Just in case you live under a rock, here’s the news: Right now everybody’s pissed at Amazon.com and nobody trusts the Kindle. Why? Three things: 1) Somebody who didn’t have permission made a couple of George Orwell titles available for Kindle download, 2) Amazon sold a bunch of ‘em, and 3) once Amazon found out that things weren’t 100% legit, they pulled the title, erasing downloads and automatically refunding money in the process. OMG1!! type the bloggers, IS MEMORY HOLE!!!1!. And yeah, sure, what Amazon did by sucking the downloaded file out of each-and-every Kindle (and erasing comments on their website) is kind of creepy, but they’ve already said they won’t do it again, and seriously, we’re talking about 1984 and ANIMAL FARM here, works you’d have to be an idjit not to realize are still new enough (1948 for 1984) to be under copyright protection in the United States (Australia and Canada need not apply). So ultimately Amazon did do the right thing.

Hang on, I know what you’re going to say. Hear me out. As I read thread-after-thread on this highly emotional topic, I thought to myself, Orwell’s dead, I get that, and I get the whole free culture thing, and I fully realize that the entire iPod business model is based on compatibility with your illegally downloaded music library, but what if this was a new book, by working authors? What if this was a book by a bunch of professionals expecting, and in many cases just plain hoping, to get paid? What if this was a Night Shade book? What if this was, say, THE LIVING DEAD?

And not more than an hour later, I found myself sending DCMA takedown notices to two of the biggest file hosting and blog hosting companies out there, all because some knucklehead had made a bootleg version of that very book (THE LIVING DEAD) available on his blog. And I fully expect that link to be gone by tomorrow morning, because I’ve had to do this before. A few months ago I had to do the same for John Joseph Adams’s previous Night Shade anthology, WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE and I won’t be a bit surprised when I have to do it again in a few months for BY BLOOD WE LIVE and THE IMPROBABLE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Because that’s what a responsible publisher does. When you agree to publish someone’s book, you are purchasing from them the exclusive right to distribute that work, this is a limited, legal monopoly, and it’s up to you as the publisher to make sure that not only is the author not getting ripped off by the existence of bootleg copies, but also that those copies out there represent the work in the best way possible. Bootlegs are shoddy, error-ridden affairs (but then again, so are many e-books, but that's another matter entirely), beyond the control of author and publisher; the recipient of a bootleg book might be reading another book entirely!

Amazon did the right thing, because these versions of 1984 and ANIMAL FARM were unauthorized editions. Straight-up stolen. No amount of righteous indignation can convince me otherwise. Unlike Amazon, if you downloaded THE LIVING DEAD, I'm not going to come over to your house and delete it from your computer. I'll leave that up to you and your conscience. And ultimately, it’s not like 1984 itself has disappeared down the aforementioned “memory hole.” The Virginia M. Woolf Foundation have an “extra large print” edition available for Kindle download. Just four bucks. Order yours today.


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And no, I don't own a Kindle. But if someone from Amazon.com is reading this, feel free to send me one for review.

So, there's a pocketwatch app. Makes me wonder how to go about connecting a watch chain to an iPod. Ah, well... I've still got a few months before I need to figure that one out. Is it December yet?

Late Tuesday night, I dropped my Dell Axim x51v PDA. Crash! While I can still get to the data on it, the spiderweb-shattered touchscreen renders it pretty much useless. Since this is (was) my primary e-reading gadget, I'm going to need to come up with a solution for dealing with electronic manuscripts... at least in the short term (our Verizon contract expires at the end of the year... and the iPhone 3G sure is tempting). Maybe I can resurrect my old Axim x5... provided I can find the cables. Suggestions?

Maddie found a fossil near Walnut Park yesterday. Or maybe it's a gyroid. Got your shovel handy?





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Don't get it? Then you obviously haven't been playing enough Animal Crossing: City Folk.

My desk, circa now.

New machine, netbook, NSB machine. Tiki gods, reference books, Moleskines. Multiple mice and magnetic monkeys. Plastic pirates, convention badges, and a well-thumbed Tales of the Dying Earth. What's your workspace look like?

So maybe not exactly today, but Nineteen Eighty-Nine was obviously the peak-and-pinnacle of my big '80s hair. Wow. How very Jack Nance. I am hereby humbled.



Long story short, I just joined Facebook. Actually, Jennifer joined, then my sister (on the left) invited my mom to join, but my mom wasn't sure, so she asked me and I essentially said "why bother?", but then Jennifer talked me into letting her set up an account for me.

And what do I end up finding? Strange evidence of me taking my sister's friend (Was her name Crystal? I'm uncertain. I know the guy went by "Orca," and Orca was very mëtäl) to a high school dance. Improv tux, Siouxsie and the Banshees buttons, antique cokespoon ankh necklace, pirate pin. I must have thought I was stylin'. Facebook is a scary place.

Over my morning's regimen of e-mail, espresso, and Led Zeppelin, I decided to sign up for one of those government-subsidized digital television converter box coupons (and nice website, BTW), reasoning that since we hate our ever-increasing cable bill, having a converter box would be convenient, should we decide it's finally time to starve the pig, besides, even if we don't quit cable cold turkey, there's always a chance we'll upgrade TVs, moving our current one to the bedroom, which doesn't have cable. Furthermore, any government program underwriting cheap foreign-made electronics is cool in my book.

Anyway, while filling out the form, I rather enjoyed typing this captcha:



I'm thinking that would be a great 90s industrial-rock band name. "Direct from Belgium, Immaterial 23!" Nice to see my tax dollars at work.

And speaking of the unholy union of cable and rock and roll, is that the Ditty Bops I hear in the latest Comcast jingles?

As mentioned before, I own a PS3. It's an impressive piece of hardware, but kind of a white elephant, since new PS3 games are expensive (New games come out around $60, compared to the Wii's <$50), and since I'm still rocking the 27" TV I bought--on clearance--from Sears in 1995. Oh, and it's connected to said TV though a VCR (as is our Wii), so games that would normally cross over into the uncanny valley, such as BioShock (and what is it with video game names made up of compound words where the second word is capitalized, anyway? Do medial capitals automatically imply a superior gaming experience?), merely stand on the edge and listen to their voices echo.

But it's great for Rock Band. And Rock Band 2. And Guitar Hero: World Tour, even if those could stand to feature more of the bands I like. C'mon, a Cocteau Twins track pack would be amazing, or Sigur Rós (whom I've mentioned before, but it bears repeating), or even Pink Floyd. How about the Mountain Goats? Or Einstürzende Neubauten, which could even ship with a power drill or jackhammer peripheral. And it connects to the Internet. By which we get to one of the stranger services offered by the PlayStation Network, PlayStation Home, a virtual reality environment similar to, say Second Life (which I've never visited, but apparently Mike the Gorehound spends a lot of time in), or a mundane World of Warcraft in which quests are non-existent, right along with the ability to smite those who so desperately need smiting (too bad).

I don't spend a lot of time in PlayStation Home. For one, it's kind of boring. About all you can do is walk (actually, run. For some reason your avatars always run from place to place.) around various environments, including a shopping mall, a central plaza that sort of reminds me of the original Half Life, a movie theatre, a bowling alley, etc. You can buy things such as clothing, or furniture for your apartment, using real world money, too, but why would anybody in their right mind want to do that?

But I do find myself checking it out from time to time, drawn in by the general absurdity of a third-person chat interface, one in which you type by means of joysticks and buttons, rather than a more conventional keyboard. Yes, they do sell a keyboard attachment for the PS3 controller, but fifty bucks? Ouch. Thanks, but no thanks.

The first avatar I created for PlayStation Home was male, a generic mook with an average college guy sort of look about him. He was a tall, tan, strapping lad, a generic-looking white kid, basically an unmodified version of the avatar the game engine spit out in the first place. I felt ready to take on the world. And within seconds of strolling into the game, I was approached by another strapping young lad. His first question to me? "R U Gay?"

And that question kept recurring. Everybody was asking it. "R U Gay?" asked a fellow running past. "R U Gay?" asked a guy dressed as a snowman. "R U Gay?" asked a black dude with a huge Afro, pick jutting out of it.

"R U Gay?"

"Isn't everybody?" I'd type back, only to be answered with...

"R U Gay?" For several days after this first foray, I referred to the PS3 as the "R U GayStation." Jennifer was mildly amused.

Now I'm comfortable with my identity, quite comfortable with who I am. I'm straight, whatever that means (sexual identity seems far more complicated today than it was back when I was figuring things out), and I've got no problem whatsoever with gay, but this wasn't the sort of attention I was hoping to draw. I'm really not looking for disco-dancing partners among the bubble machines (both of which are everywhere in PlayStation Home, since dancing is about the only interesting action your avatar can perform); I'm not looking to type in dirty 1337-speak with strangers. So I decided to make myself another avatar. Female this time, one deliberately as plain and frumpy as the PlayStation Home engine could come up with, weight maxed out*, height set at minimum, with a big nose, frizzy hair, and a sunken chin. And glasses. Somebody that I figured the "R U Gay?" crowd would be inclined to ignore.

So this is her:





They're not great pictures, but like I said earlier, this ain't exactly hi-def. And yes, that's my front door reflected in the TV. What's funny is how much this avatar resembles a girl I used to know, one I actually found kind of attractive, except for her personality. That is, she didn't actually have a personality. So that's me, a virtual chubby nerd girl, Velma from Scooby Do. Now, when I visit PlayStation Home, I can actually find a few decent conversations. Whether this is because she stands out from the hyper-pretty avatars of others, I may never know. Though many of these conversations are with female avatars who quickly admit, "LOL Im really a guy" (though I never do). And I seem to spend a lot of time ignoring pop-locking dance moves.



But now, instead of "R U Gay?", I get "U R Fat."


Will my self-esteem survive? Stay tuned...


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* Which really isn't all that fat, but considering the mooks and midriffs that abound in this virtual realm, having one's belly protrude between one's shirt and skirt seems quite the physical form faux pas. And for the record, I'm no Adonis in the real world; at 5' 7" and right around 200 lbs, I much more closely resemble Dashiell Hammett's Continential Op than a Greek god.

This cartoon:



actually kind of makes me want one of these:



Especially if they make a cover for it emblazoned with "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters.




But then again, at $359 (with free super saver shipping, but still), I'm probably better off just sticking with my Netbook.