Blogging in the rain -- really!

Can't blog ... I'm too busy watching the rain. Not that you guys would call it rain, of course, but hey -- this is the first time WATER has dropped willy-nilly out of the sky, since something like October! So even though it hasn't rained much (most of the time you could count the splashes as they hit the pavers) you just had to stop and stare.

Of course, its all over now. The radar map shows blue skies behind the current overcast, and since the wind just got up these clouds will be gone before long.

But it was nice while it lasted:
There you are ... WET and everything. Water on the sidewalk. Clouds in the sky. Makes a difference, I'll tell you.

The rain is one of a couple of Significant Happenings in the last 24 hours. The second is that the proof copies of Equinox and Scorpio have arrived, and they are superb. CreateSpace has done a marvelous job, as usual. Now, we're waiting on the proofs for Stopover and Aphelion, and then -- the book launch at Amazon for the whole NARC series, all of a piece. For which, expect a newsletter...

Otherwise, it's work as usual. The Kindle situation remains in limbo ... I'm working on the reformatting for Smashwords, but it's going to be slow, due to the fact that I'm converting some very old, eccentric documents --

For example, Fortunes of War. This one was typed in Juniper Computing's Softword program (circa 1985), and SAVED TO TAPE. Much later, the tape-memory files were recalled, it was printed out, scanned in, run through OCR software and fed one page at a time into Lotus AMI Pro; the final edit was done, and hard copies were sent to GMP for publication in the early 1990s. The files were then stored on single density 3.5" floppy disks. These were, much later, read back into Lotus Word Pro and stored on an IEEE Firewire external harddrive that, at 30MB, looked incalculably vast when it was new. The "new" lotus files on the Firewire drive were of the LWF type ... which, thank gods, Serif PagePlus 10 reads extremely well. So, the DreamCraft version is in a Serif DTP format, a PPP document. For Lulu.com, this was published to PDF.

There is no simple .doc file ... nor has there ever been! ... for Fortunes of War. However, you can (!) select-all/copy a Serif PPP file to the clipboard, and dump it into Microsoft Word 2003 (not later versions; the more clever Microsquash gets, the less it shakes hands with other formats). Then, you save back the Word document -- not as a .doc, but as a Web Page Unfiltered. This gets rid of most of the passenger trash. Now, use Word to reopen the HTML file, and you're ready to run it through the process required by Smashwords to get rid of all remaining formatting.

Now, it's true that the new(er) books will be easy by comparison. But I have several golden oldies that are reader favorites from yonks ago. For instance, Fortunes is among my February bestsellers! Would you believe this? A book that's been out for over 15 years and has been through more editions (with more stupid covers designed by moronic artists) than you can shake a stick at, is still out there, selling so well --

Put it like this: if GMP were still handling this book, I'd have had to sell about 115 copies of this oldie in the month of February, to make the income it generated for me at Amazon (paperbacks), Payloadz (ebooks) and Lulu (hardcovers). I'm amazed, and pleased.

So -- yep, we're heading for Smashwords, one step at a time. In fact, after I finish this post I'm going to run one of the very new books through the conversion process, and with any luck, in a couple of days I might be able to run up a flag and tell you, you can get Dangerous Moonlight and The Lords of Harbendane for your iPhone, and as Mobi, readable on your Kindle.

Bear with me.

Speaking of all this stuff -- the Keegan sales figures were just tallied up for February, and I can tell you that we did more than double the business in Feb that we did in January. Nice, that. About 50% was ebooks, 45% paperbacks, 5% hardcovers. Of the ebooks, 75% were the regular PC/Mac version, 25% were specifically for the screenreaders, though I have no idea what kind ... the ones that can read a properly designed PDF, is all I know!

The book launch for The Lords of Harbendane obviously put that title out in front, with decent sales ... not brilliant, but in fact better than I'd secretly hoped for. Don't underestimate 1) the global recession, 2) the length of the unemployment lines, 3) the price of gas, and 4) the idiotic price of importing a Keegan into Aus and New Zealand --

It costs US$38.04 to buy The Lords of Harbendane in paperback and have it shipped via Amazon to Aus or NZ. Run the exchange rate (at .63c, as of this morning) and you get a price of A$60.38, ppd. That's two tanks of gas for a small car, or a week's groceries for a frugal couple.

So, if you drop out the "lost" Aussie and Kiwi readers, and factor in an adjustment percentage for the global recession etc., the fact is, Harbendane is doing very nicely. There was a time (2002/3) when DreamCraft would organize a book launch and we'd ship about 250 copies of the new title in THE FIRST WEEK. That doesn't happen these days, and I don't expect it to; but I have high hopes for the future, when advertising, technology and economic recovery have conspired to change the way things currently are. For the moment, I'm extremely pleased with sales -- and looking forward to seeing how the books' availability for iPhone and Kindle, via Smashwords, will add to the numbers.

Interest in the Legends digital novel project could be higher, I'll admit -- fact: a lot of people just don't have a use for electronic files, or else have no interest in a serial! However, the emerging book has a strong core of about 50 - 75 readers who swing by either every day or once a week ... not bad going for a project that only launched three weeks ago and has had very, very limited promotional exposure.

Right now, I'm looking out for listings, directories, where Legends can be, uh, listed. There are loads of them, but almost all have a downside. Either they're owned and operated by people who have a problem with gay fiction (and that's okay, because where a directory is a personal project, the list-mom/dad has the right to decide what gets into their list) or else the automated systems are so vast, one will vanish into the primordial ooze --

For example, www.blogcatalog.com is an amazing directory, but it's the size of the Death Star. Searchable -- yes; but the tag "gay" pulls up 42,884 items. "Fiction" pulls up 28,272 items. "Books" = 130,260. "Gay fiction" = 1,746 ... getting warmer, but at 10 results per search page, you're still looking at 174 pages -- and if it's anything like Google (and it is) people don't look past Page One.

Legends needs a lot more of a shove to get it properly launched. I had hoped, initially, that "viral marketing" would take over, that people would email people who emailed people ... with the URL. This happened for the first few days, tapered off and stopped. Now, you and I both know the readership is vastly bigger than this! But it seems one can't look for much in the way of user participation -- which is fair enough, too. (It's an experiment, and this is one of the facts that just fell out of the data.)

Statistically? About 500 "unique" visitors checked out Legends in the first week; about 50 of those are still reading; 20 more have come on board in the last couple of weeks. So you had about 10% of the check-out crowd (those who like to read; like fantasy; like Keegan; have the fascination and/or patience to stick around; and like ebooks) who became regulars, plus 10 new readers per week finding the book and becoming followers of this serial.

This is actually pretty good. If the numbers remain stable, it means 250+ regulars by the time the book is finished, and 500 new readers finding it, and grabbing the whole thing, during any one year. That's a reader base which is quite vigorous enough to support the advertising with the occasional shopping spree at Amazon which started out on the Legends page, and so on.

Speaking of Legends -- two posts are up today:
A Bargain by the Jackal Throne (conclusion)
and
The Oracle Speaks

And now, I'm going to spend a fascinating hour or so shoving Dangerous Moonlight headfirst through what Smashwords terms as the "meatgrinder." If everything comes up Keegan, I'll let you know tomorrow!

Cheers,
MK

Save the planet? According to Kevin Rudd, why bother?!

Just a quickie this morning -- I'll be back later with something significant to say, but right now I have something rather significant to show! It's been a long time since I supported Kevin Rudd and the Australian labor government, even though [sounds of retching] I actually voted for them, because at the time it seemed that any change from "Jackboot John" Howard would have to be an improvement. A lot of people thought that way, which is why KRudd rode into office so easily. But time (and it didn't take much of it) proved us dead wrong. Like so:

Obviously, click the pic for the lare, readable version -- it's the ad which is circulating down here right now ...

Right now, you've got a rampaging Christian in the Responsibility Seat, who takes a dim view of gay marriage rights, is ambivalent about foreign policy, wants all of Australia to drop off the Internet to save a handful of parentally neglected children from the faint possibility of blundering into disgusting websites ... and frankly he doesn't give the proverbial stuff about the environment.

And I voted for this guy. Gee-Zeus. I swear it, I'm going back to voting for Daffy Duck, even though Brendan Fraser said he was (and I quote), an a$$hole to work with...

TTFN,
MK

Thursday in Keegan Country

It's just odds and ends today, with life, locally, as a flat calm. The weather remains cool, with this as the forecast for the next few days:


If we were not so dry, dessicated, it'd be not-too-bad, not at all. What worries you is the fire danger ... and the knowledge that several fires were lit by some lunatic in Belair National Park a couple of days ago!

I'd give you the update on the fire season situation, but Dave has already done this, and I'm going to give you the links instead:

http://alaskandavedownunder.blogspot.com/2009/02/australian-bushfire-updates.html
http://alaskandavedownunder.blogspot.com/2009/02/australian-bushfires-2009.html
http://alaskandavedownunder.blogspot.com/2009/02/adelaides-deadly-heat-wave-of-2009.html

The LEGENDS launch has been a terrific success. The ClusterMap at the foot of the page is taking forever to update, I have no idea why, but the true story is this -- depicted on a may generated by Statcounter instead:

You can enlarge the map with a click on it -- I uploaded it with enough pixels to make it readable. Not bad at all, for about 40 hours since the site opened. That's over 600 page loads.

The only thing people have to do now is to cotton on to the fact that they should notice the advertising and click something occasionally. (Thanks to those two people who did indeed, uh, click something. Now, if the other 200 would be as helpful --! Heaven only knows, it's not going to cost you anything...)

In fact, no one would be happier than me if the digital novel concept proves out -- and there's every reason to believe it will. Very, very early days, as yet, and already nice traffic. I received an email just this morning from someone asking if I'd be interested in this:

http://www.writer4me.com/ -- "Writer 4 Me," being the "World's most popular ghostwriter hire service." In fact, it's most interesting; it's also depressing, when you dig into the details and find that some illiterate twit of an entrepreneur can hire (!!!) an ICON writer for $25/hour.

An icon writer is a known name, long published, with a fan following ... who's so short of cash, s/he is hiring out for $25/hour, which is less than is earned by laboring hands.

Still, they have it rich by comparison with the website developers, who'll get $100 to build someone a small website (no shopping cart), and an extra fifty bucks for the time and sweat it takes to add the shopping cart. (Anyone here speak MYSQL gibberish?! Joomla?) There's talent out yonder working for $5 an hour -- sweatshop wages. I find it sad.

So let's talk about something happier: penguins. Seriously, penguins! Have you seen this:

http://www.bgay.com/news/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=759&Itemid=23

This little story ran on BGay.com a few days ago. Let me give you the teaser:

A pair of gay penguins at the Polarland Zoo in Harbin, China, turned out to be such a great parenting pair that their keepers thought they deserved a reward and let them marry.

I must be getting sentimental in my old age, because I gotta love that. A happy ending for a change. Go ahead, read the whole story -- it's short, and worthy of a smile.

And now I have to go back to work, so I'll leave you with these links to keep you up to date with my other posts to the other blogs:

LEGENDS, Chapter Five:
http://mel-keegan-legends.blogspot.com/2009/02/chapter-five.html
and, at DIGITAL KOSMOS:
Colonial Memories
Seward, Alaska: Where the boats come in


Cheers,
MK

Australian bushfires ... changing the face of the nation

The news from Victoria continued to intensify as the afternoon and night wore away ... it's official: this is the worst firestorm in the country's history -- and we've had some bad ones. You might have heard of the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983, which affected both South Australia and Victoria; and before that, Black Friday, in 1939 (before my time, but I know the stories). The death toll right now is quoted as 109, but you know it's going to be worse; and I don't think the cost of suffering can ever be counted. Emergency services are so far stretched, you'd think this country was at war.


1983 -- Ash Wednesday -- is "loud in my head." This season is worse, but '83 was so close to home, I could still cough on the smoke. What concerns many of us is that 11 of the 12 hottest summers on record have fallen in the last 12 years ... and there is no reason to suppose this trend won't continue. There's the dreadful feeling in the pit of the belly, that heatwaves and fires which used to be the event of the decade, or quarter-century, will become commonplace.

The cool change came through SA without rain, and have a look at the forecast for the coming weekend:

(Here's the whole page at Bureau of Meteorology, if you're interested...).

Back up into the heat at the weekend; next week? There's cause for concern, because SA is already so dry, we're like a stack of tinder, kindling ... and traditionally, historically, our bad, bad bushfires are usually in late February or March. In other words, we're not out of any wood yet.

Check out the FireMap which is being constantly updated:
http://mapvisage.appspot.com/fires/FireMap.html">


What the above map doesn't reflect is that there are 46 fires burning in New South Wales:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/09/2485754.htm?section=australia

At this point, South Australia is getting off lightly (this being a relative term). We've had numerous fires, but they've all been contained. We have another four or six weeks to get through before bushfire season is over for 2009, and the fingers, toes and eyes are crossed. Memories of 1983 are haunting me: don't want to go there. I could swear that every summer is hotter and dryer than the last one ... and I find it so hard to believe that we have a Labor government that's shilly shallying, playing silly buggers with its policies as per carbon reduction.

Or was that last week? PM Kevin Rudd looks like the proverbial stunned mullet at this point. Perhaps he just had his personal epiphany? We can hope.

Mr Rudd: get your head out of the Internet, drop the whole stupid nonsense about Internet filtering, worry less about what a handful of precocious, badly brought-up children might be seeing on the WWW if they deliberately go hunting for p*rn ... and worry more (a lot more) about what real, live kids (and their parents) are suffering in the real world, where the country's emergency services and infrastructure will need to be strengthened -- a lot -- if the local climate is going to go on getting hotter, dryer, every year.

More later --

Cheers,
MK

Adelaide heatwave, Victorian bushfires and ... summer can go away now. Soon, please.

Many thanks to the folks who swung by to check out the book launch (If you're looking for it, just scroll down to yesterday's post), and in particular many thanks to the readers who invested in a copy, be it electronic or paper. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Today, work continues on the LEGENDS project, and I hope to have it ready, and up, in the late afternoon. If all goes according to schedule, look out for a newsletter later today, or tomorrow.

In the meantime ... this is going to be a little brief. The cool change did "come through" and made a big difference to the temperature; it also dumped a tonne and a half of tropical humidity on us. Add this to about 10 drops of rain and some crash-bang-boom thunder and lightning before dawn, and then the sun came out, and -- where's my scuba diving tank?! Breathing ain't easy.

If you've been following the news from downunder, you'll know we've been having a torrid time of it. I have a couple of links for you -- slideshows: the Victorian bushfires, and the baby koala in the tub of water, which has been appearing in newspapers around the world.

Click here to see the whole slideshow on ABC News.

The other story that has been making people just shake their heads is the tale of the little koala (a baby) who was apparently abandoned and came in out of the bush seeking shelter and water. Now, it's common knowledge that koalas don't drink. Ever. All the moisture they get -- or, at any other time than this, need -- is derived from the eucalypt vegetation they eat ... and they eat ONLY the foliage of bluegums and river redgums. So you can imagine how hot and dry it would have to be to make a koala actually drink:

Click here to see the whole slideshow on Channel 9 News
(starts with the koala in Hahndorf with his head in a garden sprinkler!)

As hot as it's been in Adelaide (45.5C at our hottest; 115F), your heart goes out to the people of Victoria, where Melbourne suffered 46.3C yesterday. SA suffered the bushfires a few years ago -- get me to tell you that story; we had a view that was way too close for comfort -- but this time is Victoria's turn, and they have my sympathies.

And, the weather outlook for the next week? Four days of respite, of which this is one; and then 37 by Saturday. Sunday? They're not saying ... all bets are off, but I know what I'm hoping for!

Have you seen Jade's post on Digital Kosmos? Check this out: Waiting For Rain. Yep, this is what we're hoping for!

Cheers,
MK

Sizzling in South Aus

If you're wondering about the weather in Adelaide, you can check the forecast here:

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDS10034.shtml

And we're making headlines:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/29/2476856.htm

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24975111-12377,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,27574,24975204-2682,00.html

This is a choice quote:
Commuters were warned last night that the city's public transport system is "not out of the woods yet" after it literally buckled under the strain of extraordinary 45C heat yesterday.The closing of the Noarlunga train line and tram services sparked confusion on North Terrace during the afternoon city peak hour.

A section of the line at Clarence Park buckled in the extreme heat and repair crews were last night trying to straighten the line for the first service this morning.

Acting Transport Minister Paul Holloway said "similar issues may occur on rail services over the continuing unprecedented heatwave over the coming days".
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,27574,24975204-2682,00.html

They're not kidding. Check out the tracks:

Now, that's just begging to have a train derail. And the authorities have closed the national parks:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/heatwave-shows-climate-scientists-are-right-wong-says/1419596.aspx

...and we're dreaming of winter. Or New Zealand.

Ciao for now,
MK

Grilled gay novelist with ketchup and onions

The sounds you hear issuing from the hills area of Adelaide right now are squidging, squodging noises ... the kind of sound a piece of cheese makes when it MELTS as it sits on its cracker, and slips off the plate and slithers onto the floor and goes ... squodge. It's a technical term from the Latin, meaning "to be reduced, by inescapable outside influences, to a goo-like consistency which has little or no potential for life functions to continue within."

It's not just Keegan making these sounds. It's most of the city.

The weather forecast for yesterday was 41C, and we actually suffered 43.2C.

The forecast for today is 44C. If the Bureau of Meteorolololology misses its collective guess by the same margin, we shall be stewing in 46.2C degrees. Let me do the math for you, using the rough old rule of thumb calculation to convert Celsius (or Centigrade) into Fahrenheit (or Real Temperatures.) You double the number, subtract the first digit, and add 32. Therefore, 44C is 112F. And 46C is 115F.

And just to make quite sure US and Canadian readers are in no doubts, the sadistic morons the the B of M measure temperatures down here IN THE SHADE. Whenever you see a weather forecast for Australia, those are SHADE temperatures. You can add anything from 30F to 50F to that, to get the sun temperatures.

And the news is, this "hot spell" continues for the foreseeable future.

Hence the squidging, squodging noises. We went out for groceries at eight in the a.m., and the parking lots were already fairly full; by the time we walked out of the mall, they were full. The problem was, the overnight "minimum" temp was 95F, so it was like an oven outside at dawn.

Fortunately, this doesn't happen more than a couple of times in the year, and if it's going to happen, bet your bottom dollar it'll be in January and/or February. The rest of the year is more or less fine and dandy --

Hold that thought! Now I'm going to give you a link back to a post I, uh, posted, on Tuesday, August 5, not much under six months ago: On strike for a shorter winter. Click back to that. Go on, I dare you.

Right now, it's long COLD, RAINY GRAY DAYS I'm dreaming about, while the country bakes like a potato on the grill. The garden is getting charcoal broiled.

This is what we want, and keep it coming:



Well, you can dream. This particular dream will come true in something like May -- possibly even April. There's an annual horse race meeting locally, at a place called Oakbank. It takes place as a family camping event on the Easter long weekend, and there's such a tradition of the weather breaking with a monster storm at Easter, the Oakbank Races are affectionately known as Croakbank, because it's paradise for, uh, frogs.

Roll on Easter.

Cheers,
MK

Seasonal miscellany

We're a day ahead of you guys in the north, remember: the dateline. So we're already looking at CHRISTMAS EVE TOMORROW. If it ain't wrapped and under the tree, it won't be landing there. If it ain't bought and in the freezer, it won't be miraculously appearing there. Christmas is going to be all about cooking and eating (probably too much), some very good drinks and company...

The weather is not really cooperating, mind you: http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDS10034.shtml ... 32 with increasing cloud ahead of a cool change. It isn't quite the kind of weather where you jump in the pool. And for those spending Chrissy on the beach, they'll need a windbreaker because the temperature drops 10 degrees, close to the water. For me -- perfect weather. I don't like the heat too much (okay, I'm abnormal. I was also bred and born in a cold region ... the UK).


Locally, the stores are going gang-busters on the one hand, and on the other hand there are glassy-eyed bankers on TV, talking in hushed whispers about the phenomenal amount of debt that's being run up ... as if they expect the retailers to be rescued by massive holiday shopping without the credit cards taking a pasting! Sheesh. The words "get real" leap to mind.

Work continues to get THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE to Amazon in the new year ... work also continues on the coding for the first of the digital novels which will keep me busy in 2009. It's, uh, looking good.

Now, I have to run and do stuff -- Christmas stuff -- that isn't going to get itself done. I'll try to post again later in the day, because four or five people have lately asked me the same question, and I've been promising an answer for three weeks! So --

Ciao for now,
MK

Mad Max, blog spam and Aussie movies on a hot morning

I'm not really having a "rant" this morning (for one thing, it's too hot! The temperature will be tickling 100 degrees Fahrenheit this afternoon, and by 8:00am it was uncomfortably hot sitting in the shade in the back yard), but ...

I do want to grumble a wee bit -- before I progress to much happier subjects! Bear with me.

It might be futile, but I'd like ask visitors not to spam this blog. 99% of users don't (and many thanks to all those who don't!), and I delete the spam fast, probably before it's even been seen, but ... still.

The spam I'm seeing is basically along the lines of 1) blatant commercial copy pasted in, or 2) some brief, inane statement of the utterly obvious, with a commercial link attached. Like this, which was blithely parked on http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/mel-at-movies-australia.html:

Mel Gibson is mythic hero Mad Max, champion of post-nuclear survivors in an all-time-great action spectacular. He always looks like he's having fun up there on the screen. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover bust loose as Vietnam vets-turned-L.A. cops after heroin smugglers. The best pure action movie since Raiders of the Lost Arc.

And yes, a commercial link was attached; and no, I'm not quoting the link -- I'm also not naming names, but -- if you're reading this, please don't park your advertising on my blog -- or, if you MUST do it, leave a proper comment, have something to say, and make sure your facts are correct. Then, I'll leave your advertisement up. We'll call it a trade.

My problems with the above comment are far too numerous for it to be taken seriously...

Mel Gibson is an actor ... Max Rockatansky was a character -- an absolute anti-hero, not a champion, in a 1978 Australian movie in which economic collapse, not nuclear war, is hinted at, on-screen in the original Mad Max, as having caused the wasteland scenario we see in Mad Max 2. (View the first movie, not the second, for the backstory and worldbuilding.) Everyone in the DVD-viewing world knows Gibson and Glover starred in Lethal Weapon -- but Glover's character, Sgt. Roger Murtaugh, was not a Vietnam veteran. Only Martin Riggs is described as having served in 'Nam. And is Lethal Weapon the "best pure action movie since Raiders of the Lost Ark?" First of all, learn to spell ARK, as in "of the bloody Covenant," not "a segment of the circumference of a circle."And then, be gracious enough to say, "imho" or similar, because with the above bald statement you're going to get a big fight from fans of virtually anything made by Arnie, Sly, Segal, van Damme, Peter Jackson, Jim Cameron, Gore Verbinski, Marvel Studios, and scores of others who are responsible for projects as diverse as Iron Man, The Mummy, Van Helsing, The Peacemaker, Terminator, Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean -- and many more action films that have been made in the two decades since the original Lethal Weapon movie was made. I would seriously counsel against making such a sweeping statement without the small, life-saving prefix, "imho."

Okay ... I'll stop grumbling now. But, I mean, really. And yes, I deleted the post as pure spam. And no, I don't at all mind you putting in a link to your own blog or page or site. Only, please -- have something to say, add something, and make sure your facts are right! A comment that adds value stays up -- trust me. I can smell pure spam from a mile away, and as soon as I notice it, sorry, but it gets deleted. The blog has been spammed by everything from glass manufacturers in India (!) to Internet marketers in heaven-knows-where. I try to be vigilant.

To clarify ... I'm not having a grumble about Raiders of the Lost Ark! It's one of my favorite movies, and highly recommended.

I also highly recommend the original Mad Max, which is very, very different from The Road Warrior. It's raw, and "honest," and doesn't have a particle of "hype" about it.

The movie was shot in Victoria, Australia in 1977 (!) and released in 1979, with a copyright date of '78, after being edited in the late Byron Kennedy's spare bedroom! Gibson was 21 ... and nope, it wasn't his first movie, either. He'd made SUMMER CITY the year earlier, while still studying at NIDA.

Of the three "Max" movies, which is the best? Depends what you're looking for. If you want "hype" then, the the third one, with Tina Turner, a bunch of cute little kids, and plenty of outrageous stunts. If you want "the kapow effect!" then you want the second, with an all-Aussie cast, and cinematography by Dean Semler, who went on to win the Oscar (T-bloody-M) for Dances with Wolves.

But if you want raw truth, total honesty, bleeding-wound emotion, with none of the Hollywood candy-coating ... watch the first one. It's not fun -- it's not about having fun. It cost A$150,000 to make, as an indie movie, and it earned over$125m at the box office -- in Japan it swiftly became a cult.

Of course, in the US is was difficult to exhibit; it had to be heavily censored ... because the violence is very realistic, and the injuries sustained by accident victims are also realistic; director and creator George Miller is a doctor ... and it also had to be overdubbed with heavy American accents, because in 1980, US audiences couldn't understand foreign accents!

[Left: the final shot of the first movie where Max, busted up and broken, takes the last of the v8 Interceptors and heads for the wasteland.]

The net effect is absolutely weird. Remember, all the cars are right hand drive, the landscape is Aussie, the cars are Australian makes and models! Yet you hear US accents issuing from Jim Goose, and Midge, The Feef and Jess, and -- Max. Yeek. I saw this cut of the movie on VHS when I was in the States a loooong time ago. Get the Australian original, uncut. The US has stopped overdubbing Aussie movies in the years since, but I imagine the old cut of Mad Max is still circulating somwehere. Avoid it, if you can.

Anyway -- there you are: Max Rockatansky, age 21 ... Mel Gibson when he was so young, you blink and shake your head. Was anyone ever that young?! Back in the days when he was as Aussie as the next cobber, before he went whacko, and ... the rest is history. (In fact, his looks still had to "settle in." He would acquire those drop-dead gorgeous characteristics in about another 4-5 years. He was a nice kid in Mad Max, though ... he was a superstar downunder when his face was still inclined to break out occasionally. Seriously. Some of us were there, and have good memories.

Right now, I'm going to close this post -- not because there isn't more to talk about (there is), but because it's getting way too hot. Both the PC and I need to cool down (and it's only 9:15am).

More later...

Ciao for now,
MK

Halloween memories

This time of the year is always a little odd and a lot nostalgic for me. It's change of season ... in the northern hemisphere autumn (fall, if you prefer) is sliding down into winter; downunder, spring is drying out and heating up toward summer. In the north, it's Halloween (or Samhaine, if you're of the pagan persuasion), and no matter how long I spend in the southern hemisphere, the week which includes Halloween, my birthday and Guy Fawkes's Night still feels like it ought to be cold and dim, with possible early snow showers...

I guess, spending the first twelve years of your life celebrating your birthday while you scrape candle wax off the cement in the yard, and counting your fireworks, hoarding them against the big day -- November 5th -- makes so indelible an impression on a kid's brain that, 37 years after leaving the north, I am still haunted by thoughts and sounds, smells and impressions, of a time ... and a place ... that don't even exist anymore...

Small town England has been vanishing steadily as the cities conquer the landscape. Three or four villages collide with two towns and ... you've got a small city that swiftly expands. It was happening when I was a kid, and that was a long, long time ago. I remember the new housing estates (subdivisions, if you prefer) going up on every parcel of land that wasn't actually under the plow. But even so, small town England was never far from Nature, and when the seasons turned, when the land itself began to close down its branch offices in preparation for suspending business for the winter, you -- the human, even if you were only eight years old -- felt it...

In fact, you felt it keenly. All at once, you were looking for the biggest turnip or pumpkin you could find, to make a lantern (turnip lanterns were much more common in our part of the world; in those days, and in that place, pumpkins were close to unknown. I don't think I'd even seen one before landing in Australia in '71), and you were wearing your heavy coat, and the scarf, and the gloves. The days were shorter, not to mention colder. The shops were lit up by four in the afternoon -- and the display windows were full of fireworks...

Now, in almost every part of the world these days, fireworks are illegal. But in those days ... kids stood in line at the counter at the magazine shop to buy them ... 6d for this one, 9d for that one, and the others were four for a shilling. They had a fascination about them that belonged to this exact time of the year -- and also to this place. The US, Canada, Aus, Europe -- nowhere else in the world associates the smell of cordite, brightly-colored little cardboard cylinders, and the smell of raw turnips, and sizzling sausages, and woodsmoke, and cold, misty evenings with the first stars beginning to show...

Halloween and Bonfire night went hand in hand. The shops were full of fireworks for a couple of weeks before Guy Fawkes's Night, so one celebration overlaid itself on the other -- which was just as well, because Halloween itself was not the three-ringed circus it is today. In those days (and in that place) it was an excuse for a party for the adults, and a major romp for the kids, who would dress up as witches and goblins ... in home-made costumes, because the night was not (yet) commercialized, you didn't buy this stuff ... and have a turnip lantern bash in the back yard, with a sausage sizzle on the side. Talk about fun...

Winter was coming in, and in the back of every kid's mind was SNOW, and CHRISTMAS, and TIME TO GET OUT THE SLED (which in our part of the world was known as a sledge). Autumn, and Halloween, is a time every little northern hemisphere kid has to love, because you can feel the world changing, and you know Christmas is close. And for us, in a few days, on November 5th, there was going to be a ten-foot-high bonfire on the village green, where people would bring their fireworks and let them off, and it would be GREAT. There was no giant sky-show, as you see today (though, full marks go to the local County Council -- think city hall -- for organizing the biggest pyrotechnics show in the region, to replace the big bonfire and "b.y.o. fireworks," which were discontinued only a few years ago...

I feel myself privileged to have been there for the real thing: dwarfed by the bonfire, eyes watering on the woodsmoke, full of sausages and onions, watching my father set off rockets and Roman candles and Catherine wheels and what have you ... while forty other kids were doing the same. Guy Fawkes's night -- bonfire night -- was sheer magic, and also the day after my birthday ... made the celebrations go on and on, and you had the time of your life. Of course, it all began with Halloween, in a time and place where "Trick of Treat" was a phrase which was heard only in American movies. We had no idea what that was all about, couldn't make head or tail of it...

We lived in a particularly "haunted" part of the country, at a time when people were a lot more "sensitive" to the other, paranormal side of life. The past was all around you, in the form of streets that had been there since the time of Dickens and churches that looked like something right out of the Middle Ages. And some of them had great stories attached. Like the one above. It's ruined now ... vandals burned it to a shell. They also tried to burn the tree that stands in the foreground, but the tree ... wouldn't burn. Locally, it's been known as the "Witch Tree" for longer than anyone can tell. The legend says, a young woman accused of being a witch was been pursued by a rampaging band of Christians in a murdering mood. She fled to the church to beg for sanctuary, protection, but the priest denied her. To prevent the mob from burning her, she turned herself into a tree. And that tree will not burn. Eventually, after the church itself was abandoned, young vandals burned it, but still, the tree wouldn't burn, though God's House went up like a torch...

The place and time time seemed "haunted" by otherwhens and otherwheres. I was always a little bit psychic (not very; that, I left to my mother, who inherited it from her Irish grandmother), and I suppose I was half-aware of the other times, places and people that seem to come in close at Halloween -- if you can divorce yourself from the commercialized American kiddy-fest and remember the age-old night of Samhaine. The Celtic tradition, several thousand years old now, holds that on this night the "veil between the worlds" is so thin, it barely exists at all. The dead can and do walk; you can talk to them, be visited by departed loved ones -- and also by those who might have a grudge against you, so beware! This is the essence of Halloween, and when I was a kid, one had this half-awareness of it, which was the product of growing up in a very big, very old Irish community where the Catholicism was a paper-thin veneer laid over traditions which are so old, they were around when Christ was still swinging a hammer...

So, this was Halloween, for me: standing in line to buy fireworks, with the nose full of the sharp smell of gunpowder ... carving out a turnip lantern, inviting friends over for a bash in the backyard ... collecting twigs and sticks in the ancient church yard that dated back to the Napoleonic Wars, to make a backyard bonfire ... feeling the crispness in the air, smelling the woodsmoke of the bonfires which were bring lit all over the countryside as the "hedgers and ditchers" cleared out the byways before the snows came ... wondering if I was going to get for my birthday what I really wanted ... wondering when the first snow would come ... making some kind of costume to wear for the Halloween party ... all with the thoughts of Christmas in the back of the mind, and the much clearer thought that the 4th was my own big day (good golly, I'm in double figures this year!), and then it would be off to the village for the massive bonfire, and let off the fireworks I'd spent my pocket money on for the last couple of weeks...



To this day, chilly mornings, skeletal trees, mist curling in the shadows, the smell of woodsmoke (albeit, now, from the chiminea), the smell of sausages and onions sizzling, the whoosh!! of small fireworks, the smell of raw turnips and candle wax and toffee apples (think candy apples) -- it all brings back memories of a time, a place, which I don't suppose exist outside my own mind. Right now, we're making preparations for having miscellaneous kids knock on the door come twilight, yelling "trick or treat" and expecting candy ... only the pre-wrapped variety and no fruit, because in our lamentable era, one can't trust people not to put poison or razor blades in the mandarin oranges and home-made goodies. Kids aren't safe, knocking on doors ... some of them don't even dress up in costume, they just knock, yell "trick or treat" and expect candy ... and almost none of them know anything about the essence of Halloween -- Samhaine, when the earth is settling down to hibernate and the veil grows thin, and the dead walk.

Happy Halloween, 2008
MK

(Photos for this feature are by Mike Adamson, a writing partner of mine who was fortunate enough to visit the area in 2006, and brought back the evidence on a couple of flash cards.)

Sunday in Groovetown

A long time ago (in a galaxy right around the corner) there was a movie made about how the Apocalypse hit Aus. It was made in 1977 or thereabouts (it actually was on the big screen at the same time as Star Wars), and top of the cast was one of everyone's favorite gay actors, Richard Chamberlaine ... still quite young and handsome, and very charming.

The movie was called The Last Wave, and in this prediction of The End of the Antipodes (they never said anything about what was happening in the rest of the world), it started with a massive tidal wave -- like something out of the director's cut of The Abyss -- clobbering the fair city of Sydney.

But throughout the movie, it was water ... water ... water. Rain, rain, rain. Floods and more floods. WATER. Eschatology never had it so wet.

And right now, The Last Wave's take on the apocalypse is looking mighty appealing. We look less like the Australia of this movie than like Tatooine. Seriously.

It's still October -- meaning, mid-spring here. Yesterday it was the Celsius equivalent of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, massively too hot for the average temp. for this month. The wind direction changed and it's cooler today, and SIX whole spots of rain fell this morning. I know they fell; I counted them.


Right now, we'd be happy to have the kind of apocalyptic scenario depicted in The Last Wave ... at least we wouldn't be heading back into water restrictions! What basically happens is that you carry a lot of buckets of water, without which your garden will die, because by January you won't even be allowed to hand-water with a hose.

If you like your garden, you get callused hands. Meanwhile, a lot of people are taking the gardens out and putting in concrete or pavers. You'll certainly have softer, smoother, younger looking hands, if you have concrete where the lawn used to be.

Now, the city of Adelaide does, at the very least, have a lot of reservoirs; we've never (yet) reached the point where the government has turned off the water (though rellies in the UK have reported their water being turned off in the worst heat waves; one shudders at the thought).



At this point, I'm still making light of the situation, but in fact it's no joke. Desalination and storm water capture are necessities for the very near future ... or we'll be renaming this city Mos Eisley and keeping a weather-eye open for ships matching the description of the Millennium Falcon ... which wouldn't be so bad, if Han Solo were to show up unexpectedly at the local boozer now and then, but with our luck we'll get JaJa Binks (and no, I have no idea how to spell that, and am disinclined to learn).

Seriously, we need some rain -- we need a LOT of rain. The hills are already burned yellow, and October has been way too hot for this time of year. Global warming ... it's hard to believe that there are still people out there who deny the reality. Not too many of 'em live down here.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go chase the Jawas out of the driveway before they make off with the car --

And you're absolutely right: nothing is happening in the Keegan Zone. Well, nothing you'd want to read about on a blog post, anyway.

Ciao for now,
MK

All quiet on the Keegan front

The Mel-0-Sphere is a flat calm today ... which is good. Actually, it's nice when things are not going awry, and you can stop and catch your breath, think about trivial things ... go Christmas shopping.

Yep, the stores are stocked to the rafters with Christmas stuff, and we thought we'd beat the rush and get the gift shopping done ahead of time. It actually feels like time to go shopping for "chrissie pressies," as they're often called down here ... it's getting hot. The weather is still very changeable, buy dry and dusty is the way of things right now, and you can't help feeling we're heading into another drought as summer approaches.

THE SWORDSMAN still has to make its appearance at Amazon.com (another week to go), but it's available at CreateSpace:
https://www.createspace.com/Customer/EStore.do?id=3356474

Both NOCTURNE and TWILIGHT have been uploaded to CreateSpace, but they won't be showing up on Amazon.com for weeks yet. As I noted in an earlier post, it's a month-long slog to get a title through the CreateSpace/Amazon process, and available for sale, which is why THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE may not make it onto Amazon for Christmas '08.

I have to admit, when it comes to shopping I'm not as impressed with the CreateSpace interface as with the Lulu.com interface. It's very hard to search. For example, if you just logged on to http://www.createspace.com/ and hoped to be able to search on Mel Keegan and find me, you'd draw a blank, even though I'm there. You have to click through to the SHOP, and then search ... and the problem is, the only searches we can find are for DVDs, not books, so you still won't find me.

So, shopping via CreateSpace itself won't be a terribly rewarding experience for anyone who's just browsing. You need to know what you want, right down to the URL for the page -- like THE SWORDSMAN page, which I was able to give you above, which leads you to this screen:

As I was saying a few days ago, it's a long, slow process, but in January or February of 2009, all the Keegan books will be there.

As I go into 2009 myself, I'll be finishing the haunted house novel (!) which was shelved for extra work a few months ago, because I'd written myself into a corner and had to think my way out. A while ago I was reading a book on paranormal encounters -- ghost hunters, that kind of thing; and the solution came to me. So the novel is now "on" for early/mid 2009.

Right after that, it's HELLGATE ... two novels, back to back, finishing out the whole series. Two paperbacks into print for Christamas '09, and then the re-cut of the whole thing as three big hardcovers. This project will keep me busy for most of the year -- and that's cool. I like to be busy.

Other news? There really isn't any! The Keegan Zone is absolutely, totally event-free at this time, and there aren't even any bees buzzing in my particular bonnet. Other than Christmas shopping in the heat, which I realize is premature ... also weird, at least to folks from the north, because even now, after 37 years downunder, I still think Christmas ought to be cold and snowy.
Alas, it never is. Christmas is about a walk on the beach in the morning, champagne and strawberries and apples and blue cheese for lunch while opening pressies; Polynesian pineapple pork for dinner; and a dip in the pool, with a beer balanced on the side.

I admit, I do have fantasies about spending Christmas in the north, at least once. Maybe one of these days ...

Oh -- last note as I sign off. We should be able to show you the cover art and the first couple of chapters of THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE in the next week or so.

Ciao for now,
MK

On Any Thursday

I'm blogging in a complete vacuum today ... life is a completely Event-free Zone, so this post will be an exercise in trivia: odds and ends, bits and pieces, that are floating around in the Mel-o-Sphere. Nothing earth shattering (which is a good thing, because there's too much depressing stuff happening lately), and possibly good for a laugh here and there.

An update on LORDS OF HARBENDANE might certainly be useful for folks who're getting themselves a Chrissie pressie -- or thinking of giving the book. The new release date is Thanksgiving, about a month later than previously planned. Still in plenty of time for Christmas shopping. The reason for the delay is that we're launching on Amazon, and it's s slower process than what we're accustomed to.

(Amazon uses ONLY CreateSpace as its POD printer; CreateSpace does NOT have digital printing partners around the world, so the proof copy has to be sent out here be USPS Priority ... cost: US$26 -- estimated delivery time, four WEEKS. Omigod, what is US Mails going to do with it for four weeks, for $26?! We'll be on Amazon for Christmas, guys: bear with us.)

We're enjoying mid-spring on this side of the globe, and the weather locally has been glorious. The downside is, it's not raining. It doesn't even rain when they forecast rain. We've had a tiny fraction of the rainfall we were supposed to get last winter, so we're going into summer with an existing water shortage. It's going to be another drought summer. Hmmm.

Now, the other noteworthy thing abut spring turning into summer is that the Cricket season is almost upon us. In fact, I think the first games are already being played somewhere. And the thing you notice most about the TV coverage of the cricket is --

Batting? No. Bowling? No. Punch-ups on the pitch? No. Century scores? No. Streakers? Sometimes. Moronic commentators? Alas, too often. But mostly --

The beer commercials. And occasionally they're actually not too bad:



And of course, beer is of vital importance to Australians, as witnessed by the following song from the late, great Slim Dusty ... which is frequently mistaken for our national anthem:



Good on ya, Slim. Nice one.

In other news ... well, there isn't much, if one doesn't want to ramble on about the state of the world today (and I don't, because it's way too depressing, and I've talked about it a dozen times in the last month. In fact, I have only one more political thing to do today. I want to give you this link:

http://palinaspresident.com/
Welcome to 2009's oval office ... give the Flash movie a little while to load ... (then roll over and click on EVERYTHING. Enjoy! We sure did).

... So, there not being any news, let's look at some surprises, not all of them altogether pleasant. Would somebody please tell me how this:


Turns into this:

I'm extremely curious to know, so that I CAN STOP IT HAPPENING TO ME.

Pardon me for shouting there. I feel a little better now. Maybe it's something to do with not eating white bread, getting more fiber?? Vitamins. That's it. Vitamins. I'm sure it has something to do with vitamins.

In other news, the fair state of South Australia is about to be hit by a kind of biblical plague. Seriously. Locusts. The little buggers are hatching right now down in the southeast ... and there is no upside to that. I wish I had some locust humor to share, but the closest I know would be something like this:



And my parting thought for today, before I go back to THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE:



I shall be more coherent tomorrow.

Ciao for now,
MK

Spring has sprung

I do believe spring just arrived. The bird population certainy thinks so, and the introduced (alien, as in, not native?) flowering trees are all going gangbusters. The Christmas decorations will be in the stores in about five weeks (!) as our hours of daylight increase and the longer days get rapidly warmer. We have a thermometer in the backyard, and it's reading 62 degrees (F) in the shade in a part of the yard that doesn't get the sun. It feels almost balmy...

Now, having said all this, Nostrakeeganus, he predicting prompt return to winter for three more weeks, with freezing temperatures and leaden-gray skies.

So, just so you know I'm not pulling your leg, here's the evidence: (click for a larger view. In order -- almond blossom in the yard; flowering native shrubs in the hills; a koala, actually awake for a change -- note the blue sky! A kookaburra -- note same!! And wild flowers, something like forget-me-nots)







Now, having posted these, we are absolutely certain to lapse back into winter for weeks. Did I just put the kiss of death on spring?

Someone noticed that I haven't said much, if anything about the Games of the 29th Olympiad. Um ... I've been busy. Seriously. I actually enjoy the winter games more than the summer games, but I do follow the cycling (road variety rather than track,) and one or two other events ... none of which have been given any TV coverage down here. Fans of swimming were well catered to, because the Aussies always do very well in those events. However, swimming ain't my thing. And for events where no Australians are competing, they just don't seem to send the cameras.

There was a somewhat critical little ditty going around at the time of the Sydney Olympics. It went like this:

Here's thanks to the Olympic Committee
For sending the games to a city
Where you can't eat the food,
The locals are rude,
And the TV coverage is totally ... Aus-centric.

Like the US and Canada, we're a nation of immigrants. Less than half the population was born here, and although -- yes -- we "bond" with the country, we call ourselves Aussies and take an almost inordinate pride in this country's achievements ... there remains a fondness for the old country, and an enduring interest in it. Some of us remain staunch supporters of teams from the old country, and thanks to the internet (and SBS) you can actually keep abreast of Manchester United, or the Raiders, or whomever.

And sure, we enjoy watching the events in which the Green and Gold are going great. We LOVE to see Aussis win. But wouldn't it be nice to see some of the other events, even though Aussie stars aren't competing?!

This country has folks from every corner of the planet: we're very probably the first true cosmopolitan culture, because we don't have ghettos or reservations inside which indigenous peoples are required, culturally and socially if not legally, to be. Just once in a while, I'd like to see Aussie Olympic coverage recognize the truly cosmopolitan nature of the audience to whom they're broadcasting. It'd be nice.

Having said that: the athletes were great, the stadium is fantastic, the opening ceremonies were dazzling, the Chinese government doesn't seem to have put its foot in it *too* deeply or too often, and the Chinese people have been great. I'm told Beijing by night is glorious, you have to see the city lights to believe them (no, the TV coverage didn't extend this far either), and the Games themselves have been remarkably smooth. For those of us who are old enough to recall Munich 72, the idiotic political boycotts of Los Angeles and Moscow, and the depressing though critically necessary Black Power statements back at the end of the Sixties, beginning of the Seventies ... well, the Beijing Games have been laid back, relaxed, open, friendly. Nice. Kudos to all concerned ... except maybe the TV directors, who concentrate on the Green and Gold to the exclusion of virtually everything else. They've done a fine job in technical terms (kudos to all concerned there, too), and if they'd just remembered their cosmopolitan audience, we'd have been unanimous in our praise.

On strike for a shorter winter

Tuesday finds me looking for a way to put a positive spin on the fact that winter blues are six feet thick ... yes, it's August! One longs for day-long blue skies and weather that invites you to go and get lost in some national park. (Well, to be fair, it would be just as easy to become immersed in the national park in August, but I don't know that I'd do it without full foul weather gear!)

It would be true to say, winter is starting to outstay its welcome. A bit.

But (positive-spin-wise; now, is that deosil or widdershins, when you're in the southern hemisphere?) the hills are green as Ireland, the reservoirs are steadily filling up, thank gods, and everything in the world is in bloom (kerchoo). If it was a measly little 20 degrees (F) warmer, you wouldn't be hearing these whining noises! The tradeoff for the green hills is temps around 35 degrees overnight, and maybe 55 as a daytime high ... and by August, every year, you've forgotten the the summer heat.

Short memories, that's our problem. Four months from now we'll be like this:



Very picturesque, and all. In fact, so picturesque, here's another one:


Ahhh ... memories of summer, drifing back. And hour here and there at the beach, hunk-watching ... and the "cafe culture cruising people," (good grief, the acronym, Carruthers!) who sit under the big umbrellas and watch the stuff that's strutting past in. uh, assorted wet spandex.

And summer brings its own rewards, various events which take some beating, when you think about it ...

I leave you with this thought: there is a reason one watches bike races.

We go to look at the bicycles, right? Right.






(Not quite the Tour de France ... in fact, the Tour Downunder. Pictures are clickable, if you'd like a closer view. At the bicycles, that is.)