http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/07/big-in-slovenia.html

STATUS: What craziness. Sara just got her wallet stolen and since of course she’s got the company credit card, we had to do some quick phone calling. Lucky for us, the thief was not able to act quickly enough to use the card.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? IF NOT NOW by Tracy Chapman

Okay, this is terribly embarrassing story. Yesterday, we sold one of our client books to be translated into Slovene.

Yeah, I had to look up Slovenia on google maps.

I had guessed former Yugoslavia but the fact that I couldn’t say for sure, well, that shows a bit of shortcoming on my part. Bad agent! If I’m going to sell a translation right, I really ought to know to which country and where it is on the globe…

But hey, maybe we’ll be big in Slovenia! May this be the first of many.

Lots of profanity in this complaint to several sub-editors at the Times of London.

 I've got a couple of questions to ask for my aunt so I hope that someone can help me. To make a long story short she does not have credit established in the UK and she wants to buy a house. So does anyone know of any mortgage companies in the UK that will give her a home loan for a house in London or any of the surrounding cities? She banks with Abbey National so she doesn't have any problems with setting up a bank account. If anyone has information on home loans in the UK I would appreciate anything you have to say. I know she could just move back find a job and build up enough credit in order to buy a house but I want to know if there are any short cuts? She spoke to some loan companies but they all asked her to put down large amounts of money. So would anyone happen to know of any loan companies that could help her out? Thanks!!!

Also, if any one knows of any UK jobs that allow you to work from the U.S. that pay you in pounds I am all ears, thanks again.

"Draft legislation being promoted by the KCA and supportive legislators automatically expired at the end of the term of the last government on April 30."

Those Koreans just don't mess around when their government comes to the end of its term...

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2008/07/24/i-am-happy/

http://justinelarbalestier.com/?p=1487

The WNBA has handed down the suspensions for Tuesday’s brawl. I know many are unhappy about the lenience towards Candace Parker in particular. But for extremely selfish reasons I am very very very glad. Because this means I get to see her play on Friday. Woo hoo!

What’s making me cranky is the total absence of anything said about the abysmal refs. Where’s their punishment?

Update: Though I’ll admit I am very nervous about Leslie and Parker being so rested before we play then in the Garden.

Please enjoy this decrankifying comic interlude: Font Conference.

About three minutes, safe for work, audio required.




I am in no way affiliated with the creators or distributors of the above link- I just though it was funny.
So there.

Today was a sort of red-letter day, in that I collected the guitar tuner I had ordered from Amazon at the local Sorting Office, bought a set of AAA power cells, and proceeded to use this combination for my vocal practice of the evening.

Why a guitar tuner? Well, strictly speaking this nifty little device, (a Korg CA-30), will give accuracy readings for any musical instrument - even the human voice. Was careful to get a chromatic tuner with a nice wide range so that it would track anything in my vocal reach.

This was a direct reaction to a rather disconcerting shortcoming that became apparent at Sundays NMC rehearsal, that is, I was singing passages consistently under the note... Rather off-putting to say the least, and deborah_c identified it as being particularly apparent round the 'break' in my voice registers. Using Valerie's guitar tuner, D showed me how such a device would be a real help in setting things to rights.

Of course, I was still disconcerted that I was off the note *without* hearing the slippage, but after a few goes with D holding the device up to view, I found I could make the little green LED light up more consistently. A good thing to tackle it ASAP I think, using the rest of the summer to really sharpen (ha-ha) up my pitch perception. Not an easy task though, I found it a real effort to make the green LED stay lit on the long notes I selected tonight, but the smallness of the Korg has the virtue that I can take it *anywhere* to practice.

So, much work ahead, but best done now; really don't want to wind up at Grantham next February constantly eyeballing a little black box perched on the music stand!

Out of all of the pictures I've seen so far that lord_korak took at Rand's and Erin's wedding festivities in which I am visible, I think I like this one the best. Apparently either I've just stepped on ohiblather's toes or she's channeling Yoko Ono. Hee hee hee...

Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 10pm SLT (1am ET)

100% Proceeds will go directly into Tom's SL account. :)

So if you're on Second Life, stop by The Clam & Bean Coffeehouse at 10pm SLT (PT) every Thursday to help out Tom Smith and listen (and virtual-dance) to some great comedy music! :) My name there is "Emi Halcali"

And if you want to hold your own SL fundraiser for him, just IM me for a copy of the auto-forwarding collection jar! Thanks to DJ Blaksmith for the original code and to Nostrum Forder for the auto-forward tweaking! :)

Have you heard about this yet??

Apparently, the lovely US government has decided that now, if you're traveling from a VISA Waiver country, that at least three days prior to boarding an aircraft (or cruise ship) that travels to the USA, you must apply for permission to board the aircraft (or ship). This does not, however, assure you will be able to pass immigration, it is purely for "registration" purposes for those traveling to the USA. They're using the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 as basis for this, saying that it will increase security for the safety of the United States. This does not affect US citizens traveling abroad.

Here's where it gets complicated.

This is something that 1) you can do yourself online, 2) you can pay (yes, I said pay) a travel agent (who may book your ticket) to do it for you, or 3) don't travel. I have no idea what this means for people who have to travel at the last minute (say for business or a sickness/death in the family, etc.).

Here's a link to the article about it: ( ESTA site )

Visitors will still have to fill out an I-94, the authorization will be valid for up to two years (or when their passport expires, if that comes first), is valid for multiple entries into the US, and they're advising that potential travelers apply for the authorization no less than 72 hours before travel. This goes into effect in January, but you can start applying as of 1 August, 2008.

Via boingboing, the Eppendorf epMotion music video. It's probably not as good a song as the Bio-Rad PCR music video, but what do you expect from a boy band?

Given how many times I've seen mistakes from Craigslist here, I've been angsting like a tween over my ad for a roommate and whether my commas are misplaced, whether it's okay to end with "with" given that I don't want to sound too formal, and a few other issues (plus the use of the nonword "partier" to describe what I am not).  When I was uncertain I went without a comma since Craigslist is informal but I also don't want to be incorrect and come off as someone who never read about pandas who shoot.

So if you're bored and willing to help make Craigslist have one less ad with errors...




If this is inappropriate or annoying, let me know and I'll delete. 

I received this from the project manager of a book manuscript:

"I have attached 8 documents for editting."

This will be my entry for Tom Smith Parody and Dedication Time, tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at Confluence. I was going to refrain from posting it until after Confluence so I could surprise everybody at the con with it, but it was too much fun to write and I'm too happy with it to keep it to myself that long. :-) ( 'Hello, I am an exiled African businessman...' )

So: partiallyclips' "NetHack" song piqued my interest, and I decided to give the game a try. Initial results were not encouraging, so I wrote *my own* song about it and sang it at Rob on Sunday afternoon at Contata. Rob then gave me a virtual tutorial on how to overcome the things that were annoying me and enjoy the game; this turned into a terrific multi-hour conversation that was a high point of Contata for me. While this song has therefore been rendered personally obsolete, sort of, consider it an FYI that you might want to do some research and/or poke around in the forums before diving right into the game. ( Lyrics behind cut, of course. )

On the way to work I saw a cyclist, on a road bike, in full roadie uniform including the shirt and shorts with logos on them. On his shorts, on the back, was "Port-a-John". There is something slightly alarming about a portable toilet company's name in big letters printed on someone's ass.

Received email from darrenzieger last night; a family matter has arisen that will keep him from attending Confluence. Bummer! I've let him know his invitation has been rolled over to next year. I have some feelers out about his concert slot, but no results to report yet.

Also received email from Peredar of Lord Landless, Thesilee's boyfriend (and the only member of the group who couldn't come to the con); Thesilee is now on her way to the U.S., and if all goes well I'll be picking her up at the airport tonight.

If anyone is staying over Sunday night: We did get permission from the hotel to filk in the "niche room" attached to Jackson's bar -- which doesn't seat many, but is cozy (and, more importantly, free) --, so let me know if you're interested.

For anyone leaving the con after Saturday afternoon who would normally be driving U.S. Routes 22 and 30 and I-376 East (the "Parkway East") through Pittsburgh to the PA Turnpike in Monroeville: PennDOT has, as usual, announced major construction at the most convenient moment for us. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Parkway East will be "restricted to a single lane outbound from the Edgewood/Swissvale exit to the Business Route 22 exit" in Monroeville and motorists should expect "significant delays" at times. I would suggest taking I-79 South to Washington, PA, and then taking I-70 East to the Turnpike instead.

They also realize that it may be their best chance to prove that Slow Food, as a movement, is not just one big wine tasting with really hard to find cheeses that you weren’t invited to.

[source]

Yeah, I hate not being invited to cheese.

For anyone and everyone who is interested in the intersection of Jewish themes and speculative fiction:

At Readercon on Sunday (which happened to be the 17th of Tammuz, a Jewish fast day), writer Leah Cypess gathered a small group of Jewish speculative fiction writers together. We sat in the Con Suite, not eating, and discussed the issues involved in writing science fiction and fantasy stories that have a Jewish element or theme to them.

Although there already exist groups devoted to the discussion of Jewish science fiction (the group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishSF/ comes to mind), as far as we could tell there was no group specifically devoted to Jewish science fiction from the perspective of the writer. Therefore, Leah decided that we should form such a group, and setting up an email discussion group on yahoo is the start.

So, if you're a writer who is interested in writing Jewish speculative fiction, feel free to join. Our grandiose plans include a possible small convention devoted to Jewish speculative fiction, and the question of how to get more markets to publish such fiction.

The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishSpecFic/ . Our one-line description: Jewish Speculative Fiction Writers is for writers who are interested in working on fiction at the intersection of speculative fiction and Jewish themes. A LiveJournal Community for the same purpose is at jewishspecfic.