Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 36
December 31, 2011
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here's an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
December 30, 2011
Best books read in 2011
The end of the year is a good time for lists, right? I gave you one yesterday. Well, here's another one. I'm sure in some cases you'll look at these titles and be amazed I just now got around to them. But maybe that'll help you understand why there's nothing published in 2011 on the list. (Except After Obsession, of course, and I don't know how many times I read that one before it was released!)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman — By far the best read of this past year. It made me a fan of Gaiman...December 29, 2011
Five Memorable Christmas Gifts
As Christmas 2011 fades behind us, I thought I'd take a look back at the five GOOD gifts that stand out in my memory. We'll leave out the bad ones for now. What are some of the gifts you remember most? These aren't in any particular order.
1. The Big Wheel. I remember it being darker red than the pink in this image, but whatever. For a short while, this machine was cooler than a two-wheeled bicycle and I rode it until the front plastic tire was worn slick and had holes in it. My sister and I b...
December 26, 2011
We have a winner!
My Give the Gift of Lycanthropy contest is closed for 2011. This year's winner is Khristi from Oklahoma. Congratulations, Khristi! I'll be in touch to work out the details.
Look for another giveaway coming soon.
December 21, 2011
A giveaway it is!
Okay, so last week I talked about how I should do a giveaway. Responses were positive, so here it is. How shall we do it? We'll take the KISS approach (keep it simple, sweetie). Respond here with a comment telling me which of my books you'd like to receive as a gift, and you could win it. The contest, as such, will close at midnight CST Christmas day. I'll then count the comments, put the numbers in a random number generator, and whatever number comes up will win the book. Now, when you...
Review: Borderlords
Borderlords by Terry C. Johnston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I dove into Borderlords with high hopes immediately after finishing Carry the Wind. The first half of this book, though, seemed to drag forever as Titus Bass relived moments from the first book while making a trek to Vancouver to exorcise the ghost of Asa McCafferty. I'm still not sure I understand the point of all that. The second half of the book, though, really picks up steam and saved it from getting a two-star...
December 17, 2011
A giveaway? I should do a giveaway!
Typically at this time of year I do my Give the Gift of Lycanthropy thing where I give away some books. I've been trying to decide how to do the giveaway this year, and what to offer, and now look at it, we're just eight days from Christmas! I thought I might do a random drawing of fans of my Facebook fan page, but I can't seem to pull up a list of people who have "liked" it, other than the list of people who are also my Facebook friends.
Another option could be subscribers to this blog, but t...
December 3, 2011
December Already?
So, all of November slipped by without a single blog update from me. Well, other than my Goodreads reviews. There hasn't been much news on the writing front, so I just didn't bother to post. There still isn't much, but I felt like it was time for an update.
After Obsession has been out for close to three months now. Because I am the obsessive person I am, I've kept track of Amazon sales, and still have my Google search active, but I've gotten to where I shrug off the negative reviews. I wish t...
November 28, 2011
Review: Anansi Boys
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another excellent book from Gaiman! It doesn't have the epic scope of American Gods, but it is a clever and entertaining addendum to that story, featuring the sons of the trickster spider god Anansi. Definitely highly recommended.
October 30, 2011
Catching Up
So. This Wednesday the faculty at the high school where I teach have been summoned to a meeting where our long-winded superintendent and our technology dictator will "explain" to us the importance of putting our lesson plans into the program assigned for that purpose. In other words, we're in for a butt-chewing. Ordinarily, I'd say people like me who are behind in that area deserve it. However, when you consider that people like me didn't know what we were teaching until we reported for work ...
