Sexual Chem...er.. Physics...!

Does anyone else get the feeling that this guy just wants to prove that sitting alone in a lab all day will eventually get him the girl? :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4144782.stm

The research suggested that multiple daters, those who form many relationships, were less effective at finding the right partner than those who remained in one place and let others come to them.

This is extremely cool...

Very cool news from Neil Gaiman's journal this morning:

A bunch of authors are auctioning off the use of someone's name in their books - some pretty impressive names - Stephen King, Lemony Snicket (nee Daniel Handler), Michael Chabon, John Grisham and, of course, Neil, to mention a few...

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/08/this-september-your-name-here.asp


I once bid for my name to be in a Pratchett book but wasn't willing to pay enough :) Plus, my name wasn't particularly exciting ... when he heard it he said... 'Well, we can always use more seamstresses...'

But I digress... Excerpt below:

Have you ever wanted to be in a Stephen King book? (You must be female in order to die, though.)

Stephen King
What he's offering:"One (and only one) character name in a novel called CELL, which is now in work and which will appear in either 2006 or 2007. Buyer should be aware that CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the human brain. Like cheap whiskey, it's very nasty and extremely satisfying. Character can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female. In any case, I'll require physical description of auction winner, including any nickname (can be made up, I don't give a rip)."
When you can bid:September 8-18

Or a Lemony Snicket book?
Lemony Snicket
What he's offering:"An utterance by Sunny Baudelaire in Book the Thirteenth. Pronunciation and/or spelling may be slightly 'mutilated.' An example of this is in The Grim Grotto when Sunny utters 'Bushcheney.'
Target publication date is Fall 2006."
When you can bid:September 8-18

or a Jonathan Lethem-written Marvel comic?
Jonathan Lethem
What he's offering:"I need the name of a Columbia University professor for a comic book I'm writing for Marvel. It can be your name or the name of a friend -- but if it's a friend, I need to hear from them with their permission."
When you can bid:September 8-18

While I am promising to put your name onto a gravestone in my next children's novel, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

Anyway, the schedule (and the complete list of authors) is as follows:

September 1-10: Michael Chabon, Amy Tan, Peter Straub, Andrew Sean Greer, Karen Joy Fowler
September 8-18: Stephen King, Lemony Snicket, Dorothy Allison, Jonathan Lethem, Ayelet Waldman
September 15-25: John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Neil Gaiman, Dave Eggers, Rick Moody, ZZ Packer

And all the information is up at http://www.ebay.com/fap (or at http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=auctioncause).

It's a perfect birthday present, graduation present, retirement present, way to impress a boyfriend, girlfriend, parent, child. And it's for an extremely good cause.

Spread the word.

Is it Wednesday already?

I thought this was interesting. There was a big article and report on MSNBC about how Christian video games are trying to break into the mainstream. Fair enough, I suppose.. although my being an athiest notwithstanding, I think they still sound dull, in spite of this ringing endorsement from the one 11-year-old they could find who actually plays them:

Victoria Tolin, for one, wants these kinds of videos. The 11-year-old loves the games, but doesn’t like violence.
“I play a lot of Christian video games,” Tolin said. “They don’t have fights. You just have to follow Jesus and pick up little crosses for points.”

Wow - crosses for points. Yep, they'll be taking down Halo any day now...

But seriously, they mentioned Grand Theft Auto as an example of the 'bad' video games that are out there now. I'm OK with that, I guess... but I thought it was interesting that they decided it was bad because of the hidden sex scene that wasn't even supposed to be released in GTA, rather than... oh the whole premise of the game, which is to steal cars and beat up the cops?

Because sex is way worse than crime... :) Apparently, I'm not alone in my opinion although this lady from the Washington Times seems a lot more upset. I'm just amused, really. But that's probably because I don't have kids... Her commentary is interesting. I don't agree with all of it but it's a pretty good analysis, I thought.

But, I guess my point is that Christian games won't make it big until they unlock the basic secret. Picking up crosses is all very well and good but the fight between good and evil is what the best games are all about! Let's see Apostle Challenge - slay the Romans and get Jesus off the cross before it's too late! Or Sinner Slayer... how many non-Christians can you smite before your time is up?! And for the younger kids, forget this wierd PacMan knock off thing. Let's see Jesus Frogger! No need for logs - he can just run right across the water dodging people who are sinking because they lack faith!

Ok, ok, now maybe the blaspheming Athiest in me is coming out. I better stop before I get smote... smited... smutted...? Hmmm...

Plus, I bet this dude wasn't playing Christian games.

Oh, and speaking of idiots, the crazy dude on the mountain finally got rescued... Hope he's learned his lesson - STAY HOME AND EAT JELLO! Mountain climbing indeed... what are these people thinking...?

Reorganization and new furniture...

It's been ages since I've written but I'm back home finally and happy to be here. Surprisingly, getting home hasn't really slowed down my pace. We bought a bunch of furniture a couple of weeks back and it's all getting delivered this weekend so Christian and I have had to spend some quality time cleaning house to get ready for it. (It's the domino effect - the old couch goes into the computer room, the futon goes into the downstairs bedroom, which is now becoming my new puppet workshop and the downstairs bed goes into the guest bedroom upstairs, which is really where it should have been in the first place.)

Thankfully, we're done with the majority of the heavy lifting, although a little bit still remains. When I get tired, I just think about this guy and all of a sudden, carrying a queen-sized bed up two flights of stairs doesn't seem so bad.

I've also been working on updating my web site... well, creating my web site, really. More on that to come...