found_drama

scorpio tattoo
name for the fear of zombies
vegetable juice

Ah… The triumphant return of Search Term Haiku; the last one was back in March (with the February terms). We switched hosting providers in that time and it’s taken a little while to adjust¹. Anyway, some config tweaks later and we’ve got it reporting enough of the month’s search terms to be able to put together these haikus again.

While we’re on the subject of search terms… Well over it looks like 86 searches containing “zombie” led people to this site in April alone. And another 19 searches for (of all things) ambulothanatophobia. What gives? All of the sudden I feel like an authority on the subject; only Max Brooks² carries more clout than me at this point, eh?

Also, as a special bonus round to this month’s Search Term Haiku:

how do the damn pipes
under the kitchen sink fit
together? anyone?

“Search Term Haiku” is a series wherein I examine this site’s log files and construct one or more haiku poems from search terms and phrases that led visitors to the site. Where possible, I attempt to keep the search phrases intact. However, as these are haiku poems, I do need to follow the rules.

1. FuitadNet used awStats (which I like better and feel is a bit more comprehensive) while DreamHost deploys Analog by default. [↩]
2. Anyone know how to get in touch with him? Maybe I can get “ambulothanatophobia” into the appendix of his next edition… [↩]

1. The gig this past weekend was both incredibly fun and incredibly draining. As I mentioned to a couple of folks already: it was the first time playing some records felt like … er … work. Pete pointed out that a four hour set will do that to a person. Still, such an incredibly good time. Many thanks to the friends (and strangers) that came out to show support.
2. I realized that finishing River of Gods puts me within one book of goal #5 for 2007. Rock on. What next? Chandler? Atwood? Stross? Something totally trashy?
3. The official announcement went out from our site coordinator today about the garden plots. We were there to see it yesterday. At any rate, it’s getting to be pretty exciting.
4. Meanwhile, closer to home: we were positively shocked at the price quote we received this week for grounds maintenance at our condo for the year. And by shocked, I mean appalled. I can understand why they’d give the prices they do… I suppose it’s hardly worth the trip. Ugh
5. Also: Dear City of Burlington Department of Public Work: Hurry up and FINISH FIXING THIS:
   
6. I’m getting fixated on images from my “steampunk Libya” dream. My hurried early-a.m. description didn’t really do it justice. And maybe that’s just my writer’s mind filling in the blanks? Nah…

currently playing: Texture “Skulk (AggroDisco remix)”

On the one hand, it annoys the shit out of me that my tax money is now going to need to pay for removing this decal or else replacing the sign. On the other hand, it’s pretty damn funny.

So much noise from the condo below us.  So much screaming.  They must have a million voices down there.  A million droning groans.  A million zombie renters.  Quick!  Lock the doors!  Bar them!  Barricade!  But no sooner does the deadbolt turn then we notice the cat has slipped out.  They’ll eat him!  Instead, they come up themselves, banging on the door, holding the car aloft.  They indignantly point out that we shouldn’t let our cat come down there; that the dog may eat him.  It seems useless to comment on the noise.

We open the door a crack to let the cat back in — careful all the while that it may be a ruse.  Then once the feline is safely through the door and the deadbolt once again locked, we jump out the window into some future-proofed turn of the century Libya.  A Victorian-era British army colonel is our guide; his red coat is open to the heat, his pith helmet doffed ever so slightly.  No one gets in or out of this Libya; clockwork automata guard the borders, hiding half-buried in the sand or else along the cliffs of the shore.  From the quarterdeck, he challenges us by repeating the statement that no one has ever set foot on that Libyan shore.

I leap from the ship, rebounding off the surface of the water like a skipped stone.  Bouncing this way several times, I am able to catapult myself up high enough — out of range of the automata’s projectiles — to bounce just over the walls at the shore’s cliffs.  I bounce down into the center of that port town then quickly turn and bound back, skipping across the Mediterranean until I’ve come to rest in the city square of Leipzig.

• Friends of Burlington Gardens :: Vermont Community Garden Network

  (tags: gardening Vermont Burlington)

• Meetup.com

  “World’s largest community of local Meetups, clubs and groups!”

  (tags: social search)

We stopped by Medical Center today to see if the plots had been marked off…

They were.

We are (happily) right next to Adam and Sue’s (full) plot.  15′ x 30′ of soil in which to go nuts with tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, etc.  See how much we can get crammed in there.

Just wrapped up Ian McDonald’s River of Gods and have decided to go with the “highly recommended” rating on this one.

When you pick this up and hold the hard cover in your hands, its heft is a little intimidating. When you put it down 597 pages later, you’ll wonder how he managed to keep it so focused, how he kept it from wandering all over the place. Not that it doesn’t have a tremendous scope (borders on “epic” but I feel I must reserve that adjective for a space opera review) but McDonald keeps it moving at an aggressive pace. Every back alley detour and out-of-town foray is very deliberate and very much part of the storytelling.

I won’t go on at length about the Indian-post-cyberpunk-scifi-omg-wtf-how-awesome-is-that?-ness that you might have seen elsewhere. I’ll keep it at this: it was well-chosen, well-developed, and in the end made sense¹.

While I wouldn’t say that it was totally new or ground-breaking fiction, McDonald moves this piece along efficiently and engages you with some well-developed characters. The “like an Indian Neuromancer” comparisons floating around out there are not far off. That being said, it’s a more mature, more sophisticated Neuromancer. The text wants for nothing and (I would say) achieves its goals quite well. McDonald’s treatment of “the Singularity” here is delivered in a palpable, sympathetic way: You invent your own doom.

If this novel is indicative of the quality of McDonald’s other work: I’m there.

1. Which is to say that putting it in India Bharat didn’t feel like some cloying, waste-of-time, you’re-just-doing-this-to-be-cute gimmick [↩]

Oh man was that ever fun.

“We should do this again some time.”

Huge thanks to everyone that came out to show support.

Also: HOW AM I AWAKE ALREADY?

• How to Give a Killer Evaluation

  via lifehack.org

  (tags: leadership management work)

• DRIMaker

  at/via TUAW: “Automated High Dynamic Range Images”

  (tags: photography hdr todo)

• Six-Dimensional Space-Time Theory

  at/via /.

  (tags: science research)

• Announcing Coda 1.0

  ~stevenf: new “all-in-one” webdev editor; looks to be worth checking out

  (tags: webdev editor Coda todo)