Fictionwise Survey

Fill out a short survey at Fictionwise and receive a coupon, good until the end of Feb, 2005, for 15% off your next ebook purchase

More On Buster and the Lesbians

The banned Lesbians, of Buster and the Lesbians fame, speak out.

What the hell is wrong with America?

Postcards from Buster - Hinesburg, Vermont

The SpongeBob SquarePants thing is weird enough. But I just have no idea what to make of Buster consorting with lesbians.

Did I mention my dog's name is Buster? She consorts with lesbians all day, every day. Not so much with sponges...

Did I also mention it will be a cold day in hell before PBS ever gets another dime of my money? They've cancelled the Trip to Vermont episode and pulled the original web page. Cowards.

$5.00 Off at eReader.com:

Use the code "NEWBIE" to receive $5.00 off your FIRST purchase at ereader.com.

I have no idea if this works for already registered shoppers, but I'm going to go find out...

Best Books of 2004 at Fictionwise

What do Anita Blake and Stephanie Plum have in common? They are both in some of Fictionwise's "Highest Rated Books of 2004" on sale with a 40% Micropay Rebate.

If you've been meaning to pick them up, now would be the time to grab:

Gulity Pleasures (Anita Blake #1)
Bloody Bones (Anita Blake #5)
Four to Score (Stephanie Plum... guess what number)
The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake #2)

There are also far, far too many Dan Brown books on the list, also on sale. Did someone really think The Da Vinci Code wasn't stupid? Come on!

Sontag & Leibovitz -Ann Northrup vs The NY Times

From Atrios:

"Statement from Daniel Okrent
"New York Times Public Editor

"Spurred by challenges and queries from several readers, I looked into the charge that The Times had willfully suppressed information about Susan Sontag's relationship with Annie Leibovitz. My inquiry indicates that the subject was in fact discussed before publication of the Sontag obituary, but that The Times could find no authoritative source who could confirm any details of a relationship. According to obituaries editor Chuck Strum, "It might have been helpful if The Times could have found a way to acknowledge the existence of a widespread impression that Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz were more than just casual friends. But absent any clarifying statements from either party over the years, and no such corroboration from people close to her, we felt it was impossible to write anything conclusive about their relationship and remain fair to both of them." Ms. Leibovitz would not discuss the subject with The Times, and Ms. Sontag's son, David Rieff, declined to confirm any details about the relationship.

"Some might say that such safely accurate phrases as "Ms. Sontag had a long relationship with Annie Leibovitz" would have sufficed, but I think anything like that would not only bear the unpleasant aroma of euphemism, but would also seem leering or coy. Additionally, irrespective of the details of this particular situation, it's fair to ask whether intimate information about the private lives of people who wish to keep those lives private is fair game for newspapers. I would personally hope not.


"Ann Northrop responds:

"Dear Mr. Okrent--

"I've read your note on the failure of The Times to include mention of Susan Sontag's relationship with Annie Liebovitz in her (Sontag's) obituary. I must say it leaves me with little respect for you or The Times fact-checking and research capabilities. Susan Sontag did talk about their relationship--in an essay in The New Yorker in which she referred to it as "an open secret." Ms. Sontag also had committed relationships with Lucinda Childs and other women.

"Not only is your research deplorable, but your opinion that this information is out of bounds for reporting is antedeluvian. This is 2005, Mr. Okrent. Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Belgium, the Netherlands and 8 provinces of Canada--and soon will be in all of Canada and Spain (and that's just this year). Same-sex relationships are not shameful or second-rate. Susan Sontag did not hide her relationships. The Times does not hesitate to discuss the private lives of anyone in its obituaries. You and The Times have performed shamefully in this instance."

WINKsite: Delivering Mobile Editions Of Books To Phones

Via Teleread, here's a new site that makes Creative Commons books available in low bandwidth formats for mobile phones.

WINKSite (WirelessInk = WINK) says this about itself:

"The Creative Commons Library is the first in a series of works to be published on the WINKsite Mobile Publishing & Community Platform. WINKsite extends the power of publishing and distributing mobile books to the masses. The tools used are offered FREE of charge to individuals and non-profit organizations for non-commercial use.

"Over the coming months the number of collections will grow to include thousands of titles available under Creative Commons license, in the public domain, and from leading publishers."

Definitely worth a look

Free from Fictionwise O Pioneers!

Willa Cather fans - take note. This week Fictionwise is offering O Pioneers! for free.

"Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, first published in 1913, tells the story of Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of a Swedish pioneering family, who successfully takes over the management of the family farm upon her father's death. The story encompasses Alexandra's difficult relationships with her brothers, Oscar and Lou, her love for a neighbor, Carl Lindstrom, and the tragic romance between her youngest brother, Emil, and a married woman. The setting is as important as the events of the story, however. Alexandra's near-obsessive love for the huge sky and vast plains of Nebraska is part of what fuels the plot, and Cather's chronicle of the prairie's evolution from a raw and wild landscape to thriving farmland reflects her own love of the land and her admiration for the immigrants who worked it. O Pioneers! is an early novel, and in later books Cather would become more skilled at dialogue and plotting, but the passionate conviction she brought to this novel secures its position as one of her greatest works."

New Adobe Acrobat Reader for Pocket PC

Adobe has released a new version of its PocketPC Reader. It seems to get the PPC version caught about to where the last Palm version was in terms of DRMed ebooks.

Plus these new features:

Mobile data entry: Submit form data using handheld devices over a wireless connection. If you are working offline, the data is temporarily stored, then submitted once a connection is established. Send forms by e-mail or directly to the destination server using a cradle or cable.

Wireless printing: Print directly from a handheld device to a remote printer.

Slide show viewing: Easily share Adobe PDF slide shows generated by Adobe Photoshop® Album software on handheld devices in portrait or landscape mode.

There aren't many things as annoying as Acrobat on a PDA -- but this looks like it offers some improvement. Nevertheless, I'd still rather stick a fork in my eye than read an Adobe ebook on a PDA.