I'm in NY and was asked about NV, AL, IN, WY, ME, WV, and KY.
I'd guess that the states asked about are randomly chosen.
It does seem like a statistics questionaire. If you've said that McCain has a 75% chance of winning IN and Obama has a 100% chance of winning ME, then you should, mathematically speaking, say that there's a 75% chance of McCain winning IN AND Obama winning ME. I'm guessing the test is to see if that's what you actually say.
DavidS @ #19: I thought he said something about having to take some sort of ferry home.
You're right, he did. But he preceded that by saying that he and his friends were (if I recall properly -- I started reading the book around midnight, and finished it at 5:00 am the same "evening") in the East Bay area on some type of school field trip, thus requiring the ferry to get back home (to the SF area, rather than taking the ferry from SF to the East Bay.)
One does not keep a dinosaur in the attic for comfort.
No, one keeps them there because the basement is already full of ghouls.
Doesn't one?
Josh Jasper #12: but wow, the volume of people held up was huge.
Think how smoothly the MTA normally handles an even larger volume of people every day, day in, day out. You don't notice the volume because it gets moved through, (relatively) quietly, and efficiently. Even under adverse circumstances (flooded stations and tunnels), they still kept moving people, so that it was just delays, not complete shutdown.
This is bad timing for the MTA, since they’re in the middle of campaigning for a fare hike.
Wouldn't this be good timing, then? Showing just desperately they need the increased income to handle emergencies?
Not that I think that the MTA has a machine in a basement somewhere that can call down tornadoes on demand, or anything, because who would ever suspect the MTA of being an Evil Organization™?
There were two series from my (mispent?) youth that taught me about unfinished series, and publishing.
The first series was Philip Jose' Farmer's "Riverworld" series.
* To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
* The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)
* The Dark Design (1977)
* The Magic Labyrinth (1980)
* Gods of Riverworld (1983)
I picked up the first two novels in early 1972, with the promise in the back of the second that the third book was going to be out shortly. I then had to wait six years (which is to say, forever, to a 12 year old) for the promised third book. I bought the third book in hardback when it came out, the first time I'd ever spent that much of my own money on a book, the first hardback I'd ever bought for myself. Only to discover, after devouring it in a single sitting that the promised last book of the trilogy had been expand into a three book series. Which took another six years to be published, making me twice the age finishing the series as I'd been when I'd started reading it.
The second was the Wandor series by Roland J. Green:
* Wandor's Ride (1973)
* Wandor's Journey (1975)
* Wandor's Voyage (1979)
* Wandor's Flight (1981)
Which doesn't look too bad, with only an eight year gap between the first and the fourth books. Unfortunately, it was meant to be a quintology from the very beginning. So, I've been waiting for thirty-four years for that last book (tho' not quite as anxiously as I did when I was a fourteen-year old adolescent male who really enjoyed sword-and-sorcery stories.)
So, between a series that grew from three books to five, and a series that never even ended, I finally learned my lesson. Now I have to think really hard before I start reading an unfinished series. [I'd read the first Harry Potter novel before I knew there was going to be a second one published. Mr. Stross' "Merchant Princes" series I bought deliberately knowing that it wasn't yet finished, as I'd read the first chapter of the first book in the store and it convinced me that it was worth whatever wait I'd be put through.]
JFK (in his day)
Started the first space race.
We were soon at the moon.
Is Mars the next space place?
"Dire á Dale." Right, right...
The Morose Men, you say? I think I've heard of them. Thought they had a violinist in the group tho' - I know I've been told that they like to fiddle around.
[Is this where I apologize? ;)]
John M. Ford -
Dire a day? He's Alan's cousin, isn't he? Part of the Marry Men? Works for Robbing Hood?
I might be wrong, of course.
"Awesome action," asseverated Alasdair.
"Beautiful," boasted Barry.
"Custom comment contest? Cool!" cited Cindy
. . .
Quick skim by late poster mis-reads "Emperor Horton" as "Emperor Norton" and begins several simultaneuous threads on Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, it's variations, American attitudes towards royalty, alternate realities in which Texas maintained its independance and became an empire [including speculation on what citizens of said empire would think of the current president's claim to be a "real" Texan], Death, and death.
Pointed comment noting that, given the language skills evident on this site, simply mixing ROT-13 and /33+ is insufficient to mask the real !/\/5u|7. Suggestion re: using an Aramaic translation cypher from ancient Celtic followed by 133+-ing the Enigma -engined output of said translation, just to make it a little bit of a challenge.
Helpful explanation that the blank page with ads is not a glitch, it is a feature.
Irate posting about lack of responses to previous argument after an immediate refresh showed no additional postings. Intimations about other posters heritage, parentage, social skills and cliquishness.
Attempt to shanghai thread with long, incomprehensible argument designed to prove malfeasance of previous adminstration ending with poorly spelled insults at all other posters.
Happy 25th Anniversary of your 25th Birthday!
And may you be around to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of your 50th Birthday, and still making, er, Not-Trouble (or whatever it is you make that makes this site such a wonderful, homey, thought-provoking, laughter-inducing, must-visit-daily site.)
Harry Connolly asked: Would folks mind passing on some titles of first novels published in the sf/f/mys genres in 2005-06?
I don't know if this quite counts, as the actual publication date was October 2004 (I didn't read it until 2005), but I really enjoyed Tamara Siler Jones' first novel Ghosts in the Snow. And it qualifies for at least two out of the three generes you specified.
Which two, I'm not exactly sure. Definitely mystery, but I haven't decided if the other genre is fantasy (because the world of the novel still has traces of magic in it) or science fiction, because there are hints that this might be a future world in which magic came, and then (nearly) went.
In any event, it's a good read. As is its sequel, Threads of Malice, which was published in late 2005.
There is not a man who has a scar that he got in a nameless war, there is not a young orphan come to the city to seek his fortune, there is not a woman of a certain age who finds love under the Umbrian sun. There are no murderers, thieves, tyrants, vamps, private eyes, saucer people from Planet X, compulsive masturbators, preachers, coal miners or cowboys. Joan of Arc is not involved.
Aw, heck... Now I want to read a story that has a man with a scar he got in a nameless war, a young orphan come to the city to seek his fortune, a woman of a certain age finding love under the Umbrian sun, murders, thieves, tyrants, vamps, private eyes, saucer people from Planet X, preachers, coal miners, cowboys, and Joan of Arc getting involved.
The compulsive masturbators can be optional -- every writer needs some degree of freedom.
Teresa: There's karma, and then there's destiny.
You, editting SF, and with Patrick? That's destiny.
Karma still owes you a pony. :)
Really, really, really sorry that it does, tho'. :(
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| 2006 | 15 |
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