Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Hmmm...is it just me, or is a HUGE chunk of Neil's journal missing? 
...like everything since mid-June?  Yipes.  I hope this is just a
temporary glitch or something.

Angelina.
  

    
Angelina --
As of about 7:30pm eastern, Neil's website was still infected with the
NIMDA virus. You (and anyone else who has visited there recently) will
want to visit www.sarc.com for the symptoms and the steps to take to
disinfect your machine.
  

    
>>Schoenwetter said: "It was distributed under the guise of 'Use this
>>list at your discretion,' like any corporate memo. It wasn't handed
>>out as the hand of God."

    "Under the guise of?"  "Handed out as the hand of God?"
    I want to know read the memo aloud to this guy.

    I have a feeling that there's a smoking search engine somewhere
here; someone ran pattern match over a bunch of lyrics looking for
"war" and "bombs" and so forth.  That's the only conceivable reason
for, say, "Imagine" being there.  Though others, like "Stairway to
Heaven," are more like dumb jokes gone ballistic (to use another phrase
that Clear Channel wouldn't like).
    Did they tell the DJs to lay off Dolby's "One of Our Submarines"
during the KURSK crisis?  Just curious.

     While understanding that Clear Channel didn't actually forbid
airplay of this, uh, eclectic list (or at least -said- they didn't), I
still have a couple of large problems with it:
     -- Many of their eleven hundred station managers are going to
-take- it as a corporate directive, and that goes double for
subliterates like the guy quoted.
     -- The corporate assumption that the station employees don't have
the time, or sense, or whatever, to actually know what the hell
they're putting on the air is more than a little disheartening.  Said
the former DJ. 

     On the other hand, it wouldn't be a complete public event without
at least one case of pure surrealism, and this one caused no physical
damage or injury.
  

    
I think the IT department (myself, Ryan and John) have spent roughly
50-man hours since Tuesday afternoon dealing with the Nimda virus.
*sigh* My shame in being the innoculation point, too... eep! (I told
them leaving the machine unpatched was a bad idea... bet that's the
last time they don't listen to me.)

Will - you're definately showing your age; somewhere around mine.  ;-)


Dan Guy - I found myself singing to Enjoy The Silence before realising
what song it was. Very odd experiance. ... and, and,... I want a Kurt
of my own. *sniffle* Or Hank. Upside down with his test tubes...

I've actually been thinking about the X-Men a lot lately. Mostly the
Claremont issue(s) that talked about how they were all found... the
literal witchhunt Kurt went thru has been ringing in my head, for
obvious reasons, I think.

Overall, I really like the new album - I think Neil's right; it's one
of the best things she's done in a while. Tickets go on presale for the
Seattle show tomorrow... I know what I'm buying.  :-)

Thanks for all the well wishes and kind thoughts... they must be doing
some good, as things have been as they should be at home. (It also
helps that I've been informed by my doc that some of this is, of all
things, hormonal... sigh. But at least once a problem is understood, it
can be dealt with better.) 

Y'all are truly an amazing bunch - kind, caring, funny, considerate,
sharp wits and tongues, and of course very, very naughty. I'm rather
fortunate to have fallen in with you all... (you attract great people,
Neil.)

Dinner is served... be well.
-Kelly
  

    
John - French eh?  Well let's see how well he reinvents himself as a
comedian.  Outside of blaring "..let's kick it up a notch" or "Bam!,"
he doesn't seem to have much comedic talent. I predict the show will go
down in flames. This is in sharp contrast to Iron Chef which is one
hysterical show.  I heard the 7 course menu using live octopi was one
of the highest rated. Wonder how they used it in a desert? Come to
think of it, I just read that James T...er..Bill Shatner is doing an
American version of Iron Chef in Vegas. Boggles the mind. 

Shawn - *Ahem*..disco music hasn't died.  At least not in Europe where
they worship DJs. Think massive summer gatherings in Ibiza, UK,
Scotland, Germany, [dammit, they cancelled Love Parade this year!], to
dance to what is still essentially the disco genre. 

After the "Disco Sucks" debacle of the 1970s, disco decided to adapt
and diversify. It went underground. Became exclusive. Regained its cool
and hung out in shady places. It learned to seduce people into
organizing massive tribal gatherings just to groove on its pulsating
rhythms.  It recreated the cult of the DJ, and now it's known by
several names including: House, Deep House, Tribal, Progressive,
Electronica, Trance, Two-Step,Acid House, Garage..etc.  

DJs like Danny Tenaglia, Sasha & Digweed, Paul Oakenfeld and Deep
Dish...masters of the turntable are the new gods of what was formerly
known as "disco."  And you should hear the remix of Disco Inferno! 
*grin*
  

    
    Rocky -- the more I hear about the American version of Iron Chef,
the more it sounds like an SNL sketch that should have been strangled
in concept.  (Now, if Belushi were still around to do Samurai Octopus
Wrangler, that might be different.)  "Shatner live from Vegas" would
seem to put it on the level of a show combining BATTLEBOTS with THE
YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS.
    Now, maybe if they could get John Malkovich to play Chairman Kaga
in Bob Mackie eveningwear. . . .  Or if the crowd at Ghost Planet
Industries did it with recycled Sixties Hanna-Barbera animation.  Might
not last five seasons, but does anyone expect that of Captain Kirk vs.
the Roast Suckling Pigs in Spaaaaaace?
  

    
Yup, Neilgaiman.com, along with everything else authors on the web
have up, has been Nimda'ed.  Am in Amsterdam airport. The trip from
mpls to detroit was strange - lots of apprehensive people, and
amazingly nice and concerned and good airport and airplane staff, and
was marred only by the lady in the next chair using the sickbag for the
purpose that it was intended for, at length and at volume.  This is
all one paragraph as the enter key does nothing much. The trip across
the atlantic was fine, although the food was the worst I've ever had in
Northwest international business (which is why I always travel KLM if
I can). Am so far fine, thanks...
  

    
DanGuy--I wanna bampf!  I wanna bampf!  <<begins to wail loudly, as
only a 2-year-old separated from a desired toy can>>

'Crawler's my favorite, too, Stagewalker.


Oooops, Neil slipped.  Glad to hear you're all right, Seanachie.  St.
Brendan guard you!

Mary (who just finished "Midnight Robber"--it rocks!! and is starting
"Moab is my Washpot" by Stephen Fry)
  

    
Lenny - I know what you mean, but I think the disturbing stuff is one
of the things I like about it, especially when everyone sees into
everyone else's dreams. I've thought about what it would be like in
some of my friends' heads and actually had to stop talking to some of
them for a couple of days because of my own imagination. 

As for Neil's warning in 1475... I happily stand by my unwillingness
to upgrade unless I need to damnit! I'm on MSIE 4.0 and am affected by
none of this. Work, however, has a loverly note on the computer asking
us to please not open up the email program until Jonathan (staff
computer techie) says it's okay. 

Mike - Lucky! Del never sends me any mail. She just kind of pops up
inside my head, finishes sentences she started 2 years ago, then
disappears, leaving everyone at work wondering what the heck I meant by
"and then then potato bugs all scattered and I put the log down" in
the middle of my sentence about a missing roll of nickels in the
register. 

And if they're still demanding pretzels and cheese, I've got squeaker
food that the rats and mice all seem to hate that I could mail to the
punctuation (assuming they make reasonable pets).

Shawn - Silly rabbit! Sequiters are for kids! (odd aside: that's the
third time I've used that phrase today, after not having used it in
months)

On Tori - So I've been trying to get ahold of the local WEA rep to ask
about Tori tickets. He stopped by last week and dropped of promos for
in-store play, so I know he exists. But when we called his office (lost
his card, can't remember his name, except that it's short and we think
it starts with a "k"), they tell us that they have no new rep with a
name of Keith or Kevin, or anything that sounds like that. I feel all
Twilight Zone about it. If it weren't for the promos, I'd have my
doubts that the man even stopped by at all.

Neil - I hear if you request a kosher meal (or was it vegetarian?)
when you book your flight, you'll get a better meal. Best of luck on
the rest of your trip - sorry about the lady next to you... how
unpleasant (for both of you!).

squeaks, who is not enjoying being a manager.
  

    
Glad your trip was--well, that it could have been worse.
  

    
Morning all,
:::massive full body yawn::: It's early, but well worth it, even on my
day off. I had to get up to give my mother her meds, cause she's home.
:doing the very tired, mom is home with no bellybutton and an open
wound but I don't care cause she's home happy dance: She's recovering
and drinking a lot of Earl Gray thanks to Tree. I've been ordered to
thank everyone for the best wishes and :cringing at the coming quote:
"for keeping her little girl sane" and since she's looking over my
shoulder I'm typing it. 

In checking my e-mail this morning, after neglecting it for several
day I found the last few Sinfest's to be lovely and with Neil's flight
totally on-topic for a change.
http://www.sinfest.net/
Check the archives for the last 3 or 4 days, I've had one up for my
wallpaper for several days.

JaNell, see there ya go telling people I've got a xanga, when I
haven't touched it in days......:sigh: well sometime this morning I'll
get there and type what I've been handwritting for days.

Cross your fingers for me everyone, I'm interviewing for a new
position that may improve my stress level and have bats in my stomach.

Rocky~ You were the first person I thought of on the 11th. I'm glad
you're home and safe.

Michele~ They forgot Kyle, Karl, and Kristoph 

Jinx who's baking bread 
  

    
Dan -- Shadowcat was always my favourite, though Nightcrawler ran a
close third after Longshot.

Kelly -- You have a thing for acrobatic guys with blue fur, eh? I
loved that Kurt was into swashbuckling.  I went and re-read all of my
old X-Men comics last weekend, the first time I've touched them in five
years or so.  I had forgotten how many "important" issues that I had. 
At the same time, I found myself feeling rather disillusioned over the
quality of the stories and the arcs.

Mary -- I tell ya, I wish *I'd* had a bamf when I was his age.  It's
really cute too!  The eyes have whites, which is wrong imho, and he's
wearing red overalls instead of his crazy inverted red triangle, but
it's definitely him. ^_^

I'm enjoying Tori's CD more and more with each time through.  I've
downloaded MP3s of all of the original songs this morning so that I can
go back and forth -- it's wild.
  

    
Neil: Hope you have a lovely time on your trip.  BTW, what is
"strewth"?  As in: "She knocks on the door, I think, strewth!" ("LFTG,"
S&M)  

The Dictionary of [UK] Slang (http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/)included
it only as an explanation for "scrambled," which was really fun, but
not very helpful: "E.g.'Strewth, my head's scrambled from all those
drugs.'"

I love your art.  Really for true.  Sometimes even when I'm feeling
peevish and I'd rather not, which has nothing whatsoever to do with you
and everything to do with my Irish soul.  "Troll Bridge" is haunting
me and I don't even know why.  Could you call him off?

Jinx: Congrats to you and your mom, for being home and recovering. 
(Hospitals are crappy places to be.)  You have no idea how profound my
support is for your interview.  Fingers and other digits crossed!!!

Kelly: Glad to hear things are better!

Hullo and <waving!> to everybody else.

-Pam
Who is learning to loathe certain (work) aspects of her life from the
roots of her hair to the stuff that collects between her toes by the
end of the day
  

    
    Pamela -- the phrase was originally "God's truth," got reduced to
"godstrewth," and then to just the last syllable.  It doesn't have a
specific meaning or application, but as with all good Bad words, like
"stone the crows" or "elephant doody," can be inserted into any
conversation at any convenient opportunity.
     Oh, all right.  If you were out bowling with Karel Wojytla and he
picked up a 7-10 split, you might say, "By the doody of St. Eliphas
Levi!"  But it'd have to be something major like that.
  

    
*blinks* Mike, you're a trip to be around. One has to wonder what a
dinner with you is like...  :-)

DanG - hehehe, I'd never thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess I
have a thing for fuzzy blue guys. I reread a lot of the "important"
issues recently, too, and had a similar "huh, I remember these being so
much more..." But at the same time, they're like sickfood and old
friends, and there is a lot of comfort in their familiarity.

Jinx - another sinfest fan! Woohoo! I've got the 919 strip printed and
posted on my wall (along with a slew of others... I really like the
God and Dragon "it's an east coast, west coast thing" strip).

I think we have NIMDA contained; my laptop needs to be updated with a
few patches, and then I can go back to nesting in the back room on the
comfy couch with low lights and no people bothering me. We're all
pretty tired, tho - it's a hassle dealing with a wildly mutating virus,
lack of antiviral software til late in the afternoon when the update
came out, and 25 people all walking by wondering when they can have
internet access again. We're thinking Neil (or his webmasters, anyhow)
owe us a sushi dinner, or something.  ;-)

Glad to hear your traveling is going well, Neil... stay safe.

-Kelly, who is going to go kick the proxy server, just cuz she can
  

    
Dear Kelly - all Nimda related grumbles should be addressed to authors
on the web. Go for it. They should have installed all those nice
patches ages ago, if you ask me. (Says out of sorts author who can't
post any of his odd Venice Theories on his journal.)

Pam -- what Mike said, although I'd add that Strewth can be used by
brits and Aussies where Americans might use, for example "Jesus Christ
Almighty!" but it goes, like most emphatics, up and down the level of
emphasis volume. Iìm sure Dianna or Tree can expand on it for us.

Michelle -- I tried the Kosher thing once, and was given an El Al meal
of sandwiches and salami that was pretty icky. I tried the veggy
thing, and last time the lady handed a plate of burnt vegetables, and
said "You shouldn't really eat those, should you. I've got a fish meal
left over, would you like that instead?'  These days I just take my
chances with everyone else.

...

The weirdest thing about Venice is it's the only place on the planet
where I have a natural sense of direction. Lefts, rights, norths and
souths and things normally mean nothing to me. Except here -- it
astonished my wife when we were here together about four or five years
ago, and it's been puzzling me all day. Even when I decided to wander
around and get lost, I failed.

Typed in haste in the Giacomo Casanova Internet Store.

Oh, Boston People, Sat October 6th Harlan Ellison, Peter David and I
are talking about media, old new and otherwise, at MIT. It should be
fun...
  

    
Lots of fulltime Web professionals spent a lot of time this week dealing
with this worm even though they've been pretty prepared, so I'd grumble a
little easy on those web people, who've probably been tearing their hair
out.

(Grudging respect from someone I know: "It's a _persistant_ little bugger.
I thought I had it three times and it kept popping back again.")

What can it be about Venice?  Something in the magnetic fields of the place?
The ley lines line up?
  

    
ooh!  ooh!  something for Boston people!  That sounds like an
interesting talk indeed, Neil.  Thanks for the heads-up.  
Is this another thing organized by Henry Jenkins?  It sounds
like his kind of thing.

I'm listening to the new Tori.  It's a bit odd so far because I
picked up the CD at work and so I'm still lacking the immersive
effect of just putting it in and listening straight through -
so I'm not sure my experience is yet any better than the various 
mp3s and samples that have been either going around the net or put out
by toriamos.com.  That will have to wait till tonight.

note to self: when going to the Target down the street to buy
a CD at lunchtime, it is *not* worth buying lunch from the fast-food
thing inside the Target store, even if you're already there and
you need to buy lunch.  What they sell is not lunch.  
  

    
I think the name says it all, sometime in the next two weeks I
transfer to a better department, where I not only get a desk and a few
walls, but I get to wear real clothes!!!!!!!!! 

Jinx who hates her uniform
  

    
The Tori performance on Letterman as indeed wonderful. It's probably
my fave of all her TV performances. Both my husband and I cried. We
taped it too....now if I only had a second VCR to make copies...I
suppose I could mail it to someone with two VCRs as long as they
promise to send the tape back. 

  I have been listening to the new album nonstop and showing all my
friends. It's defenitly not one of those albums you can put on as
background music to ,say, clean the house to. I tried it
yesterday....didn't get much done. I kept having to sit down and listen
and think and listen and marvel. It's funny, I too wanted the Raining
Blood cover, but they didn't have it so I got the Time one. Now I'm
kinda glad I did.
My only gripe is that I think the stories should have been in the CD
booklet. That irritates me slightly....But, what can you do?
It sort of freaks me out because I swore I would I would never post on
The Dent forums, but due to recent excitment, I have been. There are
actually some pretty cool and un-freaky people there. (Angelina, don't
think I don't notice you!)

Neil- I'm glad you are safe and sound.

Erynn, who is feeling a bit like Delerium today, for she has only had
three hours of sleep and got called into work early this morning to
wait tables. 
  

    
Congrats on the new job, Jinx, and on the upcoming freedom from uniformity.

Kelly, I can attest to the fact that dinner with Mike and Neil together is
like receiving a deluxe grab bag full of goodies for the brain.

Still thinking of tourmalines, and hoping to g crafts sometime soon, and
hoping someday to see JaNell's work, which I bet is way cool.

Neil, somehow it figures that you'd have perfect sense of direction in
Venice. It should be one of your attributes, maybe, if they ever made you a
saint; if I get around to doing the silly saint photos and trading cards,
using that perfect empy marble niche in the TwinCities, you can be in there
along with Teresa No Hyphen, whose attributes include being able to name the
Trivium and Quadrivium on very little sleep, and being able to construct
clothing and shelter and possibly even evening wear from a small box of old
sweaters, leftover beads, the detritus of the average workbench, and ancient
duplicate copies of really questionable novels, probably.

If you got to be an imaginary saint, what would you like to be saint of?
Me, I think I'd like to be patron saint of impromptu convivial foolishness.
Or maybe of introducing people to each other and to stuff they will like.

Or of long hot baths, if the previous two slots are already taken.
  

    
Not in the same niche with Teresa, I mean; in the same series of saint
cards. Whatever. I is confused and should go have an eclair and some tea.
  

    
Re Nimda:  In addition to the tool to disinfect affeced websites at
www.sarc.com, there are patches for IIS at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms00-078.asp
and
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-020.asp
  

    
Michelle/Neil--Be VERY careful ordering special meals on planes. I was
once advised that the vegetarian meals were the best bet on a
particular airline. Only to find that they had consolidated their menu
and only offered a vegan meal. So I ate brown rice for 15 hours. [sigh]

Kelly--Mike got it right on the nose. People like the Crocodile Hunter
and Crocodile Dundee might say 'strewth' over here, but not us
civillised types. [grin] Now, what is it about ancient reptiles and
their effect on the Australian vocabulary? Crikey! That'd be something
to look into!

Jinx--Hugs to you and your mum and the Bratchilde. I'm so happy for 
all this good news!

I love my sysadmin for a change today because we were patched and safe
well before the worm hit.

Tree
Who shares a name with the patron saint of a group of barefoot
Carmelite nuns, hence my need to run barefoot as often as possible.
  

    
Martha... I'm a full time web professional who was tearing her hair
out; at least I had a semi-valid excuse for not having a patched
system; this is a test machine and it needed a nonpatched version of
IE. (This was our only point of entry - our IIS boxes are _secure_!)
Hrm... "Dear Webmaster@neilgaiman.com, Our IT department has decided
that, the next time you're in our area or we're in yours, you owe us a
sushi dinner..."  *chuckle*

Lioness... the thought of dinner with Mike is boggling all by itself,
adding in Neil hadn't even occured to me. Tho, as I've mentioned, I
have done breakfast in a large room with a bunch of other comic people
and Neil... which was, uh, interesting. (Comic people really aren't
morning people. Getting a bunch of us to Oakland by 9am was really a
miracle, in and of itself.)

Does it bother any of you author sorts out there to have us non-author
sorts talking to you in third person? It's sort of weird, I feel like
"well, they're reading this, I should address them, except I'm really
addressing ThisOtherPerson, and... ouch. My head hurts..."

Lioness - can I be the patron saint of weird tangenting conversations?
I tend to lose people with blinding precision while talking to them;
it's not my fault that the leap from A to G is natural, and they need
to do a more linear, A B C approach...

Oh my. It's 7:30pm and I'm still at work, and have so much more to do.
Er, yes, I should go DO it, eh?

-Kelly