Jay Bell's Blog, page 24

Cocoa Gets Tanked

It would be criminal to keep this to myself any longer. This is the painting that Andreas made for me as an Xmas present, and man do I love it! No, your eyes don't deceive you. It is indeed a cat sitting on a toilet. Cocoa to be precise. She's always been fascinated by water and used to play in it when she was a kitten. She prefers to keep her distance these days, but is still curious. Every morning when I take a shower, she sits on the toilet tank and listens to the sound while staying near ...

Jay Bell is a Writer, Not a Baseball Player

As soon as you make your foray into the world of publishing or any other media outlet, you soon realize that your name is your product identity. Outside those that know them, nobody thinks of Stephen King as just Steve, or mentions "Liz" when talking about the Queen of England. Unfortunately, my birth name James Bell is as common as can be. Any town I've lived in, even in Germany, has included another James Bell. Since there is already an author with near enough the same name, James Scott...

Fantasy's Finest: Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept Series

There aren't many series that I can read and reread without ever tiring of, but Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series is one of them. Seven glorius books tell the story of Proton, a technologically advanced planet, and its twin Phaze, a world of traditional fantasy. Both Proton and Phaze occupy the same space, being separated only by a dimensional veil that few have learned to cross. In effect, we have a world that is both science fiction and fantasy, a literary playground with high...

More Married Than Before

Although I always say I'm married to Andreas, what we have isn't quite that, at least by definition of the law. Civil Unions in Germany have always been close enough for me. When Andreas and I were married, we understood that we had every right as heterosexual couples, except for two. We don't get the same tax breaks, and we aren't allowed to adopt. Compared to the wasteland of civil rights I had just come from, this sounded exceedingly generous, and was easy to accept. Occasionally though...

Sometimes I Wii myself…

Only because I don't have anyone to Wii with. I just got my console online today. I thought that I'd have to buy some sort of USB WiFi thing until one of Andreas's coworkers clued us in. Now I'm online, but still a little clueless as to what to do when it comes to interacting with other people? Messaging, maybe? How does one arrange a Wii date to play tennis or whatever? Feel free to enlighten me.

Here's my code, in case that's helpful.