In which I was not caught in the middle of a high-speed chase

I was sitting in my car, knowing I needed to get inside the grocery store before they closed to buy milk, but they were interviewing this scientist about looking for life deep under the sea, and sending a robot sub deep under the arctic ice, looking for warm spots due to volcanic vents, and life in those warm spots. He and his associates on the boat wanted to find something creepy and weird, like a three-eyed tube worm. And they found nothing. Across days and time zones they searched. Nothing. Then they got caught in this huge ice flow, and had to--well, flow--along with it. With nothing better to do, they sent the sub down where they were, instead of where they had planned to be--and found life. Beautiful fluffy yellow stuff.

And while I'm listening to this matter-of-fact scientist give long, lyrical descriptions of these fields of fluffy yellow stuff, a car goes zooming down the street, very very fast. Like, he would be speeding even if he was on the expressway. "Whoah! Dude!" I think. Then a cop-car goes whizzing by after him. "Good!" I think, still following the NPR article with most of my brain. The scientist's employees on the boat, he says, are kind of mad at him, because they wanted to find something cool and creepy, like the afore-mentioned mythical three-eyed tube worm, and instead they find beautiful fluffy stuff.

And two more cop cars go by, lights and sirens blaring. And as I turn the car off so I can buy milk before the store closes, two more. I get out and grab the bag with the coupons, and the bag with the cloth bags, and another cop goes by. Then another one as I get to the entry of the store.

I'm glad I got off that road and into the parking lot when I did!

I wonder if tomorrow's news will tell me what that was all about? The chase, I mean. Not the fluffy stuff. The last thing I heard before turning the car off was that the scientists eventually concluded that the fluffy stuff may be the oldest form of microbes on the planet.

In which I was not caught in the middle of a high-speed chase

I was sitting in my car, knowing I needed to get inside the grocery store before they closed to buy milk, but they were interviewing this scientist about looking for life deep under the sea, and sending a robot sub deep under the arctic ice, looking for warm spots due to volcanic vents, and life in those warm spots. He and his associates on the boat wanted to find something creepy and weird, like a three-eyed tube worm. And they found nothing. Across days and time zones they searched. Nothing. Then they got caught in this huge ice flow, and had to--well, flow--along with it. With nothing better to do, they sent the sub down where they were, instead of where they had planned to be--and found life. Beautiful fluffy yellow stuff.

And while I'm listening to this matter-of-fact scientist give long, lyrical descriptions of these fields of fluffy yellow stuff, a car goes zooming down the street, very very fast. Like, he would be speeding even if he was on the expressway. "Whoah! Dude!" I think. Then a cop-car goes whizzing by after him. "Good!" I think, still following the NPR article with most of my brain. The scientist's employees on the boat, he says, are kind of mad at him, because they wanted to find something cool and creepy, like the afore-mentioned mythical three-eyed tube worm, and instead they find beautiful fluffy stuff.

And two more cop cars go by, lights and sirens blaring. And as I turn the car off so I can buy milk before the store closes, two more. I get out and grab the bag with the coupons, and the bag with the cloth bags, and another cop goes by. Then another one as I get to the entry of the store.

I'm glad I got off that road and into the parking lot when I did!

I wonder if tomorrow's news will tell me what that was all about? The chase, I mean. Not the fluffy stuff. The last thing I heard before turning the car off was that the scientists eventually concluded that the fluffy stuff may be the oldest form of microbes on the planet.

Um...

My friend shadesong (and others) have reminded me I should do a "um, so there are some awards that some of my stuff is eligible for..." post.

Hugo Awards (short story)

• DEMM Wizard in Crossed Genres

Who can nominate? Aussiecon and Anticipation members (Worldcon '09 and '10)
How does one nominate? Click here!

Rhysling Awards (short poem category)

• Chatter of a White Scaly-Gull in With Painted Words
  
• Under a Fey Moon in EMG Zine

Who can nominate? Members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
How does one nominate? Click here!


Rose and Bay Awards
This is a new award for crowdfunded fiction; there's five categories, I have crowdfunded material that fits into the fiction, poetry, and other category.

• My 2009 Flash Fiction Collection
  
• My poetry
• Fireborn
• Busking in Cyberland - essays/blog posts

Who can nominate? Anyone who reads or otherwise participates in crowd-funded projects. Which is basically everyone likely to hear about the award. How does one nominate? There are separate posts in crowdfunding for each category.
Who can Vote? Again, everybody, with the caveat that no one can vote for themselves. You get to vote in February; I'll doubtless provide a new link or links for you then.

Notes: 

1. Gee--I'd better make a landing page for the poetry now! That's been on my to-do list for quite a while.
2. Fireborn has already been nominated in the fiction category by red_trillium  -- THANKS!

I feel very honored that Fireborn was nominated.  I don't expect to win; there's some other great crowdfunded stories out there, but still, it's exciting!

Thank you to everyone who's been following my adventures (real and fictional) this year!

P.S.  Even if you don't want to nominate anything, I encourage you to check out the Rose and Bay nominations; I'll be nominating some cool projects and others have already started nominating.

ETA:  I just posted this whole thing, with links, and had most of it, including all the links vanish.  So I'm going to edit in the links after posting.  Sigh!

Um...

My friend shadesong (and others) have reminded me I should do a "um, so there are some awards that some of my stuff is eligible for..." post.

Hugo Awards (short story)

• DEMM Wizard in Crossed Genres

Who can nominate? Aussiecon and Anticipation members (Worldcon '09 and '10)
How does one nominate? Click here!

Rhysling Awards (short poem category)

• Chatter of a White Scaly-Gull in With Painted Words
  
• Under a Fey Moon in EMG Zine

Who can nominate? Members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
How does one nominate? Click here!


Rose and Bay Awards
This is a new award for crowdfunded fiction; there's five categories, I have crowdfunded material that fits into the fiction, poetry, and other category.

• My 2009 Flash Fiction Collection
  
• My poetry
• Fireborn
• Busking in Cyberland - essays/blog posts

Who can nominate? Anyone who reads or otherwise participates in crowd-funded projects. Which is basically everyone likely to hear about the award. How does one nominate? There are separate posts in crowdfunding for each category.
Who can Vote? Again, everybody, with the caveat that no one can vote for themselves. You get to vote in February; I'll doubtless provide a new link or links for you then.

Notes: 

1. Gee--I'd better make a landing page for the poetry now! That's been on my to-do list for quite a while.
2. Fireborn has already been nominated in the fiction category by red_trillium  -- THANKS!

I feel very honored that Fireborn was nominated.  I don't expect to win; there's some other great crowdfunded stories out there, but still, it's exciting!

Thank you to everyone who's been following my adventures (real and fictional) this year!

P.S.  Even if you don't want to nominate anything, I encourage you to check out the Rose and Bay nominations; I'll be nominating some cool projects and others have already started nominating.

ETA:  I just posted this whole thing, with links, and had most of it, including all the links vanish.  So I'm going to edit in the links after posting.  Sigh!

Uh...Addenda

Every time I try to add the link to the landing page for the Rose and Bay Awards, or link to the crowdfunding  community, I lose most of my previous post.

WTF!?!?!?!?

So these links are here, instead of where they should be.

Given that LJ is being so very very flaky for me right now, I won't try to do a poetry landing page tonight.

Uh...Addenda

Every time I try to add the link to the landing page for the Rose and Bay Awards, or link to the crowdfunding  community, I lose most of my previous post.

WTF!?!?!?!?

So these links are here, instead of where they should be.

Given that LJ is being so very very flaky for me right now, I won't try to do a poetry landing page tonight.