Still in Deadline World

I'm still in Deadline World, which is getting old fast, and no nearer to seeing the end of it than I was a week ago. It feels like I'm clambering up a sandy cliff-face, of the kind where, when you're half-way up, you realise that you're going to have to keep climbing as fast as you can just to not end up sliding back down to the bottom.

In the meantime, lots of interesting emails and things coming in from people, most of which I'm not getting a chance to properly look at. Still, fascinated by this story of two Homeland Security officers getting a bit, er, overenthusiastic in a Maryland library -- http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060218/NATION/602180437/1020
The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

After the two men made their announcement, one of them challenged an Internet user's choice of viewing material and asked him to step outside...

--which arrived at the same time as several people sent me the link to http://savehuck.com/ one asking whether this made me want to give up my green card and British citizenship and apply for US Citizen status, just in case, and no, it doesn't (Not any more than this -- http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003/07/actually-its-called-permanent-resident.asp
or its sequel,
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003/08/and-i-shant-get-shirty-when-they-say-i.asp
did.)

The Playaway now has an online store -- http://store.playawaydigital.com/
and I think still has a challenge in either getting their price point down, or getting people, book-crossing style, to share their Playaways, but it's a great fun invention. Anansi Boys is at http://store.playawaydigital.com/s.nl/sc.10/category.-110/it.A/id.104/.f
while Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy read by Stephen Fry is at http://store.playawaydigital.com/s.nl/sc.10/category.-110/it.A/id.101/.f (and I note from the plot description that this is somehow an alternate universe version of the story with an extra passenger on the Heart of Gold, or that's how it reads...).

And this is cool. It's cool in a sort of "I'll never actually get around to using it, but had I a lot more time, and got out to see more live music, well, you never know" sort of way -- http://www.fabulist.org/archives/2006/02/podbop.html

MirrorMask should be out in the UK on March the 3rd. If you want to see the cool Dave McKean things on a Big Screen, your chance is coming...

And finally, if you've ever wanted to hear Zora Neale Hurston singing -- http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/folklife/folklife_cd.cfm.