It had to happen sometime

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I’m hanging out here in the Denver Airport, waiting for a plane. I was supposed to be leaving right about now, but the plane was delayed two hours getting into LAX, and therefore it will be about an hour and a half late getting here. I know I was going to get home late…but now it’s really late.
This hasn’t happened to me before, I don’t think. I’m pretty sure that all the times I’ve flown I’ve never had a delayed plane, so in the grand scheme of things, it’s not horrible. It’s not like I won’t get to sleep in my own bed tonight (though the beds in the Hyatt were pretty darn good), like the person who was suppposed to be on a 5:30 pm flight to Chicago and didn’t leave until slightly before 8 and will have to spend the night there. I’ve got plenty to do (knitting, iPod, laptop–go free WiFi @ Denver, boo not-free @ STL–several books, some of which are personalized with author signatures and of course that little thing called writing) and I don’t have to go to work tomorrow, but I do wish I was home. And I’ll have to have some food here eventually, which I’m not too happy with, because I’ve had to buy every single meal since after breakfast on Thursday morning, and I’ll be quite glad to go home to actual food that doesn’t cost me money every time.
Denvention (Worldcon) was a lot of fun. I got to stalkhang out with Carol Berg quite a bit and I roomed with one of my friends from last year’s Archon/NASFiC, so that was cool. Not quite as many writing-centric panels as I would like, and I definitely want to go to World Fantasy now, to compare the two, but this year’s WF is out, since it’s in Calgary and I don’t have a valid passport, so I’ll have to wait for next Nov…and eek, it’s in Nov, which is NaNo time (eek, NaNo is only three months away) and wow was that a run-on sentence. I’ll try to do better next time.
I like Denver. I could live here. But I’d like to be at home.

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Breaking Dawn

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Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) Yes, I finished another book in less than six hours.
Last year it was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows…this year it was Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer.
I went to the midnight release party at my neighborhood Borders with my friend Josh. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but there was a trivia contest with stickers as prizes and a costume contest. Josh had to wear a pink wristband (so did I, to show we preordered and thus got to get in line before some number of people there, but I didn’t have to worry about my masculinity being threatened). We sat around and talked about writing and authors and the new Star Wars animated movie coming out, and I had a Vampire’s Kiss smoothie (aka strawberry 😉 ). Then it finally got around to being 12:01 am and we got our books. I picked up Randy Pausch’s book The Last Lecture and another YA book that had come out in paperback, and every!single!one! was on sale, because two were hardcover bestsellers and thus at a discount, AND I had a coupon for the other! Discounts for the win!
Since I’m catsitting for a friend who wants me to stay at her place a few times while she’s away, I headed over there instead of home (there were happy kitties to keep me company, so it was all good). Started reading around 12:45 am or so. Found a good place to stop around 4:10, slept for four hours, got back into it around 8:30, and finished around 10:30. So approximately 5 1/2 hours for 754 pages. Yes, I am that insane. At least this time around I slept in the middle 😉
Then Mike and I went to a pool party thrown by one of his coworkers, which was fun, if not exactly the most relaxing thing to do when one is going on four hours of sleep. And now I’m having a late dinner of sweet and sour tempura chicken and rice, and watching Shark Week. Life is good.
A very short review after the jump.

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Reading

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So you might have noticed I was trying to read 10 books during the month of July.
Well, I did read 10 books, but according to the rules of the game (books started in another month but finished in July and rereads count only as half a book) I only read six.
Regardless, I’m happy with my haul, because I finished off the Twilight series (this is the fourth time through them all) before the 4th book comes out this weekend, and I reread one of Carol Berg’s series before I’ll meet her again at Worldcon next weekend. I only read three new books, but I do want to note that there was about a week at the beginning of July (before I heard about the game) where I was trying to catch up on my magazine reading, since I am perpetually behind in my Newsweeks. So I really only had three weeks to read all that.
I’m really excited about Worldcon. I should have plenty of money, thanks to my curbing of my Borders appetite, and it’s in Denver, which is one of my favorite places. I’ll get to meet a couple of my favorite authors (the aforementioned Berg and Patrick Rothfuss and maybe even George RR Martin), attend some neat programming, and hopefully take a trek or two around Denver. Hopefully I will not get altitude sickness or forget anything.
Just have to make it through one more weekend of catsitting for my friend, and then it will be off to Worldcon–“One mile closer to the stars”!
btw, happy birthday to Harry Potter (likewise, JK Rowling)!

RIP Randy Pausch

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Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon who died yesterday from pancreatic cancer, the same type of cancer that my uncle died from. He gave two very moving, inspirational lectures and wrote a book and gave many interviews. He lived strong and filled his last days with whatever he could, and I can have nothing but respect for him. The world has lost a good man. We need more heroes like him. Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.
“The Last Lecture” and “Time Management” after the cut.

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Mark This!

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Free book! I read this a couple of months ago, and I really liked it. It’s a fast-paced thriller with lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing. And now you can read it too…for free! For the next few days, anyway, so click ye now and read!

Visit the author’s site at www.jasonpinter.com.

make a face

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jen-muchaface.jpg See what you look like as a guy or a baby or an anime character with this fun site. This is their idea of me as a Mucha painting. Too bad I’m not really that pretty! 😉
Gotta go buy a digital converter. Silly government coupons expiring.

Farewell to the King

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It’s a sad day when a huge part of St. Louis becomes owned by a foreign company. Anheuser-Busch is now Anheuser-Busch InBev…
I don’t even like beer. If I’ve been to the brewery it was long ago, way before I was able to enjoy the tasting at the end. But I do love the Clydesdales and the dalmatians and the many events and destinations that Busch is a part of, and they are a huge part of St. Louis culture, and indeed the US. Sure, the mean people who bought the company in a hostile takeover say they’ll keep sight of A-B’s standards, but that’s what they said when May company bought Famous-Barr. I call ballocks. And who thought that the Belgians were so rotten?
I wonder if it’s still going to be Busch Stadium in a few years. I hope so. I always liked that name. I realize it is actually product placement, but it’s been Busch for so long, it doesn’t seem that way. Maybe the Busch family can keep their names on some things.
Bye bye Busch. I hope you stay the same, but I bet you won’t.
Oh yeah, happy Bastille Day.

10 Books

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Found through Writers Unbound, which brought back memories of the Pizza Hut Book-It program, where you had the summer to read a certain amount of books and if you did, you got a free personal pizza. Needless to say, I had no problem earning the gold stars.
So here’s a challenge to me in July…read 10 books. Shouldn’t be too hard, especially since I’d like to reread most if not all of Carol Berg’s books before Worldcon…
Rules say books started in June and finished in July count as half a book. So I’m already up .5:
0.5: Midnight Never Come, Marie Brennan (July 02)
1.5: The Last Guardian of Everness, John C Wright (July 10)
2.0:Son of Avonar, Carol Berg (July 13) (re-reads count as half)
2.5: Guardians of the Keep, Carol Berg (July 16)
3.0: The Soul Weaver, Carol Berg (July 19)
3.5:Daughter of Ancients, Carol Berg (July 23)
4.0:Twilight, Stephenie Meyer (July 25) (getting ready for the Breaking Dawn release on the 2nd!)
4.5: New Moon, Stephenie Meyer (July 27)
5.5: The Guilty, Jason Pinter (July 28)
6.0: Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer (July 31)
I’ll update when I finish a book.