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greygirlbeastFirst off, let me direct your attention to the auction that is being held to benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards. Appropriately, it is being called a "lottery." A lot of great stuff, and I've donated a complete, signed set of my novels: Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, and Daughter of Hounds. Tickets are only one dollar each, and the lottery ends on February 23rd. Check it out.
Yesterday, after attending to the morning's email, I decided that I could spare one day away from the keyboard, in honour of Darwin Day and the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth, and also to take some time to simply enjoy the release of A is for Alien. We toyed with the idea of going either to Boston, to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, or to New Haven, to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History; either of which would have been perfect. However, Spooky didn't really feel like driving back from Massachusetts, and I really didn't feel like riding to Connecticut. So, we settled for a trip to the Roger Williams Park Zoo here in Providence (established 1872).
The day was cold, and cloudy, and the zoo had an odd air of desolation. Mud and melting snow everywhere, bare limbs, ponds still frozen solid, and many of the animals inside their winter quarters. But we still managed to see a great many living wonders of evolution, which seemed a very fitting way to commemorate Darwin's contributions to biology. Animals I can remember seeing: African elephants, Masai giraffes, dromedaries, Cape hunting dogs, a snow leopard, moon bears, a red panda, flamingos, grey-crowned cranes, a two-toed sloth, a Brazilian prehensile-tailed porcupine, harbour seals, Humboldt penguins, kangaroos, emus, a red wolf, emerald tree boas, some beautiful examples of Australian snake-necked turtles, a crested quail dove, elegant crested tinamou, gibbons, carpet pythons and green tree pythons, Barbary sheep, a babirusa, fruit bats, a giant anteater...and, well, various others. But those are all I recall offhand. It's not a large zoo, compared with the Atlanta Zoo, and the interstate is annoyingly near (almost directly on top of the elephants). I think I will like it better during the spring and summer. We were especially taken with the "Tropical America" exhibit, housed in an ivy-covered Victorian building. It was swelteringly hot inside, and the air was filled with the screams of monkeys and tropical birds. Two docents very eagerly pointed out to us that the two-toed sloth was lounging about outside her den, out in the open, which they said she very rarely does. She was only a couple of feet from us, with no glass or plastic or bars in between. Beautiful. So, yes, Darwin Day hooky at the zoo.
When we got home, another box of A is for Alien and B is for Beginnings was waiting for me on the doorstep. I opened it, and admired the books all over again.
Last night, we both reached Level 61 in WoW, but it was a rather dull, frustrating night of gaming. The Valentine's Day stuff is a bit much. And I'm growing weary of not being able to make it through dungeons until we're far past the level where we can get points for the kills in the dungeons. I cannot understand this attempt at forced socialization. Blizzard could easily have designed a solo mode for the games "instances" (I loathe the sterile misappropriation of that word for the dungeons). I won't play with strangers, generally speaking, and everyone we know who plays WoW is on other servers or much lower or higher than we are. It's a really baffling oversight on the part of Blizzard. But, yeah, Level 61.
And now, the work I should have done yesterday. Here are six photos from the zoo:
Not the best photo ever of a two-toed sloth. But we were so close.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn A. Pollnac
Yesterday, after attending to the morning's email, I decided that I could spare one day away from the keyboard, in honour of Darwin Day and the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth, and also to take some time to simply enjoy the release of A is for Alien. We toyed with the idea of going either to Boston, to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, or to New Haven, to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History; either of which would have been perfect. However, Spooky didn't really feel like driving back from Massachusetts, and I really didn't feel like riding to Connecticut. So, we settled for a trip to the Roger Williams Park Zoo here in Providence (established 1872).
The day was cold, and cloudy, and the zoo had an odd air of desolation. Mud and melting snow everywhere, bare limbs, ponds still frozen solid, and many of the animals inside their winter quarters. But we still managed to see a great many living wonders of evolution, which seemed a very fitting way to commemorate Darwin's contributions to biology. Animals I can remember seeing: African elephants, Masai giraffes, dromedaries, Cape hunting dogs, a snow leopard, moon bears, a red panda, flamingos, grey-crowned cranes, a two-toed sloth, a Brazilian prehensile-tailed porcupine, harbour seals, Humboldt penguins, kangaroos, emus, a red wolf, emerald tree boas, some beautiful examples of Australian snake-necked turtles, a crested quail dove, elegant crested tinamou, gibbons, carpet pythons and green tree pythons, Barbary sheep, a babirusa, fruit bats, a giant anteater...and, well, various others. But those are all I recall offhand. It's not a large zoo, compared with the Atlanta Zoo, and the interstate is annoyingly near (almost directly on top of the elephants). I think I will like it better during the spring and summer. We were especially taken with the "Tropical America" exhibit, housed in an ivy-covered Victorian building. It was swelteringly hot inside, and the air was filled with the screams of monkeys and tropical birds. Two docents very eagerly pointed out to us that the two-toed sloth was lounging about outside her den, out in the open, which they said she very rarely does. She was only a couple of feet from us, with no glass or plastic or bars in between. Beautiful. So, yes, Darwin Day hooky at the zoo.
When we got home, another box of A is for Alien and B is for Beginnings was waiting for me on the doorstep. I opened it, and admired the books all over again.
Last night, we both reached Level 61 in WoW, but it was a rather dull, frustrating night of gaming. The Valentine's Day stuff is a bit much. And I'm growing weary of not being able to make it through dungeons until we're far past the level where we can get points for the kills in the dungeons. I cannot understand this attempt at forced socialization. Blizzard could easily have designed a solo mode for the games "instances" (I loathe the sterile misappropriation of that word for the dungeons). I won't play with strangers, generally speaking, and everyone we know who plays WoW is on other servers or much lower or higher than we are. It's a really baffling oversight on the part of Blizzard. But, yeah, Level 61.
And now, the work I should have done yesterday. Here are six photos from the zoo:
Not the best photo ever of a two-toed sloth. But we were so close.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn A. Pollnac
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 05:16 pm (UTC)Sort of the crappy old kind. Well, in terms of digital cameras. It's a Canon Powershot A75 (a measly 3.2 megapixels).
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 05:23 pm (UTC)I've got one of the newer Vivitars, supposed to be 8 or 9 MP, but it takes so long to think about what it's doing before it actually snaps the photo that most surprise shooting is Right Out.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 05:29 pm (UTC)This one can be frustratingly slow sometimes, but once it's "ready and waiting" for a shot it's pretty quick.
I really want the Canon SX10 IS. 10 MP, and really good zoom range (20x optical, plus another 4x digital). I generally hate digital zoom because of the breakdown in picture quality, so having that much optical is a bonus. Plus the fact that it can shoot at the equivalent of ISO 1600 and has image stabilization.
I'll need to test out a few cameras to see how slow they are before making a decision.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 06:51 pm (UTC)About WoW
Date: 2009-02-13 05:33 pm (UTC)Re: About WoW
Date: 2009-02-13 05:38 pm (UTC)Why not have all instances scale enemies, boss levels, and loot to the number of players going in?
It seems like a simple question to me.
many of us do not want to group with a bunch of random adolescent boys to play this game. That is the worst thing about WoW, the way they limit your ways to succeed in the game. One should not have to join a group OR do PVP in order to achieve at the highest level.
Yes, exactly. Though, it's not that you can't, in theory, solo to Level 80, just that you miss a lot of the game if you do so.
This is why our friend Byron quit playing, back before we started.
Re: About WoW
Date: 2009-02-14 03:08 pm (UTC)Your gripe about not being able to group with friends do to levels, is sadly one that Blizzard could remove. Their competition, Everquest have a mentor system, where a higher level person can choose to scale down to one level higher than their friend.
They would never allow for cross-server instances because server economy is serious business.
That all said, you're 61 and my rogue is 71. So he would be within appropriate range to help. Course, he's a troll, but the offer is always there.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 08:45 pm (UTC)Heads up on a new RP in SL - Golgothica: http://blog.golgothica.com/ It's very pretty, I've taken alot of pictures in it so the evironment is A+. They did something interesting and closed the sim to all but serious RPers. You have to get their game hud and buy a weapon to have access to it (a cost of 500L). It will be interesting to see if it makes the RP better. If you want to go down as a guest, you have to have a player sign you in... let me know if you want to run around it some day.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 08:53 pm (UTC)let me know if you want to run around it some day.
Oh, you know I do! I'll talk to you inworld about this soon.
A, B and 5 of cups
Date: 2009-02-13 09:21 pm (UTC)Re: A, B and 5 of cups
Date: 2009-02-13 09:47 pm (UTC)Indeed. Sadly, I only have two or three, and I'm not likely to part with them.
Re: A, B and 5 of cups
Date: 2009-02-13 10:47 pm (UTC)Actually... I think we still have more than just a few copies of 5 of Cups left. I'll have to recheck next time we go to the storage unit, but I seem to recall a good quantity of them.
Re: A, B and 5 of cups
Date: 2009-02-13 11:20 pm (UTC)See. What the frell do I know?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 11:18 pm (UTC)I keep telling Ellen Datlow that she needs to list all of the other contributors as "noted writers" in one list, and my name as "completely deluded twit" in another.)
*snork*
I plan to bid on your offering, by the way.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 10:53 pm (UTC)It's been a week since I inquired, but is there any update on the resend or any other distribution of the Sirena bonus from January? Should I request it be resent to my gmail address?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 11:20 pm (UTC)It's been a week since I inquired, but is there any update on the resend or any other distribution of the Sirena bonus from January? Should I request it be resent to my gmail address?
Sorry. Truthfully, we've been so preoccupied with The Red Tree that we haven't dealt with this yet. But, yes, if you can send me an gmail address, we can get it off to you. About a hundred subscribers still haven't received it.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 11:49 pm (UTC)Actually, I think I have Spook's email, I will send it to her rather than post it up here.. :X
That works, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 12:17 am (UTC)I just wanted to say your Darwin Day sounded perfect and so appropriate. The pictures are very nice too. I love the little bird.
I only recently discovered your books, finding Silk in a Barnes & Noble and falling totally under its spell. You write with such a unique and hypnotic voice and your characters are very well drawn. You make disturbing subject matter somehow beautiful with your prose. I am glad you became a writer, it would have been a terrible shame if you had somehow missed your calling or become discouraged before you found your readers.
I hope you don't mind me commenting, and I hope you don't mind if I congratulate you on the release of the special edition of your book. Hope you will bask in the glow of your continued success for many, many years to come.
~gargirl
no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 12:40 am (UTC)I hope you don't mind me commenting
I do not mind at all. That's why it's here. Welcome.
it would have been a terrible shame if you had somehow missed your calling
Well, I would argue, on the one hand, that I did, in fact, miss my calling. On the other hand, I would argue that I don't believe in callings, per se. Either way....
no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 02:17 am (UTC)Your comment is cryptic and intriguing. If you don't mind my asking; do you have a talent or passion closer to your heart than writing? That's hard to imagine. What was it Neil Gaiman said about you? Something like: She is the poet-bard of the lost and the damned? Something like that. Maybe he just likes to say lovely, eerie things, but I found it very apt once I started reading.
I hope you have a lovely weekend.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 04:07 am (UTC)