Out of Sorts

They also apparently ate my monster slippers as well. Those evil dragons. Any suggestions on names out there?

I’m thinking Stella and Zoe. ;)

Hey Guys and Girls, Aliens Residing on this Planet, Zombies, Unicorns and Trolls,

Did you miss me? Whatever the answer to the question, I just want to reassure you that I’m back. With the overabundance of things in my life, I had to step away from blogging as my cup overfloweth with things to do. Now, that I’ve finally gotten my stuff together, I’ll be posting again regularly. Aren’t you excited?

To celebrate my return to geekiness, I took a page out of Jeremiah Tolbert’s 365 Project and snapped a stylistic picture of gaming die.

See, isn’t that neat? I experimented with this while playing a Level 12 Soldier/Level 2 Jedi Guardian named Myra. I’m happy to report, she kicked some ass, instead of having hers handed to her, which usually happens when I tend to roll ones.

I recently upgraded my computer as well, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the fact that I can play games like the new Battlefield without choking on the scenery. It’s nice to be able to have a rig that will display the game as it’s meant to be played.  It’s odd to think that when I purchased my computer four years ago, it was state of the art. I am both awed and frustrated at the rate with which I’m swamping old components for new ones.

The best part is that my “ancient” system was gifted to my father. He is quite impressed with it’s speed. Buwhahah.

Never has an ad had so much emotional punch as this one. For something as simple as wearing your seat belt.

Please do.

So I had to test out the vocal capacity of my new microphone. I ended up getting the new THX certified Blue Yeti microphone. I try to do my best impression of Leliana’s Song from Dragon Age: Origins. It’s one of my favorite songs and my main goal was testing out the quality of the microphone on stereo vocals. What do you think? It’s not a perfect copy, but I think I do a pretty darn good job! I also have no idea what the words are, so I wing it in the end. Buwhahah.

Click “Leliana’s & Kate’s Song” to hear my rendition. The video below is for reference.

Leliana & Kate’s Song

For the John W. Campbell Award:

For those of you who attended Anticipation WorldCon in Montreal last year, you’ll know that the Campbell Award for best new writer was awarded to David Anthony Durham. You may also know you have the ability to nominate for the award which will be given at AussieCon. If you’re looking for some ideas on who may be eligible,  Writertopia has compiled a list if you’re filling out a nomination ballot. To vote in the awards, you’ll need to buy a supporting membership for $50.00 USD or an attending membership if you’re making the trip to Australia.

For the Hugo Awards:

The same process applies here as do the Campbell Awards. If you attended Anticipation, you have the right and honor to nominate your favorite works, authors, artists, editors, and publications for one of the highest awards in the SF/F field. Aside from the list I compiled at the bottom of the page, I was at Boskone this weekend and attended the Hugo panel. Some materials were given out and I found these lists to be most helpful as well.

• The 2009 Locus Recommended Reading List – Keep in mind though, if you are voting for say, best novel, Locus splits their favorites up into sub categories. If you are looking for things to read to ultimately consider nominating for that award, compress the four categories (Novels – Science Fiction, Novels – Fantasy, Young Adult Books, First Novels) into one big list.
• NESFA 2009 Hugo Recommended Reading List

Other Resources for Consideration:

• Amy H. Sturgis on StarShipSofa and the Fanzine Category
• Cheryl Morgan – Hugo Voting on the Cheap (This has some great info on award-eligible women in the SF/F field)
• Rachel Swirsky – Nebula Nominations (I think most of these suggestions can be used in Hugo eligibility as well.)
• Mary Robinette Kowal – Hugo Eligibility Post
• John Scalzi – Hugo Eligibility Post
• Cheryl Morgan – Hugo Post
• Cheryl Morgan – Australian Artists
• Neil Clarke – On the Importance of Showing Why Semi-Prozines Should be Supported and Valued (Links to sites eligible for the Semi-prozine Hugo Award)
• John Klima – On Why the Hugos are important for both the writers and fans of SF/F
• The Hugo Recommend Live Journal Community
• Paul Cornell’s Comic Recommendations
• Best Fan Writer Recommendations
• Charlie Stross – Hugo Eligibility
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies Hugo Recommendations
• John Joseph Adams – Hugo Eligibility

I can’t stress enough how important it is to nominate. People see the voting as perhaps the easy and fun part of awards aside from handing out a plaque and rocket, but participation in the nomination process not only takes a bigger sample of worthy items but also sends the message that you care about being a part of the whole process.

Nominations for both the Hugos and Campbell Award close on March 13th, so get to reading and more importantly, get to nominating!

January 1st- “The Things” by Peter Watts breaks both visitor and audio download records for Clarkesworld. I continue to be humbled when I take a glance at the numbers.

Some lovely comments on the site included:

Janbo sez: My first visit to Clarkesworld, and I get to hear an excellent audio rendition of a story by one of my favorite writers. Containing my joy will be difficult. Thanks to Kate Baker for the subtle, deliciously inflected reading. I will return — with any luck, accompanied by monetary support for this fine website.

and

Zontar sez: Wow! I’ve heard some good audio fiction before. I’ve heard audio fiction that expanded on favorite, even beloved works of art or literature. But this is the first time that I’ve heard (or read) a story that actually improved–*fixed*, even–the work from which it stems!

January 15th- Clarkesworld Magazine releases the second audio fiction of the month, “All the King’s Monsters” by Megan Arkenberg.

January 25th - The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine released “Excision” for which I did a character for the story.

February 1st – My gig as Podcast Director for Clarkesworld Magazine keeps getting better and better. We released the audio podcast, Torquing Vacuum by Jay Lake! I have a ribbon I received at the Anticipation WorldCon workshop that says, “I Ain’t Jay Lake”. Tis true! I am not Jay Lake, but I got to narrate his work and that is pretty fantastic!

February 15th – The second podcast of this short month is “The Language of the Whirlwind” by Lavie Tidhar.

This whole podcasting thing continues to be surreal. It never gets old and I love having the ability to put my dramatic interpretation on these fantastic stories. As always, while the numbers are showing substantial growth on Clarkesworld with downloads, I always appreciate comments. What did you like about the story? What didn’t you like about the narration? Constructive criticism is always welcome along with flowers and chocolates.

Don’t forget to tell a friend if you like the podcast. You can download the podcasts directly from the site, via the RSS feed, and subscribing via Itunes. I am sure we’re available through other means as well. Speaking of the Itunes subscriptions, if you like what you’ve heard, rating the podcast and leaving comments there too would be awesome. It takes less than a minute to rate the ‘cast and a little more to give a small review.

For those of you on Twitter, I know, I’ve been going on and on about this group for the past three days. I can’t stop listening to these guys. The funny thing is, I hate country. Very few songs really grab me in that particular genre. Yet this whole new album (their second) is fantastic.

Have a taste. They are even wonderful live as evidence by one of these clips:

“Run to You” (From First Album)

“Never Alone” w/ Jim Brickman

“Need You Now”

I eagerly opened the Hugo nomination packet that came in the mail a few weeks ago. As I flipped through the pages, my confidence began to fade. Thoughts like: “How can I possibly give each field a fair evaluation when I haven’t read nearly the amount to make a qualified decision?” or “What works even qualify as a novelette or novella?” or “Where can I find a comprehensive list of everything that’s available?”

As I found myself putting the nomination form aside, those same thoughts evolved into: “I will just have to catch up on everything that was published in 2009, to make the best decision possible.” and “I have to culminate a list of everything that people are putting up for consideration and read it.” and “I shall take note of editors and word counts and artists and…”

The nomination form quickly got buried with the burden of my now self-employed, full time, non-paying job of “Nominatrix Extraordinaire”. For the last twelve days, I couldn’t even tell you where the form went. Sure, I read some books, but they were books I had already decided I wanted to read. I was not as successful coming up with anything else of note.

Then a few days ago, a writer who I was lucky enough to share critiques with at Worldcon sent out a note. Addressed to ‘Devotees of Science Fiction and Fantasy’, it warned of the same mental stagnation that I was experiencing.The email also pointed to an article written by my fellow colleague at Clarkesworld Magazine, Cheryl Morgan. While Cheryl’s point is directly aimed at getting more women on the ballot, I think she nails it on the head that women tend to sabotage themselves when it comes to making decisions of this nature. Granted, this isn’t all women, but it looks like a good portion of the female population tend to crawl inside their own heads. This is not a reaction to fear, but I am clearly one of those women who like to make informed and qualified decisions. The nomination portion of the Hugo Awards does not fit into my orderly world of control.

…reading “everything” is impossible. You just have to look at what you have read and seen, and judge whether you think any of it is good enough to be nominated.

“Really? It’s that easy?” Yep. It is.

Don’t worry if you don’t have views in every category either. If you haven’t read any novellas in the past year, leave that section blank.

But…but!!!

I know, this goes against everything single deep-seated desire to fill in every line in every category. I’ve had to train myself that it is necessary and indeed, appropriate in some cases to skip things with which I’m not famliar.

So my lovely ladies of the universe, go vote. Read Cheryl’s post as to why it is imperative that you do.  Time is running out on the new supporting memberships, so if you can’t get to it, consider becoming a supporting member in order to vote on the forthcoming short lists.

If you are still gung-ho about being “informed” here are a pile of links to peruse with some ideas for the up and coming awards season.

• Cheryl Morgan – Hugo Voting on the Cheap (This has some great info on award-eligible women in the SF/F field)
• Rachel Swirsky – Nebula Nominations (I think most of these suggestions can be used in Hugo eligibility as well.)
• Mary Robinette Kowal – Hugo Eligibility Post
• John Scalzi – Hugo Eligibility Post
• Cheryl Morgan – Hugo Post
• Cheryl Morgan – Australian Artists
• Neil Clarke – On the Importance of Showing Why Semi-Prozines Should be Supported and Valued (Links to sites eligible for the Semi-prozine Hugo Award)
• John Klima – On Why the Hugos are important for both the writers and fans of SF/F
• The Hugo Recommend Live Journal Community
• Paul Cornell’s Comic Recommendations
• Best Fan Writer Recommendations
• Charlie Stross – Hugo Eligibility
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies Hugo Recommendations
• John Joseph Adams – Hugo Eligibility

If there are more links which point to either eligibility or recommendations, please feel free to leave them in the comments. I will add them to the post.

Also – I didn’t want to leave this post without a gratuitous pimp for Clarkesworld Magazine which is eligible for the Semi-Prozine category. I love working for this magazine as the Podcast Director and would love to see it recognized.

Sorry about that previous post… here’s something to cheer you up.

Because I would have called for my RMA a while ago and I would have had the distributor pay the shipping costs.

Let me make something perfectly clear.  I am not a Republican. Nor am I a Democrat. I am a law-abiding, tax-paying, middle-class citizen who votes according to her conscience. I guess most people would consider that an Independent these days. I’m a mix of Libertarian and Centrist. You know, someone who values rights and liberty while being fair and just to as many people as she can.

Part of what I do in a full time/day job capacity is plan out meetings and logistics. I’m pretty good at if I say so myself. In fact, I am currently getting contracts together for a customer event in Miami. You would think having an event in such a high profile place would be really expensive. However, with some careful consideration and just a little bit of effective persuasion and forethought, you’ll find people are willing to work with you on budgetary management.

So it actually makes me wonder how in the world the Pelosi delegation to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit was charged $734.00 per room/per night? I’m am also confused how they were exorbitantly screwed up the ass by a hotel chain who charged a minimum six night stay for two nights of use? $4046.00 was spent for two nights/per person at the Copenhagen Marriott 5-star hotel. The total bill for the 60 member delegation ended up being around ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Why were family members and spouses were treated to lavish meals on my dime? (I don’t particularly give a crap they got their air tickets and hotel charges “thrown in”.)

Why in the name of climate change control, were they allowed to leave a trail of carbon footprints from the US to Denmark with nothing to show for it except some Botox smiles and waves?

Did I suddenly enter into crazy town or does this actually make no sense to reasonable folk?

I can’t describe how incredibly angry I am about this. I know tons of social programs that would kill for half of that money to keep their doors open or hire just a few more staff to take the pressure off overworked employees. What hurts the most is that this is ultimately coming out of every hard working American’s pocket. What makes me even more incensed is that Obama is starting a spending freeze on certain programs in order to play Robin Hood to the middle class. Why not start where the spending is the most egregious and abused? Why not start with a woman who has seemingly lost touch with what the word “frugal” means in a fragile economy.

I don’t think Pelosi gets the fact that she pulled the same bullshit the corporate CEO’s did back when they flew to Washington in private jets to ask for bailout money. I don’t think she gets that people are out of work. I don’t think she gets or cares that we continue to raise the debt limit and whore ourselves out to countries like China because we can’t afford our own system of government. It’s okay though — it will be years before our children’s children must speak Chinese in the classroom. If she did “get it” and did care, she wouldn’t be avoiding reporters questions on the lavish expense report she filed.

Government waste is nothing new. I realize this fact. As my anger subsides, sadness overwhelms me. I feel sorry for Nancy and this clueless delegation for the simple fact that they have no idea what it means to live in the real world. In my real world, people are starving, out of work and aching for a government who does what they promise. So far, I see nothing but crumbling pie crusts.