today! This one is a soundseeing tour of my favorite coffee-and-other-stuff-cafe shop, Kavarna Also, please go and wish Technomom (Cynthia) a Happy Birthday today! Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/11/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-11/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/11/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-11/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:00:46 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=13 This one is about death. Yeah, a happy topic for a Sunday.
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/11/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-11/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This one is about death. Yeah, a happy topic for a Sunday. This one is about death. Yeah, a happy topic for a Sunday. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/10/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-10/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/10/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-10/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:20:31 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=12 Sorry this one is running late - it's about being Southern.
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/10/the-sam-bear-cast-for-11-10/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Sorry this one is running late - it's about being Southern. Sorry this one is running late - it's about being Southern. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/09/the-sam-bear-cast-for-november-9th/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/09/the-sam-bear-cast-for-november-9th/#comments Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:00:35 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=11 This is a total waste of time - I wouldn't listen to it if I were you! But go ahead! What the hell! It's Friday!
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/09/the-sam-bear-cast-for-november-9th/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This is a total waste of time - I wouldn't listen to it if I were you! But go ahead! What the hell! It's Friday! This is a total waste of time - I wouldn't listen to it if I were you! But go ahead! What the hell! It's Friday! Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/08/november-8th-podcast/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/08/november-8th-podcast/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:00:36 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=10 Welcome to Thursday!

Katarina gives me feedback on my theories about Kids These Days.

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/08/november-8th-podcast/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Welcome to Thursday! Katarina gives me feedback on my theories about Kids These Days. Welcome to Thursday! Katarina gives me feedback on my theories about Kids These Days. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/07/november-7th-podcast/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/07/november-7th-podcast/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:00:52 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=9 Talking about social engineering of new social moraes. Special guest Katarina.
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/07/november-7th-podcast/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Talking about social engineering of new social moraes. Special guest Katarina. Talking about social engineering of new social moraes. Special guest Katarina. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/06/the-sam-bear-cast-for-tuesday/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/06/the-sam-bear-cast-for-tuesday/#comments Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:00:39 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=8 Here is my podcast for today. Short, but personal.
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/06/the-sam-bear-cast-for-tuesday/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Here is my podcast for today. Short, but personal. Here is my podcast for today. Short, but personal. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/05/november-5th-podcast/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/05/november-5th-podcast/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:00:36 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=7 Welcome to Monday!

For more Sambear Goodness, check out my other podcasts:

 http://fireheartfoundry.com

]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/05/november-5th-podcast/feed/ 0 00:01:01 Welcome to Monday! For more Sambear Goodness, check out my other podcasts: nbsp;http://fireheartfoundry.com Welcome to Monday! For more Sambear Goodness, check out my other podcasts: nbsp;http://fireheartfoundry.com Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/04/sambear-cast-november-4-2007/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/04/sambear-cast-november-4-2007/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:01:27 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=6 This podcast contains rambling about cats, grits in Decatur on a Sunday morning, Scott Sigler's novel "EarthCore", Katherine Kurtz's novels.
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/04/sambear-cast-november-4-2007/feed/ 0 00:01:01 This podcast contains rambling about cats, grits in Decatur on a Sunday morning, Scott Sigler's novel "EarthCore", Katherine Kurtz's novels. This podcast contains rambling about cats, grits in Decatur on a Sunday morning, Scott Sigler's novel "EarthCore", Katherine Kurtz's novels. Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/03/podcast-2/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/03/podcast-2/#comments Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:00:07 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=5 Another cast! Wow - can he keep it up?
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/03/podcast-2/feed/ 1 00:01:01 Another cast! Wow - can he keep it up? Another cast! Wow - can he keep it up? Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/02/bear-cast/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/02/bear-cast/#comments Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:00:47 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=3 This is a podcast for the National Podcast Posting Month! Check out http://napodpomo.ning.com for more info!
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/02/bear-cast/feed/ 1 00:01:01 This is a podcast for the National Podcast Posting Month! Check out http://napodpomo.ning.com for more info! This is a podcast for the National Podcast Posting Month! Check out http://napodpomo.ning.com for more info! Podcasts sambearpoet@gmail.com no No http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/02/hello-everybody/ http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/02/hello-everybody/#comments Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:37:02 +0000 Sam Chupp http://sambearpoet.com/?p=4 Just moving into my new digs!
]]> http://sambearpoet.com/2007/11/02/hello-everybody/feed/ 0 Sam ChuppnonadultA Whole Lot of Blathering