More links

According to Neko4 she missed my link posts, so here's another (really I just found these after the last post, and I want to close some tabs, but that sounds much nicer).

Neil Gaiman has a very large media shadow, it seems. He's a planet in Star Wars and a race in Babylon 5.

Here are the nominees for the 2005 Locus awards. I'm pleased to see Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell is up for a prize, as well as two Terry Pratchett novels and a Gaiman short story. I'm also tempted by the interestingly titled The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad. Kelly Link's also up for something - I read one of her stories in the new issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, which has rejected me twice, by the way. That's all right - they don't have much of a history publishing what I'm writing. I still haven't heard back from Realms of Fantasy, and I sent them my manuscript in late March or early April. So either they're taking a long time to consider it (good!) or they never got my submission (bad!). I'm giving them at least another month before I bug them about which it is.

Not exactly practical for me, but I love that it exists: Black Socks.com. You can buy a subscription - pardon, a "sockscription" so you never have to worry about getting black socks again. They come in lots of cuts, amounts, and deliveries. It amounts to about ten dollars a pair, which, given they're Italian, might possibly be good. As I'm a "cheap as hell white sock" person most of the time, I'll forego. The animation on the front page is good, though.

I think I got this from Gaiman's site: a list of differing terms between England and America. I knew many of these already, but it's nice to have a reference. What always surprises me, when I see these lists (online, or somewhere else, like my History of the English Language class) is how many I already either use regularly, or just think of as synonyms for the American version. Like "camper." It's supposedly British for "motor home," but I use them both. Possibly lots of other people do too, but then one has to question the need or demand for lists such as this. Hm.

Here's a page with some pictures of an abandoned amusement park. They're creepy as hell.

Here's a little news article from May: School suspends boy for wearing dress to prom. This is just ridiculous - as long as he's not naked (or illegally baring bits of his body) there's no call for anything like this.

I'd never heard of Robert Sheckley before today, but he's a very good writer. A Gaiman post (I've been trying to catch up today) clued me in - here's a Sheckley story on scifiction.com: Protection. He's right, too - I must not lesnerize.

Over on LiveJournal Harry Potter fans will find something interesting: Potterpuffs. A British woman is busily drawing Harry Potter characters (mostly illustrating either requests or sections of the books) in the Powerpuff Girls style. They're incredibly funny.