Guess what? This is the blog's 100th post! YAY!!!!! (Did you know that multiple exclamation points are a sign of a deranged mind?)

Alright. I havn't posted ina long while so here is the dialogue thing I wrote at the last meeting. It is, of course, brilliant.

*********

" Why are you so angry, Ed?"
" My tie is strangling me!"
"Why don't you take it off?"
" I have to look responsible! See! I'm crossing out all the swear words in my story. Gosh darn these darned ties!"
"Take it off Ed! (Ed. note: I just realized that taken out of context that could sound pretty bad.) Be free! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"
"You're right! This isn't a tie, it's one of those doggie choke collars, choking my freedom of expression!"
"Ow, my eye! Careful where you throw that thing!"
" Sorry."
"S'okay. Now that you're free what will you do?"
" Say whatever I want about those *bleep* *bleep* *bleeping* *bleepers*!"
" Ed! I'm shocked to hear such words coming out of your mouth! "
" But, but...I thought you said I was...free?"
"Just 'cause you're free doesn't mean you can do anything you want. You have to be responsible. Here, put this tie on."

*********

I would post the pictures too but, you see, my scanner broke. *Grumble, grumble*

Tonight's Meeting

We had 5 1/2 in attendance tonight. Matthew came in late so we can't count him fully. Things got a little wacky when we passed a couple of sheets of paper around again. I'll put one up now and another tomorrow.

Two Frogs walked into a bar. They walked because they did not have a car. When they came in they started to sing a song, except it turned out completely all wrong since Joe sang a C minor and Bob, D major. They didn't make a very good wager. So they had some pizza and orange juice and talked with a melancholy moose. Then they walked out, forgetting that they did not have a car, and died. A necromancer came along and he revived them. Then the frogs hopped away and walked into a bar. It was the same bar and there was blood on the floor, their blood. They slipped and impaled themselves on the moose's antlers, sending them both flying through the large window and over a cliff to an icy death. Then another frog came along to see both of the frogs floating up in the sky and the frogs hit the other frog and killed it. The three frogs lay there, stinking and attracting flies. The all of a sudden one started to wiggle, then another, then another! The three frogs got up and started to walk to another bar with the flies still flying all around them. Then they came across a moose wearing a toboggan. The flies from the frogs attacked the moose, started eating it alive. The moose screamed like a girl and ran off. The dead frogs laughed. They stole the moose's toboggan so it was cold as well as being eaten alive because the frogs were cruel having suffered death twice (is that even possible?). Anyway back to the story...As the frogs laughed hysterically, pieces of them began to fall off until they were only piles of stinking fly-attracting flesh that will never come back to life again. Or will they?

I'm just putting this out there so y'all can get used to it by the time I come back. My name is now Mitchell. It's not legal yet, as that would be a paperwork nightmare when combined with college and financial aid, but it will be legal as soon as possible.

So, yes. I will be changing my display name to reflect this. Just giving y'all a heads-up.

I just used the word 'y'all' twice (now three times), didn't I? Shame on me.

Meeting This Thursday

I already sent an email out earlier today but it never hurts to be repetitive when it comes to meetings. We are meeting this Thursday at 6 pm at Morrison Regional Library. I heard a rumor that Unkown Entities may show up this time. Is it true?

Also, to celebrate Thanksgiving, Clare is going to bring a dish of her special recipe, pumpkin yogurt. I can't wait.

Meg Rosoff's top 10 adult books for teenagers

Whenever I take a few minutes and try to find something worthy of posting here for the few that visit I always hope I can find something as perfect as this.

I was trying to think of an adult book or two I would add to this list. Maybe "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Ender's Game."

Mmm...indignant rage

What's my favorite thing about working with the public? Today it's the lady who sent the wrong 35 page print job to the printer and got pissed off at me because I wouldn't refund her money. The best part was while she was adding money to her printing account so she could attempt her printing again, her cell phone started ringing. She looked up from the cash machine for a moment and let the phone ring so I could see how angry she was. Good for her.

Poet Musician

There is a local songwriter named David Childers that I am very fond of and he has a webpage where he writes occasional diary entries and poetry. Right now he has a poem up. Give it a gander while it's still on the front page. Powerful stuff.

A new poll

This is a very serious poll and your answers will be utilized to improve the quality of this blog.



Nominate a book

A friend of mine is involved with a bunch of bloggers that have created their own yearly award for Young Adult books. If you are curious you can see it here.

Pulling off your own head

A serious discussion on this subject here.

What kind of a name is R.A?

I don't recall his name ever coming up at one of our meetings but R.A. Salvatore is coming to town and he has personally invited you to come see him speak:

An Evening with R. A. Salvatore
On Friday, November 17, New York Times best-selling author R.A. Salvatore comes to the Wachovia Playhouse at ImaginOn: the Joe & Joan Martin Center to promote the final adventure in his Sellswords Trilogy: Road of the Patriarch! FREE and open to readers of all ages! A book signing will follow the presentation and books will be available for purchase from Joseph-Beth Booksellers. The doors open at 6:30 pm and seating is limited to 250. Co-sponsored by Joseph-Beth Booksellers and the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center - The Wachovia Playhouse
11/17/2006 at 7pm
Age Range: All Ages
Contact: Kelly Czarnecki, 704-973-2717

Six Word Stories

Wired magazine just published a collection of six word stories written by contemporary science fiction and horror writers. There are some heavy weights in here.

Here's a couple:

Visiting team, home run. Silent crowd.
Hobbit, with no scarf, follows wizard. (OK, that's cheating)
Mountain bike, no control, a cliff.
I see you! Sorry wrong person.
Are these your children? Want them?

Shuttle liftoff pictures taken from outer space

These are the cooolest pictures I have seen in a while

Drawing lessons online

I am just full of information today. I took a gander at a couple of lessons here and they look legitimate. Take a gander at them and let me know what you think.

Stephen King Podcast

I haven't had a chance to hear this because I am at work but the Times has a podcast/interview with Stephen King. I can't remember if any of you guys like his writing but I am sure at least one person in our group has read a Stephen King book. I've read a couple. You can hear the podcast here.

Flash Fiction Contest

I've heard about this form of fiction recently and saw that a book store had a contest. The winners are posted here. I only read the first couple because the library is gettting ready to close. Give the winner a shot, it's really good.

Michael Swanwick

Any of you guys ever read any Michael Swanwick? He wrote a book that just blew me a way a few years ago called "The Iron Dragon's Daughter" that is an amazing urban fantasy. Here here comments on it:

"Q: Is The Iron Dragon's Daughter a Marxist fairy tale?

Well, it's certainly not a fairy tale – I was trying to deal with some serious matters in as straightforward and truthful a manner as I could. But as Kafka demonstrated, sometimes that involves turning a man into vermin or putting a sword in the hand of the Statue of Liberty. You could say that it's Marxist in the sense that I don't pretend that class differences don't exist. But it's not really informed by leftist sensibilities at all. It's more like a world in which everything has been turned inside out so that the essential mysteries of human consciousness are more obvious.

Q: What was the atmosphere you wanted to convey in the book?

I wanted to write a high fantasy but I'm allergic to horses, a mediocre archer, a worse fencer, and I was thirty-two when I first set foot in a castle. So my experiences left me woefully unqualified to go toe-to-toe with J.R.R. Tolkien or E.R. Eddison. But all that Medievalia is just settings and furniture, really, for the serious work those writers were doing. I replaced that stuff with factories and strip joints and mega-malls – places I know and understand – and this in turn made the world more convincing to me.

There's a kind of a bleak, lonesome beauty to a sunset seen from a factory parking lot. That's the kind of feeling I was going for – that the world is magical even if it's the one we're most familiar with. You can be incredibly unhappy and still feel that, still feel privileged to be alive."

Meeting This Week

I already sent out an email but I'll post it here also that we are having our monthly meeting this week, Thursday October 19th at 6 pm. I hope everyone can bring something to share.

Added physics software bonus

I double dare you not to play with this for half an hour.

Have any of you read anything by Chuck Palahniuk? If so, what did you think? If not, allow me to recommend EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER WRITTEN. Except possibly Haunted, because that's just creepy. Not that all of his writing isn't creepy, but. Basically this post is an excuse to foist my current obsession onto all of you. (He's the guy who wrote Fight Club, to give you some perspective.)

I would post things that I have written, but everything I'm writing lately is either essays for class or bandslash. And I really, really doubt any of you want to read either of those.

National Book awards

I didn't even know they had an award for Young People's Literature. They do and here's the list that came out in the last day or so. Have any of you young people read any of these books? I am in the middle of reading "The Looming Tower" which is one of the nominees for nonfiction. It's a book about the rise of al-Qaeda.

M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The
Pox Party (Candlewick Press)
Martine Leavitt, Keturah and Lord Death (Front Street Books/Boyds Mills Press)
Patricia McCormick, Sold (Hyperion Books for Children)
Nancy Werlin, The Rules of Survival (Dial/Penguin)
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese (First Second/Holtzbrinck)

In response to Ed's desperate pleas, I shall post something. (Hey, all of us are in middle and high school, and you're living the luxurious life, remember that, Ed.) Hrrrm...because I have no good material right now, I'm going to use my Language Arts assignments!

First writing assignment: In summer...

In summer...I always visit my extended family in Missouri. Sometimes for a week, sometimes more. Each year, I grow more mature, so each trip is a definite eye-opener. I find ways to get along with my brother during the fourteen hour long car trip. I enjoy the mountains and other views, and gain more knowledge of wordly things; example, how to work a vending machine or just how long it takes to drive through Tennessee.

When we arrive at my aunt's house, I let the nostalgia sweep over me, as I am glad to be out of the cramped car. However, at my aunt's, not everything is perfect. An example of this was when I learned her cat, my favorite animal, had been put to sleep. Another painful time was when I visited my grandfather in his nursing home.

I savor quiet moments reading on a bed that's not my own, but I'm always ecstatic to visit my scarcely seen family. Each year, I learn a bit more about them all because I'm let in on more secrets since I'm getting older and because I'm I listen more attentively.

SIMILES AND METAPHORS
(feel free to steal one or two if you ever need one and are not feeling creative)

-My spoon was a catapult for the peas I flung at my sister.
-Our dog is a fierce warrior guarding its castle, our house.
-The hundred dollar bill was the door to my sucess.
-The embarrassing photo was a gag, not allowing Tom to tell anyone Jim's secret.

-The bird was chipper as a young child.
-The pillow was like a door to dreamland, enticing its owner to sleep.
-My puppy is like a kind smile, always cheering me up. (I do not actually have a puppy)
-Her long hair looked and felt as though it were silk.
-The clouds were like a cold, grey blanket over the sky.
-The car zoomed down the road like an odd sort of monster, emitting puffs of awful black breath.
-Grass that has grown tall will sway like waves in the sea when wind blows.
-The rain drops were like bullets as they shot from the clouds up above.

I will be posting more frequently once I start actually writing and editing all my beginning-of-the-school-year ideas. You know, the ones you come up with and elaborate on during the middle of math class...

Posting

Hey guys, any chance we can get a couple of you to post what you read to the group last time? I heard a couple of things I'd like to be able to read and digest.

Soft tissue from a t-rex

I don't want to turn this into a science blog but I found this story via David Brin's blog. It seems a dinosaur bone has supplied us with some soft tissue. Story and photographs here.

A new blog

I know at least one of you has expressed an interest in librarianship. Here is a blog by the staff of The Library Journal.

Another attempt to ban Harry Potter

This time it's a mother in Georgia.