Online Cultural Appropriation Panel

By:  TempestBlog Against Racism

We talked about this a bit at WisCon last year, and since I recently did great mental harm to you all by pointing out that “discussion” over on Jay Lake’s LJ, I thought I would do something constructive.  I’m willing to host an in-depth discussion about cultural appropriation on the ABW so that we can attempt to cover all of the different angles and branches of the conversation as we usually cannot in a 90 minute panel discussion.

But before that happens I’d like to solicit input from veterans of these discussions for help determining the best way to begin, some links with background and context from other discussions (including the debate of DOOM from a few years ago), and suchlike.  I guess it could also help if we had panelists, sort of, but I don’t know how that would work in an online context.

Suggestions, links, and direction appreciated.

Hugo, Hugo, Who’s Got The Hugo?

By:  TempestNews
Hugo, Hugo, Who's Got The Hugo?

It’s Hugo Award nomination time, kids. This is when folks who attended last year’s WorldCon and those who have already signed up for this year’s can nominate stories, books, people and magazines for awards. Exciting!  I have not been to WorldCon in a number of years and that isn’t likely to change soon.  I’ll have to settle for recommending things for you folks to nominate.

Weird Tales has helpfully put together this Year In Review, which highlights some of their more awesome endeavors.  i think they’re angling for that Best Semiprozine nom, and I personally feel they deserve it.  Seriously, when was the last time you read something cool and entertaining and weird in Locus?  When was the last time Locus held a spam fiction contest?  Hmm?  Weird Tales is where it’s at.  And while you’re at it, perhaps you should consider nominating some of their excellent fiction for an award, too.

As I mentioned last week, Fantasy has a Best Story of 2008 poll going on (and contest… did I mention contest?  Go enter the contest!) which provides a helpful list of all our 2008 fiction with links.  We’re going to announce the winner next week along with some of the editor’s picks for top stories.  Nominating people might want to read those stories for consideration.

On the Best Editor front, there are, of course, many fine editors out there.  Ann Vandermeer of Weird Tales and various anthologies, Cat Rambo of Fantasy Magazine, Susan Groppi, Jed Hartman, and Karen Meisner of Strange Horizons, Rachel Swirsky of PodCastle… really, you have many good choices.  But if I were nominating, the people I just mentioned would be it.

There’s one last category that I think most people who read this blog don’t pay much attention to: Best Fan Writer.  This is anyone who has published stuff in fanzines/semipro zines/on the internet relating to SF/F fandom, etcetc.  That includes the non-fiction writers who have appeared in Fantasy.  Last week I put up our Best of 2008: Columns post and I still have the Best of Interviews & Articles to do.  But may I recommend the following writers to nominate for this category:

And in non-Fantasy noms, I think miss Cleolinda deserves some credit and recognition for enduring the Twilight series so we didn’t have to.

I’m sure I will think of more Best Fan Writer people in the next few days.

And finally (you knew this was coming, right?) I would like to point out that I had a story published in 2008 and I am totally eligible for the Fan Writer award, not just for Fantasy stuff, but also for the ABW.  So keep that in mind ;D

WisCon Panel Brainstorming Post

By:  TempestConventions
WisCon Panel Brainstorming Post

A few days ago WisCon opened up the panel suggestion form.  Yay!  I love suggesting panels.  Since the brainstorming post last year was a big hit and led to many good things, I thought I would host another.  Everyone is welcome to contribute.  If you have just an inkling of an idea or a well-formed one but don’t know how best to put it into words, post!  People will hopefully help you flesh ideas out, find new, interesting directions, or lend their wordsmithyness to your existing ideas.

Might also be fun to suggest some different styles of panels.  I know last year they were trying to get some debate-style things going on.  I would love to see suggestions of ways to shake up the panel format instead of it just being 6 people talk at you for 45 minutes.

Oh Jesus, Here We Go

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Oh Jesus, Here We Go

I was just contemplating asking around the FList and WisCon friends about having the virual cultural appropriation panel we’ve thought about doing for some time.  But I suspect that this thread is going to make me want to take a shot every time I hear the words Cultural Appropriation for a long time.

Just look at the userpics of so very many of the commenters there and take bets on how fast we get a bingo.  Maybe bit should be a drinking game.

Or maybe not.  I can’t afford to be drunk before 3PM today.

Update:  wow, the fail comments just keep coming.

Soon The Ultimate Media Center Will Be Mine

By:  TempestGeekitude

I’m in a tech upgrading frenzy!

Last week I ordered some RAM for my laptop because I realized that my poor Sarah only had 512MB of RAM.  I know!  Not enough.  This machine is 3 years old, plus I couldn’t get the one with bigger RAM originally as it was more than I had to spend.  Now that memory is cheap I can soup her up a bit.  The laptop can take up to 2GB, so that’s what I put in it.

Fiddling around with it made me realize that, since I have a proper day job now, my laptop is no longer really my “work” computer.  I use it far more than my desktop since I like hanging out in the living room with my roommates.  Before I was confined to my bedroom a lot, so I used them both.

My desktop has a few issues, including a slowly dying DVD-RW drive.  (I’ve been trying to fix that problem for a year and finally figured out that it can’t read CDs but can read DVDs — I also discovered that it had no drive letter assigned… gah.)  But I solved most of those yesterday by assigning a drive letter, finally ditching MusicMatch Jukebox (I hate how Yahoo ruins everything), uninstalling a bunch of programs and running the defrag.

I decided that I’m going to turn my desktop into an entertainment center.  Since it has a bigger hard drive, lives in my bedroom, and has the potential for a stationary setup, it’s a much better computer to use for watching TV and movies, listening to music, and playing games.  Now I just need to trick it out a bit.

I already have a good set of speakers.  A great set, actually.  I also have a card that will take a coaxial cable input so I can watch basic cable (I’m pretty sure it’ll convert stuff, but I should check).  Of course it has wireless so I can stream Hulu and whatnot.  I wish my wireless was better/faster, but I don’t know if the card is crappy or our router just can’t get a strong signal through the walls.  (Old buildings and all that.)  Thus I am reluctant to replace it.  If I were a true gamer I would upgrade the graphics card, but really I just want to run over old ladies in GTA, so I’ll keep what I have (which is pretty good, anyway).

The desktop also only has 512MB of RAM, but has run all of my games fine so far.  Still, an upgrade to 2 gigs wouldn’t cost much and would probably improve GTA if nothing else. NewEgg has Crucial brand 1GB for $23, so less than $50 for two.

I’ll need a new second DVD drive because partially functioning hardware shouldn’t be left in for too long, lest it cause other problems.  Though Byron suggested I get a Blu-ray burner, I am happy to just get a drive that does dual-layer discs as well as all the plus and minus R RW etc.  This drive got some good reviews and is $25.  Woot!

The biggest and most important new part I’ll need is a new LCD monitor.  The one I have now is 15 inches, but if I’m going to watch video on it, I’ll need something bigger.  I’m going for 22″, but I dream of 24″.  This 22″ from Acer seems to be a really good value and has good ratings everywhere I’ve looked.  At $167 it’ll be another paycheck or two before I can afford it, but it’s not a bad price at all.  Ooo, and it’s slightly less refurbished.  Ooo, I can get it in town and not have to wait for shipping.

I suppose a 28″ would be overkill… but it’s 43% off!  (…$463…)

This brings the total to: $242

Soon I shall have the ultimate media center!  I will watch Sarah Connor on glorious widescreen… mmm widescreen.

The last thing I need to do is call and find out if Time Warner will run another coaxial cable into my bedroom.  Then I can get basic cable through my DVR card.  It’s not really great video, but it’s preferable to putting in a TV.

What else should I add to my computer to make it an amazing media monstrosity?

Restaurant Week Winter 2009

By:  TempestGeekitude

This winter’s restaurant week was announced a bit ago and the list of restaurants and RW meals (lunch, dinner, or both) are going up Monday, January 5th.  I loooove Restaurant Week as I get to taste some good food for not ridiculous prices.  I’m sure Nora will return to the Sweedish place with me, and I’d like to try a few places i’ve never been.  I have not yet completed by Iron Chef collection — still need a Batali restaurant.

Anyone else want to go with me?  I’ll have to do dinner, mostly, (except the Sweedish place) since I am a day worker now.  But I’m up for at least 3.