Friday the Thirteenth
Do ya feel lucky, punk?

Lunchtime on Thursday. I'm outside under the ponderosa pine reading the most recent The Year's Best Science Fiction. I glance at the carpet store's outside clock and thermometer and watch the temperature drop ten degrees over the course of an hour. As of this writing, 7/12/07 @ 8:57 p.m. it's 58^°.

Weather would not change this much nor would it change in such a pleasant way out in New Jersey.

Even if he is a Guardian-reading liberal, I really like his stuff. Yeah Absolution Gap was anticlimatic and more of a chore than a pleasure to read but I can't hold that against him. On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of reading Signal to Noise. It is my humble opinion that the best science fiction stories are the ones which don't immediately come across as science fiction. At its very best, science fiction is window dressing for a story rather than a gimmick which makes a story happen and becomes the focal point of the tale. Signal to Noise is a very good story.

In short, the protagonist is given a second chance. Because I like the story so much I don't want to spoil any of it.

Lumines Plus is a really good game. It's a puzzle game where the player has to make squares disappear from the game field. It's the only way I actually meditate in recent memory. Plus I'm proud that I can beat most of the levels and only start to falter once I reach the most recent ones.