neOnbubble: Bubbly. And Neonny.

The Beautiful Butterfly

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:40:07 GMT

"Crapping arse!" I shouted as I flexed my wings willing them to harden. I tried to think erotic thoughts but that didn't appear to help anywhere.

I looked back at the chrysalis from which I'd just emerged then towards the glistening pool of water near my spindly feet at my reflection. I was a beautiful butterfly.

"Crapping arse!" I shouted again, louder.

"Whoa! Mind your language there gorgeous!" said a voice from nearby.

I turned and pretended to chew on something hard in my mouth to lend my pathetic face an air of menace. "You talking to me?" I asked the new arrival with the best attempt at a growl I could muster.

"Yeah, this is a nice area. You look like you should fit in well. Just, you know, tone down the language a tad."

"Fuck off beetle!" I told the beetle.

"Hey! There's no need for that! What are you so angry about?"

I took the deepest breath my miniscule lungs could muster and then slowly - punctuating every word with a flutter of my attractively-coloured wings - I replied: "I. Am. A. Beautiful. Butterfly."

The beetle rolled his eyes.

"A butterfly! Me! That's why I'm angry!" I half-yelled at the bug.

"Yeah, I can see why that would make someone angry," the beetle said with dripping sarcasm. "I should be angry, not you."

"And why's that?" I said, feigning indifference as I beat my wings faster and glanced towards the sun in the sky wondering if it was going to ever harden the wings into something approaching usefulness.

"Well, I'm a beetle," he began. "Have you ever tried getting a date over the phone when you're a beetle? Of course you haven't. It goes like this: Hi, fancy a date with a beetle? No, no I'm not Ringo. No, I'm not the one with a penchant for one-legged weirdos either. No, I'm not the car with a mind of its own. Yes, that's the sort. Hello? Hello?"

"Very upsetting, I'm sure," I hissed back. My wings, I thought, might actually be getting more rigid.

"You're still angry," said the beetle.

"I'm not a happy bunny," I replied.

"Did someone call my name?" asked a beaming, furry abomination from the undergrowth. The rabbit emerged with a grin from ear-to-ear.

"Oh, fuck me," I half-whispered to myself.

"This beautiful butterfly right here is apparently deeply upset because he's a beautiful butterfly," explained the helpful and irritating beetle.

"You'd be angry if you were a beautiful butterfly, believe you me," I added.

"I'm never angry!" smiled the rabbit. I treated it to an invented swear word that still carried across deeply offensive intention and watched its smile waver, but only briefly. That annoyed me too.

"You can't help some people," said the beetle and he made as if to head off to wherever it was he'd been heading in the first place.

"Nonsense!" laughed the furball. "Owl can help anyone! Owl knows all."

"Really?" I asked. "Because if he's just twice as useful as the pair of you combined then I'll just throw myself off a cliff right now."

The beetle sighed and the rabbit rolled about in hysterics for several seconds while I watched with piddly little mouth agape. Eventually, I conceded that it couldn't make my life any worse to at least see what the owl could do for my situation and the three of us left the glade in which my new life had recently begun so badly and set off for the allegedly helpful Owl.

Owl, as her name indicated, was an owl, and an apparently wise one. As such she was surrounded by scholars from the animal world and would-be scholars or never-would-be scholars from the animal world too. A hush fell upon the court of wisdom as the rabbit bounded in, the beetle walked in casually, and I flapped and sputtered all over the place bouncing off trees, sticks, the owl twice, the rabbit, and finally the ground.

"What a beautiful butterfly!" said Owl serenely. There was a murmur of approval from the throng and I made sure my under-the-breath exclamation of "Oh fuck off!" wasn't too under-the-breath to be completely missed.

"Mariposa," said Owl, ignoring my comment if she heard it at all. "That's what they call butterflies over the seas," she explained. There was an audible "ooh" from the surroundings.

"I've learnt something!" grinned the happy bunny.

"If it's that you're mentally retarded then I'd have thought one of your friends might have mentioned it earlier," I spat back at it.

"We've got a beautiful butterfly with a lot of rage," the beetle said directing his statement to the bird.

"Why are you so angry?" the owl asked me.

"Because I'm a beautiful butterfly," I said.

"You entered a pupa stage and formed a chrysalis around yourself and have come back to the world of light and colour a most majestic specimen of beauty," Owl said with a slight tilt to her head. "We all go through changes in our lives and yours is dramatic indeed, but it's a wonderful change, a beautiful change, and surely things are better now than they were before?"

"How the fuck is this better?!" I gasped.

"Caterpillars are no butterflies," said Owl. The beetle nodded and there were rumblings of "that's true, that's true" from the various examples of animal life gathered around.

"Caterpillar? Who said anything about a caterpillar?" I asked. "Last week I was a pterodactyl with laser eyes and a machine gun and today I'm a beautiful butterfly and someone's nicked my machine gun."

Owl looked shocked which was an impressive thing to witness from a creature with eyes already wide open and no discernible eyebrows on its white face. "That would piss me off too," she said quietly.

"Oh man, I'm so sorry," said the beetle patting my side with condolences.

"We didn't know!" cried the happy bunny.

And I felt my bitterness lift a little.

MP3 Song Cover Art Thing

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:31:55 GMT

MP3 Song Cover Art Thing (MP3 SCAT... no, that's horrible... I'll call it MP3 Friend instead)... MP3 Friend version 0.1 (the 0.1 means I haven't spent much time working on it) is a little Windows application I knocked up over the weekend in order to turn these:

into these:

Firstly, if you don't know what they are then let me explain that the first image is the image you see in Windows Media Player when the song you're playing doesn't have any embedded cover art whereas the second is an example of some album cover art for an MP3.

Secondly, my application does not add the cover art for Bert Kaempfert's A Swingin' Safari to every song without art because that way lies madness.

Here was my issue: I had a lot of MP3s and a great many of them didn't have any cover art. It was unpleasing to my eyes. So... I had a look online for a utility that would get the cover art automatically for MP3s. I was quickly disappointed. And that's why I whipped up my own.

The application makes use of the excellent UltraID3Lib.dll to scan and update the MP3s and uses the rather lovely Last.fm API in order to try to work out what cover art to grab.

Here's what my little MP3 Friend does...

adds cover art to your MP3s based on the files' artist and album or track title tags
allows you to delete cover art from one or more MP3s at a time
allows you to edit the artist, track, or album text for one or more MP3s at a time
works on Windows 7 and Vista (because I checked) and it probably works on XP with .Net 3.5 installed too (but who knows?)

And here's what my little MP3 Friend does not do...

guarantee any accuracy of results returned (the first, best match is applied, and it's pretty good most of the time but it's not always right because it's nearly wholly reliant on Last.fm supplying correctly-weighted search results)
work 100% of the time (expect the odd exception raised with badly formed MP3 tags; I might address them in version 0.2 if you're lucky) or utilise worker threads to slickify (it's a word) things
look attractive (damnit Jim I'm a developer not an artist)
work very fast (there's a reason for this: I deliberately throttle the requests to Last.fm so as not to abuse their service)

Here's how to use MP3 Friend:

1. Install it from here - setup.exe - and ignore any warnings about it being unsigned (I didn't sign it) or it being perhaps untrustworthy (I have an honest face).

2. Pick a folder and choose whether to scan subfolders, look only for MP3s with no cover art, or music files with no album details.

3. Click 'Scan', sit back, and the program will come back after a while with a list of MP3s along with some information for each. Click on any song with a 'Yes' in the cover art column to see the cover art displayed in the top right.

4. If you want to find cover art... select the files you're interested in (click on a file to select it, hold down control and click on a second file to select that too, and/or hold down shift and click on a file to select a range of files) and then press the 'Get Cover Art' button. MP3 Friend will then try to find each song based on the artist and album name first; if it can't find that it will then look for the artist and track name. If there are two or more identical artist/album combinations in your list of files then the program is smart enough to only look once and then apply the same cover art to all similar files without looking up again. If cover art is found you'll see the cover art column change to 'Yes'. This process may take some time if you select a lot of files. Again: MP3 Friend deliberately throttles requests to Last.fm. It is deliberately slow. It's still faster than doing it yourself.

5. If you want to delete cover art... select files as in step 4 and then press the 'Delete Cover Art' button. Couldn't be simpler.

6. If you want to edit the artist, album, or track for a song... double click on the artist, album, or track and you can edit it.

7. If you want to edit the artist, album, or track for more than one song at once (e.g. you want to change all your songs apparently by the Beesty Boys to the Beastie Boys)... select the files as in step 4 but, with the final click while still holding down the control or shift key simply double click the artist, album, or track. You should see all the files you selected are still highlighted and once you finish your edit all the files will have the change applied to them.

8. If you want to know why one of the buttons on the screen is disabled then it's because there's unfinished functionality behind it that might be visible in the next release.

Finally:

you use this program at your own risk so if you accidentally delete the cover art from your precious collection of Backstreet Boys MP3s the very last place you'll want to complain about it will be here
it was an afternoon's playing about so it's unfinished but I'm nice enough to let you play with it too since I don't know when I'll get around to tidying it up and adding some new features
it was written using Microsoft C# Express (which is free should you wish to play around with it), the aforementioned UltraID3Lib.dll (which is free should you wish to play around with it), and the also aforementioned Last.fm API (which is free should you wish to play around with it) - can you spot a pattern?
it's free because the spirit of John Inman haunts the code

If you like it then great. If you don't like it then great but slightly less so.

Top 10 Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books (*)

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:42:24 GMT

(*) That I've read and own.

It's an old internet law that lists of favourite things are a requirement of all websites annually. Well, this year I'm getting mine in early.

I used to read a lot of fantasy but the genre holds less interest now that I'm older; science fiction has far more depth to it. Nevertheless, fantasy is represented here as there is a particularly cracking novel by C. J. Cherryh that I couldn't omit. To prevent the rest of the list from weighing too heavily in one author or another's favour I decided to limit my choices to only one book from any given author.

Enough waffle... to the list!

10. The Forge Of God by Greg Bear

The Earth's about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route... no, wait, that's something else entirely. But the Earth is about to be demolished and for the vast majority of the people on it that means a quite awe-inspiring description of death.

9. Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks

How do you like your dark novels? Dark? Well, has Iain M. Banks got a treat for you! Not only is there the word 'dark' in the title, but the story is a masterpiece of dark and depressing science fiction at its finest.

8. Engines Of God by Jack McDevitt

McDevitt's books are, essentially, archaeological sci-fi. Yes, you're right; that's a pretty specific genre that might not appeal to those who like their science fiction devoid of exploration and digging. Me? I like it. Engines Of God is in this list, though, not because of its archaeology and interplanetary historical detective work but because it contains a sequence of chapters that I can only describe as unputdownablehighoctanepageturners. One word: tsunami. Ooh! Lovely bit of writing.

7. The Chronicles Of Morgaine by C.J. Cherryh

The only fantasy representative on this list is actually three books in one! You're being spoiled! And there's more than a hint of sci-fi to satisfy the science fiction fan too. Gates to worlds separated by space and time, a sword called Changeling which has terrifying powers, and the best description of climate change gone awry you'll ever find.

6. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Essentially a tale of revenge... and teleportation! What more could you possibly want to know?

5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Another internet law you may already be aware of is that all science fiction lists must contain Brave New World or 1984 or both whether you like them or not. I do like them both but of the two Brave New World pips George Orwell's classic to a place in my list due to its more prescient nature in depicting the world we live in today; one of luxuries and pleasure and inconsequential oddities to turn the population into sheep rather than pain and oppression.

4. The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

One of the first books I read that introduced me to the concept of the anti-hero. James Bolivar DiGriz is a master criminal turned to the good side by former criminals to fight crime. Honest. His wife is a former homicidal maniac now reconditioned to be good. Honest.

3. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Forget the films. Really, really forget the films. They do not do justice to this stunning novel. The lone man fighting the world-turned-vampire you know about. The ending - the awesome twist ending - you need to read.

2. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

In a very short time Alastair Reynolds has established himself as one of the finest science fiction authors of our time with his incredibly realistic vision of man's future; humanity split into different species by their lifestyles mix or fight in a galaxy without faster-than-light travel or wormholes. The sense of plausibility to Reynolds' universe lends a depth to the many stories.

1. Chung Kuo by David Wingrove

To finish with there's not one, not two, not three, not... I'll cut to the chase... there's eight novels at no extra cost to you. Chung Kuo is a richly detailed picture of a near-future Earth ruled by Chinese emperors in continent-spanning cities. Everyone has their place and, as is the case with these things, some people aren't happy with their place. The result is rebellion, intrigue, political plotting, and the most sadistic character/architect of destruction you'll likely ever read.

A FriendFeed Convergence

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:28:00 GMT

It can't have escaped your attention unless you're medically mental, run the world's narrowest browser, or are reading this through an RSS reader that I like FriendFeed.

I like it enough to embed my stream in this site. I like it enough that I spend far more time there than I do here. I like it enough that I'm using it to update this site right now by embedding a video made by FriendFeeders of FriendFeeders discussing things that include FriendFeed in this, a post littered with the word FriendFeed and even titled (borrowed directly from the video) with the very same name too.

Now, some people like farming and talking about their bras; for these people there is Facebook.

Some people like typing:

RT @celebrity something-not-really-worth-tweeting-let-alone-retweeting-but-hell-the-minor-celebrity-involved-might-notice-me-it-can-happen-no-you-shut-up

only in 140 characters or fewer. For these people there is Twitter.

I like social networking. There's only FriendFeed.

A FriendFeed Convergence from Christopher Harley on Vimeo.

Video by Christopher Harley and starring the recently-married and most popular Scoble on FriendFeed Alex Scoble, the librarian who hates pants (and you thought such a thing didn't exist!) Holly, the farmer but not a Facebook FarmVille farmer Scott Mueller, and the words simply can't describe how awesome he is Derrick.

Lazy Science Fiction TV And Film

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Sun, 3 Jan 2010 15:20:13 GMT

Science fiction - sci-fi, if you prefer your genres shortened and hyphenated - is the choice I pick more often than not when it comes to watching a television programme or movie. There are reasons for this: science fiction babes are hot, of course; fashion in science fiction is without equal; science fiction can make you think in a way that insipid romances in teen action comedies don't (positively, that is).

The brain's a wonderful thing. I like to think. I'm quite good at it even if I say so myself. So this is why it pains me when I see something I like - science fiction - lobotomised in the name of entertainment. In the last six months I've noticed I've become far more critical of the films and shows that I would ordinarily love; perhaps this ties in with the completion of the Battlestar Galactica series and the termination (pun alert) of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, both of which were great examples of science fiction done well with attention to detail and engrossing storylines.

Characters are important; when a character does something in a book, TV show, or movie I like to know why they've acted the way they did. When it doesn't make sense - when it's out of character - the role is spoiled. In a similar manner, where science fiction is involved, events and actions are important not just as to why they've occurred, but also how they've taken place. This is not to say there can't be suspension of disbelief; a little suspension is great as it tickles the wonderment ganglion in the cerebral cortex. I don't worry, for instance, about high energy radiation problems of warp generation or the puzzling inconsistencies in artificial gravity. I do, however, get irked when aliens try to take over a planet which is toxic to them: Martians and Signs Things, I'm looking at you here.

Star Trek
J. J. Abrams brought a fresh, new look to the cinema screens with Star Trek and overall I really liked it. Visually: lovely. Some nice touches and nods to the series. But...

Romulans threatened by a supernova in another solar system? Possibly a little dangerous depending on proximity. However, not world-exploding dangerous. Also: not very fast, relatively-speaking; certainly not for a warp-capable race with incredibly well-armed mining vessels. No evacuations? Just blame the people trying to help? Weak plot and bad science all over this.
One drop of red matter can destroy a planet; all the rest of the red matter together takes about as long to grudgingly eat up a mining vessel. Was it past its use-by date?
Explosions in space do not push things away; they'd need an atmosphere to do that. As a means to escape the gravitational pull of a black hole... it's crap.
Future Spock gets to watch Vulcan being destroyed in the sky from another planet? Not Vulcan's moon, no; this was definitely a planet somewhere after some warp travel from the recently-destroyed Vulcan to the Federation fleet. So we're talking a long way from Vulcan. Yet still able to see it in the sky. That's some nice and glossed-over (okay, yes, totally omitted) gravitational lensing going on there.
Future Spock and Kirk are on an ice world. With dangerous carnivores. Large ones. Really, really large ones. Let's ignore that Spock marooned Kirk on this incredibly dangerous place and consider how these carnivores survive. What the hell is the food chain like there? Implausible, at best.

The Day Of The Triffids
The BBC recently remade this story and annoyed the living crap out of me. The novel isn't perfect (consider its age) but here's a hint: fix the flaws when remaking; don't pile more on top to hide them!

There is no right to bear arms in the United Kingdom. We do not have gun stores. You cannot simply buy a gun without a legitimate reason very easily. Farmers do have shotguns. Some of the upper classes do enjoy to hunt. Criminals do have some weapons. Most of our police do not have guns. Most of our population has probably never seen a loaded weapon in real life. So... when happening upon a small village in the middle of the countryside there is a possibility that the two girls may have a shotgun or two between them. A rifle I might buy too. But machine guns? How? Where? Why? And how again? And they left with our hero still clutching their guns... and how much ammo again? Where? How? What?
Disregarding everything that had happened previously and, in the last ten minutes, explaining a flashback and using a tribal mask to persuade the triffids to allow humans to pass through their hungry midst? What. The. Hell? I know it can be annoying to suddenly realise "I've no idea how to finish this story" but implementing a nonsensical mystical element that had no relevance to anything suffered through prior is insulting. Shower scene and dream seemed a little old hat perhaps?
Triffids are hungry, hungry plants. Just like hippos. And the world is full of warm, tasty, blind food. And they're still plants, of course. Not sentient. So, why would a group of hungry plants lay an ambush inside a dark warehouse when all their blind, warm, tasty food in the plant-friendly sunshine is anywhere but there? Is there anybody who thinks that makes any sense?

Doctor Who: The End Of Time
I like Doctor Who. I've had a long chat with End Of Time writer Russell T. Davies before. It's a science fiction show with occasional flashes of brilliance and inventive writing. And then a complete car crash of a story comes along.

Earth's got beefed-up defences these days, hasn't it? Aliens had better watch out! A Timelord in charge of a craft he's never been in before (I guess) made a bit of a mockery of them in that utterly pointless chase/fight sequence. What the hell was that about? There's no Disney tie-in to a game is there? There's no ride at a theme park is there? Who was that for? What did it solve?
I don't care who you are: if you fall a long way from a fast-moving craft and smash through a roof to land on a stone floor... you... will... die. If that sort of thing doesn't worry you then little things like radiation certainly won't unless you're past caring anymore. Russell.
We see The Doctor get angry at Wilf. We see The Doctor get upset at his pending regeneration (just like all his previous incarnations... oh no, I'm thinking of Buddhists). We see The Doctor do all the things he said could never be done by going back in time and saving former partners or making their lives better. In short: we see someone completely different. All in the name of making hormonal men and women sob a little and forget about all the shite that had happened before. Thanks.
It turns out that Martha married Mickey. How do I know this? Because they took time out to tell one another what you imagine they probably already knew while in the middle of a battle. Like you would.
If I had a Gauntlet Of Making Things Disappear Or Turn Back To What They Were Before In Case Someone Had Just Turned Them Into Something Else Or Something (available in all good Gallifrey stockists) then I'd use it when threatened. Maybe that's just me.
Building up a big Return Of The Time Lords with talk of an idea through time multipled by billions of cloned Time Lord personalities and a showdown in London and history unravelling and so much more! ... that is foiled by shooting a diamond? Couldn't a cleaner have come in and unplugged it instead for comedic effect?
Keeping quiet on a spaceship so you can't be detected from Earth? Really? Surely, even the Torchwood Giant Ear Trumpet can't hear people speaking through a vacuum. Surely.

Lazy writing, all of it. I could go on but I can't be bothered.

So, finally, movie producers, television show developers, writers of science fiction: can I ask a favour? Can you run your stories past me first so I can explain what's wrong with them and fix them before public consumption? Don't make 2010 a record year for head-shaking and tutting. Thanks.

Disappointing 2010 Movie Sequels

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:30:02 GMT

Now, I'm not the sort of person who will openly say that Hollywood is a lazy, lying entity that has run out of ideas and is content to rehash old films and brazenly exploit existing movie franchises in order to make vast amounts of money for little effort and huge profits in this era of rampant piracy that is destroying the flourishing industry that is flourishing so flourishingly in this aforementioned piratical period but I am the sort of person who will mention it in opening and rambling paragraphs about cinematic releases in order to embellish the content of that which I'm writing.

Like that!

I'm also the sort of person who will support my opinion that the movie industry is long overdue a kick up the backside by presenting a few of 2010's upcoming releases which, quite frankly, are an insult to the average cinemagoer in the world. Not that I go to the cinema, of course; it's full of people and you know how they annoy me.

If you thought fighting crippling memory loss and secret organisations within the CIA was tough then you try getting a loan for a house when you've got no credit history.

Neo's back - somehow, try not to think about it too much - and he's more than a little distressed by just how much of a beating the world took. There is no spoon but there are plenty of useful DIY tips.

Girls and their mums will flock to see anything with a gay vampire in it and this Twilight sequel will also boost sales at Specsavers.

2010 Horoscope

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:44:00 GMT

It's almost 2010 and that means two things:

We need to come up with a replacement for the awful term noughties pretty darn quick, and let's be clear on this: as bad as noughties is I will never say tennies, ever, because it's that much worse again.
A new year brings new opportunities to tap into the incredible precognitive power of star locations in the night sky and map out an accurate prediction of the year to come for exactly one twelfth of the population per paragraph.

Aquarius
The moon will be in retrograde for the entire length of 2010 which will lead to its eventual ejection from the Sol system. As a result of losing its main natural satellite the Earth will suffer from weaker tides and a long period of adjustment for nocturnal species who have evolved to measure passages of time and synchronise cycles of activity with the moon's hitherto regular presence. All this is bad news for Aquarians who will be blamed for the general upheaval of life by windsurfers and bats with the two previously disparate groups coming together to slaughter everyone born under this particular star sign in late August.
Lucky Pantone Colour: 4725 U

Pisces
As reported in March all horoscopes for Pisces will cease effectivity as of January 1st 2010 so you can expect a quiet year which will be the first one in over three decades to be tall, dark, handsome stranger-free.
Lucky Pharmaceutical Isolated From A Fungus: Cephalosporin

Libra
You'll have a much better start to this year coming up than you ever could have imagined but it won't be long-lasting and by the second week in January your liver and kidneys will have failed completely. Things will pick up by the end of the month only for one of your lungs to collapse around Valentine's Day. You can look forward to a period of calm then that will last the best part of a week before you lose your legs to Surprise Gangrene. Ebola will claim an arm later that weekend before you can succumb to depression and the good news from the doctors that they can cure you and replace all your body parts will be missed from a build up of wax in your ears which is overlooked by the medical world but ends up suffocating your brain in its glorious new physcial form leaving you in a vegetative state. Jessica Simpson will marry all of you in December.
Lucky King Of The Ostrogoths: Theodoric The Great

Coca Cola Capricorn
Coca Cola have bought the rights to sponsor Capricorn for the 2010-2011 Horoscope Season. You're going to be thirsty this year. Mmmm, what can possibly quench your thirst? How does the cool, refreshing sound of ice cold Coca Cola sound? Sounds good! You think about your body and the environment this year because you're a Caring Coca Cola Capricorn so why not try Diet Coca Cola with Lime this Summer? 2010 is the year you're going to look good and fight scurvy with crisp, cool Coca Cola.
Lucky Coca Cola-Based Beverage: Coca Cola

Leo
On June 14th you'll wake up a few minutes earlier than usual convinced you heard a noise in the house. This will turn out to be nothing. In the kitchen you'll smell something a little bit like how you imagine a citrus mouse at Christmas would smell although not quite. Despite some fervent sniffing around you won't be able to trace the source of the odour and will eventually conclude it too is nothing. Outside the house you will just avoid being hit by a cyclist on a red bike. In the evening you will discover a light blue envelope you hadn't noticed before. It will be hand-addressed to you but when you open it you will discover no contents. Suddenly panicked you'll look up the phrase Invisible Anthrax on the web convinced you've heard about it but will conclude it came from a horoscope you read at the end of the last year. You'll cut your gum cleaning your teeth before you go to bed and will dream something erotic featuring Danny Devito. The rest of the year isn't quite so clear.
Lucky Facial Hair Style: Hulihee

Sagittarius
Due to a once-in-a-century alignment of the planets and stars Neptune, the ruler of the seas and Sagittarians, will be rising and falling in Orion in 2010 sparking a great many conflicts in the heavens. As is often the case it will be difficult for those born under the sign of the man-horse to avoid being drawn into the battles and they will be drafted to fight the Orion hordes under emergency Neptunian powers. It will be a long and futile war and most of you will die horribly, digested slowly by the Orion Squid Princess. Those who survive will come back different inside; you'll be pregnant with twins.
Lucky Member Of The Ant Hill Mob: Pockets

Virgo
Your lack of belief in horoscopes will be so strong that it prevents all horoscopes from working globally on the second Wednesday in April. Sadly for you that's the day it would have been a good day to buy a lottery ticket and you'll end up not winning anything other than the smug satisfaction of seeing everyone else suffer equally.
Lucky Invented Word: Clamurple

Aries
After the ninth Twilight movie of 2010 is released where the gay vampires and their fag hags battle a species of half-ram-half-man people called the Arie-Fairies you will find yourself constantly attacked in the streets by emo teens and their lonely mums who have become unfathomably obsessed with the dire fiction. Fortunately, you've got most of the first four months of the year to prepare for that dour onslaught and with Venus prominent in Ursa Minor there's exactly the same chance that you'll use that time to train in martial arts as there is of Ursa Major stealing a pic-a-nic basket.
Lucky Web Rendering Engine: Trident 4.0

Scorpio
Success or failure in financial matters is governed by the height of Uranus above the trees as viewed from a block of flats outside Birmingham at quarter past three in the morning in July so 2010 will be the perfect time to sort out all those monetary issues that have been building up since you ran out of organs to sell and started to lose your looks. But take care and make sure you're solvent by the end of the year as 2011 will be known as The Year Every Scorpio Got Electrocuted.
Lucky ISBN: 978-3-8228-4083-2

Cancer
Cancerians are a notoriously huge people, some of them topping twelve hundred feet in height, but 2010 and climate change will start to cause global shrinkage for the stupendously-sized star sign and by mid-October you can all expect to pass as normal humans. Make the most of this special time because by mid-December you will be pocket-sized and the must-have gift for Christmas and a world looking for every opportunity to kick-start an economy devoid of the Summer-slaughtered, high-spending Aquarians. Many Cancerians will be lost behind the sofa by Boxing Day.
Lucky Celebrity Body Part: Jennifer Aniston's Left Eyebrow

Taurus
Jupiter in retrograde with Saturn ascendant spells great things for Taurus but this particular alignment of your governing planets will only apparently occur frrom the surface of Mercury so don't delay and start planning for an extended excursion to the solar system's innermost planet today. After a successful 2010 where everything goes your way a flare will erupt and boil you alive.
Lucky Moment In History: Eight Minutes Ago

Gemini
You've been wondering if you need to reinvent your life and take the plunge in a whole new direction. With Pluto transiting the sun in February the world will be too busy wondering how that happened to pay you much attention so that's the best time to set any plans you may have in motion. They won't be any more likely to succeed - you're pretty useless at everything you do to be brutally honest - but you'll be able to cover up the ensuing debacle easier and pretend it never really happened.
Lucky Confusing Compass Direction: East By South North

Sex, Porn, And Rabbits

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Tue, 8 Dec 2009 11:10:01 GMT

Rabbits and porn: two seemingly disparate entities whose threads of existence have become inexplicably entangled over the decades. Just what's that all about?

People do "go at it like bunnies", of course. But that's only if they're in a hurry and worried about predators.

Hugh Heffner built an empire on the back of his fixation for ladies with fluffy backsides and large ears. Yet strangely he won't date women his own age when they're clearly perfect for him now.

There's the famous rabbit vibrator too. I've seen pictures of it and read about it on Wikipedia (there's research in them thar articles, ya hear!) and its name allegedly derives from its similarity in appearance to rabbit ears. Ears of a deformed rabbit. That's been run over by a truck. Then skinned. Then chewed for a bit. Then flung at a wall where it stuck fast.

I have to mention Jessica Rabbit, naturally. One of only two or three dozen cartoon characters that are erotically attractive to men. Yes, you're right; we should thank the deviant animators of Japan for the majority of the rest.

So rabbits and sex and porn are all bosom buddies and, by-and-large, I don't think I've ever felt any unnatural urge towards the lagomorphs. This got me wondering whether there was something wrong with me. And then I thought about you. What if there's something wrong with you too?

Yeah, I'm still not getting it.

An Interview With Author Mark A. Rayner

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Wed, 2 Dec 2009 19:46:00 GMT

It was a dark and stormy night... somewhere... more likely than not. All I know is that - for me - it was dark because my room is dark and I rarely open the curtains. It may well have been night but I don't wear a watch and my body clock was fried after a run-in with a cattle prod (another story, another time). It wasn't stormy though; unless it was one of those quiet storms you never hear about.

To be frank it doesn't really matter about the general luminance and exterior weather conditions. What actually matters is that I was conducting an interview with prominent (he protrudes into three of my very favourite dimensions) internet-present author and occasional Canadian Mark A. Rayner.

We discussed the decline of sea shanties at length. We formulated a new theory of life, the universe, and everything bar Miley Cyrus. We broached the subject of sex but decided that it wouldn't be fair to our respective partners and the distance thing would be a killer. Mainly we talked about books, writing, publishing, authoring, and other related synonyms. If you want to know a little bit more about writing and getting your work published then this interview could be just the thing you need; if you're interested in sea shanties then I'm afraid that section was cut for brevity's sake.

ME: My readers - based on search referral traffic - are perverts and I like to cater to their needs so first thing's first... this book we're about to talk about features sex. Weird sex. Animalesque-human sex. Some might say "forbidden sex". Some might say "the sort of sex the Catholic Church would cover up for decades if their sexual cover-up goons weren't so busy with all the paedophilia and other related shenanigans (not that there's necessarily any cross-species sex going on in the church (donkeys feature at Easter but I don't really recall any other major animal featuring heavily in the New Testament which is probably why a lot of them don't go to church in the first place (also: they're not stupid))). Now that I've peppered this opening paragraph with terms that deviants are likely to type into Google perhaps you could talk about how easy or difficult it was to write the sex scenes, what sort of research you conducted, and how much of you went into the sex scenes? Hopefully in a manner that won't get you fired from your job. Although: what a story!

MARK: The writing of sex scenes is notoriously fraught with pitfalls, and many great writers have made complete asses of themselves in attempting it. In fact, each year the Literary Review has an award for the worst sex scene - worst writing, not worst sex and I should note that John Updike has been nominated four times. So, why write sex scenes at all if it's such difficult territitory? Oh what a giveaway! Because it's an important part of the human experience, and because, let's face it, sex is quite funny - I mean, if you're not in the middle of it. So I acknowledge that writing a sex scene is rather difficult. (You'll notice I avoided using the word hard.) I just sort of use my imagination, and the Internet is a wonderful resource, of course. Not that I would use it for anything BUT research purposes. How much of me is in the scenes? Well I've written it, so it's come from somewhere in my brain, I suppose, but a lot of what happens is rooted (oops) in the characters - their motivations, thoughts and emotions. And sometimes it feels like the characters just get beamed into my head from somewhere else. (The naked channel, probably.)

ME: The book is called Marvellous Hairy and it would be fair to say that it might prove difficult for bookstore owners to determine where to stock it since picking a genre - one that already exists (we'll have none of your Dewey Decimal-defying "Fabulist Satire" around these parts) - would ultimately boil down to drawing a topic from a hat. Did you have a target audience in mind? Who is going to like this book? Do you fear a backlash from librarians? They are a vengeful sort after all and many of them disguise their old, musky book scent with lavender which is a crime against nature and confusing to those who try to locate the elderly by smell.

MARK: My hope is that people who enjoy Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore, Terry Pratchett, and Chuck Palahniuk will get a charge out of Marvellous Hairy - basically people with supple minds and well-developed senses of humour. Regarding librarians: there is nothing more frightening than a cross librarian, especially if they're armed with some kind of plasma weapon or a cutting-edge taxonomy. That said, many librarians secretly wait for the day when a Chosen One will break the shackles of their Dewey Decimal system, when a freedom-loving publisher will shatter the tyranny of the Library of Congress. Excelsior!

ME: Like many people who studied the works of Shakespeare at school I came to loathe all his writing with a passion. Clearly, you're a bit different (I didn't say "strange in the head" but I was thinking it) since your book references A Midsummer Night's Dream. What the hell is wrong with you? No, don't answer that question. Answer this one: Shakespeare, eh? (That was a question; not a Canadian impression for your benefit.)

MARK: I'm mostly hoping that Marvellous Hairy can get on some university reading lists (sales, baby) and it seemed like making Shakespeare references might help. Also, I was desperate for an underlying structure and theme that I could parody. I'm pretty sure Shakespeare would have approved.

ME: They say everybody has a book in them and often they're saying it in a figurative sense rather than a literal one. Even I may have a book in me. Even perhaps people reading this. Not that man who walks down my road in a skirt, though. He's probably got an oboe in him rather than a book. And not a good oboe either. Weirdo. I've been put off writing a novel for the same reason as many people: I'm lazy and there's not enough time and there's always something to watch on TV and I've got a pile of DVDs to get through. How do you do it? Tell me about writing. What's your process? Did that sound bookish enough?

MARK: Wailing. Pain. Anguish. Much beating of the forehead against my keyboard. (I go through about two a week - keyboards that is, not foreheads, though my friends have taken to calling me Qwerty, because of the letters stamped in my skin.) Once I've gotten through the self-flagellation part of the morning, I drink some coffee, and then procrastinate by writing something for my blog, The Skwib. That usually takes about forty minutes or so, and then I'm really ready to get to work. (Which is when I take the dog for a walk or play a video game, or prepare a lecture for class.) Then I have lunch. People are remarkably understanding about this process, especially if I'm buying.

ME: People reading this will probably want some advice on writing if I've peppered this article with just the right phrases to entice them in and quite clearly I'm not the man to give them any of the good stuff. But you may be! Or you might be able to fake it! Do you have any advice for would-be authors looking to write and publish their very own labour of love? What about an anecdote? Everyone loves an anecdote about writing. I challenge you to find someone who doesn't!

MARK: My advice for budding authors is that if you can possibly do anything else, you should avoid writing at all costs. It's an extremely nasty business; first of all, there's the damp and dark. Then there's the danger of explosions and cave ins, not to mention all the close-harmony singing. No wait, that's coal mining in Wales. But metaphorically, that's what writing is like. (Without the close-harmony singing, which I quite enjoy.) Publishing right now is a crazy business, so just be prepared for how difficult it will be - that said, it's probably one of the best times in history to be a writer just starting out. There are so many ways you can get your words in front of an audience. Making a living off it, though, is extremely unlikely. (I still have a full-time job, for example, which helps fund my "fiction habit".) Marvellous Hairy started life as a short manuscript in Anvil Press's Three-Day Novel contest - the idea is to write a 30000-word "novel" in three days. When I wasn't typing like a madman, I spent a good part of my long weekend huddled under the desk, nursing a bottle of Balvenie. I'm not sure if that counts as a writing anecdote so much as a cry for help.

ME: There is nothing actually marvellous about being hairy; I have this on good authority from my wife. Clean-shaven is the order of the day where my face is concerned and if by some random roll of the evolutionary dice I had been cursed with a rug-like back then I would either be a) wifeless, or b) the proud owner of an annual subscription to the nearest waxing emporium. Yet you think hairy is somehow... good? Explain, Mr hirsute-loving writer man!

MARK: You should come with me on my yearly winter visit to see my brother in Ottawa. When it's 30 below, and a wicked wind is tearing down the Rideau Canal (where, dementedly, you have decided to spend the afternoon skating), you will understand how marvellous it is to have a hairy face. But it's true, 88 percent of wives and girlfriends are not in favour of copious hair growth. The secret is finding that other 12 percent.

ME: That's a lot of women to find. We may have to call you the literary lothario. Anyway, budding authors will want to read what you've written so they don't come up with the same idea when they decide to write their own book. In order to do that they're going to need to buy your book and it's my understanding - I may be wrong - that you can do this using something called an internet coupled with an exchange of monies. What an age we live in! What I'm saying is: how do people buy your book now?

MARK: Yay! I haven't scared you away! There are so many choices: you can buy it on Amazon.com, or direct from the publisher for about 10 pounds (both get you the actual paper book, which is adorable - it's 296 pages, but only 4 by 6 inches in size.) You can also download the eBook from Smashwords for 2 pounds. And if you want to listen to the book, you can check out the podcasts here, iTunes, or at Podiobooks.com for free!

Ultimate Squirrels

author@neonbubble.com (Mark) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:19:09 GMT

My Dearest Margaret,

I'm looking for somewhere to bury my nuts this winter. Somewhere warm and safe from predators. Have you got anywhere that's warm and a little damp where I can store my nuts? I'm really asking about sex and not a cellar or anything like that.

Nuttily yours, Roderick.

And so one erotically-challenged and misdirected email began my series of exchanges with Roderick who turned out to be the head honcho of Europe's very own Ultimate Squirrel League Of Friends.

When I first heard of the league my assumption was that they were a bunch of moderately odd furries with a penchant for fighting. Three-eighths of that assumption was indeed correct. However, the multitudinous members of the Ultimate Squirrel League Of Friends were also not of this world, merely trapped on this planet, doomed to live out the remainders of their not inconsiderate lifespans avoiding direct contact with humans (other than Squirrel Sympathisers such as Margaret). Needless to say but when I uncloaked their dark secret they set out to silence me in the only way they knew how: deathly death by death cudgels!

I had anticipated their assault and devised a series of cunning traps - a rope suspended between two trees with a large, spinning board halfway along its length, a feeder suspended from an overhanging branch but tilted at an angle to cause a terrifying wobbling and rotating effect for anything of weight that attached itself to it, and so on - but you don't get to be an alien species hiding out on the third rock from a yellow dwarf sun far from home in space and time without learning a trick or two and they came to my front door dressed as Jehovah's Witnesses.

I have a soft spot for Jehovah's Witnesses - my knuckles (just kidding; my knee) - and so was taken completely by surprise when they whipped out their death-dealing cudgels. I was saved by something we humans came up which never made it all the way to the Ultimate Squirrel Central Dyson Sphere: Basic Instinct. By uncrossing my legs to expose my underwearless genital area I bought myself precious seconds of Revulsion Time; an eternity for a master in the art of running away to create a daring escape.

My escape was thwarted by my arch enemy in all matters: my cat. Atrracted by the scent of Jehovah's Witness-adorned, humanesque-masked, sentient squirrels from beyond the stars, and coupled with his own nosiness he had padded slowly down the hallway and crouched behind me waiting to pounce upon the very meal he had dreamt of only the night before.

He never got his meal; he got his tail trod upon by his screaming owner attempting to partake in a dramatic getaway. I never extricated myself with dignity from the ambush by the Ultimate Squirrels; I fell in a heap in my hallway, cracking my head upon the potted dragon tree that sits by the doorway to the living room. The Ultimate Squirrel League Of Friends never silenced me; they did delete all but my initial email from Roderick to Margaret. And they removed the centres of all my purple Quality Streets without leaving a mark. And they left me unconscious in the hallway with my underwearless groin area exposed towards the street which has resulted in yet another pending court case.

But I'll not be silenced. And I'm gunning for you, Ultimate Squirrels.