some happiest days items, and paypal frustrations

My head was pounding when I went to bed last night, and is still pounding as I write this, seven hours later. I had one of those nights where I couldn’t get comfortable and woke up about once an hour,
so I finally decided to just give in and get out of bed about an hour ago.

I still have the headache that I kept waking me up all night, but I did get to watch a beautiful sunrise while my coffee brewed.

Why do I have a throbbing headache that kept me up all night? Oh, this is just fantastic . . .

I took a box of books to the post office yesterday, so about 100 of you guys who placed orders in the first couple of days can start checking your mailboxes on Friday. I understand that many readers who bought The Happiest Days of Our Lives are starting to get their books, and it looks like it’s taking about a week for them to arrive. If you’ve gotten your book and had a chance to read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts, either in a comment, an e-mail, or via review at Monolith Press.

Speaking of the book, I wanted to clarify something about the signed, numbered, limited edition hardback: it hasn’t arrived from the printer, yet, so we can’t start taking orders. I can’t even do pre-orders, because I don’t know how much it will weigh to calculate what we need to charge for shipping. Also, I’ve encountered two significant problems with the otherwise-perfect PayPal ordering system:

1) When I print multiple orders, it’s not passing the item number through with the address and buyer information. Until we can figure out why it’s doing this, we can’t take different orders for different products. We’re working on it, but the FAQs at PayPal are pretty goddamn useless. If you’ve had any experience with this problem and solving it, would you let me know what you did?

2) PayPal won’t let me automatically process Canadian orders along with US orders. That’s annoying, but it gets even worse: if I use the otherwise-awesome "print shipping label" option, which handles postage and addressing and all that good stuff, it forces me to buy an international priority mail envelope for 9 dollars. Since I’m only charging 5 dollars for shipping, I’d lose money doing it that way, and I can’t justify charging Canadian customers more than half the cover price to pay for shipping. It wasn’t like this when we did Dancing Barefoot, so I asked at my local post office, and the woman told me I can ship books to Canada for around 3 dollars, but to do that, we’ll have to process orders the old way, and I still have to fill out customs forms. By hand. For each fucking one. I can’t even begin to tell you how much this sucks, and how much work it’s going to be to handle Canadian orders, now. Thank you very much, stupid intrusive government regulations that waste my time and cost me money. I don’t know why the rules have changed so much since we did Barefoot, because we could just identify the books as "bound, printed matter" back then and avoid the customs hassle. This is the opposite of awesome, and I’d love any advice on dealing with this from indie sellers who have dealt with it already.

So what do these things mean for customers? Until I can figure out WTF is wrong with PayPal, I can’t take hardback orders. This isn’t an issue right now, because they aren’t even here from the damn printer, but it’s going to be a potentially disastrous issue for me and my business if we can’t solve it within a week or so.

I’m currently working on a backup plan to deal with this stuff, but I’m sure there has to be a way to make this work using the tools I already have. If you have a small business and handle payments and order processing the way I’m trying to, would you please get in touch and let me know how you did it?

Finally, I updated the FAQ at Monolith Press over the weekend, and forgot to mention it until just now.

they can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles

Wow.

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden
video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on
Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition.
It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials
not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun
downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day,
the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from
within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast
worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this
premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed
a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to
intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings
of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder.

In recent years, those of us who
question our leaders, want to preserve our Constitution, and believe
supporting our troops is more than a bumper sticker slogan have been
vilified, attacked, and consistently called "traitors" by this
administration, their supporters, and their allies in government and
media.

But when powerful Bush administration officials leak
classified information to further their own personal political agenda,
the self-appointed defenders of the American way of life fall
conspicuously silent.

I used to be outraged by this sort of
thing, but now it just makes me sad. What happened to my country?

(via Propeller)

untitled autumn narrative

Autumn is trying to arrive in Los Angeles, but summer has a tenacious grip here, and isn’t going to let go without a fight.

This weekend was one of the many battles between the two seasons we’ll have until summer throws in the towel, which typically happens in mid-November: autumn brought us a cold and gloomy Friday, perfect for bundling up in a sweater and sipping hot cider, but warm summer winds blew it away over night and by Saturday morning, we were back in shorts, drinking iced tea on the patio.

Anne and I wanted to spend Saturday outside, but we’d committed to spending a significant portion of the day processing and packing book orders, so we don’t fall behind. It’s important to me that the time between when people order and when they get their book is as short as possible, even if it means sacrificing a few hours on a beautiful weekend. It was really nice to sit in the living room, all the doors and windows open with a warm breeze blowing in, listening to the sound of the first fallen leaves of autumn swirl around on the patio. We processed and packed enough orders to fill one of those USPS tubs I’m not allowed to use in the construction of a fort, probably close to 200, I think. (The volume of orders and interest in The Happiest Days of Our Lives has been overwhelming and unexpected. I’m actually starting to think that the limited edition hardback may actually sell out, which would be pretty cool).

Saturday night, I went to The Comic Bug for the final Los Angeles signing of the Star Trek Manga (My one Orange County stop is on Wednesday in Huntington Beach). I’ve spent a lot of time in the South Bay in autumn, so I was prepared for a cool, possibly foggy evening, but summer has a special connection to the beach, and will not quietly follow the sun over the horizon and into the Pacific. It was clear and warm, and I felt silly when I showed up dressed for Seattle. However, it was the best tour stop we had: at least forty people showed up, and though we signed a lot of books, it was more like a party that was occasionally interrupted by signing.  (Incidentally, if you’re interested in a copy of our book, signed by four writers and one artist, Comic Bug has a few of them, and they’ll ship it to you if you order from them. Tell them I sent you if you do).

It was a wonderful evening, and a great way to end the Los Angeles portion of the promotional tour.

Summer may have owned Saturday, but autumn wasn’t going to give up Sunday without a fight. It was my absolute favorite kind of weather: warm and even hot in the sun, but cool and brisk in the shade, with a hint of chill in the air everywhere. Anne and I slept late, cooked breakfast together (one of the simple pleasures in life that I love so much is cooking with my wife, especially breakfast on the weekends) and then took a massively long walk around our neighborhood, to get the most out of the beautiful day.

While we walked down a street a few blocks away that’s lined with fifty year-old trees that are just starting to give up their leaves, past an old mission-style house that had awesome Halloween decorations on its porch and in its upstairs windows.

I waved to one of my neighbors, who was scattering rye grass seed on his lawn.

"That’s optimistically early, " I said to Anne as we passed him, "there’s no way it’s going to stay cool enough for rye grass for at least another month."

"What are you, the rye grass police?"

"I’m just sayin’, is all," I said, "so don’t ask me to put it down on our lawn until at least — hey! Our anniversary is in exactly one month!"

"I love that," she said.

"That reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier this week," I said. "You know, autumn is my favorite time of year, but not just because of the weather. I love the weather, of course, but when I look into my memory, it seems like my good childhood memories are always in summer, while nearly all of my good teenage and adult memories are in autumn."

I could feel a wealth of future stories sitting on the other side of an unlocked door just begging to be opened: Halloweens spent building haunted houses with Darin, driving myself and some friends down to Glendale when I was sixteen so we could watch horror movies, gaming and Star Trek and comic conventions . . .  I resisted the urge to kick the door down and greedily harvest them. I was enjoying the day with my awesome wife, after all, so I just picked one of my favorites to share with her.

"For example," I said, "I got married in autumn."

"Stop it." She said.

"I’m just sayin’, is all," I said.

"Okay," she said, and took my hand in hers for the rest of our walk.

I love that, I thought.

We met our friends for dinner last night, and when we left our house, the sun was setting, the smoke of barbecues was replaced by the smoke of fireplaces, and autumn had won the day.

Summer is back today, though, so I think I’ll go take a walk by myself, and maybe open some doors along the way.

still funny, still true.

Prompted by a comment on Slashdot, I would like to reprint this old blog post, which still makes me laugh:

Around 1987 or 1988, I saw Larry Niven
at a convention. I was officially there to be the Star Trek guy, but I
didn’t have to go on stage for a few hours, and rather than sit in some
suite with the rest of the Star Trek people who didn’t want to get too
close to the masses, I grabbed my backpack and wandered around the
convention as nerdy fanboy number 42.

I bought a ton of crap in
the dealer’s room (mostly FASA sourcebooks, and some bootleg anime
videos IIRC) and on my way down a hallway toward the gaming room, I saw
this guy who was dressed in a Space Shuttle flight suit (blue) sitting
behind a table that had some books on it.

Holy shit, it was Larry Niven.

I walked up to him and the conversation went something like this:

Me: OMG YOU’RE LARRY NIVEN!

Him: OMG YOU’RE WESLEY ON STAR TREK!

Both: CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH!

Both: YOU WANT MY AUTOGRAPH?!

Both: YES!

Me: I don’t have a pen.

Him: It’s okay, I have several.

He
pulled a pen out of the shoulder pen-holding pocket thing on his blue
Space Shuttle flight suit. I was so out-nerded, it wasn’t even funny. I
tried to counter-attack by producing my own copy of Ringworld
that I had in my backpack, because I carried it with me everywhere in
those days, just in case, you know, I felt like reading it. (I am not
exaggerating at all. I loved — and continue to love — that book that
much. For reals.)

This prompted the question, "Do you ever get bothered that you can’t
just walk around a convention like everyone else? Does it bother you
that people are always trying to talk to you, even when you’re supposed
to be having your ‘own’ time?"

To which I replied, "It depends on how much Sailor Moon porn I’m attempting to buy."

I made myself laugh, and then I realized that there probably really
is Sailor Moon porn, and there are probably people who buy it. Then I
threw up in my mouth a little.

Have you ever had to laugh while there’s vomit in your mouth? It’s
worse than holding a drink in your mouth while you get under control
enough to swallow it.

Wow. I really just bounded over the line on that one, didn’t I? I
mean, normally I can at least see the line behind me, but it’s way
behind the horizon right now.

Okay. Good to know. Moving on.

Have a good weekend, everyone. If you’re local to Los Angeles, come out to The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach Saturday night at 7 for our Manga signing. I understand there’s going to be a Star Trek trivia contest.

this is awesome

Anne and I sat on the floor in our living room, while Two Zombies Later played on the stereo (which I’d rechristened as a Hi-Fi for this special occasion.)

A half-empty box of The Happiest Days of Our Lives was on one side of us, a shipping container on the other, a stack of envelopes between us.

"This reminds me of when we did Dancing Barefoot," I said, as I struggled to put a book into an envelope.

"Me too" She said.

The book caught on the corner of the envelope, and tore it. For the third time. I crumpled it and threw it down into a growing pile of failed attempts.

"Except I don’t recall it being this tough to get the books into the envelopes." I said, "or maybe I just have stupid fingers today."

Ferris walked into the room, flopped down onto the rug next to Anne, and rolled onto her back.

"Someone is very happy to be with us in the living room," Anne said. Ferris wagged her tail in agreement: Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Ahem." I said. "I believe you mean ‘the shipping department.’"

She smiled.

"I like doing this with you again," she said.

I successfully worked the book into an envelope.

"Fourth time is the charm, I guess," I said.

"Go you." Anne said.

I turned the envelope over, and stuck a shipping label on the front side.

"This one’s going to Portland," I said. "That’s cool. I like Portland."

I put it with about several of its brothers into a shipping box, on loan from the United States Postal Service. I know that it’s on loan, because every flat surface on the box reminds me of this fact, and warns me against attempting anything ‘unauthorized’ with it. I will admit to spending a considerable amount of time pondering what sort of ‘unauthorized’ mayhem this box and I could have together. I wonder what kind of go-kart or fort it could make?

"You know what I love?" I said.

"Me?"

"Yes. You know what else I love?"

"Ferris?"

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Yes. You know what else I love?"

We shared an impish look. Before she could answer, I said, "I love it that each of these books represents a person out there in the world who wants to read something I’ve written. Sending one box to a bookstore is one thing, but sending these directly to readers feel so much more . . ."

"Awesome?"

"I was going to say ‘real,’" I said, "but, yeah, ‘Awesome’ works, too."

I looked around me. My beautiful wife, my awesome dog, a box of books — my books, that I created — waiting to find their way into the hands and homes of people who want to read them.

"Yeah. This is awesome."