http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summaryTue, 20 Jun 2006 04:45:14 +0000http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/blogger.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/115077757094428936Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:18:00 +00002006-06-19T21:39:46.070-07:00 Been a while since I've been here at my blog, so it's time that I put in an announcement, since I'm one of the Wild Cards writers and this is no longer under wraps but ready to publicize. This from George R.R. Martin: June 5, 2006 We can't die yet. We haven't seen The Jolson Story. The WILD CARDS series is back in business. We've just signed a contract with Tor Books for a new triad of WILD http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2006/06/new-deal-for-wild-cards.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113523469176906040Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:14:00 +00002005-12-23T00:02:09.733-08:00Judging by the state of the web at the moment, it appears I'm going to be the first person to do a review of Jane Johnson's The Secret Country: The Eidolon Chronicles. First off, full revelation: I've never actually met Jane. However, I'm good friends with Katharine Kerr, one of her authors, so I've been hearing about her off and on for years. When I went to CascadiaCon, this last fall's http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/12/jane-johnsons-secret-country-eidolon.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113450004746300833Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:48:00 +00002005-12-13T18:04:26.513-08:00From the Sacramento Evening Bee, November 19, 1896: I was just in Truckee last week. Amazing what can happen in these small towns.http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/12/ufo-from-1896.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113446944733008544Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:07:00 +00002005-12-13T02:24:07.340-08:00Remember that bit in the first film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where Gene Wilder (the nicer Willy Wonka) presses all the buttons and all the tubes of colored syrups and fluids whirl and pipe, in the end producing a pretty uninteresting looking stick of chewing gum? Admittedly a magic stick of gum that turns Violet Beauregard into a giant blueberry, but still, kind of a let http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/12/lazy-drinker-mad-alchemists-cocktail.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113445614383279971Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:39:00 +00002005-12-12T22:42:23.843-08:00A seller of miraculous goods and magical items.http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/12/word-of-day-mirabicary.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113372233659695027Sun, 04 Dec 2005 18:49:00 +00002005-12-04T10:52:16.606-08:00Just dropped a tip to Xeni over at Boing-Boing about some old wax cylinder recordings I'd found, since she is doing a feature on them currently. She's as amused as I am at the "I'm a Naught Girl" bad-girl tune recording.http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/12/ive-been-boing-boinged.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113173475097292836Fri, 11 Nov 2005 18:37:00 +00002005-11-11T10:49:28.390-08:00A turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken) stuffed into an ostrich--a South African dish, following an ancient tradition: Actually the concept underlying the turducken goes back much further than that. For example, a time-honored South African dish employed the turkey-duck-chicken combination but went a step further and stuffed it into an ostrich. (The result, obviously, http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/word-of-day-osturducken.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113156512638777783Wed, 09 Nov 2005 19:17:00 +00002005-11-09T11:38:46.410-08:00Interesting what your morning mail can bring. One of my small sidelights and hobbies is fontography. As with many small sidelights, I went wild with it a few years ago, and designed two fonts, Witch Hunt and Death Dance. I put them up and offered them as shareware, hardly hearing a word about them and no money attached...until this morning. I was contacted by Bonnier Publications, a Danish http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/witch-hunt-in-denmark.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113134095934761876Mon, 07 Nov 2005 05:05:00 +00002005-11-07T01:21:25.330-08:00 Isn't this appetizing? It's squab dressed as toad. Yes, really. You can make pigeons look like amphibians and serve them. What could be stranger? Perhaps, maybe chicken dressed as knight? This is a medieval recipe, known as Coqz Heaumez, with a roast piggie for a royal steed. Is it possible to get anything stranger? Why yes, yes it is. Here we see a pair of cockentrices, medieval frankenfoodhttp://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/meat-in-costume.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113121896441745791Sat, 05 Nov 2005 19:21:00 +00002005-11-05T12:00:49.586-08:00 Faldstool (from the O.H. Ger. falden or falten, to fold, and stuol, Mod. Ger. Stuhl, a stool; from the medieval Latin faldistolium is derived, through the old form fauesteuil, the Mod. Fr. f autcuil), properly a folding seat for the use of a bishop when not occupying the throne in his own cathedral, or when officiating in a cathedral or church other than his own; hence any movable folding stool http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/word-of-day-faldstool.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113121512938852274Sat, 05 Nov 2005 18:21:00 +00002005-11-05T10:25:29.403-08:00Here's a useful site. While searching for more info on rushdips, I stumbled across another novelist's personal word list, with dates of usage and everything. Words like rushdip and gardyloo. Joy.http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/face-down-wordlist.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113110592424831177Fri, 04 Nov 2005 11:57:00 +00002005-11-04T20:15:40.890-08:00Well, I've cut into my NaNoWriMo time by polishing and tweaking the first chapter here, but since I wrote this a long while ago and have since workshopped it, I had changes I wanted to make and issues I needed to address. Whatever. It's now in a state to be seen, and will then be followed by the mad-dash first draft which I'm going to launch into writing as soon as this posts. And by the http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/nine-for-stranger-chapter-i.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/108456677505704448Fri, 14 May 2004 20:23:00 +00002005-11-04T18:57:31.100-08:00Read a disturbing mention in the New York Times: The New York Times on Thursday said the CIA used a technique known as ``water boarding'' on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed about 3,000 people. The interrogation technique involves strapping a prisoner down and pushing him under water to make him believe he might drown, The New Yorkhttp://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2004/05/welcome-to-modern-witch-trials.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113115622840649119Sat, 05 Nov 2005 01:56:00 +00002005-11-04T18:03:48.420-08:00Ever wonder how to make a rushlight? Here's how: The Rushlight or Rush Candle of Old England From The Rushlight, Vol. 1. No. 4; Feb. 1935 Readers of Shakespeare and Milton, of Scott and Dickens, of Charlotte Bronte and other writers, are probably familiar with the rushlight of English literature, but few of them perhaps have any distinct mental picture of it and how it was made. Figures http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/rushlights.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113095978322091216Wed, 02 Nov 2005 19:10:00 +00002005-11-04T16:47:06.720-08:00Well, it's been a long while since I've posted to my weblog. So I'm fixing that, and updating it. Many things have been happening the past year, but rather than go into them all, I'll simply note that I've decided to join the NaNoWriMo challenge. Why am I doing the National November Writing Month insanity? Because I've been behind on my writing, and since November is relatively free, I might as http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/blog-resurrection.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113113074327450058Fri, 04 Nov 2005 18:44:00 +00002005-11-04T16:44:11.350-08:00Well, having finally gotten the first (non-counting for NaNoWriMo, counting for me) chapter tweaked and polished and up, I then proceeded to get 558 words of the next chapter written before sleep overtook me. And this morning, I've added the cute NaNoWriMo icon to my blog. See? My account for NaNoWriMo is "morobrany," by the way. Sometime today, I'm going to have to go get my cel phone http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/nanowrimo-t-mobile-and-brecks-bulbs.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113097880285579719Thu, 03 Nov 2005 00:45:00 +00002005-11-04T16:22:09.380-08:00As you've probably noticed, the site has just gotten a redesign--I picked a new template, one that had comments enabled, and is generally prettier than the old one. And I cleaned up my links.http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/new-template.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/113114346431117955Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:22:00 +00002005-11-04T15:47:39.733-08:00So, you want to know how to eat fire? I do. Or really, I needed more details for a scene for Nine for the Stranger, so I just looked it up: http://www.youcaneatfire.com/ http://www.g4tv.com/unscrewed/features/45297/How_to_Eat_Fire.html I'm pleased to find that I had most of the details correct, though I hadn't thought about the most important one: exhale continously. Makes sense. Ah, researchhttp://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2005/11/how-to-eat-fire.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/108225975342317967Sun, 18 Apr 2004 03:42:33 +00002004-04-17T20:46:28.233-07:00Have been out of town, busy, life eating my blogging time, distractions to life eating that, whatnot. To sum up the past few months, my dog, Sprite, who was ill, got very sick due to the botched blood transfusion, lost her leg, and then died of complications. To be bluntly honest, we euthanized her when there was no hope left, and the doctors said she would die in agony within the next day http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2004/04/have-been-out-of-town-busy-life-eating.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/107309945456565115Sat, 03 Jan 2004 03:10:54 +00002004-01-02T19:13:51.060-08:00New Year's resolutions lead to new blog posts. Thus I introduce a new feature of the Alchemist's Arcanabulum: my Faerie Queene Diary January 1, 2004 It’s New Year’s Day and Tim accused me of the crime of wasted gifts with rhyme and such. I took too long with my response (I love to argue), being flattered and a touch annoyed–he’d called me Edmund Spenser. Much too late, I left to joinhttp://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2004/01/new-years-resolutions-lead-to-new-blog.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/106894702858775238Sun, 16 Nov 2003 01:43:48 +00002003-11-15T17:44:18.983-08:00Word of the Day champleve n. A technique of decorating metal in which areas that have been hollowed out, as by incising, are filled with colored enamel and fired. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [French : champ, field (from Old French, from Latin campus) + levé, raised; see levee2.] --------------------------------------------------http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2003/11/word-of-day-champleve-n.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/106710093459013256Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:55:34 +00002003-10-25T09:55:36.873-07:00Word of the Day sostenuto \Sos`te*nu"to\, a. [It.] (Mus.) Sustained; -- applied to a movement or passage the sounds of which are to sustained to the utmost of the nominal value of the time; also, to a passage the tones of which are to be somewhat prolonged or protacted. http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2003/10/word-of-day-sostenuto-sostenuto.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/10663656046400320Fri, 17 Oct 2003 04:40:04 +00002003-10-16T21:42:26.823-07:00Well, I'm back now. The mead I started is nicely brewing in the garage, rhodamel and all, and I'm back after a ten day trip to San Diego and other parts south, where I did Conjecture and Buffyfest, then topped off the trip by attending Dr. Schuler's Medicine Show at the El Cid in LA, after I met Jonathan Woodward at Buffyfest. Jon plays Knox on Angel, Holden Webster on Buffy (stealing the http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2003/10/well-im-back-now.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/106439396615727446Wed, 24 Sep 2003 08:59:26 +00002003-09-24T02:01:04.160-07:00I'm brewing mead tomorrow, so set the wayback machine. Here are my brewing notes for my metheglyn, circa 1995: Sage Honey. Boiled water with spices, roughly a handful each of cloves, allspice, cardamom pods, star anise, and chopped licorice root. Nearly a tablespoon of regular anise, crushed, and seven cinnamon sticks. Also six nobs of freshly grated ginger, the rind of two lemons, http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2003/09/im-brewing-mead-tomorrow-so-set.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4082900/posts/summary/106176584056028861Sun, 24 Aug 2003 22:57:20 +00002003-08-24T15:57:20.553-07:00Word of the Day gobelin The oldest picture carpets originate however from Egypt (1400 v.Ch.) Later, starting from the time 14. Century was used then also different materials, like for example silk, and the function of the thermic protection was omitted. Also the motives, in the Middle Ages strictly simplified, became more playful and the art of the Stickens achieved their full bloom in http://www.dm.net/~kevin-a-murphy/2003/08/word-of-day-gobelin-oldest-picture.htmlKevin.A.Murphy@sff.net (Kevin Murphy)