Pluto’s Prospects

Speculative Science

Who else thought, “Aww, the guy’s getting downsized,” when Pluto got bumped out of the planet category?  All my life I’ve enjoyed the fact that our solar system wound itself up with a quirky little rock that zipped through a crazy orbit–kind of cool, really. While we lived in the DC suburbs the kids took us

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This week in words

Writing

Delirium >n. an acutely disturbed state of mind that occurs in fever, intoxication, and other disorders and is chartacterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech. 2-wild excitement or ecstasy. –Origin mid 16th cent.: from Latin, delirare ‘deviate, be deranged’ (literally ‘deviate from the furrow’), from de– ‘away’ + lira ‘ridge between furrows.’ Quoll >n. a

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Craft – Delirium

Crafting Pieces

” . . . and now, on behalf of the KIP foundation, we’d like to announce the Grand Prize winner–Jane Sowers!” Jane leaped from her seat and clambored up the stairs to the dias.  She turned to face the audience, her face flushed and eyes bright. “Oh, wow–wow,” she said.  “Thanks, everybody, but especially the truly important ones

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Fantastic Four

Movies

The Pros:  The characters were true individuals, with their own motivation.  The graphic portrayal of their powers worked, and the actors did a good job at looking like they really were using that ability just then.  It had some funny scenes that brought a laugh, and some witty lines.  The scene, near the end, showing the effort Susan Storm put

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Video Piracy is Suffering From Good PR

1 CommentRumblings

Before watching Fantastic Four last night (I’ll blog a review later), we were shown a little clip intending to discourage video/dvd piracy.  The clip flashed with scenes of someone’s purse being stolen, then another theft (a car?) and tables where bootlegged dvds were being sold. Now, let me quickly say that I have never knowingly used ripped-off or bootlegged copies of videos

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The Myth of Fingerprints

Speculative Science, Writing

Anybody else old enough to remember the Paul Simon song by that name?  I never did understand all the words, but it was fun to sing. Now I’ve come across some info that says some people don’t have fingerprints, and the people at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have found out what causes it.   Apparently it’s

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Links Page

Blogging

Anyone who’s noticed I had a very long blogroll with only a handful of actual blogs in it will now notice it has shrunk.  I’ve created a Links page, at the top, and moved all my potential publisher and sf happenings, etc., links over there.

Haunting the Mailbox

Writing

Of course I know that intelligent, repectable writers do not wear themselves out waiting for news of a submission.  ‘Send it out the door, then forget about it.’ ‘Make sure you’ve put your story in order than submit, and move on to the next piece.’ ‘When a submission has been postmarked, put it out of

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More Instincts than Intelligence

Martial Arts

Tonight at muay thai the instructor introduced us (or me, everyone else was familiar with it) to a new block.  The block is a defense against a hook punch, and involves wrapping the hand on the side being hit back and over so the elbow is out and the hand is resting on the back of

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A Cricket in the Night

Home in the Rookery

Last night, heading to bed, I was especially tired and grateful for sleep.  My husband was working on his laptop beside me, but the light was off and all was well. Then we heard it.  The dreaded crick crick crick of a cricket in our room.  It wasn’t too loud but had an echo-y sound

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