Blogger at dawn

Keegan here ... signing in and letting the world know I'm still alive -- and this is THE chance I'm going to get for a post today. I'll be lucky to get within reach of a keyboard or internet connection before midnight. Working...

Hence, I have no idea what's going on in the world, or how I'm going at Amazon, etcerea and so forth, so --

This is Keegan's Message to Creaton for today: I'm alive. I didn't get hit by a truck. And like someone said in some movie, "I'll be back."

Bear with me...

Cheers,
MK

Feeling your mortality ... just a little

If I want to blog at all today, this is my window of opportunity do to it -- and (thank whatever guardian angel looks after these things) the Internet connection is behaving itself.

So, naturally, there's nothing remotely interesting to blog about --

Except this:

"...over the past 50 years more than 75,000 chemicals have been introduced into the environment with -- yes count them -- 300 synthetic chemicals now found in the bodies of almost every American man, woman, child and even newborn.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-dejong/the-dirty-word-in-clean_b_171464.html

That little gem is from a story, "The Dirty Word in Clean," which is running on Huffington ... and I challenge you to read the whole thing. Your blood will run cold.

Do you ever get days when you feel barely human? When you're sure you're turning green and moldy, and maybe growing a second head or a third leg? There you go. Now you know why.

I've been something of a "fresh air fascist" since I watched my father die of lung cancer. It's the kind of experience that turns your life around. At one time, I had my father, a grandmother and two aunts dying of cancer, all at the same time; then my cousin (only three months older than me -- and this was 10 or 12 years ago, so said cousin was still only about 40) had a series of strokes resulting in paralysis and wheelchair dependency. I guess I became super-sensitive to the crap we live among, what we put into our bodies by just breathing ...

In your 20s and 30s, you know for a fact, you're indestructible. I certainly was. I lost my immortality at about the age of 43 or 44. I don't know quite how it happened, but one day I woke up and realized, hey, time is catching me up. I might not be immortal after all. To misquote the commercial, "well, shoot, what a feeling."

Today, as I run off in the direction of work, I leave you with this parting shot from that feature on Huffington: "The Soap and Detergent Association is a one-hundred plus member trade association representing the $30 billion U.S. cleaning products market and -- oops -- it seems that they kinda' forgot to inform their brand loyal customers that their products might be killing them." Go read the whole story. I dare you.

Cheers,
MK

The Flat Calm Follies

It would be wonderful to bounce back at the end of the day's work with a colossal post, rich in valuable thematic material. Unfortunately, nothing is happening. At all. Zip. Nada.

No lottery win, no desperate email from Steven Spielberg saying he's dying to buy that script I wrote and will US$8m be acceptable? No card inviting me to Frankfurt to participate in a high-six-figure deal at the book fair. Nicholas Cage and Orlando Bloom didn't pull up on the driveway demanding that Keegan autograph their copies of some vampire book I may or may not have written --

Incidentally the casual reader should not get my novel, Twilight, mixed up with the PG-rated chick flick of the same name. Guys the globe over are calling the movie one of the most boring things ever filmed ... I wouldn't know, I ain't seen it! My novel is a gay vampire story which is ... anything but boring, I promise you!

Um ... steak for dinner. It's been a bright, beautiful day but I've been stuck inside working. Got quite a lot done ... modems running in the background, three books up at the Kindle Store, slogging their way through the publication process. Do a couple more tomorrow, with luck ... feeling like a beer, right now!

Two posts at Legends today:
40. Fear (part three)
41. Thus Spake Iridan

And a couple of links of interest, in the event that anyone is still interested in ebooks after I've been talking your ear off about them for the last week:
http://www.itexaminer.com/two-million-germans-want-to-buy-ebooks.aspx
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/63812/salacious-content-driving-adoption-ebooks

And so, from the uninterrupted flat calm of the Mel-o-Sphere on this Tuesday arvo, whilst hoping that something, anything, will actually HAPPEN tomorrow (work doesn't count) --

Ciao for now,
MK

Friday 13th in the Event Free Zone

Friday 13th. Really. We're a day ahead, on this side of the dateline, but if you check the calendar you'll see that, sure enough -- February has a Friday 13th in it. (It also has two R's, a fact which is overlooked by a great many people: Feb-you-airy. Cute.)

Well ... it's a flat-calm day in which the most riveting thing in the Mel-o-Sphere is the research work going on behind the scenes, setting us up for MK's debut on Kindle (which is, of course, Amazon's proprietorial ebook technology).


Now, Kindle is an interesting beast, for writers in CNA countries (Countries Not America), because the gadget only works in the continental USA. It doesn't even work in Alaska and Hawaii, as far as I know, because the wireless network which underpins it is only available in the continental USA.

So, for writers like myself, Kindle is something of a "pig in a poke" ... I've never seen one, nor held one; am unlikely to ever own one, because they don't work down here; yet from pigs -- in or out of pokes! -- come pork chops, bacon, triple-smoked ham, VOM pies, burgers, kabanas, sausages, burritos and chimichangas, polynesian pork and pineapple, and ... on on.

I'd be nuts to not take the Kindle option, just because the device won't work here, because 90% of my readers have always been in the States. So we're looking at the "how" of it (how you get books there as ebooks), and we'll be announcing in the next week or two that Keegan on Kindle is happening.

This is how it seems to work: we convert the basic documents to HTML (via something like Front Page?? This, I'll leave to Jade, and she's welcome to it) and upload them to Amazon. On the other end, they're then converted to the proprietorial file format (is it AMW?) which can only be read on registered Kindle machines. Then Amazon lists the books at $9.95, of which MK will get something like US$3.42, part of which will be kicked back to DreamCraft for their work, part of which will be invested in (more) advertising.

So if you're a Kindle user, look for Mel Keegan in the Amazon listings there very soon.

Little else is happening, so I'll pass you across to today's other posts:

The Legends installment for Friday 13th, concluding Chapter Five
and
Immersed in Shades of Blue, on Ditigal Kosmos

Cheers,
MK

Stone cold dead in die marketplace ... or, almost!

Baldly stated, my hard drive went belly-up this morning. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of the belly, a wave of nausea that hits you. You feel light headed and a little bit giddy. Your thoughts scatter upon the four winds ... you make a nice STRONG cup of tea and take the advice of the person who is telling you to breathe more than once a minute or so.

Slowly, you start to think again, and you get on the other computer (the old clunker that was replaced by this supposed miracle of modern technology) and hit the tech forums to see if the same problems have clobbered anyone else lately. To your malicious joy (and with a certain relief) you discover, the problem is common. It's very common.

The symptom: the bloody computer won't start up. It just sits there and glares at you, with its power button winking green and nothing else happening. Oh, joy.

The cause: either a virus or hardware failure.

Thank gods, goddesses, elementals, spirits, pixies and anything else out there that's been watching out for me lately: I back everything up slavishly, and it's only a few weeks since I got a terabyte external harddrive. The fact I'm all backed up and ready to go means that all I need now is an operating system disk, and we can put a new hard drive in this little monster.

Fortunately, the hard drives are pretty cheap, and you can get a fully legal, still shrink-wrapped Windows XP SP3 for A$110 + postage, from several dealers on eBay in Melbourne. I checked, after my blood pressure had started to revert to something with a semblance of normality. (What's normal anyway?)

I don't think I've cooked this computer in the heat, but I do work it very hard. Maybe I work it harder than it wants to run? Maybe I should get a more powerful one? Perhaps. But this little bugger is only a couple of years old, and to tell you the truth, I've bought so many computers in the last 20 years, I honestly don't want another one --

Especially since any new computer you get from the store these days comes loaded with Vista. Sounds of retching, barfing and puking. Keegan no like Vista. Keegan rather put new hard drive in old machine and stay with XP.

So ... it's been a fun day in which not much has been done other than hand-wringing, hair-tearing and so forth. I'd love to tell you that I wrote 4,000 words of LEGENDS ... but I didn't. I'd be thrilled to tell you I plotted out the last two novels in the HELLGATE series ... but I didn't do that either. I would be overjoyed to report that I finished the two short stories I've been working on, but --

You get the picture.

You may laugh, but it's traumatic. It's completely on a par with falling over the dog's leash while walking in the park, and doing a face-plant straight into the geraniums, four feet in front of the most delectable hunk you've seen in several years. Or being at a fancy restaurant and sinking at least 16 of your 32 teeth straight into a Thai pepper, which makes you turn red as a postbox and weep copiously ... which is not at all how you'd intended to impress your date (the aforementioned hunk, who plucked you out of the geraniums and stuck several bandaids on your chin, which was bleeding copiously in reaction to the collision with the standpipe that had been hiding away in there).

Keegan is still alive, no thanks to the weather, Western Digital, or Dell.

And I can report that the LEGENDS template is fixed, up and running. I got the first chapter pasted into it before the apocalypse struck, and when I have about ten or so posts up, there will a newsletter, and -- the experiment begins!


Now I have to go and take a couple of aspirin and sit in front of the a/c.

Love that a/c. It's been 40C again today, and you need a blanket while sitting in front of it. Nice.

Cheers,
MK

"Talk to the wrist," and other ends and odds

The world is changing so fast, it's almost caught up with where we were forty-odd years ago.

I grew up with the original Thunderbirds -- not the Jonathan Frakes kid-flick that apparently laid an egg a couple of years ago: don't know nuthin' about that, didn't see it. No, no, the Thunderbirds I'm talking about was the dream come true of every six year old, and I was about six at the time myself.

People wore their phones on their wrists ... you talked to your wrist instead of sticking one hand on the side of your head, like you have an agonizing earache. And whaddaya know? It's happening. Right now, right here, for $399 a pop:

Just when it was almost fashionable to wear a ridiculous Bluetooth headpiece and talk loudly to yourself in shopping centres, now we'll have people talking into their wrists. Or will we?

Adelaide-based NV Mobile today launched a range of mobile phone watches complete with a sampling of the bells and whistles we see in the mobile phones in market already, including Bluetooth, touchscreens, and audio and video players. NV Mobile's CEO Anthony Cook describes the mobile phone watch as the "evolution of communications".

"In 10 to 20 years [watch phones] will take over the large screen phones," said Cook.
The range includes 10 models starting with the entry-level Motch all the way through to the top-of-the-line NV Sapphire, with sports watches and watches for tradesmen in between. Prices range from the basic model at AU$399 through to AU$999. The phones are currently available through the NV Mobile website.
http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilephones/phones/0,239025953,339294659,00.htm

Hey, man -- "Calling Thunderbird One!"

It worked like this: you got yourself into all kinds of trouble, till nobody could figure out how to pull your hopeless little fanny out again and save your worthless life, and then you yelled blue murder for International Rescue, and the next thing you knew, this tall, dark, blue-eyed hunk arrived in an ultrasonic rocketship, and uh, rescued you.

Six year olds, the world over, were delirious. A few of us grew up; a lot of others never did.

But seriously -- wristwatch phones. It's only taken forty bloody years, and we have them now. Yes, I know Dick Tracy did it back in the Days of Yore, but to this day I have only a nodding acquaintance with Dick. Couldn't pick him out of a police lineup. Was he the one that wore the hat? Then again, they all wore hats back then ... like that alter ego of Picard's, Dixon Hill. For me, the whole "talk to the wrist" thing was about being a little kid whose eyes were still starry, and this adventure show that was on the telly on a Saturday arvo.

Put it this way: the world was a simpler place.

And as you've already guessed, the Mel-o-Sphere is a vacuum that is still sitting at something like 109F. There's little to blog about save odds and ends...

I want to thank Aricia for the really nice review of Aquamarine she uploaded earlier today. As she mentioned, I did go over to Amazon, and searched for the DreamCraft version of the book -- twice. Get this: the first time, it was absent from the Keegan search results list. The second time, it showed up. Go figure. I have no idea what's going on there, but doubtlessly the pundits at the Big A do: Amazon moves in mysterious ways.

Saying "thanks" to AG, then, I'll give her other blog a little plug here -- because, frankly, it deserves it. It's turning out to be the proverbial load of fun. What was it today? David Beckham in underwear, everyone else in kilts, Ewan McGregor in -- what the hell is that he's half-wearing?! And Orlando Bloom looking like a cherub in need of rescuing. I also like the line in humor AG has going there. This blog, Aricia's Album, it top-notch and only getting better:

I've braved the heat long enough to make a swag of uploads to the photoblog, too -- this also has turned out to be a great deal more fun that I'd imagined:

Broad Pass, Alaska, in winter
An aviation icon of the north
Koalas really are too cute!
Signage
Heavenly shades of evening
Beachcombing

And the rest of the gang hasn't been idle. There's a rare collection of images online now, that weren't there the last time I looked.

Good news on the Blogger bustup, Template tantrum front: I do believe it's been fixed. The LEGENDS template has been rewritten to suit Blogger, and I owe Jade massive thanks for this. God knows what she does. I don't even want to ask, because she might explain, and I don't speak cascading style gibberish. Hopefully, The Fall of the Atlantean Empire will be online next week.

And that really is the size and shape of the Mel-o-Sphere right now! It's HOT. It's damned hot. And it's another week before the weather breaks. So --

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

Not quite the perfect vacuum

Just flotsam and jetsam today: the vacuum goes on! The wait continues for any action on any front whatever, save that involving air conditioning. The split system is INSTALLED. And what's more, it WORKS. In fact, it's so bloody cold, I keep turning it off because otherwise I'll have to go put on a sweater. In summer. Woah.

Allow me to pause for one moment, pop a photo and paste it in here:

...just what you needed, right? A closeup look at the two square meters from which all of the Mel Keegan extravaganzas are launched. You were expecting a suave, sophisticated office? You were expecting, maybe, neat and tidy?! Where there's Keegan, there's usually kaos, as any reader of this blog over the last seven months or so will attest!

The ongoing vacuum makes me look beyond the norm and seek other items of interest to inject a spark into the day. This one's good -- in fact, it's utterly priceless. Apparently it's been doing the rounds in the last week or so, and I caught up with it on an Alaskan blog (I'll give you the link in a moment):

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located, and the parts responsible for it were replaced Tuesday night, November 4th.

Early tests of the newly-installed equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional by January 20th. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage, and we look forward to resuming full service --- and hopefully even to improving it in the years to come.

Thank you for your patience and understanding,
*The USA*

And here's the blog where I caught up with it: Attention: Service Has Been Restored, on the Esther Republic. That is so cool.

Another item of exceeding great coolness is this interview with Ewan MacGregor and Jim Carrey at Sundance:



Some idiot, somewhere, in a ridiculous comment on one of the news stories (LA Times??) said something about "Jim Carrey looks too old." Excuse me? Where is it written that you have to look juvenile to be attractive? You track down the place where that snippet of "wisdom" is inscribed, and I shall personally go around there with a bucket of industrial grade ammonia and erase it.

Incidentally, I Love You, Phillip Morris is being downloaded by the torrent already. No, I don't have a copy, but I've no doubt some of you do! You can see the trailer on YouTube, and a clip. Looks like a great time was had by all while they were making it, and I expect to enjoy the movie muchly.

What is massively refreshing is that neither McGregor nor Carrey is carping and whining about how hard it was to smooch another guy for the movie -- unlike both numerous other actors who couldn't wait to do just that. Far from it: both Ewan and Jim have (!) only good things to say about doing the romantic scenes. Like I said, refreshing.

Digital Kosmos continues to grow, with over 50 photos online now, of which I think about 15 or so are mine. My latest contributions have been goodies like...

Colors blaze on Stampede Trail
Storm light
Noon on the dunes
Tribute to the pioneers in Fairbanks, Alaska
Still life, with wine casks
Windows onto pure color

...I have to admit, it's a lot of fun. We could have been doing this for months.

Still waiting for a response from Google; still waiting for the proof of The Lords of Harbendane ... getting very tired of waiting for both. Working on LEGENDS -- getting the new blog in place and stockpiling posts/chapters so that real life can shove its nose in, as it always does, everything can go haywire, and the book will continue to appear on time ... there's nothing worse than a serial that keeps putting itself on hiatus.

Cheers,
MK

Going gay at Sundance -- again!

If there's a story breaking in the zone of gay fiction, film, writing and whatnot right now ... this would have to be it.

The new movie, I Love You, Philip Morris, has made its premier at Sundance, and the Internet going public is split neatly down the middle, as you'd expect...

It goes like this:

"I like the actors but don't get off on gay movies." "I like gay movies but I don't like these specific actors." "Jim Carrey looks too old." "I don't like Ewan MacGregor playing an American." "Why is Hollywood going gay?" "Gay movies are being overdone now." "How can 3 gay films be overdoing it, when there are thousands of straight ones?" "Ewww, how can people watch this stuff, it's disgusting." "You're all sick puppies and God will punish you." "Gay bashers should shut up." "I'm not bashing gays, it's my right to say what I think." "Well, everybody else here thinks you're a prejudiced, bean-brained little twerp, so shut up and go away." "Momma, momma, they're picking on me!"

Good, isn't it? You notice how fast the discussion degenerates from a reasonably intelligent, critical comment on the movie itself (albeit subjective: *I* don't like gay movies, *I* don't like the actors) to an all out, knock-down, drag-out fight.

I'll look forward to seeing this, because I like both the actors AND I like "dark comedy, and it'll make one hell of a change for a really good movie to have a gay spin and be neither a tragedy nor erotica to top it off. I'll blog about it when I've seen it -- and in this neck of the woods, it might have to be on DVD before I see it. I shouldn't think it'll play the local movie houses. Not enough bucks in it. If it's not Hugh Jackman with claws sticking out of both fists, and/or the cast are not wading up to the kneecaps in blood -- forget it.


There's a rumble on the Internet in some weird places: are Ewan and Jim really gay?!! O...kay. That's a whole 'nother question. Who knows? I guess they do -- and what's more, it's their business!

I have one more picture for you today, and then I am going to go and get WET and cool off after a long day working in idiotic temperatures:


Hey, kilts are cool. Kilts are sexy. Kilts are well, they're kilts.

Well, check this out: http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=1445 ... Gratuitous Official International Kilt Day. Barrowman, Tennant, Connery, Neeson, Tom Baker, and a whooooole lot more. Kilts. Right. Great.

Ciao for now,
MK

Time Dilation Zones ... or, Gravity Sucks

We must be living and doing business on the lip of the gravity well of a massive black hole. It's the only thing that would even halfway explain what's happening with virtually everything we're trying to do at this time --


LORDS OF HARBENDANE, right? Keegan's earth-shattering new work that was supposed to be out and at Amazon in time for Christmas 2008 ... and it's now January 14th on this side of the dateline, and the proof copy still hasn't shown up here.

And as of this morning, we know why.

It was shipped by USPS priority on Dec 29th. Some bright spark in the packing department forgot to slap an international shipping label on it. USPS took FIFTEEN DAYS to figure this out and return it to CreateSpace...

It has just been re-shipped.

What can you say? Time dilation works in mysterious ways -- and it's hit us again, same day: we just had notification from iPower that the DreamCraft domain can't be moved away from the old InterNic dinosaur setup, into the Tucows zone, where the guys at DC can properly control things ... not for 60 days starting on January 8. The old registrar (the one that took 48 hours to bring the renewed domain back online) won't let go of it for -- you guessed -- two months.

Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better. So ... we wait for the proof of HARBENDANE, and for DreamCraft to be released from its strange bondage.

Right now, we're waiting for a/c to be installed. The plant was purchased about a month ago and has been sitting under a tarp. The installation company FORGOT to schedule the installation. It was 110.6 F in the SHADE, in this neck of the woods yesterday. Time dilation strikes again!

It's also a month since I wrote a very nice letter to Google, to make nice and get my Google page rankings restored, since I'd swear to god(s) I haven't done anything to get myself on their $hit list. I'm (yes!) still waiting. They warned of a wait of "several weeks," and they weren't kidding. It's been two months, now, since anyone in the US found MK via a Google blog or web search. The Googlebot stopping indexing this blog about six weeks ago. (The fences are rusting, the weeds are feet higher, the rafters are full of cobwebs and vultures...)

What are my plans?! Fire up the engines, turn the stern to the event horizon, see if we can pull our way out of the gravity well!

Seriously ... the a/c ought to be on and working by evening today ... HARBENDANE ought to be delivered some time next week ... DC can shift its domain in March, and as for this blog --

If Google won't redress the problem, I'll delete the whole thing, strike a new blog and upload the majority of these posts, maybe two or three at a time. Of course, the time-sensitive posts will be lost (Prop 8 before 11/1/08 ... Christmas ... New Year), but I'll salvage what I can.

At that point, I'll also be asking regular readers for a bit of help: the more people who link to you, the more The Goog notices you. If maybe a dozen readers would link direct to the new blog, we'd be back up and running in no time.

Still -- it hasn't happened yet. Maybe someone nice at Goog HQ is, even as I type this, looking at this blog and saying, "What a great blog! Which nong shuffled this onto the $hit list? Let's just fix this problem, right now."

Time dilation is a curious thing. I know intellectually that most of the delays have only been in the order of 2 or 3 weeks, but to my frazzled brain cells it's been several years -- hence the rusting fences and gathering vultures!

And of course the final thing we're waiting for is to see the impact of the Internet filtering, which was SUPPOSED to be starting in a few days -- this being mid-January.

As per the impending filtering, the Rudd government is starting to revolve in shrinking circles are contradict itself. There's a feature running on iTWire right now: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22623/127/ ...Conroy Cans Coonan's Free Net Filtering Scheme.

The title there references this: "The Australian Labor Government has closed the programme established by the previous Coalition Government which gave all Australian families access to a free PC-based Internet content filter under its NetAlert initiative. The filters were available through the NetAlert web site either by download or delivery on CD-Rom. The site now says simply that "The free availability of internet content filters from this website under the National Filter Scheme ended on 31 December 2008." However, free technical support for filters previously obtained under the scheme is available until 30 June 2010. Shadow minister, Nick Minchin claimed that the Rudd Government had "quietly closed the programme...under the cover of the festive season on 31 December." However, a spokesman for communications minister, Stephen Conroy, told iTWire that plans to close the scheme had been revealed in the May 2008 budget. He said that free filters were now widely available from ISPs so provision by the Government was unnecessary."

And the rub is in the last sentence. Read it again!!! Free filters are available from ISPs, so the government's meddling is not necessary!

And yet blanket, nation-wide filtering is? Hunh? Say what?


There's more. This is the next paragraph from the same feature in iTWire: "The spokesman also claimed that the scheme had been a huge waste of money. "The previous government spent $15.5 million on promoting PC filters. 163,000 filter licences were issued, and as at end of November 2008 only approximately 26,000 of these were still in use. Extrapolated, that means that only about two percent of households with dependent age children and an internet connection are using the filter."

Bottom line: parents don't care. If they cared, they would protect their kids. The means of protection are not just cheap, they're free. But 98% of kids have parents who don't give the proverbial stuff what their ofspring are seeing on the WWW --

Which leaves Stephen Conroy out there watchdogging the web on behalf of these "Couldn't care less" parents, and crippling the Internet for the whole country with mandatory filters that are largely ineffective. Woah.

In the current feature running in iTWire, there is also a throwaway remark that "Conroy's preferred option - mandatory ISP level filtering - is months away from being implemented."

It was supposed to all be in place and running before Christmas. Well, now we're looking at mid-2009 or so, are we?? I've said it so often before, I'm sheepish about saying it again: make the parents responsible. Make it illegal to expose kids to porn. Put a $5,000 fine on the crime of running unfiltered Internet connections in houses where there are kids. Then enforce the law, and use the revenues to pay for free filters supplied to every parent. Problem solved.

Turns out, time dilation seems to be affecting Stephen Conroy's neck of the woods too! All by itself, December '08 turns into mid-09. Which is a neat trick.

For Keegan, most of the things that should have been happening four and six weeks ago are going to be happening in the next 1 - 3 weeks, and it's weird. Seriously weird. I'll give you odds, Conroy would say the same.

Anyway ... the other side to time dilation (the point which physicists never remember to make) is, better late than never.

Want to know a bit more about how nutso Oz has become since Kevin Rudd took the reins? Go here: http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/australia-signs-onto-free-net-forgets-filtering-plan/

...that little lot was racked up in one single year! Ouch!

Back to work, guys!

Cheers,
MK

Ode to Boxing Day: Whoville Chainsaw Massacre (aka Grinch 2)

'Tis the day after Christmas ... and I wish I could tell you I wrote this following, but I didn't. The credit goes to Jade, from Dreamcraft. Enjoy!

Grinch 2:

Whoville Chainsaw Massacre

Twas the night after Christmas and Whoville was rocking
With the kind of wild party that brings people flocking.
The noise and the booze, all the singing and dancing ...
The racket and rumpus, the shmoozing and prancing ...
Would drive to the point of starting a riot
Any poor fellow who just fancied quiet.
And you already know who was sane by an inch:
Poised on the brink was the poor old green Grinch.

All the popping and bopping, the preening and prancing,
The swinging and zinging, and -- oh, the break-dancing!
Were more than the Grinch could guess how to endure ...
And then, all at once, he envisioned a cure,
For there by the Christmas tree, flat on the floor,
Was one lonely present. A forgotten chainsaw.

By nine in the morning even Max was vibrating
With the jackhammer jollity; it's not overstating
That not even Max could endure so much 'cheer,'
No matter how snockered one became on Who beer.
And by two in the P.M., oh, Maxie was worried,
For the Grinch looked so manic; the beast who'd been buried
Beneath fudge and tinsel, and the charm of a child
Had clawed back to the surface ... and my, he was wild!


And the Grinch had no sooner set eyes on that tool
Than he said to himself, "Grinchie, you’ll been such a fool,
To think you could bear all this ruckus and humbug,
This rumpus and dumpus, this scampus and scumbug,
This noise, noise, noise, noise, that these Whofolk call ‘fun,’
While the stores are all closed and you can’t buy a gun --
There isn’t a fowling piece (nor even a pheasant),
But one of these idiots forgot his best present!"
For under the Christmas tree, left on the floor,
Wrapped up in red ribbons lay a brand new chainsaw:

All shiny and sharpy, all toothy and jagged --
Just begging for gasoline! So, out the Grinch swaggered
With a light, empty gascan and a bag full of quarters,
To the gas station downtown, with a brain full of slaughters ...
There wouldn’t be any Who left to make noise!
They’d be peacefully absent, the Who girls and boys.
The Who-guys and ladies would be quiet as the snow --
And Cindy-Lou Who’d be the first one to go.

For the Grinch could envisage the headlines tomorrow,
When no Who in Whoville survived to feel sorrow --
Here was a task to which the Grinch felt quite equal
(And MGM’s already contracted the sequel):
GRINCH II: WHOVILLE CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

Thanks to Jade for the words; and to Jim Carey for for the visualization.

Cheers to all,
MK

To BBQ or not to BBQ? What the hey, it's Christmas!

With Christmas rapidly approaching, the rest of the universe seems to go onto the back burner. Makes me wonder, often, what Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others are doing, while the western world apparently goes bonkers for a couple of weeks. They don't seem to mind. I guess they get a couple of days off work in the middle of the week, which is nothing to be grumbled about!


The rest of the brewhaha ...? Well, a lot of trees get the hell decorated out of them. Fake snow gets plastered all over a lot of surfaces that are so sun-hot, they'll burn your feet, never mind your fingers. Everything goes red and green and glittery (except the landscape, which goes brown and burned and dusty), and the stores fill up with wrapping paper and tape and ribbon -- also beer, wine and spirits. Pork and turkey. Mince pies and plum puddings.


Imagine being a Taoist from a hermitage in the mountains of a far distance province, being teleported into the middle of Rundle Mall on Christmas Eve, and trying to make sense of anything that's happening around you.


It's an interesting time of year, downunder. The imagery is trying to pretend it's FREEZING, while the truth is, you spend most Christmases in your "singlet, shorts and thongs," trying not to dissolve into a puddle of sweat.

And then, in June ... well, it's as dim and dark as it ever gets in this neck of the woods (which a northerner would say isn't very), and wouldn't we just love to have the bright lights and the shiny things, and the dinners and ...?!

There's actually a group of radicals who book a ski lodge for a weekend in July over in the Snowy Mountains, and put up the Christmas trees, have a massive Christmas feast catered. The rest of the country looks upon them as harmless lunatics, but --

I put it to you: who's loonier? The person putting on the fur-trimmed hat and boots, and "egging the nog," and roasting the turkey, lighting the fire and so forth in the dead of winter ... or the person climbing up a ladder and giving himself sunstroke in a desperate effort to get the fake snow on the roof and the fake icicles along the eaves, before the day gets hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of the car?

Cheers,
MK

Sonnets from the Dark Side

For all things there is a time. There is a time to write and a time to joke, a time to fight and a time to choke. Forget the singing and sighing part; and few people reading this have any plans for dying in the foreseeable future, so --

There is a time to whinge and a time to gripe;
A time to cringe and a time to snipe;
A time for oysters, and one to be froogle...
And the day arrives when you gotta
Make nice with Google.

Before I go any further, if you're coming in at Part Three, you better catch up:

Darth Vader turns out to be Princess Leia's secret paramour; Chewbacca has been smuggling Corellian refugees into Tatooine without Han Solo knowing; Governor Tarkin is one quarter Jawa and terrified his secret will be discovered; Emperor Palpatine is learning to speak Booroogi, and keeps getting his face slapped in night clubs on the wrong side of town; Luke Skywalker has just gone undercover as a nightclub singer in a club called The Gaye Lightsabre; the plans to the Death Star turned out to be corrupted by having been immersed in red-hot sand, and they need a new set -- and R2D2 found out from the Death Star mainframe that Governor Tarkin has them tattooed on his bum (in very small printing), so Luke is hoping to get the Governor in a compromising situation while Han Solo hides in the next room with a camera and zoom lens. Meanwhile, C3PO has broken down for the sixth consecutive day and has been put into The Droid Hospital; Darth Vader has just arrived there to have his knee joints oiled, and recognizes the gold robot. As we join the story, Tarkin is insisting to Luke that he doesn't want a bath or a rubdown ... Han has discovered that his batteries are flat ... Threepio is trying to find a place to hide from Darth ... Darth is trying to send Leia a text to set up a tryst ... Chewbacca is being arrested for smuggling Corellians ... Emperor Palpatine is telling a belly dancer he "hopes you don't get caught in a speeder-masher before we can muck out the bantha stables, nudge nudge, wink, wink" ... and Artoo Deetoo is speeding to the rescue with fresh batteries.

All clear now?

If not -- feel free to click on this for the story of Keegan's Misadventures In Googleland...
Episode One: Search Engine Wars:
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-google-is-wrong-boy-is-she-wrong.html
Episode Two: A New Panic, or The Googlebot Strikes Back:
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/12/keegans-master-plan-for-2009.html

This is Episode Three: Google Policy, aka The Phantom Menace.

In other words, I still have zip, zero, nada idea of what happened, but my page ranking has been well and truly zeroed out, and it's staying zeroed out. Seriously, guys: not guilty. I didn't do nothing! So, anyway --

Yup. I waited out the time I set to see if the system was self-correcting (it isn't), and then I made a nice, soothing cup of tea (oolong), put on some soothing music, burned some joss, lit a candle, said a prayer ("O god in heaven, if you even exist, why d'you stick me on Goog's Black List? And if you didn't, which jerk is to blame? He's only still breathin' cuz I don't got his name") ... and I wrote a letter to Google.

A nice letter.

Full of polite, cheerful information, and bonhomie and well wishes for the holidays.

I got an autoresponse saying words along the lines of, "Thanks awfully for your email, allow several weeks for a response, and if there's no reason for you to have been shot dead, we'll give some serious thought to reinstating you."

That's what it MEANT, folks: if there's no reason for my page rankings to be 00.00, they'll THINK about reinstating them.

Well, with the holidays coming on, better look for an intelligent gurgling sound (googling sound?) by the end of January, I guess. Which means I'll be blogging for a very small audience till then -- which is fine by me.

What I really, genuinely like about the readership on this blog at this time is ... people are here because they want to be, not because Google, in its infinite wisdom, sent them here chasing a link to Gary Oldman, whose name was mentioned as a throwaway in one line of a post about something else entirely.

So -- odds and ends and trivia this time.

Tomorrow is the 11th anniversary of the death of Lane E. Ingram, an old friend of mine ... and since I'm going the way of the digital novel next year, and therefore have to work out where to start -- which 1,000 page novel to upload a post at a time! -- I found myself going through stacks of old, old writing. I came upon a draft of a story Lane and I were working on as long ago as 1990. Tales (extremely gay ones!) of elder Atlantis.

What better memorial to Lane than to resurrect the stories, get them into publishable order, and run them digitally. That's where we're going in the new year, guys: elder Atlantis, high magic and even higher adventure. Gay fantasy. It's going to be a load of fun. What does MK get out of it? With any luck, readers will give me the occasional click on the $1 donation button, and as the saying goes, "a lot of little things add up to a big thing." Free fiction? Boat loads of readers ... $1 here and there from a percentage = decent royalties!

Lane would be delighted.

Now, I have to get some work done!

Ciao for now,
MK

Writing: the challenge of Science Fiction

It's not often I get a reader's question that leaves me blank for five minutes, but this one did. It's a beauty, because it's so fundamental, and fundamental questions tend to be so broad in scope, they touch ... well, everything.

So, here was the question: "How do I write science fiction?"

The kneejerk reaction is to say, "Same bloody way as you write anything else, what's your problem?!" But in fact, this is too swift (and too brusque!) an answer, which doesn't do justice to a question that is, in fact, brilliant in its sheer simplicity.

And since I couldn't get the question out of my mind for the next two hours, I thought it might be an interesting topic for a post -- quite a few writers are reading this blog; some are looking for publishers, others are fully intending to use POD services, but they all have one thing in common: they write.

So, how do you write science fiction?

The truth is, anyone can write anything. It's writing something well that's the challenge, and how well we do something is what sorts the wheat from the chaff. Seriously, anyone can take a crack at writing absolutely anything, but one can't guarantee the results.

Let's say you're a massive fan of G-Force and Mecha Godzilla, it's what you like, what you read, what you watch, and where your brain is ... and somebody bets you $25 you can't write a women's historical romance. Take the bet with impunity, because -- of course you can write one ... and the person didn't bet you $25 that you couldn't write a good one.

Creative writing starts with three things: 1) the burning desire to write; 2) the energy and discipline to sit down and bash out the words, all of them, right to The End; 3) a real, genuine story that's worth reading, as well as writing.

After these three jewels, the words are on paper (or on the hard drive), the story is told ... everything else is about quality: integrity, readability, characterisation, editing, coherence, denouement, style.

Let's reverse the bet, and have someone who lives and breathes women's historical romance, and somebody bets them $25 that s/he can't write a Japanese Monsterama story.

Of course s/he can. Take the money!!

Now, if the bet had been, "I'll bet you $250 that you can't write a GOOD Japanese Monsterama story" ... well, be a bit more cagey. See if you can dragoon somebody's 12-year-old kid to explain to you what the bloody hell this genre is all about. Maybe the kid will propel you in the general direction of the video store, and you can rent some. Grit your teeth and actually watch them, right through to the end credits. Something by Toho Studios would be absolutely perfect for this purpose.

In other words ... you're doing some research, because you want that $250, and it's enough money to warrant spending a few hours on getting it juuuuust right. If you're a natural born writer, the basic skills are mostly transferable: the ability to write one thing converts into the ability to write the body copy for something else --

With one proviso. Style. The hardboiled language in which a lot of SF and detective fiction is written does not lend itself well to historical romances (!), and the often florid and, shall we say, botanical (I don't want to say 'flowery,' because someone will probably thump me) language in which a lot of historicals and/or romances are constructed doesn't lend itself well to nuts and bolts SF and hardboiled detective fiction!

So you, the writer, will be using your judgment, and you'll be re-tune your "ear" to hear the difference. You've learned your skills writing 'whatever,' and a helluva lot of it; and you're coming to the challenge of writing SF with both eyes -- and ears -- open.

It all starts with the desire to write SF, having a fantastic story that you have to tell or die, plus the discipline to get all the words down on paper.

Now, if you have this burning desire to write SF, you might have actually read some -- but then again, maybe not.

If you've read Greg Bear and Charles Sheffield, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, you're on the home stretch. Follow their lead. Do what they do: write very well, with very good grammar; keep the story on course, don't let it wander; reveal the story's pivot points at exactly the right moment -- ie., don't 'telegraph' your punches, but don't don't wait so long to throw them that the reader is bored or confused. (Bore or confuse a reader, and s/he will stop reading. End of statement.)

However, if your total exposure to SF has been Star Wars trilogy (c. 1980), Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, classic Battlestar Galactica (1980), classic Star Trek (1969), classic Doctor Who (1970s), Planet of the Apes (TV series) Logan's Run (series), Knight Rider, and so forth ... you could have a problem.

These projects are certainly SF, but their genre is very different: TV science fiction of the 1960s to 1980s vintage is a Hollywood product, designed and crafted to amuse an American audience which was naive even for its day. The plotlines are very frequently soap opera dressed in SF costumes, or World War II, Korea and Vietnam stories rearmed with rayguns and energy weapons. The characterizations are "US TV standard" for their era ... meaning, you can watch SWAT, Starsky & Hutch, and any SF show made for US TV in the era, and the characters are pretty much of a sameness. They tend to have an artificial look about them to today's eyes, because they're the product not of their era on the street, but the product of their era on TV. (Hollyweird executives designed what television would look and sound like, to make the end product squeaky clean, wholesome and acceptable in Middle American living rooms at 7:00pm. It didn't make for "real" characters.)

If this is your concept of SF -- you'll certainly write an SF story ... but will it be a good one? The person betting you $250 might have a bone to pick with the kind of story, the way it's developed, and the "artificiality" of the characterization. In other words, if you want to win the bet -- look further afield.

In fact, if classic TV SF has been your exposure to SF, yet now you're sure you have a red-hot story and you're desperate to write it -- STOP. Do some research. Read some books, find out what the real thing is like. Can I give you some recommendations? Sure. Greg Bear: Eon, Eternity and Moving Mars. Charles Sheffield, Godspeed and Cold as Ice. Arthur C. Clarke -- almost anything. Robert Heinlein: Friday, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. This'll get you off to a flying start. There's about a thousand more, you'll find them as you start to look around and do a little research.

Now, I assume the technicalities of the language are in good order before you get this far. Right? In other words, your English is nothing less that superb -- grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, all those fiddling little details that make or break a writer? If they're under control, take the story by the scruff of its neck and get it written. If they're out of control --

Still write the story, but use it as a learning experience. Learn to punctuate and format text as you go. Buy some books on grammar. Seriously! Indulge yourself in The Elements of Style (Strunk & White). You don't even have to buy that slim volume, though it's still in print if you want to. You can also access it online: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html ... and for background info on the work itself, hit Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style.

In other words -- write your story while you learn to write ... then rewrite your story, using everything you've learned about characterization, denouement -- even grammar and punctuation!

The technicalities are especially important if you want to take a crack at finding a publisher, or POD publishing. You won't impress a publisher with iffy English writing skills ... and if you go POD, you won't have an editor working with you (some might say, breathing down your neck) to make sure all the eyes are dotted and the tees are crossed. When you're flying solo, you have to be very good, and very confident of your skills.

I hope this has covered the whole question! And now --

It's actually my day off, and I'm headed for the coast to do some rock hopping. Will take pictures and if anything looks especially fine, I'll put up a few images tomorrow.

Ciao for now,
MK

Confessions of a long-distance novelist.

Every one of us eventually gets bored with even the most amazing subject. The longer the novel, the more likely we are to get bored, and the more bored we're likely to get. When we're deadly bored, the work might not exactly bubble and effervesce ... this is what rewriting and editing are for -- putting the polish and sparkle on the drivel which was hammered out to get the plot moving and keep it moving.

Characters in loooong novels tend to be more likable than the "edgy," angsty bozos and SOBs you find in short(er) fiction, because we have to live with these unpleasant bloody morons for months, not days or weeks. Even the villains in long novels have likable qualities, because you have you live with them for so long. (Gary Oldman is fantastic in these parts.)

Long-distance novelists tend to write between 2,000 and 4,000 words a day. Not nearly as much as pulp fiction hacks ... because loooooong novels have to be WELL WRITTEN, since they're categorized as "literature." The author won't be forgiven for rubbish material, shoddy research and thin writing. And to write at a very high level of professionalism takes longer. You don't just put your hands on the keyboard and let them write what they like. If you do, you'll only end up working harder at the editing and rewriting phase.

The longer the novels, the fewer of them we tend to write. Some fictionists will proudly (or smugly) quote you 50+ titles which they've cranked out over the last decade. However, if you take a close look at them, you'll discover works between 25,000 and 60,000 words. It would take six or eight of these little buggers to make ONE long novel!

Writer's Block assaults the long-distance novelist (or LDN for short) just as surely as it attacks the author of shorter pieces, and the newbie, who hasn't written enough, yet, to know where s/he properly belongs. The difference is, the LDN has the stamina of an endurance athlete. We're not sprinters. We're absolutely harmless over short distances. We're used to thrashing out 5 - 10 pages per day, no matter what; the hands often seem to do it by themselves.

It can take two hours to six hours to write one's quota for the day ... depends if the inspirational juices are flowing, or if the work is being hammered out the hard way. One hopes to write faster for a shorter time ... because the rest of the clan is going to dinner tonight, or there's a good movie, or a rugby game, or the necessity to get some sleep before an early start tomorrow.

When you're an LDN, writing looooong novels, editing yourself is an essential part of the process. It might take two or three months to write the novel ... and another two to edit the thing. And all of us run out of time and work under the gun, against the clock, to get finished. The writer who says s/he doesn't is telling another kind of fiction. We have a technical term for it: the "fib."

An LDN will make the work of writing look easy. This should be known as the "Paganini Effect." It's the same as watching someone like Itzhak Perlman playing Paganini's 24 Caprices, and thinking, "That looks easy; I reckon I'll have a go myself." Then you discover the truth ... the work isn't easy, and it never was! Practise makes is look easy. (Someone once said, you'll have to write at least a million words before your writing is fully professional. That might not be completely accurate as per the number, but it's very safe to say, you have to write a hell of a lot to get to the point where you can sit down, write, and have GOOD STUFF appear via the keyboard ... and do it on demand. And this is where the endurance athlete, the LDN and the concert musician find their common ground. We're all "gluttons for punishment," because we enjoy what we do.

And this is the most pivotal confession an LDN can make ... we do it because we enjoy it. Other people bash their heads against walls; some folks work as child minders (shiver), some operate jackhammers because they love ripping up asphalt. Whatever floats your boat.

Cheers!
MK

Rites of Spring: gay turtle doves. Seriously.

It was one of those times when you wished you had a camera and enough space on the Flash card to shoot video, because it's entirely possible no one will believe you. But I swear to any deity you care to mention -- how about Marduk, the Babylonian god of war? -- that this is absolutely true.

Turtle doves, right? These birds, which flock in anybody's backyard in this part of the world and eat -- well, anything:

Turtle doves. Not to be confused with these critters, which are your actual, genuine Murray River turtle, and don't flock in backyards anywhere at all:


Okay, turtle DOVES. Birds, very common everywhere, so everyone around here knows their courtship behavior. The say "croo-croo, croo-croo," repeatedly, ad infinitum, and the male sidles up to a female (or tries to; the females usually fly away) and bobs his head up and down rhythmically while he says "croo-croo, croo-croo," which, translated literally into English means "Hi, Cutie-pie, how'd you like to come back to my place for a pile of bird seed and a bit of nookie?" The female's normal response to this pickup line is to walk away with a disgusted look on her face, and if the bastard persists, to exercise the capabilities with which Mother Nature endowed her, and fly away in a snit. (Females don't bobs their heads or say "croo-croo." They just eat, make little turtle doves, and fly away from the head-bobbing bastards as often as they can.)

Trust me: everyone has seen this behavior about a gazillion times. Nobody would waste Flash Card space on it.

But try this one: gay turtle doves. Seriously.

Two males in the backyard. One sidles up to the other and bobs his head up and down and says "croo-croo, croo-croo." The other turtle dove walks away a few steps; turn around and bobs his head up and down and says "croo-croo, croo-croo." The repeat this over and over, and then, uh, cozy up. Then they repeat the head-bobbing and the "croo-crooing" over and over, and then, uh, cozy up again ... presumably taking it in turns for who's going to be on top.

Gay turtle doves.

So there you go: when anybody tries to tell you that there's no gay side to Nature, tell 'em they're dead wrong and they need to get out more. Sheep, seagulls, penguins, dolphins ... and turtle doves, as seen in Mel Keegan's backyard.

Like I said, one of those times when you wish you had a camera handy.

Ciao for now,
MK

(Photos are by yours truly: turtle dove in the backyard; turtle in a pond at Worrowong Earth Sanctuary.)

Sunday morning ends and odds

Odds and ends today, and we'll open with a joke:

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue , where he'd been sitting on a park bench.
He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."
The old man said, "Okay," and walked away.
The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."
The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.
The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U. S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"
The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."
The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, sir!"

...I can't credit the source, because this one has been doing the rounds via email, and I got it at third of fourth hand, but -- whoever came up with this ... GOOD ONE!

A couple of days ago I was talking about the movie Australia, and mentioned that Hugh Jackman would be a sight for sore eyes. (http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/mel-at-movies-australia.html) Thanks to the folks who sent me these (click on the thumbnails for a large image and, uh, enjoy):





My political post today is in the form of a reply to a very good comment on yesterday's post: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/prop-8-racial-vote-and-anger.html ...
I did indeed need to be much more specific about the religious rights I was talking about, and I've taken this opportunity to set out what I honestly do believe. Please take a few minutes to read this additional material ... and thanks to Adam for commenting. Much appreciated.

Anyone remember the name of Ron Cobb, back in the days when he was a political cartoonist, and before he went on to design major motion pictures? Remember this:

Nothing ever changes. That cartoon was drawn about 30 years ago. Gotta make you wonder.

Nice piece of news from Keegan Country: The Swordsman actually went "live" at Amazon.com last week, and we were thinking we would have to start some serious advertising to get sales ... turns out, sales have started all on their own. Nice. very.

The Lords of Harbendane progresses smoothly. Expect the ebook at PayLoads at the end of the month; expect the Lulu.com version (best for Aussies and Kiwis) about five days later; expect the CreateSpace version (best for the US and Canada) about five days after this; expect it to put in an appearance at Amazon about ten days later. (To your right as you read this is a wee small version of the character study of Rogan, the character around whom Harbendane revolves. It's a beautiful piece of work, by Jade as always on my book covers these days. Thank gods for digital artwork.)

What's next for Keegan, after Harbendane? A couple of short stories -- which is unusual for me. I rarely get ideas that lend themselves to short works. Then the haunted house novel I had promised for Christmas '08, and then swapped for Harbendane on account of a minor plotting snafu. Then ... HELLGATE. All of it. Right to the end, by the end of 2009. This time next year, you'll be able to get the whole series either as a sex of six paperbacks or three monster hardcovers. Make a nice Christmas pressie ... tell someone you love what to get you when the silly season comes around!

Ciao for now,
MK

The shape, color and texture of things to come

If you're waiting for me to comment on the US election and Prop 8 -- call back tomorrow, when it's all over barring the shouting, and when I've thrown off the gastro I picked up somewhere. I spent the wee small hours of the morning in the bathroom, feeling like dying, and insufficient of my brain cells are in functional order today for me to say anything remarkable. Or even particularly intelligent.

But at least I can be interesting. As a science fiction writer, I always take a keen interest in what the near future is likely to look, sound and work like. And it's not always what you might be hoping for.

Get ready for cramped style and melted cool:

SF offers us flying cars and incredible aerodynes ... costing about a gazillion dollars each. In fact, this is Nissan's next generation small car -- ie., the one ordinary working stiffs (like you and me) will be able to afford. Now, let's see how much luck you have, cruising for coooool dudes (and/or babes, if you prefer) in this contraption. The last time you saw something like this, Roger Rabbit was driving it ... and it was a joke. This object hails from the '08 Paris Motor Show. Yeek.

If the Nissan Roger-Rabbit-mobile is just too far out for you (and I can't blame you), try this puppy. I call it Renault's little joke. They certainly can't have been serious. It has 93.7% less cool than the average Tinkertoy. This one is the automotive equivalent of Thomas the Tank Engine. Yurk. Also from the '08 Paris Motor Show, gods help us.

This is what you'll be wearing in 2017 for cleaning house.

By then, housework is tipped to be a tag-team event, where unisex partners like these take turns to invert each other through 180 degrees, dunk one another in the bucket of sudsy water, and I'd better shut up now before someone throws something.

But, really, the mop heads come in seven different colors, and are nanotech, where the filth and grime from those floors on which the cat threw up and the puppy forget he wasn't outside wash right off. The rest of the apparel is made in HypaStretch Spandex, so one size fits all, up to XXXXL ... though the manufacturers refuse to take responsibility for what their product actually looks like under such hyperextension...

All you couch potatoes will be zipping down to the grocery store for your chips'n'dips and pork rinds and deep fried Mars bars and beers and ice cream, aboard something like this.

The helmet comes in very handy when civilians panic when they see you going by; stuff 327lbs of blubber into one of these suits, put it on wheels and send it careening off to the store ... a certain amount of panic is perfectly understandable; and people *do* tend to throw things when they freak out.

So be sure to wear the helmet at all times; failure to do so will invalidate the warranty of the Gyroscoot Couchie-Moover.

As of 2020, human females are going to be genetically engineered to be bald and have humongous feet. However, until the necessary research has been performed and tested, you'll be able to get a jump on "the look" cosmetically, with designer head shaving and the new Bigfoot range of quality footwear coming soon to a mall near you. This "look" has been trademarked and patented by Asylum Boot'n'Shoobiz, who are currently thrashing out the third party liability insurance implications. Of greatest concern is how much is to be awarded when someone gets dizzy and falls of their shoes.

Meanwhile, if you thought the Thinking Guy was going to get away scot free and keep his kewl while the unisexers and the females of our species were looking like they just walked (or biked) out of a 1960s SF movie shot in ten days on a budget of $225.42 ... think again.

Just when you were thinking you'd be able to swan around like Captain Kirk, come 2017 ... the demigods of fashion have decreed that you'll be looking like a walking towel rack when you climb about your Gyroscoot Couchie Moover.

Just don't forget the helmet. Looking like this, you're going to need it, when people lob cartons of Nappy-San at you.

Think you'll opt out of the high-fashion end of the industry and try for the modest, conservative look? Good for you. But it's gonna take some doing.

You see, after decades of telling you that you gotta be in the gym, pumping away so you can look like Arnie, Sly, and the rest of 'em ... well, the fashion gurus of tomorrow are about to do a one-eighty on you.

By 2012, muscles are going to be verboten. They'll be like, so ten minutes ago. You'll be mailordering illegal products like Muscle-away, and Physique-buster, and Shoulder-squincher, to make your muscles vamoos, leaving you looking like ... a hills hoist wearing a tie and kewl shades.

The market leading product is tipped to be LuckyLegs (TM) -- "they'll be so skinny people will tell you, you're lucky they carry you around." This, of course it "the look" that's been foisted on young females for the last several decades, so why should they have all the fun? They'll into bald heads and humongous feet, so guys can exercise their rights to spaghetti legs and banana arms. And cooooool shades.

Of course, no one's actually going to notice what you look like, with or without your Bigfoot Boots and your green helmet ... or even your duds. Because we're all going to be living and working in towns where the buildings have had their shapes, colors and textures inspired by Nature. Welcome to Fungusville, population 788,941, where the buildings grow themselves to accommodate population blowout as needed, so long as you just remember to put plenty of (synthetic) cow poop in the basement, leave the roller doors up, and pray for rain. The bigger the population gets, the taller Fungusville grows. And then there's...

The bananascraper, which speaks for itself, and has been known to produce allergic reactions in certain residents.

People have have known to come out in hives from head to foot, so, before taking up residence there (where an apartment can be purchased for a measly $22,847,999.95), be sure to first perform a patch test, and make sure you won't be wearing your green Gyroscoot Couchie-Moover helmet so your fellow coworkers over at the office in Fungusville won't be freaking when they see your latest crop of, uh, hives.

Y'know, I think I'll stick with the bluejeans and sweaters, and keep on driving the old Holden beater, and live in the countryside. I might be an SF writer, but I don't think I'm going to want to participate in the more fashionable side of it!

Ciao for now,
MK