I was aware before starting Shadow and Claw that it was not pedestrian fiction. It is not something to plow through, or relax with. It is an allegory-heavy, literary, fantastic tale. Having said that, it's about a torturer who is exiled from his guild, ends up with a mysterious and powerful relic, and then sleeps with a lot of women and compares them. He also oils and brandishes his sword a lot.
On Reviews and Reviewing
Mar 21, ’10
9:30 PM
I'm a fan of reviews and thoughtful criticism. I also like to write reviews, but I've had a hard time figuring out what to do with them.
Akismet def. Spam
Feb 22, ’10
6:49 PM
Has spam been solved? This blog is both young and mostly dormant, as I chase two young kids and renovate this old house and catch up at work. Still, the spam trickles in all the same. None has gotten through. Go go Akismet!
constraints and joy
Jan 25, ’10
7:56 PM
At first I didn't understand twitter, but I've come to enjoy it.
As a hobbiest writer, I appreciate the challenge of 140 characters. Strunk said to Omit needless words, but twitter advances the concept. If I have a complex or multistep thought and want to tweet it, on a geeky level I like trying to cram it into such a short space.
For example, no paired em-dashes in a twitter sentence. Four characters. Cram a semicolon and space in there instead.
When I tweet, the constraint makes me think harder about language, about punctuation. Anything that makes me think harder, I enjoy.
Pleasant Chaos
Jan 6, ’10
7:45 AM
Check work email, check personal email. My seven-month-old daughter has a death grip on my thumbs as I teach her to walk and I'm scolding the twenty-two-month daughter for purposefully putting a book on the floor in our path. (Can't step on books, instant timeout) The tone of my voice switches seamlessly between encouragement and parent-authoritarian. Drinking second full mug of coffee before 7:30 in the morning. Got five hours of sleep last night, often interrupted by youngest daughter screaming due to a head cold. Off to get and fax more financial documents for the mortgage lender and continue the hoop-jumping process, so far I'm 167 for 167. Check work email, check personal email. Getting ready to sit in on a ninety-minute talk presented by a colleague at work. Ninety minutes feels like a comically long amount of time. Helping a friend with some programming advice. Exercised yesterday morning, so today's the off day. Lose five minutes before I realize that I accidentally looked at Google Reader and have been reading about a new smartphone I won't buy. Wishing that time would stop so that I could catch up at work. My apartment is full of packed and half-packed moving boxes. Have to remember to move them away from the windows so that the older daughter doesn't climb them to get a different vantage point for the windows. Although I applaud the goal, the boxes aren't stable. Getting ready for work–have so much going on that I have to run down my daily checklist before getting out the door: deodorant, oral hygiene. So uncomfortable when I forget. Check work email, check personal email. Later, I'll try to remember if I ate this morning. If not, 11am ramen at work. Put on my winter gear to get ready for the cold commute and listen to my younger daughter babbling "da da da" and my older daughter answering "yeah! da da da!" and pointing at me. On the bus ride to work I'm going to read five more pages of the book that my best friend lent me, enjoy them, and look forward to reading five more another time.
2010 is pretty much going as expected.
I'm happy.
And I'm out the door.
Persistent Television is Awesome
Dec 21, ’09
1:47 PM
One of the great joys of this modern world is the ability to discover cool video that isn't perfectly current.
Why I Should Read Less
Dec 15, ’09
2:24 PM
I had a draft of an essay in my google docs called "Being Cool is Expensive". Couple hundred words, unpolished. Then I saw "New Device Desirable, Old Device Undesirable" from the Onion, which said everything I wanted to say, but better than I could have said it.
The draft will die in my unpublished folder. Also, time to unsubscribe from The Onion.
Credit is a Hobby
Dec 13, ’09
4:25 PM
Credit scores have a lot of reach into your quality of life. Luckily, I took an interest in the topic years ago and doing so helped me get my family into a home.
Wrong Timing to Start a Blog
Dec 8, ’09
9:33 AM
My lesson of the last couple of weeks is: don't start a blog right before embarking on the purchase of your first home. I thought you just turned in a coupon at FirstHomeMart, but it turns out that it's actually somewhat involved and time-consuming.
My blog's not empty, it's austere!
Understanding New Parents
Nov 30, ’09
12:07 PM
A few years ago, I ended up on the wrong side of this response:
"Wait, I love my kids! STOP TALKING ABOUT KILLING MY KIDS!"
I found this a little confusing, as we weren't talking about killing anyone. However, I've since become a parent, and I can offer an explanation and translation.
