L’esprit d’escalier

We just had a very brief rainstorm.  Just before it ended, the sun broke through the clouds.  Self, I thought, go see if there’s a rainbow.

And lo, there was.

Shiny!

My grandmother, much to the fury of my aunts and cousins, wins every family bake-off with her icebox cake:

Ingredients:

1 9 oz package of Nabisco’s Famous Chocolate Wafers
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

—

Add vanilla to heavy cream, whip.

Take the chocolate wafer cookies and add about 1 tbsp to the backs, kind of like you’re making an oreo. Only STACK them on their sides. Make little log of cookies and cream until you’re out of cookies.  Take leftover whipped cream and frost that bad cat. Stick it in the fridge for four hours or so, then cut on the diagonal to serve.  If you want, you can garnish it with cocoa powder or shaved chocolate.  Mmmm.

Bonus: there will inevitably be broken cookies in your package.  Clearly, you need to scoop the last vestiges of whipped cream up on them after your icebox cake is in the fridge.

Pictures of the ingredients, because the Nabisco wafer cookies can be really hard to find (they’re usually up on one of the top shelves in the cookie aisle at our supermarkets.)  (Also, please to ignore the lack of backsplash behind my stove.  It’s on the list of Projects to Get Done This Summer, No, Really, We Mean It This Year):

You can’t see them, but there are broken cookies inside the box that were gleefully consumed moments after this picture was taken.

Schoolhouse Rock left out the part where anyone can tack a completely unrelated amendment onto any bill.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve studied how the government works, and what the lawmaking process entails, but this has never made any kind of sense to me.  In fact, in the past few years, I’ve seen some damned good bills voted down because of unrelated amendments — ones that seemed to be tacked on at the last minute for the express purpose of keeping said bill from being passed.

Is there a good reason for allowing these things that I’m completely missing?  In what way is it better to add an unrelated amendment onto a bill rather than make it a bill of its own?

Anyone out there with better lawmaking knowledge who can explain the logic behind this to me, or point me to a good source so I can find out for myself?

First of all, have you gone and voted for Ian Gibson’s Stuff of Legends yet?  No?  Shoo!  Gogogo!  Today’s the last day.

Next, there’s a rant forthcoming on a big bookseller DOIN IT WRONG, but I’m in a good mood today, so instead I will share awesomeness rather than working myself up to the point where I’m foaming at the mouth.

I’ve had a Jonathan Coulton song in my head all morning, and because it makes me grin and sniffle at the same time, I thought I’d share.  Fellsie linked “I’m Your Moon” to me originally, and I heard it without accompanying video.  The conversation, as I listened to the first verse and the chorus, went something like this:

me: …is this about Pluto? Fells: It is. And how awesome is it. me: SO AWESOME Fells: I knoooow me: omg geek music ftw
It is the sweetest song about the de-planeting of Pluto you’ll ever hear (I don’t care if it might be the only song about the de-planeting of Pluto.  Shut up.)

There is also a very cool fan video of it up on the site, which I now embed for your viewing pleasure.

This thread is officially about geeky songs.  Share away!

Last night, I found out something really, really cool about one of Feathermoon’s own.

One of our favorite Boomsticks, Homrend, is not only the guild leader of an awesome group of RPers, he’s also a FINALIST in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel contest.

Should he win, he gets a $25,000 advance and a publishing contract from Penguin USA.

What can you do?  Why, I’m glad you asked!  The voting is open until May 21st.  The excerpt from his book, Stuff of Legends, is here.  You need an Amazon account and can only vote once.  Hie thee on over to the site and cast your vote for Ian Gibson.

(I know, I know.  I’m usually railing against Amazon here.  But something to understand — this is about an author’s big break, not about Amazon vs. the Indies.  While they are related topics, I will always root for an author’s success.  That’s part of what being a bookseller is — discovering new books to love and championing those authors so they can write more for us to devour.)

So, there’s this new website, “The Society for Geek Advancement.”  They made a video.  How cute!  In it, a smattering of geeky icons (Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton, and Jonathan Coulton among them) proudly declare their love for geeky things alongside some people who… I don’t know.  They’re pretty, and they use Twitter and Macs, so hey, they can be geeks too!

Are you wtfing at your screen, too?

Yeah.  A bunch of people did.  Wil Wheaton got a bunch of backlash for it, and mused a bit about how the project had morphed from what he’d originally understood it to be.  It really does seem like some kind of marketing ploy.  All through the video (I typed ad, originally, that’s how much it feels like one), I expected to see some sort of  “GO BUY THIS NAO” at every new celebrity.

There is apparently a purpose to it, though it’s not all that evident on the site.  The creator, Shira Lazar, wanted people to use social media for good causes and to make a difference.  Proceeds from sales of “I Am A Geek” t-shirts go to Room to Read, which, hey, reading and education is an excellent choice, made even more awesome by the fundraiser they threw benefitting six girls.

However, it still seems to sneer a bit at things that are, traditionally, pretty geeky — Wheaton declares that he doesn’t speak Klingon.  Someone else burbles proudly that they don’t play Dungeons & Dragons.

…wtf?

Now, in his defense, Wil says he meant the Klingon thing as inclusive, in a sense:  “Geeks don’t have to speak Klingon.” Which, okay, I’ll give him.  I’m guessing it’s one of those things where, the meaning of it was clear to him, but when it comes out in a two-second sound bite makes the ones who are fluent in Klingon boggle.

Bridget McGovern at Tor sums it up perfectly.  Go read the whole article, but let me quote my favorite part:

One of the greatest strengths of geek culture is its remarkable inclusivity, its creativity, its ability to encompass and combine disparate ideas, modes of thoughts, and areas of interest without having to worry about keeping up appearances or maintaining the conventional status quo. To be so dismissive of traditionally maligned geek interests and so incredibly smug about our apparent technological superiority at the same time doesn’t celebrate geek culture—it’s just a cheap way of buying up some nice property in the mainstream, at the expense of the quirks, the playfulness, and the ability to be comfortable being different that is the essence of geekdom.

If there is one stereotype we should be moving away from, it’s the geekier-than-thou, Comic Book Guy-style sense of smirking superiority that only serves to alienate individuals from one another within and without the community. The creators of the SGA seem to think the best way to empower geeks is to ditch the nerdy comic books, hand the Guy an iPhone and a Twitter account, and make him over into an Ashton Kutcher clone, while retaining the obnoxious, supercilious attitude. This plan has the stink of a bad 80s movie all over it, and as someone who’s seen Can’t Buy Me Love more than a few times, let me tell you—it doesn’t work, my friends.

That.  Right there.

I know it goes against the idea of geekery-as-inclusive when I want to shout “YOU ARE NOT A GEEK” at so many of the participants in that video.  But I dunno, I get the sense that more than a few of them would be quick to sneer at con-goers, WoW players, tabletop roleplayers, and members of the SCA.

Hooray for you — you have a popular blog, you have a million followers on Twitter, you played Guitar Hero that one time and it didn’t totally suck.  Sometimes you forward LOLcats to your friends, and you even went to see the new Star Trek/Spiderman/Terminator flick!

I’m all for geekery going mainstream.  Hey, that means that more of the things I like might get the recognition they deserve!  More sf/f books?  More shows like Firefly, Lost and Fringe?  Kings getting put back on the air?  Hell. Fucking. Yes.

But if the idea is for sleek marketing people to redefine what makes a geek, make it hip and cool, pretty it up by taking away certain elements so the Cool Kids can still have people to snicker at, then count me the hell out.

via John Scalzi’s Whateverettes: big kittehs, pumpkins, omnomnompounce!

TIGERS LEOPARDS Vs Pumpkins!

To anyone who’s ever questioned the need for literary agents, go read Kristin Nelson’s post right now. This is only one of the hojillion things agents do for authors, but oh my is it ever an important one.  Agents advocate for their authors.  They look out for them and make sure they’re not missing important clauses or changes in their contracts.  They catch this stuff so writers can concentrate on, y’know, writing.
Ms. Nelson gets my “People Who Rock the Internets” award for today.

Dear Zombie Santa,

I’ve been a very good girl this year.  Well, mostly good.  Okay, pretty good, at least if you squint your eyes and turn your head a few degrees to the left.  Hey, it’s only May. I have the rest of the year to be better.

Anyway.

Please, please, please let J.J. Abrams make The Dark Tower into movies.  Pretty please.

I will leave you extra cookies and everything.

Love,

falconesse

Hey, cats and kittens — May 1st has been declared Buy Indie Day .  So if there’s something you’ve been meaning to pick up, or if some author you hear on TV or on the radio piques your curiosity, why not go to your local indie and bring it home with you?  Don’t have a local indie?  Why, Indie Bound’s store finder has your solution!  Books purchased through an indie store’s website count!

Update for the curious: I bought myself a signed copy of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal from Books Inc.