Unfortunately the laptop screen got broken in an accident a short time later and the machine, while still operational, is anchored to his desktop by a large and clunky monitor. No longer can he create on the go as the universe intended.

So I implore you, please help us get Jared’s laptop fixed. I found a company in California that will repair it for $250. I expect he’ll have to spend between $30 and $50 boxing it up to travel safely as well as for postage and insurance. So I’ve created the ChipIn.com fund for a total of $300 (less PayPal fees). [NOTE: I couldn't figure out how to have Chipin.com show our donation, so I lowered the original amount to reflect our gift.]

Anything you can spare would be a great help. Please consider give a few bucks to help him get his mobile mojo back in gear. Every $5 or $10 you can spare will get him closer to creating more wonderful things without being anchored to a monitor.

The game is addictive. I’ve played it for hours and that’s saying something for Mr. A.D.D. Usually I put iPhone games down after a short time. But not Circuits. Give it a try, I’m sure you’ll love it.

It is also available for the Kindle, Nina Kimberly the Merciless: Kindle Edition

Consider, if you will, what would happen if you had an obnoxiously perky Sith in training.

A free book? There’s no such thing as a free book! What’s the catch?

No catch. It’s free. But, Mur asks that if you like it you purchase it from Amazon.com on August 25. She’s making a run on Amazon and really needs us all to pitch in and help her get noticed. She, like so many others, has a book contract now. But podcasting novels are still a new medium for delivery and we need to show the publishing industry that this makes a difference. 

Martha and I have read the PDF version multiple time. We help Mur by making the PDFs and doing layout and formatting. We also did a little editing. All of this was to help Mur make the best product possible. We bought the first version of Playing for Keeps when it was self-published on Lulu.com. And now we’re joining her for her run on Amazon and we’ll be buying multiple copies of Playing for Keeps as published by Swarm Press.

Mur has delivered countless hours of enjoyment and encouragement to the pod-o-sphere. She has also inspired and rallied people including me. It is not an exaggeration to say that if Mur wasn’t here I wouldn’t be either. I wonder how many other people to whom you listen, read, and watch are here because they were inspired by Mur Lafferty. I’m guessing the number is larger than you think.

So be ready to place your order from Amazon.com for Playing for Keeps on Monday August 25. Be there! Aloha.

• Dogfish Head 90-minute IPA for Paul
• Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout for Jim
• Ravenswood Cabernet for Mur
• Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, Second Edition: A Programmer’s Guide at Amazon.com
• It was funnier the first time
• Mur’s first fiction novel is coming out from Swarm Press on 8/25
• Playing for Keeps at Amazon.com
• This week we experiment with asking questions from our followers on Twitter
• PROMO: Astral Audio Experience
• Jim’s Essential Math website
• Favorite TV Shows: for Mur, The Office and for Jim The Closer. Together: Heroes or Battlestar Galactica
• Heroes, feh
• Favorite books from childhood
• Dr. Horrible vs Playing for Keeps
• The News from Poughkeepsie
• The Piddler
• The games Jim would bring back from obscurity if he could: Liubo, Shuanglu, and Magic Realm
• MUSIC: Playing for Keeps by The Beatnik Turtle
• PROMO: Playing For Keeps experience. Join us on 8/25 to help Mur make her run on Amazon.com

• Beverage roundup
• Black Adder
• Quantum Leap
• Don’t mess with the librarians
• PROMO: Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts
• PROMO: I Should Be Writing
• Cataloging duels of librarians
• Fear the weeding policy
• Kitties!
• I AM Survivor Dad!
• “The dark goddess must dine on tears!”
• PROMO: Metamor City
• PROMO: Reality Break
• Tee Morris in a barrel
• Double Trouble (links galore)
• Free PDFs have over 50,000 downloads!
• Why haven’t they been Boing Boing‘d?
• Don’t whine Tee
• If you want me to post your PDFs you have to ask me
• If you’re going to buy, please do so on 8/8/08 on Amazon.com
• Getting voice parts for future podcasts of Digital Magic and Pitcher’s Pendant
• Tee and Pip talk about the plots of their upcoming books
• Pip and Tee trapped in the same body
• Erotica a la Carte
• Tee will be organizing live events at Balticon 43
• MUSIC: Girls, Skirts, Boots, Bikes by The Buck Brothers

Tee Morris is the author of the novels Morevi: The Chronicles of Raif and Askana and The Case of the Singing Sword: A Billibub Baddings Mystery. He is also the co-author of the non-fiction works Podcasting for Dummies and Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies. He has podcasts for the above mention fiction as well as a companion podcast for the Dummies books.

Philippa Ballantine is the author of the novels Weaver’s Web and Chasing the Bard. These novels are also available as podcasts. Her free PDF novel is Digital Magic, the follow up to Chasing the Bard.

Tee’s free PDF novel is The Case of the Pitcher’s Pendant: A Billibub Baddings Mystery. If you couldn’t tell by the title this is the second in his Billi Baddings series.

Both authors say that these books can be read and enjoyed without having read the earlier novels. We hope you enjoy them too.

Please join Tee and Philippa as they make their run on the Amazon.com charts on Aug 8, 2008. If you enjoy Pitcher’s Pendant and Digital Magic, please support the authors by buying their books from Amazon.com on 8/8/08. They need your help to show the publishing world that podcast listeners matter. This is your chance to show the world what we can do.

• Cat vs Wookie
• Kraken’s Quest
• Le Canard for snails
• Norm’s Beer
• PROMO: Double Share by Nathan Lowell
• PROMO: Pieces podcast anthology
• Catching up on older podcast fiction
• The review of 7th Son Obsidian
• Unicorns
• PROMO: Murder at Avadon Hill by PG Holyfield
• Review of the story’s released as of the date of this recording
• The opening up of an author’s universe to become a shared universe
• New voicemail line is 1-206-666-2843
• The Morevi anthology?
• Soccergirl’s Obsidian video was awesome
• The easter egg we did for Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps based on a real story
• Hating on weathermen
• Aug 25, 2008 Playing for Keeps is being released by Swarm Press
• Aug 8, 2008 Digital Magic by Philippa Ballantine and The Case of the Pitcher’s Pendant by Tee Morris will be released by Dragon Moon Press
• MUSIC: Playing for Keeps by The Beatnick Turtle

All Books available from Amazon.com

We discuss writing, podcasting, producing audio books, and Ronnie’s newly released novel Spite.

Lazy show notes:

John Cmar

Sci-Fi Laura

Commandline

Andrea

Heather Welliver

Marcus Grailwolf Bailey

Greg Wright

Martha Holloway

Paul Fischer

We talk about Balticon, public safety, wireless broadband, attention deficit disorder, and much more.

Recorded at RavenCon.

Today: Voices from the Future

*Opening: Tim Robbins Keynote Address Clip
*There’s some sort of election going on, right?
*Headlines!
-Democracy Now
-Mic Check Radio
-AZ Central
-New York Times
*Promo: On The Podcast
*There’s some sort of election going on, right?
*Why should Clinton quit? Well, she shouldn’t.
*Here’s a question for ya.. and yes, it is about gender.
*The big damn gun interview- finally!
*All right, more of a chat, really…
*Paul Fischer visits the spiderhole
*ADD Cast
*Balticon Cast
*Wildlife Photos
*What I’ve Been Listening To:
-Democracy Now on paid military analysts
-CBC Ideas on Excuses
-Metamor City
-Chasing The Bard
-Voicemail(s) from Andy
-enjoy my new outtro- well, it’s the same, but now it has bed music!
-keep listening… you might hear something else!

email: tsdiva@gmail.com
voicemail: 206-337-1026
forum: http://truthseekerscast.ning.com

Guests include Tee Morris, Marc “Grailwolf” Bailey, Heather Welliver, Brand Gamblin and his girlfriend Allison

• Plug galore – It’s so annoying I’m not giving anyone links, so there!
•  I Will Swallow Your Soul
• A little review of Farpoint Convention
• Erin Gray
• Sonic Boom thinks the studio has a revolving door
• Marc’s convenience store sickness
• Burger King chip
• PROMO: Stranger Things
• PROMO: Aliens You Will Meet
• Scott Sigler needs antibiotics: help him with his Infection
• Pimpage/Bell abuse
• More questions for Cthulhu
• Thank you for your service to your country
• Live Calls for Cthulhu at Balticon
• Would you want to see a live Hey! Want To Watch A Movie?
• Stop The Noise!
• Morevi spoiler alert
• Be on the lookout for J.C. Hutchin’s Obsidian

MUSIC: Shoot Him Down by Babylon Bombs

Show notes and original post.

UPDATE: [1/8/2011] The original file is gone. I’m sad. I’ll try to track it down later. We still miss you Joe.

Lazy Show Notes

Music: Shoot Him Down by Jenny Beck (@Music.Podshow.com)

We did it before and we are doing it again.

Scott Sigler’s new print version of Infected gets released on April 1st, 2008. Over the next few days, his publisher has allowed him to give away copies of the PDF version of the book for free.

We are helping him do just that.

For more information on Scott and Infected, visit www.scottsigler.com

If you want share the file with friends, get them to download it from this page or from:

randomhouse.com/crown/infected/downloads/infected_novel.pdf

By getting the file from that link, it’s proving to the big publishers that we podcasters have a clue about what we are doing.

This file will only be active for a few days, at which time the link will become inactive and you’ll have to go to the bookstore to read the story. Which you should do anyway.

www.michaelshermer.com

Promo: The Commandline

www.michaelshermer.com

Dr. Shermer’s Books Available at Amazon.com

Music: Think For Yourself by George Hrab ( music, podcast, concerts in your home, Balticon )

Promo: Morevi Remastered

Promo: Stranger Things

Tee Morris does an improv version of Dennis Leary’s Asshole song.

Heather Welliver sings. We’re glad someone in this group has a real voice.

Spoiler free and Spoiler laden reviews.

PROMO: Fear the Froot

We have a pile of stuff we just put on eBay. Please help us out by taking a look, maybe we have something you need, and you know it’s coming from someone you can trust.

The items for sale are:

• Apple iMac 20″ G5 1.8 GHz
• Apple iBook 14″ G4 1.42 GHz
• Apple Powerbook15″ G4 1.5 GHz
• Apple 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Apple 2x 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Apple 2x 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM
• Radio Systems TI-101 Telphone Audio Interface – great for podcast interview or a conferencing setup

Thanks for your interest. Email us through eBay if you have questions.

Xmas wrapup

Jared Axelrod’s Avante-Garde Dinner

Slice of Soup

Cocktail of Pot Roast with Cranberry sauce

Recovering from the cookie disaster

Marc and Heather’s Xmas

PROMO: Nocturnal by Scott Sigler

PROMO: Better Late Than Never

We spent several hours with MAinPA over Xmas

MAinPA and Leann Mabry will be doing a panel called, “Don’t be that guy” at Balticon

How to not be creepy, with the hot women of podcasting

What women want from men, by Heather. The 2 minute version.

I will suck the love out of you!

Heroes Season One: Major Spoilers

Sylar should have died at least 3 times

Paul doesn’t buy the cheap way they let him live

They work so hard to make all the situations work, except when people leave the bad guy alive

The writers didn’t put enough effort into leaving Sylar alive when the characters in the scene should have killed him

Sylar’s regeneration powers haven’t been completely defined

We think the writers paid too much attention to the fans. Sylar was kept alive because the fans on the ‘net wanted it.

Better ways to handle Sylar’s survival

We’re passionate about wanting to fix it because it’s so good and we love it so much

How Neil Gaiman handled a similar situation in Anansi Boys. Anansi Boys audio book was written for and read by British comedian Lenny Henry.

Sylar needs to die

MUSIC: Coed Naked Drunk Christmas Shopping by Beatnik Turtle

Interview with Joe Mieczkowski

Story segment from Joe Mieczkowski

Story Segment from Jayanth “Jay” Paraki, his movie, his bio

Commentary from Tracy Hickman

PROMO: I Should Be Writing

PROMO: Killer Breakfast

PROMO: Playing for Keeps

MUSIC: Write About Me, by Jeff Coffey

To some the number 99 represents the many names of God. But as a black
snowfall blankets the Failed Cities on Christmas Eve, the arrival of 99
mysterious steel chambers is the catalyst that sets a series of far from
blessed events in motion. From bullets and bata sticks to a life-and-death
hostage situation to high-speed battles up switchback mountain roads, eight
people become links in a deadly chain that will either tether innocent lives
to safety or strangle any hope for their future. And as each part of the
story unfolds, we learn that above all things, Christmas in the Failed
Cities is a feverishly struck balance between the constant threat of
violence and the briefest, most bittersweet moments of joy.

THE FAILED CITIES: HATH A DARKNESS by Matt Wallace is a freely distributed
.PDF produced and illustrated by Rick Stringer, and available exclusively
from Variant Frequencies. We’d like to encourage all our listeners to
download, print, enjoy, and pass along this unique piece of the Failed
Cities universe as a thank you for your continued support and enthusiastic
participation in our podcast.

And don’t forget to revisit THE FAILED CITIES MONOLOGUES, collected in its
entirety on Podiobooks.com

Happy Holidays from the entire crew of Variant Frequencies!

Saint Fu (St. Fu)

Old computer games and beer – Bard’s Tail beer, Pong beer, Mech Warrior beer, 7th Son Beer, ADD Cast Beer

The Dogfish Head Alehouse end of year beer tasting

PROMO: Playing For Keeps

PROMO: Asian Variations, a free downloadable music CD

Fox, Futurama, Bender’s Big Score, Commitment, Avenue Q, Muppet sex, High School reunions, Heather’s new doo

Playing for Keeps from Mur Lafferty

Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon

Twitter – Tribe chat room, micro blog, and more

Scott Sigler hasn’t killed me yet!

JR Blackwell has gone indy! She’s quit her pink collar job and she doing some awesome photography.

We’re all just back from seeing Phil Rossi and his family

MUSIC: Black Motorcycle Boots, by Michelle Malone

• Sweetie
• Tracy Hickman’s thought provoking positions on NaNoWriMo
• It’s not about getting published, it’s about getting read
• The mystical powers of Mur Lafferty (is she the cause of our Skype problems)
• Tracy is a big fan of Mur’s
• Tracy’s segment on NaNoWriMo
• Editors notes
• Nuri joins us for NaDruWriNi (take 1, we’ll try it again at the end of the month)
• NaNoWriMo allows interconnected short stories to be counted
• Nuri is writing about 2 characters in a Steampunk world
• Drinking wine, skype in the ghetto, living in bad neighborhoods
• Table wines as a reference to 7th Son
• Doing laundry in college. Bar and laundromat in one
• Martha reads our script for The Monster Under The Bed
• Nuri reads from her short story
• Nuri loves Balticon
• Artist Alley
• Balticon Podcast

PROMO: Playing for Keeps / 7th Son

PROMO: The Commandline Podcast

MUSIC: Old Lady with a Hammer by Chris Hardy

When night falls, the monster under the bed comes out to eat your toes. But what could possibly cause that monster to want to change jobs? Who is the real monster under the bed?

Watch it on Lulu.tv!

In this episode of TDAH, we report from the World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan. If you’re a Godzilla fan, you can’t afford to miss this one. Great Godzilla questions will be answered, such as what kind of women he like, his favorite recreation, why he really stomps Tokyo, and who is true love is.

Watch it here!

TDAH is up for The Best Video Blog of 2007. Please vote to help our friends at TDAH continue their rise to fame and fortune.

We are twisted and incapable of being serious about it. We’ll be bringing on people who are drunk and attempting to write anything. This pandemonium will take place over a Skype call, through the magic of the Interweb.

Contact Paul at <a href=”mailto:addcast@gmail.com”>addcast@gmail.com</a> to sign up for the event. Put “NaDruWriNi” (National Drunk Writing Night) in the subject line.

NaDruWriNi

So we setup our recording gear at Cmdln’s house and did our own Foley recording session.

It’s very silly and we hope you enjoy it.

If you can’t see it here, check it out on Lulu.tv

Junkies – it’s time for a new novel. Not a short story, not a “novella,” but a full-blown, balls-out, tits-swingin’ novel that will have you crying like a little punk every Sunday when the episode finishes. NOCTURNAL is that novel.

And on top of that, I’m running a contest where YOUR NAME can be the name of a victim in NOCTURNAL. All you need to do is go to the brand-new scottsigler.com and register a full profile. Go there, then look on the left-hand side. See where you’d log in? Create a profile. FILL IN ALL THE FIELDS to win! If you don’t want to fill them in, no worries, but only complete profiles are eligible to get ‘dat ass killed and be immortalized in the pages of NOCTURNAL when it’s printed in 2010.

This is Awesome! Thanks Amanda for choosing our photo!

-Paul & Martha

• Yusuf The Wonder Neighbor
• Calls you never want to get when you’re on the other side of the planet
• Our LOL Cats Contest ( link )
• High Fiber Cat
• PROMO: Asian Variations, a free download album
• PROMO: Christian Ellis‘ The Sounds of Awesome
• PROMO: Better Late Than Never Podcast
• We summarize the movie Princess Mononoke
• What’s the hero’s name?
• We talk about how the movie makes us feel and how awesome it is
• FarPoint Media’s big announcement (Special thanks to Summer Brooks, Mike Mennenga, and Jeffery Willerth for their hard work)
  
• MUSIC: Black Heart off Asian Variations by MoShang

FarPoint Media/Podango Partnership

We, at FarPoint Media (www.farpointmedia.net), a leader in creating, producing and distributing quality audio entertainment, are happy to announce that Podango (www.podango.com) has become our partner with a multi-station deal that will allow this new media broadcast platform to host all of our FarPoint Media podcasts and future vidcasts.

Podango is a new media broadcast platform that will enable FarPoint Media and our advertisers to better reach our target audience for all of our podcasts, vidcasts and their accompanying Website’s.

“Podango offers us a complete and reliable hosting solution with full WordPress integration, robust ad insertion capabilities and a variety of easy-to-use management tools,” stated Michael R. Mennenga, founder and CEO of FarPoint Media. “[The Podango platform] lets us concentrate on creating and delivering the best audio content for our growing legion of online fans.”

Lee Gibbons, CEO of Podango, said, “FarPoint Media is leading the industry in creating and producing highly popular, award-winning and diverse new media content. We’re thrilled to welcome the family of FarPoint Media audio shows to Podango and look forward to collaborating in reaching even wider audiences.”

“The ease and reliability with which this format will afford us will lessen the burden faced with less than adequate service,” said Samuel K. Sloan, FarPoint Media Executive News Director. “I am looking forward to working closely with Podango and its rich platform.”

FarPoint Media is happy to be able to be working with Podango to continue bringing you all the best in entertainment, news and information the Internet can provide.

About Podango
Podango is a new media broadcast platform that enables podcasters and advertisers to build audiences and connect with hard-to-reach, niche market segments. Running such hit shows as The Apple Phone Show, Podango hosts over 1,000 video and audio programs—including a third of the top twenty-five shows—on a wide variety of interests and topics.

The company’s innovative Web broadcast platform features diverse shows distributed through a sophisticated set of syndication tools. Broadcasters producing their own channels of episodic video and audio content also share advertising revenue. In today’s increasingly fragmented marketplace, Podango provides advertisers with the highly targeted audiences and robust content opportunities critical to the success of business and consumer brands.

About FarPoint Media
With 73 shows currently on the air or in development , FarPoint Media is a leading producer and distributor of quality radio and podcast entertainment, with its eye to the future of vidcasting. The company offers a variety of content with channels designed for diverse programming choices.

We have sci-fi media and genre-related literature shows featuring news and interviews with actors, producers and writers creating your favorite TV programs and books, and we have discussion shows fans can immerse themselves in.

FarPoint Media has quality audio dramas to fire your imagination, specialized sports news and information shows that take you beyond the box scores, comedy and variety programming that will have you laughing out loud, and shows with experienced advice that can help improve your tech skills, sharpen your writing skills or make you more environmentally conscious and knowledgeable.

The three jewels in the FarPoint Media crown are the “Dragonpage Cover to Cover” (C2C), “Wingin’It-3D” (WI-3D) and “Slice of SciFi” (SoSF) programs.

C2C is the show that started it all. Each program hosts an award-winning author of fantasy, fiction and science fiction, covering the latest offerings from the writer being interviewed and the novel under discussion.

WI-3D is just want the name implies, an irreverent time where friends, celebrities and personalities get together in the studio in a no-holds-bar romp where the discussion can end up on just about anything.

SoSF is an hour-long show of news, entertainment and guest interviews centering on the world of science fiction, horror, fantasy and other genre-related topics. Very structured, SoSF works off of a tightly written script and has featured interview with actors such as Samuel K. Jackson and Amanda Tapping, producers/writers and directors like Peter Mohan, N. John Smith and Martin Wood. Also featured are young up-and-coming filmmakers like Mark Lund and Shane Felux, as well as, award winning authors like Peter S. Beagle, Tanya Huff and Jim Butcher. SoSF has made the unique crossover from a stand-alone podcast to where it can now also be heard on XM-Satellite Radio.

FarPoint Media is podcast entertainment at its best. No matter what your interests are, we have a show that will be sure to entertain and inform you. See what the fastest-growing network has to offer you. It is a world of wonder that awaits you. For more information visit: www.farpointmedia.net.

Click It. You know you want to.

Talking about our trip to Japan

Our house almost got broken into

Security theater at the airport

Strange dreams from Japanese Whiskey

The tribe parties down at Commandline’s house. Andrea made me some kickass allergen free pies. Pie rocks.

I want to film making it. But I want someone to verify that it tastes good to them.

Software

• One 18 oz. jar of natural style unsweetened creamy peanut butter (I used 365 brand organic). Don’t use normal Skippy or Jif PB. Use the natural style PB from a jar. It makes a huge difference. Don’t use crunchy. It will end badly for you if you use crunchy.
• 1 cup Chicken broth or Veggie broth if you want to go totally veg
• 1/4 cup Cream of Coconut
• 1 tablespoon dark soy (mostly for the salt. Skip this and double salt if you don’t want soy and wheat)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon Goya Salsita hot sauce picante Habanero Chiles (for heat on the back of the tongue and down the throat). Adjust for personal taste.
• 1 teaspoon Red Tabasco (for heat on the front of the tongue). Adjust for personal taste.
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh Cilantro loosely packed
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered Ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon powdered Onion
• 1/4 teaspoon powdered Garlic

Hardware

• 7 cup food processor and blades. You can do this in a bowl with a wooden spoon, but it’s a lot of work. I haven’t tried with a stand mixer, hand mixer, or other device. You can use a smaller food processor if you reduce the recipe to a third or a fourth.
• Many spoons
• Silicon or rubber spatula (to clean sides of mixer and do tastings)
• Large air-tight container

Directions

1. Empty entire contents of peanut butter jar into food processor with blades installed.
2. Put about 3/4 cup of broth into food processor and take it for a long spin. Make sure it is all incorporated. You are making the base of the sauce and it should be smooth and spinning easily inside the food processor. If needed, keep adding more broth, a little at a time, until it spins easily. It’s supposed to be a little loose. About 1 cup total worked for me, but I think a little less would have been OK.
3. Once the base is smooth, stop the food processor and add Cream of Coconut, Soy Sauce, Lemon Juice, and Salt. Mix to combine.
4. Taste. Tasting should be done after using the spatula to clean the sides, mixing, and then putting some of the sauce on your spatula. Let it drip onto your finger. Put the excess back in the bowl. Don’t let the part that drips go back into the bowl. You’re trying to avoid contaminating the food.
5. Adjust the amounts of the Coconut, Soy, Lemon, and Salt if you think it needs it. Be gentle.
6. Add hot sauces to taste. I’m a bit of a wimp, but you might want to start with 1/2 or 1/4 of my recommended amounts then mix and taste. Of course, if you like it really hot, you can add more. Play with your food.
7. Chop the Cilantro into fine bits. Pack it lightly into a 1/4 cup measuring cup. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix. Taste.
8. Transfer to air-tight container.
9. Refrigerate.

It should keep at least 2 weeks in the fridge and probably as long as 6 months in the freezer. This makes a ton, so you may want to half or quarter the recipe anyway.

Best Novella: “A Billion Eves”
by Robert Reed
(Asimov’s October/November 2006)

Best Novelette: “The Djinn’s Wife”
by Ian McDonald (Asimov’s July 2006)

Best Short Story:
“Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt
(Asimov’s, July 2006)

Best Related Book:
James Tiptree, Jr.:
The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
by Julie Phillips (St. Martin’s Press)

Best Dramatic Presentation,
Long Form: Pan’s Labyrinth

Best Dramatic Presentation,
Short Form: Doctor Who
“Girl in the Fireplace”

Best Editor, Long Form
Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Best Editor, Short Form:
Gordon Van Gelder

Best Semiprozine
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, and Liza Groen Trombi

Best Fan Writer
Dave Langford

Best Professional Artist
Donato Giancola

Best Fanzine
Science-Fiction Five-Yearly
edited by Lee Hoffman, Geri Sullivan, and Randy Byers

Best Fan Artist
Frank Wu

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of 2005 or 2006
Naomi Novik

First pass through Tokyo. No sign of Godzilla. He must be sleeping. I hope he shows up for the interview or I’m going to be really pissed. I didn’t come all this way not to get 5 minutes with the big man himself.

Got to the Intercontinental Grand Yokohama this afternoon. Wicked cool place. Massive. I think the restaurants are all 5 star gourmet or something. $100/person for a meal. We went a la cart to save a little money. I don’t mind paying for a good meal, but I couldn’t enjoy it as tired as I am.

Mur Lafferty’s ears are burning.

Had dinner in the Italian place. They were very accommodating to the fact that I can barely digest anything anymore. Great roast pork and veggies. Martha had a pizza. Great food, but very expensive. Thankfully snacks and drinks aren’t that outrageous.

Got Martha settled in the Newsletter staff room with Matsushita-san. Met some of the staff. Sean, who we met last year, is here and he’s translating again. He’s a life saver. I actually managed to translate some japanese into english for someone contributing to the news letters. But then there was nothing else to do, so I abandoned Martha and Matsushita-san in favor of a chat with Nobilis and sleep.

Need to hunt up some public domain footage and audio of Godzilla and the signing of the documents that ended WWII. Need background material for my interview with Big-G.

The Beast is being held captive by Japanese Customs. They want money. Hopefully I can get a translator to help me in the morning. I really need The Beast back on my shoulder.

We had an awesome time with Mark Forman and his family. We owe him a lot.

Made up two quick videos in our spacious hotel suite.

Video 1 (6 MB)- My entry in the coolest 7th Son T-Shirt location ever

Video 2 (29 MB)- Our upgraded suite at the China Trust

More on Taichung, Forman, and stuff later this week as I have face time with the Mac to create. Until then, I’m counting the days until The Beast and I are reunited.

I forgot to mention in the video. This hotel room comes with it’s own fish!

[Editors Note - iTunes is pulling video 1, so I'm putting it in the feed so I can track it. I wanted to make it optional. ]

The cab showed up 15 minutes early and I wasn’t able to have my normal fried egg breakfast. I rattled me so much that I forgot to grab my big camera. I didn’t realize until I got through security at National that I missed it. I am a seasoned traveler. I always use 3 bins when I go through the x-ray machine. This time I only needed two, which worried me, but I didn’t figure it out until I got to the other side.

I need to pay better attention to some things. I really do. Who goes on a birding trip and forgets their birding camera? Yours truly, that who.

As soon as I figured it out I jumped on the Coconut Telegraph and started beating the jungle drums. The tribe woke up on Tweeter and Skype and came to my rescue. Marc, a.k.a. Grailwolf, offered to pick the camera up from home and ship it to me in Asia. Marc is a brave man, and is now learning how far down the rabbit hole you go when engaging in international shipping.

The hope is that the camera will meet me in Japan. It’s an expensive mistake, but not as bad as if I had to buy a whole new one. We’ll be bringing home a nice gift for Marc and his new bride Heather. They asked for a Japanese school girl. I don’t know what the limit is on those, we’ve got 3 requests now. I wonder if I can get them in the duty free shop.

Got to Japan and was able to get free Internet from the ANA airlines lounge which I think was a level below where I was charging my laptop. Not great throughput, but enough to get email and see that Mark and Marc had been in contact and all was being taken care of.

Martha and I had sushi in Narita Airport in Japan. Oh man, it was awesome. It was fresh and flavorful, and very close to the best I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to taste it outside the airport. My assumption is that airport sushi should be a 6-8 on a scale of 1-10. Which means it can be a whole lot better outside the airport.

The trip to Taiwan was a lot shorter than I thought it would be. Didn’t realize Taiwan is 1 hour behind Japan. So our 3.5 hour trip became 2.5 hours. We caught a gypsy cab to the hotel. For a while I thought we were being taken for a ride, but the cost was reasonable and even though I thought we were going in circles, we weren’t. The hotel was nice, and we dealt with the first leg of adjusting to the new time zone.

OK. The hotel was better than nice. It was actually pretty cool. And fried eggs on the American Breakfast side of the buffet were a delight. The hotel staff were amazing. They got us a cab to the bullet train to Taichung and let us pre-pay. The train hit a top speed around 300 Kph. That’s about 186 Mph! It was so smooth and fast it was awesome and very very clean.

Mark Forman met us at the station and took us to our hotel. Then we toured a city south of Taichung where they do a lot of fishing. That’s were the current batch of Flickr Photos were taken. Today we’re supposed to hit the electronics markets. Mark and I are going to see if maybe we can’t think of doing some things to introduce some products into the US market. Who knows, maybe we’ll find the next Tickle Me Elmo.

Flickr Link

Seriously, it only comes from one place. Give it up.

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Jean Marais (MoShang Zhao in SL) has released a new CD of remixes called Asian Variations for free via Creative Commons. We ask that you’d help by linking to Asian Variations on blogs, playing music from this on your podcasts and vlogs, interviewing Jean on your podcasts and just helping to promote in any creative way that you can think of. Thanks so much and enjoy this fine chill out selection. Jean’s email: moshangmusic@yahoo.com

I’m listening to it right now. I’m into track three and this is just awesome!

-Paul

Marc and Heather from Grail Wolf’s Geek Life join us

We review a TV show we’ve never seen: Flash Gordon on Sci-Fi

Paul’s audio of Ming the Feckless, Tour Guide of Mongo

Marc and Heather bring booze and candy

PROMO: Weaver’s Web on Podiobooks.com

A real review of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (the movie)

PROMO: Nobilis Erotica

PROMO: Singularity on Podiobooks.com

Welcome to the world, Baby Rossi! Congrats to Phil and Jen.

Marc and Heather’s plugs! Myspace: Shillas, Heather.Welliver, and Singing Gypsy Girl

Contest! Caption the Kitty, LOL Cats Style

Winners of the caption contest will receive a CD of Serve It Cold in PDF format and the first 5 epsiodes of the podiobook. Just add a comment to this post to enter the contest. The best 5 entries will be contacted by email in early Nov. Contest closes on Nov 1 at 12:01 am. Timezone in effect is the timezone of our server (wherever that is), leave a comment and check the time stamp.

Martha and Paul are your usual hosts

Transformer’s movie review

Lazy show notes

Lots of laughs from right field.

• Martha & Paul
• Command Line and Andrea
• The Pod Doctor, John Cmar

Drinkinging a moderate amount of liquor makes you smarter [link]

• The season opener for Eureka!
• Spoiler Alert, watch before you listen
• Season 3 of Doctor Who

• The economics and machinery of making world wide releases of DVDs
• PROMO: Serve It Cold available at Dancing Cat Studios and Podiobooks.com
• PROMO: Brave Men Run
• Happy Birthday to Matthew Wayne Selznick
• Videos: The Writer Stalking, This Day in Alternate History, and Zombies in the Workplace available at Lulu.tv
• All hail the giant heads of Jason and Mur
• Zombies!
• Can’t talk about Zombies without talking about Patrick McLean
• The oblique Leann wiener dog reference
• When Rupert Murdock dies and angel will get its wings
• No else saw Charlie Jade, if you haven’t seen it, download it and watch it! 100% geeky goodness
• The evolution of the care package
• How’s the chinese food in China? It’s full of penis
• The obligatory Tee Morris reference
• Oh! BTW, we’re talking about Cmar’s wife, Sci-Fi Laura
• South of the Border! We love Pedro
• The best use of an M-80 firecracker vs. shovel full of fire ant nest
• Here comes the statute of limitations
• Begging for nominations and votes: Darn! It’s too late.

Nat’s trip to France

Tee keeps pointing at the ceiling

Serena licks the pop filter. I wonder how it tastes

France Telecom spares no expense. Really. They don’t spend much.

Nat’s flight to France

Mrs. Pillows

Toilets in France

Larry Niven and Laura’s breasts

Promo: Serve It Cold

Promo: Nina Kimberly the Merciless

The Transformers Movie! Paul gives it a 9 out of 10

Serena does a Number 3. A foul odor permeates the studio

Paul hates stupd movies

Morris family genetics vs Morris family dynamics

Obligatory Leann Mabry comment

And Paul and I had the very great pleasure of witnessing it all first hand.

Michelle’s music has been submitted this year for 2 Grammys: Best Contemporary Blues Album and Best Americana Album and it’s easy to see why. All you have to do is listen.

My word, that woman can sing! We were treated to some new old-fashioned blues rock songs that shook the paint off the walls, but, when the dust started coming off the rafters, Michelle scaled it back with an acoustic set that was just stunning.

But I shouldn’t slight her guitar work which was as much a pleasure to watch as to hear. Words fail me, folks.

If you ever have the chance to hear Michelle Malone live, do not let that chance slide by you. Reach out and grab it with both hands and hold on for the ride. It’s worth waiting for! But while you’re waiting you might as well be listening to some really good music. So, show Michelle some love. Jump over to her site and pick up her latest album, Sugarfoot, and maybe a few of her earlier ones too. You’ll be glad you did.