Blogomancer

I have still not really posted about The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby . (The short version: it's amazing. Someone needs to repackage the Region 1 DVDs. Anyone interested, I will gladly watch the entire production again.) But nineweaving asked me to post about one of the characters I have been bending her ear about, so here he is.

( It's a gentleman, I think. )

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2010/01/08/signed-books-3/

http://justinelarbalestier.com/?p=7500

Some folks have been asking lately how to get hold of signed copies of my books. And asking if I’ll sign a book if they send it to me. Tragically the answer is no, I won’t. This is not because I’m mean but because,

1. I travel too much. Your book is unlikely to get to me in a timely fashion.
2. I am hopeless at getting to the post office. If your book does land in the right country at the right time it will then sit on my desk for about a decade. I tried book plates and I was just as bad at mailing them. It’s a sickness.

So I have created a signed books page. See the link in the right sidebar under Books? There’s a list of the bookshops where I regularly sign stock in the two cities I spend the most time: Sydney & New York City.

At the moment there’s only two, Kinokuniya in Sydney—it’s my fave bookshop here because it’s one-stop shopping, every single book I crave plus manga plus grahic novels plus anime—and Books of Wonder in NYC, which if you haven’t been there, you should. Best kids bookshop in the city.

I recently also signed a few copies of Liar for Berkelouw Books in Paddington. And am happy to sign for any other bookshop in my area that wants my signature scribbled on their stock.¹

Also before we left NYC me and Scott signed at a number of Barnes & Nobles and Borders in Manhattan. So you may stumble across some signed copies in one of those stores.

Not to mention that I signed many, many books while on tour in the USA in October and November. If you live near any of those bookshops there may still be signed books left.

Hope this helps.

And, yes, I should probably have posted this before xmas etc. Whoops.

1. Of my books, obviously. I’m not going to vandalise anyone else’s books.

So we have made a ritual to help me get through chemo. calendula_witch and I dreamed this up from an idea she had, and it was extended and refined by others, with contributions of material support from Mother of the Child and lillypond.

We acquired twelve small bottles and jars.



I wrote out a list of twelve of my hopes and twelve of my fears for the chemotherapy process.



calendula_witch and shelly_rae created twenty four small slips of paper, then wrote out each of my hopes and fears on one of the slips. (They also each wrote a separate, bonus hope of their own, which I did not see.)







We randomly inserted one hope and one fear in each bottle. Then the two of them placed their bonus hopes into the bottles, and we arranged them on my mantelpiece.





Now, every time I finish a chemo infusion (which will be the Sunday afternoons after the Friday sessions, when I can remove the pump I'm to wear for 48 hours), I will smash one of the bottles, releasing both the hope and the fear within. We'll save the shards and scraps inside a larger bottle to remind me later. The diminishing line of bottles on the mantelpiece will be my countdown calendar showing how long I have to go until I'm done.

I'm not normally much for rituals, but this one feels powerful to me. calendula_witch and shelly_rae are marvelous to do this, and I love them both.

I didn't take a single picture today. Bad tourist. No madras shorts for me.

A very good day, nonetheless. I met mindyklasky for breakfast at Teaism down near the Mall and conversed about life and work and the things writers talk about. It was a very lovely time. I like Mindy a lot.

Afterward, since the National Archives were right across the street, I popped in to see one of four extant copies of the 1297 Magna Carta, plus the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Rather astonishing that the Magna Carta, almost 500 years older, remains legible, while the Declaration is so woefully faded. Even John Hancock's signature is just a ghost.

Spent a little time touring the sculptures in the National Gallery of Art, and then met an old college friend for dinner at the Teaism in Dupont Circle.

We're staying at the hotel where Langston Hughes made some career headway.

( Large photo of commemorative plaque under the cut ... )

Today there is another cat-shaped hole in my heart. When I die and they autopsy me, they'll surely wonder at the dozens of cat-shaped holes.

This morning we found our Greta dead behind the sofa. She was about 11, but she hadn't been sick, lethargic, anorexic, or any of the other things cats usually do to let you know they're in trouble, so I took her to the vet for a necropsy. It turned out that she had advanced cancer of the spleen, which Dr. Scott said is often asymptomatic and painless. The tumor ruptured her spleen and she bled to death sometime early this morning. I've read that bleeding out isn't a bad way to go; you're weak, then high, then gone. I hope so. At any rate, the necropsy settled my mind that we couldn't have done anything to help her and that her cause of death isn't anything that can affect the other cats.

We're having her cremated, because she always hated the cold. We got Greta from the Southern Animal Foundation, a good animal welfare group/shelter that used to be neighbors with my vet. They knew I loved black cats and asked if I'd consider taking a beautiful black kitten who was semiferal, as they knew I'd be willing to work with him. When we came to get Ivan, the kitten, they said, "Oh, you've just got to take the mother too, she loves her baby, she cries whenever we try to take him away!" So mother and son came home with us. It was winter then too, and we were living in a big old drafty house, and mother immediately abandoned her son in a downstairs closet and plopped herself down directly in front of the bedroom heater. Ever since then, we called her Crack Momma. But she was a sweet girl, jet black and beautiful, if somewhat coffee-table-shaped (she liked her food).

Ivan died after the federal levees failed and we couldn't catch him. He didn't drown, but was exposed to something poisonous, probably water. They're still the only two cats out of all the dozens I've had that I've found dead at home. It's a shock, but in Greta's case, also a little reassuring -- she didn't have to be prodded and needled, and the other cats got to see her and know what happened. They're sticking close tonight.

When I was 23 myself, it amazed me that T.S. Eliot had written "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" at 23. Now it makes more sense to me, because of the refrain "There will be time ... " Only a young person really believes that, I think.

R.I.P., Greta, 1998 (?) - 2010. We love you.

And now we can rest easy, knowing that pretty much everyone associated with a certain magazine has said something extremely silly on the Internet this week.

Thank God tomorrow is Friday.

Former Phelps County resident Lowell Doric Aughenbaugh, 47, was apprehended Sunday in Rolla and charged with making a terroristic threat.
D. Andrew Davis, a detective with the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department, described Aughenbaugh as a survivalist. Law enforcement agencies gathered a cache of almost 100 firearms, some of which had been converted to automatic; 300,000 rounds of ammunition, and a number of bomb-making items that the suspect had allegedly stashed around Phelps County when he lived there.



Aughenbaugh, eh? Aaaaw-en-baw. I'm not racist or anything, but just look at 'im, with the beady blue eyes of a born felon!



Goddmaned unassimilable Celts. (I hear the President might be related to this guy!) They just come here to this country to grub for potatoes and police officer jobs, then turn terrorist because they hate our freedoms and light sweaters. I say ship 'em all back and for the love of God stop naming airports O'Hare! You'll give these people crazy ideas.


Aaaaaw-en-bbaaaaaaaawww. *shudders*

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TobiasBuckell/~3/128PFjy__w0/

http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01/07/will-africa-pioneer-independent-energy/

I’m really curious about the concept of leapfrogging in technology: when not having an infrastructure, there is a belief a country might ‘leapfrog’ ahead to the next technology roll out due to it not being tied to that technology.

The big example given is how cellular phones ‘leapfrogged’ in Africa. With no reliable major landline development, cellphones were rolled out in Africa and have penetrated the continent pretty successfully in many cases.

Other technologies… we’re still waiting on.

Power is the next major piece of infrastructure. From living on a boat once, I’m well aware of the need to be power independent. From conversations with Africans, I’m given to understand a lot of generators are still used for backup/primary power.

But according to blogger WhiteAfrican, solar is starting to take off a bit.

Which makes me wonder if we’ll start seeing some innovation come regarding decentralized power. Parts of Africa have made some interesting leaps in ubiquitous cellphone use (use of cellphone minutes as currency, using cellphones for payment, etc), and the use of cellphones for political movement has sent tremors around the developing world.

A developing world that is focused on non-large agribusiness, individually energy independent, and connected via cellular networks. That might create some interesting dynamics. I’ll have to muse about that some more.

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010557.html

Reference librarian to another: Bitch! You da rock lobster!

Charleston County, South Carolina

Overheard by: I wish I had heard the first part of this conversation...

Blog posts done. A lousy 2K written, which means without working on Saturday there’s no chance of hitting 50K this week. But at least I got 2K, which is largely thanks to Kate and to Laura Anne, who logged in to look stern at me. 4 chapters copyedited, so I’m picking up a little speed there.

That is all.

The Road Home: miles to Isengard: 29.5
ytd km swum: 4
ytd wordcount: 14,900

(x-posted from the essential kit)

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010556.html

Boss: Do you have any gum? I smell like tuna.
Secretary: Yes?
Boss: Thanks, I don't understand why I smell like tuna, I haven't eaten any today...

Reston, Virginia

Another wonderful video from the people at Symphony of Science, this one featuring David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, and Carl Sagan...

It's been a momentous 12 months here at LiveJournal. We crossed a capital T at Ten years young. And, like most precocious pubescents, we celebrated turning double digits by publishing our first book! Needless to say, we've experienced some major changes, both inside and out. Before we recap, we'd like to thank you for bearing with us as we've struggled through ungainly growth spurts, identity pangs, and, yes, the occasional blemish. We hope you'll continue to stand by us: We're gaining wisdom with maturity.

Stuff you liked

• Back in February, we placed a call for entries for our ten-year anniversary anthology in lj_turns10. In December (less than a year later!), we officially announced the publication of Live Journal: The First Decade. Featuring an inspired collection of writing, photographs, and artwork from the pages of LiveJournal history, the book has been selected by Blurb.com as a top staff pick! We are proud to have played host to so much talent over the years, and we thank our contributors for sharing their extraordinary work.
• We all love quirky surprises, but not when it comes to managing our account settings. This year we streamlined settings into one central account management area. No more pouring through FAQs to figure out how to control privacy settings, modify notifications, adjust mobile settings, or update contact information!
• Being users ourselves, we realize our own mothers couldn't find us on LiveJournal based on our usernames and userpics alone (*heaves heavy sigh of relief*). But since there are times when we actually want to be found, we created a search tool--Find Your Friends--to help locate people by email address (it's in the Friends drop-down menu).
• Spam counter-attack: The war against vicious malware and spambots reigns eternal, but we've been making serious inroads to ensure your online security. We've established new protocols, such as requiring email address validations. We've grown more savvy about ferreting out suspicious behavior. We've added features, like whitelisting, to help you protect your communities. Our valiant (i.e., overworked) spam avengers (a/k/a the LiveJournal ops team) are standing on red alert so you can sleep safely at night.
• After an intensive beta, we launched My Guests at the end of the year, which lets you see who's been hanging around your journal. A number of you have even discovered secret admirers (not all of whom are creepy)!
• Last, but by no means least, we want to thank our volunteers for providing invaluable support and feedback. Their Herculean efforts enable us to answer your questions more efficiently, identify spammers, reduce abuse, and deliver better features (through tireless testing). On behalf of the staff and the larger LiveJournal community, we are truly grateful for their diligence, intelligence, loyalty, and passion.

You got your fix

• We recently debugged a number of the oustanding issues with the rich text editor so your entries look great regardless of whether you know html. You can read more about text editors here.
• In response to user demand, we brought back international voice posting. For more info on voice posting, read here.
• At long last, we revived TxtLJ with Verizon. For more info on TxtLJ, check out the FAQ.

Paid features you enjoyed

• In December, we introduced My Stats, which provides detailed data on who's been viewing your entries as well as statistics on commenting, RSS requests, friending history, and more. Despite a few early glitches, the response has been extremely favorable.
• This year, we launched and improved Notes (i.e., the feature formerly known as Alias), which lets you add private comments on friends and commenters (it's in the Profile drop-down menu). This way you won't be caught red-faced when you strain to remember details about that wonderful LiveJournal friend who sent you a birthday vGift. For more info, read the FAQ.
• When we first announced View friends pages by date, we thought it would be a quiet, minor enhancement. The rave reaction floored us, which made us all very happy. We gave it a fine tuning in February of 2009, so it's even better!
• How embarrassing! It appears pingbacks have gone back to the shop for service. We’ll keep you posted. We didn't know just much you liked pingbacks until it went in for service. It's back and, judging by your irritation when it wasn't available, this is good news. FYI, pingbacks send instant notifications (via screened comments) whenever someone links to one of your entries on LiveJournal. For more info, read this entry in paidmembers or check out the FAQ.

Mixed reviews

• The search is still on. Some of you have reported getting more comprehensive results for keyword searches using the new Yandex search engine and like the ability to search within content categories (like entries or comments). Others have not been satisfied with the relevancy of search results. Please be patient. We're still tweaking this product.
• This past December, we wanted to try out a new holiday promotion. Given the crap economy, we decided to offer our Paid/Permanent users a stack of $10 coupons to send to Basic/Plus users for paid account upgrades. We hoped you would like it. And some of you did, but many were disappointed that we didn't offer Give More as well. We want to thank you so much for letting us know. Your input will help us plan better in the future. Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users can continue to send out coupons through January 15th. Coupons can be redeemed through January 31, 2010.
• We were pretty excited about Your Journal Your Money, which allows Paid/Permanent users to earn extra cash by displaying Google ads to Basic/Plus and logged out users. A number of you tried it. Some of you really like it. Others, not so much. (Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users who do not participate in this program will not view ads on journals. Participants will see ads on their own journal, but won't see them on other journals unless they specifically opt in.) For additional details, visit here.
• We relaunched m.livejournal.com, our mobile app. While it offers a nicer UI and enhanced functionality, some of you think we can do better on load times. Like most of us, it's a work in progress. You can customize your mobile settings here. For more info, please read the FAQ.

Missing Inaction

• We shudder to bring up the neon purple elephant squatting on our heads, but, yes, we didn't give you those a la carte userpics. We've been making radical improvements to our backend in order to support them. But no excuses. We know you want them. We cringe every time you mention them. We're sorry we dropped the ball on this, and we promise to do our best to get them to you in 2010.

Stumbling points

• Back in early August, we experienced outages related to a series of DDoS attacks. We are proud to report that we were down a total of one hour over the course of a few days. We thank our heroic ops guys for getting us up sooner and more consistently than any of our less fortunate social networking friends. We apologize for leaving you temporarily stranded.
• A couple of months back, we offered a free, unrestricted vGift, which induced a snowflake cookie avalanche. This resulted in backed up/delayed notifications, which, in turn, led us to reboot systems, rendering scrapbooks unavailable. It took a while to shovel free. Apologies for the inconvenience. We learned a valuable lesson that should keep us calamity-free in the future (fingers crossed while knocking on wood).
• That darn Best Buy ad. First off, we're sorry about the audio auto-play (we got it turned off as quickly as possible). While it's true that we'll continue to show this type of ad to accounts that normally see them (never to Paid/Permanent accounts), we'll make sure the sound defaults to off moving forward. We promise to do our very best to keep ads to a minimum on LiveJournal, while keeping a roof over Frank's head.

Full steam ahead!

As we plunge headfirst into the next decade, we want to take a moment to look back and thank all of our employees, both past and present, who have worked so hard to create our unique and magical universe. We couldn't have made it this far without you: Your contributions brighten our path everyday. We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you. Whether you've been around for ten days or ten years, your humor, intelligence, talent, and creativity are what makes this the most vibrant global community on the Internet (the best place on the Web, in our humble opinion). Here's hoping that 2010 will be the greatest year yet! We thank you for joining us as we embark upon another glorious decade of LiveJournal history!

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010555.html

Worker, rushing into boss's office: Guess what I just got the kids for Christmas! It's hand sanitizer for kids and it's called "cooter killer."
Boss: (stares)
Worker: I mean, "cootie killer"!

Hopkinsville, Kentucky

Overheard by: will1966

http://www.logicalcreativity.com/jon/2010/01/old_man_winter_comes_through.html

Well, I'll be damned: library's closing early, 5pm. I know, that may not seem early to you, but we're normally open til midnight, and I was supposed to be here until 9pm. So, then. If I wander across the floor to a window, I can see big, fat flakes falling--ha ha!

Also, hospital called. Ian will be having the procedure tomorrow morning at 7:30 am, assuming the hospital hasn't been conquered by angry snow demons.

Also also, my tea mug is leaking. The hell? That ain't right.

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010554.html

Book lady: Attention staff, a customer needs assistance with nostalgia.

Houston, Texas

Overheard by: Autumn

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010553.html

Word processor: Your buddy Jonah* changed all the bullet points to smiley faces.

Manhattan, New York

Overheard by: sara n.

• 10:24 Stupid gout outbreak on last travel day. Double teri cheeseburger last night was a bad call. No ground meat for me ever again. #

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010552.html

Drafter on phone: Um, ya, give me a second and I can put it up on the screen... (sighs) Oh, there it is... Almost up there... That's better.

Central Point, Oregon

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/010551.html

Production manager: I'm sorry, but Brad Pitt in Fight Club? That was the best he looked--with those abs that you didn't even know existed.
Editor: Like that eight ab right above his genitals?
Boss: Unlike my penis canopy?
Editor: Which shields it from sunlight and keeps it dry in the rain.

Brewster, New York