On Diets (Of Multiple Types)

By:  TempestGeekitude

I spend too much money on food. This isn’t hard, living in New York City. But still, lately I’ve been a bit out of control.

Last year I signed up on Mint.com, a site that helps keep track of expenses and budgets and such. It sends me alerts if something funky happens on my account, if I exceed the budget I’ve set for myself for certain types of purchases, and other similar situations. The other day I got an email from Mint telling me that last month I spent over $300 at restaurants when I usually spend around $96.

I knew I’d spent more eating out last month due to a slew of different issues, but I didn’t realize I’d gone that much over my normal budget. This would explain why there was very little added to my savings account. Arg.

Cut for long rambling about food and budgets

Celebrating My Inevitable March Toward Death’s Door (or: Birthday Plans Afoot)

By:  TempestNews
Celebrating My Inevitable March Toward Death's Door (or: Birthday Plans Afoot)

My birthday is a few weeks away and I intend to beat back the evil specter of oldness by acting completely childish that day. I’ll have dessert before dinner, eat fried foods, then smoke a bunch of hookah. We can all pretend that I don’t do these things on a regular basis.

My actual birthday is the 19th, but as that’s a Monday my party will be on the 17th. Details below:

We’ll start off at The Chocolate Room because they have the best chocolate desserts in the city. Then around 6 we’ll walk over to the Atlantic Chip Shop (129 Atlantic Ave between Clinton St & Henry St in Brooklyn) for Fish & Chips, which reminds me of my salad days. *sigh*
After dessert and dinner, we’re going to head over to the lower east side for hookah at my favorite place: Kazuza. (107 Avenue A between 6th & 7th St)
It’s usually really chill and laid back until around 11 or midnight, so I’d like to get there early. Come along if you like hookah or don’t mind the smoke! We’ll try the Blue Mist.
It’s going to be an awesome night of good food and awesome people, so please join for whatever portion of the evening you can drop by.

We’ll start off at The Chocolate Room (269 Court St, Brooklyn) because they have the best chocolate desserts in the city. Then around 6 we’ll walk over to the Atlantic Chip Shop (129 Atlantic Ave between Clinton St & Henry St in Brooklyn) for Fish & Chips, which reminds me of my days living in that famed borough.

After dessert and dinner (around 8:30), we’re going to head over to the Lower East Side for hookah at my favorite place: Kazuza (107 Avenue A between 6th & 7th St). It’s usually really chill and laid back until around 11 or midnight, so I’d like to get there early. Come along if you like hookah or don’t mind the smoke! We’ll try the Blue Mist.

It’s going to be an awesome night of good food and awesome people, so please join for whatever portion of the evening you can drop by.

If you’re going to join us or think you will, please RSVP so I can make reservations and such the week before. If you’re on Facebook, you can RSVP here for dessert and dinner and here for the hookah portion. Otherwise, you can email be via the contact button on my website and let me know.

5 Links Make Up for Radio Silence

By:  TempestNews

I know you all think I’ve dropped off the face of the Earth. Maybe what I need to do is promise a post a day with interesting links. That would at least be something.

  1. Today at Tor.com you can see the latest installment of Tech News For Nerds, a weekly thing I’m doing over that way. This one is all about cell phones and wireless technologies. Netbook fans should take special note of the smartbook section.
  2. My dear friend John Klima is raising money for a new genre magazine showcasing underrepresented cultures. Go vote for his idea and help him win $25K to get started. (Yes, you need money to start a magazine, people. And John is good at it.) It’s a great way to stick it to Norman Spinrad.
  3. Did you know that I’m in an ultra-cool non-fic anthology called Chicks Dig Time Lords? I so am. It’s such an amazing book and filled with all kinds of smart writers and fans and actors and Doctor Who goodness. Women talking about their fan experience across time (and space) and being very smart about what they love and don’t love about the show and fandom. I, of course, wrote a controversial essay on Martha Jones. I know Paul Cornell has the book, I just hope he doesn’t hate me for what I said about Human Nature. Go buy Chicks Dig Time Lords right now and then go listen to the podcast of Hour of the Wolf featuring several contributors and read about our shenanigans the night before.
  4. Speaking of books, remember the list of eReaders I said people should be on the lookout for? Several of them now have full reviews, including the Alex eReader, which is my favorite. If anyone asked me right now which eReader they should buy, I would say the Alex without hesitation. The list of other eReaders is on Tor.com as well.
  5. This weekend I watched the BBC miniseries Lost in Austen and have the following things to say about it: (a) When did it become okay to present fanfic as legitimate television? (b) Does the BBC have only 20 actors? Because I have seen a third of this cast on every show I’ve watched. (c) After the clusterfuck that was Hex, Jemima Rooper and Christina Cole shouldn’t be allowed on screen together again nor should they be allowed psuedo-lesbian encounters because they wouldn’t give them to us on that horrendous show. (d) Jemima is awfully hot. (e) Judging from the 700+ comments for this movie on Netflix, I’d have to say that it’s successful insofaras it’s made people feel strongly that it’s the best thing ever or a piece of crap. (f) Where can I get a job writing badfic for money?

Now back to my regularly scheduled seclusion.

Calling Everyone Who Digs Time Lords

By:  TempestEvents

chicksdigI know, I KNOW. I am horrendously late informing you of this event. I cannot explain myself except to say that I have been horrendously busy and thought I’d done at least some of this promotion before now. I suck.

But you’re not doing anything important on Friday night, so please come:

The Chicks Dig Time Lords anthology is a celebration of Doctor Who from the perspective of female fans. Join us as we read our essays, talk smack about the Doctors we love (and hate), the compaions we cheer for (and hate), and the Whoniverse we adore.

Contributors Catherynne M Valente, Franesca Coppa, Deborah Standish, and K. Tempest Bradford will be there along with cover artist and Torchwood Babiez co-creator Katy Shuttleworth.

Hugo Nominations

By:  TempestMy Fiction

First, a reminder. Hugo nominations close this Friday. If you are eligible to nominate, you should. You can nominate if you were a member of last year’s WorldCon or if you are a member of this year’s already. If you don’t know how to nominate, go here.

That said.

There were many fine stories and novels and novelettes and such published last year. I hope that if you read one you liked you will nominate it. Even if you didn’t read every story ever, you should nominate. And, if you are so inclined, I would not object to you nominating one of my stories.

I am not smooth at all, but whatever.

If I were to choose one story that I would ask people to consider it would be Elan Vital from Sybil’s Garage no 6. I personally think it’s the best short story of mine published last year, though I am excessively fond of Enmity and Different Day as well. It’s up to you to make that choice.

Also, I am eligable for Fan Writer. Just so you know.

Now I will stop my shameless plugging and get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

Tech That Makes Us Feel Like We’re Living In The Future

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Tech That Makes Us Feel Like We're Living In The Future

Forgot to mention on Friday that over on Laptop Magazine there’s a fun post where I ask seven science fiction authors to name tech or software that makes them feel like they’re living in the future. I’m sure you can predict how many will say the iPhone, but not all of them did.

My own answer is similar, though for me it’s smartphones in general. Being able to check my bank balance, transfer money, locate nearby restaurants, get turn-by-turn directions to my destination plus play some games all on one device? Yes, please.

Check out the post here. (Why yes, that does seem awfully familiar to Mind Melds. However, we’re not always going to ask genre people questions.) And comment!  Commenting is love.

enTourage eDGe eReader rEview

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
enTourage eDGe eReader rEview

One of the eReaders I talked about a few weeks ago in my long post (which you need to read if you’re a writer, editor, or publisher) is now out. The enTourage eDGe dual screen eReader/Tablet has been extensively reviewed over at Laptop Magazine. Check itout, especially if you’re a student. It’s pretty cool, though needs some updates before it’s as useful as the company intends.

By the way, that title is not a typo. Random capitalization seems to be the norm in tech these days.

A Review of My Electric Velocipede Story

By:  TempestMy Fiction

Oddly, I haven’t seen too many reviews of EV 17/18, which is a sadness! But apparently Tangent Online did a review of the entire issue, including my story Enmity. Check it:

…a cerebral exploration of the creation story, spanning ancient Greek mythology, Christianity, and probably some other sources I haven’t picked up on too.

…Now, my knowledge of classical civilisation is limited at best, so it took a great deal of Wikipedia research even vaguely to understand what was going on here. Poor Eurydice goes from creator of the world, to Adam’s Eve and back again. She dies, lives, creates and destroys, all with little idea of who or what she really is, and by the end of it all I felt just as mixed up as Eurydice herself. In that sense, Bradford did well to carry me through the narrative as well as she did, but there is no real plot to speak of. I think the ‘point’ of this piece is to portray the eternal, cyclical relationship between good and evil, and to demonstrate how it transcends theology.

My intent was less good and evil but women and men. Perhaps I tripped over my own subconscious there.

People often run up against the same issue the reviewer did when it comes to my mythpunkish stories — I pack in a lot of mythology, some recognizable by folks with a passing knowledge, some not. Apparently my target audience consists of people who have not only read a lot of mythology and folklore from various ancient civilizations but who’ve also delved into the cultural forces that shaped those mythologies and, perhaps, have also done some research into how folklore and mythology change as the socio-cultural landscape of a region or a people change.

In other words, me, Veronica Schanoes, and Helen Pilinovsky. It’s a narrow audience.

Still, I’m glad the reviewer liked it despite the confusion. Though I wonder why she objects to the line “Rape is a metaphor. And it also is not”? There’s more to the review, so click over and read the rest. And, if you haven’t read the story yet, it exists online.