Dickson or Butler?

I had a brief panic attack when I was unable to rebuild my files in Movable Type...everything just kept hanging, and I couldn't even save edits to existing files.

Kudos to my brilliant technonerdboy husband for discovering the problem...I had accidentally pasted a footer reference into my footer file, so MT was going into paroxysms. Serves me right for trying to do template edits when I'm too tired.

Urgent book request: Allison, Jodi and I are participating in some panels at Ad Astra this weekend, and one is about songs based on literary references. Participants perform songs, but also have to read a brief excerpt from the literary source. We plan on doing Homecoming (a song I wrote that is based on Ray Bradbury's short story, "The Rocket Man", from his R Is For Rocket collection), "Amanda" (Jodi's song based on Spirit of the Dorsai by Gordon Dickson) and Bloodchild, a Joey Shoji song based on Octavia Butler's book of the same title.

Does anyone out there have either of these books? I have them, but they are buried in book boxes somewhere right now. If you have any of them, I'd appreciate an e-mail letting me know...I'd be begging you to e-mail me a paragraph or two. Many thanks in advance! (and crossed fingers, too). (Update 9:38 am: Andrea just e-mailed to say she has Bradbury's book, yay! Still hoping for the Gord Dickson or Octavia Butler book.... Update Feb.7: Amanda F. and Bill Sutton have the other books, yay!!)

Today's photo is of two robot toys that came with Sara's and Annie's Happy Meals when we stopped by MacDonald's on the way to Deerhurst this past weekend.

As you may have noticed, I have officially switched over to Movable Type (which just won a Bloggie for Best Weblog Software, by the way) and sent in my $20 donation. I love Movable Type. I'll be posting a more detailed report on Movable Type with comparisons to my experiences with Livejournal and Greymatter after I've played around with it a bit more.

I made calzones for dinner last night; they actually turned out pretty well. I know I keep expressing surprise when my dinners are edible...this is much more due to the fact that it seems like such a long time since I've done regular cooking than to false modesty. Cooking still seems somewhat magical to me.