10:4 Check In, Nice Editors, & Accomplishing Things

I just realized that it's time for a 10:4 Challenge check in...actually, yesterday was check in time but I forgot. This month wasn't so good, but it wasn't so bad...I lost 2 more pounds! Could've been better, but hey, there's still 2 more months left and I'm less than 2 pounds away from successfully completing the challenge which is to lose 10 pounds in 4 months. Of course, I could be much more successful and probably could've lost all of the wait by now if I didn't do things like reward myself for losing 2 pounds by shoving a donut down my throat...but hey, old habits die hard...

I got an email yesterday from Edmund Schubert, the editor of Intergalactic Medicine Show, Orson Scott Card's online webzine of fantasy and science fiction! He wanted to thank me for the mention on my blog of the webzine and informed me that Tor will be publishing an IGMS Anthology soon! Very cool! He also pointed me in the direction of his blog which is great, and I think that many of you would really enjoy it. It's called Side-Show Freaks and features essays from many great sci-fi/fantasy authors as well as some great slices of life and IGMS news. Check it out.

Today has been a day of trying to get things accomplished. I went to get my oil changed at the Honda dealership which proved to be such a pain in the ass. It took 2 1/2 hours to get my oil changed...at least I brought The Time Traveler's wife with me, so I got some reading done. Gassed up the car, got some coffee, got a very much needed haircut, came home and applied for 4 more jobs. So I feel like I've at least accomplished something today. Sometimes I just feel like I'm wasting away with no job, but days like today help...I enjoy checking things off of a list. And now back to more reading!

Life And Other Things

I feel like I'm finally making a little bit of progress in life! I was contacted by a friend of a friend of my mom's who is a private practice counselor who was kind enough to offer me a little bit of advice on the job hunt, etc. The friend of my mom's sent him a copy of my resume and he said that he was very impressed by it...but where I may be running into a road block with not finding a job is that I don't mention anything about licensure on my resume. So after back and forth emails, I've now begun the licensure process for my LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor)! So I can now put on my resume that I'm "license eligible" which will hopefully open up some more doors for me since employers will see that I am indeed working my way towards becoming licensed. He said that he would think that people could figure that out since I have clinical experience and a Masters in counseling, but you never know. He was also kind enough to offer me a little bit of work! It's not much and I'm still very much on the lookout for a job....and nothing's definite yet, but he said that he does see some adolescents and if I'm interested, we can get together for lunch when I get back from Texas and talk about me maybe seeing a couple of his clients on a very part time basis. This would probably be just 2 or 3 clients a month, but it would give me some practice and some supervision which would be great! Very nice man!

In other news, I'm trying to cut back on my coffee drinking....ok, trying to cut back on my coffee BUYING. Here's the deal: I worked at a coffee shop for 5 years which caused a very bad coffee addiction. The result is that I now only drink coffee shop coffee, which is expensive. I've got it down to two a day, and now I'm trying to get it down to one a day. I usually have an iced coffee in the morning from one coffee shop and an iced latte in the afternoon from another coffee shop. Cutting out the iced latte as it's a little more expensive. So for the second night in a row, I successfully turned my car around as I was headed towards the coffee shop and instead came home and drank a Coke Blak...which is really good by the way...it's a strangely delicious mix of Coke and Black Coffee....trust me on this one, it works.

Currently reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger on Carl's and many others recommendations and it really is a wonderful book. I was hooked immediately....like on page 1 immediately. What a fascinating book. I don't know if this is the best book in the world for me to read right now as it made me desperately miss Megan even more than I already do, but I can't resist it. I think it actually shows how wonderful of an author Niffenegger is that I could find Megan and myself in her pages. She captures the essence of love perfectly...that comfortableness in memories and that pain of being away from the person you love. But I'll be traveling to Megan in two weeks and I can't wait to just have some us time....so instead of wallowing in my own self pity while reading this book, I'm enjoying it for the wonderful story that it is :)

Speaking of wonderful stories (don't you love the random flow of this post) Orson Scott Card has published the latest issue of his online magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show. For those who have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I'm slightly obsessed with this man. This is his online magazine of fiction...and it's only $2.50 an issue!! This issue is amazing! There is a brand new short story by Peter Beagle in it, a brand new interview with Peter Beagle, A new Ender short story by Orson Scott Card, and essay on Snape from Harry Potter by Orson Scott Card, and numerous other short stories by other great authors. I've bought every issue so far, and they are all amazing...worth so much more than $2.50...I guess that's the beauty of an online magazine...no printing costs!

I would also like to point you to Orson Scott Card's latest weekly review column. He reviews The Prestige and The Illusionist and I enjoyed his comments on both.

And one final thing and I swear I'll shut up for the night...this was just too cool. So, I'm at Border's last night looking for the new Stardust hardcover (which still isn't out) and I come across the coolest art book. It's The Art of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire! This book is incredible! No, I didn't buy it because the only copy they had was beat up, but they have all these great drawings by incredible artist and quite a few drawings by Charles Vess!!! I had no idea that Vess did any Song of Ice and Fire art. It was great to see some of the characters translated by an artist. There was a wonderful picture of Daenerys and a great one of Jon as well among so many others. 192 pages of art. I'll definitely be picking this one up soon.

Web Wanderings (3/15/07)

I'd like to start off the web wanderings of the week with Lisa Snellings-Clark's amazing PoppetPlanet. The site is "officially being launched on Saturday" but is now open for the viewing and it is wonderful! It's everything that a poppet lover could want an more. Included is a poppet registry, photo's of poppets traveling the world, beautiful art by Lisa, a wonderful forum that I shall be joining shortly, and a store. Lisa is opening up the Vernal Equinox Sale on March 17th (this saturday) which I'm sure will feature all kinds of amazing art.

Next up is Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. In the most recent letter from the editor there is talk about Peter Beagle doing an all new short story and interview for the next issue. I'll definitely keep everyone updated on when the issue arrives online. I've never read anything by Beagle, though The Last Unicorn always seems to be on my list and i saw in this letter that he recently wrote a sequel to The Last Unicorn called Two Hearts which is a novelette that won the Hugo for best novelette and is also nominated for the Nebula.

Neil Gaiman has announced his new corporation website by the name of The Blank Corporation which looks to be very cool. Not alot is up there yet, but the site is still great already.

And finally, Endicott Studio's did a great little short article on one of my favorite artists, Mark Ryden. Ryden's work is extremely commercial yet there's so much meaning and hidden details in his paintings. I just love the look of his stuff so much. It can be so bright, set so somber and sinister at the same time. If by any chance anyone from Los Angeles reads this, I recommend that you go to his exhibition called the Tree Show at the Michael Kohn gallery from now until April 28th.

Stumble Upon and Lisa Snellings

I'm feeling kind of blah today, but what the hell...I'll do a post anyway.

If you use any Mozilla browser, I highly recommend that you download Stumble Upon as an add on for your browser. It's a really neat little feature that I just discovered. You check off your interests from a huge list that they have. Then there's a little button that you click that says "stumble." It brings you to a random site that others with your interests have said that they like. If you like the site, you can click on "like it" and if you don't, you can give it a thumbs down and your interests are tailored to that. In addition, anytime you're at a site that you like, you just click "like it" and it becomes available to others with your interests. I've gotten some really cool results such as this, this, and this. Check it.

Lisa Snellings-Clark had a really cool post today. Lots of cool news including more details on the much anticipated PoppetPlanet. She's also announced a new sale that will run from March 17th through the 24th with some new art and poppets by her. I love the green poppet named Gaia on the post. She's also announced that she will be a guest at Balticon, and I really wish I could go. I'd love to meet her, she seems like such a cool person.

I really wish we'd have a good sci-fi convention here in New Orleans. I would love it. They have one here occasionally, but it tends to become an alien porno/fetish convention. Just doesn't do it for me....

In one other small piece of personal news, I feel that I finally reached a landmark in the internship. One of the social workers was out today so I kind of filled in for her and ran a family session by myself today unsupervised. I feel that I did really well. Family sessions are meetings with the family and our patient. They typically last an hour, but mine managed to last for two causing me to miss lunch. Lots of issues to work through, but I feel like I made some progress with them.

Ooh, one more thing. I wanted to plug Orson Scott Card's online magazine entitled Intergalactic Medicine Show. It's only $2.50 an issue and you get tons of stuff for that price. It usually has about 6-7 decent length short stories, Orson does an Enderverse short story for each one, there's young adult short stories, sometimes a comic, usually an audiobook or two, review columns, there's been a Card serialized novel called "Hot Sleep", and each issue has a new clock for your desktop which is really cool in the I-Wei's Amazing Clocks section. In addition, each short story always has incredible art to go along with it. I know he said that sales weren't too good, so I wanted to plug it. Really great deal. 4 issues to date with tons of stuff. At $2.50 a piece, you could get them all for $10. How cool is that.

A few goodies from Subterranean Press

Subterranean Press has quite a few goodies to offer right now. I've mentioned them before on this blog. They are a wonderful publisher that publishes special, limited, numbered, and/or signed clothbound editions of great books.

First up is an author I heard about from Carl V. by the name of John Scalzi. This book is entitled You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: John Scalzi on Writing. It sounds like a hilarious educative book on Writing: one that I may check out. Carl V. recommended this writer to me when I was complaining on my blog about not being able to write. Sub Press is offering a Signed, fully cloth bound limited edition for $35. How cool!

Next up is Orson Scott Card's novel Saints. It was originally released way back in the day titled A Woman of Destiny. But Card did not like that title and did not like the cover art for the novel. This new edition has a cover (and a beautiful one I may add) that was chosen by Card. It got a great review from Publisher's Weekly and the Trade edition is still available from Sub Press for $35. This was the first purchase I made through them, and it truly is a beautiful, high quality book. And it came signed by Orson Scott Card with "To Chris: Trying to Find Home" handwritten by Mr. Card. Finding home is a central theme of this book. The book is currently going into it's second printing through Sub Press. Lettered and Limited editions are sold out.

And how excited was I when I saw that Sub Press also has another brand new Card novel on it's way. I know nothing about it except for what the description on the website says. It's titled "The Space Boy" and will be released in August. Limited edition at $35 (2000 Hardcover, signed copies) and the Lettered edition at $150 (26 Leatherbound, signed copies). I think I may have to settle for the Limited. It's also an illustrated book which makes me excited. Love the Sci-fi art.

Next up is A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin from the Song of Fire and Ice series with numerous (over 70) illustrations by Tom Canty. This book is a little more pricey...o.k., alot more pricey. $260 for the limited edition (448 signed, numbered hardcover copies in slipcase) and $410 for the lettered edition (52 signed copies, housed in a custom slipcase, with artist remarque (small illustration)). The art for this book looks amazing. I don't think I'll be affording this one though.

Finally, Subterranean has an awesome magazine that is published I believe quarterly entitled Subterranean. Go figure. They are six bucks an issue, which is a steal to me. Issue 5 has Orson Scott Card's short story entitled "Mazer in Prison" which focuses on Mazer Rackham from the Ender series after the first Bugger war. Mazer in Prison was first showcased in Orson Scott Card's online magazine called Intergalactic Medicine Show. That's a great magazine by the way. Brand new "enderverse" story in each issue written by Card along with other great Sci-Fi and Fantasy short fiction. Usually an audiobook and a few more extras are also included. And the art is amazing for each story. Intergalactic Medicine Show is only $2.50 an issue and I highly recommend it to everyone. The point I was trying to get to was that Orson Scott Card said that the enderverse stories would never be published in a print format, only available through the online magazine. But here's your chance to get one of the stories in print.

And no, Subterranean Press paid me nothing to write this....back to Heroes