No · one · ever · dies, · and · everybody · lives · happily · ever · after

If you have information on the subject of homosexuality, that would be great too, though I think that subject has been covered already.

Search terms:
I've searched Google for '1930s British slang sex', '1930s British euphemisms sex', '1930s British synonyms sex', '1930s British slang intercourse', '1930s British slang making love'

Found:
Sites offering examples of some 1930s American slang terms, and sites explaining current British slang, but nothing detailing 1930s British slang.  Wikisaurus was helpful in producing some examples of what I think I'm looking for, but it didn't tell me whether the phrases were likely to be used by an upperclass Englishman from the 30s or not.

Many thanks!

My question is this: Could an ambulance hold two gurneys, or would two people have to be sent in two ambulances?

I'm leaning towards the latter, but I'd just like to know if there are any circumstances where it would happen.

Thanks!

Terms Searched: professional equestrian contracts; professional riding, professional riders, etc. working with horses; etc.

I'm looking for information on how being a professional show rider works. I'm writing in the world of eventing, but if there's no specific information available for that, I'd be happy to hear about show jumping, dressage, etc.

I'd like to know where the money comes from for professional riders. I know they have some sponsorships - does anyone know what proportion of their income would come from this? Otherwise, I assume they are hired by the owners of the horses (I know some riders own their own, but my characters don't have a lot of capital, so I'd rather not have them need that level of investment). Do riders get a portion of the prize money? Is this all? Are ALL riders also the trainers, and therefore making money from training fees?

What I'm hoping is possible - character A runs an eventing stable, has several top-level eventers, but doesn't have the nerve/insanity to show them at the top levels himself. I'd like him to hire character B to ride the horses under A's supervision, and show the horses, but I'd like it to be a part-time thing for B, with him also working for some other owners. If this is possible, how would B be paid? How much time would B need with the horses before he knew them well enough to event them effectively? Is it realistic to have A riding the horses in training and just handing them to B for showing (A has the ability to do the cross-country courses, but he doesn't push quite hard enough to be a top level competitor - does this make sense?).?

Thanks for any help.

Saturday, I went with my dad and my nephew to the NYC Musical Saw Festival where they were part of an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest Musical Saw ensemble.

No, really, I’m not making this up.

The previous record was set in Poland with 27 saw players, or sawists. In Astoria, this weekend they had 53 musical saw players on the stage to play Ave Maria.

Now, before you listen to this, I want you to understand something. To find the note, the saw needs to be ringing slightly or you have to slide into the right note. With that many players, finding the starting pitch quietly wasn’t going to happen, so the first note…well, it’s a doozy. Dad says that the conductor rocked back on his heels like he’d been hit by a basket of lemons.

And as a palette cleanser, here is my Dad playing “Wayfaring Stranger.”

After the initial concert and Guinness attempt, many of the saw players had solos. I sat through Four and A Half HOURS of musical saw. The fascinating thing was the wide, wide range of techniques. Many of these folks had been playing for decades and were really, really good. Not as a novelty mind, but demonstrating genuine musicality and talent.

How was your weekend?

Comments? -- Link.

• International Crisis Group - Can Cyprus buck the partitionist trend?
  
  
  
  (tags: cyprus)
  
  
• Readability - An Arc90 Lab Experiment
  
  
  Too many web pages are just unreadable. This is a nice tool to fix that.
  
  
  (tags: internet)
  
  

Final cover and verbage for BONESHAKER. Liz sent me this today and I did a little dance, right here in my chair. That’s what it’ll look like, front to back, folks. I am genuinely awed by how cool this book is turning out.

Check-ups at Elliot Bay. This morning, Spain the Cat went in for her (approximately) annual check-up. She was declared to be in such damn fine health that the vet won’t even classify her as a “senior” for another year.* However, she is succumbing a bit to the ol’ “middle-aged butt-sprawl.” Her weight has crept up by 3/4 of a pound in the last 3 years and now she’s almost a twelve-pound armload. Low-cal kibble, here we come.

Steam-powered snowplow engines. YouTube link submitted by a reader. Fast-forward to 1:29 in that video if you think I’ve been kidding about chopping up zombies with a train’s snowplow.

Project: Dreadnought
New Words: 4100 (awesome!)
Present Total Word Count: 131,739 words
Goal: 140,000 words

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Took kitty to the vet (much to her righteous indignation); came home to day-job work and housework; stopped for lunch; wrote like hell.

Things Accomplished in Fiction: Oh, such zombie-killing shall I give you! In other news, I have officially finished (Draft Zero of) the Big Action Climax. I feel relief … until I remember that I still have to wind all this stuff down. I think the guestimate of 140,000 words might actually turn out to be roughly correct. We shall see.

Reason for Stopping: Am exhausted. Need food. Maybe a drink.

Once I know that I have enough trim pieces to cover the studs, I'll be able to make a start on new frames for window screens for the living room & kitchen windows. That will be a delicate job, actually. I'll have to measure everything very carefully, and make sure that I cut everything exactly as I need it to be done. One slip will cost me several dozen dollars per window.

During the hottest part of the next few days- while I'm letting the paint or polyurethane dry, I'll be finishing up the bathroom floor tiles and as much of the baseboard trim as I can manage. (I keep forgetting to buy the few short pieces of baseboard trim I need whenever I've been at the hardware store.) One difficult bit: the floor trim from the master bedroom walk-in closet doorway into the bathroom. I'll have to use a jewelry saw to cut that piece to exactly fit the door trim-work. Any mistake there will make me look quite foolish indeed. :)

OK... I'm done for the night. I might still have some daylight left, but I ache from bending, twisting, and stretching in unfamiliar ways in order to finish the framing and do the first coat of paint. I really need a replacement ladder, but I can't afford one right now. Cest la vie...

Vila

calendula_witch

Our Lady of the Islands is set in a tropical version of Venice, in the same universe as Green, though with no plot crossover. We're trying a different model for the protagonist — a middle-aged woman dealing with the adulthood of her children, the challenges of her business, and of course, a confluence of politics, religion and social turmoil in her city.

We brainstormed the plot and outline, which I then developed in some detail. calendula_witch is currently writing the first draft. She'll have it to me late this fall. Chemo permitting, and working around my Endurance production schedule, I'll revise her draft, then we'll go into final production cycle before getting it out to arcaedia to market.

Given that we've sold to Clarkesworld, Fantasy and Interzone together, we've proven we can write together. It will be fun to see how that blend of romantic and creative energy that constantly sparks between us will play out at book length. Watch her blog for updates, WIPs and other news about the book as it develops.

The industry continues to debate today what the implications for e-books are following Amazon’s decision on Friday to remove editions of 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles. The company did so after it learned that the e-books were illegal copies.

I'm feeling:

okay

I wish I could have pointed her* to this website NASA has that shows many of the spin-offs from the manned space program.

*I can't because she died quite suddenly just before her 29th birthday of a previously unknown congenital heart defect.

calendula_witch and I arrived early, and they took me in early. The IV was put in my left arm for the contrast dye, then I sat around for a while. They took me into the little room with the big white donut and set me up on the scanning bed.

At that point a long, confusing conversation occurred about precisely what my scanning orders were. As I explained to the tech, they were doing me "neck to nuts", with a quad-phase scan of my liver. Several phone calls later, they announced that the radiologist wanted to handle it differently, and was that ok with me? Like, what am I supposed to say?

When the contrast dye went into my IV, ( Under cut for potential TMI... )

I controlled myself, on all counts, but it was very strange.

As usual, the CT scan itself took about three minutes. We got me dressed and de-needled, then calendula_witch and I went across the street to the film library, where we retrieved the scan data for me to take back to OHSU, my hospital in Oregon. The scan disc they gave me is marked "Abd & Pelvis", says nothing about a chest scan. I am not, shall we say, infused with the cheery glow of confidence.

On the other hand, if I have to go back in, I get another site-specific hot flash...

PS, I'll get the scan results on Wednesday.

~The bank
~Courthouse
~Tulsa Health Dept (1.5 hours to get a freakin BIRTH CERT!!! Come on folks, all yall do is hit a button to PRINT the damn thing wtf???)
~Olkmulgee to get my new Creek Nation Card and get paperwork to enroll the kids in the Creek Nation
~Home by 5pm to call the water co for an extension (why did I forget to do this until the last min?)
~Home with 2 min to spare, got extension discovered teen went to lake with crazy!sil(after I told him not to leave the house) and left the front door partially opened! I am so gonna kill him when he gets home.

GAH!!!

The kids were with me through all this and we only had trouble with the toddler at the Creek Nation Headquarters when he laid down and wated Andrew to drag him, which the eight year old did with a grin. **sigh**

My kids are weird.

Over all it was a good, if not busy, day. I am VERY proud of my kids.

now to go get dinner going and unwind with the kids.

**Waves**

I'm feeling:

accomplished

http://bloggasm.com/a-pr-blackout-for-mom-bloggers

Me: "Who's there?"

Elayna: "Interrupting fail-mime."

Me: *silence*

Elayna: *expectant look, hands twitching on box*

Me, very quickly, hands thrust out: "No."

Elayna: "Aw!"

Me: "I don' wanna box on my head!"

Elayna: *sighs* *sets down box* "...knock knock."

Me: *eyes Elayna warily*

Elayna: "This one won't invade your personal space. I promise."

Me: "...who's there?"

Elayna: "Interrupting turtle."

Me: "Interrupting tur-"

Elayna: *leeeeeans forward, eyes bugging out*

Aaaagh.

The reading period begins November 1st, 2009 and ends February 28th, 2010. Spread the word.
Questions may be addressed to me here, or emailed to facadeantho@gmail.com

I'm feeling:

excited

1. Before you ask your question, PLEASE check the Dragoncon wiki or the many sites that give Dragoncon tips on Google.

2. If you make a post (or have made a post in the past, you can go back and edit your post with one of the Community tags
*How to Tag a Post

3. You can also search the community page, using the search box there, or the list of tags, to find if your question has been asked.

this will undoubtedly help keep the community down to RELEVANT posts, and keep members from being irritated when the same questions asked over and over and over and over and over.. again. Any if you guys have any other suggestions to help keep things flowing smoothly around here, by all means, add you suggestion :)

As you know, Bob, Dragon*Con TV makes videos to entertain you while you're waiting in line or waiting for panels or waiting in your hotel room. I'm the guy who creates bumpers, which in this case are short text-only clips. If you've seen Adult Swim, you've seen the kind of bumpers we do. Some of these we write based on questions that you (yes, you!) ask. In the past we've answered

• if other people like to play luggage tetris


• why Garfield doesn't have a bigger fandom


• whether lightsabers are oversized glowsticks or not


• how much you have to drink to make the hurting stop


• if we can help you out of your corset


• does partial power corrupt partially?

If you act now, you too might have your question answered by DCTV! Here's how:

1. Think of a question.
2. Ask the question as a reply to this post.
3. Go to the con and see if your question shows up, or check this LJ community after the con when I thank people and post links to their questions.

I'll credit your question to your LJ user handle, unless you sign your question with a different name. If you choose a really long name, though, I'll shorten it or make fun of it.

Some general advice: You can post more than one question, though I'll probably only use at most one of them. Take a minute and look through previous questions if you want to make sure you're asking us a new question. If you ask us a question about whether we know we stole this idea from Adult Swim or about why there's such a bad con funk, you're asking us old questions.

This, by the way, is one of my favorite con things, so thanks to everyone past, present, and future who's asked us questions.

I'm feeling:

busy

I wanted to point out that Ian Randal Strock, the editor at SFScope, is actively soliciting links to his site, as he believes it would be good for the site's success.  He's also setting up a links page for SFScope. If you want a link, you should contact him to see if this is possible.  SFScope has become my first stop to get the latest speculative news, so you anyone interested in helping this news service thrive should consider these offers.

I really, really want to buy one someday. Even if they cost $1,740 USD or so :O. Maybe I'll find a way ...

I'm feeling:

pleased

Tease:

I wake up to the sound of Emily screaming. Something is burning. I reach out and clench silk fabric in my fist and recognize the texture of my bedspread. It’s wrapped around me like a cocoon. What’s that noise? Some Jurassic howl from afar—eerie. Airhorns—emergency sirens—what the hell is going on?

Why is Emily screaming?

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But I'm also delving into spy novels (Bourne Supremacy) and shows (Burn Notice), as well as some other genres I don't normally touch. I am reading broadly on Daily Lit as well. Everything from De Balzac to Melville to The King in Yellow and Kafka's Metamorphosis.

To top this off, I am reading "Maps and Legends" by Michael Chabon and "Zen in the Art of Writing" by Bradbury.

And I am trying to plot a new novel. Something I wouldn't normally write that is still true to me and fun for me.

All this while at an intensive software training course and finishing up the edit list for the Range War novel...

Yes, brain melting. Melting like it never melted before. Let's hope when the molten mass reforms it is in a prettier and more fascinating shape.

I saw that word yesterday at the Phoenix Art Museum, captioning one of the sketches of the Himalayas on exhibit.

Can't seem to find a link to that exhibit, but here is one to a really good one about the Grand Canyon. 

My friend Richard Laugharn, also a fine photographer, did the framing for tht exhibit. So if you need that, he is your man.

So, I just called the hotel to find out if their bar has Karaoke, and if it's smoke free, and the lady on the phone said they no longer have a bar at all...?
Perhaps the Karaoke Bar is somewhere else. I'd love information on that, if anyone has it.
Thanks,
y

http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2009/07/20/12257.html

The other day, I mentioned a realtime online audio rebroadcast of the Apollo 11 mission, from NASA.

Turns out there's another such rebroadcast goingon: We Choose the Moon, which also has a bunch of interactive features. And on that site, the moon landing is happening about 37 minutes from now.

(Which appears to be the actual time of the landing. I'm not sure why the article I cited in my previous entry said the landing would be at 9 p.m. Central time tonight.)

So, here’s what it looks like (yep, I know. I’m counting on adrenaline to keep me going on Sunday).

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

Leave a comment at original post, or comment here.

We've fallen out of touch though. Now it's all just memories. We should get back together, hang out, go take in a show, do extraordinary things. Let's talk.

I was 3 and a half when the moon landing happened. I don't remember it, but my parents said we watched it on a tiny TV in their apartment in Kansas City with me and my three-week old baby sister. I still love space exploration. Give me a ride to the space station, I'd take it in a second. Send offers to me. Heck, call!

In honor of today, here's a bunch of relevant links:

- Insights interviews Al Harrison (Friday July 17 show), a local psychology professor and the author of several books about the human aspects of space exploration.

- We Choose The Moon, a multimedia recreation of the moon journey and landing. Great to have on in the background, you can listen all day long.

- Orbiter, a space flight simulator. Realistic satellites, the space station, and space flight. Cool.

- TIME has several articles including a gallery of Apollo 11 photos, a video on why we haven't gone back and might not ever (extra videos also available), and how moon denial is one of the top 10 conspiracy theories.

- Want some books? Here's Professor Al Harrison (above) books _SpaceFaring: The Human Dimension_ and _Living Aloft_, a book on living and working offworld _Space Enterprise_, and two anthologies from Hadley Rille, _Return to Luna_ and _Footprints_.

- Boing Boing has multiple space exploration articles today, and there's articles at Futurismic, io9, Centauri Dreams, and SciFi Scanner. Scroll through and check em out!

But now push email sends messages to people's phones, and ... occasionally wakes them up at 2am. So unfair. Do I have to compose and send all email in normal human waking time (as opposed to my waking time) to remain on good terms? Gah.

[ETA: I know that I would turn off my notifications -- I love bedside mode in blackberry 4.6 because it only lets through those emergency calls/texts and not emails -- but it strikes me that my point here is about the underlying change in the nature of how we should see email, rather than a miss manners query.]

This is about a Pathfinder product from Paizo.
China Mieville doing work in a gaming product in another person's shared world?!?
I can just now see the Tie-In Writers everywhere doing a jig as they gain another comrade-in-arms.

Lisa retired at the end of May. The vet wants to hire a new groomer to work on the premises, and I thoroughly approve of this plan, but they haven't found anyone yet. And Ista's curly, non-shedding poodle fur was getting really hard to brush out with the brambles and things she gets into. So I booked her in for an appointment at the Eagan PetSmart.

Oh lordy. Never, never again.

I have no idea whether the lighting and angle on any of the photos timprov tried to take will work out so that you can see evidence of the bad, bad haircut. Her body is fine. Legs, tail: fine. We told them "puppy cut," which is poodle owner for "do not give my dog stupid puffballs, as she is not hunting game in the underbrush." They got that part. But her poor head. It was a dome of poofy poodle fur framed with two mesh puffballs in sparkly green and pink. It was the most awful thing ever. She was like the special Muppet guest for a B52s concert. It was really, really bad. Timprov and I laughed all the way home, because we are not nice people.

Now she has a different bad haircut, the one where it looks like her incompetent owner went after her with a scissor. But I cannot wait until the vet gets a new groomer. (And she really isn't going back there--they splintered a couple of her nails, and I had to fix them pretty carefully to keep them from ripping back and hurting her.)

I started and am currently working on a small raglan sweater.  It was originally for Afghans for Afghans, but then I realized that they don't take anything in acrylic yarn (and I'm trying to finish off my stash).  I'm about halfway through the body and am having a blast with it.  http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html

I threw a bridal shower for Anna this past weekend, and it was pretty fun.  I'm thankful we have a house where we can host things, and Andy was a great sport and got out of the house for pretty much the entire day.  He didn't miss much except the food, and I know he was at least in air conditioning part of the time.  He apparently hung out with John and Cocoa (the former's golden retriever) for a leisurely lunch, so I don't feel all that sorry for him.  Well, that and he's had all these yummy leftovers...

Joy commented that she thought it was cool that I was becoming so blase about catering for a large group of people.  I guess when you cook for a group of 14 every week, a bridal shower for 12 with a much higher budget is a lot easier.

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to go to martial arts regularly, but my hope is that I'll be able to return after we ship this product.  It only has one or two more weeks to go on it, and then it'll be done and I will be more or less free until September.  At least, that's the hope.

I am going to try to post more to my LJ, as I feel like I'm losing out on a lot of memories by not spending the 5 minutes writing up random things.

I also realized that AJ was jumping up and down the entire time we were singing Happy Birthday to him a week ago.  Four year olds are funny sometimes. :)

First and foremost... this is not up to us. Which bands are accepted to con is entirely up to Dragon*con. (This is true for all guests... authors, actors, etc.)They have a committee to choose which people get passes to the convention. The band committee is an off shoot of that and they have their own rules and specific requirements. If you have a band who would like to perform they need to submit their information to the con on the following page.

http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_performer_app.php

Secondly, if accepted as a band for con they will be given free badges for the weekend for the band. THAT IS IT. I don't say this to be harsh, I just want you all to have accurate expectations of what bands will get from the con. Dragon*Con is such a good opportunity for most bands to sell their stuff. It makes it so D*Con doesn't have to give out hotel rooms, travel expenses, or anything of the kind. Literally, just badges for the weekend. You would save just the $75 per person depending on when you buy your badge.

I know that this doesn't sound like very much when it comes to paying for coming all the way to Atlanta. Dragon*con is just insane with the random nerdy love. If there's something you're into, chances are you'll find many more people at the con who love it just as much as you do... if not more. 30,000+ people came to con last year... that's your audience.

I would very much love to finally get a Wizard Wrock band at con. It's not going to happen in the 2009 convention setting because we've already got a more than full schedule and no bands were accepted for the show. I would very much suggest that any band wanting to apply to perform for the 2010 show do so as early as possible. The closer we get to con, the harder it is to be accepted as a guest.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability. If I don't know, I'll direct you to the person who will.

Current Location:	work
I'm feeling:	tired
I'm listening to:	Come See About Me - The Supremes

• 2001: a space odyssey
  
• Apollo 11 footage
  
• Apollo 13
  
• Destination Moon
  
• From the Earth to the Moon (Tom Hanks' HBO Series)
  
• For All Mankind
  
• In the Shadow of the Moon
  
• Magnificent Desolution
  
• Le voyage dans la lune
  

First, the tendinitis, then the nasty flu, and now I'm overwhelmed by all of the stuff I should have been doing weeks ago, but put off because I wasn't feeling up to it. Grrrr...

Ah well, I'm playing each day as it comes now. No plans for more than a couple of days ahead, no grandiose ideas about all that I will accomplish. Nope, I've thrown in the planning towel and have allowed the world to throw its worst at me. Even swimming has become iffy at best as the weather has really been rather crappy this summer.

Sounds depressing, but it's not that bad. Just frustrating and underproductive.

I finished reading "Second Glance" by Jodi Picoult today. Great book. I'd recommend it to ghost story readers, chick lit readers, and generally people who like complex stories that come together at the end.

Current Location:	my office
I'm feeling:	frustrated

Footprints Edited by Jay Lake and Eric T. Reynolds. (A really great discount for it at Amazon right now.)

Return to Luna Foreword by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, Intro by George T. Whitesides, edited by me. (Also discounted off the cover price.)