Amusements

I am actually on vacation this week, one of those do stuff around the house kinds. So far this has involved quite a bit of sweating in the garden. When it's 5 below zero in the winter and I am complaining about the cold, someone please remind me about the sweat and the bugs and allergies of summer. Then I won't mind being cold. Last night my Bookman and I did spend some time working on cataloging more of our books. I've mentioned before that in all of our various schemes to catalog them all, we've never gone beyond 100. Well, now we've managed to get past 200 we"re committed to the catalog software. There is no switching to anything else now. I haven't been able to get in much reading in all this activity, but are a few things of interest I've come upon while taking a breaks.

I love the Harry Potter books, but am I wrong in saying that a convention is going a bit overboard?

The philosophically minded might find this article and the book it was based on of interest

Bloggers getting book deals. Apparently some publishers find a pre-existing audience base quite attractive. However, site visits don't necessarily translate into book sales. Seems that publishers don't quite get that blogging and writing a book are two different things. What may work well on a short blog post doesn't mean it will be so fascinating when plumped up for a book. Does that mean I'd turn down a two-book six-figure offer? If a publisher wants to throw good money at me, who am I to say no?

Visit McSweeney's for a chuckle and read the story "HBO to Launch Edgeless Series" (scroll down). Here's a taste:

Production has begun on 12 episodes of The Woman With Mild Psychic Powers, a new HBO half-hour sitcom that is already creating a buzz due to its lack of a cutting edge. Plans for the series were announced today by Carolyn Strauss, president of HBO Entertainment. "It is exactly like other things you have seen before," said Strauss. "That's what's so different about it." Executive producer Tom Havelock agrees. "If anything, The Woman With Mild Psychic Powers is on the opposite edge from the one that cuts," he explained. "It's on the blunt edge, the one you keep toward yourself while cutting, so as not to suffer an injury of some kind."

Frodo Baggins, A.B.D. (from Bookninja)