Musings

In a few days it will be 5 years since Social Services rejected my application to adopt a little boy. As if I need one more thing to haunt me around the Christmas Season.  Regardless, it has struck me that the five year old I might have adopted would be about ten years old now; and the ten year old I might have adopted would now be fifteen.  I can only imagine what joy and heartache I have missed.

I was cleaning out the spare room and came across the following poem.  I can't place an exact date on it, but it's obvious to me, it was written at a time when I was very confident I would be approved, or that I was starting to really fear it wouldn't happen.


Little man O little man, where have you come from?
Big man O big man, from a dark spot on the Sun.
Little man O little man, where are you going to?
Big man O big man, I've come to live with you!

I was headed down a long road, looking for a little spark.
You popped up like a beacon, shining in the dark.
Like a match touched to a candle, your love flared so bright.
So I reached out and took you by the hand, and I knew that it was right.

Big man O big man, have I said that love you?
Little man O little man, in all you say and do!


Like any poem I've ever written, it's all treacly and cloying.  Call it a true reflection of the continual emotional turmoil I find myself in this year.

Rare Indeed

Phillip K. Dick is one of my all time favourite science fiction authors.

The past decade has been a bit of a party as so many of his books have been turned into film.  Not always the best effort, but considering the general dearth of well done big screen science fiction, his stories rank in the upper 20%. A good story is a good story, no matter how crappy the Hollywood treatment.

So, I won't bother name dropping here - if you haven't heard of Dick and you're want to finding out what stories he has written that you already know, hit the Google or Wikipedia.

Instead, I offer you this rare Philip K. Dick interview.

This almost 2 hours long audio interview from '79 (yes my young followers, something incredible *did* happen before the 80's) comes complete with book cover slide show, thanks to some eager YouTube uploader.

Two hours of this guy represents a fairly significant life altering event. Be sure to allocate your time wisely.

I have not listened to the interview in its entirety.  I'd love to have it as a podcast though. Is that possible?

Readback

I haven't had a page view in over a month now.  I guess it's safe to say I'm not promoting this blog as well as I could be.  All sarcasm aside, I still haven't found a focus so I'm just throwing out a bunch of stuff, trying to find my pace or a pattern or a sign or for something to stick to the wall.

Eventually, this will be the world's most famous blog.  In the near future, when you all come to depend on it for your very survival, you'll have lots to read. In the meantime, I choose to believe that you are not leaving me any FEEDback in the comments, because you are actually leaving me READback by following my links and reading what you find there.

Clever move, you. I almost missed it.

Moving on, today's link is a collection of 40 free tools for authors by Piotr Kowalczyk. I don't recall where I came across this originally but no doubt you can find other interesting and related material there.

The article is a year old and aimed directly at ebook authors. Some of the products on this list have changed significantly, while others are not tools that help you "do writing". Others are obvious - Microsoft Word et al.

Still worth a look. There are gems like Calibre which I use regularly and Sigil which I am eager to try out. Just reading the list may provoke ideas.

Ooooo...provocation. Now there's something I can get behind.

Fact Check

Being Canadian has been difficult over the past year. As the first year of Stephen Harper's reign of terror comes to and end, I think I have a better understanding of how my American friends did during the reign of error, under George W. Bush.

But I must admit, it's a tenuous understanding at best.

For those of us trying to make sense of the political ebb and flow washing over our southern cousin, a weekly read of the Tampa Bay Times' PolitiFact.com helps to sort out the outrageous claims and downright lies that American politicians seem to get away with.

Fascinating, humorous, scary.

Living in a big building. No I mean BIG.

If you've read Robert N. Charrette's ShadowRun books or if you've played the RPG of the same name, you're familiar with the concept of the Arcology.

In it's most basic terms, a city within a building, or a building that contains all the amenities required by a small city - from living quarters to shopping to travel and recreation.

Aside from the fictional treatment, there are serious proponents such as those at the Arcosanti Project.  Of particular interest is the section on Arcology Theory.

Not just for the kids

Roughly a year ago I ran across this story at The Independent newspaper website. 

Some politico thought 11 year olds should be reading one book a week. So, The Independent asked some children's authors and book experts what they thought and came up with the list of 50 books every child should read.

Some of these books I read as a kid myself. Some I read as an adult.  Many more on the list sound intriguing and I wouldn't mind giving them a go.

Check out of the list for yourself.  Comment on the list or perhaps tell us about one of your favourites as a kid, whether it's on the list or not.

Just how small are we?

Yes the Universe is a big place, but what does that say about you and me? It says that we are very small in the scheme of things.

Perhaps we have been successful in this universe by being small, and what better way to measure our smallness than An Atlas of the Universe.

A Hoarders Life for me!

Over the past few weeks I've been shrugging off the mantle of winter. It's starting to feel like spring cleaning time, a yearly ritual to be undertaken from physical, mental and digital points of view.

There may be more about the physical and metal, later. Currently, I've been having fun thinning and consolidating a lot of data I have been hoarding.  Suddenly, it's time to set it free, and so the next bunch o posts will be a sort of link dump or old bookmarks and other wierd web pages etc., ad naseum.  I figure we all have the same little digital collections.  Mine accumulate because I see something I can imagine is useful, even though I have no use for it myself.  As I share these things, I'll be deleting them from folders and bookmark files, from snippets of text and pages of notes and notations.

Here's one now.  It was the first thing in a folder of bookmarks.

First seen on the internet in 1994, and last updated in 2005, I give you An American's Guide to Canada.