the slowest post ever

if this stupid blog could load pages any slower, it would. right now i am sporting a battlestar galactica bracelet courtesy of the LTEU symposium that i was forced to go to for class. well, at least i came of with free booty, otherwise known as cool stuff, aka my bracelet. plus i got to hear the man himself, jerry pournelle, talk about the role of science in science fiction. in a few words, he said: a good science fiction novel = few assumptions made. in other words, less fake scientific concepts thrown at you. to translate that into a concept more understandable to those of us on the super-secret subcommittee for the distibution of graphically vulgar flyers, he means simply that the new wave of science fiction is obsessed with techno-porn. i would like to have made that phrase up, but i am not that lucky. jerry beat me to it. damn him. techno-porn is an adult theme, said jerry, and adult themes sell better than juvenile ones. except that doesn't make them any more real, does it jerry? he got into the industry when there wasn't any money in it, but his bestselling novel made "a hell of a lot more" according to the venerable jerry. i didn't ask him the pertinent "more than what" question for fear that the answer might be more graphic than i could stomach. after all, i was halfway through my swiss cheese and honey ham sandwich, and i didn't want dangerously sexy robots disturbing my lunch. i assume that sexy robots would be a huge part of techno-porn, but then, i wouldn't really know. you'll have to ask jerry yourself for that answer. well, i'm off, but let this be a lesson to you: if you think that your writing is no good, just insert some blank-porn, and you'll be a bestseller overnight. the possibilities are endless: gamma-ray-porn, cspan-porn, magnetic-porn, blender and microwave... you get the idea. see you on the bestseller list.

the inscape booth

so k and i just finished rocking out at the buth for a week straight. i hope some more byuers know about the old Inscape publication now. cross your fingers and wish for good submissions. you might also want to wish that some of the staff members grow an ear (or an eye) for good lit and start loving my stories that i give to them. or maybe my stories just suck and i'm deluded. oh well. cheers to the buth! N-SCA-PAY 4-EVER!

update on helicopter guy

he actually hasn't been coming to class lately, but that's ok because he has a great replacement. she seems to be incapable of separating herself from any of the material that we discuss, and all her comments are based purely on her own experiences. for example: she made some comment about how she played softball in high school. in my opinion, her softball days are not relevant to our class discussion. i could be wrong though--how important is our own personal experience in terms of what we try to express to other people? i feel that she could communicate her ideas more easily if she just said what she was thinking, but she seems incapable of doing that. i know i am guilty of rambling monologues, stories, and so on, but for the most part they have no point, and i love to hear myself talking, so that's enough motivation for me to keep spewing out endless tales and keeping anyone listening to me hooked.

that's enough revelation for one paragraph, i think.

hey! i'm not dead

or at least it appears that way. after a month of blogless stupor, i have decided to rebuke those naysayers that said i was a thing of the past. and so, correction--i am not a thing of the past. as to deeper musings about writing and so on, i'll get to that later. just thought i would establish that i am still alive. ok then.