This has probably been floating around for a while, but I’ve just discovered that my favorite television commercial now has a sequel.
Why do I get such a kick out of these commercials? Sense of humor, they has it. I like the best. I push to limit, every time.
In related news, I’m now #572,156 on the waiting list for my own petite lap giraffe.
I’m going to have to stock up on bubble bath and bonsai trees, though. Otherwise my PLG will make tears.
I could watch that PetiteLapGiraffeCam all day. Though I do wonder how that fence could possibly enclose a giraffe of either size. They must be very well trained and docile animals.
Those are great commercials! I am now #572,845. I mean, who wouldn’t want a PLG.
They are great commercials. They are epic win. Much inspirational.
I met Margaret Atwood Thursday. My epic win is more win than yours.
You are epic win for not dying of the pneumonia. (No pain, no pain.) Which I sorta thought you had.
Did you tell Atwood that she has, in fact, written science fiction and to stop being a snob about it? Because that would be the MOST epic win ever.
She admitted only to writing speculative fiction under the pretense of cautionary advice. I think she insists on the distinction because her characters are always fully human (ie, no superpowers). It’s a very fine line, though, and mostly a subjective one. I hate genre labels–there are so many sub- and alt-categories that it seems now to be completely nonsensical to apply any of them to a book.
Also, yes! I’m not dead. I almost was, though, and in reflection, I think I might be invincible. I nearly die at least once a year, which is a story for another time.
Now we know why you were really at the laser meeting–clearly Epic Win needs a really big laser and just might bump you up the PLG list. Well played, sir.
Well played, sir.
I push to limit. Every time!
She admitted only to writing speculative fiction under the pretense of cautionary advice. I think she insists on the distinction because her characters are always fully human (ie, no superpowers).
I’ve never met the lady or spoken with her, so I’ll take your word for it. I do know, based on statements by her that I have read, that the insistence on this distinction comes from straight-up genre snobbery. Atwood doesn’t write science fiction because she writes literature which is important and about something. And everybody knows that science fiction can’t be literature.
Genre labels are very nonsensical. I completely agree. Isn’t all fiction speculative? Not much of a concession from Atwood. (Who is, without question, an extremely fine writer.)
My hypothesis is that you’re more like The Tick: nigh invulnerable. Or like in that Bruce Willis movie. You’re probably impervious to all but one thing. You’ll live forever until somebody shoots you with an arrow of mistletoe. My advice? Stay away from archery clubs.
I love teh LOLSpeak Russian oligarch! “Opulence – I haz it.”
“Petite Lap Giraffe,” though, totally sounds like a euphemism. Of course, if it were, who’d want a “petite” one?
I love teh LOLSpeak Russian oligarch!
I guess we could call him a LOLigarch.
Haha. This brings back a lot of memories from World Fantasy for some reason! First you need to find a petite giraffe that walks on treadmills. This, I’d like to see.
And don’t forget Ian, even though science can’t be literature, I guess horror can be. Take Justin Cronin’s The Passage that came out last year. It’s obviously a post-apocalyptic grandson of Stepehen King’s The Stand ( and a carbon copy as well, but that’s just my opinion) obviously rooted in genre conventions of horror. Yet still, it’s marketed as literature?!
Ridiculous.
World Fantasy is epic win. It pushes to limit, every time.
First you need to find a petite giraffe that walks on treadmills. This, I’d like to see.
Not just that, but a petite giraffe with a knack for artfully draping a tiny tea towel over its neck during a workout. But when I find that giraffe… I jump in it.
Genre labels are strange things, aren’t they? Largely they’re marketing tools, and in that capacity, I’m all for them if they help readers find my books. (I mean, Stephen King and Dean Koontz have written a *lot* of science fiction and fantasy over the course of their careers. But it never hurt them much because they’ve never been labeled as SFF writers, as far as I understand.)
The best explanation of genre labels (aside from the marketing angle) that I’ve heard comes from either Jo Walton or Teresa Nielsen Hayden: the label tells a reader how to read a book, by letting them know which tropes and shorthands are relevant to the story, and identifies the body of pre-existing writing with which the story is having its conversation.