I'm sorry to report that Lois M. Bujold won't be at Printer's Row in June after all, she's ill.

From sender (unknown) with subject (none)...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080514/jedi_attack_080514/20080514?hub=World

"HOLYHEAD, Wales -- A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of a group calling itself the Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday."

My first thought was: I would pay money to see that. Imagine my glee when I found out, I didn't have to!

There is a video here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/7360871.stm

That is the funniest thing I have read this week. Okay, so you form a Jedi Church. And the Darth Vader comes, drunk on two boxes of wine and wearing a garbage bag. This is your moment to shine. Instead they punked out. Bwahahahahaha! They let a drunk beat them up at their own gathering! What kind of wussy Jedis are these?

The third rewrite of Mermaid's Madness is off to a good start. 1800 words during my lunch break, and another 1200 at home (in between 3-year-old tantrums, because someone needed a longer nap). This is the easy part, of course. The further I get into the book, the more changes I'll be making, which will slow me down. Still, so far so good!

Yesterday's e-mail also brought in the Czech cover of Goblin Hero [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. I'm very pleased with this one. The details might not match up exactly with what I expected, but they did a nice job with Jig, and it's nice to see some of the other goblins and hobgoblins, along with a big ol' ogre. Click the thumbnail for the full view. You can also visit the Goblin Artwork page on my web site for all of the alternate goblin covers, along with fan art.

Finally, I forgot to mention a book launch. Earlier this week, fellow SFNovelist Jeri Smith-Ready (jer_bear711) launched her latest book Wicked Game [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. Dude, I've got two words for you: vampire DJs. Smith-Ready also has a few interviews popping up all over the blogosphere. Click here and go read more on David B. Coe's LJ.

Finally, and completely unrelated to anything else, please send good car repair vibes that my old Cavalier's oil leak will be easily found and cheaply repaired!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/290876154/movie-plot-security.html

Bruce Schneier has announced the winner of his annual "Movie Plot Threat" contest, in which his readers are invited to come up with ridiculous, improbable and frightening things that you could probably frighten people with enough that they're lured into buying some stupid product or giving up some essential liberty (or both). Here's the winning entry, from Aaron Massey (be sure to click through and check out the runners up, too!)

Many Americans were shocked to hear the results of the research trials regarding heavy metals and toothpaste conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine, which FDA is only now attempting to confirm. This latest scare comes after hundreds of deaths were linked to toothpaste contaminated with diethylene glycol, a potentially dangerous chemical used in antifreeze.

In light of this continuing health risk, Hamilton Health Labs is proud to announce Tommy Tester Toothpaste Strips! Just apply a dab of toothpaste from a fresh tube onto the strip and let it rest for 3 minutes. It’s just that easy! If the strip turns blue, rest assured that your entire tube of toothpaste is safe. However, if the strip turns pink, dispose of the toothpaste immediately and call the FDA health emergency number at 301-443-1240.

Do not let your family become a statistic when the solution is only $2.95!

Link

See also:
Schneier: Movie-plot security doesn't make America safe
Movie-plot security threats bonanza
Schneier TSA movie plot contest results
Movie plot threat contest: make the TSA ban watches!

In spite of what my last entry said, I do have my phone with me today.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290864012/chaste-couple-always-within-15-feet-of-each-other

http://gawker.com/5009119/chaste-couple-always-within-15-feet-of-each-other

Michael Roach is a naughty, naughty Buddhist monk. The former New Yorker sleeps with a woman, which is a big no-no among Tibetan Buddhists. But by "sleeps with," he says he literally just means "falls asleep next to" his, uh, partner, Christie McNally, a former NYU student and fellow teacher who lives with him in a yurt in Arizona. Roach claims the two are chaste, engaging only in an "intense hands-on physical relationship" not at all carnal. None of the other monks are buying this. The Dalai Lama's office actually denied Roach permission to teach in India. Of course, corrupt, selfish Gothamites will hardly judge the couple, who insist on always being within 15 feet of each other, any less harshly after they were profiled this morning in the Times Home & Garden section (WTF? For the yurt?). So let's take an Altarcations-style look at how disturbing this couple really is to those of us who believe in sex, material possessions and all those other wonderful things:

Michael Roach and Christie McNally

• Buddhist teachers: +2
• Live in Arizona: -3
• Live in a yurt with no running water or electricity or DVR or even Bravo: -5
• Remain within 15 feet of each other at all times because they vowed to "never part:" -15
• (-3 of that is because he gets inspired in the middle of the night and she has to then wake up and follow him 100 yards down the road to his office so he can "work".)
• (-4 of that is because they actually inhale and exhale in sync with one another.)
• (-2 of that is for eating from the same plate and often reading the same book.)
• (-6 of that is because "When she uses an airport restroom, he stands outside the door.")
• The wife uses the honorific "Lama," usually only given to a male teachers under Tibetan Buddhist tradition: +3
• Many other couples — like, from around the world — flock to them for relationship advice: +3
• They managed to piss off the Dalai Lama: +1
• His monk friends tried to get him to choose between her and them and he chose her. Then they asked him to give up his robes, citing "two milleniums of Tibetan Buddhist tradition" and he refused: +3
• He kept her secret during a three-year silent retreat in the desert and started talking about her only after he figured out they could be caught on Google Earth: -3
• He went to Princeton: +2
• She went to NYU: +1
• He once amassed a personal fortune by turning an upstart jewelry company into a $100 million per year business: +3
• They met when she was a student in the seminar he was teaching in New York: -2
• After they met, "they began to see each other as angels:" -3/barf
• They go to movies, probably in their robes and everything. She is into the Matrix, he into the Truman Show: +2
• No sex or carnal touching, ever: -69

Total points: -80
Consolation prize: Nirvana

[Times]

(Photo: David Sanders, New York Times)

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290836209/thanks-for-boning-ma-and-pop

http://gawker.com/5009116/thanks-for-boning-ma-and-pop

Harvard law professor Larry Tribe at NYU's commencement: "Think about it — if your mother and father had watched yesterday's equivalent of The Wire insted of making love at just the right moment, you would not exist. So thank mom and dad for doing it. Your being here is an implausible, miraculous, serendipitous event." [YouTube]

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/290835575/crazy-rasberry-ants.html

Houston is a-swarm with "crazy rasberry ants" -- an exotic species that eats fireants and electronic equipment. The "crazy" part is that they kind of wobble and weave when they walk. They have multiple, exterminator-resistant queens, and are attacking the local animal population as well.

They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet.

Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants — which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season — appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.

"The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good," said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.

It's not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.

Link (Thanks, Bonnie!)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/290833739/electric-house-of-th.html

Popular Mechanics' August, 1939 feature "The Electric Home of the Future" features the kind of boundless, electrical future hovering on the horizon for the brave people of 1939.

In the not-distant future, the home may well be equipped with “mood control,” which is made possible by newly developed light sources. It’s possible that people will suit the light and color of their rooms to their moods. These new-type lamps produce colors of warm white, daylight white, gold, red, blue, pink and green. It’s up to the psychologists to figure out the proper combinations of colors to lift one’s spirits, when they are down, with a flood of brilliant light, or subdue a sense of excitement with soothing mellow light.

These new lamps are highly efficient colored-light makers, producing from ten to fifty times as much light per watt as has been possible with incandescent lamps. They utilize a very low-pressure mercury vapor discharge which produces ultraviolet radiations, giving little direct visible light or heat radiation. The inside surface of the glass tubes is coated with chemicals which glow when struck by invisible ultraviolet radiation. The combination of chemicals used in the coating of the lamp determines the resultant color.

It is even possible that in the future we may produce on a commercial scale similar lights by bombarding the fluorescent material of the lamps with short-wave radio beams.

Link

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/290830243/art-of-multiface-wat.html

Today on the Watchismo Times, a drool-worthy exhibition of multi-time-zone, multi-face watches. Ever since I started travelling a lot (and, consequentially, living in a bunch of timezones), I've bought a multi-face watch or two -- but these put my collection to shame. Link

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/290810940/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=51085

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/290810941/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=51424

I have to rush off to get the E Girl to school, which is always THE most stressful time in the morning because the E Girl does not want to spend the day at school looking like this:


Or this:
And it is my God-given duty as the E Girl's mommy to prevent that. It is in the Mommy pledge. Really.

But before I go I have to mention good news stuff, especially since I was so whiny in friends-locked posts last week.

1. TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (ex) BOYFRIEND is a SEMIFINALIST for the IPPYs. Here is what the site says about it:

Independent Publisher Book Awards (since 1996) awards the best indie-published books of the year

Here is  my book. Doesn't it look happy?


2. LOVE AND OTHER USES FOR DUCT TAPE received an amazing review from Teensreadtoo and a pretty nice review from VOYA.

Here is what they said:

Oh! And I will be ANNOUNCING the winner of the SUPER COOL CONTEST TOMORROW!!!!

Grover will help.

So last night I went to the opening of the "Horse" exhibit at the Museum of Natural History.

Wow.

Unlike the Mythic Creatures exhibit, which was nice but a little light, this has (forgive me) more meat to it, from the genetic origins of equis through to the contemporary uses of therapy horses. There were a few blank spots, and I was heard to fact-check a few of the non-scientific displays, but we took a full two hours going through that one exhibit, and felt quite pleased with it, after. If you have any interest in horses, even just to see why they've been so important (in a relatively short time) to mankind's evolution, this is of interest.

And oh my gawd, if you go through with young girls, just blindfold them when you walk out, because as usual it dumps you into the gift shop where they have Prepared for the 12 year old [in all of us] with horse-related gear in every size, shape, color and price range..... (including chocolate!)

Museum horse! ( picspam )
Live Horse! ( Picspam )
and some feline picspam ( to round out the day )

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290827423/posts-spitzer-puns-dont-beat-around-bush

http://gawker.com/5009115/posts-spitzer-puns-dont-beat-around-bush

"Temeka Lewis, 32, 'fessed up to prostitution and money-laundering charges and promised to tell the feds everything she knows about the Emperors Club VIP, including a blow-by-blow description of Spitzer's dealings with hooker Ashley Alexandra Dupre, aka 'Kristen.'" [Post]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290822649/jack+off-sculpture-sells-for-15-million

http://gawker.com/5009114/jack+off-sculpture-sells-for-15-million

Takashi Murakami, the artist known in part for his work on Louis Vuitton handbags, just got $15 million at auction for this sculpture of a nude anime-looking dude ejaculating. As we reported previously, it had only been expected to fetch up to $4 million. The winning bid was submitted to Sotheby's by telephone, probably because no one likes to buy this sort of thing in person, even if it's at a classy art auction. Especially if it's at a classy art auction. Click the pic for a larger image. [Times]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290808868/no-booze-before-cuss-out-says-wnbc-anchor

http://gawker.com/5009112/no-booze-before-cuss-out-says-wnbc-anchor

Sue Simmons, correcting the Post: "I haven't had an alcoholic drink between shows for at least 15 years or more." [Post]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290805050/bill-oreilly-promises-more-meltdowns

http://gawker.com/5009111/bill-oreilly-promises-more-meltdowns

On his show last night, Bill O'Reilly addressed the hubub over his old "Do it now!" meltdown, which has resurfaced on the internet. The Fox News host approached the topic with a sense of humor — how else could he play this, really, without looking like the same angry guy he was in the dated clip? — but also very briefly, and without the actual, unflattering footage. But O'Reilly did slip in an interesting, probably not entirely untrue joke about how he's had annual explosions since he joined Fox. And he offered to sell them. Someone, please, take this man at his word and at least try to buy some previously unseen footage, so we can all laugh some more with Bill about how charming and unharmful his on-camera rages really are.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gawker/full/~3/290791116/gay-makeouts-save-soap-opera-from-obsolescence

http://gawker.com/5009108/gay-makeouts-save-soap-opera-from-obsolescence

The Times noticed something about the soap opera As The World Turns, which has featured three oh-so-groundbreaking gay kisses in the past year: It is the only soap opera that has gained young viewers over the past seven months. All the other soaps lost young people and are basically left with olds and adult diaper commercials. Sure, maybe forbidden gay love will energize soap operas the way class tension used to, as the Times suggests. Or maybe As The World Turns is just the latest show to learn what Ellen DeGeneres figured out so long ago: introducing a gay subplot is a great way to keep an otherwise weak show on life support, at least in those increasingly rare genres devoid of homosexual storylines. [Times]