I've traditionally used LJ for reading logs, so since I finished a couple books in the last couple days, let's see if I can get back in the habit.

Yesterday finished Charles Stross' The Fuller Memorandum, the latest in the Laundry Files cycle, in which the British secret service defends our world against the Elder Gods via computational magic. Fun ( Read more... )

Haven't updated here in over 2 years, having mostly moved to Facebook for updates as that seems to be where most people are nowadays. On the other hand, it seems everybody's on Facebook now: my mother, church members, co-workers, etc., which means there are some things I'm not quite comfortable posting there. So perhaps it's time to go back to ( Read more... )

It was broken for a week anyways, and twitter seems to have reached a critical mass of users in the last few months, so I'm suspending my Loudtwitter cross-posts to Livejournal.

In future, if you want to keep up with my quick updates-that-fit-in-140-characters-or-less in addition to my occasional longer posts here, go follow me on twitter. Or if ( Read more... )

So, as I twittered Saturday, I finally tracked down the weird circular wrench needed to open my whole-house water filter housing at Pope's True Value in Durham, at the Village Shopping Center. Then Sunday morning I see this. Guess that might not have been the safest place to be shopping, though I didn't feel unsafe when I was there ( Read more... )

Yesterday's tweets:

• 13:39 I hate it when sites exceed planned maintenance windows, but don't bother to update the outage page with new info. Bad bloglines, no cookie.
• 18:05 After many months of searching finally found tr.im/1yl1 at Pope's True Value. Water filter now replaced, and water pressure restored.
• 23:00 Enjoyed Jaap ter Linden's ( Read more... )

I've been using mycheckfree.com for years to pay my utility bills. So tonight, I get an email that purports to be from them informing me that if I had attempted to access online bill payment between 12:30 a.m. and 10:10 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 using Windows, their site may have redirected me to a site that might have infected ( Read more... )

In addition to the The Week and The Economist (shockingly, both delivered on Saturday this week, as they're supposed to be but so rarely are (I do so loathe the Raleigh USPS)), and the new issue of Locus, today's mail included book deliveries from two of my favorite publishers, PS Publishing and Lethe Press:


( Read more... )

In addition to the new issues of F&SF, my favorite CD review mag International Record Review, and the always interesting McSweeney's, my long delayed copy of Spore, and the chapbooks Redemption Roadshow by Weston Ochse (Burning Effigy Press) and Leftovers by Steve Vernon (Magus Press), today's mail includes what has to be the best 2009 calendar in ( Read more... )

I'd forgotten what it's like to come home to a week's worth of mail all at once:


( Read more... )

Yesterday's tweets:

• 00:45 Bolt is cute and funny. Surprised all trailers in 3D, too (Up, Monsters vs Aliens, new Ice Age, and Coraline).
• 13:20 Off to play some sheepshead with the relatives, then consume Thanksgiving dinner (I don't have to do any cooking, thankfully).

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