China Mieville tells The Guardian what he knows

I was going to go with another quote for the teaser, but this one seems appropriate for some of the Israeli readers: "I don't judge fiction writers by their politics. Jeffrey Archer is scum, he is also a shit writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline was scum, but a superb writer."

Again, link via Bookslut. I sure am glad I added her rss feed to my reader.

Nick Hornby interviews Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell, who I've never heard of before, is a non-fiction author and radio personality. She also plays Violet in the new Pixar film, The Incredibles.

This is a delightful interview, which makes me think I should read some of her stuff. Favorite quote: "The nice thing about President Garfield is that people are over his death."

Link via bookslut

Superman: Secret Identity

Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen's 's Superman: Secret Identity is coming out in trade paperback. The premise is simple: In our world, a young man named Clark Kent (his parents thought it would be funny) suddenly gains Superman's powers.

It's a beautiful story. Stuart Immonen's art is terrific, and Kurt Busiek's writing is sharp, smart, funny, touching. It is a truly fresh take on a subject that often seems to have beaten to death.

Even if you don't read comics. Even if you do read comics but don't usually read Superhero comics. Even if you hate Superman. Buy it.(the link is to Amazon.uk, where it's significantly cheaper. If you're already getting something from Amazon.com, you can use this link) Read it. Come back and thank me. I'll be here.

Disfunctional relationships on Amazing Race

The TV Gal rightly smacks down The Amazing Race for putting obnoxiously disfunctional relationships on the screen. This could have been a great season of TAR. There's some strong competitors, some decent people, some connivers. The usual mix. But Jonathan and Victoria are just painful to watch. This is an abusive relationship. If I had friends like these (well, a friend like Victoria, who may be a decent human being somewhere under the fatigue of dealing with her asshole of a husband), I'd try to avoid social gatherings with both of them, just so I wouldn't have to see a relationship like that play out. Why do I need to see it on TV? And on a show that, historically, has not been a festering puddle of evil like most of the reality tv shows on Fox?

Last year, Colin was annoying. But at least he was a terrific competitor. I would complain about him regularly to Tammy, but he wasn't painful to watch.

I also agree with TV Gal that what makes it more painful to watch is knowing these people are actually married. These aren't two people randomly thrown together for a tv show. When the game ends, they actually have to go home together (hopefully, to a divorce lawyer).

This has been a very weak season for competition-type reality shows. Apprentice is much weaker than the first season. Survivor is having a weak season, which only really came alive this week (maybe predictable, after last season's tour de force). Benefactor was a flop. Amazing Race will suffer until Jonathan and Victoria are eliminated.

Speaking of Survivor... does anyone from this show make it to the next All Stars? Maybe Amy. Maybe. That's not a testament to a strong season.

Fun new Cory Doctorow story online

Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing, Electronic rights advocate, and, of course, SF writer, has a really cool new story in Salon called Anda's Game. Clever, socially conscious SF about gaming, with a nod and a wink to Ender's Game. Doctorow is one of my favorite writers online, and his fiction is as sharp as his non-fiction.

Worldcon reminder

Next Tuesday is the last day before prices go up. A look at the current membership at Interaction's website reveals that no new Israelis have signed up since the five who registered months ago. Next Wednesday, prices go up by $25. Interaction has an installment plan, so that if you register in the next six days, you pay $45 now, followed by two quarterly payments of $75 and $50.

I wouldn't be harping on about this if it weren't for the fact that several Israeli fans have said they were planning to go. Now is the time to register people. If you need an incentive, I'll mention that amongst the regsitered, one can find the following attending members: David Brin, George RR Martin, Terry Pratchett, Robin Hobb, Larry Niven, Connie Willis, Michael Swanwick, Alastair Reynolds, CJ Cherryh... You can check the current membership list and see if your favorite author is attending. And, of course, more will join. Most of the Hugo noms usually attend, as well.

It should be a great worldcon, and it'll be several years before a worldcon is this close to Israel. So if you're free next August, why not go?

American Gods for highschool kids

Matthew Cheney, one of the finest bloggers on fantastic fiction, teaches 11th graders Literature. This year, he decided to make them read Neil Gaiman's American Gods. He blogs about the (mostly positive) results.

I was pretty surprised to read that American Gods is considered difficult reading for 17 year olds. Much of the literature I read in lit class was considerably harder, and I think it would be harder even if I wasn't used to reading fantastic fiction. Are Israeli readers reading matreial that's so far advanced compared to what Americans do, or is that the case with Israeli highschools as well nowadays? I wonder.

Fallen Angel TPB - second printing

Peter David reports that the first (and, thus far, only) collection of his ongoing series Fallen Angel is going back to press for a second printing. This is great news for a terrific title that's has been fighting off cancellation since the first issue, and was recently approved for issues 19 and 20. If you like good, smart comics, on the border of superhero fiction, but not quite there, and with a strong female protagonist, this book is highly recommended. Also, by buying it, you help keep it alive, so I can have more issues.

Terrific article about creative property in New Yorker

Malcolm Gladwell writes about plagiarism, copyright, art, and ethics, in a terrific and thought provoking piece. Read it.

Link via Will Shetterly, at it's all one thing. And in the above paragraph I stole some of his words and changed the order.

Farewell, Winamp (for now?)

For a while now, it has seemed that Winamp, the extremely popular and much beloved mp3 player, is close to it's last days. AOL has been firing people in Nullsoft, and others have quit. Now, Nullsoft release Winamp 5.06, calling it the "Final Edition (for now)".

I've been using Winamp less and less. ITunes and the vast improvements in Windows Media Player 10 have made it less attractive. Still, it may be the death of winamp, and it joines Netscape on the pile of things that used to be major parts of my computer experience before AOL bought them.

Fafblog Review of Books

Fafblog (which you should all be reading, btw) makes fun of Tom Wolfe for his recent book, which is almost too easy a target these days. But at the end, he recommends the book which currently ranks as the top novel-I-wish-another-publisher-hadn't-purchased-for-publication-in-Hebrew-so -I-could-do-it, even thoush I haven't read it yet - Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell.

BugMeNot plugin update

A few days ago, in the comments to my post about Firefox 1.0, I mentioned that on of my favorite Firefox plugins is BugMeNot, which uses BugMeNot's terrific (and ever updating) databased of sites that require annoying free registration, and allows the user to login nearly automatically. Now, it's got a new version that works with Firefox 1.0. Go get it.

Disney buys Crossgen

Heidi McDonald's The Beat has all the details about Disney's purchase of Crossgen, the little comics company that couldn't.

I'm especially thrilled about the prospects of Abadazad making a comeback. Not only is it extremely Disney friendly (all ages, no "adult" language) it's also a terrific book, telling a timeless fantasy story with humor, action, and emotion.

A bit more about Tammy's blog

Tammy wrote several posts in her new blog. Two of which relate to major issues in our relationship. The issues are marriage and and children. Interestingly, the post about marriage, in which she explained why she's opposed to the institution, received mostly positive feedback, whereas the post about not wanting to have children aroused mounds of anger and bile.

I say "interestingly" because in our household, it's the marriage thing that's controversial. I want to get married. I believe in the institution of marriage, and I love weddings. It's not a deal breaker, or we wouldn't still be together, but it's an issue.

Children, however, is something we agree on. Our reasons are different, but the bottom line is the same - while we both adore children, and love our nephews dearly, we are not interested in having any. While I have received some negative comments about this, most of our friends and family understand our decision. Apart from the occasional "but you'd make such great parents," this isn't a point of contention in our enviorment. That's why I was surprised to see Tammy's post, which certainly did not call for a ban on having children, or criticize those who choose to do so, receive such a negative response.

Tammy's blog

My beloved girlfriend and life partner, Tammy Ninyo, loves to rant. She does it at length, and she does it eloquently, and she does it on a variety of topics. She's also frequently funny (in the intentional humor category) when she rants. Until now, she mostly ranted at me and at a few of her close friends. Now, she has a blog in the distinguished Notes blog portal, where she rants in public. If you read Hebrew, you should check it out.

REALLY short interview

I know I just posted a link to an interview with Nick Mamatas last week, but this one is very short, and quite funny in an unintentional way (unintentional by the interviewer, and I think Mamatas was going more for snarky than for the funny.)

Gmail for your desktop client

This is good news. Blogger will be adding POP3 access to Gmail within the next 2 weeks. Frankly, I'm not sure I'd use it, or if I will, I'll probably leave copies of the messages in the server. After my last two HD crashes, I've grown quite fond of the idea of having Gmail hold some of my more important emails. But it'll be nice to be able to get the gmail emails in my inbox alongside emails sent to my other three adresses.

Firefox hits 1.0

A few years ago, I switched from Netscape to Internet Explorer. I wasn't thrilled about doing it, because I disliked a lot of things about IE, and knew that a single browser world will not lead to better browsing. But Netscape's browser had become a bloated piece of software, and IE boasted much better support for Hebrew.

A few months back, when IE was giving me some trouble, I tried Mozilla Firefox, which was in beta at the time. And it was a whole new world. Hebrew support was fine, it was a much lighter software, and I completely fell in love with tabbed browsing. Some Israeli sites don't support it well at all, so I still have Explorer for those. But overall, it's been a major improvement in my browsing experience. Some of the third party extensions for Firefox are absolutely brilliant as well.

And today, Firefox officially grows up. It's out of beta and in official release. If you like surfing the web, you should try it. It's a safer browser, a lighter browser, and a better browser.

Strongbad on DVD

A little something for my friends who are huge fans of Homestarrunner's Strongbad and his email replies. The first 100 email replies, all in viciously funny animation, are coming out on DVD.

Mark Cuban - fined for blogging

Well, this would be funny if it wasn't pathetic. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, wrote a blog post criticizing the league for having the league's opening night on election night. And got fined.

I know Cuban can afford this fine. The NBA can fine him every day and he'd still be able to afford it. But reacting to legitimate criticism (with which I agree, btw), expressed in what is essentially a private forum, with a fine, is just silly. And as Cuban suggests, it makes the NBA seem weaker, not stronger.

There's a political rant waiting to be written about this, about how the administration's unwillingness to see criticism as legitimate fosters this kind of behavior in corporate America. I just don't have the stomach to write it right now.

Mamatas justifies himself to VanderMeer

Nick Mamatas is one of my favorite bloggers (or livejournalists as the case may be), and he's written one of the most intriguing genre books in recent memory, Move Under Ground. Jeff VanerMeer is one of the best and most interesting writers of fantastic fiction in recent years, and a fine blogger in his own right. Now, VanderMeer hosts Mamatas in a short, but extremely entertaining interview about his book.

Tomorrow is November 4th

Nine years ago, on November 4th 1995, I wasn't at the big peace rally at the square. I was standing behind the bar in The Smoking Dog, the bar I worked at, which was also my favorite bar. It was the Dog's closing night. The place had been bought about a year previously by two partners who managed to bungle things up so much that they lost a sizable portion of the clientele, so they decided to close the place with a big blow out party, which would help recoup some of their losses. They thought the night of the big rally would be an excellent choice, as masses of people would be in a great mood and up for one last drink fest at the Dog.

Obviously, that plan didn't really pan out. I remember someone walking in and shouting "they shot Rabin" and walking out. Quickly, more sources confimred it, and the big bash became a small wake. I was numb. I never liked Rabin. I had protested some of his previous actions, such as the deportation of 400 Hamas leaders to Lebanon. But in recent months, I had began to appreciate that the man was overgoing a profound change. He had realized that it was time for peace. I was at the rally before that last one, and it was a joyous occasion. It was strange to finally be in a rally FOR something, rather than against, and it was wonderful. There was an optimism which this country had not experienced for decades, and hasn't really experienced since.

Sure, some people were protesting against Rabin and his moves for peace with Syria and the Palestinians, but they were clearly in the minority. They were calling Rabin a traitor and a Nazi and many other things, but that didn't really scare us. They were just proving themselves to be the lunatic fringe we've always known they were.

And then came the rally I didn't attend, and we learned what history has already proven many times before - that the lunatic fringe can and will change history with a gun, or a sword or a knife. And Peres lost the next elections, and optimism was lost. For my generation, November 4th is the most infamous of dates, the most bitter of reminders, and as long as the job Rabin started isn't finished, it shall remain so.

Now, another Prime Minister is trying to do something that should have been done long ago - pull this country out of Gaza. 9 years ago, he was a leader of those who called Rabin a traitor. Now, the lunatic fringe is calling him a traitor. And it may yet end behind the barrel of a gun.

But for me, despite its bitterness, November 4th is a also sweet. Five years ago, on November 4th, I met Tammy, who has been my girlfriend, and is now my partnet in life.

It's been a hard five years. We've had the kind of trials and tribulations most couples have, plus some trials most people are fortunate enough not to experience. But we've overcome those. We live in our own apartment, and we pay the mortgage, and we work (and both continue to make strides in our work) and meet our friends. We live, and we still have hope. And that's a victory in and of itself.

And it's been a hard decade. for this country. But the most notorious figure in the country's right wing may be leading the country out of Gaza. There's still hope. And that, too, is a victory.

As I read blogs on the web today, many staunch Democrats are despairing. I can understand that, and I can empathize with that. But I say to them: Don't. The American nation has rebounded from reelecting Nixon and Reagen. It will rebound from reelecting your current piss-poor excuse for a president.

ps. I wrote this 4 hours ago, but Blogger has been frelled today.

Byron Leftwich redux

Inbetween checking out the exit polls that are leaking all over the web (and look quite positive for Kerry suporters), I should note that Byron Leftwich, my fantasy team's starting QB, about whom I raved just last week, is injured, possibly out for the season. I'm trying to trade for a QB to replace him, but this is a serious hurdle for my team's chances at a repeat as fantasy champs.

Scratch proof CDs!

Earlier today, I was talking with my sister's husband about digital vs. non digital cameras. One of his points in favor of non digital was that the CDs you store the digital pictures on get scratched and degrade.

Wish I'd seen this Endagdet post earlier, so I could tell him all about the new polymer coating for LCD screens and CDs and DVDs. Apparently, the thing protects the surface against just about anything. Hope this thing is in mass use soon.

Daily Show Election blog

If you're an Israeli staying up for election results (because you're a political junkie like me who NEEDS to know), you can entertain yourself throughout the night by periodically checking The Daily Show's Election Day Blog.

Giblets wins!

All hail President Giblets!

I've got my family to feed

I've been a Latrell Sprewell fan for years, ever since he came to the Knicks. He's always been the kind of player who lays it all on the line, and while his mouth (not to mention his hands around his coach's throat, though that was years ago, in a very different situation) has gotten him in trouble, I've always thought his heart was in the right place.

But in a recent interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, he said something that really, really, really annoyed me. When talking about his reason for refusing to sign the contract extension he's been offered, he said: "I've got my family to feed."

Sprewell's current team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, offered him a 3 year extension for $27 million. Spree is 34, and his abilities are not what they once were. Also, he's on the last year of a huge contract. He's going to make over $14 million this year, and he's been making this kind of money for years. The guy is a millionaire many times over. He'll make more money this year than most people make in their entire lives. And he's talking about feeding his family? Man, you're family's taken care of. They're good.

On top of this, Spree has always struck me as the kind of guy who cares about winning more than anything. In the last game of the 1999 finals, he was the only Knick who really came to play, and at one point, it looked like he may win the game on his own. Now, in the twilight of his career, he's playing on a team with a legitimate chance at a championship. He's playing with Kevin Garnett, the best player in the league. And he's being offered what looks to me like a fair deal. And this man, in this situation, says: "Why would I want to help them win a title? They're not doing anything for me." Aren't YOU supposed to want a title? Isn't that why you play the damn games? To get a shot at the title?

I've been a Sprewell defender and a Sprewell apologist. I've gone to great lengths to explain to friends that he has been misrepresented in the press, misunderstood, vilified. But now, I only have this to say:

Fuck you, Spree. Fuck you for spitting on the sport that made you a millionaire. I hope you get traded to the Clippers.

Well, ok, if you say so...

Frankly, the result may have been different is there were better/more questions and possible answers. Still, it's nice, I guess (even though "pundit" and "blogger" add up to a certain blog I don't read unless another blogger I trust links to it with an interesting teaser.)

Also... "appreciated by many"? Dudes, I read my traffic data, and a few dozen people a day ain't "many."

You Are a Pundit Blogger!

Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few.

What kind of blogger are you?

The real Slim Shady stands up

I know every other blogger has blogged about Eminem's Mosh, but it looks like a nice bandwagon, so I'll hop on.

A few years ago, Eminem released "The Real Slim Shady", in which he described himself in the following lines:

"And there's a million of us just like me
who cuss like me; who just don't give a fuck like me"

and

"And every single person is a Slim Shady lurkin
He could be workin at Burger King, spittin on your onion rings
Or in the parkin lot, circling
Screaming "I don't give a fuck!"
with his windows down and his system up"

And now, thanks to George W. Bush, the REAL Slim Shady stands up. He stands up on SNL holding a sign that says "VOTE", and he stands up to deliver these lines:

"Imagine it pouring, it's raining down on us
Mosh pits outside the oval office
Someone's tryina tell us something,
Maybe this is god just sayin' we're responsible
For this monster, this coward,
That we have empowered"

This is no longer the guy who didn't give a fuck, the guy who expressed his anger by rolling the windows up and turning on the volume. This is a guy who stars in a video in which a revolutonary army is assembled by the disenfranchised, and goes to war in the voting booth. Eminem is one of the most popular artists in America today, and by his decision to participate in the civic discourse, he becomes one of the most important artists in America.

If you don't like your media streamed, here's a direct link to the video on GNN, and here's a torrent link.

My prediction

I haven't blogged a lot about the American elections, but I have been following the campaigns VERY closely. So here's my prediction:

Popular Vote:
Kerry: 53
Bush: 46
Nader: 1

Electoral Vote:
Kerry: 300
Bush: 238

I'll throw in a much less informed prediction about the Senate and House races: Democrats take the Senate, while the Republicans retain control of the House, but by a smaller margin.

I'm an optimist, and this prediction certainly reflects that. But I believe the undecided will break for Kerry, and I believe there will be a very large turnout, with many new voters, most of whom will vote for Kerry. I think Kerry is going to win both Florida AND Ohio.

As I've said, I'm an optimist. But I also thought I was optimistic when I predicted the Pistons will in 6 games in the NBA finals, when most analists thought the Lakers will win in either 6 or 5. As you'll recall, the Pistons won it in 5.