Category: Uncategorized

“So there I was…”

It is a sad truth that even the most well-meaning adventurers often skimp, during the preparatory phases of an expedition, on the issue of written correspondence.  And who can blame them?  Who wants to pack an entire printing press and a flock of pigeons when that precious cargo space could be devoted to one’s blunderbuss, several kegs of black powder, a treasure map, and various  tomes of forgotten lore?  Nobody, ladies and gentlemen.  Nobody.

And what a pity– so many details of the adventuring life have been lost to the ages. What goods must one never offer for barter to the one-eyed witch priests of Zanzibar?  What music will soothe the savage bloodlust of the legendary Yeti?  Does Charon accept multi-zone bus transfers?  The loss of such knowledge is a tragedy.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why today I am pleased to unveil the Portable Letterpress.

The life of a natural philosopher is filled with long hours spent toiling in the darkness, punctuated with brief moments of ecstasy and insight.   Even the greatest physical intuition is meaningless unless backed up with perseverance.   But what a reward to see one’s hypotheses validated!   What joy to see one’s understanding of nature yield concrete results.  (And, more sweetly, to savor the humiliation of one’s enemies and detractors).

To that end, I proudly unveil the culmination of my research on the bodily humours.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you — straight from the bleeding forefront of Victorian steam-powered arcana — the Aetheric Electro-Imager.

I’m happy to say that my website has seen a little bump in search engine traffic since Cory Doctorow tweeted about how much he enjoyed reading an advance copy of my first novel, Bitter Seeds, which will be hitting shelves on April 13, 2010. (Hooray!)

(Cory was one of my Clarion instructors back in 2005, the penultimate year of Clarion’s long run at Michigan State before it moved to UCSD. That’s right — I’ve lived in a sorority house with Cory Doctorow. How many men can say that? Well, the other guys in my Clarion class, I guess.)

Anyway, because of the traffic bump, I thought this might be a good time to mention that we’ve added a newsletter signup form on the contact page. More info below the cut.

I learned something very important this past week.

It is possible — with the proper combination of enthusiasm, clumsiness, and dumb luck — to throw the ball backwards, into the crowd, in Wii Bowling.