Saturday, January 9

The Nominee In the Soiled Drawers Category . . .

. . . . of the Amazon.com People Unclear on the Concept Award.

I'm fairly certain this is the first time I've come across a review of one of my books, positive or otherwise, that includes the phrase "pooped my pants."

Friday, January 8

Happy Matt-ers

Delivered my latest tie-in the other day (only three weeks late, which is a considerable achievement for me, these days.  I am taking a couple days off to do the sort of household tasks that fall to the wayside during bouts of Deadline Fever.

During this temporary tie-in hiatus, I am:

Working on the Barra & Co. books, in hopes that we might be able to bring them out as e-books and PoD type things later this year (finally!).

Organizing the notes & outline of His Father's Fist.

Getting my urban thriller past the outline stage, and the same for my historical(s).

Looking for a place where I can hit people and vice versa without any hard feelings or legal entanglements.

Looking into Pose/barefoot running, as it's supposed to take the stress off your knees, because mine don't have a hell of a lot of cartilage left.

That's all.

Have a nice day.

Friday, January 1

Friday, December 25

Holidazed

Happy Year-End Holiday of your choosing.

My primary Christmas present from the Fabulous Robyn is the Oxford English Dictionary -- this is the Shorter version, two volumes containing only 600,000 and change words (a vocabulary *cough* marginally larger *cough* than my own), which is also updated quarterly on-line, adding an average of 2000 words per update. So I could look up the derivation of, for example, flummadiddle.

And its variant spellings, including flummerdiddle and fummadiddle. And don't get me started on fustilarian fustilugs, not to mention funambulists.

Among the various gifts bestowed upon the Fabulous Robyn in return, her favorite (and mine!) is a black leather-look complete Batgirl costume, with cape, gauntlets, over-the-knee boot tops, and utility belt. To paraphrase Eartha Kitt: Me-friggin'-YOW.

Tuesday, December 1

Semi-intellectual rumination.

An anchor on CNN this morning was ruminating, in their typically middle-brow fashion, on the fact that December is the "final month of the decade," completely ignoring that the actual final month of the decade is next December (if one is speaking of the First Decade of the 21st Century, as opposed to the Decade of Double-Aughts), but who's counting. Other than me. As Fox Mulder once trenchantly observed, "Nobody likes a math geek, Scully."

It did, however, occasion a comparison with December of 2000. Does anyone remember the burning political question (other than whether the US Supreme Court should have stolen a presidential election) of the day?

It was whether we should use the Federal budget surplus to fully fund Medicare and Social Security, or use it to pay down the national debt.

Option three was apparently (as was actually accomplished, of course) to spray rich people with honey and let them run naked through the US Treasury.

Monday, November 30

I have just received an email from my agent, who informs me that Robert Holdstock has died.

I never met the man, but I have read his books. There are all too many people writing SFF these days who could -- and occasionally do --  leave us with barely a ripple to mark their passing; Robert Holdstock leaves us with a powerful body of work, and a RH-shaped hole in the genre.

Here's hoping to see you in the Wood, Mr. Holdstock.