Back at home, lots to do.

I am not going to apologize for being away so long. I might choose to apologize to people who are waiting for email replies from me. We'll play it by ear.

We're recently back from a weeklong stay in New York, specifically on Long Island. We hardly got into the five boros at all, frankly, outside of trips fro and to the airport. Still, it was loads of fun: there's the food (of course, always the priority in my mind--Eddie's, bagels, Chinese, Green Cactus, and of course Thanksgiving dinner), the family and friends, and Sam playing with his cousin, also around one year old, from out in California. It's a shame cousins so close in age will spend so much of their youth so far apart. Still, though, fun.

The flight back with the very tired and restless and loud Sam? Not so fun.

There's some book news about to break as well (personal appearances, a trailer, final cover . . . boring stuff like that), but for now it's under my hat. I will announce right now that, beginning with an exciting guest post in the next few days, I'll be holding a contest here at the Exile. The winner will receive an ARC of The Absolute Value of -1, signed not only by moi, but also but several Tenners. If all goes according to plan, the signers will be the same Tenners whose guest posts I'll be hosting. Details to follow this week!

Finn Reeder: Flu Fighter

My new laptop is due to arrive today. It might show up at any minute.

Meanwhile, Eric Stevens' latest and greatest project for SAB is now live as a free pdf download! It's only available free until the first of the year.

Click the cover below to get it. And I hope you enjoy it. I think it's pretty funny.

TKBs III

Ahoy!

Last night was our last pre-final-cover meeting with the wonderful TKBs. It was a blast, naturally, and there were even more questions and comments for me, which was nice. See, there was more time at the end before the members had to scatter because we only looked at four comps on the old overhead. Anywho, the questions and comments were mostly very flattering and I probably went red once or twice.

The point is I think most of the members who read |-1| (at least those who spoke up) liked it.

Oh! And the covers. Well, I was pretty hot on one of 'em, and pretty cold on one of them, and downright unmoved by another, but one of them in particular has me more excited than a crawfish at a clambake. Unfortunately, the AE warns me that it's nowhere near in the bag yet, what with all the necessary approvals down the road from Sales and departments like Sales. So I can't say anything specific about it. You'll all have to be patient with me. But it won't be long, mind you, as we need finals pretty right quick for the catalog.

In other news, check out this review of one of SAB's FTM titles. A classic?! Oh, go on.

In a perfect world, the picture I attached to this post would have been the cover. Alas, this will suffice.

"I drink with DAMN, I'M DEAD!"

This has been a tough week, and it ain't over yet.

For a lot of you, it's probably pretty much over. Friday afternoon, everything winding down. Go home, have a nice cup of tea or a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, enjoy your weekend. For me, it won't really end until I finish my homework for class tomorrow morning, get through class tomorrow morning, and then wait for Eric Stevens to finish his assignment, too, due Monday.

But those little items aren't stressing me out like they normally would on a Friday afternoon. Nope. Compared to the last five days, those are a cake walk, because on Sunday night (shortly after posting my last entry, actually), I spilled an entire cup of tea -- piping hot and with milk and sugar -- into the keyboard of my laptop.

I didn't sleep well that night, wondering if the innards would dry, if the hard drive would survive, if all the writing I'd done in the last two years would be lost!

Well, not two years. I mean, I have backed up now and then. But plenty of work that I really, really loved, including the latest complete draft of YA MS the Third . . .

Beth did some quick research, and I removed the hard drive and whatever else I could safely unbolt from the underside, then opened the laptop and laid it on a towel, per some instructions on the web. Then, I proceeded to not sleep at all.

At 3:30 in the morning, I got up, thinking maybe the thing was dry now, and got it put together and plugged in and pressed the power button. The Dell start-up screen appeared! The little loading bar got longer and longer! It's working, it's working!

Then nothing. A flash of light and blackness. Total. System. Failure.

I blacked out.

The next thing I remember is waking up under the dining room table with a pot on my head.

Not really. But at 7:59 that morning, Sam and I were at the local computer repair shop. They laughed at me, then pantsed me, then laughed again. Then they said, "We'll call you to tell you it's beyond hope in three days."

Or it would have been, if the hard drive hadn't been spared by some miracle. The thing was bone dry. The folks at the repair shop removed the hard drive, encased it in adamantium (I assume), and turned it into an external drive. All my files -- WIPs, invoices, photos and videos of Sam, completed work -- are safe.

Of course, the motherboard on the old laptop is shot. The thing is beyond repair. So I've gone ahead and bought a new laptop. The amazing thing is that it's a better, faster laptop than my old one, and cost me like 300 bucks less. So that's nice.

And hey, tax write-off!

Anniversaween Weekend

This morning, for the third time, Beth and I enjoyed the amazing brunch at St. Paul Hotel's main floor restaurant, the St. Paul Grill, no relationship to the St. Pauli Girl.

This is a tradition of ours. You see, we were wed at the St. Paul Hotel three years ago, as I noted recently herein. But specifically, our wedding was a Sunday brunch affair. Hence, the tradition!

It's also one of the best, most decadent brunches we've ever had, anywhere, period.

Today I had the country breakfast, of which I will spare you the details because you'll be so jealous you'll probably devour your own arm. The point is I couldn't breathe afterward and the whole family slept for like three hours this afternoon.

The other feature of our anniversary weekend this year was, of course, Halloween. It's probably my second favorite holiday, behind Thanksgiving, and sometimes I prefer it outright. This year, I did up the porch something fierce, with sound effects and special lighting and a scarecrow -- the whole nine. Also, to spare us the hassle of dealing with a barking and snippy Jack Russell, I handed the candy out through a huge poster of a skull -- the mouth of which I cut a slit into -- that was covering one of the big windows onto the porch. It was hell of creepy.

Anyway, our anniversary weekend is now over. So, one last time: happy anniversary, sweetie.

This post is also a test of my attempt to feed all entries in my Livejournal. Let's see if it works.
[ETA: Okay, it totally didn't work. But I also totally know why. Next time, it will work.]

image from http://undead-art.deviantart.com/art/Together-Forever-zombie-love-54566305