I had a fun and relaxing Independence Day. I slept late, then took Fred on a nice walk. I had a blast seeing Wanted at the Alamo Drafthouse with a group of friends. The FACT cookout at the Siros household was a lot of fun, and I was pleased to see so many  people there other than the usual suspects. I concluded my day watching fireworks on the roof ( Read more... )

I had a nice time at ApolloCon in Houston last weekend. It was fun to get away for a few days to hang out with friends I don't see that often, talk about sf books and movies, and eat out at nice restaurants. The major guests were all friendly and accessible ( Read more... )

SF Signal recently had a fascination online discussion of Who Are Tomorrow's Big Genre Stars? Several well-known sf editors participated in the discussion, including Ellen Datlow and Garner Dozois. Here's the list that resulted from the discussion:

The Top 21 Genre Authors To Keep an Eye On

• Paolo Bacigalupi
  
• Darryl Gregory
  
• Jay Lake
• David Moles
  
• Benjamin ( Read more... )

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is coming in August. There's concern that it may break the World Wide Web.

Yesterday's Austin American-Statesman ran an article about Texas Monthly's #1 choice, Snow's BBQ in Lexington. Lexington is small town about halfway between Austin and College Station, but it's not on a major road and it's unlikely that you'd encounter the town or restaurant unless you went there on purpose. Texans love their BBQ, and the news of a ( Read more... )

Texas Monthly just posted its list of the 50 Best barbecue restaurants in Texas. I'm a fan of BBQ and dining out, but I've only been to 6 of these. I hope to visit a few more soon.

I've noticed a strange phenomenon with my postal mail. Even though I'm single and have been for the entire time I've owned my house, I regularly receive junk mail from businesses oriented toward women. And all this mail from dress shops, cosmetic stores and the like is not addressed to me or to the previous owner of the house, who was female. ( Read more... )

I just saw that BioShock, one of the coolest video games of last year, is going to be adapted into a movie by Universal Pictures. The director will be Gore Verbinski, who directed the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

Last night I went to Pulitzer/Nebula-winner Michael Chabon's signing at Bookpeople. I arrived 30 minutes early and the store was already standing-room-only.

Chabon read an excerpt from The Yiddish Policemen's Union, his recent Nebula-winner, and he proved to be an excellent reader. i was struck by how much he resembled Michael Douglas's character ( Read more... )

Blindness, a science fiction novel by Nobel laureate Jose Saramago, is now a movie. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Danny Glover, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, and it's due out in September.  The story is about a plague of blindness and its effects on the victims and the rest of  society trying to shield themselves from it.

We read this book in the ( Read more... )