From the In Case You Somehow Missed it files, Teresa
Nielsen Hayden thoughtfully provides a linked list of
someof the golden oldies of web strangeness. Some
wonderfully funny and bizzare stuff. A must check list
if you're at all new to the web.

Life without a computer of my own SUCKS. It's coming back from
the lab tomorrow, and I should be able to resume updating the site
then.

Untill then, here are the winners of the Mythopoetic Awards,
awarded to the fantasy works that best exemplify the spirit
of the Inklings (in other words, the one award China Mieville
- or Philip Pullman, for that matter - will probably NEVER win).

As you can read in the link, Curse of Chalion won Best
Adult Literature. Well, I can't claim Declare or American
Gods better exemplify the spirit of the Inklings and all that.
But they ARE better novels. Not that CoC isn't a good
novel, it just isn't a great novel.

Yup. It's me. Still alive. Still working like a mofo. Books
are really starting to shape up. I think people are going
to like our lineup (then again, I always do), and I think
it's going to come out very well done. Rosh Hashana is
still our ETA for the first batch.

There's a wonderful interview with Neil Gaiman over at
a lovevly site I haven't encountered before called "Foodporn".
Mostly about food, but also about life and fiction. Link via
the Gaiman journal, natch.

Yes, I'm still alive. Got a bit caught up with work and life
and everything that goes into buying an apartment. But
here I am, with a link to a wonderful little essay on Terry
Pratchett and THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS
EDUCATED RODENTS and the fact that it won the Carnegie
medal. Link via the essay's author, a fella by the name of Neil
Gaiman.

I haven't been very active online lately, due to the
fact that so-called "real life" has taken up way too
much of my time lately. However, two posts over
at Fisheye caused me to go a bit ballistic twice
in one night. The first was caused by a poster's
statement that she hadn't read any of the Harry
Potter books because "anything that popular
can't possibly be good". The second was a
spurred by a complaint about the about the
"overuse" of the line "with great power comes
great responsibility" in the Spiderman movie
(which I really enjoyed, btw). Both posts are
in Hebrew.

A little belated coverage of the NBA draft with two of the
best sports writers on the planet. First up is the Sports
Guy, Bill Simmons, one of the funniest writers on earth
who's been sharing his draft notebook for the last six
years, and claims that this is the last time.
Second is Ralph Wiley, who tells us what the people
involved were REALLY thinking on draft night.

If you've seen Kevin Smith's Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (And
I hope you did, because it was funny, and much cleverer than
anyone who isn't familiar with Smith's films can realize), you
may remember a film news site that was featured on the site
(and, at the time, on the net). It was called Movie Poop Shoot.com,
and it was mostly a vicious parody of aint-it-cool-news.

Now, Smith has decided to make that site a reality. It's an
entertainment news, reviews, opinion and commentary site,
with heaps of potential. And with a column by Brian Lynch and
an interview with Ben Affleck, you KNOW your in Smith land.
Which, if you're a fan, and I am, is a good thing.

Neilgaiman.com has been relaunched with a new design
and layout, and it looks great. And they took the oppurtunity
to finally get Redfish's cover of Stardust right side up.
The Hebrew cover of Neverwhere, however, is gone from the site.
Oh, well. Guess they had enough different covers with the
McKean cover. And they do still have the god-awful Good Omens
cover and the wonderful 10th Dimension cover for Snow, Glass
Apples.

Everyone who knows an iota about politics knows that Israel
doesn't *really* have a left and right wings as they're defined
in most countries. However, Eric Raymond's lists of "Top Ten
Reasons I'm Not A (Left-)Liberal" and "Top Ten Reasons I'm
Not A Conservative" are still great conversation pieces anyway.
I don't agree with most of it, but as Charlie Stross says,
almost everyone finds at least one reason they agree with in
each category. Stross also answers the lists in a reasonable
and reasoned manner, which is something I'm not sure I could
do:
"But the major blooper in his analysis is this: he's buying into definitions
of conservativism and liberalism that look suspiciously like they were
designed specifically as placeholders for real ideologies".

In a move almost as ridiculous as the proposed books
based on the LOTR films, DC Comics will be publishing
a Smallville comic, based on the terrible show of the
same name.

A science fiction soap opera about cloning in the middle east
is all the rage in Brazil. Big cultural phenomenon with 20
million viewers.
Link via Kipod at the Ort sf forum.

The Coraline website is ONLINE! It's creepy and wonderful and
strange. Click anything that moves, especially the rats. Unless
you have a rat phobia, and want to avoid insomnia.

Some music I'm listening to these days is well worth your time.
Various bands headed by Stephin Merrit, including his main
band The Magnetic Fields and side projects Gothic
Archies, Future Bible Heroes and The 6ths. Merrit
specializes in melancholic synth pop with brilliant lyrics,
and his Gothic Archies are doing a song on the Coraline
audio book. The Magnetic Fields' last album, 69 Love
Songs is particularly brilliant.

Another band I listen to a lot is Ookla the Mok, a filk band
that sounds like a rock band. Their third album, Super Secret
Clubhouse, is a wonderful muse about geekdom and fandom
and comics, and my favorite Ookla song, My Secret Origin should
appeal tremendously to anyone who's childhood dreams were
shaped by sf, fantasy, and comics.

Other than those, I listen a LOT to the songs from the Buffy musical,
Once More With Feeling.

On the eve of the 30's anniversary of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
Hunter S. Thompson is interviewed by a Las Vegas' news and culture
weekly magazine. Interesting stuff.
Link via Boing Boing.

And another from Stross: an interesting reply to
a less interesting article about Ken Macleod and
Iain Banks.

I'm all for black humor. Really. But this Dead Pool for
the horror that's brewing between India and Pakistan
*may* be too much. Link via Charlie Stross.

Anyone who knows my views on the subject knows I'm a big
supporter of Copyright. I think it's an important part of the
artistic process in these modern times, in that it enables
artists to make a living from their art.

However, the Entertainment Corporations tactics in attempting
to control copyright have gone beyond "extreme" and well into
"deranged".

Off to Eilat for the weekend. Here's hoping the hot and dry
weather allows me to finally get well. This cold has been
going on for almost two weeks, and it's getting ridicolous.

Hey, I'm a Jedi Master. Should I change the name of this site
to DarthEstablishment.org?

I got a bit of criticism in the forum over the Star Wars
satire. Anyone who found that offensive may wish to
steer clear of SNITCH, the Strategic Network of Intelligence
on Terrorism in our Communities and Homeland. Link via
Charlie Stross.

Neil Gaiman exhibits surprise at American Gods' Mythopoetic
Award nomination. Did he not get the memo? You know, the
one that said AG MUST be nominated for ALL genre awards
this year?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden links to this wonderful footage of
water balloons being burst in Zero-G. Beautiful.

"We lost our innocence that day," reflected one mourner. "I guess we thought we
were immune from the kind of violence that happens in other galaxies. We were wrong."

"I lost hundreds of buddies that day," said one teary-eyed Stormtrooper. "Guys
whose only crime was trying make the Universe a safer place."

One sample of this timely bit of writing from Slashdot.
Link via Boing Boing.

Bruce Sterling, insightful as ever gives us his views on the
Star Wars Saga.

The Guardian sent reporters to several large bookstores,
for a little quality of service test. Here are the results.
Link via Gary Farber at Amygdala.

Sick as a dog. Coughing my guts out. Very unpleasant.
Drank more tea in the last three days than I ever thought
imaginable.

As most of you know, my translation of George RR Martin's
A Storm of Swords, will be published quite soon by my former
employers at Opus Press. It's an astoundingly excellent book,
which lifts an already excellent series into lofty hights indeed.
I hope my translation of it will turn out to have been equal
to the task. You can sample the translation by reading the
prologue at Bli Panika, and reading the first episode at the
ISSFF website.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can
read my review of the Song of Ice and Fire series, and
visit the amazing Westeros.org for loads of information.

Posted a new review today - my take on the The Dark Knight Returns, a
watershed in the history of comics. My views on the book are, to say
the least, mixed.

Seatle Times put up this article, justly described by Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing
as being "hysterical", all about the horror of pirated "Attack of the Clones"
DivX files floating about online.

When Spiderman premiered, there was a plethora of pirated versions of it
online. It has already smash several box office records, and appears to
be en route to smashing several others. So who, exactly, is being hurt
by this?

Harry potter is the devil's messenger - now in comics form. Link
via Boing Boing.

Here's a tradition I'd love to see Israeli fandom imitate - DUFF,
the Down Under Fan Fund, which sends a fan to worldcon
every year. There's also the european equivalent, TAFF, the
Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund.

The first review of Douglas Adams' Salmon of Doubt is out.
And the verdict is - uneven, but the title story, which is
85 pages long, is vintage Adams, and well worth our
time!

Neil Gaiman reports that the "coming soon" website for Coraline
is finally up. That's a hell of a blurb from Dianne Wynn Jones.

Frank Hughes, over at espn.com, says that Tim Duncan is
a hero for going back to work a few days after losing his
father. Why? What the hell is so damn heroic about it?

I'm not criticizing Duncan, mind you. I think his choice is
a valid one. But, to my mind, it is no more heroic than staying
at home with his friends and family, and mourning.

Patrick Nielsen Haydn points out that petitiononline.com is running
a petition to change the title of "The Two Towers" because "The title
is clearly meant to refer to the attacks on the World Trade Center."

I guess we could have (or should have) seen it coming.

Of course, in this petition eats petition world, someone has already
started a petition to stop the afore mention petition.

Oh, brother.

Finished reading Kelly Link's "Stranger Things Happen" a couple
of hours ago. My review has just been posted. Suffice to say,
it is a fucking brilliant book, with lovely, glittering stories, that
are like nothing else you're likely to read. Off to bed now.

Just did a which muppet are you quiz. Turns out I'm Kermit:

	You are Kermit! Though you're technically the star, you're pretty mellow and don't mind letting others share the spotlight. You are also something of a dreamer.

While, as we all know, it ain't easy being green, I still have to say: Yay me.

As is my habit on the first day of the month, I took the day off.
I did, however, sally forth to the estimable Pikarski literary
agency, and came back with several intriguing books. Most
anticipated of these was Carey's Kushiel's Chosen. Some of you
will recall how much I liked its predecessor, Kushiel's Dart.

Also of note is the fact that I got my greedy hands on Perdido
Street Station again, thus insuring that The Scar will come my
way soon. As soon as my department can handle a book of its
size, I am SO publishing PSS.

Other than that, not much of note. Am very much looking
forward to watching the Oz season opener. Those are always
good.

Let's start off with some essential weblog links:
Patrick Neilsen Hayden's Weblog
PNH is who I want to be when I grow up. He's a senior editor
at TOR, and a wise man.

Neil Gaiman's Blog is pretty much the coolest thing
ever for people like me, who are fans of The Neil.

Schism Matrix is where Bruce Sterling posts links daily.
I mean, he's Bruce fuckin' Sterling!

Well, gooly gee, it's a weblog. Sure aren't enough of those around huh?
And it's in English, because most of the content I'll be linking to is in
English, and because Blogger is easier to use in English. This weblog
will not deal solely with SF and Fantasy related stuff. It's here for whatever
I feel like saying, on whatever topic. Could be sports, film, tv. Could even
be (shudder) politics.

No guarantees on how often I'll be updating this. I actually started this
weblog over a year ago, and abandoned before going public with it. So
we'll see how it goes.