I've got this novel, see...

Anna Genoese, an editor at Tor, describes how to pitch your novel.

Dear God, the Horror!

Live Journal appears to be down at the moment.

Remain calm.

Thank you.

Update: corporate irewall.
Yes, that's a typo, but a cool one.

A Modest Proposal

Let's require that all members of the House of Representatives remain in their district at all times during their terms.

With modern communications capability, there is no need at all for them to be in Washington DC full-time. This makes in-person lobbying that much harder.

Discuss.

Gun control, or lack thereof

Our distingushed Vice President, Mr Cheney, accidentally shot his hunting partner over the weekend. Partner will recover. I'm pointing to the boingboing post on the topic, because it has the best reader comments, including:

The important questions raised by this hunting accident are:

1) *Are* lawyers in season right now?
2) Was the lawyer at least a 4-point?
3) Was Cheney within his permit limit?

This message brought to you by Surrealists for a More Entertaining Government.

It's sort of like the middle of nowhere.

You are one link away from the end of the Internet.

They Write the Right Stuff

Say what you will about the Space Shuttle, it was never brought down by a software failure.

This Fast Company article, which I linked to long ago in the now-defunct Alien Wine Connoisseur*, explains the whys and wherefores.

Thanks to Dan Sanderson at BrainLog for digging up the link.


* Alien Wine Connoisseur was a weblog I ran intermittently from 1999 - 2004. In June 2004, the hosting company I used went out of business, and in the great confusion of having to move custom software to new hosts, I lost that blog and another. Perhaps they're on the Wayback Machine; they're not in Google cache.

Literary speculation

From Tom Tuerff:

TEN UNLIKELY TITLES FOR THE LAST HARRY POTTER BOOK

Place your bets.

It's like graffiti, sort of.

Julian Beever is a well-known UK sidewalk artist, who does these amazing drawings. They're 3-D if you view them from just the right spot. Like this one:



(amazing, though I am a Pepsi drinker.)

And, given the mildly-snarky tone of the Village, how about this one:



Politicians Meeting Their End was commissioned
for the night of the 1997 General Election.

Expansionist Policy

Gonna try something: If you want to join us here in the Village, cleverly encode your e-mail in a comment, and I'll send you a Blogger invitation. The world could be ours!

Or I'll create fake accounts for the cats.

Pro football? No football!

Just a quick note to say that we here at the Village have broken the law and ignored the Super Bowl. However, we did have a lovely, quiet dinner, a nice little visit to the Napoleonic Wars (Master and Commander), and we've picked out our new patio furniture. Traffic was light. I think we'll make a party of it next year.