I love Christopher Priest's Inverted World so far, but the premise is waaay similar to The Iron Council and Philip Reeve's Mortal Engine series. Except Inverted World came out in 1974.

I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so I don't know if mobile cities are just a convention I'm unfamiliar with or what, but it's weird.

(yes, I know Iron Council doesn't involve a mobile city, exactly...but the whole removing-tracks-from-behind-and-placing-them-in-front thing is there.)

The SO (okay, DH) and I were outside reading in the backyard this morning when he noticed a strange coincidence about our books:

We didn't plan it, I swear.

This weather sucks, and it's really depressing, and I wish it would go away. But good things are coming up!

1. Siggraph next month in New Orleans. Yay sun! Yay heat! Yay Will Wright! Yay animation all day every day! Yay sessions on Up and Star Trek and moving plot along in games without using cut scenes! Yay free stuff! And parties!

And the SO's actually coming this time, for the first time ever! Yay!

So. Much. Awesome. It's like five days of birthday and Christmas combined.

2. Starting a 3-D modeling course next week. Taught by someone who works for Autodesk! Yay!

Today in Useless Web Design: All I want are these Post-Its:




But just try to find them! I dare you.

Finally, THIS is my new favorite blog EVER EVER EVER because it introduced me to this:




BLOOD SACRIFICE!

Seriously, it's almost better than Cake Wrecks.

Sanford is such a creepazoid. Wahh wahh, I had affairs with a bunch of women! Life is so haaard.

I love the ol' "but at least I didn't have sex with them." Yes, that makes it SO MUCH BETTER. What a great guy!

Why, yes, I HAVE been wearing my shirt inside out all day.

Arrrrrrrrrgh.

Alice Hoffman goes Twitter-batshit on a critic who gave her a bad review.

SO. BORED.

I'm spending the day going through stock photos. Some of the Gettys ones are really strange -- there's a metal wire doll praying to a pill bottle, a Ken doll standing next to a stethoscope, and what looks like Blue Man Group having a Satanic aspirin ritual. Who thinks up these things?

Creepy creepy creepy.

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEPY.

OMG, it's 1991! Let's all put on our baja shirts and walk halfway across campus to use the Internet!

This is my friend John:



He was quite popular with the ladies. Actually, I think this was a year or two before I met him. But still.

This is Trent:



I think he was also quite popular with the ladies (although I didn't know him that well at the time).

Here's my question: Why can't dudes have floppy hair anymore? Huh? Huh?

(disclaimer: posted with permission, and I'm sending them links to this post)

I have an OKC account that I started on impulse after I did a quiz or something. I put "happily married and not looking, not interested, not interested, not interested" all over it. But does that stop ALLCAPS HORNY MIDDLE-AGED MAN?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALLCAPS HORNY MIDDLE-AGED MAN WILL NOT BE STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HI BABY HI ANGEL UR CUTE U CAN HIT ME UP ANYTIME

So I just got a message from Brian, the Naughty Cop. I'm almost tempted to write him back. I mean, he's Brian, the Naughty Cop. He's a cop, but he's naughty. He's a bad, bad cop, that Brian the Naughty Cop.

Bra shopping is depressing and horrible.

We went to Gulu-Gulu for lunch today and had infused liqueurs, and I picked one that had fig, cinnamon and vanilla in it, which all sounded really good, except I somehow spaced the fact that it also had two shots of whiskey.

I came home and conked out on the couch for three hours. I'm such a wuss.

Oh, dear God.

I had to ask the painters to take their buckets out of the dahlia bed this morning. I feel like a little old lady. Out of my garden, you hooligans!

1. We're painting the house Voodoo, which is a dark red-violet. I look forward to planting orange and yellow flowers in front. Maybe some Love Lies Bleeding for extra gothiness.

(I love that in New England, you can paint your house any wacky color you want. In Indiana, your choices are white, brown, or if you're feeling really crazy, yellow.)

2. I went to San Antonio this weekend to visit the in-laws, and we went to Schlitterbahn. I only puked once! Also, we went to the Texas Folklife Festival, where I had watermelon juice, cantaloupe juice, a sangria slushie, horchata, Shiner Bock, bubble tea, frybread, a Wendish cheese sandwich, pickles, pickled watermelon rinds, and Belgian rice pudding, and the SO had so many meaty things I lost count. It was 104 degrees, which was annoying for about two seconds, until I remembered that it was 50 degrees and raining in Massachusetts.

3. The SO is staying in Texas for a few more days, so I'm catching up on Daisy of Love. These guys are my favorites:



Swedish triplets who freely admit they're just there for the food and booze. And they eat RAW HOT DOGS with SALSA. I hope they get their own show.

I really didn't need to know that my cousin's list of activities include "Softball, Darts, Pool, bags, fishing, boating, sex" and that his favorite book is the Kama Sutra.

I mean, really. Bags?

GI Joe: Lowest test screening scores in the history of Paramount.

Oh, it sounds craptastic. I really want to see it now.