Ross E. Lockhart's Blog, page 96

Everybody's heard of Schrödinger's cat. But did you ever hear of Schrödinger's mouse? Me neither, but rest assured, there is a mouse in the picture below. And much like Schrödinger's cat, he's in a box. But unlike the average cat, however, he really wasn't terribly happy about it.

Let me back up a little bit.

Last weekend, Jennifer and I became aware that our household had gained an uninvited member. A peach left to ripen on the kitchen counter mysteriously acquired three not-so-tiny bite...

In January, Night Shade Books is publishing Phil and Kaja Foglio's Agatha H and the Airship City, the first in a series of novels retelling the events of their award-winning webcomic, Girl Genius. If you're not familiar with the world of Girl Genius, it's a "gaslight fantasy," chock full of mad science, mechanical marvels, and monsters, coupled with Borscht-Belt comedy (and occasionally, below-the-Borscht-Belt comedy), and featuring a plucky heroine who spends much of her time in Victorian...

Honestly, sometimes I think we're a little too easily amused around here.

Fall Arts issue of the North Bay Bohemian, Al Jaffe-folded by Jennifer, photo-manipulated by me.

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Shown above: Just a handful of the books I'm currently reading. These are just the ones within arm's reach of my chair. What's in your reading queue?

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Frank good, fire bad
Spotted on a wall near the NSB offices
San Francisco, CA

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Ever have one of those mornings where the call of a neighbor's sprinkler is irresistable?

Maddie does. Today was one of them.

Spotting the sprinkler at the end of the block, Maddie trotted right over to it. She stood awhile in the refreshing rain, enjoying herself, as the neighbor and I looked on, laughing.

"Maddie," I said, as we walked back home. "You're soaked."

"But now I'm all clean," said Maddie. "So now I don't hafta go and get a bath on Wednesday."

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I like task managers, always have, even though with most the act of keeping track of tasks becomes a task in itself, leading to the vicious circle of task managers needing to be tracked in other task managers, ad infinitum. I've had myriad Day Runners and other planning calendars; Microsoft Outlook and my Dell Axim got me through grad school reasonably unscathed, and I still rely on Microsoft Outlook's calendar for general appointment tracking (and getting me to the dentist on time). Lately, ...

"I didn't know whether to kiss it or kill it!"
--H. P. Lovecraft, upon meeting Robert Barlow (attributed)

On the occasion of his 120th birthday, I find myself once again contemplating H. P. Lovecraft's enigmatic literary life, and grappling with a recurrent question: Was H. P. Lovecraft queer?

Queer as in strange, certainly. The Gentleman from Providence was undeniably an odd bird. And it's worth noting the word "queer" appears with great commonality throughout his canon, though "cyclopean" may...

Halloween costumes have begun arriving at Our Best Friends...

Maddie, however, is not amused.

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The other momentous occasion at NSB yesterday? That would be the arrival of John Joseph Adams' The Living Dead 2. I was up to my elbows in Catherynne M. Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed proofs, sorting through and vetting the copyeditor's comments, when the truck arrived, so Michael headed down to the loading dock to meet the driver, Guy from Montreal, alone. I think Michael thought I was going to stick him with moving the four pallets (~2500 books) upstairs, but I'm not that kind of g...