Blackmoor Vituperative

After several days of plotting scenes in my head, I started writing Spider Season today. That’s the working title. I’ve written about 650 words so far. If I can do 500 words per day, I can finish the novel in 8 months.

I am still not sure how to handle time, weights, and measures. If I make something up, that will push the reader out of the story. If I use “kilos” and “meters” and so on, that will seem too modern. If I use archaic measurements like “stone” or “yards”, that will implicitly place the story in our past. I am not sure what to do.

I have also placed myself in the awkward position of having to find out how large a ten-year-old girl’s feet are. How does one find such information without looking like some kind of pervert?

I still haven’t put the photos from our vacation online. Probably this weekend.

Thinking about our photos, and our vacation in general, reminds me what a beautiful country we live in. Geographically, culturally, politically, economically… the USA really is a great place to live. That’s not to say that it’s perfect: there are certain laws and actions of our government officials that I think could use a great deal of improvement, but part of the beauty of the USA is that we can hope to peacefully change the things that need to be changed. And if we don’t, well, we get the government we deserve. That’s ultimately what makes the USA a great country. We’re responsible: it says it right there in the Preamble, “We the people”.

I often veer into extreme hyperbole in my online diatribes, just to vent some steam from time to time about things that bug me. But seriously, I think these are minor issues. They only loom large in that they are such deviations from what the USA should embody: freedom to speak our minds, to pursue our happiness, and so forth. And it’s such a huge contrast because, in general, we do have that extraordinary freedom, and a darn good standard of living. It’s good that we call our officials on the carpet when they step over the line, but we should also realize just how lucky we are to live here despite the unusual things that remind us that our country isn’t perfect.

It really is a great country.

Susan and I just got back from Sandusky, Ohio, home of the Cedar Point amusement park. Cedar Point is reputed to have the best collection of roller coasters in the USA, which is why we went. We did have a good time, but you know, I think Busch Gardens Europe (formerly known as Busch Gardens: The Old Country) is on par with it, and Busch Gardens is a nicer amusement park to spend the day in.

We also visited Harpers Ferry, WV, during what just happened to be the centennial celebration of the first meeting of the Niagra Movement on US soil. Pretty cool. We also got to see (from the outside) the only English Norman castle in the USA, Berkeley Castle. Too bad it isn’t open for tours anymore.

I noticed some strange things on our trip. Some of them were obvious, and easy to talk about. For example, in Pennsylvania you can’t buy wine at the grocery store. You can only buy it at state-run stores. When I asked a fellow in PA where I could find the wine in the grocery store, he made a disparaging comment on his “backward” state. Meanwhile, in West Virginia, you can buy liquor at the corner 7-11. I kind of wish I had, just so that I could say that I did.

It was also hard to miss the demographic differences, but those are more difficult to talk about. People react strangely when you notice their differences. For example, there seemed to be an unnatural number of lean, reasonably attractive women in Sandusky, Ohio. Literally half of the people on the shuttle bus going to Cedar Point on our first day were young women. I do not know why. It was also hard to miss that Ohio is a very “white” state. Here in central and south-eastern Virginia, I am used to there being a roughly 50/50 mix of light-skinned and dark-skinned people. I think of this as normal. It was very odd to see a few dark faces in an otherwise oatmeal-colored crowd. I have to wonder how it would feel to be the X in a crowd of Os. I would have liked to ask a few people how they felt being a literal as well as figurative minority, but as I said, people react strangely when you draw attention to such things, so I didn’t.

I took a bunch of photos during our trip, using our nifty new Nikon digital camera. I’ll put them online soon, probably tomorrow.

Check out this Chinese Pepsi commercial.

Pretty…

Fake crab meat. You know what I’m talking about: that sweet, white-with-red-stripes substance that you can get for about one-quarter the price of real crab meat. I love it. I can eat a pound of it at a time (preferably cold).

But I always wondered where this stuff came from. From a factory somewhere, certainly. But how is it made? Like sausage? Like lunch meat? Like soylent green?

Today I found out:

How products are made — imitation crab meat

Wow. I had no idea that the underlying technology that makes fake crab meat possible had been kicking around since the 16th century. That’s wild. I also would never have guessed that the sugar and sorbitol in fake crab meat served an essential manufacturing purpose. I always just figured it was there to make the product sweeter so that we fat-assed Americans would buy it.

The Internet really is amazing, you know. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Science Fiction & Fantasy return to Richmond, VA with RavenCon 2006, a weekend celebrating the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. (And as we’re playing the Edgar Allan Poe angle, we’re Mystery friendly, too!) Join our guests for panel discussions and workshops that can only happen at RavenCon!

Find out more at http://www.ravencon.com/

Some neat links Susan sent me.

The Top 15 Skylines In The World
These are just awesome, particularly Hong Kong. I wish I’d been able to visit Hong Kong before the Chinese took it over. I don’t seriously think I’d be in any danger if I went there now (not any more than I would have been before, anyway), but it’s just the principle of the thing. Still, it’s an amazing looking city. Who knows, maybe I will visit it someday.

The Movie Timeline
The premise of this site is brilliant: a timeline that includes any event that happens on any date in any movie. It’s a little Alien vs. Predator heavy, but still very cool. Susan and I were about halfway through it when Susan got the idea of going through the Highlander movies and adding dates from those, but they beat us to it! In the process, they reminded me what a terrible, terrible movie Highlander:Endgame was. Whoo-wee, what a stinker.

The new year is here. New Year’s Eve was a hoot. Susan and I bought a package at the Day’s Inn at the Virginia Beach waterfront, including dinner, champagne, party favors, a room for the night, and brunch the next day. Dinner was, without question, the best lobster I have ever had, and I loved hanging out in the all-season indoor pool.

To celebrate the new year, here is a new drink recipe. New for me, anyway.

Oatmeal cookie

1/4 cup Jagermeister
1/4 cup Irish Cream Liqueur (I use Ryan’s, or make my own — I’ll post the recipe for that another time)
1/4 cup Buttershots (or other butterscotch schnapps)
1/4 cup Goldschlager (or other cinnamon schnapps)
a few flakes of rolled oats, for garnish

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into martini glasses.

My gorgeous and talented wife Susan won the 2005 Simplicity American Sewing Guild Creativity Contest in the category “Most Interesting Wardrobe Concept”.

Susan works in a laboratory analyzing materials for asbestos. The color scheme of her six-piece wardrobe, which ranges from magenta to purple to dark blue on a black field, echoes the dispersion staining colors of Chrysotile, the most common type of asbestos. Embellishment details were inspired by the way Chrysotile fibers look under a microscope.

(from Simplicity, The American Sewing Guild Creativity Contest Winners)