Author: katster

Why you should never let katster play with her food

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So the neighbors made us cupcakes for Easter. This, of course, ends with me goofing around with cupcakes, microwaves, and the digital camera on my Blackberry…

Our story starts with an innocent Peep on an innocent cupcake, a normal residence of Cupcakelandia, on the fair continent of PlasticaPlate. Obviously, all is right with the world. But little does our peep know that the world is going to get very … interesting. Yeah, that’s the word we want, interesting. It is a tale most foul…

Of course, in Cupcakelandia, sitting on a cupcake without the permission of the monarchs is a crime. So our innocent little peep gets thrown to the wolves and is oppressed by the two Peeps who sit in judgment on the Cupcake Thrones! Help, help, we're being oppressed!Photo by retstak
Oh noes! Our innocent little peep is being oppressed! What is there to be done? Well, it seems the rulers of Cupcakelandia are looking for a peep to be experimented on! And they pick our poor innocent peep! What will become of him or her, as we completely failed to give our peep gender when we started this story!

At the Kenmore Nuclear Test Chamber, our peep is strapped to a gurney and placed inside to be radiated by powerful forces for thirty whole seconds! Will our peep survive such awful treatment? In the wreckage of the test range, we found a journal with the following entry:

Incident at Kenmore Nuclear Test ChamberPhoto by retstak
Subject Y. Peep was accidentally placed in the test chamber for approximately thirty seconds. Subject emerged as a irradiated SuperPeep and stormed off in the direction of the capital muttering something about those bastards on the Cupcake Thrones. I fear the worst.

The scientist who recorded this missive was obviously lying on at least one point, as the irradiation was done quite deliberately and with malice aforethought. Also, I suspect SuperPeep trashed the Kenmore Nuclear Test Chamber before going on his mission to destroy the Peeps on the Cupcake Thrones! This would make sense given his awful treatment at the hands of the scientists at the place. Perhaps our mystery scientist was trying to cover up his role in this plot. We may never know.

Uh oh!Photo by retstak

News photography in Cupcakelandia brought us this last image before we lost all transmissions. It shows an obviously larger SuperPeep behind the thrones, just before SuperPeep ascended the thrones and destroyed them and their rulers. It was a marshmallow bath, folks, and that sort of thing is just not okay for the kiddies to see. I mean, marshmallow all over the place? Are you some kind of pervert or something? It didn’t really matter, though, as our cameras lost power, possibly from SuperPeep’s irradiated hide, shortly thereafter.

(Read: katster got bored with taking pictures and decided to eat peeps instead. Note, microwaved peeps are not as good as normal peeps, as the chewy goodness becomes sugary tasting rubber.)

Look what came in the mail today!

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Yeah, my plaque for Best New Fanzine Fan showed up in the mail today, and that’s me proudly holding it. And yes, that’s a shirt from the Denver Worldcon I’m wearing. For those who want a closer view, here’s a picture of the plaque I took.

Anyway, gotta get back to writing. The end of the month fast approaches…

A philosophical conundrum

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When I was in fifth grade, my teacher suggested to the class that now that we were learning decimal points, we should circle our problem numbers to avoid having them accidentally show up in the math. It’s a habit I gleefully adopted, and used through several classes of higher mathematics. Even to this day, if I’m making an ordered list, I circle my numbers.

So I was doing this at work today as setup for what I’m doing on the computer, and I noticed that every time I drew the circle around the number, I drew it counterclockwise. Writing ‘o’ and ‘0’ are done the same way. This got me pondering — is this what every righty does, and lefties go clockwise? Maybe something with the way the pen is gripped?

So I asked the question on twitter, and got three responses. All four (counting myself) were righties, and we split right down the middle as to how we drew our circles.

My pen grip hypothesis seems to be on shaky ground. So in the interests of science!, I’m looking for more data points. Do you draw your circles clockwise or counterclockwise? What hand are you?

Reason #5628 why it would be nice to win the lottery

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Because I would love to get my hands on this collection.

Alas, I am still not yet a multi-millionare, so I’ll have to keep dreaming.

My gast is well and truly flabbed.

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So, not two weeks ago, I wrote here joking about winning a Hugo in 2014. Would I like that? Oh, sure. Who wouldn’t? But that’s a huge dream and one I suspect might not happen at all.

But that’s not why I found my gast well and truly flabbed yesterday. It had started with my pal Ei dropping me off at my grandmother’s so I could hook up with my folks and my ride back to Sactown. While she was there, I made mention of a possible Baycon ribbon I was thinking about, and then had to explain to my grandmother what ribbons were and why I wanted to make them for something called Baycon, which led to me explaining in general terms about science fiction conventions, specifically Baycon and Worldcon. (Also, there was a digression on how con-commuting is a bit painful and the turn-around times and I were pulling in Denver last year.)

The conversation drifted, as conversations are wont to do, and at a lull I pulled out my phone and glanced at my email. There, I found an email from Peter Sullivan (). Now the two of us are friends and fellow eAPAeans, but generally we don’t exchange email. But it wasn’t the fact I got an email from him that had me staring at my phone in shock. No, it was his subject line: “Congratulations on your FAAn award win!”

Now, a bit of a digression here. The FAAn awards stand for “Fanzine Activity Achievement Awards”, and they are voted on by whomever in fandom chooses to participate, although in practice, it works out to being mostly fanzine fans. There’s several categories: best fanzine, best fanzine writer, best fanzine artist, best letterhack (person who writes letters of comment to fanzines), best online fanac site, and best new fan. They’re given out at Corflu every year, and this last weekend was Corflu Zed up Seattle way, simulcast on ustream so that us fans who couldn’t make the trip could hang out and watch the proceedings. Unfortunately, it was also the weekend of my grandmother’s seventieth birthday party, so I couldn’t spend as much time as I would have liked hanging out in the chat and watching the feed.

Which leads me back around to the email informing me I’d tied for first on best new fan with Jean Martin of SF/SF. Now see, I’d fully expected that if I was going to win it at all, it would have been next year, since I was planning to become more visible in the fanzine fandom this year instead of mainly writing my APAzines. So to find out I’d won this year — yeah, it completely came out of the blue.

Hopping on Twitter, I’d found that Peter had announced it there too, and then there was a followup from Chris Garcia, the man who runs the most excellent Baycon fanzine lounge as well as being a whirling dervish of fandom, saying much the same thing. So I guess this had actually happened, and I wasn’t dreaming. And after getting back into Sactown, I hopped back on the virtual con and had a couple people congratulate me there, too, which just went to make it all that more concrete.

So yeah. It may not be a rocket, but it’s a truly wonderful surprise nonetheless. I’m pleased as heck that the folks who voted for me in the awards thought highly enough of me to do so.

Yes. My gast is well and truly flabbed, even now on Monday morning.

Fandom in 2014?

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So I participate in a couple APAs. One of them is not relevant to this story. The other is.

You see, the next issue of eAPA will be its sixtieth. Since it’s a once a month APA, the sixtieth edition means that it has been going for five years. In celebration of this milestone, we’ve been asked to project what fandom might look like five years down the road. It’s an interesting question at the moment, as people I follow have been nattering about the future of Worldcon, among other things.

So here’s the question. Aside from me accepting my first Hugo at the possibly-European Worldcon of 2014, what do you think fandom will look like in five years?

(Okay, so I’m kidding on the Hugo thing, but ever since I got into science fiction enough to understand just what a Hugo was, I’ve always wanted one of them rocket thingys. Although 2014 might be a bit soon…)

Anyway, I’d really like the comments to be on my blog, so I’m funneling LJ comments over here. Also, feel free to pass this URL onto anybody who might care to comment, as this is the sort of thought I’d like to get from anybody who’s got an opinion on the matter. While this is mainly concerned with science fiction fandom (and all its various components), I’d love to hear from folks who are into anime or comics or media or games, because I suspect those fields tie into the general fandom.

Also, since Chuck, our esteemed editor, would kill me if I failed to mention this, eAPA is always looking for new members. It’s all digital, as we do it in PDF. If you’d like to hang out and wait for the open issue next month, that’s cool, but if you want to get involved in this, Chuck’s address is on the eAPA page at efanzines, which I’ve linked to above.

But I want to go outside!

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But I want to go outside!
Originally uploaded by retstak

This is Ebony-kitty, the newest member of the family. She is obsessed with windows. I caught this shot of her this morning staring out the sliding glass door. Does she want to go out in the rain or is she just fascinated with the birds gathered around the feeder?

Either way, it made for an adorable shot, and I’ve actually got a decent camera on my phone these days. So you get to enjoy it as well.

Proving physics concepts the hard way.

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If you had been following my twitter on Saturday, you would have seen the following entry:

Was in an accident.

I twittered that from the ER, where I was waiting to be seen for injuries sustained in said accident.

The key point here is that I’m alive. Injuries were a sprained right knee and a sprained right thumb, as well as a cut/bruise across my chest, which I suspect was caused by the seatbelt. It’ll all heal, given time. The occasional replay of the accident in my head will probably also fade, although at the moment, it’s difficult.

What happened? Well, I had just come over a hill, and was scanning ahead, when a U-Haul truck down in the intersection I was approaching caught my eye. Which means I didn’t see the brakelights in front of me until it was too late. Whoops. I tried to stop, but I suspect the brakes locked. (There’s some skid marks on the pavement.) The airbag went off.

This all wouldn’t have been so bad, except the car belongs to Mom and Dad, and I feel awful because they didn’t need to have to be looking for a new car now — money’s really tight. And I’m also in the market for my own car, because I had been driving theirs because my car simply wasn’t reliable.

They’re being really nice about it. But I’m just frustrated at the whole thing. And I need a better job, because if I could help my folks out…

But I’m alive. That’s the important part, right?

Science Fiction must-reads?

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Okay, so I’ve set myself a new task, of reading all the winners in the Hugo for Best Novel category, figuring it would give me a broad overview of the genre that I love. (Plus there’s a lot of good books there that I haven’t read.)

But this leads me to the obvious question: What would you consider somebody who’s well-read in science fiction (and heck, we’ll throw in fantasy, too, as several of the Hugo winners are fantasy) to have read? In some ways, a canon of speculative fiction is what I’m asking about.

I haven’t thought it over totally, but I think some of the books on my list would be:
The Foundation trilogy and I, Robot by Asimov
Childhood’s End, 2001, and Rendezvous with Rama by Clarke
Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein
Ringworld by Niven
Canticle for Leibowitz by Miller
Man in the High Castle by Dick (There should be more Dick here, but I’m drawing a blank.)
Forever War by Haldeman
The Lathe of Heaven and The Dispossessed by LeGuin
Snow Crash by Stephenson
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by Tolkien

And this is a very incomplete list, I point out, this is just off the top of my head. So what am I missing? What would you think required reading for a science fiction geek?

I’m locking posts on this on LJ, because I want the discussion to happen over at my blog. :)

This quote made my morning…

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You are on a speakerphone with at least 14 teachers and librarians and suchlike great, wise and good people, I thought. Do not start swearing like you did when you got the Hugo. This was a wise thing to think because otherwise huge, mighty and four letter swears were gathering. I mean, that’s what they’re for. I think I said, You mean it’s Monday?blockquote>
Neil Gaiman, upon being told he had just won the Newberry Medal for The Graveyard Book

Best gift bag ever

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Best gift bag ever
Originally uploaded by retstak

This is the bag that ‘s evil surprise is coming in. Isn’t it the most awesome gift bag ever?

Oh, you want to know what’s in it? Patience, my friends, patience. There will be photos.

Welcome, 2009

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May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Neil Gaiman FTW.

Get to it, y’all.

you’re finis!

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finis_coverY’all might recall about a year and a half ago, or thereabouts, how I was going on about a small work I’d contributed to and how you all should buy a copy or three. I dunno if any of you actually did at the time. I can understand why not, but hey, it was my debut, and I’m kinda proud of it.

Anyway, I hear from the horse’s mouth (which would be himself) that the price of the book is now $15, or you can get a PDF for $8, if you’re the sort that likes reading on the screen. So I’d still encourage you to pick up a copy if you think you might be interested.

The place to purchase them is here: Book / PDF / I can’t decide! Both!

(There’s a discount if you buy both with that third link…)

Anyway, when the future reveals that I have become something — either famous or infamous, you never can tell — the book might just be a collector’s item. Besides, it’s good fun and full of good writing.

There’ll be more later, I just saw a note about this in Ryan’s journal and wanted to make note of it.

Lazy days

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Lazy days

Originally uploaded by retstak

It’s been that kind of morning.

I snapped this shot of the kittycat having a bit of a snooze on my bed this morning. I actually think she’s got the right idea, as it’s foggy and grey outside, and really, just the right sort of morning to sleep in.

Too bad it’s also Tuesday morning, and I’m not independently wealthy, as I wasn’t able to sleep in because I have to work for a living. At least, I didn’t have to go driving to the office in the fog. I do have to drive downtown, shortly, and it doesn’t look like it’s really started to burn off yet.

Anyway, just wanted to share picture of sleeping kittycat. Y’all can go *awww* now.

…go climb a mountain

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Okay, so why in all of the seven hells am I looking up the best approach for climbing Blanca? I mean, other than the fact that my brain seems to think that climbing a fourteener is a really good idea? (And yes, kat, if climbing a fourteener is such a great idea, why don’t you go climb one of the fourteeners in your state instead of traspising all the way out to Colorado? Shasta’s been a goal for a long time… aaaaaaaugh.)

, somehow, I blame you. ;)

In all seriousness, I like hiking, and I would like to climb a fourteener, which is mountaineer slang for “a peak over fourteen thousand feet in height.” Most of the fourteeners in the Lower 48 are in Colorado (duh), but there’s a few in California and, of course, Seattleites will point to their own fourteener when they can see it through the rain. Or snow, as the case may be. See here for a complete list.

And I would probably do Shasta first, simply because, dude, that’s my mountain. But… :)