Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 5

J Erwine has put together Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 5. I am in it twice (Flare Bound and The Thing in the Doghouse) and my friend Arthur Sanchez is in it, too. It costs $10, but I will try to get a contributor's price for family and friends.
I may be giving this away as a Christmas present to a couple of people.

Story submission

I stopped submitting stories, but the Christmas Cats Anthology got me hooked again. I sent a story out to F&SF and got my usual 6 day "no grab" message. I sent another out to ASIM and now I am checking their slush page every hour. About 50 days ago, I sent something to Aberrant Dreams, which I believe was a stupid mistake. I queried at 45 days and I have heard nothing. Their fall zine comes out on 10/1 and if they don't contact me by then, I will pull the story. It's not likely that they'll publish it at this late date, and I'm not waiting around for their January issue to hear I've been rejected.
The problem is that there is no market where I can send a Murray Leinster style story except SamsDot. I like publishing there, but I want to move beyond a $4 per story market. The money doesn't mean that much in itself, but as a measure of the worth of a story it sucks.
I haven't sent Tyree or J anything in months. God in a Bottle is fun, but a little weak. The Telling (at Aberrant Dreams) and Note to Self (at ASIM) are just the kind of story that they'd like.
I sent Flare Bound to Escape Pod. They read stories for ipods (my idea). I have to start sending out other stuff for reprints.
I started writing the introduction to my first anthology. I'm calling it Channelling Murray Leinster.
Follow through:
I withdrew The Telling from Aberrant Dreams and sent it out to Idomancer. I don't think it's a fit, though. I was mostly upset with them for not answering my query.
I got Note to Self back from ASIM with their usual mixed review. One reviewer loves it, one hates it and one nit-picks the typos. I rewrote it while I was waiting for ASIM, and I have some new ideas and will do another rewrite. I don't know who to send it to next. I hate to submit a time travel story anywhere. I have the feeling that editors get alot of them. It's a good story, though and I may send it to SDO.
God in a Bottle is being rewritten as a YA story and will be renamed to The Quantum Genie. I have to google the title, though. It seems like it might be taken.

Yankees Magic Number

I came up with the idea last year to register Magic Number domains for the MLB franchises. It would come to about $300 to do it for one year and I never followed through. I did register the Yankees and the Mets this year and the domains work. I have a screen scraper that goes to a new website and gets the MLB stats.
The season ends in a week or so and the domains will be useless until next year. By that time the screen scraper will have stopped working.
Anyway, here are the links. Maybe they'll generate some income. Go check it out.

Yankees Magic Number for MLB Baseball Standings
Mets Magic Number for MLB Baseball Standings

Hits on Mortgage Construction Loan Info

I started to get hits on a Mortgage Construction Loan Info site that dynamically generates pages of general info regarding Mortgage Construction Loans.
I started this and then forgot about it. So far I have made less than $2, but it is amazing that it has started getting hits at all. This is a distributed link system that I can propogate to other sites and it will generate unique content at all of them.
It works by using a database of information paragraphs borrowed from construction loan sites.
Please pardon the post. It is here mainly as a SE pointer to promote the site.
Here are a few of the generated links:

More Construction Loan Refinancing information
Refinance Equity for Real Estate Loans
Refinance Equity for Real Estate Loans
Refinancing Construction Loans

Illustration for Last Big Herd

My story The Last Big Herd will appear in December in Tales of the Talisman. I accidentaly found out that an illustration has been commissioned for it and I asked permission from the artist to show it here.

I'll have to find out if the original is for sale.

Artist:
Billy Tackett
http://www.ResurrectionStudios.net
{Art & illustrations you can sink your teeth into!}

Cream Tickets

Justine sent me the ticket location today. Promenade Level 1, Promenade 200 Level Seating, Section 224, Row A. Oct. 25
Good seats. She'll fedex them to me as soon as she gets them.
The poker boys are gonna see Cream!

Cat Anthology

I sold three stories to the Whortleberry Press Christmas Cats Anthology. One is a reprint, but the other two are new and I really like them.

I know! I said I wouldn't submit to any non-pro publications and especially no more anthologies, but I can use these as Christmas presents. For about $6 I can buy author copies and sign them and give them to my friends - think of the money I'll save this Christmas.

Wet Gracie

Gracie and Ollie helped Erica and me wash antique quilts in the backyard. I made a frame and put a tarp in it and then we washed the quilts and hung them on vinyl pipes.

Gracie jumped in as we were filling it and played with the bubbles and waves. She did not mind getting wet at all.

For those of you who can't get enough of cute cats, See the wet Gracie Video.

Caleb Palappillil

Just to keep y'all up to date, here is a pic of Caleb Palappillil at almost three months.

Cream At Madison Square Garden

I scored 3 tickets in the nosebleed loge seats to see Cream at MSG on October 25th. I will try to sneak my little video recorder in and get some clips.
Update: Seats in the same section that I'm in are already in eBay at $600 per ticket. I might not get to see Cream.

Political Spam

I've just been spammed by Ellen Jaffee, a local Rockland County, NY politician.

I encourage all of you in Rockland County not to support any candidate who uses spam for electioneering. Do not vote or support in any way Ellen Jaffee or anyone who contributes to the problem of Spam.

I am reporting Jaffee to my spam software and to the spam reporting sites, and I hope that soon she will not be able to send any email with a reasonable hope of having it delivered.

I consider myself a liberal, but in this case I do not care what a candidate has on their platform. If you spam then you cannot get my vote. I would sooner vote for a conservative right to lifer than a person who uses spam.

Something Awful is Somewhere Awful

I enjoy the Something Awful site - especially Photoshop Fridays. I surfed over to do my Friday check and I found out that:

Our site is either underwater or strapped to the roof of a stolen vehicle that is also underwater.

The SA website is a minor loss in a huge disgraceful aftermath of a terrible tragedy. From the safety of my dry secure home, it is beyond my ability to know what to do, think, or say - except:

The tragedy of Katrina gives some idea how our government might have responded to a terrorist act: do nothing at all except make a speech or two.
There is a total failure of leadership, starting at the top.

Something Awful is Somewhere Awful

The Australian: It's a miracle: mice regrow hearts [August 29, 2005]

This news article sounds very much like Science Fiction. If it is true and it pans out, then we can expect that practical application in humans will appear in ten to twenty years in some countries and not long after that as legitimate therapy. The catch is that fetal liver cells are required. This will not happen in the U.S and will probably delay the research and in the end might require a vacation overseas for treatment. (from slashdot)