Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

I've been an off-and-on reader of Asimov's since about 1988. I was still a high school student at the time and not much of a reader yet. I knew who Isaac Asimov was but at the time was mostly into fantasy thanks to The Lord of the Rings and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

This magazine has published some amazing stories over the years, but they have also published some bombs. The bombs are why I've been an off-and-on reader for the past 20 years. When my renewal notice came earlier this year I chose to re-up for three years instead of the usual one. Don't let me down Asimov's!

Some favorites from this year:

• Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders by Mike Resnick (January)
• Sex and Violence by Nancy Kress (February)
• Inside the Box by Edward M. Lerner (February)
• Shoggoth's in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear (March)
• The House Left Empty by Robert Reed (April/May)

and some not so favorites:

• The Hob Carpet by Ian R. MacLeod (June)
• Call Back Yesterday by Nancy Kress (June)
• Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues by Gord Sellar (July)

I really enjoy fiction at shorter lengths because it is not much of an investment of time. Even a 90 page novella no matter how bad it is will only cost me a couple of hours of my time. Reading Asimov's allows me to try new authors and stories I would never go near if I had to shell out $8 and then read a behemoth 900-page novel that is probably book 1 of a planned decology. Sorry, I mean book 1 of a planned decology that is sandwiched between prequel and sequel decolgies.

There are also many online markets for short fiction, but I just don't read them. I have limited time and do not like to read on my computer screen for long periods of time. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to hold what I am reading in my hands. Someday there will be a good electronic reader that is inexpensive. For now I'll take paper, not plastic.

How do you pick a peach?

I've recently read a book called How to pick a Peach by Russ Parsons. I found the book to contain a lot of interesting information about farming science. The author spends a lot of time with agricultural scientists and self-educated farmers to learn about the things they deal with. Some questions are how do you breed a peach or strawberry so that it ships well. No, it doesn't have to do with making good tasting fruit, shipability and being disease resistant are more important. I've often wondered why I have never had a good-tasting fresh apricot. Seems that the varieties that ship well have no flavor, according to the author. Guess I will stick with dried apricots from now on.

The book also has a lot of fascinating information about apples and oranges. I learned that red delicious apples used to taste good. This was back in the days of the apple being golden with some red stripes. These did not sell well. Red sells better so red delicious apples became all red and in doing so lost all of their flavor. I hate red delicious apples. I also learned that oranges are probably crosses between a pummelo and a tangerine.

The author does not cover every fruit and vegetable that you are likely to find in your neighborhood grocery store, but you will find the most common items. One notable exception is celery.

At the end of each chapter there are tips on buying and storing the items just discussed so the author does teach you how to pick peaches, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. I found most of the how to buy rules pretty common sense. I know to avoid things that look damaged, wilted, moldy, and so on. What I did learn was how to store my produce. It seems that a lot more things should be refrigerated then I thought.

There are some recipes in the book, most I am not likely to try because of my limited space and lack of a blender which nearly every recipe used. Even with that complaint I am tempted to buy an ice cream maker just so that I can try the nectarine-cardamom ice cream recipe. I was most interested in the book for its information content and not its recipes and serving ideas so I got what I wanted out of the book. If you are interested in food science and where food comes from, then I would recommend How to pick a Peach to you.

Something in the Air

You know I smell something in the air. Pigskin, I think. Football. Training camps are starting to open. Mmm football.

Summer Movies

Today I decided to play hookey from work and go see some movies. Before heading into the theatre I ate two slices of pizza at Slices. I had a slice with pesto and tomatoes and a slice with pepperoni and sausage. Tasty stuff.

The first movie I saw was The Dark Knight. I'd heard good things about this movie including this review in Time Magazine. Again I don't read comic books so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translation to the big screen. What I can say is that this was a very good movie. Yeah, it is based on a comic book character, but the movie made me think and ask myself the question is it ever okay for the "good guys" to cross the line to win, or achieve some desired outcome? They can, but not if they still want to be counted among the good guys. They aren't involved in mass murder or anything like that, but just ask Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens about crossing the line and how they are treated now.

I may not have read Batman comic books, but I do remember watching the TV series with Adam West and seeing the Michael Keaton as Batman movie. The Heath Ledger Joker character is by far the most interesting one I have seen. I'm sorry that he will be unable to act the role again.

The other movie I saw today was WALL-E. Hey, I needed something to balance out The Dark Knight. It is a totally sappy movie, but kinda cool. Now where have I seen such devotion in a droid before?

Feast for the Senses

There was a lot of sensory input this weekend.

Taste and smell: I had a lot of good food this weekend. Lunch on Saturday was bacon, eggs, cheddar cheese, and salsa served on warm flour tortillas. Yum! For dinner I made myself a soup with zucchini, potatoes, and angel hair pasta. Then I cooked a bison strip steak. I can't remember if I have ever eaten bison before. After this experience I will be eating it again. This steak was very tender and flavorful and was surely worth way more than the three dollars I paid for it. I served the steak with a sauce of tomatoes and roasted peppers and had buttered peas, garlic chips, and jalapeno slices on the side. Yum! For whatever reason I decided to go to Sonic for lunch today. One thing I like about Sonic is that I can eat an extra long cheese coney, french fries, and a medium-sized drink and not feel totally disgusting afterwards like I do after eating at other fast food places. This is true even when items are not super-sized. No wonder I avoid them whenever possible. The other thing I like about Sonic are their drinks. Cherry limeade. Mmmm.

Sight: Just recently I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries from a few years ago. Hey, I'm slow! I enjoyed the miniseries immensely and got the season 1 DVDs this past week. Saturday I watched the first seven episodes and was terribly sad that I had to stop watching and go to bed. It is a darn good series if I say so myself. No spoilers, please! You know, if there were more blond Cylons on TV, I'd watch more TV. Today I finally saw Iron Man. (Didn't I already say I was slow?) Cool movie. I vaguely remember watching Iron Man cartoons and I never got into comic books so I will leave discussion of the movie's accuracy to the experts. This movie was good though. Tony Parker sure knows how to make cool toys.

Sound: I listened to a ton of good podcasts from Escape Pod this weekend. Escape Pod will get its own entry someday soon, but for now I'll just say they podcast short science fiction and fantasy stories.

It was a pretty good weekend here, how was yours?

Friday Night Treats

After two long meetings today I left work early to go get treats. Tonight I settled for an iced mocha at Gold Bar. I started going to Gold Bar a few years ago after The Muse closed. That closing made me sad. The Muse had the comfiest couches around and free wireless that usually worked. I miss The Muse.

I've spent a lot of time at Gold Bar working and reading. It is usually pretty quiet in there, unless it is Friday night when they have live jazz. It is very loud when they play inside. Many of the regulars (and employees) are students at one of the many local colleges so it can get busy around exam time. There is usually a pretty good selection of treats in the case. I haven't sampled too many of the usual items but I have had good cheesecake, muffins, and an eclair. One time I had a slice of an orange chocolate cake that I was disappointed by. It wasn't bad or anything, I was just hoping it would taste more like the orange chocolate that I would get in my Easter basket when I was little.

Looks like it's time for the weekend. Enjoy!

The Most Boring Day of the Year

Last night was the MLB All-Star game so that means there is no sports activity going on today other than contact talks. That makes today the most boring day of the year. I actually found last night's game to be very interesting (I've subtracted Dan Uggla's performance), but it would have been much more interesting had the game continued past the 15th inning. Oh well.

Old Time Radio

This past Saturday while working I listened to several hours of Old Time Radio (OTR) programs. I first discovered OTR when I was a kid. I really don't know why a 10 year-old would be listening to the local all-news radio station (on the AM band! in mono!), but I did. One night while listening some old radio program came on and I was hooked. The mists of time have destroyed the memory of that first program, but this station tended to play comedy programs. I remember getting a big kick out of Fibber McGee's closet. Strangely, my closet resembles his.

A few years after my initial discovery I heard a program called Theatre of the Mind that aired on an FM station out of Toronto at 11 pm on Sunday nights. (Can anyone tell me why I was so tired on Monday mornings?) I listened religiously for about five or six years before the program went away. This is the program that introduced me to shows like The Shadow and Suspense.

Fast forward a couple of decades to my discovery of Internet radio. I was thrilled to find Brando Classic OTR especially with its listen free link. This website and many others have thousands of shows available. If you didn't guess already my favorite day to listen is Saturday. This is the day when some of the old sci-fi shows are aired. It is a joy to listen to programs like X Minus 1 and Dimension X (they aired many of the same episodes). Some of the scripts these shows used were originals, but most were adaptations of stories published in the magazines Galaxy and Astounding. These shows originally ran in the 1950s and the adaptions are of stories by writers you mights recognize like Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Leinster, Sheckley, and Simak. I'm leaving off many other recognizable names, but you can get full episode listings at the provided links.

Most of the stories are set in the future, like 1995. The stories are dated for the most part, but they still get me to think about what should have been. This is why I like SF so much and hard SF in particular. It gives me hope that tomorrow will be filled with wonders that I could not imagine today and that some day I will finally get to take that trip to the moon. How cool will that be?

The School of Hard Drives

About a week ago the hard drive in my Dell laptop failed. It wasn't too hard to get a replacement sent to me because my system was still under warranty. The DHL driver left the box on my doorstep yesterday. Yes it was over 100 degrees out when this was done and my door is about 10 feet from the pool area which was being heavily used when I arrived home yesterday. I am very grateful for my honest neighbors. This was just the beginning of the fun. One included CD reinstalled some version of Windows XP. Not bad in sense because all of the junk bundled software is no longer on my computer. But this also means I had to reinstall a lot of drivers that were not included on any of the CDs though all of the junk bundled software was included. Among the missing drivers were those for the onboard wireless card and modem. How am I supposed to download drivers to make my internet connecting devices work when I am unable to connect to the internet because I don't have drivers installed? That's enough to make my head spin. Thankfully I kept the wireless card Wayne donated to me some years ago (thanks Wayne!) so I was able to get this task completed. The lesson I learned is not only should I keep backups of my files (did that!) I should also keep a copy of the drivers I need.

Asian Market Adventure

I started my summer vacation by dropping off a load of clothes at Goodwill and drinking glass of iced tea at Gold Bar (I'll address my tea obsession and Gold Bar another time). I hadn't been to an Asian market in a while so I went to Asiana Market and browsed their selection of mostly Korean food. Wandering the aisles at Asian markets is so fun. Mostly I wonder how items would taste and how do you even prepare them. Many items have English language stickers placed on them so you sort of know what you are looking at. This assumes a good translation though.

I walked out with my usual assortment of yum-yums like kimchi and various packages of udon soup. I usually try to find something new to try each time I visit. This visit I went with an anchovy flavored udon soup. In the pickled stuff aisle I looked hard at the seasoned fermented pollack entrails which were right next to the fermented squid. Maybe next time I will be brave enough to give them a try. The entrails were from wild-caught pollack in case you were dying to know. Even the snack aisle at this store is interesting. Sure they have an assortment of standard things like chips and crackers, but who wants that stuff when you can buy dried squid bodies and tentacles? I guess this is just beef jerky of the sea. Maybe I will try this someday too.

Using my loot I made a tasty dinner of asparagus, a chicken and mushroom stir-fry, rice, and kimchi. I washed down my dinner with a nice twig tea. Mmm. It was a good Tuesday.

Done!

Just a short time ago I finished my last task at work and now begin about 5 or so weeks of vacation. Whatever shall I do? Hm.