even though I realize this is just an incentive for my daughters to become bisexual or gay and get off on a technicality.
But absolutely no robot sex, right?
I've included Unfogged in my RSS reader, and I comment from time to timewhen it strikes my fancy. Nice place you got here.
Oh, and y'all helped me learn that that Maureen Dowd is teh suxxor.
I thought robot sex was popular with the ladies.
I may be coming around on the whole robot thing. cyborgs are people too.
cyborgs are better than people
But not as good as clowns.
1: She said getting off on a technicality, not getting off on technology.
Unfogged doesn't work on my RSS reader, it shows the last post as May 28, so I have to check it by hand.
During the week, we've been averaging 11,000-15,000 hits per day, with 3500-4500 "unique" visitors of which 600-700 are "returning" visitors.
On the weekend, we've been averaging 6000-8000 hits per day, 2000-2500 unique.
These numbers don't count people like me who read the site entirely through RSS and only "hit" the site when we comment. (I'll throw in a plug for the posts+comments RSS feed while I have the opportunity, which a lot of people don't know about.)
8: better that than electric sheep!
So we've got 700 'readers' plus whoever reads on RSS.
I read Unfogged on three different computers in three different locations. Does that kind of thing change the count at all?
I think it means we triple count you. All right, we have 300 readers.
Can I help it that I'm not as funny as all y'all? And that I don't read the comments devotedly enough to comprehend your bizarre gustatory initiation rituals?
But not as good as clowns.
Clownę, are you familiar with bogol's epic Clowan cycle?
It may be your cup of tea.
Wait, hasn't Minivet been around for a while?
I've certainly seen her before, but it's a memorable moniker. Someone commenting as "Normal FirstName Normal Lastname" has to comment a hell of a lot before they make an impression, and anyone commenting as "Firstname" alone, I'm hopeless with. (See my embarrassing Anthony/Andrew confusion.)
Anyway, hi! No cleverness requirement -- someone has to be the straight man, and ogged isn't always around.
9 -- have those stats been pretty constant, or monotonically changing? (in the positive direction, I'd assume...)
I know I read pretty regularly from at least two computers.
9 -- have those stats been pretty constant, or monotonically changing? (in the positive direction, I'd assume...)
I'm not sure it's polite to take a shot at ogged while he's recovering from cancer. And Labs is away, and can't respond.
(See my embarrassing Anthony/Andrew confusion.)
I still hurt inside over that.
Anytime you're in NY, come by for dinner so I can apologize. I'll make bat.
I read here a lot and commented for the first time the other day, but was drunk.
I read for a while before I dared to comment.
One day I will succumb to RSS feeds, but I quite like checking constantly to see what's new. And impress myself by remembering comment counts for various blogs.
My mum wouldn't let my boyfriends sleep over either, until the one to whom I was about to get married (I hasten to add that I wasn't still living at home by that time, but I did visit).
22: Haven't you got a dog?
I am now going to use my Makassarese name from now on, unless I forget. It means 'yearning'. Which I thought was kind of sissy, but it turns out yearning is a very manly emotion in South Sulawesi.
I'm not serving her for dinner -- Buck would kill me.
Sam Heldman, I hope you continue commenting. I was sad when Ignatz was discontinued.
I read, on and off, for ages -- a year at least -- but never felt any particular compulsion to comment until the irresistible clown-fucking thread.
I had a dog called Buck when I was a kid. A beagle.
My parents let me sleep with my girlfriend at their house when I was 16 or so, but she had her own house which was way cooler.
I read occasionally, but not regularly. I would comment but it seems that by the time I have gotten to the discoussion someone has said what I was going to.
Ignatz was the first blog I ever read religiously.
yearning is a very manly emotion in South Sulawesi
yearning for anything in particular? yearning unrequitedly? yearning for bat?
MaxPolun -- don't let that get in your way -- you will be providing opportunities for pwning-arbitrage, a useful function in the commenting economy.
"And impress myself by remembering comment counts for various blogs."
Good point, that is fun. But I have Unfogged in the post + comments RSS pane of Bloglines. Unless I comment, I read it all in the pane. But I am not sure exactly how Bloglines works. Somebody has to hit the site to build the RSS cache. I can F5 and follow the thread in near real-time. So there has to be some personal marker that shows how many comments I have loaded. Does each refresh cout as a unique hit?
Open thread? Since last week I lost my shit over some whippersnapper dissing boomers, and claiming the boomers were responsible for the Reagan Revolution, this chart made my day. Party Affiliation by Age. A very nice bell for boomers. Appears like the most liberal group ever in the history of America were born around 1950. Told him. It's the geezers and the serpent's teeth that turned this country right.
I post pretty heavily on another blog that has a forum feature, which doesn't leave me a lot of time for other sites. I do try to catch up on the main posts here about every other day though. Very good site. Glad y'all are here.
There are three 47-year-old balding men who read and comment on Unfogged. Anyone else who thinks they read or comment is mistaken.
So, on Thursday, I have a day of errands and letting Sean-the-Physical- Therapist do strangely painful things to my ankle, which means I can't comment on the overnight girlfriend thread and I go to look at it this morning and it has somehow segued into a discussion of brawny Scots actors and reached 500+ comments.
It has now become clear to me that Unfogged is an alien plot, perhaps driven by Xenu's bitch, Tom Cruise, to addle the brains of those who prowl the internets in search of clown stories and cock jokes.
How many of you have taken to jumping up and down on couches shrieking about your love for Becks? When was the last time you don't recall chatting with Apostropher during a rectal probe on the mothership? Did you ever think that "Lizardbreath" was an accurate description? Do you think it mere coincidence that w-lfs-n titled a recent post "How to avoid thinking about important things for a long duration"? Has it ever occurred to you that Ogged is using "Iran" as code for "Aldebaran"?
And do none of you care that Pluto has been fucking demoted??? That that excellent mnemonic "Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest" may well be changed to "Mel Very Thoughtlessly Made A Jewish Slur, Undeniably Nasty"?
I'm going to go find some caffeine now and wait for the cable guy who is coming to find out why, at precisely the moment Jon Stewart appears, the Comedy Channel goes blank and a sign appears stating that 'This channel should be available shortly" but it isn't.
And do none of you care that Pluto has been fucking demoted???
They say they've "demoted" it.
I suspect it's vanished, and they're just trying to cover it up.
36 is, of course, right. Most of you, I suspect, are simply sprites of my mind. Don't try that cogito shit on me; if you're cogitoing, then I'm imagining you cogitoing. Felix appears to be one the represenation of one of my more p(aranoid thougs.)
oh what the hell. I meant the whole last sentence to be a parenthetical.
Since Pluto no longer resides in the planet category, I propose that it have a category all its own.
My proposed solar system model includes the sun, eight planets, several minor planets and Kuiper Belt objects, and one Baleful Orb of Death.
Mysterious Vanishing Entity Means Jerrymandering Stitch-Up of Number of Planets
I woke up to bug spray this morning after thrashing about to some freaking weird dreams, the last one of which involving some resurrection, which I think was supposed to be cool and vaguely religious, except that one dream-friend had unfortunatlely went to hell in the interim, and wasn't quite right, mentally, upon resurrection. And I'm not positive I'm completely sober yet.
I read via RSS, and I comment sometimes, but when I do, I am often told I missed that conversation by six months to a year.
Felix, your mnemonic includes a place for Pluto, which ought no longer to be included.
37: The "berating people who comment at other blogs" thing fits in nicely with that.
I've been lurking here for a long time, and check the site a couple of times each weekday, but I have a combination of the problems of the above lurkers--I never feel witty enough to comment, and by the time I read a thread it's often the case that everything that has been said is so witty that there's no way I can come up with anything to add.
That, and the fact that I have a double standard when it comes to blog reading/commenting, which I usually do at work. Reading is passive procrastination, which I rationalize is ok, but commenting is active procrastination, which is more dangerous.
commenting is active procrastination, which is more dangerous.
Very, very true.
36: I don't know if Unfogged is any more real than lonelygirl15, but I'm fairly certain it has more cock jokes.
Re: Pluto, Robert Farley gets it right.
I read here all the time without commenting which is kind of like being the weird person at a party who walks from group to group listening in and never adds anything to the conversations.
I've been reading every day for years now, but I don't comment much because the comments I imagine I would leave are better than the comments that I actually would write.
50 gets it exactly right.
However, there is a whole post devoted to calling me out, which I am unfairly proud of, considering I was just being annoying.
I tend to go through phases on blogs: there are some that I used to check daily and now hardly ever read. I have been reading Unfogged pretty obsessively for quite some time, though, and it hasn't started to pall yet.
I have commented once or twice, but using the firstname.lastname combination, which apparently makes me completely unmemorable. So, if I comment here again I will use the unforgettable "cdm", which is an alias that I occasionally use elsewhere on the internets. What makes it really clever is that those are not my initials.
I tend not to comment here because it seems like the kind of community where, if you are going to comment at all, you should comment on a fairly regular basis. Given that I already spend too much of my time online, I am resisting the temptation to start participating in another internet community.
Thank you for providing one of the best sites around.
Oh, and the second paragraph of 51 gets it exactly right.
it seems like the kind of community where, if you are going to comment at all, you should comment on a fairly regular basis.
Nah. Most of the comments do come from regulars, but there's no sense in which it's rude or annoying for those who generally lurk to pipe up. (Although if you comment often enough to become noticeable, people may harass you to comment more. Ignore them if you don't want to.)
47:"I never feel witty enough to comment"
Years ago I stopped letting this get in my way. It's a blog comment, for God's sake. And I picture all these folk with like patches at the elbows and pipes and ferns and beemers and I stumble in in my bermuda shorts and gimme cap and bloodbank t-shirt to remind them of the world they spent twenty years of schoolin to escape. Every morning I wake up with the goal of having ten people say:"There but for the Grace of God go I." It's a calling.
Ah, but how well does 50 work as a dating strategy?
Once you get over caring if anyone thinks you're funny or intelligent, it all gets easier. I just strive to as annoying as possible without being so annoying as to be actively shunned.
cdm -- I have similar habits to yours (My list of phases is roughly: (pre-blog) the Pynchon-l; Chowhound; Woodcentral; (blog) Crooked Timber; Making Light; Obsidian Wings briefly; Unfogged. I am dreading the day when Unfogged begins to bore and I have to go look for something else -- I have more fun here than I ever did at any of those places.
The omitted close-paren is my bane.
sorry. With all this tweeness going on, I had to be mean to *somebody*.
Open thread? Hoorah!
(1) Does anyone know how to make a baby stop crying? Seriously. He won't stop.
(2) I finally realized why I mistakenly thought for so long that Tia was a lesbian -- who the hell is Clementine? Some comments in the (distant) past had somehow led me to believe they were lovers.
(1) Does anyone know how to make a baby stop crying? Seriously. He won't stop.
Try shaking him. (Not really.)
Never, never, never shake Ben w-lfs-n.
Shaking him actually works really well. I try to keep it gentle enough to avoid brain damage, but, you know, life is full of risks.
And actually, I just realized that 62.1 is really not true at all. Not sure why I wrote it that way. He actually hardly ever cries at all, as long we are holding him and soothing him. But he absolutely will not tolerate being put down, even for a short while. Day or night. Which is tiring....
62 -- far far worse is when the child is old enough to talk, listen, understand, respond, and still won't stop.
62: Sling. Pop the baby in the sling and go for a nice brisk walk.
Generically, there's only about five possible things (1) Hungry (2) Full Diaper (3) If Just Fed, Needs Burping (4) Too Hot/Cold (5) Lonely, Wants Carrying (6) Actually In Pain. Just cycle through each one until something works. Oh, swaddling's good too -- you know how to wrap the kid up really, really tightly in a blanket like a little burrito?
And don't sweat it. This sucks, but it doesn't last long, and everyone lives through it.
62.1: Wait seventeen years, then let his girlfriend stay over.
there's no sense in which it's rude or annoying for those who generally lurk to pipe up
The 47-year-old balding man joke was started by one "Sophia Incognita," who never left another comment (under that name). But whose work lives on! Unlike the guy who discovered Pluto.
Runaway italics! Runaway italics! Runaway italics!
Is he teething? There's nothing you can do.
Is he windy? Burp him?
Is he sick? Hot? The trick of last resort is to put him in the back of your car and drive around awhile. 99% of babies will fall asleep in five minutes.
My response to 62.1 has been made obsolete by a crappy connection, but I repost anyway:
62.1: Wait seventeen years, then let his girlfriend stay over.
there's no sense in which it's rude or annoying for those who generally lurk to pipe up
The 47-year-old balding man joke was started by one "Sophia Incognita," who never left another comment (under that name). But whose work lives on! Unlike the guy who discovered Pluto.
62:1) Figure why he is crying? I mean, he could be spoiled and demanding or he could have a clothes pin stuck in his ass. I think that's important.
Cesar, the Dog Whisperer, has the answer to everything. Be alpha, calm and assertive, without insecurity or aggression. Talk to the kid as if you really care what he thinks.
Oh, if 65 is it, then really sling. It'll pass -- you won't have to do it forever -- but you can adjust perfectly well to wandering around all day with a baby hanging off you. I ran around the playground after Sally (2 at the time) with Newt in the sling for the first six months, and people literally told me that they didn't know there was a baby in there. He just slept. (Now, I got pretty damn sick of not being able to move without 10-20 lbs of baby hanging off me, but it passed, and was easier than soothing him all the time rather than just carrying him.)
At this age, he doesn't need intellectual focus, just body closeness and motion. The sling is your buddy.
Unlike the guy who discovered Pluto
Clyde W. Tombaugh, whose name will henceforth have an asterisk next to it in the annals of astronomy.
About the crying baby: isn't there a point at which the little dude just needs to cry and you need to harden your heart to it? After checking the vital stats, of course. My oldest sister and husband had this ability to ignore the more futile wailing, which really impressed me.
Brock, have you seen The Happiest Baby On the Block? It's a lifesaver. Here are your 3 techniques:
1: Swaddling. Take a reciving blanket, wrap tha baby up tightly, pretty much like a burrito, only with the head exposed.
2: The football hold. Place the baby on your arm, face down, feet toward your hand, head right at your elbow.
3: Shushing. Loud. Right in the babies ear. The thinking is that this simulates the white noise of the womb. So seriously, do it loud.
4: Bounching. Either in the football hold or over the knee. Face down. (Gently roll the baby over when you are putting her down to sleep).
67- Oh, he's decided he hates slings. (We've tried two models.) I think what really makes him most angry is when we have one or both of our hands free. He prefers they both be occupied, holding him.
And he also, curiously, really seems to hate swadling. I did it right, too, wrapping him very, very tight (on the theory that "if the baby can't breath, the baby can't cry"), but he just struggles and wiggles and grunts and carries on in a state of general unhappiness.
Brock's is about a month, if that. Not in the cry-it-out age bracket yet at all at all. (Which, if you need to put him down and walk away, it's absolutely all right and it won't hurt him, and sometimes what a baby wants is leave me alone and stop bothering me.) But there's no benefit to letting a little baby cry.
The funny thing is that I never worried if I was witty enough to comment. Is that because on the Internets, nobody knows if you are a dog? Or is it because I'm way too self involved? Don't answer that!
We started letting our baby cry it out at 3 months. She figured it out after one night and started sleeping through. Some might say that we have a very easy baby. I prefer to think we're geniuses.
I think what really makes him most angry is when we have one or both of our hands free.
Oh, you poor thing, and poor Mrs. Landers (Ann?). I remember feeling that way, and it did really stink. I'd keep trying the sling at intervals -- they change preferences fast -- and otherwise do whatever works and just hold on to "This Too Shall Pass", and pretty swiftly too.
LB 67: I went through those same 6 steps and it always worked, but I did ask myself once in awhile, "What if the problem is the mysterious #7, and I can't figure it out, and he just cries forever". Never happened to me, but I've heard of cases.
I've read the book referenced in 77, and all the suggestions other than (1) (plus things like car rides, or even walks in a stroller over very bumpy ground, etc.) all work very well, so long as we keep them up. But the minute they are stopped he wakes up and goes off.
He really liked his sling, and his swing, and being swaddled for about the first two days we tried each of them. Then he for some reason decided he hated all of them and now just cries when we try them. He just likes to hang out in our arms.
Believed I in demons, I would suspect evil possession.
Oh yeah, the "don't put me down!" phase. It goes away. Until then, you just have to embrace the zen. Whatever it is you need/want to do after you put the baby down will just have to wait until you get a chance.
Actually, in all seriousness, I think that was one of my biggest parenting moments. PK wouldn't sleep without me lying next to him. I'd lie down with him and nurse, and then try to sneak away, and he'd wake up and howl, and I'd lie down and nurse again, and then try to sneak away, and he'd wake up and howl, and...
And I really did just at some point consciously realize, you know, this feeling I have like I have to get away and go do something while I have a chance... I'll do them when I get a chance, and in the meantime, there's not a lot of point worrying about it. I might as well just enjoy having a lie-down.
Seriously, it's a useful parenting realization.
80.--Oh. Good thing there are some actual parents around.
I'm really coming around to the parasite model of human reproduction. If it weren't for the maternal hormones pumped into new mothers, I don't think any of us little shits would make it to our 6-month birthday.
Yeah, slings are good - the stretchy wrap kind are good for newish babies. It seems like a rational stance for babies to take - they've been *inside* someone for months, so to now be completely alone must be weird/horrible for them.
I always felt a bit stupid wearing a sling indoors for some reason, so I just carried them about. It doesn't last that long.
I like it here at Unfogged because no one else I know online is here. I think.
Oh, he's a month!! A month is when PK had a sudden stage of crying a lot like that. Even while I was holding and rocking him. It really only lasted for a week or two. It'll be okay. At that age they grow out of this stuff really fast. Just hang in there.
Or another tip - have another baby (ok, bit slow to work this one) - my subsequent three hardly ever cried, whereas with the first one we had the traditional nights of pacing up and down with her. I think it's just because I realised it was a lot easier to go with the baby's agenda rather than mine. Actually, my partner and I were talking about this last night, and he says it's just because I fed them every time they opened their mouths, whereas he wasn't so well-equipped and had to suffer them crying.
PK always hated the sling too. The Baby Bjorn, however, went over well with him. If baby Landers wants both hands holding him, it's probably (I'd guess) just a sensory adjustment thing: two hands feels comfortable and warm, and the change is upsetting.
Take advantage of the phase, dude. Use it to establish a ground rule: whoever is holding the baby is thereby absolved of all other responsibility.
I'm a regular reader, often scan the comments for amusement, but rarely comment -- it's just too wild and scary here.
I'm an infrequent visitor, so I feel terrible attempting a coup on this planetary open thread, but what is the best way to get motivated for the writing of grad school personal statements?
Or, if that question doesn't suit your fancy, maybe this picture will:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2006/aug06/USPROcrit06/?id=/photos/2006/aug06/USPROcrit06/USPROcrit063/DS06_eliteWomen_03
Do you live in a house with a dryer? My nephew could be lulled to sleep by putting him in a basket on top of the dryer and turning it on. White noise + vibration + warmth.
I read the posts and often the comments -- but comment myself approximately never. And I check for updates during the day frequently -- whenever I should be doing something else.
94 -- plus if he's wet himself you can just tuck him inside for a couple minutes.
96.--My mom was horrified to find out, ten or fifteen years later, that we kids used to give each other rides in the dryer when we were very small. Once of us would climb in with all our stuffed animals, and the others would push the drum. We only thought to tell her when she wondered why the dryer door, which opened to form a nice plank into the dryer, had never closed properly all those years.
i've lurked on three computers for a year or so. this is my first comment. i worry less about being witty than falling through a rabbit hole into that other dimension known as mineshaft.
babies sometimes stop crying if you blow softly on their faces, especially their eyes. they may also close their eyes and go to sleep if you're lucky. play them track 8 ("we will rock you") from linda ronstadt's album of lullabies over and over. that part's just to make *you* happy.
Thanks for all the advice, people.
91: ohh, that's good news -- the Baby Bjorn is ready and waiting for him, he just needs to grow a bit more to be big enough to use it. (He was a premie and is a tiny little guy.)
Also, things aren't really so bad now, with two of us here at home, so we can basically do as you suggest (one person holds the baby, the other does everything else, then we rotate), but my very generous paternity leave is about to expire, and I am/we are really starting to be concerned about how Mrs. Landers is going to do this while she's here by herself.
Also, 83 really, really stunned me, and left me puzzling about a major security breach, but then I realized you were just making a joke. Ha.
Also, will no one answer 62.2?
93: My advice re. "personal statements" is to *not* think of them as grad school personal statements. Think of it as a letter to your favorite aunt or something, a response to her asking why you're going to grad school to study ___. Just use a conversational tone and talk about why you like ___, what you hope to learn, what your favorite aspect of it is, what you'd like to study, and so on. Imagine auntie being intelligent and inquiring and genuinely interested in what you think, so that she asks follow-up questions like, "yes, I like the Romantics too, but why do you want to spend the next several years studying them intensively?"
Also I feel compelled to say I totally love these delurking threads.
100 -- No way, you mean Becks guessed right?
(Er, uh, I mean LizardBreath, who was the author of 83.)
"literacy h. dogfight" is a wonderful name.
I think Mr. Dogfight has sent me spam e-mails in the past.
Also, a different topic for the open thread: I have good reason to believe that LB doesn't actually live/work in NYC as she claims.
100: If the baby hasn't outgrown this phase by the time you leave, the way Mrs. Landers will handle it is the same way I did: she'll get up and eat a little something, and spend most of the day sitting around watching tv and holding the baby and eating chocolate by the pound (literally, I did that. A pound a day) or whatever other easy food that requires little preparation she likes, and/or lying down with the baby on the bed and snoozing. Until he does outgrow the phase. I hope she can bring herself to just embrace the laziness, because increasingly the baby is not going to give her many opportunities to *not* do things.
but my very generous paternity leave is about to expire, and I am/we are really starting to be concerned about how Mrs. Landers is going to do this while she's here by herself.
This is a sucks-to-be-you moment, but the way she handles it is that as you walk through the door at night, take the baby. She can make dinner, or order takeout, or whatever, but let her off baby-duty as fast as practically possible, from when you get home until bedtime (you can keep trading off at night.) That's tough on you, because you're working all day and then baby-holding all evening, but it's the best thing you can do for her.
(And sorry about the lucky guess on the name. In fact, just a joke.)
62.2 As I understand it, Clementine is just a good friend.
106 - huh? I have pretty good reason to believe LB is being straight with us on that question.
Kids do the darndest things. When we were really little we used to zip each other up in suitcases and then throw the suitcases down flights of stairs. This was usually fun, but sometimes hurt, and occassionally hurt a lot. Luckily, no permanent damage was ever done, at least not that I am aware of.
I'd have sworn 111 said "98-" at the top.
105: nice call. the name was, indeed, extracted from spam in the inbox many moons ago. i've always conceptualized it as "ms" rather then "mr" but i suppose literacy could be like a puritan version of kelly or tony or gerry.
109- Because I met someone who claimed to be you, who doesn't live in NYC. She fit all your other attributes (what I guess to be your name, litigator, married/children).
I actually think she was totally putting me on, but it was a weird experience.
99: Or play We Will Rock You by Queen, loudly, at which point no one will hear the baby cry.
No shit. Really? That's the freakiest thing I've ever heard of. I am entirely weirded out here.
Um, it wasn't me.
(I'm genuinely somewhat disturbed here -- if you're just kidding, please do let me off the hook.)
Too cool! There are LB-impersonators walking among us!
I don't want to reveal too much, for fear that the person I met actually *is* you and I'm divulging confidential information, but in case you are curious it turns out you actually live in Chicago IRL. You only live in NYC online.
LB will be the new Elvis.
115: You have to expand on the situation you'd be in where someone would claim to be a pseudonymous blogger. I have no evidence that LB lives where she says she does other than her consistently saying so and being familiar with that area when I've brought it up. But as for where she works, she's either a fairly skilled and stealthy hacker or is telling the truth.
i've lurked for a while, but have been posting a bit lately. i needed to stop posting at the other forum i used to frequent.
-- impersonators may go with her youthful "Samoa" period, or the older LB, defending tobacco companies in Vegas lounges.
Yow. I suppose "stealthy hacker" isn't a bad persona.
116: but linda's version is so much more pleasant. and it has sounds of actual heartbeats and nipple-sucking as percussion.
i've never met any of you fuckers as far as i know. but i like your style.
117 - sadly, no, I'm serious. Although I don't think she was a professional, full-time LB impersonator or anything. I think she was just pulling my chain (and unfogged was a topic of conversation, so it wasn't totally random). So you needn't be too weirded out.
And 121: How does this conversation happen?
When I lived in NYC, total strangers would come up to me and greet me effusively, calling me "Marilyn" and asking where I'd been lately. Clearly, LB = "Marilyn" and was using my body for nefarious acts such as Tupperware parties.
Just what one would expect from an alien being from a saurian planet.
I know I tell women that I'm LB. Chycks dig it.
So the LizardBreath I met in Chicago. . . .
Oh, way upthread LB said something about lurkers not needing to be active commenters all day, every day. I so need to internalize that myself.
I like to think that we are all brothers and sisters in LB. Maybe she meant that.
One word about the dryer thing: make sure the basket/seat/whatever is secure. Things can slowly creep across the vibrating top, and slip off in the second you've got your back turned. (You probably knew that, but I remember not thinking too clearly in those first sleepless months.)
PK's favorite lullabye music was the Blackeyed Peas' first album. I shit you not. I highly recommend rap or some other non-quiet, heavily syncopated music for the babies; if you can condition them to sleep through that, it'll make your life easier later.
127- we were talking about things, and blogs came up, and unfogged came up, and she said "funny you should mention, you're never going to believe this but..." and claimed to be you. I said "you're shitting me, no, I don't believe it", but she kept it up (and gave me quite a few inside details, which I presume were bullshit, although I can't be 100% certain, since I've never before actually met you).
We were both fairly drunk, if that makes it easier to conceptualize. Actually, to tell you the truth, we were both a bit drink whether or not that makes it easier to conceptualize. Stupid biscuits.
133 is also a good reason to go with inside, rather than on top.
she said "funny you should mention, you're never going to believe this but..." and claimed to be you
This is truly strange. So you have no idea who this woman really was? Where's Silvana been lately?
"drunk", not "drink". Damn typos.
138- So you have no idea who this woman really was?
Yes, I do know who she was. I know her real name, and now know some of her friends and colleagues.
I don't know who LB really is.
Unless they are the same person.
(Which I sort of doubt. Though weirder things could happen.)
132: Do we have a secret handshake? A lapel pin? An anthem?
I honestly sort of assumed she just sort of liked lying (she was a lawyer, after all), and did so rather randomly as something of a personality quirk*. Perhaps just to see what exactly she could and could not get other people to believe. (Arguably useful professional training, in her line of work.)
*"quirk" really s/b "defect" IMO, but I don't want to offend anybody.
As I said, I'm 90% certain she was bullshitting me.
(PS - If there is a lurker (or regular?) who wants to confess to offline LB impersonation, please feel free to speak up.)
Stupid biscuits.
Right, you have unleashed the fuckin' fury.
131: I rationalise it by remembering that my doctor has told me [again] to stay off my feet. Of course, he also told me to elevate my foot above my heart, which makes it too hard to type, so I don't.
OTOH, there's a manuscript sitting here that wishes I would read it and make comments so that the author can get to work on his re-write. I rationalise not doing that with the thought that the author is having fun at a convention this weekend, whilst I am stuck in bed.
At times I've imagined a scenario in which a pseudonymous blogger/commenter decides to quit their online activities and passes the pseudonymous persona on to someone else without anyone else ever being aware of the change in underlying identity. Kind of like the Dread Pirate Roberts.
141 - Hilarious in a "would completely creep me out if that happened to me" way. Yick.
Now I'm curious about what the presumably bogus inside details were. Did she tell you about my affair with Labs?
Greetings all. Frequent visitor, infrequent commenter.
I come just for the reassurance that I'm not the strangest person in the world. Turns out I'm not even the strangest person in this comment thread. I'm feelin' better already.
Okay, back to the more important issue: several weeks ago co-sleeping was recommended by various parties here. But isn't this a big SIDS risk? It would certainly be a whole lot easier, but it seems that all the medical advice is against it.
Also, B: you said you somehow decided to cut PKs night-time feeds from however long to something like 20 minutes. Umm... how? How do you tell a feeding baby that he's had enough? Almost every feeding is taking an hour or more, but he just cries with hunger if we pull him off the breast before he decides he's done. Cutting these to 20 minutes (or so) would be a lifesaver, especially at night.
Sorry to hog the thread with personal issues. My courtesy went out the window with my sleep.
146: OMG, I've so considered doing that....
146: I have suspicions that "Becks" is actually the product of a multinational consortium.
142 -- "Who wants to fuck Dikembe?" is popular.
Uh, my cats tend to settle down in the car if I play a Suzanne Vega album.
Seriously, I have never been so glad to be gay.
(Also, I check Unfogged from two different IPs, but one of those is the one I share with Rah, so it all comes out in the wash.)
But isn't this a big SIDS risk?
No, really. Assuming you're not morbidly obese or drunk, there's no significant risk here. You don't have to co-sleep, but if your wife can figure out the simultaneous nursing and sleeping thing she'll get much more sleep.
153: Wrong!!! The correct phrase is "Who wants to sex Mutombo?"
Guards, take this impostor to the Gitmo Room and induce him to tell us what he's done with the real Clownęsthesiologist!
150: Drs. Sears say no increased SIDS risk. They recommend co-sleeping.
146: That happened with Wonkette. Except that they went and told everyone. It'd be awesomer just done on the sly.
150: Have you tried a pacifier? Some kids want them (Newt) some don't (Sally). It is possible that you've got a kid who just wants something in his mouth.
On the other hand, both of mine were big on the ludicrously protracted feeds, so I'm not much help here.
I'm pretty sure LB is who she says she is, and will confess to having spent a few minutes one bored Saturday afternoon in the office figuring out her secret identity (picture and everything!) from information she's posted here.
143: I really like lying and would just like to say that "defect" doesn't offend me in the least.
160: Not that I mind your knowing, but could you email me your thought process? I'd like it to be hard to figure out from public info, and I'm wondering if I'm overlooking a big hole.
160- holy crap, picture too? Freaky. I see how it could work in theory, but there must be a few personal details I've missed along the way, or else I don't know how you'd know you had the right person.
Also, you're a psycho.
Anyone who's got the name has the picture. I'm on my firm's website, and my name's unique.
Better yet, post your thought process here. We could make a Friday afternoon game out of discerning LB's identity.
Well, PK wasn't a preemie; he was a 10-pounder. We co-slept, and yeah, they *say* it's a risk for SIDS, but jesus. Everything's a fucking risk with babies, but most of them survive. You can get one of those "co-sleeper" things that attaches to the side of the bed and is basically a crib without a wall; if PK were a preemie, I might have done that. But as it was, we just put him in the middle of the bed, pulled the blankets way down and the pillows far apart, and slept. It was fine. (I also put him to sleep on his belly, b/c he *would not* sleep on his back. Since he mostly slept in whatever room I was in, I figured I'd notice if he died.)
Re. the 20 minutes, I just took him off and rocked him and he didn't fuss too much. You might try a pacifier? I mean, consult your doctor and all that since he's a preemie and I don't know if you have weight gain or milk production issues, but there is a difference between nursing for food and nursing for comfort. Both are totally valid, but if mama needs a break, she should have one.
The other thing is that it was at this age, a month, that I introduced a bottle. And once again, "they" say don't do that; nipple confusion bladebladeblah. But it didn't cause any problems with nursing, and it sure gave me a damn break....
Good luck. The biggest thing with them at this age is that everything seems *so* monumentally huge, but really, they change so quickly that it will really be sooner than you think that whatever it is that's being awful will have become some other awful thing.
Personally, I would rather not link real identities to my favorite pseudonymous net.personalities because I think that would somehow undo the magic of it all.
155 - or a smoker. And be sensible about covers etc (though I never was, they all seemed to sleep better the more burrowed down into the bed and my body that they were).
He's a month old preemie - I don't think you want to be reducing feed times for a while yet. Yes, it all seems terribly hard atm, but it only lasts for a very short time in the grand scheme of things. Everyone gets through it; you will too. I found it all much easier when I thought about it from their point of view, and trusted that they knew what they needed, and stopped worrying about what I wanted to do.
Learning to feed lying down - though this might take a while as he's very small still - is great, much easier to cope with long feeds when you can latch them on and then sleep (or at least doze) through it.
When you go back to work - leave her food that can be eaten easily! Buy her some good books. And yes, even cooking dinner or doing laundry makes a change from looking after a baby - don't come home and think you'll make dinner so she can rest, she'll almost definitely want a break.
I figured I'd notice if he died.
You'd probably eventually notice this regardless of where he slept, no?
Also, it's totally and undoubtedly comfort sucking. But that doesn't make him cry and less when he's without.
We've been told not to give him a pacifier (which I think would be a huge help) just yet, because of nipple confusion. (He's already had some problems with this, so I don't think it's totally unreasonable.)
re 166: i second bitch's calls re: co-sleeping and bottles/pacifiers. my kids are totally normal and did all three, and both parents would have been insane if we hadn't.
and re: nippleconfusion -- i'm pretty sure i received a combination of flesh and plastic and i've never been confused about which is which as an adult.
it all seems terribly hard atm
Was this intentional? If so, bravo.
I'm a regular reader, often scan the comments for amusement, but rarely comment -- it's just too wild and scary here.
This from the herald of our new squid overlords.
Okay, if no pacifier, then give him a pinkie finger. Cut your nails short. They don't care what they suck on; they just want to suck. And surely your wife's nipples are killing her at this point, so even if some other body part is being sucked on, it's got to at least have the benefit of novelty.
168, etc.: Your experience with PK sounds very much like ours. The kid just was not happy being left by himself, so he got held all the time, slept with us, etc. Except ours decided that he had no interest at all in the bottle and only wanted to be breast-fed, which was a problem because he wasn't getting enough to eat and driving both my wife and himself nuts. At five months, his pediatrician said we needed to put him on the bottle because he hadn't gained any weight in a month, whereupon we cut off the breastfeeding and went through a whole damn day of trying and failing to get him to take the bottle. The next morning, he woke up, squalled, I stuck a bottle in his face, he gave me an extremely dirty look and then finally gave in and took it, and away we went.
We survived and so did he.
173: It turns out that it is possible to drive a stickshift for many, many miles in heavy traffic with one pinky stuck in a baby's mouth.
We survived and so did he.
This sentence is the most important thing to know about raising kids. It is almost always true, and it often is the best you can do.
175: Yes! It's also possible to be going down the interstate while leaning over the back of the passenger seat with an exposed boob hanging into the baby's mouth.
Of course, someone else has to be driving.
Sounds possible, but awkward. Wouldn't it be easier to just get into the back seat with the baby?
177: I haven't tried that one, but I'll take your word for it.
162:
You are. I'll e-mail you too, in case my way is dfferent from Dave's
171 - I'm missing something .... I typed what I meant to type, but I don't get the "bravo"?
My eldest two absorbed the lesson of "stick your finger in he baby's mouth if she cries" so well, that as soon as she was anywhere near them a finger would get shoved in her mouth whether she wanted it or not. We have several pictures of a half-choked baby. She didn't cry much though, too surprised.
Oh, what pretty children you have.
(picture and everything!)
I know what DaveL's desktop wallpaper looks like.
Oh, what pretty children you have.
Time for LB's mid-afternoon snack.
183: Nah, I was just being bored, not creepy. Sometimes the lawyer crap comes up and it's nice to know who you're commiserating with.
Besides, the giant cocks on my desktop wallpaper leave little room for anything else.
I think this is the right place to post my confession that I just applied for a credit card for the first time in my life. Just in time for our glorious new future of indentured servitude and debtor's prisons.
Not when driving down the interstate in a standard transmission so much, no. Plus the angle of tit to baby is actually easier if you're leaning over the car seat than it is if you're sitting next to it.
credit card for the first time in my life
Pay it off every month, dude! Don't even fuck around.
I'm totally planning to. I'm scared of the interest rate. Let's just say I'm in a situation where I'm, ah, rebuilding my credit.
Okay, one more topic for the open thread (you should have these more often): I am under orders from an unusually hormonal wife to give money to some charity that helps starving African children. She doesn't so much care which one, so long as they have pictures of starving children somewhere in their marketing materials.
Any suggestions for a good organization?
My sister is a fan of Mercy Corps. I don't know much about them other than that, but my sister is conscientious to a fault so I tend to trust her.
191: I'm particularly fond of Heifer International.
Oxfam's nice, I think.
And 198, 190: This is, I think, a useful venue for guilt and shame. If you can talk yourself into being disgusted and horrified by the prospect of carrying a balance, you're in good shape. (I was raised irrationally in this regard, and it has served me well.)
And heh re. hormonal. I remember that feeling. It doesn't really go away; I still see most international things largely in terms of how they affect children. I think that's probably a good thing.
191: Heifer International.
They have projects all over the world, not just Africa, including in the US. They've got a great but flexible general model and a great track record.
Pwnd, but at least it was for a good cause.
Ooh, I have an open thread comment, too. Anyone who wants to see our house--which is to say, my decorating sense and Mr. B.'s hard, hard work (seriously, the place was pea-soup green, with cracked paint and windows that didn't work and like three feet of counter space in the kitchen (which we completely gutted and redid) and smelled like an ashtray), email me and I'll link you to the realtor's site with pictures! If, that is, I realize who you are.
I realize no one is actually that interested, but I'm all excited that it actually looks good. Of course, we're also showing the damn thing at 9:30 tomorrow morning, which means I have to get myself and PK up and out of the house early. But hey.
Okay, thanks for the tips, but I was just overruled: we gave money to "World Vision". They apparantly have the hungriest looking children on their website, says Mrs. Landers, and I don't have energy for arguing right now. (And believe it or not, they actually really do, I'm not joking, provide desparately needed Bibles to starving African children. Which I found hilarious when I thought it was just a joke Onion article, but which is almost sickening to see in real life. We gave money to provide food, not Bibles -- you get to choose -- but still...)
Also, 197: Heifer Int'l provides cows or pigs or ducklings to poor families in the US?? That seems, um, silly. (not as silly as providing bibles to hungry africans, but silly nonetheless). Or do they have some other sort of programs for US relief?
Okay, thanks for the tips, but I was just overruled: we gave money to "World Vision". They apparantly have the hungriest looking children on their website, says Mrs. Landers, and I don't have energy for arguing right now. (And believe it or not, they actually really do, I'm not joking, provide desparately needed Bibles to starving African children. Which I found hilarious when I thought it was just a joke Onion article, but which is almost sickening to see in real life. We gave money to provide food, not Bibles -- you get to choose -- but still...)
Also, 197: Heifer Int'l provides cows or pigs or ducklings to poor families in the US?? That seems, um, silly. (not as silly as providing bibles to hungry africans, but silly nonetheless). Or do they have some other sort of programs for US relief?
First time I read this blog you all were making fun of a sex scene from one of Willaim F. Buckley's novels, where the protagonist was counting out thrusts and whatnot. I've been a devoted, non-commenting fan ever since.
I'll give some money to Heifer Int'l on the side to assuage my conscience.
Heifer Int'l provides cows or pigs or ducklings to poor families in the US?? That seems, um, silly.
Not in, for example, Appalachia, or on certain Indian Reservations, or in rural Alabama or Mississipi. Not all poor people live in urban settings. A hutch of rabbits or coop full of chickens can make a huge difference with regard to food security for the rural poor, as well as a potential source of cash income.
But Heifer's model is flexible and pragmatic, and doesn't always involve livestock. See, for example, their NYC City Farms Project.
52 - I have commented once or twice, but using the firstname.lastname combination, which apparently makes me completely unmemorable.
You need to use firstname.middlename.lastname. No one forgets pretentious fucks.*
*Never hurts to actually be a pretentious fuck every once in while, too.
No one forgets pretentious fucks.*
"Be a good chap and bend over a little further, would you? I just need someplace to rest my sherry. Super!"
"Rest my sherry", now there's an inspired euphemism.
OT, but rape statistics are down an astounding 85% since 1980. Found via this unpersuasive explanation. It is more likely to me that this is due to feminist influence on the law and public policy since 1970. I do think it would be a good idea for feminism, evironmentalism and other liberal causes to take credit for actual past success. America likes winners rather than pessimists.
I'll third the recommendation for Heifer Project. They let you donate toward projects in a specific region if you desire, and I think even toward specific animals. When I was a kid we raised a baby goat for them, til it was old enough to ship off to Central America.
I read, don't comment. Does that make me a bad person? Don't answer, because it will be misconstrued.
My parents gave me the keys to a camper/trailer which was parked in the back yard when I was 16. Sort of a guest house thingy, and of course it soon became my personal den of iniquity. We never discussed it then, or later, but seems kind of like a green light was implicit, right?
Forward... into the past!
17: Yes, to be technical, but possibly no more than a dozen times, and never in a very interactive way.
18: On the other hand, I'm very flattered to have my sex mis-divined! Is it because I use a bird name as my monicker? It don't signify nothin'. (Or maybe you were choosing at random.)
We give Heifer donations to our families every Christmas. They're a very cool charity.
Random, possibly inspired by reading Mini as Minnie. Consider yourself masculinized.
Instead of a kitten, I'm getting rudeness about enabling java...
Jesus McQueen ate the kitten with butter and garlic.
You must think I'm some kind of barbarian. Garlic is much too assertive with kitten; I prefer shallots.
You can mellow the garlic out nicely by sauteeing it gently in the butter over low heat for a few minutes.
I think this is the right place to post my confession that I just applied for a credit card for the first time in my life. Just in time for our glorious new future of indentured servitude and debtor's prisons.
I just found four inexplicable charges, made online, on my most recent credit card statement! Good thing I have two with me or I'd be right fucked when it came to making purchases not with cash.
167: Yeah, I looked at LB's picture, and she looks all wrong. Distracting.
The weirdest thing about LB's picture is that she looks nothing like it in person.
I should add I discovered LB's secret identity by the ingenious method of emailing her and getting a reply.
145: I often sit with my feet above my heart (and head) wheen reading blogs.
Topic switch: What recommendations do folks have re: good science fiction for someone who's never read sci fi before? I'd at least like a good plot, good character development, perhaps something in a series...I like following characters through series. TIA.
"The Great Work of Time" (not a series).
dune is a great place to start. if you like it, only the first four are good, the last two are sorta bad. (which is a common probably with sci-fi series)
gene wolf's 'book of the new sun' series. its intricate, slow reading, lots of stuff going on.
Not Dune.
Stanislaw Lem. Or Philip K. Dick. Of course, I'm not really a sci-fi fan.
For a lot of SF in a series, you're going to have to expand your idea of what counts as a character. In Dune, the planentary system is the main character. (Only read the first one.) In Asimov's Foundation series, a particular vision of history is the main character. (Only read the first three.)
Other recommendations: Card's Ender's Game (only read the first one), Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age (not a series)...
I don't care about space, so my recommendations tend to reflect that. Also, when I say "don't read X," I mean that I think it's ok not to read X, not that you shouldn't, per se.
JM is right about Foundation, but I thought all of the Dune books were worth reading. It's true the quality goes down as the series goes on, but it starts from a place of very high quality. Same with Ender's Game.
Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist, and Naked God are quite enjoyable, if you have the temperment for space opera. Otherwise, try the trilogy that begins with Mindstar Rising which is a detective series.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is worth your while.
Without any hints of your taste I can only tell you my own favorites.
The short fiction of Avram Davidson. Jack Vance, maybe my favorite writer. Stanislav Lem.
Oh, Flowers for Algernon, while not exactly a favorite, is quite good, and seems like the kind of novel people of diverse tastes could all like.
I just now realized what has been bothering me so much about my newborn's face: when he's upset (but not so upset that he's wailing) he gets a smirk on his face that I swear he looks just like this. It's really scary. I knew there was something familiar about it, but I hadn't been able to quite place it. Maybe now that I've identified it I'll be able to get over it or something.
I lurk frequently and have posted only once or twice (not under this handle).
Science fiction: David Brin's uplift series -- Sundiver, Earth Tide Rising, .... Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Red and Green are the best.
PS- my recommendation in 225 was made without ever having read the book, or seen the movie, or otherwise knowing anything about the book other than if one is interested in sci-fi, that's supposed to be just about the best place to start. So take the recommendation with a grain of salt. Although I feel fully vindicated by 227 and 232.
My sci-fi loving friend is a big fan of the late Octavia Butler.
Not Book of the New Sun, for beginners. It's very difficult and also makes no sense (not necessarily a criticism). Lem is very cool, though I'm not the biggest SF fan either.
235: Brock, it's the antichrist. You're simply going to have to drown him.
I guess I'm an sf fan, since some of my favorite writers wrote (among other things) science fiction. I'm not that fond of most sf, or most sf classics, though.
Yeah, you can skip Dune. Bemused's recommendation of the Uplift trilogy (the first one. The second trilogy can bite me) is a good one. This is hard stuff to recommend to someone who hasn't read any of it, though -- I grew up on it, so most of the tropes are sort of comfortably familiar. I'm not sure what's going to be hard to start out with.
Avram Davidson and Jack Vance are both excellent suggestions -- Vance is sort of baroquely ornate, so if that sounds like the sort of thing you'd like, go for it.
Bester's The Demolished Man does a nice job on a telepathic society.
James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon) wrote a lot of wonderful stories. In fact, I'm going to throw out a proposition: Short science fiction is, on average, better as literature than novel-length science fiction. Not so much true for stuff written in, say, the 90's and later, but before then I'd argue that that's true.
Vernor Vinge? The Peace War, and Marooned in Realtime?
Iain M. Banks: The Player of Games.
Jeff Vandermeer: Veniss Underground and City of Saints and Madmen.
A better way to put it would be that I'm fond of science fiction, and ven more so 'literary' fantasy, but not an sf fan per se. I really don't identify with fandom.
Being an SF 'Fan' doesn't have all that much to do with reading the stuff. I read it, but I've got no connection to the social end of being a fan.
Lois McMaster Bujold isn't great literature, but her stuff is very entertaining and character-heavy.
No, exactly. But I also meant that I'm unimpressed by most of the sf canon, and so don't identify myself as an sf fan even in a looser sense.
All right, not "fan" then. What I meant is, it's a genre I actively tend to avoid.
Am I a terrible person if I didn't really enjoy Vandemeer's City of Saints and Madmen?
It's a rare fantasy novel that can make people feel guilty for not liking it. Nice work there, Jeff; probably not what you were aiming for, but a decent second-best.
(I can see how it might grate, though I enjoyed it quite a bit).
233: I just watched the movie last night. Do fans of the book generally think the movie sucked? I was a bit let down.
Haven't gotten through all your suggestions yet, but have to step away for a bit. Will check back in later.
Weird -- last night's dream had your Clownæ trolling (unsuccessfully) for pity fucks among the girls of Unfogged. Also featured newspaper headlines stating that today, the plane of planetary motion was at a maximum angle of 3 degrees to the plane of the e[c]liptic as predicted by Tycho Brahe -- I'm pretty sure this was a riff on a poorly-remembered Pogo joke of long ago.
I had a dream last night in which I owned a young dog and played with it and had fun. A dog? What's wrong with me?
You'll need to talk to Emerson about that.
I really liked Lem's His Master's Voice. Matt McIrvin, who sometimes comments here, has a set of pages about Lem.
People sometimes claim that Dick's VALIS, The Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer form a trilogy, but I didn't really see it aside from similar thematic concerns. You can apparently purchase them as a set. VALIS is pretty trippy but A Scanner Darkly has some really funny parts (based on the previews it looks as if the movie version will/does suck hard).
251 and 252 kind of sound like the same dream to me.
What? I'm not saying we're dogs; I'm saying, puppies are fun and cute and all that.
257: all that = totally fuckable.
You'll need to talk to Emerson about that.
I'm perfectly happy to serve as a screen for everyone else's forbidden desires.
I've heard that Bataille originally wanted to write about bestiality instead of necrophiliac incest, but his friends convinced him that it would be too squicky.
I can heartily second recommendations for Gene Wolfe's New Sun and Long Sun series. They're part of that subgenre of scifi that strays into actual literature. As does China Mieville's The Scar and Perdido Street Station (not serial). I wouldn't say the same about Neal Stephenson's books but nonetheless found them seminal to my personal growing appreciation of scifi. Of course Dune and Asimov's short stories, and would only add a little known trilogy by C.S.Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Not to mention Tolkien, especially if you add The Silmarillion to The Lord of the Rings. I read a short story compilation by Roger Zelazny recently that was really good.
I am not a fan of scifi, but these books got through to me despite my aversion to the schlock that makes up the majority of the genre.
I think you should try reading China Mieville's books. Evidence: I have never enjoyed a single science fiction/fantasy book even a tiny amount, and I've tried several of them. Except for his, which are all great. (especially Perdido Street Station) And I am now trying to read something by Dan Simmons, with a more charitable eye than I gave it many years ago.
As does China Mieville's The Scar and Perdido Street Station (not serial).
These are good, as is Iron Council. They are all set in the same world, although the plots aren't strongly connected. But I think they'd make most sense read in the order written, PSS, TS and IC.
I readUnfogged all the time, generally weekdays as I don't have the internets at home, and almost always on RSS. I check it a few times a day so I can keep up with the comments - like most of you, I'm addicted and I love the abundant supply of my fix. I don't comment that regularly as I often feel that what I might have to say doesn't add that much to the conversation.
I suppose I should try to adopt a better pseud a la comments in other threads - this one is unimaginatively derived from my name. Christening suggestions welcome.
I've always read your handle, emr, as being pronounced "emir," so you may want to work with that.
And I am now trying to read something by Dan Simmons
I'm going to insist that a sci-fi novice who wants to read Gene Wolfe had better start with The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories rather than New Sun. Even though annie expressed preference for a series.
Speaking of actual literature, no one has recommended Ursula Le Guin. The only series of hers I know of is Earthsea, which is fantasy rather than sci-fi, but she's good. Though I also tend to think she proves LB's point in 242, her short stories are better.
The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories
Cool! So the title story itself includes other stories?
Mmm. The only thing against Earthsea is that if you're the sort of person who has a problem reading children's books, you won't like it. I think the initial trilogy is great, but it does read juvenile --while I'll happily read children's books all day, many people get an attitude about it. (The fourth and fifth books are less juvenile. I hated the fourth book with a consuming passion, and thought the fifth was decent but not excitingly wonderful.)
I keep on recommending fantasy rather than SF, but what about Peter S. Beagle? He hasn't written all that many novels (four, five?) but I love them all truly.
267: One of which is 'The Death of Doctor Island'.
Oh, John Brunner. Shockwave Rider and Stand On Zanzibar.
And another of which is "The Doctor of Death Island."
But he never did the Kenosha, kid.
The island of Dr. Death
Creeps in its petty pace from day to day...
. . . To the last syllable of recorded time,
Speaking of which! Michael Moorcock's The Dancers at the End of Time is a favourite of mine.
I second Weiner's recommendation that annie not start with The Book of the New Sun. It's hard enough to follow what's going on even when you're familiar with all the tropes of sci-fi and fantasy; it seems like a terrible place to start.
250: Do fans of the book generally think the movie sucked?
Oh god yes.
265: That doesn't bother me but it's probably misleading in one or more ways. For a start, I am far from swarthy even for an Irish person.
Science fiction - I like Michael Marshall Smith, and his stuff is pretty accessible. Only Forward, his first, is my favourite. Second the Iain (M) Banks recommendation. Also, Kage Baker, In the Garden of Iden and follow-ups. Time travel is always good.
(Don't understand why preview shows no spaces after full stops and commas although comment box does.)
I don't think that "misleading" is a problem. You can field the Middle Easterner-stereotype jokes that "ogged the Mexican" misses.
Thanks, everyone. I'm starting w/The Hitchhiker's Guide in audio form.
276: Audio books, or the BBC radio shows? They're entirely different, and if I were going to listen to them, I'd listen to the radio shows, and read the books on paper another time.
(This is probably obnoxiously useless, given that you almost certainly have the audio book you're going to listen to already.)
Ooh. Didn't know there was a BBC radio show. The audiobook is from the library, so I can return if I find the radio show. I'm looking for stuff to listen to while on the train, treadmill, etc.
According to these comments the radio show is difficult to find.
I just went looking for it, and found this page, which purports to have links to the whole show as mp3s. On the other hand, if I wanted to spread horrible malware, free downloads of the HHTTG radio show is exactly what I'd put them in. So I wouldn't actually download anything from that page unless you're the sort of person who knows enough to tell if it's safe. (Which I'm not. At all.)
275: I see your point, Jackmormon. It'd actually entertain me if people's vague mental image is, say, the Emir of Bukhara. If I get bored I can always extend it to "the Emir of Icecream" or something. Thanks!
281: He looks like he's been told to sit outside in the hallway and think about what a bad Emir he's been.
The radio show of HHTTG is, in fact, the original creation. The book was written much later, as were all the other incarnations.
Speaking as someone who grew up in sf fandom, and first started working professionally as an sf editor at the age of 15, I have to emphasize that it's largely useless to recommend any given set of sf stories, books, or authors, to anyone new to the genre (and its many subgenres), without a mildly lengthy exchange of Q&As as to their taste; the field is far too heterodox, and few enough people have taste that is so wide-ranging that there's much chance of, by random luck, striking on the particular type of sf and author that will work for them. The odds are about 9-1 or worse that you'll recommend the wrong writer, and not many people want to sample fifty different types of sf writer in order to find The Right Type. SF simply is that diverse.
(Something people who believe they hate sf might keep in mind, though it's true that there is a fair percentage of people who are simply repelled, or even unable to make sense of, pretty much anything that has unrealistic content of any sort, just as there is a significant percentage of the population that simply can't read fiction, period; on the other hand, there's a segment of sf that is extremely realistic, save for a single premise, as well. And, of course, no genre should be judged by its junk, and I'd never deny that there's plenty of crap sf, as well as plenty of non-crap for many tastes.)
All I can say is that I've got experience of about 35 years at this, and when people recommend what they like, rather than what the person asking likes, it almost never succeeds.
"I'd at least like a good plot, good character development, perhaps something in a series...I like following characters through series."
Way way way insufficient. Can you name ten favorite books, stories, series, and/or authors, of whatever genre? What sort of fiction have you liked up to now? Genres, types, lengths? Do you like complex, baroque prose, or short and clear? Sympathetic characters, anti-heros, bildungsroman, villains? Do you like or hate stories with heavy science content? As regards particular scientific fields? As regards social implications of technology? Do you like adventure, or more realism? More fantastic or less? Does reading about alien races intrigue you or repel you? Works with a lot of alien terminology? Stuff about outer space? Stuff that might be dated but classic? Stuff with time travel? Stuff from a feminist perspective? Gay perspective? Stuff with or without any notable sexual content? Military content? More literary or less? Stuff that requires some work from the reader but repays, or not? Any preference for male or female protagonists? Humorous approach, or not? (If not, you're in trouble with HHGTTG.)
I got more where that came from, but that's the start of a conversation that might start to get somewhere.
Note to LB: although I've of course known who you are for eons now, I'd never actually looked at your firm's site, and seen the picture. So, in fact, while anyone could have found it, not everyone had; datapoint. (Also: pretty! ;-))
Oh, and a far better place to ask The Question than here would be rec.arts.sf.written, which you can access via Google Groups. I realize this is spoilsporty, but just sayin'.
Actually, just click here.
283: You can always tell a Farber post about halfway through the first sentence. I wonder who else is as easily identifiable.
