I'd been sentenced to death. A guy had tried to rape me and I punched him in the face. He fell backwards and cracked his head on the floor, which killed him. I was then sentenced to be hanged, although 'sentenced' isn't really the right word as it was all very sudden and surprising. There was no trial or anything, I just remember seeing the death ( Read more... )

I'm still alive and relatively well. I ended up back in Redditch, which I remembered as pretty much a shithole but has pleasantly surprised me. Although it seems to have an above-average share of single teenage mothers and young men with too much time and not enough brains (although nobody rioted here, so either they're not as bad as they seem or ( Read more... )

Just about to pack Cool It when I noticed that I'd folded the dustcover into a page (one of the great things about hardbacks: you don't always have a bookmark/receipt to hand to mark a paperback page, and I hate folding the corners down) as I do when I want to quote something at a later point. So here it is:"As we have seen above, there is a lot of ( Read more... )

I just commented on John Scalzi's last blog post. He mentioned that he'd bought a new laptop partly for "causal gaming". My comment: "Causal gaming? Just think of the consequences ( Read more... )

Anyone who knows this business believes that traditional publishing is in for a few years of massive turmoil because of the increasing decline in standard book sales and the inability of most publishers to get out of huge labor contracts, trucking contracts, and warehouse contracts. After this third quarter, this will really start to show in ( Read more... )

While at Kris's the other day I had a small 'run in' with one of his flatmates. The conversation turned to fruits, mangoes were mentioned, and I said that I made a mean mango cheesecake (to be fair I've only made it twice and it came out a bit shit the second time, but the first time it was amazing). Kris pointed out that his flatmate was vegan and ( Read more... )

"I've got some bad news for you ( Read more... )

Based on spectroscopic observations of meteorites and asteroids, Lewis estimates that an asteroid 500 meters across would be worth about $4 trillion in cobalt, nickel, iron, and platinum. The metal is pure and in its raw form, making mining relatively easy, and the profit from such a venture would be more than enough to pay off any initial ( Read more... )

I really like bar work a lot of the time. It's nice and varied. Today ( Read more... )

I have no idea what "bull-puckey" means (well, it's obvious from the context, but I've never heard it before and don't know where it comes from) but this made me smile:"It takes me about 15 minutes, give-or-take (depending on the book and the day and how I’m feeling) to write 250 words of fiction. (Each writer is different. Time yourself ( Read more... )