This comes courtesy of Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware.

Check out the blog for more details.

Fake Contest Alert was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Breastfeeding my son ]
Mr. Sulu is getting married.

When I was eight, that sentence would have ended with "to me". Mr. Sulu was my second big crush.

But since then, I have learned that George is gay. And that real people, like me, can’t marry fictional characters, like Sulu.

So now George is going to marry his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman, and I feel the need to celebrate with them.

Since coming out in 2005, George has suffered the slings and arrows with a remarkable grace and sense of humour. He is now even more one of my heroes.

So I want to celebrate this event with George. But what do you get for the man who has everything? The Husband Unit and I have decided to make a donation to a local GLBTQ group that works with youth in the name of George and Brad and send the receit with a card to the happy couple.

I hope they like it.

The fine folks at the Wired How-To Wiki offer this little weekend project.

Build Your Own Iron Man Armor was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
Kiriel is a fallen angel. He is tired of supervising the condemned souls in Hell. He wants a holiday, so he takes possession of a body just before it is about to die in a horrible accident. Kiriel then procedes to learn about life from the point of view of a slacker teenager.

A.M. Jenkins has written a quick little novel that explores adolescense lived by a being thousand if years old. Kiriel begins to try and make the life that he has taken better as well as try to reach out to those around him.

This is a fun book, definately for the High School reader given the references to slapping the salami and sex.

When people ask me about my influences, one of the names I always forget is Maurice Sendak. Sendak, who turns 80 today, and his seminal work Where the Wild Things Are, if not created my love for monsters, certainly fostered it. The tale of childhood rebellion and unconditional love fed directly into my childhood psyche and reality. My mother always encouraged me to debate, to wonder, to question. All the while, I knew she would always love me. When I began writing, the fact that my family would always love and respect me lent me the confidence to write what I felt and believed, regardless of what others thought. And of course monsters have always been a huge part of my creative reality.

Over time I read the vast majority of Sendak’s works but nothing stuck like Wild Things and for Halloween 1997, I was Max. You really have to love a children’s book to dress as the main character when you are thirty.

Thank, Mr. Sendak, for everything and a happy 80th birthday!

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak! was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Distorted ]
[ Currently: Sweating like a pig ]
Cato has just been freed by the Emperor Claudius. For this he has his late father to thank. Apparently, his father’s dying wish was that Cato be a free man, but continue to serve the empire.

What better way to do that then by joining the army.

So Cato is placed with the Second legion. Emperor Claudius manages to secure Cato a rank, even though most men wait years to be promoted. Cato must learn to be a soldier, deal with the resentment of the vetrans and adjust to life outside the palace, all while trying to be second in command of a century.

Simon Scarrow has created a historical tale that is rich in detail and intrigue. His charaters are real, flawed and enjoyable. I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would and am already onh the list for the second book at the library.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Guess ]
Faythe wants out.

She negotiated four years of college from her father, but now he wants her back home. Sounds like a typical family dispute, but Faythe’s life is more complicted. She is a werecat.

In Rachel Vincent’s first novel, werecats have pretty much divided up the North American territory. Each area is run by a family or pride. Rachel is one of a handfull of female werecats, called tabbies that exist. Apparently each family only gives birth to one daughter per generation.

The problem is, the tabbies are disappearing. Faythe herself is attacked at college, but manages to get away. Faythe is called home by her father. She races to find out who is behind the kidnappings in order to obtain her freedom.

This book was hard to get into. A lot of the first part of the book was taken up with the angsty on againg, off again relationship between Faythe and Marc, one of her father’s enforcers. n I almost gave up on this, several times. By the end of the book, though, the action (and sorytelling) had picked up.

This novel is far more of a paranormal romance. How fitting that it be published by Mira, a branch of Harlequin Romance.

I may pick up the second one, I haven’t decided yet.

[  Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
Currently Dharma is leading a well intentioned, but poorly informed poll on the Greatest Canadian is. (Somewhere in there is a comment on the audacity of an American telling Canadians which one of them is best, but I am letting it go.)

This lead me to think about what makes one great. The BBC started the ball rolling with their greatest Britons special. Churchill, the PM who got the through WWII, won. In the US, Discovery Channel’s version named Ronnie Reagan, although that may have more to do with the fact that he had died just before the show aired. Cause he beat Lincoln, MLK and FDR.

Here in Canada, our number one was never Prime Minister. Instead, he was Premier of an agrarian province that brought in universal health care. Then he was the leader of the third party in the Parliament who was used political wiles to get the same program for the whole country. This meant that no matter what, we get health care. And don’t let the right wing, insurance company hype that you see on Fok an Friends scare you. Every time I have needed emergency care, I have gotten it in a timely fashion. God bless you Tommy.

Our number two was Terry Fox, a young man who lost a leg to cancer and then decided to do something about it. He started a Marthon of Hope where he wanted to run accross Canada to raise money for Cancer research. Running 26 miles a day, he made it all the way to Thunder Bay before he had to stop. The cancer had reimerged. He died ten months later. By that point he had raised $24 million dollars for cancer research. Every year since then there has been a Run in his honour all over Canada and the world. In total, these run have raised over $360 million dollars.

The fact that Tommy beat Terry shows you how important medicare is to Canadians. I also find it interesting that in Canada, unlike the US, UK and Germany, a national leader (President/Pime Minister)is not number one. In fact it isn’t until number three that a Prime Minister shows up in Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the father of bilingualism and multi-culturalism. And dater of Barbara Streisand.

I believe that greatness should be measured by your actions to make the world a better place, not by whether or not your movie had a really good explosion in it. Unfortunately, too many people in our celebrity obsessed culture seem to think greatness come from shallow places, like beauty, the ability to catch a ball or sing a pretty song.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Breastfeeding my son ]
Geeklet underwent a huge milestone today.

He got his first library card and took out three books.

They grow up so quickly!!!

This bit comes from Media Bistro:

This is better than other more traditional LoA “heavy-hitters” such as the first collection of Jack Kerouac novels (shipped just under 15,000 copies in its first year, with a return rate of 10 percent), two-volume collection of Edmund Wilson’s critical writings (9250 and 12%) and the American Poetry: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries anthology (4200 and 8%).

And the trend should continue with the second PKD volume (Five Novels of the 1960s and 70s which includes Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and A Scanner Darkly). The book is not due out until July 31 and pre-orders already exceed 10,000.

It’s a good time to be a Dickhead!

Philip K Dick Topples the American Canon was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon