The Wedding

/ Shane / 1 Comment

As you most likely are aware, my mom got married the other day.

Everything went off without a hitch (at least as far as I am aware). The ceremony went beautifully and the reception was fun (and well attended!). It was a little hot, but very manageable (in other words, not as hot as our wedding).

Oliver caught a nap on the floor in a room before the ceremony, since we couldn’t find the nursery. We had to wake him up just a few minutes before the ceremony to finish getting him ready. He spent most of the time playing in the back with Uncle John, which was fine, because we had our hands full.

Evie was a flower girl, and she was very excited. She did an excellent job, spreading the petals evenly and dumping the remainder of her basket at the end of the aisle. She even decided to clean up after herself, picking up the petals on the procession out. However, her favorite part was the nail polish she got to wear (and is still wearing).

I walked my mom down the aisle, but that was the easy part. The hard part was being the parent of a flower girl, which is a very stressful occupation! We were sitting in the first row, which was perhaps a little too close to the action. This meant that whenever Evie decided to be a part of something, she could get there before I could stop her. If she decided to stand with the bridesmaids, she stood with the bridesmaids. If she decided to walk up for a better view of the rings, she did it. The rest of the time she was just antsy, and we tried to keep her occupied.

All Oliver had to do was look cute, which he did as well as anyone. He had a black suit and bow tie, with a blue checked shirt and light blue Converse All Star shoes. He had a grand time exploring everywhere and dancing the night away. He was pretty wore out by the end of the night (Evie too!)

The reception was a lot of fun. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to anybody because I felt like I was always chasing after one kid or another. In addition to family, I saw a lot of my mom’s friends who I haven’t seen in many years. Instead of a cake, they had a dessert table full of some really wonderful desserts. This is a really good idea, but on the other hand, it is tempting to take too many! Alas, before I knew it, it was time to take the kids home for bed. It always comes too soon! It sounds like the party continued long into the night, even after the reception was over.

Thanks to Dan and Allie for letting us stay at their house! We didn’t get much of a chance to hang out, but we were glad to have friends in town so that the out-of-towners could stay with my mom.

Quote Monday gets married

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Mom: “I never thought at my wedding I would be worried about my hearing aide battery!”

Evie, on getting her nails painted: “Now I can’t poke my nose!”

Makenna: “Eww, he’s spitting out all of his food!”
Sara: “You know what? Sometimes he spits out his food and then eats it.”
Matt: “That’s classy.”
Sara: “Sometimes he spits out his food and I eat it.”
Me: “That’s double classy.”

Rachael: “What is the birds and the bees speech? I don’t get it. Are the birds boys and the bees girls? I’m going to google it when I get home.” – Rachael has to google about the birds and the bees? Sounds like poem material…

Courage

/ Shane / 1 Comment

What makes a King out of a slave?
Courage.
What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage.
What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?
What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage.
What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?
Courage.
What makes the dawn come up like *thunder*?
Courage.
What makes the Hottentot so hot?
What puts the “ape” in apricot?
What have they got that I ain’t got?
Courage!
You can say that again.

Fiction Podcasts Part II – The Rest

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Continuing on with the great “best of” audio podcast lists from Diabolical Plots, I’m now going to delve into the smaller, or less well known audio podcasts. As is often the case with things like this, these ones are definitely diamonds in the rough and deserve some coverage!

Drabble Cast – Horror-ish? (best of lists here and here)

Drabble Cast bills itself as “strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners (such as yourself)”. Well, I must be strange, because I think this is my favorite of all of the podcasts (and I’m not even through the whole list yet)! I don’t know if it is because these stories are even shorter (the longest pieces are “flash fiction”, and there is also a “drabble” (a story of exactly 100 words) and “twit-fic” (a story of exactly 100 characters). I can usually finish an episode of each leg of my commute. You can check out some of my favorites, such as Teddy Bears and Tea Parties (NOT as nice as it sounds! Very creepy!), or the science-fictional Mongoose (part I, partII). Note that this podcast is very produced, almost more like a radio drama than a simple reading of a story. At first this was distracting to me, but after I got used to it, I kind of liked it.

StarShipSofa  – Science Fiction (best of list here)

This podcast can only be described as adorable. It is so clearly by the people, for the people and the host is such a nice guy, that you can’t help but love it. However, I would definitely not recommend this for everyone. It’s a lot more than just audio fiction. Although they do include at least one story in every episode, it’s more like one feature among many, instead of the main event. The very, very long episodes contain author interviews, genre news, genre history, upcoming book releases, etc. If you’re really into science fiction in general, then there is a lot to offer here. If you just want to hear some fiction, you’re probably better off with something else. But if you’re going to listen to any random episode, why not start off with the one containing the fantastic Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi (if this podcast has done nothing else for me, it has at least taught me how to pronounce Bacigalupi!)

Beneath Ceaseless Skies – Fantasy (best of list here)

Beneath Ceaseless Skies describes itself as “the best in literary adventure fantasy”. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant until I listened to some of the stories. It’s fantasy, but it’s sort of more unique fantasy. Again, we’re not talking about traditional sword and sorcery here. It’s more equivalent to high fantasy meets…strangeness or something. Sort of lyrical world building in a non-traditional setting. For example, check out Mamafield, a story from the point of view of a sentient plant, or Father’s Kill (what can I say, I’m just always a sucker for the dark ones!)

Cast Macabre – Horror (best of list here)

Maybe I’m running out of steam here, but I don’t have much to say about this one. The stories were good and I enjoyed all the ones I listened to. Definitely worth checking out.

Clarkesworld – Science Fiction and Fantasy (best of list here)

I haven’t actually listened to any of these yet, so I can’t say much about it. But there was a best of list, so I will make it there eventually.

Anybody else have any good fiction podcasts? Anybody listen to any of these and have some comments to share? Which were your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

Fiction Podcasts Part I – The Big 3

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I spend a lot of time listening to audio fiction. I mostly download full length audio books from the library, but it later I discovered that there are a lot of sites and podcasts out there that do weekly episodes of short fiction.

I have always enjoyed short fiction, but it seems to work especially well in this format. It usually takes me a couple of weeks to listen to a novel, but I can do a piece of short fiction in a day or two, maximum. There are advantages to each length, but I really have been enjoying getting in the car and anticipating a totally new story. It provides great variety.

Most of these have been going for a long time, so there are hundreds of episodes out there. So, you can go browse these sites yourself, or you can do what I did: go off one of the “best of” lists out there on the Internet. I’ve been using the lists over at Diabolical Plots (Get it? Plots? Diabolical Plots?) to get a run-down of where to start. Now certainly my tastes aren’t exactly the same, and I’m sure I’m missing out on some great stories, and on the other hand I don’t always love the stories selected, but it gives me a pretty good flavor of what’s going on there.

When it comes to speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, and/or horror) podcasts, there are three that sort of stand out from the rest as being especially well known and high quality, one for each genre. I don’t think you can really go wrong with any of these, so just pick the appropriate one for the genre you like (or pick all three if you can’t choose, like I did). Again, all of these feature really good short fiction, which can be downloaded totally free. What’s not to love?

Escape Pod – Science Fiction (best of lists here and here).

My super, super condensed list of favorites include stories that vary from hilarious (Connie, Maybe, or The Love Quest of Smidgen the Snack Cake) to poignant and sad (Barnaby in Exile). Anybody who thinks science fiction can’t be moving should really check the last one out!

PodCastle – Fantasy (best of lists here and here).

This one really runs the gamut of fantasy, from the more traditional fantasy (Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz Go to War Again) to other, very dark fantasy (The Mermaid’s Tea Party). Note that fantasy here doesn’t necessarily mean traditional sword and sorcery, but many other things in between (take Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz up there…very interesting and non-traditional).

Pseudopod – Horror (best of here and here).

Horror is a genre that I just can’t help but come back to. I love it! So I have a lot of personal favorites here: Hometown Horrible, The Evil-Eater, Suicide Notes, Written by an Alien Mind, The Button Bin,  and Bottle Babies, to name a few. Particularly, you should stick with Hometown Horrible. It starts slow, but wow does it finish strong!

Stay tuned for tomorrow when I cover some of the smaller fiction podcasts!