And now for something completely different, offered without comment:
I’m the Map! I’m the Map! I’m the Map! I’m the Map!
I’m the Maaaaaaaaaaap!
Dora and Boots need your help to find the Necronomicon! I know where the Necronomicon is! First you go through the Mountains of Madness. Then you go past the Dunwich Horror, and there you’ll find the Necronomicon!
So: Mountains of Madness. Dunwich Horror. Necronomicon.
Say it with me!
Mountains of Madness. Dunwich Horror. Necronomicon!
Mountains of Madness. Dunwich Horror. Necronomicon!
Mountains of Madness. Dunwich Horror. Necronomicaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!
Okay, my comment: I don’t think I’ve been watching too much children’s programming while watching Vivian. But I may have seen a few too many Dora the Explorer episodes…
The Red MacBook
So, you have your white MacBooks and you have your new, sleek (sexy?) black MacBooks, so how about a fire engine red MacBook?
It could happen, according to the Apple rumour website Think Secret. It all surrounds speculation about Bono’s African AIDS charity, RED, which is raising funds in Europe with the use of specially branded products, including an American Express RED card and a RED Motorola phone. These objects are… you guessed it: red.
Now, Bono is good friends with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and the two have engaged in promotional collaboration before. RED, while active in Europe, hasn’t had much play in America, yet. Could Bono call in a favour and make a splash for his charity with new red-coloured iPods, iMacs and MacBooks?
Says the folks at the Unofficial Apple Weblog:
while I personally think it would be really cool to see something like this happen, I’m skeptical as to whether a red Mac would fly in a store next to predominantly white and black brethren.
I don’t know about you, but I agree with the commentators. I would be sorely tempted to invest in a red MacBook, because as we all know, red makes things go faster.
(Alternately, you can get this company to paint up your MacBook as you like it.)
Fathom Five Catalogue Copy
Barry, my editor, asked me to put together catalogue copy for Fathom Five. Catalogue copy describes the book in the book publisher’s catalogue, and it may also form the basis of Fathom Five’s back cover blurb.
That’s a frustrating job. How do you summarize a 40,000 word story in just a few paragraphs? How do you compress it to its essense? Sometimes you just know how to do it, and sometimes this becomes something you labour over.
In my case, I turned to Erin, who did a great job, in my opinion. Sometimes, your readers have a better idea of what your story is about than you do.
So, without further ado, here’s the catalogue copy for Fathom Five:
On the surface, Peter McAllister has a good life: a good school, good friends, good times. So what if his best friend is a girl — and sort of a geek? And so what if she might be something more than a friend? On the surface, he’s happy.
Underneath, it’s a different story. It’s been years since the death of his parents landed him in this small town with his hardly-there uncle — but he still feels as if his life in Clarksbury is just an inch deep. Are his friends really his friends? Does he really belong? Only Rosemary seems entirely real. That reality comes crashing down the first time he kisses her — and she rejects him.
A mysterious woman named Fiona, a vision from his life before his parents died, appears. She tells him he’s a changeling — a fairy child from beneath the waters of Georgian Bay left to live in the human world. She tells him that’s why he doesn’t belong. She tells him it’s time to come home.
Can Rosemary convince him that Fiona is lying?
Or is it possible Fiona is telling the truth?