Doh! I forgot to highlight the day -- on October 1, this blog turned two.

Here's my first post, tentatively typed into the old Blogger interface back on October 1, 2003:

So, what kind of tapestry have I woven over the past two years? Would you like to see some new threads make their way into the pattern? Let me know in email or comments.

Thank you especially to my regular readers. I hope to keep y'all coming back.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:53 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 From one "weaver" to another, congratulations, and many happy returns.

Posted by: Chan S. at October 04, 2005 10:01 AM (7kycG)

2 Happy Blogaversary!

Posted by: owlish at October 04, 2005 03:01 PM (bJF7u)

3 Congrats!

Posted by: Ted at October 04, 2005 04:22 PM (+OVgL)

4 congrats... and many more!

Posted by: Princess Cat at October 04, 2005 09:35 PM (D6/0a)

5 Many congrats - Yip! Yip! Yip!

Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at October 05, 2005 08:56 AM (IkTb7)

6 May you never delete!

Posted by: lemuel kolkava at October 06, 2005 09:32 AM (aOCIX)

7 Congrats! You're doing good, it's why I come around and read.

Posted by: Eric at October 10, 2005 12:22 AM (Oc3Xt)

8 Many Happy Returns on the day as Pooh Bear would say. Hehehe, that rhymes. Your tapestry is pretty cool, very varied. Ooh, with some nice aircraft and sci-fi babe cheesecake thrown in. Keep up the good work.

Posted by: Rhianna at October 11, 2005 03:04 AM (Ah21Y)

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Virginia Postrel highlights this website, which helps Hurricane Katrina survivors let their loved ones know they're OK.

As Virginia points out, this is particularly important in cities like mine (in the greater Dallas area), where many evacuees are settling in. If you are local, have time to get to a refugee center, and have a laptop and wireless connectivity, this might be one way to help out the Katrina victims.

On the subject of local relief efforts, our church, like many in the area, has opened its doors to evacuees. We are putting up at least 60 survivors in our fellowship/recreation building. Both of my younger children have also received a couple of new classmates in their public elementary school.

I am proud of the actions of my fellow citizens here in Texas, whose generosity is so incredibly evident in both the quantity and quality of voluntary assistance being given to our neighbors.

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Glenn Reynolds has an extensive list of charities that will be helping with relief efforts along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Glenn is also planning to use that post as the repository for the charity blogburst scheduled for tomorrow. If you post recommending a charity, or some other action to help, link back to the post referenced in the previous paragraph. He will use that post to list both bloggers and charities. That way, readers of any blog will have ready access to recommendations on all the blogs.

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Has anyone (other than Stephen Green) noticed that Jeff Goldstein has been on frakkin' fire recently?

He had a brief existential crisis a few months ago, but his writing over the past few months has really sharpened, becoming even more insightful and provocative.

Take these excerpts, for example:

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Be sure to check out Lynn's new look (she substituted Palatino Book Antiqua for Times New Roman, it seems).

Also, SciFi Ranter Girl has an awesome new banner featuring the green Orion Slave Girls of Star Trek.

Enjoy the new looks!

Posted by: JohnL at 11:24 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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In case you forgot, in about a month and a half, John Scalzi will begin to accept manuscripts for potential publication in the Spring 2006 edition of Subterranean magazine.

As special guest editor of this edition, he has laid out some interesting ground rules. Namely, he wants stories of 5000 words or less that skillfully employ classic SF cliches.

I am thinking about submitting a short story or two, just for the fun of it. I have a couple of ideas for some cliches to work around. But I would also like to quiz the only non-captive audience I have yet found for my writing: what SF cliches annoy you the most, and why?

Please don't send me any plot suggestions or story ideas (write your own story for submission instead). But if there is a traditional plot device, stereotypical setting, or some other element of SF (whether in movies, TV, or written word) that annoys you through its overuse, please let me know about it.

Thanks.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:18 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 People on other planets speaking nearly-perfect American English (or even worse, nearly-perfect American English with a British or other European accent... can you tell I sometimes have issues with shows like Stargate SG-1?...)

Posted by: LDH at August 17, 2005 11:10 AM (bqPDz)

2 I've always had a problem with technologically AND morally superior aliens who suddenly appear to warn us that we'd better support the liberal cause du jour: (anti Nuclear War, anti Nuclear Power, Save the Whales, the United Nations as one world government, Rent Control in NYC, etc.) or we will destroy ourselves and our planet. Who asked them to butt in and run our planet? Frackin Interstellar Limousine Liberals...

Posted by: Ishy at August 17, 2005 02:45 PM (WIFkt)

3 The cliche from the Military SF genre is that no matter how outnumbered or outgunned we are, the anti-social monkey-boys from Terra are way more ruthless, deadly, innovative, or adaptable than the aliens and end up winning easily despite overwhelming odds. Fun to read but, like cotton candy, it does not stay with you for long.

Posted by: Ishy at August 17, 2005 03:02 PM (WIFkt)

4 Thanks for your input. Ishy, your second comment is actually one of my favorite cliches in SF, of which I will never tire. It would be too depressing I think to write in a universe where that weren't true. I'm sure there's an award-winning novel somewhere in that idea.

Posted by: JohnL at August 17, 2005 10:23 PM (gplif)

5 In that case, have you read Alan Dean Foster's The Damned trilogy [A Call to Arms, The False Mirror, The Spoils of War]? Two sides of an intergalactic war are looking for allies, and find humanity. Humanity kicks butt.

Posted by: owlish at August 18, 2005 11:33 AM (QiOeU)

6 As far as cliches, the "last man alive" thing often bugs me.

Posted by: owlish at August 18, 2005 11:34 AM (QiOeU)

7 Owlish, thanks for the feedback. I haven't read that Alan Dean Foster trilogy, but will have to check it out. I agree on the "last man alive" cliche, but don't mind "last people alive rebuilding civilization" a la The Stand or Lucifer's Hammer.

Posted by: JohnL at August 18, 2005 11:54 AM (Hs4rn)

8 The big cliche that annoys me is killing off un-known charecters on well-known shows. Countless away missions on any number of Star Trek shows did it. I just dislike a charecter created so they can be killed off in the most absurd manner possible, while the well known cast members miraciously escape harm. Eye-rolling ensues every time. I also favor Ishy's first problem with nosy-asss 'superior' alien races and wanting to come down here and start some shiite. You consider The Stand to be SF? Never thought of it that way myself.

Posted by: Rhianna at August 18, 2005 06:32 PM (W1iQw)

9 Rhianna, First, welcome back to the 'net. Agreed on your comments. And I don't really consider The Stand to be SF.

Posted by: JohnL at August 18, 2005 06:57 PM (dYzx6)

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Gunner links to an amazing and captivating tale about an extreme diving mishap in South Africa. I could not stop reading until I got to the end.

Others describe the tale as creepy. I just see it as tragic.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:33 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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After finally getting through to an executive complaint hotline regarding our dissatisfaction with the 1-week response time Comcast told us to expect, a technician came out to the house yesterday.

It turns out our sprinkler guys had cut a cable, but we couldn't tell since Plano is one of the few cities still using a two-cable delivery system. We still had TV, but no Internet. The technician was polite and had the problem temporarily fixed in less than an hour. A crew will come out in the near future to bury the temporary cables (which are currently running across the surface of the lawn).

Long story short, the outage was our fault. Apart from dissatisfaction with the initial response time, Comcast handled the situation great.

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Comcast is experiencing service issues in our area and I will have limited access to the Internet until it is resolved.

At our old house, we had Comcast cable internet for more than 2 years with only one or two disruptions in service, which were resolved almost before we noticed them.

In our new house, we had one minor issue registering our cable modem after we moved, but until today we haven't had any other issues. However, Comcast can't explain the current outage problem. The best they can do is roll a truck to our house, but not until next week. My wife is up in arms and ready to switch to Verizon DSL. Now. Or Yesterday. Substandard technology notwithstanding....

Now, I have a long and deep-seated prejudice against DSL, going back to my early telecom contracting days. Technically, you get a small slice of dedicated bandwidth at $30 a month (DSL) versus a variable slice of monster bandwidth at $50 a month (cable modem).

Anyone have feedback on the relative merits of the two? I can review comments from my work computer at lunch time, so I'm looking forward to some suggestions.

Needless to say, this will cut into blogging around here until resolved.

Posted by: JohnL at 05:43 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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---> Send your musical submissions to our new gmail dropbox: music.carnival@gmail.com.

(Thanks, Ted, for the gmail invite!) Remember also to check out Carnival of Music #4 at Owlish's place (you might need to scroll down, since his permalinks are bloggered up right now), and review the paleo-proto-musico-carnivals at the archive page.

Next, the first Carnival of Liberty will be taking place at The Unrepentant Individual on or around July 4. This is like the debutante ball for the newest unruly group I've joined: Life, Liberty, and Property. So send your liberty-themed submissions to carnivalofliberty@gmail.com.

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As soon as you think you have figured out Eggagog's sublimely bizarre storylines at THIS IS FUN TO MAKE A BLOG ON THE COMPUTER WEBSITE, go check out UFO Breakfast Recipients.

I love the Internet.

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Rob mentioned the lovely tableau of Vader Sinking in Lava on the neighbor-kid's birthday cake the other day.

In some weird synchronicity, my 8-year-old was constructing the same scene out of Legos.

(Click the image for a larger, annotated version).

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... But successful enough at my linking strategy to gain the attention of the crack young staff at Hatemongers' Quarterly.

Fellow Munuvians Kathy and the Llamas made the cut too, along with John at Wuzzadem and the Maximum Leader (Happy Belated Birthday to "Max," by the way).

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This very cool robotic exoskeleton was revealed at the Aichi World Expo technology fair taking place this week in Japan. It can enhance a healthy wearer's strength, and allows certain weak or handicapped people to walk.

Also unveiled was the Actroid, a pretty robotic receptionist (not quite a Real Doll, Jeff, but prettier than the ballroom dancer).

More information on the Aichi Expo here and here.

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If not, you will be after reading what Helen has to say.

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One of my favorite bloggers is hanging up his spurs.

Timothy Sandefur was one of the first bloggers to link to me, so there is a sentimental side to seeing him quit now.

As a lawyer for a public-interest libertarian foundation, he works to increase liberty in our country; he doesn't just talk about it. But when he does talk about liberty, he does so lucidly and persuasively. Check back through his archives for some of the most clear and concise explanations you can find online of the moral and philosophical foundations of our legal system, of classical liberalism, and of objectivism.

Though Timothy may no longer be blogging on his personal website, keep your eyes peeled for his name. He'll continue to write for Liberty, and I bet his name will crop up from time to time in other areas, as his writing is too good to escape recognition over the long term.

Best wishes, Timothy.

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Is there anything any of you have wanted to ask me? Anything you were really curious about, but just never got the chance to bring up politely?

Well now's your chance to get some answers. Jennifer Larson has kindly offered to subject me to one of her famous interviews, and she needs some questions to ask. Please submit them to jenlarson -at- gmail -dot- com no later than 6:00 PM CDT Saturday, May 28.

Unless you identify yourself in the question, I will have no way of identifying you, so feel free to ask anything. I'll do my best to answer any reasonable query.

Thanks!

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JKrank, proprietor of Sofia Sideshow, is back and blogging after a 3-month hiatus. He has returned to Bulgaria (where he works in film). He's a great writer, and I love his "day-in-the-life" stories from a former Soviet satellite. I may never travel there, but get to vicariously experience it from the comfort of my computer terminal. Go check him out.

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It has been awhile since the STG network has had a new microcharity to highlight. In honor of the first anniversary of the network, STG is promoting the original charity, Susan Tom and the Tom Family Education Trust.

Read more about it here.

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