How Fast Are You?

How I Want to Die

“While I had often said that I wanted to die in bed, what I really meant was that in my old age I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.”
– Roger Zelazny

And that’s how I want to go. Although, now that I think about it, there should be aliens involved too. At least a ray gun.

Workaround

Brought to us by the always accurate xkcd.

Around the World in 80 Days, with Bellydancers

Click to enbiggen

When

Saturday, April 24, 2010
Matinee at 2:00 p.m.
Evening show at 7:00 p.m.

Where

North Hollywood Masonic Temple
5122 Tujunga Avenue
North Hollywood, CA 91601-3782

Who

Produced by Sacred Circles Productions, and benefiting the Midnight Mission‘s Family Housing Unit.

How

The usual way. Buy tickets now!

Bonus

Afterparty at the Amsterdam Cafe in North Hollywood from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. A $5 donation is requested! Performers at the After Party include Kalima Satori, Jessica Martinez, Desert Lotus Tribal, Irina, & Chimay.

I’ll be there. Will you? You know you want to.

Warren Ellis’ Cocktail Recipes

Looking for a great series of cocktail recipes? Look no further than professional drunkard writer Warren Ellis:

What could be simpler? For ease of reference, it’s also available as a t-shirt for the next week or so.

Geeknerd Venn

Now you know.

Via Sed Contra.

On Aliens and Vampires

Another audio story I really liked recently was “The Things” by Peter Watts, as heard on the Clarkesworld Magazine podcast. It’s the story of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), told from the perspective of the shape-shifting, infectious alien. I don’t want to say much more about it, but if you haven’t seen movie in a while, watch it, then follow it up¹ with this story.

Mr. Watts is a biologist by trade, and his writing is always grounded in hard science, complete with exhaustive bibliographies. His stories are also pretty damned dark, which I love. I first discovered him through his Rifters series, Starfish, Maelstrom, and Behemoth, all of which are available online, are really dark, and chock full of good sciencey stuff.

His most recent novel, Blindsight, is also available online, and really baked my noodle². It’s an absolutely fascinating exploration on the nature of intelligence and self-awareness, and how the two are, to a certain extent, mutually exclusive. If you’re interested in cognition at all, it’s well worth your time. Plus, it’s got a space vampire.

Finally, Mr. Watts is also the fellow who produced the amazing dead-pan presentation “Vampire Domestication: Taming Yesterday’s Nightmares for a Better Tomorrow” which he first presented at a con in 2005. Again, if you’re interested in science, biology and/or vampires, well worth your time.

More audio fiction reviews to come, methinks.

Chase it down? ↩
In a good way! ↩

On Plausability, Causality and Zeppelins

I’ve been listening to a lot of short fiction audio stories lately^{PodCastle’s recording of “Biographical Notes to ‘A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes’ by Benjamin Rosenbaum” by Benjamin Rosenbaum. That’s not a typo, by the way; the author’s name is in the title itself, which will make sense when you hear the story.}

This story first appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and it’s a real treat. I love stories that have alternate history, airships, swashed buckles, world-as-myth, and a wicked sense of humor. This story has all of that, plus well-informed philosophical musings on the nature of writing, imagination, causality, and our perceptions thereof.

Go listen to it on PodCastle, or you can read it for free online.

Which have been keeping me sane(ish) during my new, interminable commute ↩

Dog Stache

Best. Pet product. Ever.

Only $15 from Muttropolis. Via 2modern.

Time Enough for Love

Words to live by:

The more you love, the more you can love and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

– Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love

Via Sooz.