Sarah Palin

As everyone should know by now, John McCain has picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. On a non partisan level, it's cool to know that which ever side wins, there will either be an African American president or female vice-president. On a partisan level, it's just downright cool. I was impressed with Palin's speech this morning. Good strong speaker, I think she'll be able to handle Joe Biden in the debates (to be honest, I fear Biden will go into a "little woman" attitude, not because he's sexist, just because he tends to say things like that). Anyway, on top of everything else, Palin was born in Idaho! This is awesome and a first. There are two things about her that bothers me, she graduated from the axis of evil, the University of Idaho and since she's a self proclaimed hockey mom, she's probably a fan of the evil Alaska Aces, foe of my beloved Idaho Steelheads. But on those two things, I'm going to forgive her.

Work

I started a temp job last week at a call center in town. It was weird how I got it, I went to the temp agency to talk to them about a specific job. Instead the next thing I knew they were signing me up for a call center job. Which I didn't want. The company is nice, but there's no benefits (contract work), it could end in four months. So on and so on. If something better didn't come up, I won't mind the work.

Before I started this one, I had applied for a government job with the local health department. I got the call today, I start Tuesday! All I have to do is take a blood test to prove I don't do drugs and since I don't do drugs I shouldn't have a problem with that. :)

Anyway I'm a happy camper.

Olympics

It's hard not to catch the Olympics fever, even though there's a lot that bothers me about them. First and foremost, China. I disagree with their policy toward Tibet (I loved the protesters who interupted the Olympic flame run). I find it disgusting that they take young children (age 3) away from their families, to raise them as potential Olympians. Yeah, I know, the Soviets did the same thing, well I didn't like them either. I find it totally disgusting that they had a cute little girl lip sync a song at the opening ceremonies because the little girl who sang the song, well her face wasn't "suitable." http://www.weirdasianews.com/2008/08/12/china-faked-the-olympics-opening-ceremonies/ Sorry, that's a huge FUCK YOU.

But what can I say, I still get wrapped up watching the gymnastics and swimming (and if I had cable, esquistrian). Michael Phelps is awesome, go Michael.

But the big story is Kristin Armstrong won the bicycling time trials http://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/story/468456.html. Her hometown is Boise. We got a Gold. Yay Kristin, Yay Boise.

Haircut update

It's been 4 weeks and 3 days since my disastrous haircut. It's grown out enough that it's getting to the acceptable point and almost cute. For a look at it, just look at the Chinese Men's Olympic Team, except that my hair is a bit longer on the sides, that's the haircut.

SBD

The latest literary controversy exists over Random House backing out of publishing Sherry Jones's "The Jewel of Medina" which is about Mohammed's favored wife. The controversy boils down to (from what I understand) RH sending the ARC to a Islamic expert professor at University of Texas, who had a screaming meany fit and called up her Muslim friends to alert them of the upcoming book and then called RH to warn them the Muslims might cause harm to RH if they published it. (This is the cliff notes version, so if you're interested in details, Google).

Several things bug me about this.
1) the anti-Muslim slant that if they are upset about a book they probably wouldn't have read anyway, they are going to bomb RH. Simon and Schuster has published Brad Thor's latest thriller about a discovery that blows up the entire concept of Islam. Now while Glenn Beck announced he thought that Brad would have a death threat for this book, no one has done so. (I love that I have now put Glenn Beck and the UT professor Denise Spellberg in the same category). I truly think Dr Spellberg did a great disservice to the Muslim community.

2) the anti-feminist slant. Ms. Jones's book is a historical fiction written by a woman and therefore isn't the same as the Satanic Verses or the Last Temptation of Christ because well I don't know, because Ms Jones doesn't have a penis? I've noticed that her book has been put down as a "bodice ripper", "stupid ugly book" (that one from the esteemed Dr. Spellberg), and etc. And of course it isn't a bodice ripper. Ms Jones got a $100,000 two book contract, romances don't.

3) Most importantly, RH is a bunch of pussies. Publishing houses have always been on the forefront of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. To have one cave under the possibility of the possibility of someone might be upset and possibility could do something violent is disgusting to me. Think of it this way: not just extreme Muslims, but also extreme fundamentalist Christians would believe that violence is the way to stop abortions, would RH cave to them? What about the extreme Luddites would fear technology? There is always some extreme wacko ready to get his/her panties in a wad. You can't live worrying about them.

SBD

This is a review/feminist rant so beware.

First, I checked two "thrillers" out of the library. One I made it through, one I didn't. One was by Christopher Reich, don't remember the name, it was one info dump after another. Now I read a lot of techo-thrillers, ect, so I'm used to a lot of info being dump on me. But serious, I think there were characters in there, but I can't be sure. Boring. I read the last pages to see who was the good guys, who were the bad, who were still alive and who were dead. Then it went back to the library.

Second book was by Ridley Pearson, called Killer Weekend. I've never read Pearson before, but I wanted to read this one since it was set in Sun Valley (Idaho's own Hollywood annex). Pearson has been a Sun Valley resident for many years before his family moved to St Louis (why anyone would willingly move to St Louis is beyond me, but I digress). The sheriff was the hero, he was getting a divorce and had daughters and later a drunken father. Oh and a dead brother with troubled son. That was it. I don't want a discription of the characters out of central casting but I want to get a general idea of age, etc. I still don't know how old Walt is, I can guess some, his father is still active and alive so he can't be "too" old. He considered a character old who was about sixty so he had to be well under fifty (because once you hit fifty you live convincing yourself sixty isn't old). I still don't know how many children he has (he mentioned he had daughters), etc. I want some landmarks to cling to. It throws me out of the story if I'm invisioning a character one way and suddenly find out they are another. The story was good, the characterization sucked. I gather Pearson plans to let us know all of this pertinent info in latter books But to me, you mention something in one book, you explain it in that book and build on it in the next. I got more info in the discription and first two chapters (on Pearson's website) of the next "Killer" book of Walt and his family (young twin daughters btw) than I did reading the whole first book. That's not good in my estimation.

Now the rant. Neither of these books (particularly Reich's) was great. But go to his blog, read the story of his first sale. Read how he sold his first book for $750,000. Pearson hit it big in the early 90's and it was a big deal how he got his first $300,000 advance. In fact, it was just after that that Pearson spoke at a local writer's confence. He told of his editor handing him the check and saying "I hope it's worth $300,000."

I'm sure Nora Roberts gets advances like that (just a guess, but consistently hitting the top of the NYT bestseller does that), but how many romance writers get that kind of advances? How many midlist (which is what I would consider Reich) romance authors got a $750,000 advance for her first book?

I know that it is different genres with different variables (ie: penis vs non penis). And sometimes women are our own worst enemies, but dammit, there's an unfairness about it that just pisses me off.

UPDATE

I'm really in the mood to write. I just don't know what. I've been trying the romantic suspense/spy novel for a long long time. Should I try something else for a while. I'm beginning to miss historicals. I don't know. I'm confuzzled. Hmmmm, maybe I should write a historical/romantic suspense/spy novel with slight paranormal influence.

Note: hair still looks like shit. But friends are taking pity and they're giving me great dangly earrings to compensate my butch haircut.