On my morning commute today I was behind a car with the personalized plate: MORE DPS. I couldn't agree more.
Guess tomorrow's the big reveal. Much of my desk is already cleared out. Hmm.
Got my rejection from F&SF this weekend. I only got as far as one of the assistant editors. Still, it wasn't a form letter, but a real letter with a signature, which was nice. Granted, they just pasted my name and my title into a Word doc -- I found the same rejection, verbatim, online -- and hit print, but even so, quite nice, I thought.
Not sure where I'll send it next. Asimov's has a bunch of hoops you have to jump through, and that seems like a lot of trouble for a rejection. I went through my list of lower-tier publications last night, and the majority of them have gone under. No big surprise there, I guess... it's a tough business. Many of the remaining places have non-continuous submission windows, and the one I want to hit up next stops accepting submissions... carry the one... today. Rather than push the deadline, I'm thinking I'll just wait till they open it up again (sometime in February I believe).
Meantime, I briefly mastered the intense depression that swallows me whole every time I look at Tezarul, tweaked it to match some requirements, and submitted it to a flash fiction place.
Spent the weekend getting that website side project in a fit state for development again. I lost my work when the mac died a while back, and had to rejigger it from my backup. That gave me the opportunity to correct a few mistakes I made in the deployment process in my first pass, which was nice. But I wound up spending most of a night trying to de-fuck (technical term) some mangled files, which was frustrating. End result: it's back and in better shape than before, and I'm making headway again. I got the basic security stuff set up and working, so I'm able to restrict content to users with certain rights now. Next up: storing passwords encrypted instead of in plain text.
Got my Buffy set and it is indeed awesome. Kidzookie and I binged on season 1 almost immediately, and he's hooked, especially on the standalone eps that don't really advance the overall plot. Wifezilla's coming around, too. She's watched an episode or two a night with me for the past few nights. I have hopes that she'll soon admit that she's actually enjoying the show.
As a result, yes, Coyote, I'm afraid that (much like almost everything I Netflix lately) Tropic Thunder is going to pull a longish stint on my coffee table before being viewed. But I've got a good reason this time, at least. I'm binging on 7 seasons here, man.
My hands hurt like hell all the time any more. Perhaps it's time I planned a graceful exit from 40 hours of typing a week for some time down the road?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
How They Find Me: November 2009 Edition
I don't get many funny search terms any more, just the same ones repeated ad nauseam. (Apparently Google thinks I'm a leading expert on tequila.) The days of people endlessly searching my site for groin mustard and naked Hitler groin massages seem to have gone the way of the dodo.
Alas.
But tonight I found out that one of my posts got Dugg (only twice, but hey, that's doubly amazing to me), and that prompted me to check my search terms out of cycle. And when I did so, I found this:
Most of it's pretty typical of my month-to-month results. There's two things I want to point out to you here, though.
First, someone's coming here to find out what suyapi means. I guess it's as good a place as any, but I don't think you'll find the answer here. You really have to experience suyapi.
Second, and more importantly, a Carl Sagan quote is tied for #1 most visits to my site. That's fucking awesome.
P.S. Groin mustard guy? Where are you? I'm worried about you. Let's talk.
Alas.
But tonight I found out that one of my posts got Dugg (only twice, but hey, that's doubly amazing to me), and that prompted me to check my search terms out of cycle. And when I did so, I found this:
Most of it's pretty typical of my month-to-month results. There's two things I want to point out to you here, though.
First, someone's coming here to find out what suyapi means. I guess it's as good a place as any, but I don't think you'll find the answer here. You really have to experience suyapi.
Second, and more importantly, a Carl Sagan quote is tied for #1 most visits to my site. That's fucking awesome.
P.S. Groin mustard guy? Where are you? I'm worried about you. Let's talk.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Immature Taco is Immature
PHONE: Ring ring.
TACO: Hello?
KR4STER: Hey man.
TACO & KR4STER: Blah blah blah.
TACO: So I picked up the demo for Wet. It's fucking awesome. It's like being in a John Woo movie.
KR4STER: Download now? Yes.
TACO: Cool, are you getting Wet?
KR4STER: ...
TACO: rofl
TACO: Hello?
KR4STER: Hey man.
TACO & KR4STER: Blah blah blah.
TACO: So I picked up the demo for Wet. It's fucking awesome. It's like being in a John Woo movie.
KR4STER: Download now? Yes.
TACO: Cool, are you getting Wet?
KR4STER: ...
TACO: rofl
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Just nod if you can hear me.
WIFEZILLA: Hey, I've got an idea.
TACO: Well, be nice to it. It's got to be lonely.
WIFEZILLA: <_<
TACO: >_>
WIFEZILLA: <_<
TACO: >_>
WIFEZILLA: All right, that was pretty good.
TACO: Yay!
TACO: Well, be nice to it. It's got to be lonely.
WIFEZILLA: <_<
TACO: >_>
WIFEZILLA: <_<
TACO: >_>
WIFEZILLA: All right, that was pretty good.
TACO: Yay!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Enjoy Buffy and the Vampires.
My mom gave me a check for my birthday last night. I anticipated the parental check and asked everybody else for money this year for my birthday. The proceeds thereof got me the collected set of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on DVD. I called my mom tonight to tell her that she bought me the Buffy DVD set for my birthday. There followed a 45-minute-long conversation about this and that after which my mother told me that she hoped I enjoyed "Buffy and the vampires."
My mom is adorable and awesome.
I follow the blogs of several of my favorite authors. One in particular I particularly obsess over. I think she's absolutely amazing, and I readily admit that she's far smarter than I am. She tends to rail on against her writing being categorized, though, and that's always a huge letdown for me.
I'm setting aside and ignoring the morons who defy categorization because they want to establish a false mystique. She's awesome, and beyond that kind of crap. And yes, I'm well aware that there's a stigma against "genre fiction." I still think the attitude is bullshit and disappointing.
We as human beings categorize things. It's part of our nature. It helps us to deal with things intellectually, and it's not going to stop. And it's beneficial to you. If I want to recommend you to a friend, I'm far more likely to be successful if I can relate you to something that they can understand. Categorizing things is a great way to put them in the general ballpark.
Yes. I'm well aware that categories almost always fall short. So is my audience. So they know I'm just giving them the high points.
Yes. I'm well aware that there occasionally erupts something new that doesn't fit an existing genre. Know what we do then? We define a new genre by your work. Know what else? You're probably not actually a new genre.
God, I hate this self-aggrandizing bullshit. Someone called you horror. But you want to be called Weird Fiction. Shut the fuck up and let people convince other people to buy your shit.
Why must people be so self-defeatingly contrary? And yes, I'm also well aware of the irony of that question.
My mom is adorable and awesome.
I follow the blogs of several of my favorite authors. One in particular I particularly obsess over. I think she's absolutely amazing, and I readily admit that she's far smarter than I am. She tends to rail on against her writing being categorized, though, and that's always a huge letdown for me.
I'm setting aside and ignoring the morons who defy categorization because they want to establish a false mystique. She's awesome, and beyond that kind of crap. And yes, I'm well aware that there's a stigma against "genre fiction." I still think the attitude is bullshit and disappointing.
We as human beings categorize things. It's part of our nature. It helps us to deal with things intellectually, and it's not going to stop. And it's beneficial to you. If I want to recommend you to a friend, I'm far more likely to be successful if I can relate you to something that they can understand. Categorizing things is a great way to put them in the general ballpark.
Yes. I'm well aware that categories almost always fall short. So is my audience. So they know I'm just giving them the high points.
Yes. I'm well aware that there occasionally erupts something new that doesn't fit an existing genre. Know what we do then? We define a new genre by your work. Know what else? You're probably not actually a new genre.
God, I hate this self-aggrandizing bullshit. Someone called you horror. But you want to be called Weird Fiction. Shut the fuck up and let people convince other people to buy your shit.
Why must people be so self-defeatingly contrary? And yes, I'm also well aware of the irony of that question.
Off to #2.
Magazine #2. Not bodily waste elimination function #2. You're gross.
Just got back from mailing my story in to Fantasy & Science Fiction. They reject really quickly, so hopefully I'll be able to mail it out to Asimov's by sometime next week.
Just got back from mailing my story in to Fantasy & Science Fiction. They reject really quickly, so hopefully I'll be able to mail it out to Asimov's by sometime next week.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
It sounded less disgusting in my head.
Pot roast + vodka + chocolate birthday cake + burp smells a lot like Indian food.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Rejected But Not Unexpected
Got my rejection letter from Analog today. Regrettably (but unsurprisingly), I got a form letter rejection, so it wasn't a particularly close thing. On to the next on the list.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Silence, Looking Glass, Peemoflage, Coding, and Murlocs (Oh My)
Day 37. No word yet. But today was a holiday, so no mail.
Haven't gotten my special package yet, either. Today would've been a good day for me to get it, because a new way of looking at it hit me: am I likely to get this kind of opportunity where I currently am? Made the decision obvious to me today. By tomorrow I'll be second guessing myself again. It's kinda what I do.
Random thing you didn't want to know about me: I almost always flush twice when I urinate. My school didn't have enough class rooms, so my sixth grade class was held in what was basically a gutted doublewide trailer. A pretty blonde girl sat right in front of the bathroom door, and I was horrified by the thought of her hearing me pee, so I developed the clever plan to flush first to drown out the sound. This necessitated more frequent trips to the bathroom to ensure that the flush-gurgle outlasted my urinary drumroll. Nearly 25 years later, the habit is deeply ingrained. If I'm not concentrating on pissing like a normal human being, I flush first, then pee. If I am, I usually forget halfway through my micturatory observances and flush early. And damned if my OCD will let me leave an unflushed toilet, so... doubleflush.
Today was a long day. Not a bad one, just long. I implemented the last feature on my list for this month's sprint. Doing that work revealed a flaw in the design of part of our model. Tsk, tsk. Someone violated the rules our Most Senior Coder lay forth lo, these many years ago, and the result illustrates exactly why these guidelines exist. I should write it up on my coding blog.
I spent much of the afternoon refactoring that portion of the model. That's actually pretty fun, or at least it is to me. It's my favorite part of the development process -- and I guess it shows a bit, since the team has occasionally had to tell me to knock the refactoring the fuck off and write some new code.
This refactoring job wasn't as straightforward as it should have been; another team in California references some of this code, and our source management system is rather prohibitive where collaboration is concerned. It's a shame, really, because the code repository winds up discouraging good practices in coding across our greater organization. Nobody in management gives a shit, though. Oh well. Anyway, coordinating changes to any of the code they reference would be a goddamn nightmare, so I had to refactor with a light touch. Which is to say that it wound up being somewhat less than ideal, but still pretty damn good, I think.
Funny how the longer I do this shit, the less technical and the more business-bullshitty the challenges are. Maybe I should leverage some synergies or something.
Dead tired when I got home. Wifezilla tried to give me a break and let me chill out and unwind. She rocks that way. She got a bug to do some cleaning and started going through the fridge chucking this month's aging leftovers. A big tupperware container of spaghetti noodles went into the garbage disposal, and promptly clogged it.
Again, she didn't want to drag me into it. I finally went to investigate the strange noises I heard coming from the kitchen and found her working it over with a plunger. Well-intended, but it actually just crammed the noodles farther down the pipes. (I sound like I'm making fun of her, but I went straight for the plunger myself.)
I wound up having to take the pipes apart to clear the impaction. Ever smelled the inside of your plumbing? It smells the way I imagine murlocs do. Which may explain the gurgles.
Haven't gotten my special package yet, either. Today would've been a good day for me to get it, because a new way of looking at it hit me: am I likely to get this kind of opportunity where I currently am? Made the decision obvious to me today. By tomorrow I'll be second guessing myself again. It's kinda what I do.
Random thing you didn't want to know about me: I almost always flush twice when I urinate. My school didn't have enough class rooms, so my sixth grade class was held in what was basically a gutted doublewide trailer. A pretty blonde girl sat right in front of the bathroom door, and I was horrified by the thought of her hearing me pee, so I developed the clever plan to flush first to drown out the sound. This necessitated more frequent trips to the bathroom to ensure that the flush-gurgle outlasted my urinary drumroll. Nearly 25 years later, the habit is deeply ingrained. If I'm not concentrating on pissing like a normal human being, I flush first, then pee. If I am, I usually forget halfway through my micturatory observances and flush early. And damned if my OCD will let me leave an unflushed toilet, so... doubleflush.
Today was a long day. Not a bad one, just long. I implemented the last feature on my list for this month's sprint. Doing that work revealed a flaw in the design of part of our model. Tsk, tsk. Someone violated the rules our Most Senior Coder lay forth lo, these many years ago, and the result illustrates exactly why these guidelines exist. I should write it up on my coding blog.
I spent much of the afternoon refactoring that portion of the model. That's actually pretty fun, or at least it is to me. It's my favorite part of the development process -- and I guess it shows a bit, since the team has occasionally had to tell me to knock the refactoring the fuck off and write some new code.
This refactoring job wasn't as straightforward as it should have been; another team in California references some of this code, and our source management system is rather prohibitive where collaboration is concerned. It's a shame, really, because the code repository winds up discouraging good practices in coding across our greater organization. Nobody in management gives a shit, though. Oh well. Anyway, coordinating changes to any of the code they reference would be a goddamn nightmare, so I had to refactor with a light touch. Which is to say that it wound up being somewhat less than ideal, but still pretty damn good, I think.
Funny how the longer I do this shit, the less technical and the more business-bullshitty the challenges are. Maybe I should leverage some synergies or something.
Dead tired when I got home. Wifezilla tried to give me a break and let me chill out and unwind. She rocks that way. She got a bug to do some cleaning and started going through the fridge chucking this month's aging leftovers. A big tupperware container of spaghetti noodles went into the garbage disposal, and promptly clogged it.
Again, she didn't want to drag me into it. I finally went to investigate the strange noises I heard coming from the kitchen and found her working it over with a plunger. Well-intended, but it actually just crammed the noodles farther down the pipes. (I sound like I'm making fun of her, but I went straight for the plunger myself.)
I wound up having to take the pipes apart to clear the impaction. Ever smelled the inside of your plumbing? It smells the way I imagine murlocs do. Which may explain the gurgles.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Booyah. Got the /mom.
TACO: Stop restoring my faith in humanity, damn it. I can't be a curmudgeon unless I hate my species.
BLUE: not all of us are assholes
TACO: You're messing with my worldview
BLUE: giving you a new paradigm... i'm not [jackass' name deleted], though.. i don't have art to go with it
BLUE: lmao
TACO: Maybe you could leverage some synergies to create an actionable paradigm?
BLUE: or maybe i could just put a boot in your keester and tell you not be a curmudgeon? :)
TACO: *shakefist*
BLUE: pfft
BLUE: unafraid
TACO: Gonna take my walker out in the front yard and yell at people to get the hell off my lawn
BLUE: uh huh
BLUE: take the hose with you
BLUE: lol
TACO: Man
TACO: Why's it always come down to hoes with you?
BLUE: lmao!
BLUE: /mom
TACO: Yay!
BLUE: yeah.. figures that would be a /win for ya
BLUE: not all of us are assholes
TACO: You're messing with my worldview
BLUE: giving you a new paradigm... i'm not [jackass' name deleted], though.. i don't have art to go with it
BLUE: lmao
TACO: Maybe you could leverage some synergies to create an actionable paradigm?
BLUE: or maybe i could just put a boot in your keester and tell you not be a curmudgeon? :)
TACO: *shakefist*
BLUE: pfft
BLUE: unafraid
TACO: Gonna take my walker out in the front yard and yell at people to get the hell off my lawn
BLUE: uh huh
BLUE: take the hose with you
BLUE: lol
TACO: Man
TACO: Why's it always come down to hoes with you?
BLUE: lmao!
BLUE: /mom
TACO: Yay!
BLUE: yeah.. figures that would be a /win for ya
Saturday, November 7, 2009
He's got a bead on you.
Kidzookie had his first brush with internet porn.
He's been playing online games and managed to get the computer infected, and it started throwing pornographic popups at him.
There's a scan running on the machine now, and in the meantime, we're having on-again, off-again talks about what happened to see if he has any questions that need answering.
And it was during one of these conversations, just after telling me about a popup of "a lady with no clothes on sitting on a pizza," that he told me, "I don't think that site is for kids. I think it's for teenagers. Or maybe Steve."
He's been playing online games and managed to get the computer infected, and it started throwing pornographic popups at him.
There's a scan running on the machine now, and in the meantime, we're having on-again, off-again talks about what happened to see if he has any questions that need answering.
And it was during one of these conversations, just after telling me about a popup of "a lady with no clothes on sitting on a pizza," that he told me, "I don't think that site is for kids. I think it's for teenagers. Or maybe Steve."
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Damn kids and their intertubes.
KIDZOOKIE: Daddy?
TACO: What?
KIDZOOKIE: Daddy?
TACO: What?
KIDZOOKIE: Daddyyyyyyyyyy?
TACO: What?
KIDZOOKIE: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
TACO: WHAT!?
KIDZOOKIE: We're in a restaurant, Daaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyy.
TACO: What?
KIDZOOKIE: Daddy?
TACO: What?
KIDZOOKIE: Daddyyyyyyyyyy?
TACO: What?
KIDZOOKIE: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
TACO: WHAT!?
KIDZOOKIE: We're in a restaurant, Daaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyy.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Wherein she sets my priorities in order
WIFEZILLA: [digs through Taco's change bowl] Can I borrow some change?
TACO: Sure.
WIFEZILLA: Another Canadian dime. Damn it, you're where I keep getting them!
TACO: Alackaday, my secret is out! I'm having an affair with my sexy Canadian man!
WIFEZILLA: Lovely.
TACO: He pays for blowjobs with Canadian dimes.
WIFEZILLA: You need to start charging more.
TACO: Sure.
WIFEZILLA: Another Canadian dime. Damn it, you're where I keep getting them!
TACO: Alackaday, my secret is out! I'm having an affair with my sexy Canadian man!
WIFEZILLA: Lovely.
TACO: He pays for blowjobs with Canadian dimes.
WIFEZILLA: You need to start charging more.
Monday, November 2, 2009
We have traveled this way before and there is much to be learned.
Netflix has Cosmos available for online streaming. I've been watching an episode a night for a few nights now. I forgot how much I love this series (and Carl Sagan).
Upgraded my main PC at work to Ubuntu 9.10 today. Our network sucks balls so it didn't finish until a few minutes before I had to leave, so I haven't put it through its paces yet. It's pretty, though.
Today marks one month since I submitted my short story to Analog. The Black Hole indicates a turnaround time of around 40 days for rejections from Analog, so I guess I don't need to be panicking for another two weeks, give or take. Figures the one thing I wouldn't procrastinate on would be panic attacks.
Speaking of panic attacks, never got the promised call from RecruiterLady today. Knew I shouldn't have said anything aloud. Done gone and jinxed m'self. Damn it.
Wifezilla and Girlzookie met me for lunch today. During lunch, Girlzookie pointed out a group of highway patrolmen eating a few tables down from us and told me, "You can't say any bad words, Dad. The cops are here."
Upgraded my main PC at work to Ubuntu 9.10 today. Our network sucks balls so it didn't finish until a few minutes before I had to leave, so I haven't put it through its paces yet. It's pretty, though.
Today marks one month since I submitted my short story to Analog. The Black Hole indicates a turnaround time of around 40 days for rejections from Analog, so I guess I don't need to be panicking for another two weeks, give or take. Figures the one thing I wouldn't procrastinate on would be panic attacks.
Speaking of panic attacks, never got the promised call from RecruiterLady today. Knew I shouldn't have said anything aloud. Done gone and jinxed m'self. Damn it.
Wifezilla and Girlzookie met me for lunch today. During lunch, Girlzookie pointed out a group of highway patrolmen eating a few tables down from us and told me, "You can't say any bad words, Dad. The cops are here."
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