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AlphaOops: H is for Halloween is scheduled to appear in the “Our Favorite Things” section in the October 2010 issue of Disney’s FamilyFun. Woohoo!

Now I just need to remember to get my hands on said issue. I’m interested to know exactly what that pesky Mouse and his polka-dot-wearing gal pal are saying about this princess behind her back. I mean, apart from me being one of their favorites. (Which I sort of already knew. )

Bonus points for anyone who a.) gets their hands on a copy, b.) posts a picture of it, or Q.) gets one for me!

In honor of today’s release of AlphaOops: H is for Halloween, John Scalzi invited me to be his Big Idea for the day. In a very short & cute essay I cover the Big Idea behind AlphaOops in general and about H is for Halloween specifically. I explain exactly why my dedication reads the way it does.  I confess my loathing for alphabet books. And I thank a few people. Want some irreverence for your Tuesday morning? Check it out here. Please leave a comment so John knows you stopped by.

And ask for AlphaOops: H is for Halloween at your local bookstore or library TODAY!!
Viva la revolucion!

I’ve heard some good things about this Warehouse 13 show on Syfy (I still hate typing that spelling), so I downloaded the first episode to watch it. I don’t think I made it twenty minutes. Saul Rubinek is not John Noble, the secret agent guy is not David Boreanaz, and I have no idea who the secret agent chick was trying to be, but she was failing miserably, poor dear.

There was far too much exposition and far too many questions, instead of just throwing our main characters in a box and forcing them to learn what’s going on to get out….whatever. This is not a review of the TV show (since I didn’t watch enough to warrant an educated & objective opinion). This is about what the TV show brought into our lives.

As a throwaway line to convince the agents to come inside the warehouse, Saul Rubinek offers them cookies. (To which the male agent says, “Ooh, cookies!”) Thusly lured inside, Saul begins the exposition and starts answering an endless stream of silly questions, answered equally as sillily, and once by a ferret in a magic pot. Yeeeeah. I, the writer, is still wondering when said cookies would appear, since if *I* had been the agent on the scene, I would be expecting them.

Said cookies DID appear, finally, after the female agent stomps off. “Oatmeal Scotchie?” Saul offers.

“What the heck is an oatmeal scotchie?” I exclaimed, not worried that I was distracted enough from the show to care. It sounded like an oatmeal cookie made with scotch…and I was all for it. Turns out, it’s an oatmeal cookie made with BUTTERscotch. Even better.

I am one of those folks–stop reading here now if I’m going to offend you–who doesn’t care for raisins. I’ll eat them politely, but they’re not my first choice. Putting them in an oatmeal cookie just ruins them. Who thought of that?? And who thinks it’s still a good idea? Put chocolate or something in them for gods sake, if you have to put something. Raisins just throw off the consistency.

But butterscotch? Now there‘s a plan.

I then, of course, had to find a recipe. A GOOD recipe. (“Good” typically means ignoring calories. Just don’t go crazy.) I searched a couple of websites that told me following the recipe on the butterscotch package was just as good as anything (hmm), and a lot of the recipes I saw had the same basic ingredients. Ultimately, I based mine on a recipe from Paula Deen — I would paste the link here, but I tried to Google it later and could not find it. I’ve never met Paula, nor do I watch her show, but her sons were rather wonderful to me once, so I have a soft spot in my heart for the Deen family.

These are some of the best “cookies” (we just spread them out in a pan and made them like brownies) I’ve ever had. I highly recommend them. Be sure you’re making them for about 20 people, or there’s a real danger of eating yourself sick on them.

Ingredients:

1 c butter (melted)
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (vanilla flavoring is *not* the same…extract is stronger, and better)
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 c Quaker oats (or store brand, whatever)
1/2 bag butterscotch chips
1 c pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease your pan (I use butter & flour, or a little bit of olive oil.) Mix everything (start by beating the eggs really well) & dump it in the pan. Depending on your oven, this should take about 20 minutes.

In the last run to the comics shop, I caught up with The Guild (they’re up to issue 3, guilty pleasure) and the run of IDW’s graphic novelization of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. You’d think I probably had enough The Last Unicorn stuff (I’d probably own more merchandise if Hot Topic licensed it), but I just enjoyed the film so much as a kid — and I think it’s truly stood the test of time. (Barring the soundtrack by America, which I’ve come to understand you must be grandfathered in to appreciate.)

I am VERY impressed with the artwork for The Last Unicorn, both inside and out. (You know the drill, sometimes they get Alex Ross to do the cover and the rest of the book I could have sketched with my toes…or not.) It’s reminiscent of the Rankin & Bass production…so much so that it even LOOKS like you’re watching an enhanced versions of the film. (Because the comic’s art blows the film’s art away.)  I can hear Mia Farrow’ voice as the unicorn’s soliloquy, because the unicorn LOOKS JUST LIKE the unicorn from the film.

Is that sort of thing allowed? I wonder if they had to get some sort of permission or something to make the images exactly the same. I mean, it must have been on purpose, right? I have to say, I’m actually quite surprised. I would have been fine with — even welcomed – a new, different image of the unicorn. There have been so many over the centuries…what’s one more?

Perhaps Amalthea really is the last. But this Princess refuses to believe it.

Thanks to the tragic reviews of Last Airbender I’ve been seeing from my friends on Twitter, the last movie I saw in theatres was Ironman 2 on Mother’s Day. Can you believe that? Me neither. Which was my sole justification to go see Predators last night.

At first, after a ridiculous amount of commercials and trailers for both some George Clooney Movie and Step Up 3D, we thought we were in the wrong auditorium. When the trailer for Machete finally came on, we felt better. (And I’m totally going to go see that.)

So yeah. Predators. Not a lot to say, really. Action? Yup. Quotable lines? Not so much. (I wonder if Robert had cool lines and Hollywood peed all over it, or if it just needed a couple more rewrites.) Amusingly, the film started out a bit like Lost, with everyone wondering why they were wherever they were. One guy suggests they might be dead, and I guffawed. I guess nobody else got the joke. Perhaps if their first encounter had been a polar bear…

If you’re looking to burn a couple of hours in a cool theatre on a 95 degree day, there are worse ways to spend your time (Last Airbender and Eclipse come to mind). But you’ll probably just walk out thinking you could have just as easily popped some corn in the microwave and sat on the couch for a 1 & 2 double feature. Or El Mariachi and Desperado. (Which I still want to do, but I only have them on laserdisc. Yes, I’m that kind of geek.)

Oh — and if you go to a Regal, do NOT order the Cafe Mocha. Four dollars for only half a small cup full of absolute swill. I get better coffee at the 7-11. Which I might just do right now.

Stay cool, everybody. xox

Once upon a time, in the land of computers, there was a thing called “planned obsolescence.” Remember that? Your shiny new desktop would come with a one-year warranty, and on Day 367 you’d be staring at the blue screen of death and paging through Best Buy ads.

Almost like they planned it.

Nowadays, things work a little better than they used to. Granted, sometimes they don’t, but you’re free to buy this insurance policy or that insurance policy or whatever else you can afford to make you feel like your electronics are a sure thing that will last forever. (Keep in mind that we sent men to the moon with less computer intelligence than the smart phone in your hand. Baffling, isn’t it?)

I have a crappy Dell desktop PC. It’s a backup, a way to print out my Christmas CD labels, and when I had a proper desk it was my preferred way of sitting to do copyedits. It cost me about $400. The flat screen monitor, fancy (now obsolete) printer/scanner, webcam, cordless mouse, and speakers cost me that much on top. I’ve had it for about 6 years. Right now it’s in a corner gathering dust, waiting for the next move (and another proper desk). One day it will die and I’ll get another one. I’m totally okay with that.

I own three laptops. I do most of my work on my iBook. I have a crappy HP for backup and downloads, and a cute pink netbook for travel. I almost didn’t buy the iBook, but my lovely friend Ken Scholes bullied me into doing something nice for myself for a change. (Actually, his crazy logic told me it was for the good of the world, which is really the only reason I did it. Damn him.) It was a tough thing, but in the end, I deserved that iBook. I finished my first novel on it. I’m about to finish my second. And the world will be better for it.

Last year, I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my phone. I had an old ten-year-old Nokia brick of a thing that did not fold in half, take pictures, or surf the internet. It texted, but I didn’t. The battery lasted forever, and it was great at conventions. But what with the advent of all this social networking, the degree to which I was now expected to be on the internet, and all the traveling I was doing, the switch to iPhone was necessary. I got a 3G and figured that would be all I needed. Ever. (When I reverently placed my old Nokia on the counter, the sales guy whistled and said, “Wow. You have The Coffin. They just don’t make them like that anymore.”)

The 3GS came out, but I didn’t care about recording video since I have a great digital Canon camera that does it for me. My phone and I were fabulous. For a while, it was my security blanket and my only tie to a sane world. Before the Ivory Tower fell, I did not let it leave my person. I even slept with it under the pillow. I had nightmares about getting it wet. (I still have visions of it falling in the toilet or a glass of water.) I plugged it into my iBook regularly and upgraded my Apps and OS, and backed up my contacts and pictures like a good girl. This last upgrade to iOS4 took me almost two hours, but I just plugged the phone in and set about working on something else while it did its thing.

And now, my phone is annoying.

It sometimes takes a full minute for the screen to pop up when I’ve received a text. I can hardly use most of my Apps because it cuts out and drops me back to the main menu before I’m finished. And don’t even get me started on the camera. By the time I even get it to come up and the shutter to close, the Kodak moment has passed. Assuming I can get the stupid camera to come up at all without crapping out on me.

I stopped by the Apple store the other day and inquired about the new iPhone 4. I don’t NEED it, and in my ideal version of the world, it wouldn’t even be something I’d consider. Turns out, I am eligible for an upgrade (with the standard fee, of course). While they were checking my account, I mentioned the problems I was having on my 3G with the new OS. “Yeah, we’ve been hearing that,” was the reply.

REALLY? And that’s OKAY? I thought upgrades were supposed to make things BETTER. If it screws up the functionality of the 3G, then it shouldn’t be made available to the 3G phones — plain and simple. If I had known about the mess it was going to cause, I WOULDN’T have spent two hours of my life dutifully putting something on my phone that was actually going to make it run WORSE. My phone was fine. I didn’t need another new fabulous phone. I’m not the kind of girl who gets hot every time I see a new gadget. (Okay, I *am*, but I don’t feel pressed to *purchase* said gadget.) I had passed up an offer of an iPhone 4 upgrade once already. But I hesitated at the Apple store.

“Your phone is a piece of crap,” said Joe, and he’s pretty much right. But not due to any fault of my own — it was intentionally sabotaged by the software owners, and the world seems okay with this. I’m still baffled. Sure enough, OS Upgrades = the new Planned Obsolescence.

And yes. I placed an order for the iPhone 4. For the good of the world.

My little sister gets her conversational ideas from the Sedaris family.

This might concern anyone who has heard, read, or seen anything by David or Amy Sedaris. (Not counting the personal thank you note Soteria has framed by her door; the family photos are relegated to refrigerator magnets.) This would concern me, if a.) we weren’t half Greek and b.) our family wasn’t just as off the wall. Most days, I get to be David and Soteria gets to be Amy. I’ll write the essay book that gets turned into a play, and Soteria will pen the how-to-bead book that assumes everyone is an idiot. She’ll get her own television show, and I’ll travel the globe making millions of people chuckle. World Domination 101. Opa.

I didn’t fall in love with Strangers With Candy as much as Soteria did, but we do share the same favorite essay of David’s: “Six to Eight Black Men.” If you haven’t heard it, go find the album and go get it. (I’ll wait.) Make sure you’re not drinking anything, or operating heavy machinery. If you’ve already heard it, you’ll understand why one of Soteria’s first conversations with our Brazilian friend Marcello was about his holidays and customs.

Comparing and contrasting with US customs, there weren’t a whole lot of differences. They have Christmas and Easter and fun stuff like that. And then Soteria asked about the tooth fairy and she lost Marcello completely.

In Brazil, there is no tooth fairy. They have a little tooth mouse. (Latin America calls him Ratoncito Perez. No relation to Rosie.) What does a mouse want with human teeth? (Come to that, what does a fairy need with them? I’ve just assumed they need the calcium for strong wing growth.)

When a young child loses his tooth in Brazil, he leaves it in the bathroom for the tooth mouse. That made more sense to Marcello, who pointed out that, no matter what hemisphere you’re in, you typically brush your teeth in the bathroom. In return for his tooth, the child receives one Real (pronounced “ray-al”) or several Reals (pronounced “hay-ice”, because everybody likes an opportunity to make fun of foreigners). And the cute little tooth mouse adds another body part to his treasure pile.

I’m totally on board with this “leaving it in the bathroom” idea. I bet my father wishes he had known about the Brazilian tradition the time he got caught with his hand under Soteria’s pillow. Of course, to my father’s credit, he came up with the best response ever.

“I’m sorry,” he said to my sister. “You caught me. I was trying to steal your money.”

It’s freaking hot outside.

The July issue of Apex Magazine is now online for your reading pleasure!

I had a BLAST reading this month’s audio fiction: “A Multiple Choice Love Story” by Terra LeMay. It was a fun read, because of all the parenthetical inserts and possible alternatives as the story goes on — it was a challenge to read aloud that I took up immediately. I had to decide what voices I was going to read the parenthesis in…a different enough voice so that the listener would still have the same awesome experience as reading all the grammatical paradigms, but not an accent that would be too distracting.

Click HERE to give it a listen. Let me know what you think.

Don’t be too confused when you click over — the title listed is “Shrödinger’s Pussy.” When you click to play the audio, you’ll hear me tell you it’s “A Multiple Choice Love Story.” Such is the way of ever-shifting titles in publishing…we just like to keep you on your toes.It’s our was of thinking outside the box.

Enjoy!

All we needed for world peace was a guy on a street corner with a HONK sign.