Digging in the crates yet again, I’m afraid.

Here’s four foot of iguana watching the sunrise over the Caribbean at Tulum in Mexico, where I’d much rather have been based for most of this chilly week*:

I don’t even need to explain, do I? That lizard knew the score, I tell you. I could see it in his eyes, and his disdainful demeanour.

Writing about music:

Plenty of music hackery has taken place, though nothing of particularly majestic note in the last seven days; I assume those of you with a keen interest in such things are already subscribed to The Dreaded Press**!

With the exception of the Munroe Effect show last Friday (which was a rare gig-for-pleasure), I’ve not been out reviewing or interviewing this week.

However, this Sunday sees me off the Brighton to review The Dillinger Escape Plan, and next week Gallows and F*cked Up (and others) are playing just down the road from me. Busy, busy, busy!

Writing about books:

My critical facilities (as concerned with literature) remain unexercised.

Futurismic:

This has been the main time drain once again, though things are starting to settle - watch out for the brand new site layout and theme to come over the weekend! The first new piece of fiction is ready to roll out of the door, and things are shaping up on the non-fiction front as well.

I will (as I keep threatening) talk more about my plans for Futurismic, but at the moment time is of the essence, and I at the moment feel it’s better to execute plans rather than talk about them***.

Books and magazines seen:

A care package came from Orbit with a bunch of fantasy titles and the paperback edition of Ken MacLeod’s The Execution Channel; I have no need of the latter, as I already have the hardback (and an A4 typescript from when I was sent it to review for Interzone ages back).

I may think up some crafty contest in which I can give it away to some lucky reader. Hmmm …

PicoCon!

For them what ain’t aware, ’tis PicoCon at Imperial College London all day tomorrow. Guests of honour are the legendary Cory Doctorow, the charming and erudite Liz Williams and the endearingly geeky Paul Cornell - further details at the ICLU website.

The most it’ll cost you to get in is £8, and there promises to be a good showing from the Third Row Fandom crew and certain of their auxiliary and ancillary members (including myself), so if you’re at a loose end you could do far worse than turn up.

If you are already going (or decide to after reading this verbose yet highly persuasive exhortation), please look out for me and say hello. I’ll be easily identified as the tall shabby hippie who tries to force a flyer for Futurismic into your hand**** …

Completely unrelated-to-anything announcement:

I’m very seriously contemplating selling my laptop and getting an ASUS Eee instead, as the latter can do everything I use my laptop for in a smaller and more efficient package. That is all.

Coda:

Another swift and sweet FPB this week. As I have to be up and about at ZOMFG o’clock tomorrow to catch a train, and will have little time for writing-type work during the day, I’ve got lots to sort out this evening - including (but not limited to) an interview for TDP, and Friday Free Fiction at Futurismic.

And of course there is the Sacred And Virtuous Curry Of Fridayness to be crammed into the schedule (and my stomach) … so I’ll thank you all for reading and bid you a good weekend.

Hasta luego, amigos y amigas. Suerte!

[ * That said, the place I stayed in when I was there was a terrible sh*thole full of drunk Italian teenagers, but there are some awesome beach huts for hire. ]

[ ** When VCTB's subscriber count is matched by TDP's, I promise to stop hustling like this. In other words, subscribe and save yourself the agony. Capiche? ]

[ *** Those who have known me for a long time will probably find this sentence hilariously funny. ]

[ **** Or possibly Cory Doctorow's hand. Most likely both, though. ]

Digging in the vaults for Mexico photos again, because I’ve not been out with the camera. This is the view eastwards over Mexico City*, as taken from the observation deck of El Torre Latinoamericana, right in the heart of the city. When it was first built it was the tallest building in the Latin Americas, but it lost that title some time ago. It’s still pretty damned tall though.

And Mexico City (more correctly referred to as ‘El Distrito Federale’, or ‘El D.F.’) is vast**. You get up in that tower, and whichever direction you look in, it’s just city … all the way to the horizon. Mindbending stuff - especially to someone who’s still reeling from altitude adjustment and culture shock, as I was on the first day of my travels when this was taken. Possibly the most intense place I’ve ever been in my entire life.

[* If you recognised it as being the image from which VCTB's header is cropped, well done. Have a tequila on me.]

[** Population according to official census in 2005 was near nine million, but it is claimed by various charities and other organisations that the black economy of unregistered economic migrants may add anything up to half that number again.]

***

Well. Today I am damp, and in less than the best of moods - had you caught me at 12:30 when I got to work, however, you’d have seen me at high-peak rage. Suffice to say that Portsmouth received a week’s worth of rainfall within the space of about twenty minutes today … with the twenty minutes in question falling within the timeframe of me leaving my home and me arriving at work. I’m still trying to figure out a way to make my shoes dry effectively without making them stink.

But hey, things could be worse. It’s not been a bad week, all told, although very little has occurred that’s worth reporting. In other words: no one has decided to offer me money for writing for them yet. Hmph. Gotta keep hustlin’.

However, I have received a cheque for my Strange Horizons review of Extended Play, and while it may not be for very much money, it’s symbolically heartening nonetheless. Only thing is I don’t think I can pay it into my account directly, because it’s in US dollars … which is ironic, because it arrived about a week after I got a PayPal account set up for business purposes. It’s all fun and games, this freelance lark!

Oh yeah - I went to see Electric Six at short notice on Wednesday night for reviewing purposes. Put it this way: if you’ve heard the well-known singles, you’ve already heard the best they have to offer. Selah.

***

Incoming materials for the week are as follows:

• Postsingular by Rudy Rucker (Tor US ARC) - the privileges of being part of the reviews editorial team at Interzone include being able to cherrypick anything I especially want to cover myself, and I love Rucker’s writing to bits. This new novel has been described as ‘especially weird’; when you consider how odd Rucker’s material is usually, this should be quite something.
• Electric Velocipede #12 - the extra-nice thing about the small press quarterlies is that you tend to forget about them until the new one arrives in the letterbox. I have fond memories of the last EV, so I’m looking forward to reading this one … when I can find the time.

***

Of course, next week sees me up in Liverpool for the SF Foundation Criticism Masterclass … and seeing that (as far as I can tell) I’m not going to have internet access on tap, I should get a lot of reading done. The twelve hours of train travel alone should see to that! I’ll need to spend most of it going through the reading list for the course, though - most of which has been very kindly emailed to me in PDF form by one of the course administrators, who also took the however-many hours necessary to scan them. Thanks, Fatima, if you’re reading!

A week off work - wow. Doesn’t happen often. Doesn’t happen often enough, for that matter! I’m looking forward to it - it’ll be nice to get out of town for a while, meet some new people and learn some new things. I’m just trying not to think of the state of my bank balance, which has already suffered unexpected damage through having had to replace my broken cooker … oh well. You can’t take it with you, as the saying goes. And worrying about it won’t do any good either, so I’m determined to ignore it as much as possible and have a good time.

As mentioned above, I have no idea how easy it will be for me to get online while I’m away, so blogging here may be thin to non-existant. I may try to set up the reposting of some gems from the archives just to tide you over, and there’s probably a few reviews that I could shove up as well … we’ll see what happens.

***

Well, that’s your lot for FPB this week. Time for me to engage in The Culinary Ritual Of Friday Curry Justice before hacking out the daily bloggage for Futurismic, and then I can settle down to the weekend. I hope you all have a good weekend, too, whatever it is you end up doing. Adios, amigos!

Well, talk about sychronicity. Mere days after I post a picture from my jaunt around Mexico, I hear that I can wander the ruins of Chichen Itza once again … without even having to leave my swivel-chair, let alone the country.

Oh yes! The Mexico Tourism Board has just finished a scale reproduction of the the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Second Life … another sim to add to my growing list of places to visit.

You should come too - drop me a line. I’d be happy to show people around in Second Life, and there are parts of it that really are worth seeing, you know …

Yet another image from the vaults, I’m afraid; my camera is away having its sensor cleaned*. So, let’s travel to Mexico again:

That is the view over the centre of Guanajuato, a former silver town and currently thriving cultural hotbed, located in the state with the same name. A beautiful and unique location; plenty to see, and always something happening. I saw Cafe Tacuba play a gig at the city’s baseball park while I was there, which I can safely say was one of the most extraordinary gigs of my life.

[* Yeah, I know; I haven't had it very long at all. Apparently this is one of the curses of low-end dSLRs; the first shot taken with them may loosen up some small shred of plastic left over from the manufacturing process, which then lodges itself on the sensor and puts a noticable smudge on every image. I know it wasn't a sloppy lens change on my part, because I've not changed the lens since I bought it. Selah.] Continue reading “Friday Photo Blogging: Guanajuato City, Mexico”

Digging in the Mexico archives this week; major shortage of time has prevented interesting photographic excursions. So instead you can enjoy these shots of a major street in San Luis Potosi, about half an hour after dawn:

Ah, Mexico. I’d go back if I could. Hell, if I could have found a way to work legally over there, I’d probably never have come back at all. Lucky for you lot that a gringo can’t work over there on a tourist visa, eh? Continue reading “Friday Photo Blogging: San Luis Potosi at dawn”

I’m digging in the crates for this Friday’s photos:

Continue reading “Friday Photo Blogging! Mexico dreaming”

Those of you reading via RSS will probably not have noticed, but I’ve had the virtual paint-rollers and stencils out over the weekend. Continue reading “Home improvements”

Friday once again rolls round, and with it the most enthusiastically ignored meme on the intarwebs - it’s Friday Plant Blogging time! Continue reading “Friday Plant Blogging! A prickly pair”

Just found out how to put a Flickr slideshow on here…let’s see if it works! If it does, you should see a bunch of my pix from my adventures in Mexico back in 2003.

{edit - it did work, but was an inconvenient size. So I got the funky gizmo in the sidebar instead!}

{edit 07/05/06 - This post was written ‘back in the day’ when I was still posting at Blogger. I may well get around to install a Flickr button on the new Wordpress VCTB, as soon as my host sorts out the current issues with FTP…}