To my English friends - good luck in Group C, except in the first match *evil grin*

I think it might be just about time to revamp my website adamselzer.com, and maybe even smartalecksguide.com and ikissedazombie.com to get them ready for prime time. Any suggestions?

GAHHH IT'S FREEZING! WHO SAID IT COULD BE WINTER! (mumblemumble) Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, that paperwork does seem to be all in order, sir. Well, erm. pout.

I'm up to 332! Demand seems to be tapering off and I'm starting to fret about wasting doses. Once I mix up a vial of ten doses, they must be used within 24 hours or discarded. So far we've only lost 3 doses this way (out of 403) (and not when I was working! I bet I could've found three more!) but more is inevitable.

I had someone storm out today when I told them I only had the adjuvanted version on hand. They left, muttering about mercury. I wonder if they know that the un-adjuvanted version has TEN TIMES as much mercury? People hear that it's being reserved for pregnant women and assume it's about mercury. Nope. Thimerosol's use as a preservative, including in pregnancy, is a total non-issue for health care workers. No, it's just that the adjuvant hasn't been used for as many years in pregnant women. So it doesn't yet have the sterling safety record that thimerosol DOES have. Heh. I do sort of wonder if this person will think to ask about mercury before getting the shot, or just ask for unadjuvanted and cheerfully get the ten-times-mercury version? Well, not my problem, they walked out on my chance to explain. But aw. I just really LIKE 'splaining things. The sovereign joy of being a know-it-all is pretty much the reason I went in to pharmacy. (Giving directions to lost tourists offers a similar feeling of harmless smugness.)

Joe and I had SUCH a tasty dinner last night at Les Faux Bourgeois, a poncy new french restaurant that is inexplicably located in our neighbourhood. Our neighbour got us a gift certificate there for putting up with her noisy renovations, which actually didn't bother us, but yay free food! We love you, neighbour! I had a salad with a warm bacon dressing to start, which sort of tells you everything right there. Joe's filet came with potato/cheese plywood. Seriously, it was laminated mashed potatoes. Chefs are so cunning these days. We ordered the red wine with the silliest name we could find on the menu and had quite a lot of dessert and waddled happily home. Must return!

I keep passing skytrain ads for the sherlock holmes movie and I wish to take them home with me and get inappropriate papercuts.

Had to take a week off work since we now lose all unused vacation at the end of the year. Put a list together of things I needed to do, of which exactly one thing (putting plastic on the kitchen windows for the winter) got done.

( What I ACTUALLY did... )

Final result - I need another week of vacation...

Winter is here, which means I'm reading Dickens. There's nothing like reading Dickens in winter. I actually got an early start this time - in October I re-read Great Expectations for the first time and LOVED it. It sort of flounders in the last third, dealing with stuff like who Estella's parents were that Victorians probably cared about, but that I frankly don't. After that I gave Pickwick Papers another try, and once again failed to get into it. Something like 80% of all people who could read bought that book; it revolutionized serial publishing (the way someone is going to revolutionize ebooks soon - me, if I have anything to say about it!) and was thought to be the funniest damn thing that had ever been written. There are parts of the book that I really like, but mostly I read it now and say "well, I guess you had to be there."

But I've spent the last month or so making my way through Martin Chuzzlewit, a book that's mostly forgotten now, but which I've really enjoyed. There're a lot of dull parts in the middle, and scenes that go on too long, but overall I'm rather entertained by it. The scenes that take place in America are especially interesting to read today. But now that I'm about 3/4ths of the way through it, I noticed that things REALLY picked up around Chapter 35. The prose is more consistently good, the plot is thickening, and lots of neat stuff is happening. I looked online to see when, exactly, those issues came out (it was published serially, like his other books) and found that the uptick in the quality of Chuzzlewit pretty neatly lines up with the period when Dickens wrote a little book on the side for extra cash called A Christmas Carol. He wrote that one strictly because he needed money, but comparing its quality to his OTHER Christmas books, and to the chapter of Chuzzlewit written a couple months before (which were largely just re-hashes of what he'd said about America in American Notes), one gets the idea that he must have been inspired. Chuzzlewit deserves to be rediscovered. For the most part, it's now known as everyone's choice when they want to name an obscure Dickens book (sort of like picking Millard Filmore when you want to name an obscure president). It's faint praise, but Martin Chuzzlewit is better as a book than Millard Fillmore was as a President.


Anyway, dispensing with the Dickens, I'm gearing up for THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO HISTORY to come out in a couple of weeks - it could start showing up in stores any day now, really. Keep your eyes peeled! I haven't seen the final draft, just the advance copies, which were made with all of the printing errors intact (ie, there's a picture of The Berlin Wall where the caption says it's Nancy Reagan.) (which is actually pretty funny, too). And, the minute that's out, it'll be time for I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND I LIKED IT (still looking for filkers to throw songs on to the soundtrack, hint hint!)

Home life is steady. I'm settling into a new day job as a copywriter for a music gear company - today I'll be writing 5-800 word blocks of copy about various bass guitars and accessories. I'm on a Monday-Friday schedule - first time I've done that in YEARS. Like, since about 7th grade, really. Having evenings and weekends off is quite a novelty for me. Unfortunately, having managed to employ myself as a writer and tour guide all these years, I'd fallen out of the habit of sitting at a desk or being on a schedule during the day, so THAT'S a bit of an adjustment. At home I've slowly customized my office to my own specifications - just the computer I want, the perfect chair for me, a wonderful rolltop desk with various gadgets and upgrades (I have totally pimped that desk). At work it's very different - I'm running a linux machine with a keyboard from one of those late 90s imacs that looked like a blueberry. BUT they're trying to find me another keyboard, and I've certainly never had a water cooler before. I dig the water cooler.

♪ I wish I were a flu shot/and here's the reason why/if you tried to inject me/I'd squirt you in the eye ♫

My latest style of syringe, after my 3rd and 4th choices have sold out everywhere (RAR!) has a needle tip that doesn't screw on, just hangs on with friction. I didn't tighten one of them enough, and as I tried to inject it, the barrel exploded off the needle tip, leaving the tip in this girl's arm, and my face covered in vaccine. I pulled the tip out and said "I am terribly sorry, but I will need to repeat that." I pointed at my face. "As you can see, this is not in your arm." She took it with great aplomb! Her mother apologized to ME afterwards. "You see, if this kind of thing happens to ANYONE, it happens to our family." Her son giggled and her daughter nodded thoughtfully. Hee! They must be relatives of mine, somehow, some way. Anyway, the second one worked like a charm. Oh what I wouldn't give for a couple hundred 25 gauge 1 inch needle tips.

301 shots total so far! I gave 73 today, a new record.

This does not count the scotch injections I administered last night to a bunch of Tim-Tams. (Well, gfish did most of the injecting anyway.) In the course of our bold snack-related scientific inquiry we accidentally turned a couple Tim-Tams in to scotch pistols. Oops. Fishy's biscuit sprayed scotch in his eye after he injected it the first time without er, accounting for the pressure build-up. Seph discovered the best technique in the end: stab a vent hole in the far end of the biscuit, then inject the scotch at the near end. I still think it's easier just to bite off the end and dip it in your glass, but SCIENCE adds a certain intangible deliciousness that I cannot deny.

It's December, and so the christmas radio station is on at work now. AUGH! Every year this makes me want to stab people. It's very convenient for me that this year I... actually get to stab people at work all day. My radio sadness is greatly diminished as a result.

I finally finished reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which has been the millstone around my neck for several months. It was good! I liked it! But like all of his writing I found it extremely easy to set down. I would read a few paragraphs, enjoy it, and set the book down and wander off. For MONTHS. But now I am freed, conveniently in time to dig in to the fruits of my visit to Powell's. Right now I'm devouring a book of Robert G. Ingersoll speeches. OMG yum. He is so florid and godless! Like Whitman but less LSD. (I love Leaves of Grass, but you know what I mean.) There is some serious rhetorical swooning going on right here.

No photos, it's not that interesting. I was going to hold out until next year, but what's one month? I did go seven months without letting anyone touch my hair. Boy, did it look like it, so I stopped by the beauty supply place and had Richard even things up for me. Now it's a bob instead of a mullet, though I wouldn't let him cut the top at all. He did okay, but I doubt I'll go back to him.

Anyway, my hair no longer reminds me of the bad haircut I had in May and it looks styled. That's all I want for another seven months.

Meanwhile, I'm working my way through a couple of recent novels and not feeling tremendous love for them. Let me clarify: I'm very critical of the writing. I don't like stories where everyone senses their future or has a (correct, as it turns out) feeling about some situation they cannot possibly know enough about to get to that feeling. It's sort of foreshadowing, but it comes across as unnecessary. I don't need my characters to have a moment of clairvoyance about their own narrative, really, unless it pulls together a bunch of threads that I thought were disparate. Or, of course, if they're meant to be psychic. That would be okay, though maybe annoying in a different way.

So I'm also rereading all the Vlad Taltos books, because I love the Dragaeran novels and they never let me down or do stupid things. A lot of times they do wonderful things, some of which I'm just now appreciating.

You may recall my post about helping the world, one stranger at a time.

Well, here's a re-post of an epilogue from popelizbet on save_dave:

You did it, folks.

The day before Thanksgiving, Sabrina had the total at $7300 and change, received.

All of you are so wonderful. Thank you. Times a billion.

I'll keep updating you on Dave's story, and when hnmic can make it out there to show him how to work Livejournal, he may just come thank you himself.

***

There are other needs out in the world.

Our own rowangolightly is putting together a moving fund following some personal troubles of her own, through auctions of her own items & donated by friends, at rescue_rowan (run by fellow Friend of Save Dave apocalypticbob.) Lots of tasty treats and tasty books available, many available in time for $WINTERHOLIDAY gift giving.

***

All of us keep passing it on, around and around and around and around again.

A couple of days late, y'all - know I give thanks for all of you.

-Lizbet

I can only second Lizbet. You are all so wonderful. We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty, and then we just keep on doing it.

I'm a bit late with this, so some of the auctions at rescue_rowan are over, but some are still going (I'm bidding on a couple).

*hugs the whole internet*

I got a fuzzy blanket yesterday which looks nice and warm. SAdly, it has so much static charge in it that I can't even pick it up without getting zapped. Is there something I can do to take the static out of it and actually, you know, use it?

What kind of day has it been:

09:18 "Disappointment is anger for wimps." - Dr. Gregory House. #

23:03 twitpic.com/ru5m2 - got the X-Mini Max II speakers. When packed up, it looks like some kind of futuristic hand grenade. #

Automatically stabbed through your living brain by LoudTwitter

Sat
The Bourne jazz duo gig was OK - long night tho (left house at 6pm, home 1am) as it's quite a journey. Not many active listeners either b ut nice management was happy and it; always nice to earn some money.

Sun
Took it quite easy - went to Borders closing down sale - picked upa cheap Jimmy Cagney box in an attempt to get a better print of one of my fave ever films The Time of Your Life - alas the print looks the same as the one I have - the other films look good tho.

Mon
Worked on website in the morning. In the evening I found a file (cardboard, not computer) of old lyrics of mine. What I didnlt expect to be in there were many lyrics to old ongs rom 10-15 years ago that I never recorded. Some I had no recollection of the music. I spent the evening working thru them and found 20 that i either remembered or could do something with. Weird - like a communication from another life. Truth is about that time I had a writing mania. Bandmates often said i wrote in triplicate and they had to pick the best 1 out of 3 similar ones. I can tell what my influence fad was as songs are either David Crosby/Richie Havens/Paul Kantner/John Sebastian/Jesse Colin Young or Buffy Sainte-Marie-like.
In evening watched Kaminey dvd. Not really my kind of film but it was good seeing Shahid Kapur who played a twin role. Priyanka Chopra was good too. Kind of a dark Bollywood Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrells - too much action and violence for me but i enjoyed the music, especially the underscore. Well done - just not my genre.

Tue
Wanted to look at the sons again but lots of little chores and details took over the day. Posters to venue, sorting videoing of Dec 10th big gig, buying guitar strings strings, sorting gig dates, newsletter writing, ticket designing etc. Went out for dinner as reward for sorting a lot of stuff. I think my Inga & Anush albums arrived but I;m being a good boy and not opening them til my birthday (big kid that I am ;-) )

Our Super Secret Guests are...

Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner!

Ellen Kushner is a woman of many talents. She's an award-winning author (Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners, Thomas the Rhymer, The Privilege of the Sword, The Golden Dreydl, and The Fall of Kings, co-written with Delia Sherman) as well as the radio host of PRI's Sound & Spirit, which Bill Moyers called "the best program on public radio, bar none." Ellen is the co-founder of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, an organization encouraging creativity that falls between genre categories. She is well known for spoken word works such as Esther: the Feast of Masks with Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, and The Golden Dreydl: a Klezmer 'Nutcracker' for Chanukah In 2008, Vital Theatre in New York City commissioned her to script a fullscale theatrical version. "The Klezmer Nutcracker" played to sold-out audiences, with Kushner in the role of the magical Tante Miriam, throughout the 2008-09 holiday season. And she sings, too! Ellen performs a musical telling of Thomas the Rhymer. If you're lucky, you'll be able to see this wonderful work performed here at GAFilk. Ellen is currently working on a live staged version of The Witches of Lublin and a musical, The Bone Chandelier, with composer Ben Moore. You can read more about her at her website www.ellenkushner.com

Ellen currently lives in New York City with her beautiful partner...

Delia Sherman is ALSO an award-winning novelist (Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove, Changeling, The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen, and The Freedom Maze, a time-travel fantasy set in Louisiana, which will be published in 2010.) Her short fiction has appeared in Realms of Fantasy and Poe. Her short stories for younger readers have appeared in numerous anthologies. Delia has judged the Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Novel, The James Tiptree, Jr. Award for Fantastic Fiction, and the World Fantasy Award. She has served on the Motherboard of the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and is a founding member and past officer of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. Delia has worked as a contributing editor for Tor Books and has co-edited the fantasy anthology The Horns of Elfland with Ellen Kushner and Donald G. Keller, as well as The Essential Bordertown with Terri Windling. She had co-edited two anthologies of Interstitial fiction: Interficitons 1, with Theodora Goss, and the recently released Interfictions 2, with Christopher Barzak. She teaches SF and Fantasy writing at Odyssey: the Fantasy Writing Workshop, and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop, as well as workshops at colleges and science fiction conventions all over the country. She is a charming person and a snazzy dresser. Learn more about Delia at her website, www.deliasherman.com.

Photo by Ellen Datlow, used by permission

You can get more information about Gafilk,and register for the convention, online at http://www.gafilk.org/

I'm doing this mini-convention at the Cartoon Art Museum on Saturday, December 12. If you're in the Bay Area, check it out. It's got WEBCOMICS.

What's! On! My! Camera!

Orycon & trains, mostly.

Happy birthday to papersky! I hope it is splendid.