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2013-06-15 14:45:50 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Mores page 20

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

She had maintained a good idea of her location this time, being aware of the luck which had been the only thing that got her home the time before, but it seemed nonetheless an insurmountably great distance. She tried to clear her mind and focus on what was to be done, but the added weight was doing her no favors as her thigh continued to ache and both arms to sting with the shallow yet unfortunately placed wounds. It quickly became clear to her that she needed to unburden herself a bit.

Unwilling to let go of her prized pelt no matter the cost, she was nonetheless willing to do away with the wolf meat. It was... more »

2013-06-14 23:07:42 (2 comments, 7 reshares, 7 +1s)

Yahtzee makes an interesting point here, briefly enunciated. If you look at an average video game playthrough, especially in a shooter, and remove all the death/reload/death/reload bits such that you're experiencing it as the actual people in the universe do, the villians' continued resistance goes from brave to incomprehensible to suicidal over the course of many games.

Master Chief never even pauses to take cover for more than 10 seconds at a time. He always chooses the perfect tactics, somehow ends up behind every single offensive, is perfectly positioned to ambush every single dropship of reinforcements, and on the very rare situations where he manages to fuck up he nonetheless pulls it out without breaking a sweat.

There's virtually no one in the entire Halo universe that has stood up to him and lived to tell the tale, and those very few that did tell a story of a... more »

2013-06-14 10:27:13 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

God, do we...

via http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=978

2013-06-14 09:56:58 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

No no no no no.
Just... NO.  
Man nipples are not okay, people- and I for one am so offended by my re-sharing this that I am going to immediately report and block myself.
THAT'll show me.  

#StopCensorship   #FreeGooglePlus   #IfYouDontWantToSeeBoobiesDontLookAtThem  
h/t Sque Morgan via +Samuel Cavazos 

2013-06-14 09:47:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Mores page 20

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

Her assailant was faster, grabbing her wrist to restrain the last line of defense she had left. Rolling on top of it, she pushed her legs down onto the wolf's chest. Luck fell on her side for once in her life, and its back hit a rock neither of them had seen. Momentarily stunned, it never had the chance to see her right hand reach the knife and make an underhand slash. She split the thing horizontally up its underside with accuracy that might have been instinct or the Providence of a God not yet conceived of but was probably only the kind of luck which is the sole refuge of the unskilled.

Spasming with... more »

2013-06-13 14:57:12 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I'm hearing Sweet Home Alabama for the second time in as many days... Alabama is a pretty good ways from here.

2013-06-13 12:32:51 (27 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Prague is proposing a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. You can run from the authoritarians, you can hide from the authoritarians, but they'll catch you in due time. Oh, yes. 

2013-06-12 22:52:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Mores page 19

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!


These thoughts plaguing her, she squinted into the moonlit scene. Soon she saw a blur of gray fur and felt a gash fall across her thigh. The author of the gash leapt away and began to circle her. It was a small wolf, hunting alone, a strange kin of the cavegirl's, a wild and soulless equivalent from which she was not far removed. Desperate, as lone wolves always are, the poor damnable thing had been forced to attack a prey it did not understand. In the darkness it found a smallish human and saw a poor opportunity it couldn't afford to leave behind.

The smallish human in question, however, was... more »

2013-06-12 19:10:10 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I posted this to one thing in particular, but I'm going to put it here too before this little inflamed-stomach/necrotic-kidney/recto-vaginal-fistula arms race escalates any further than it already has.

There's a grave misinformation going around on G+ that goes thus:

If we disgust apathetic people like Gabriel enough, they'll begin to show interest in our topic and lend their voices to ours. Thus, our cause is best supported through the use of horrifying biological imagery blasted into the stream with no choice but to look at it. To google!

Now, I can see the thinking there. I can. But every single time I see something like this, I renew my vow to never, ever be helpful to any cause that employs the tactic. And while there is reason to believe my vows are not to be relied upon in a broad, general sense, not doing things that suck is something I'm... more »

2013-06-12 18:34:57 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Is there anyway to use G+ with Hootsuite? All I can find is how to use it with Pages, which I obviously don't have...

2013-06-12 16:23:17 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Fair Usage Policy

Because we want you to enjoy a truly unlimited service, we ask you to not use any VoIP or streaming services. If we see heavy streaming or VoIP usage, your account will be suspended.

Oh, you.

2013-06-12 16:01:04 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The barrier to entry for Prague tea rooms must be intense... the pottery alone would be a fortune. Every time this place gets a new variety of tea, they buy a new set of pottery to go along with it, and their menu changes at least a couple times a month.

2013-06-11 22:19:25 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Home again, in the City of a Hundred Spires, and this time it's as permanent as I want it to be... the culmination of over a year's work feels every bit as good as it should.

I fucking love this city.

2013-06-10 00:15:30 (37 comments, 5 reshares, 62 +1s)

So here's the thing. Dropbox is awesome.

Really awesome. Firstly as a backup tool, secondly as a way to sync documents between multiple computers (I'm looking at you, writers), and thirdly as a way to share with others (probably... I don't do that because sharing is for commies...). So you should sign up for it!

BUT! Also! I need more space in mine, so you should sign up for it even if you don't want your life to be enriched, so that I can have more space (500 MB per person!). 

Seems like a win/win, yeah? Click!

2013-06-09 19:02:29 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Does Chrome have a way to change the colors that hyperlinks appear? I know Firefox does (or once did) but I can't find it on Chrome.

2013-06-09 18:23:55 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

If your Young Adult novel is described in reviews as "sexy, steamy, seductive, and toe-curling," it might be time to take a step back and give some thought to your overall life plan.

2013-06-09 16:35:30 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I felt a desire to finally 'get around' to some Iain M Banks (which I never quite have) when I saw he was dead... that makes a tragic statement about me as a person, I think.

2013-06-09 16:26:58 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Puns: Not even once.

2013-06-09 12:45:22 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

A word on editing:

Refusing to get your book professionally edited because it hasn't made enough money to pay for it is like GM refusing to add wheels to the Volt until 10,000 people have bought one.

2013-06-09 11:03:28 (19 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I want one of those telescoping baton beatstick things...

2013-06-09 10:26:02 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Everything becomes normal with time. 8.35 for a medium iced latte? Why yes, that sounds quite reasonable, indeed.

2013-06-08 18:30:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Mores page 18

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!


Passing through the underbrush with a degree of quietude she could not have imagined possible mere days ago, she nonetheless felt fear which was far more familiar. Never far from her mind was the exacerbating memory that she was a continual source of crushing disappointment to her father. Even now, she was doing something which she knew was not at all a good idea. Such was the price of her continual failure as a daughter. As a woman. Now she was forced to take on the tasks of a man, or at least a boy, and hope that she was better at them. Sadly, it seemed that her skills were not equal to that area either. A tear... more »

2013-06-07 20:04:03 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Mores page 17

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

Slowly, hours passed by, her senses remaining sharp by virtue of cold and of youthful energy. Nothing below her moved, the shadows cast remaining still despite the optical illusion which made them appear to be waiting for something. An eastern wind lent them a bit of movement as the leaves fluttered this way and that on their branches, but they never rose as she half-expected them to even as she realized the absurdity of it. Strangely, she had managed to focus beyond her fear, beyond the ever-encroaching emotions stirred up by her dear old dad, beyond everything but the comforting whisper of breeze and the need to... more »

2013-06-07 18:08:30 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

That awkward moment when you realize you've been sitting under a gay sex parody of the Last Supper for the past hour and didn't notice... 

2013-06-06 14:21:48 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

It's staggering to me how willing people are to interrogate me about how much money I make once they find out I'm a writer. Apparently writers are subject to spot audits by anyone who happens along.

2013-06-06 12:54:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Mores page 16

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!


Oblivious to any philosophical wanderings, the girl simply did what she had to in order to reach her goals, to achieve the aims of her life. She set out once again to try her hand. She still knew little of how to find game; it stood to reason that that would have come later when there were actual trails to follow, but she couldn't accompany them in that and so was forced to guess. Follow the waterways, stay low, and never forget that humans were not apex predators. Occupying a place in the middle, it was important to look for superior predators even while acting as a predator oneself. There was no greater coup... more »

2013-06-06 12:32:34 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I think the coffee alone makes Norway worth the visit... I've so missed good coffee.

2013-06-06 11:50:15 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

I'm discovering that Norway is one of those countries that, rather than speak to me in English or their native language, prefers to mix the two into a sort of linguistic slurry. It's shockingly comprehensible, but has a very strange sound to it lol

2013-06-06 11:14:57 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Tell me how this makes any sense.

For the 150th anniversary of Munch's birthday, they have taken the core of his works out of the Munch Museum and put them into the National Gallery (curated in some god-awful nuveau-modern rendition of the New Berlin Museum) and closed off the remainder of the National Gallery for the duration of the exhibit.

So your method of celebrating him is to strip his museum, close a nearby museum, and replace that museum's work with a tiny fraction of his... seems legit.

2013-06-06 08:13:18 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

I'm seeing a lot of posts lately of Americans shocked and (mildly) upset about domestic spying that's been openly employed since 9/11... I guess I'm glad to see people joining the real world, but after a decade of it going on I have to wonder where the fuck you've been.

2013-06-04 13:43:34 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Mores Page 15

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

Chapter four

Standing at the gate, she prepared herself emotionally, knowing now more than ever that what lay beyond the walls was a different world than her own. Before she had approximated courage through simple ignorance - she didn't know what she was getting into, and couldn't fear it. Now she knew better. It was filled with predators, with prey, with the bleeding edge of mortality which only a hunter can know.

Like so many before her, she managed to convince herself she was ready to face that edge, to reach over and bring back her prize without being eviscerated herself. Her... more »

2013-06-04 12:13:43 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Does anyone know how to turn text wrapping back on in the new Gmail setup?

I'd like to be able to review things before I send them, but they end up just going on and on down the line like it's fucking Notepad so the only way to read text that's longer than 1 line is by scrolling right indefinitely. or breaking every sentence up into its own paragraph.

2013-06-04 11:20:16 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The balance of foreign tourists here in Norway is strange. If you cut out the Chinese, English, and Americans, hostels would be barren.

I've met maybe 3 continental Europeans the whole time I've been here, 1 Japanese girl, and one group of Columbians, and every single other person has been Chinese, English, or American.

2013-06-02 21:19:43 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Mores page 14

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

The irony of it all was that the little girl of neither the proper age nor of the proper gender to engage in the training was by far the most experienced of the trainees. She who was forced to hide in order to learn, not a part of the fraternity of hunters, was an undiscovered inversion of the paradigm of inexperienced children who had never even seen real wilderness, and whose bravado was exclusively the product of ill-deserved self-confidence.

Training in the tribe was achieved with an efficiency it did not demand, given that male children were not expected to do anything in particular until they were ready... more »

2013-06-02 20:10:33 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

It's a credit to the Norwegian educational system that the homeless here can beg bilingually... 

2013-06-01 18:13:49 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Mores Page 13

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!


To a specimen of modern man it would be immediately recognizable as holding the strange atmosphere of a bio-dome, a garden which bore the hallmarks of environmentalist science fiction eons removed from the garden itself. Its small size belied a complex and almost lifelike recreation of the environment it represented, an undeniable demonstration of the intuitive grasp of the essence of the natural world possessed by long-forgotten peoples more in touch with their instincts. Coincidence had led them to create something which bore such an odd and almost unsettlingly complete resemblance to the product of perfect,... more »

2013-06-01 18:10:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Today I arrived in  Flåm, which is pronounced either Flumb or Floam depending on whom you ask and in either case is a lot more fun to say than dignity dictates. The walls of the valley it sits in climb straight up to the cloudline, coated in bright green but for a few rocky crags for good measure. 

This is definitely the Norway people were talking about.

2013-06-01 17:52:53 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I can't help but giggle when I get to the end of a book with multiple continuity issues and malapropisms and see an editor listed in bold in the acknowledgments lol

That editor miiiiiiiiiiight not be to thank for your success dear. Just saying.

2013-05-31 22:18:53 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

My fellow authors,

If you're going to write about something many, many people have experienced, undergo it yourself first to be sure you understand it. If you squirt iodine on someone's open wound to disinfect it and they "quiet down," it's probable the pain knocked them out cold. 

2013-05-31 18:27:20 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Mores Page 12

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

Chapter Three

She quickly became obsessed with returning to the forest, not just because it would give her a chance to prove herself if she could get some hides to do it with, but also because it became an abstract concept of beauty and happiness in her memory. She began to spend more and more of her free time in the stand of trees which lay on the far left corner as she faced her father's house, a geographic fact she had to spend a surprising amount of time memorizing to keep from having to wander hither and thither searching for a familiar landmark, given the tiny size of the settlement. It... more »

2013-05-30 20:20:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Mores page 11

This is the laaast little bit of Chapter 2, so it's a touch short. I promise to make it up to you tomorrow!

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!

Sleep called more than hunger, and she drifted off rather quickly. Her dreams were horrible, enormous deer with her father's eyes chasing her to devour her. As they reached her, they stood around in a circle glaring their disapproval from expressive human eyes. She shrunk away in terror and shame, smaller and smaller, hoping desperately that they would go away and take these feelings with them. As they leaped forward in unison, showing the fangs of a predator beyond her ken, she shrank out of... more »

2013-05-30 19:11:43 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Everyone talks about the weather when they have nothing to say... only the English really talk about the weather. You mention the temperature, you'd best have a rescue call set up for 30 minutes in or that's just what your night is about now.

2013-05-30 14:54:58 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Fine whisky, like fine wine, presents a paradox... it's a shame to let it sit on a shelf untasted, but it's also a shame to drink it and banish it forever from the world, never to be recreated.

By leaving it sit, it effectively ceases to exist as a factor in one's experiences, but is that equivalent or inferior to having it literally cease to exist?

2013-05-29 20:18:18 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

The beautiful thing about ordering pizza is that most European pizzerias, wherever they are, have at least one guy who speaks Italian. They don't always have someone who speaks English, but no pizza joint is complete without one Italian guy to mock my pronunciations ;)

2013-05-29 19:57:27 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

It's funny how quickly anti-censorship advocates turn their coats when it's something they don't want people to be able to say.

#facebook   #domesticviolence  

2013-05-29 19:56:21 (25 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Just paid the equivalent of $42.50 for a pizza. And it is not in my top 5 pizzas ever.

Norwegian prices are going to take getting used to...

2013-05-29 18:18:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Mores Page 10

(This was yesterday's, but I was traveling. You didn't miss one! Don't worry!)

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting my first full-length novel Mores page by page to the glorious plussosphere. Check back every day for a new page, and if you find yourself enjoying it too much to wait then find it at the link below!


For the first time she began to look at the nature around her. Even though she couldn't see it through the trees, she could tell the sun was breaking overhead, the light growing brighter, inevitably but imperceptibly. There was beauty here, beauty unlike anything she had ever seen. She had never seen real forest before. There was a small stand of trees lurking inside the walls for a purpose she never fully understood, but it was nothing like this. She began to recover from the frustration of her failed hunt to... more »

2013-05-29 18:13:45 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

There was an absurdly English man on the airport shuttle that couldn't figure out why no one had heard of his hotel or the road it was on. Finally he produced a map and showed it to the shuttle driver, who looked at it for a long time and then looked up at him.

You know you're in Norway, right mate?

Turns out there's a Bergen in the Netherlands, too. Oh very British man, you're going to have a great vacation...

2013-05-29 17:56:27 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Norway! Exactly how I imagined it, right down to the parade of white picket spaniels in red square...

2013-05-29 17:55:39 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

They (They being bitchy English INS-equivalents) say that the Nordic countries are difficult about travel and immigration on account of how we all stuff free healthcare into our low-riders and shoot all the jobs, but the guy at the airport in Bergen didn't even check my passport to see if I had eligibility to enter... took the passport, asked how long I'd be here, stamped the first page he opened it to, and went on with his day.