Our new neighborhood, Brentwood, has a neighborhood mailing list. It’s awesome. Very friendly, lots of informal freecycling, requests for notaries, that kind of thing. Discussions of suspicious activity. It’s the back of the fence stuff you used to see all over the U.S., just on Yahoo groups. For the last week or so, there’d been this ongoing duck saga. “Duck sighted in our front yard.” “Duck seen waddling down Woodrow.” “Oh, thank you so much! That’s our daughter’s duck!” “Duck crossing Justin.” So on. ...

Noted for my own reference: 11/20: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at One World Theater 12/9: Dave Alvin at the Continental Club 2/4: Los Lobos at One World Theater (opposite OwlCon, hm) 2/29: Dropkick Murphys, Frank Turner at Emo’s East (on sale 11/18) 3/2: Solas at UT Performing Arts Center

We have been in Austin a week and a half. In that time I have started my new job, we’ve found a house to rent, we opened a bank account, saw two movies, caught De Danann (or at least Frankie Gavin and a band, there’s some dispute there), and I’ve eaten more Mexican food than I have in the last five years. So that’s all good. This is a neat city. The brown is not bothering me; I had years to get used to brown nature in the Bay Area. It’s a bit browner here, drought and all, but that’s life. I had forgotten a lot of little differences that come with living in the middle of the country. There’s more elbow room for the houses, and the spaces between neighborhoods. The city has room to breathe, which I like a lot. ...

Oh mighty Internet: is there a preferred solution for streaming VIDEO_TS directories? Boxee does it but support is rumored to be flaky. Plex maybe does it? I can handle more or less any platform although OS X or Linux are more desirable.

This (original) is ridiculously awesome. Gollancz decided to bring a lot of classic SF/F back into print as ebooks. More of this stuff should be out of copyright by now, it’s all DRMed, and two-thirds of it can’t be bought in the United States, but despite all that I’m really happy. Cordwainer Smith, Pat Cadigan, Kuttner and Moore – lots of books that should be available, and now sort of are. It’s cultural history that matters to my tribe. There are books I’m keeping in physical form just because who knows when someone will digitize all the old Gardner Fox? But efforts like this one make me hopeful.

Matthew Yglesias goes to England for an example of aggressive tax warfare. (original) Good example, but come on, it’s a European Communist Party, so how applicable can it be to the US? I say we look at a program suggested by a United States Senator in the same era. Cap personal fortunes? Sure, why not? Mind you, the guy ran Louisiana as a dictator – but that’s what real class warfare looks like.

As always: thank you, world.

Not that I saw too much of the city. My business contacts took me to Pasta e Basta on Friday, but Saturday I was laid out with a nasty cold and it’s still bad enough so that I don’t feel like going into the city. Sad. The pasta was pretty good, though, and the singing waitresses were keen. They ranged from Mozart to Dolly Parton. Musically, I mean. Now I’m faced with entertaining myself for 9 more hours in Schiphol. Sad again. Changing the flight would run upwards of $300 and it’s just not worth it. I wonder if Starbucks would let me sleep on their couches?

I was in Frankfurt less than 24 hours so I don’t have a lot to say about that. Le Meridian Park is conveniently close to the central train station and my corporate hosts took me to a very nice Italian restaurant. Frankfurt Airport is a pit of hell. In retrospect I should have figured out how to get to Amsterdam by train. Perhaps other gate areas are better, but D is an endless corridor with no waiting areas or shops; these things have been replaced by glassed up smoking areas that smell, even from the outside, like stale ashtrays. Bleak as anything. ...

Some people blog from planes, some people blog from trains. I feel awfully civilized. Cologne was great. The Excelsior Hotel Ernst, not a great business hotel, although possessed of quality service – but the location was unbeatable. Great food. Very nice beer. GDC was also quite useful; lots of vendor meetings, a few really good talks, and so on. Gamescom really is that enormous. To put it into the context of my tribe, take the Gencon dealers room and fill it up with computer game booths outfitted by companies with money to spend instead of printing debts. Keep the 30 foot ceiling; you need it to fit the booth displays. Yes, that is a 120" HDTV. Now turn up really loud techno from every booth. With me so far? Make the room a bit bigger. Good. ...