OMFG. Wants screencap of THAT scene. NOW.

/shallow

Oh, great and powerful f’list and random readers!! I seek your wisdom and knowledge and advice.

Our Lima family trip (my, my sister, BIL and the 2 parental units) are discussing/planning a voyage to Vancouver, B.C. for the first week of September in celebration of my 50th birthday, combined with research for Book 3.

(Leave on August 30, then spend about 4-5 days in the aread and return home with some leeway time to decompress before returning to the day job.

I will need to fly out of DC area airport. The rest of the clan from Dallas. I’m trying to figure out the best airline/itinerary that would make sense and not cost me an arm and a leg.

Also, for those of you in Vancouver area or frequent visitors or heck, one time visitors – any suggestions as to where to stay, eat, places to enjoy? We all love culture, arts, food, etc. Not so much into the hiking/outdoorsy stuff – mostly because of medical restrictions.

I bow to your eternal wisdom. Please send comments.

Life is going a wee bit insane these days with the day job ramping up (did we ever ramp down?) and work progressing on Blood Bargain part the 2nd, and well, you know, life.

behind the cut

Fascinating thread going on right now at fangs_fur_fey. Melissa Marr (melissa_writing) asked if we’d post 3-6 song titles that give readers a taste/tone of one of our works. I found it to be a fascinating exercise and posted re: my upcoming book, Blood Bargain

Take a look at the various contributions.

In other news: as nestra said, I’m loving me some Ianto Jones v2.0. I now need a good Ianto icon with the slogan: “not just the tea boy”.

Time for this writer to get to bed.

A very cold day outside and perfect for cocooning at home and watching pretty boys (Ocean’s 13), reading (re-reading the Vorkosigan books) and rewatching SGA Quarantine (so GOOD!) and catching up on FNL and Psych.

What are you all doing?

First off, let me echo a few of you all and say: Torchw00t!! Last night’s premiere was a shout out to all fans. Thanks ever so much, Russell T. Davies. I’m looking forward to the rest of this series, plus, hey, Doctor Who shortly!

One thing I like to do in the morning before I go off to the day job is to peruse my RSS feeds. I’ve got a rather eclectic mix of blogs I read: tech blogs, writing blogs, friend’s non-LJ blogs, etc. Nearly every day, I find nifty and bookmark-worthy posts or links. Today was no exception.

From Wil Wheaton: the Library of Congress has posted photos to Flickr.

From Librarian’s Internet Index: a Django Reinhardt biography site

Also from the LII: The Shape of Fashion and its Underpinnings 1870-1960

I tend to save all this kind of stuff to del.icio.us – as research bits, reference, misc things of interest, etc. I could totally *lose* myself in sites like these. (the curse of being a writer!)

Other ramblings:
When I was at starrcat‘s this weekend, I found that Matters is listed at one of my favorite online comic shops: Things From Another World. Yeah, i totally squeed like a fangrrl. It was really fun to see my own book on a site where I buy my Buffy/Angel comics. Another degree closer to Joss? ::g::

Speaking of 6 degrees – some years ago, when I was still living in San Antonio, I was part of the Sisters in Crime chapter which met at Remember the Alibi mystery bookstore. I met a very cool woman there during a meeting, who asked me if I remembered what book a particular line came from (“I met him on a street called Straight”). I knew immediately I was going to like her, as this is from one of my favorite all time books: The Gabriel Hounds, by Mary Stewart. (Okay, it was either that or she asked me if I knew the opening line…I totally can’t remember!)

Deanna Raybourn was then trying to break into the mystery field. A couple of years ago at BEA in DC – she (and her agent) happened to stop by the Mystery Writers of America booth, which I was staffing. She’s got a fabulous historical mystery/romance on the shelves and it’s just been nominated for the Dilys Award by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Go, Deanna! Small world and so glad for it.

Several of my other friends have also been nominated, which is way cool. Here’s the complete list:
Rhys Bowen for Her Royal Spyness
William Kent Krueger for Thunder Bay (a book wherein yours truly is a character)
Lisa Lutz for The Spellman Files
Deanna Raybourn for Silent in the Grave
Marcus Sakey for The Blade Itself

I finally posted my intro up at fangs_fur_fey. Take a look if you have a mind to.

And on that note…it’s off to work I go, hi ho.

My first reaction to The Sarah Connor Chronicles, about 8 minutes in – not “ooh, River!” but “Dude, Ryan O’Reilly!”

Dean Winters as Charley Dixon – not credited on IMDB for some reason.

::goes back to watching::

Matters of the Blood is back up at Fictionwise (e-book format) and since it’s been refreshed, they see it as a “new” book – so for a very limited time, it’s 15% off. It’s multiformat, so you can download any one of a variety of formats, including Sony Reader, PDF, Palm doc, Kindle compatible, etc. If you want to buy a regular trade paperback copy, it’s still avaiable at fine bookstores everywhere.

I’ve just joined fangs_fur_fey, so if you read that comm (and you should!) – sometime this week, you’ll see my intro (posted by comm owner Melissa Marr). It’s a comm for Urban Fantasy authors, and includes such fabulous people as jackiekessler, jeanne_stein, stacia_kane and the0phrastus (Chris Howard). Stacia’s a fellow Juno author (her first book with Juno, Personal Demons, will be out in April), as is Chris. His book, Seaborn, will be out later this year.

The trip to NJ went quite well, despite the usual delays in getting there. Friday night dinner at the fab Italian place near starrcat‘s house, then Saturday with the girls and a Sunday Marriott burger on the way out. Got home early evening and was able to watch SGA, Friday Night Lights and Ugly Betty.

This weekend = finishing up the next section of Blood Bargain and yay, holiday!!

INSTABOOK REC 1: A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette (truepenny) and Elizabeth Bear (matociquala). I got my copy just before my trip so I took it with. I finished it as we landed in Newark (thanks to the delays, I had several hours). I am insta-fangrrl of this book. You Must Read NOW. (read runpunkrun‘s review here) – she’s so right. Bear called it best ACTW review ever.

INSTABOOK REC 2: Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman (mroctober). It’s on the preliminary ballot for the Andre Norton award and deservedly so.

fangrrl squee: < 2 days until TORCHWOOD!

ETA: are you reading Shadow Unit? If not, why not?

On behalf of More Joy day 2, I give you this lovely Firefly/Serenity vid by y_fish. I discovered it via Joss’ post on Whedonesque.

RL life stuff:
My step-grandpa died last night after a long long illness. Sadly, I never really knew him, as my mom and stepdad married when I was 30 and they (the stepgrands) live in the Pacific NW. RIP Ben B.

I’m off this afternoon for the weekend to visit starrcat in NJ. Gathering the Due South bunch as per usual and toasting starrcat‘s mom, Caroline, who passed away right before Xmas. She was a grand lady and I feel privileged to have known her.

Lots of loss going on recently to people in my life, so I’m just sending out loads of virtual hugs to all. Reading the More Joy posts has been a balm. Thanks everyone!

Some lovely soul gifted me with this adorable baby polar bear!

I love this whole “more joy” thing, especially since the work day kind of wasn’t full of it.