Been field testing a bunch of CMSs and I'm fairly certain I've finally landed on the one I want, so I am telling you all now, with 99% certainty, that robcallahan.com is back for good and I'll be dumping most of my insights over there from now on. I'll maybe be making small aesthetic changes in the days to come, but for the most part it is ready to roll out.
And those of you who prefer the phone browser will likely enjoy m.robcallahan.com. Still working on that aspect, but it's as good to go as needs be right now.
When I was young, a friend and I bummed a ride down to the St. Paul Armory to get autographs from Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton. That was the first time I realized there were more than, say, seven people in the world with any of my same interests. Since then, I've sort of fallen past the event horizon of the con phenomenon. This year will be my first CONvergence, though.
The panels went well. Well, I say "well"... The Emergent Genres panel cleared half the room out by the time we were finished. Lesson learned: Don't put three writers who haven't researched much in front of a room full of strangers hungry for clever insight. The second panel, however, was a load of fun. I learned, among other things, that people come to these conventions expecting to hook up and get laid. Clearly, I've been going to these things for all of the wrong reasons all these years... That second panel is apparently going to be podcast by The Snarky Avenger at some point.
I'm documenting the whole thing between drinking strangely-flavored/themed boozes and pimping my books. Here's the first round. Was having trouble uploading from the hotel. Tonight I'll try again, posting pictures here and videos here. Enjoy
Videos from the Mirror Universe room, complete with Agony Booth and Rock Monster:
In an effort to encourage your attendance at CONvergence, and make you more likely to buy more books with Rob Callahan in them, the following chapbook will be distributed exclusively at CONvergence 2008. It will be handed out, free of charge, to everyone who wants it until supplies are all dried up. Once gone, it will never be reprinted or redistributed in any form. If you track Rob down and shove one of these at him, he'll probably sign it for you.
1. Who coined that term? Was it JWZ? 2. Where can I find a comprehensive list of the cultural references in Spaced? As it isn't available to American DVD-buying audiences, I've only got ripped/torrented/downloaded/encoded-to-VCD copies which I am forced to watch without the benefit of commentary. Any help?
Amazon have got the price of my new book slashed down to $13.38 this morning. Better go get yourself a copy before they realize I was already not making them much money.
You know how it is when you're young. You're not always encouraged. You're told no, and don't, and you can't and don't even try, you're not good enough, you'll fail, it's beyond your reach, out of your league. You hear this from parents, teachers, principals, guidance counselors, siblings, peers, cops, judges... all the usual. If you were anything like me, you were one of those gullible idiots who always believed it, and didn't that just set you back? I listened to that sort of thing so often from k to 12, and it affected me on such a deep and profound level, that I went from being among the top 10% of my first grade class to the bottom 10% of my twelfth grade class (in a big school, so the fall was long) and by the end of it I didn't need anyone to tell me just how much of a failure I really was. Because by that point I was telling myself for them.
That sort of outlook will really hold a guy back. I got into college later than most, took longer than most and rather unsurprisingly earned a GPA lower than most. All this being a foregone conclusion because, as has been said, I knew on a deep and intrinsic level that I would never do any better. And just in case I found it in me to challenge the established paradigm, there was always someone nearby to remind me of just how unimpressive I was. (You'll find this everywhere, and with everyone, in that as soon as a member of any given crowd begins to excel, the crowd in question will scramble to drag that lone member, kicking and screaming if necessary, back toward mediocrity. Can't have that bar getting too high now, can we?)
Then, one day, I was out of school and moving gradually (although not so quickly as to break with tradition) up the pay scale. It was at this time that I spotted, of all things, a new car that impressed me in every possible way. Cash in hand, I went down to the dealership and stated my intent to own said car. I fully expected to be told no, and don't, and you can't and don't even try, you're not good enough, you'll fail, it's beyond your reach, out of your league, but the funny thing about car salesmen is that they typically don't refuse to take a person's money.
And suddenly I had a new car. I had a neat, shiny new car that impressed all the right people and made me feel like I'd finally exceeded the bounds of what I actually deserve. So I drove it around, a lot, as you do with a new car. I took it to every part of the continental U.S. I could think to visit. I went out in the middle of the night, and all day on weekends, just to drive and be seen driving in my greatest accomplishment to date. Everywhere I drove, I took note of the other drivers around me and, after some time, I found myself aware that I wasn't the only guy on the road in a shiny new car. In fact, most of the cars around me were shiny and new as well. Maybe, I thought, getting that shiny new car wasn't so impressive after all. Maybe it was something a lot of people can do. In fact, it seemed as though it might be something most of them take for granted. I hadn't scored some great victory and broken the bonds of my station in life after all. I'd merely accomplished what a lot of other people accomplish.
And then another thing hit me. If this car, this perceived symbol of my immaculate accomplishment, was really just an average sort of median achievement, then what had all those others been? How many easily gotten gains had I foregone simply because I'd been convinced I couldn't have them? How much of my youth, and at that point my twenties, had I squandered nobly suffering with less to show than those who so ignobly inflicted so much of the world's suffering? I feared I would never know. I feared also I will never get a do-over, so the only thing that was left to me was to learn my long overdue lesson: I'd given up so many opportunities and missed so many chances at things for which I simply should have tried because I thought I simply shouldn't. Herein lies the moral because, if you're anything like me, you're told no and you can't all the time and, if you're not careful, you'll start to believe it.
So when some jealous d-bag next to you starts in about how you're overstepping your reach, ask yourself if you really are. Chances are you'll find it's the d-bag, and not yourself, who is in the wrong, and you'll reach further than you ever have before. Only then will you grasp what it is you're after.
I bring this up now because my old 2001 Honda Insight, in which I traveled 180,000 physical miles and a good few AUs of the metaphysical variety, had to be put to pasture last week. She was a good and trusted pony, and every morning I still walk obliviously past her replacement, looking for her. She wasn't just a car. She was a new and better ethos into which I'd financed myself at a comfortable interest rate over a five year term. She was my first new ethos, and you never forget your first.
Target.com are now taking pre-orders for Hellbound Snowballs, but if you'd like to get it right away, Amazon already have it in stock. More information will filter out to you as it comes to me.
So a couple of free evenings, an old leather jacket, some sandpaper and paint later, this
became this:
(Because I bought her with the intent to restore, then sort of forgot about that because it's loads more fun just to ride, but lately everyone on my block is buying a new scooter and I was going rapidly from the only kid who has one to the only kid who doesn't have a nice one. And I can't have that. That's hardly a proper way to remain smug and superior. Now I'm enviable again, as God intended.)
..
