S. Andrew Swann's Blog, page 39

Review Redux

This is a redo of a post that was eaten when my blog went all 'splody.  I had done a little overview of a bunch of reviews I'd seen lately.

So let's try this again:

Dear Author:
"I would recommend this to those who are intrigued by the shifter myth and the philosophical bounds."Romance Reader's Connection: "Romance, historical accuracy, and elements of science fiction cause WOLFBREED to be one of the very best novels I have read this year."Armchair Interviews: "This new look at the werewolf...

More Truffles

I mentioned Monday that Truffles was having serious issues, and was unable to walk. She is still, however, able to swim. Today she had the best day swimming she's had to date.  Here are some pictures.

Fact checking your kid's videos

There's a video making the rounds that's causing a considerable stink around the interwebs, enough that it even got a segment on the Glen Beck show where it fit seamlessly into the vast left-wing conspiracy.  The teeth-gnashing and angst about this video may not be quite comprehensible to those of a left wing bent, I'm sure most just look at this video called "the Story of Stuff" and see just an innocuous environmental video about how we're damaging the planet.  The problem is, there's a bit ...

Running away from Utopia

Anyone following my blog should realize I have a strong libertarian streak, which may in fact confuse some people who've read my Hostile Takeover books and/or Prophets. The planet Bakunin plays a central role throughout, and while it has a functioning anarcho-capitalist society, its not portrayed as a shining Heinleinesque utopia of the competent man, I've described it more a Somalia with venture capital.

So why would I take a world embodying some of my deeply held ideals and portray it in...

Narrowcasting

The advent of the internet has meant the arrival of all sorts of programming serving niches that were, until now, ill-served by the mainstream media.

For instance, a series of "let's put random crap in a microwave and see what happens?"

Then there're Lovcraftian talk shows:

And the Sith Lords of the supermarket.

Then there's my favorite rabid squirrel (NSFW audio)

The Trufflemobile

Truffles, our Chocolate Lab, has not had a very good couple of months. She's been slowing down for a while, and showing some weakness in her back end that we assumed was due to age. Last July we took her down to Bow-wow beach for what was probably the last time. By the end of July, she was unable to walk for extended periods. By the beginning of August, we took her in to a neurologist for an X-Ray and an MRI. By the end of August, she was unable to stand or sit on her own. The most...

What I did on my summer vacation

I vacuum-sealed dog biscuits and mailed them to various people, some of whom didn't get it, and  I put up some interesting websites here and there.

All of this was in support of an Alternate Reality Game, which in some respects could be considered the bleeding edge of narrative.  Sort of a cross between a Video Game and a LARP, the "puppetmaster" (who role-playing geeks would think of as a gamemaster) sets up a rabbit-hole that leads whatever random participants who care to follow into the...

Sometimes Jon Stewart just says it better

Test post while I'm having blog issues.

Random political thoughts this weekend

UPDATE: Turns out the "official" 60K-70K figure wasn't so official.  In fact it was some guy talking out his ass.  (Still working on fixing this blog, sheesh.)

UPDATE: Some less questionable figures here. Don't you wish the MSM could do basic math?

We had somewhere between seventy thousand and two million people march into Washington in what has got to be the cleanest and most peaceful angry mob of terrorists to ever march on a nation's capitol.

(The asshat who wrote the terrorism quote...

No time to blog. . .

Spent blogging time trying to revive my mom's PC, unfortunately, the patient died.

I'm going to bequeath her my PC's old brain, in a new case. (Actually an old case, my wife's defunct Compaq