-4 and heavily overcast here in Iowa. I could see a smudge of lighter colored clouds but that was it. *sigh* I guess I’ll be trying again in 2010.

In response to Shaky Eclipse by John Scalzi.

A while ago I finally broke down and started trying to recoup some of the costs from my online addictions. Which is to say, I started accepting ads on my blog. This is only relevant because this month is the first month I got paid for those ads. I’ve been wondering what to spend this vast fortune of $3.06 on when I read this post. Money sent! 😀

John Scalzi @ Prairie Lights

Tonight, John Scalzi made a stop at the Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, IA for his book tour to promote The Last Colony. Michelle & I got there wicked early1 and chatted with a couple of store employees briefly. Fortunately, they were cool with me bringing in my own copy of The Android’s Dream to get it signed. *whew*

Then while we were looking around the shelves near the area for the reading, they said we could go ahead and purchase a copy of The Last Colony while we were waiting so we wouldn’t have to wait in line later. Schweet. Then I noticed they had copies of The Sagan Diary. I was most pleased by this as I was a bit strapped for cash when the pre-orders were announced for it on Mr. Scalzi’s blog and I’d heard the complete print run had sold out. Naturally, I grabbed one of the 3 copies they had left. 😀 Then we went into the coffee shop3 and grabbed a drink. I had their cafe mocha, while Michelle had a brewed butterscotch toffee coffee, which she promptly ruined by using soy milk for a creamer and adding sugar to it. Then we went back over to the reading area and found Mr. Scalzi had arrived. He was chatting with the few members of the audience4 and with the various members of the staff.
As Mr. Scalzi’s visit happened to be part of the Live from Prairie Lights. This is a local radio program that is recorded live and then later played back on a local radio station, as well as the UofI‘s school/public access TV channel. So he also spent some time talking to the host of the program prepping for the show.

Then just before the show began, he addressed the audience letting us know he’d start off by reading the first chapter of The Last Colony, go into a Q&A session and then he’d be happy to pose for photos. Naturally, that’s when I decided to snap a quick shot. Heh. I also took a couple of photos later, but they weren’t as amusing as this one so they’ll remain offline for now. The reading and Q&A were quite fun to listen to. Not being a writer, I didn’t join in and ask any questions (plus my caffeine buzz was wearing off). After the recording was over, Mr. Scalzi kindly offered to sign any books people had. I quickly stepped into line with my brand-new copy of The Last Colony — specifically purchased at Prairie Lights this very evening to support them, since they brought Mr. Scalzi in for us — and my slightly dog-earred copy of The Android’s Dream.

Side note: Yes, I realize this entry is rather disjumbled. This is partly explained by me having a caffeine-crash headache, partly by me staying up till 1AMish to write it and partly by me just not being a writer.
Side note 2: The quickie post following this will explain part of why the heck I’m still up writing this.

1 Mostly due to somebody’s lead foot2.
2 Said lead foot was not a Men’s size 13.
3 In his opinion on coffee, Mr. Scalzi is quite wrong. Coffee (especially good coffee) does not taste like ass.
4 Around this time, Michelle mentioned to him The Android’s Dream was her favorite book and he said it was his as well.

Scalzi for SFWA in 2007!

I couldn’t resist joining in on all the fun, helping to promote Mr. Scalzi’s write-in bid to become the SFWA president. My apologize to Grant Wood for bastardizing his painting but it made for a good joke (I hope). This poster was created entirely in GIMP and uses a Creative Commons licensed picture of Mr. Scalzi that I found on Flickr.

I should probably give you a bit of background, as not all of my readers necessarily read Mr. Scalzi’s blog on a daily basis. On 15 March 2007, Mr. Scalzi received his ballot for this years SFWA elections. After looking it over, he decided he had some problems with it and posted a note on his blog that he was now a write-in candidate. The next day he posted some promotional images/posters made for him by various fans. A couple of days passed and still he kept talking about this whole SFWA election. Naturally, this kept the fans pouring in with comments and additional images. Finally I could resist the siren’s lure no more and created the image you see here.

Update: For the closest thing to an explanation of the bacon on a cat thing, you’ll need to read this post over at the Whatever.

The Android's Dream

The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi
My Rating: 5 out of 5.

This book is a delightfully wacky tale of one man’s fight to keep a very special sheep alive. In the process, our hero will have to fight off various aliens and a few treacherous villainous humans. Scattered throughout The Android’s Dream are numerous one liners. Each one of these taken by itself and outside the context of the story are funny, but put together and in context they’re hysterical. LOL is a common abbreviation used online that stands for “Laugh Out Loud”. These days it is mostly used to indicate somebody found something else amusing and does not actually mean any truly laughed outside of their own head. I bring this up as I repeatedly found myself laughing out loud while reading The Android’s Dream. Below are a few of my favorite lines from the book:

  • Jesus, forgive me, he thought. I really shouldn’t have eaten that panda.
  • “No more shoes in advance for anyone,” he said.
  • “Today people have tried to kill me, the police are looking for me, and I’ve just discovered every Easter of my childhood, I ate one of my relatives with mint jelly. I’m just fine.”
  • “I don’t know … You’d have to ask the sheep.”
  • It drives physicists mad and every few years on e will snap and begin raving that sentient beings should nae fuck with that which they ken nae unnderstan’
  • If my little review here fails to entirely convince you to rush out and find a copy of this book to read, then try Bookgasm’s review