For the second year in a row, a bunch of disgruntled “conservative” sf readers and writers are attempting to destroy science fiction’s Hugo Awards by nominating slates of works that are, variously: rabid racist tracts; works by their ideological opponents; tepid military sf; works by bystanders; and weird porn by Chuck Tingle, a master of the form, who has nothing to do with any of this.
Until now. When Tingle – who publishes “bizarre niche erotica” in great volume – discovered that his book Space Raptor Butt Invasion had been promoted to the Hugo ballot by spoilers hoping to discredit the award, he sprang into action. He created a new title, especially aimed at the “Puppies” (the two groups who want to kill the Hugos call themselves “Rabid Puppies” and “Sad Puppies” for fantastically tedious reasons you can look up for yourself if you care to): “Slammed In The Butt By My Hugo Award Nomination.”
Then Tingle took to Twitter, writing an amazing series of GIF-illustrated tweets, mocking Vox Day, avowed white supremacist and leader of the “Rabid Puppies.”
The crowning glory of Tingle’s campaign, though, was hisannouncement that his Hugo Award, should he win it, would be accepted by Zoe Quinn, the reigning bogeywoman of the Gamergate/neoreactionary right. In other words: every time a “Puppy” casts a vote for Tingle’s work, they cast a vote for giving Zoe Quinn a podium from which to address the entire World Science Fiction Convention about the importance of diversity and representation in fiction.
He is now using the website to promote N.K. Jemison, Zoe Quinn, public libraries, and an LGBT health organization. Also, a very large shirtless picture of Channing Tatum.
Chuck Tingle for PM.
Shit. Can we elect this guy as our King of the Internet?
The Best Air-Purifying Houseplants According To NASA
Reuploading this since it tured out Tumblr doesn’t like long pictures.
I feel I must address the saga of the couple next door, because…well.
They were making some extraordinary noises, at about 4:30ish in the afternoon, and I eventually gave up and went down to the front desk, where I had a great conversation with a woman I will call Yolanda (not her real name but not too far off, who was a hero.) I will also remind my readers that I am in Georgia so all colloquialisms are reported as they happened.
ME: Hi! We are about to have a very awkward conversation!
YOLANDA OF THE HOTEL: We are?
ME: Are you ready?
HOTEL: I’m ready!
ME: Are you braced?
HOTEL: Let’s do this!
ME: The couple in the room next to me is having incredibly loud sex.
HOTEL: Oh sweet baby Jesus.
ME: I admire their enthusiasm! I am glad they have found each other!
HOTEL: *tries not to laugh*
ME: They are clearly having a VERY fulfilling relationship!
HOTEL: *choking noises*
ME: But if you are at the stage of your relationship where you are making that kind of noise in the afternoon, you are gonna make it all night as well.
HOTEL: Oh yeah! *loses battle, begins laughing*
ME: I am a children’s book author–
HOTEL: *begins slapping her hands on the desk*
ME: –and I gotta get up at 6:45 to go talk to third graders. Is there any way you can move me to a different room?
HOTEL: Oh thank the lord. I though you were gonna ask me to go pound on their door.
ME: That seemed unkind. For you and them.
HOTEL: I’ll move you right over. (Shuffling of room numbers occurs)
ME: You heard that one before?
HOTEL: Oh honey, I’ve worked hotels for fifteen years. I’ve heard pretty much everything.
So I know, like, “abolish the U.S. government” isn’t actually a practical step forward but gosh if I had a button that could do it –
the government set up a fake university, persuaded international students it was a real university, got thousands to enroll, and then revealed it was a sting and they’ll all be deported with an immigration violation on their visas for enrolling in a university that they should have known was fake. Despite the fact that, in order to make the sting more successful, they got the fake university accredited, so if students did check it would all seem legitimate!
So, our PERC holes had to be dug on a day when we weren’t available to be there. That’s because we were running to meet the ‘if we want to build this autumn’ deadline — which we found out a few days ago is actually unachievable.
It turns out that even had we got all of our ducks in a row (which they are pretty much) then we couldn’t have hit it because the permit approval process for the septic is way longer than we were told by our septic designer. Of course, just before we found this out we had a great chat with the house permitting guy who told us that he ended up reviewing it – his current timeframe would mean we’d be able to make our build-date targets (based on the septic designer’s estimate of times). Of course we were super excited – then we find out that the permit process is at least double what our designer said… and sadness.
So, anyway, to get back (at least vaguely) to the point. We find out it’s not doable and are then out on the plot with our to-be-arbourist planning where our house will be and find that the oldest, largest tree in the entire 5.5 acres is the one they’ve decided to stick the septic right in the middle of the root system for.
This would, unsurprisingly, kill a beautiful tree.
Seriously, we talked about needing to protect the place with our guy-the-excavator – who dug the holes for our septic guy, and I expect that conversation happened with the designer too, although I wasn’t there. But Kathryn and I always rave about this beautiful tree.
So we go out with our arbourist who is first up horrified at the potential damage done already, then we realise that the system is pegged out right in the root system – and the alternate is also in the root system of the same tree.
Seriously?
Gaaaah.
So now we’re faced with nearly $700 of costs for relocating it because we took our eye off the ball and thought that people might actually give a shit about their environment. When we talked about it before hand the septic guy was all “oh, we’ll look at the site and dig some test holes and pick the best location”. All the holes are within about 40? of this one poor tree.
Let me remind you again, 5.5 acres.
Oh lord. This is not something we need.
In other news, we’re off to look at some lettings to see if we can find a short term, uncarpeted 6 month lease so that we can do our building planning through the winter and put it up in the spring.
Also: The cake I’m baking erupted in the oven. Cue hideous burning smell. Also, in the 35 minute cooking time it’s come out like jelly. I’ve no idea why – it’s staying in there longer, but seriously? And also yesterday’s trip to the dentist turned out to be the first of 2 (on top of the original 2) – as my tooth had rotted out enough that removing the filling left me with a crown, instead of a filling, and he still is wondering whether I need a root canal. Yay.
Egads. I think you should try to make the septic people or the excavator (I’m not sure which it was?) eat at least some of that $700 cost for going against your express wishes!
I’m really sorry about the timing.
And I can’t offer anything in the way of storage space, but I CAN provide you a bed (inside, even!) if it hits that point!
ALSO TELL US ABOUT YOUR FUTURE HOUSE! Mom said something about a kit? But that didn’t fit with what you seemed to be talking about so I r confuzzled.
Yeah, it’s tricky. We told the excavator but aren’t certain we told the septic guy – but then he said he’d look over the land and pick ‘the best’ space – not ‘the most accessible’ space. Feh. It’s slightly tempting to switch to another septic designer, but the other one has a not-great rating from the BBB.
Thank you again for the offer :) We’re going to check out some houses with short term leases, which should tide us over winter… but if it all spirals into disaster… you may find us camped on your porch ;)
…and the future house will look a bit like this – without the porch and with a 16?x16? shed roof extension (we’d love the porch but we can’t afford the porch and the extension). It is a kit – everything’s pre-cut and we just assemble it like a giant meccano / erector set. It’s everything to a watertight skin and framing for the interior walls. No electrics/plumbing…Oh, and no windows in our quote… But does have the rain screen and cladding :)
It’s exciting though, or it will be if we can get the land developed…
