the essential kit

Still not doing it…

I’m still not running any, but boy, I sure can think of a lot of Kickstarters that would be fun to do. :) No: there are other projects that need finishing first. But even so. :) Speaking of them, though, Judith Tarr’s second Kickstarter is in its last week, and is mere dollars away from the next goal. I have great hopes of a last-days surge putting it up to $10K, which would be SO COOL. Go go Kickstarting Judy! And while I’m admiring Judy, she’s written a terrific article,…

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the essential kit

*Dammit*.

My friends list is going to fill up with this in about five minutes, but I have to say something anyway. Author Iain Banks has just announced he has terminal cancer. God damn it. I *like* Iain Banks. I was very much looking forward to seeing him again at WorldCon in London. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I met Iain at MeCon in Belfast not long after moving to Ireland, but long enough that I was a guest at the convention. Dinner with Iain, his partner Adele, and several others was the…

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the essential kit

EasterCon64!

We’re back from EasterCon, which was an excellent mix of meeting up with old friends and making new ones. My most excellent writer friends Kari Sperring and Juliet E. McKenna were instrumental in this year’s EasterCon, so I’m particularly happy that it was this year I finally got to *go*. All the other committee members I met were also wonderful people, and they did an absolutely fantastic job putting together a magnificently diverse and interesting program. The past few years EasterCon’s had a commitment to gender parity on the panels,…

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the essential kit

Recent Reads: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I haven’t read this in decades. It still works. :) I was a little surprised at the fairy tale qualities that I didn’t remember from childhood, but even so, they were less Fairy-Tale-Weird than most, er, non-invented? fairy tales. I mean, fairy tales make no sense at all in terms of “Oh hey, a glass mountain, oh look, a magic flying saddle appears to help me climb it!” Right, but, er, why did the magic flying saddle appear at all? Where did it come from? This makes slightly more sense…

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the essential kit

Recent Reads: How To Grow More Vegetables

I ran across this title while poking around the web for self-sufficiency zombie apocalypse sorts of things, and found it highly recommended, so I thought what the hell, and bought it. I’m not even a gardener (though I have ambitions), and even so, this book was really just completely fascinating to read. I have no idea if everybody would find it so interesting, but wow, I’d think if you have any impulse toward (food) gardening at all, you want to read this one. I mean, they’re selling a product, to…

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