http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/19/its-shame-kims-death-wont-be-moment-democratic-opportunity-for-north-korea/Read more... )

I had noticed that the spiders outside my window had mostly disappeared; they've been a lot more erratic than last year in their appearances. At the same time, I would notice strands of spiderweb randomly around my apartment. I think you see where this is going.

( Don't click if you don't like spiders )

Slacktivist is always a good read, but this is a particularly good post on Obama's dropping of the DOMA defense, and the issue in general ( Read more... )

The big problem the Republicans have facing them is that their fickle supporters, the Tea Party, who has shown every indication that they aren't as interested in the GOP as they are in their principles, wants to lower the deficit and the debt. This will not happen unless health care and defense costs are dealt with. According to the CBO, in 2010 ( Read more... )

I took a look at that "100 top books" list from the BBC everyone's posting, and I was actually surprised by how many of them I had read:

( boring )

I know the next story I wrote was called Users are Losers and involved drug dealers, but I don't have that story anymore. I know it introduced a new villain "Patch", who was a ninja with an eyepatch. Patch was intended to be a recurring villain along the lines of Blofeld (from James Bond), and I imagine that the ninja idea must have come from You ( Read more... )

Inspired by some discussions with friends over the weekend, I decided to start doing something I've considered doing for a while -- basically a history of my own (fiction) writing. What better place than LJ to do such an egotistical project. :) I know at least 1 person is interested in seeing this so sorry to everyone else ( Read more... )

I pulled out the printouts of my unfinished fantasy novel and read through some of them. Most of it is unrevised drafts so there are a lot of imperfections and bad parts, but there are also some very well written (at least in my opinion) sections, and some that I find moving. I had made it up to around 250 pages, which was somewhere between 2/3 ( Read more... )

It's been a while since I've updated. I'm teaching this summer as a lecturer -- 2 classes a day, kind of a heavy load, but the money is good. After that I'll be in my 5th year of grad school; the plan is to get a grant to study in Japan in 2010. This year I'll be finishing my course work and taking my candidacy exam; I also have to make firm ( Read more... )

This is a hilarious (and kind of gross, kind of delicious) site ( Read more... )