Harold recently switched to an iPhone, because he really wanted to get Siri, the voice-activated assistant. He set it all up, and then showed me how well the voice commands and speech recognition work by sending me a voice-activated text message. While sitting next to me.
In case you’re wondering, a voice-activated text message from someone right next to you is a lot like, well, talking.
Just heard that LitStack reviewed the October issue of In The Snake (and used my favorite pullquote):
“The Age of All Nighters” by Meg Stivison was perhaps my favorite; in it, a muse remembers her youth and the many men she loved and inspired. She wistfully reflects on how they parted; sometimes she abandoned them; often they left her to pursue more upstanding, middle class lifestyles:
She didn’t mind the presence of girlfriends and wives in the lives of her men — she was a muse, she didn’t pick up socks — but she felt her age as the poets and playwrights of her youth turned practical and became mid-level managers, talking about maintenance of cars and lawns. Once she met an old lover, and when he mentioned his insurance deductible, she felt she was slipping slowly from a statue back into a block of marble.
The selections are brisk, delightful reads, each capturing something simple yet resonant about our human experience. With solid and straightforward prose, neither the language nor the intent are so stylized or esoteric that the reader need puzzle his way through to find meaning. It’s all right there to be enjoyed…so go enjoy!
via In the Snake Magazine, October 2011 Issue | LitStack.
LitStack’s Jennifer Kaufman has thoughtful and positive comments on Keith Apland’s Daisy in a Sandbox, Marlene Caroselli’s Vittorio, and Frances August Hogg’s Cherish (my personal favorite) as well. I’m so pleased and flattered to be in this group!
Stick and I are on the phone talking about work, which is a lot better for both of us now than it was in Raleigh. It’s better because we’re both working in games now, instead of stopgap jobs, and also because we’ve regained the ability to have a real conversation, without underlying hostility and annoyance. He mentions that his game’s community manager ends up working with QA a lot, and he starts to explain about the particularities of a persistent multiplayer situation.
“And I told my community manager what you do,” he ends.
“What’s that?” I grumble. “Listen to the players tell me how much they hate the game, triage the players with valid problems from players who just like to complain, format that into a concise summary, and send it out, so that management can tell me that other projects take priority, and my programmers can tell me how many weeks my quick fix will take?”
“I said you make things happen.”
“Oh, Stick.” I tell him, “Only you would make ‘my ex-girlfriend doesn’t know what she does for a living’ into a compliment.”
I’m at a pub with some friends, when I find myself chatting with a girl near me about sparkly vampires. She shares my views that the Twilight leads showed up to film so they wouldn’t get cut slips, while the supporting cast, the human high-school kids, Bella’s father, etc. acted circles around the supernaturals. She also shares my views that the last book read like Twilight fanfic. Which means…. we’d both read all of the books….
There’s a lull in another conversation, at which point we totally get caught talking about teen vampire romance.
“Twilight! Seriously, ladies? But are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?” we’re asked.
“Team Bella’s Dad?” I suggest.
“That’s who you think she should end up with?”
“Oh, is that what the teams are? I thought we were voting for most believable character.”
“I thought it was who would win in a fight,” my new friend says.
As seen in Chapel Hill.
Caitlin, our brilliant QA lead, is testing one of the quests I wrote. Working in games has been my dream for a long time, but having a mission I designed currently in testing is sort of like the ego-bruising of an editor critique mixed with the frustration of locating all the usual options in a brand-new software version.
A couple hours into our shared rather unpleasant grind of sorting out what’s broken because of me, what’s the platform, what’s me, what’s programming, and what’s me, Caitlin stopped by my desk.
“It’s pretty smart,” she said, “how the end of the mission gives players *interactive item* that will prompt them to engage *overall game goal*!”
“Don’t sound so shocked!” I said, “There was actually some thought involved!”
In a small, work-related negotiation, I got exactly what I requested. My immediate reaction was NOT to be pleased that something is going my way, but to wonder if I asked for much, much too little, because why else would it be immediately accepted?
I blame two years of Chinese bargaining.
My bank likes to shut off my account for potential fraud. This is for my protection, it’s usually set off when I do potentially fraudulent things, like travel, buy expensive things, or shop online, and it probably happens to me extra, because I’m the only account holder who has ever traveled to a different state, saved up for a big purchase, or bought something online. I’m not sure if they’re protecting me from thieves, but I figure if potential robbers have as much difficulty getting to my checking account as I do, I’m probably safe.
Anyway, it’s been an inconvenient a few times to be traveling and lose access to my debit card, so I planned ahead and took out extra cash before I left for Denver.
I just got a message that a suspiciously large withdrawal has been made, and… could I call immediately to have continued access to my account?
I am seriously contemplating putting all my money under my mattress.
