Terry Pratchett was, to me, a perfect writer.  He allowed one to escape to a magical world so unlike the one we live in that one could simply tune out - but he also addressed things he thought were important in the real world.  He was funny, but also gentle and kind, and could make even the hardest hearts shed a surreptitious tear or two.  As a ( Read more... )

Well, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and an awesome New year to all my F-list (and anyone else who happens to drop by)!

And, of course, Baron H chimes in with his own unique view on Classically Educated*I don't do PC versions of stuff, so despite being an atheist, we're calling it Christmas here.  After all, it's no longer a religious holiday, is ( Read more... )

Overall, it's been a good year, but the last few weeks have been a bit tiring, and I'm starting to feel it...  Basically, I need to get myself back into active mode, as I've been relatively inactive of late (although I will admit that I have done some interesting stuff - but I'd still prefer to do more!).

As most of the long-suffering readers of this LJ already know, I read books in the order I acquire them, so there's a lot of randomness in the sequence: novels I purchase interspersed haphazardly with contributor's copies, books about old race cars and books on novel criticism.  Today's entry holds a special place in my heart because I just ( Read more... )

Well, I'm back in Buenos Aires after a couple of weeks of Miami...  It was a weird sensation as I was on the beach in Miami while the rest of the country was having one of its periodic snowpocalypses.

Anyhow, as always, leave links to anything earth-shattering you did while I was out!

I was up last night thinking about Life, the Universe and Everything, and I realized that I'm just not quite satisfied with the traditional answer, 42.  In fact, I already know that I see the world differently from nearly everyone else, and I was wondering whether the rest of the people who see life the way I do would be interested in reading my ( Read more... )

I haven't abandoned LJ, just been extremely busy, but I wanted to pop in and publicly share my sadness for the passing of Janrae Frank.  She was a friend as well as one of my publishers, and always had a word of encouragement and a joke to share ( Read more... )

Not all the schools I went to were International Schools (in fact only one of them was), but this kind of sums up the way I felt all the way to the end of high school...  Plus all but one of the schools I ever went to (seven in total) actually was international in the sense that it was outside my home country ( Read more... )

Not quite up to my usual self today.  I have a reasonably bad cold and flu-like symptoms.  In other words, I'm perfectly all right, but in a whiny mood...  I will be fine in a day or two, and will attempt more interesting entries then!

Inspired by msstacy13, and the yonic Edsel kit, I spent part of the long weekend building a scale model car.  This is a 1/24th scale Cheetah, built from the Modelhaus kit, with Vintage Racing Miniatures decals.  Other than the decals a rear-view mirror, a couple of tiny rocker switches and the mesh for the grille, the kit was built box stock.  Photos below ( Read more... )