These fragments I have shored against my ruin...

... or, one out of three is a beginning...

Anyone reading this blog will know, I have suffered three disappointments in the last week. I lost my chance to buy the laptop of my dreams; I lost my editor at Del Rey; I lost another big publishing deal that would have sorted me financially and workwise for the next three years.

However: where God slams the door in your face and bolts all the windows, it is still sometimes possibly to wriggle through the coal-hole.

I can has the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection!

Indeed, I does has the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection. It is sitting right here on my desk, while Mac nests in its box and Baz perches on the back of my chair to supervise.

On Monday, I found a nice man in London with one to sell. It's his own, so second-hand - but lightly used, it looks immaculate and it's still under the better part of a two-year warranty.

I haven't, you know, actually powered it up yet. I think I'm scared. But ooh, it does look lovely...

Hee

Okay, it works. Indeed, it works just lovely, except for running yuck-spit Windows Vista. Which it took me ten minutes just to work out how to turn it off. And it is very full of crap I do not want, but I'm kind of shy of dumping stuff in case it turns out to have been very necessary after all (I have forgotten most of what I ever knew of Windows, and have never seen Vista in my life; I'm very edgy in there).

Next thing to do is slap a Linux live disk in, and see what happens. 'Cept that I don't have one just now. Rather than buzz around the house downloading & burning and suchlike, I thought I'd just install a Windows version of my WP software and scuttle into town, introduce the Vaio to the Silence Room in the Lit & Phil, see if I could figure out how the wi-fi works, then maybe buy a magazine with a live disk on the cover.

But! I got as far as coat-and-boots, then looked out of the window. It's raining! Eek! I don't care about me, but my Vaio!! I don't have a waterproof case for it! Indeed, I don't have any case for it. I have a cool & sexy backpack that I was going to slip it into, all casual-like - but I know that's not waterproof, I've washed it. Eek!

So either I wrap it in some demeaning plastic, or I leave it behind and do other stuff. Like shopping for a waterproof case for a Vaio. Eek!

*exits, squeaking*

ETA: Or, of course, I don't go. Yet. I've just rec'd a book order from Australia! Never had a book order from Australia! And I owe books to a couple of other people also, so I can take half an hour to pack those up, and then maybe it will've stopped raining...?

Ratbags...

Bugger. Somewhere on this desk, there used to be a datakey: only 1GB, but that is enough to hold my entire life's work, written and to come.

Trouble is, the datakey is on a lanyard. Which is by definition a long dangly thing. And long dangly things, by ancient tradition, belong to the boys for playing with.

*departs, to search house for datakey...*

Stoker

I mentioned in a previous post, that my story "The House of Mechanical Pain" - first published by ourselves, in Phantoms at the Phil: The Third Proceedings, now available for sale - has been recommended for a Bram Stoker Award in the Long Fiction category, as given by the Horror Writers' Association.

Their rules are strict: one is encouraged to promote, but forbidden to solicit votes. Okey-doke. This is in no way soliciting, you understand: but in the interests of promotion, we have put the story up here, on my website. If you're a member of the HWA, you have a vote and must use it as you choose, but do by all means read the story; if not, well, do by all means read the story anyway. And then, if you'd like to, buy the book! This story plus five more (that's two by me, for the sake of clarity, and two each by Gail-Nina Anderson and Sean O'Brien - yes, that Sean O'Brien): at a tenner for a lovely collectable limited-edition hardback book, it really is a bargain...

*solicits*