Life in a Nutshell, which wouldn't post last night...

Anyone read anything by Kage Baker? I'd read a couple of her *Company* books, and just finished her fantasy *Anvil of the World*. She scored cover blurbs by Anne McCaffrey and Ursula Le Guin, so I gave it a try. Much of it is mildly amusing, but I'm not in any rush for the next one (if there is one). It includes too many messages that she hopes we get, too much on stupid humans and their bad ecological practices, etc. Do I think humans have messed up? Oh yeah. But slightly veiled references to that are not what I read other-world fantasy for. I also didn't think that much that happened in the story really mattered to the ending, you know? Didn't seem like an inevitable progression, even though it was mostly interesting. Anyway. I've certainly read worse, so read it if you have time and like her work. I'd be curious to hear other impressions.

In other news, I finally finished writing the scene I started yesterday. I tweaked the old outline yet again. It's funny how smooth things seem to flow when you're outlining and when you get there, you just slide a slightly different angle, as though the road was muddy. Not far enough to get off the road, you understand, just enough to shed a new light on it. Or at least up the wattage of the same light just a little. How's that for mixing the metaphors?

That's my life in a nutshell, mixed metaphors and all.

There are some things I need to deal with in the next while. I need to get my courage together and tackle Hewlett Packard yet again over my printer. It is NOT working right and it is NOT my fault. I've shut up for too long, and need to start hammering them again. And now I also have to deal with our cell phone, which seems to have some loose wires in it, and also has six months of contract left on it but no more warranty, so they think we should pay full price for a new one. And me? I'm thinking not. But we'll see who wins on these. But first I have to get up the energy to start the fight. Because if I don't fight, they win for sure, and that's just sad.