For months my wife and I have been sending back and forth cut-&-pasted gems from the journal, but today I cd simply send a link for the first time. What a marvelous world.
Emilio
You know, most of the time, this journal is, in my head, mostly my way of a) getting my fingers working before I settle down to write, b) spreading interesting things I find or people send me and c) letting my friends know I'm still alive. And then I get a message like that and suddenly feel like I'm performing a valuable social function. Not one I could actually explain, mind you.
There are a few links I wanted to put down here before I hit the road....
Firstly, there's the CORALINE website at Mousecircus.com. I heard from the Coraline webmistress that the hits dropped precipitously as soon as we took the link off the front page of neilgaiman.com, in addition to which there are tens of thousands of you out there who probably weren't reading this when Coraline was launched and don't know that there's a strange site with haunting Stephin Merritt music and odd games, and scuttling things that you can click on. It also has disturbing screensavers, scary rat songs, FAQ answers and so forth. Mousecircus.com is all flash animation, so it may take a little time to load for those of you on slow connections.
If anyone has not seen this:
Hi Neil,
This has little to do with writing. Just a neat thing on the web. It made me suddenly very proud of my little Honda:
http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html
or read the Daily Telegraph article on it: http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F13%2Fnhonda13.xml (The short version: it's not a trick, not computer enhanced. They just shot it 650 times until it worked.)
then they probably ought to. Despite the lack of the airbag. Genuinely cool.
And finally, http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,937951,00.html is a really interesting article about how the mobile phone is replacing the computer in Japan.
(I don't think we're far away from the point where pretty much anything electronic you hold in your hand will be a phone, whether it's a stun-gun, a video/still camera, an MP3 player, PDA, a file storage device or a TV remote. Someone recently sent me a link to a site which allows your iPod and your phone to come in on the same set of earphones, which turn off the iPod when the phone rings, and I found myself wondering how long an iPod won't be a phone, or a phone won't be an iPod. It seems like a point of almost inevitable convergence.)
...
Neil,
I know you mentioned today that you would be appearing at the Los Angeles Book Festival, but I can't seem to find anything written (or speak to anyone living or dead) who can confirm your attendance at the event (it on Saturday and Sunday, 26-27 April). When exactly will you be appearing and at which booth will you be reading "Wolves in the Walls?"
Cheers,
Jason Lacob
Lions Gate Television
Los Angeles, CA
Well, I won't be reading at a booth. I believe I'll get a room, and a stage, and a screen for slides. I don't know, but I can make a quick phone call and find out...
Right. Peggy Burns at DC Comics says that on Saturday afternoon, May 31st, at 4:30-5:15 pm I do the "author spotlight" in room 406A at the LA Convention Centre. She says I'll be doing a Harper Collins signing on that same Saturday 1-2pm, table 31. Other than that, I think it's lots and lots of book related events, for most of which I need to be in at least two places at the same time. (I'm at the expo as a guest of both DC Comics and Harper Collins, and in addition I'm nominated for several awards which are being given at the Expo, by different organisations, normally at the same times. I'll have my agent, the v. wonderful Merrilee Heifetz with me as a sort of combination chaperone, organiser, minder and negotiator, in order to move me from where I'm meant to be to where I'm meant to be after that, or even at the same time as that.)