Alan Baxter's Blog, page 118

Interview on Twitter on Tuesday 19th

I'm going to be having a Twitterview… Twinterview… whatever.

I'm being interviewed on Twitter on Tusday 19th Januray by Ryan Span. It's an interactive sorta thing, so people can come along and ask me questions along with Ryan and I'll try to keep up. It's a bit experimental so I have no idea how it'll go, or even if anyone will bother tagging along, but we'll see.

If you're interested it'll be on at 11pm GMT on Monday 18th, which is 10am EST Australian on Tuesday 19th January. Hopefully anyone ...

Blade Red Press Dark Pages ToC announced

My indie publisher Blade Red Press has announced the Table of Contents for the Dark Pages Anthology. The book is due out in the first half of this year. Now that the stories are chosen it's just a matter of the authors and editors polishing things up and then I'll do all the production stuff. You should be able to buy the book from Amazon in a couple of months if all goes well.

Here's the ToC:

The Stain of the Psychopomp King by Lucien E G Spelman
Heart Of Ice by Martin Livings
Neptune's Garden

Happy Xmas to me

I've been using a fitball at my desk for years. It was an attempt to keep some kind of decent posture during all the hours I spend at my computer. What it actually did, however, was subsconciously teach me numerous ways to slump and slouch on a fitball. Bugger this, I thought. So I've just bought myself a late Xmas present.

It's leather and everything. You know the most outrageous thing about it, though? Given that we have an old house with wooden floors, I thought I'd better get one of those ...

A strange and honest story

Okay, you might think it's pretty weird that I'd post something like this on my blog, but take a moment and read through to the end. It's pretty rare that someone can be so honest about their life and it's really worth the read. Trust me.

Before you read this: Please don't judge me… I'm just sharing my story because people asked…

Wow… okay, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to tell anyone about this, but it's late and I'm sleep deprived so i guess I'll just write it now and regret it in the...

Genre Flash 4

Not be mistaken for anything to do with flash fiction, Genre Flash 4 is a PDF magazine listing "The best Australian genre fiction and true crime." It's a 24 page magazine that lists all sorts of genre fiction novels and true crime books by Australians, along with a run down of the content, where you can find them and so on. It's an informative little package.

There's also an interview with Fiona McIntosh and an article called "A Passage To Neverland" by Stephen Lord.

Full colour, very slick...

Tweet and google word of the year and decade

Further to the interesting discussion following this post, I was interested to read today over at Visual Thesaurus that "tweet" has been named the word of the year and "google" (in its verb form) has been named word of the decade.

Given that Google are actively campaigning against the use of "to google" as it dilutes their brand I find this particularly hilarious. "Tweet" is also a registered trademark, as it happens.

Also voted on by those crazy Americans was Most Useful, which turned out to b...

There's always time for a lesson

From the awesome Failblog.

Well done, madam. Well done indeed.

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Don't you love Australia

3pm on a Saturday:

Ah well. I'll go back another day when it's cooler.

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Did you know Lucas owned the word Droid?

I saw this over at Locus Online today. Apparently Google is launching its new phone with an Android operating system and calling the phone the Nexus One. Philip K Dick's estate are upset about it claiming that Google is appropriating Dick's work (his novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep which was used as the basis for the best film ever made, Blade Runner).

Clearly the term Nexus One is a reference that everyone with a basic SF knowledge will associate with the Nexus 6 replicants in...

Nerd humour – snort!

I was reading the comics in the Sydney Morning Herald today and this made me do a little nerdsnort.

In case you can't read it – it doesn't scan well for some reason – it says:

1.

Her – Well, so far, Joe, you're acing the pre-marriage questionnaire

Him – Yes!

2.

Her – But I have to warn you, the next question is sort of a Kobayashi Maru…

Him – Ah, but I don't believe in no-win scenarios!

3.

You can see it.

4.
Her – You just lost points for so easily getting that geeky "Star Trek" reference
Him –...