In The Zone

From here. There are some things you just can't make up... and be believed, anyway.

SENTRY: We spotted an Arab female about 100 meters below our emplacement, near the light armored vehicle gate.

HEADQUARTERS: Observation post “Spain,” do you see it?

OBSERVATION POST: Affirmative, it's a young girl. She's now running east.

HQ: What is her position?

OP: She's currently north of the authorized zone.

SENTRY: Very inappropriate location.

[Gunfire]

OP: She's now behind an embankment, 250 meters from the barracks. She keeps running east. The hits are right on her.

HQ: Are you talking about a girl under ten?

OP: Approximately a ten-year-old girl.

HQ: Roger.

OP: OP to HQ.

HQ: Receiving, over.

OP: She's behind the embankment, dying of fear, the hits are right on her, a centimeter from her.

SENTRY: Our troops are storming toward her now. They are around 70 meters from her.

HQ: I understand that the company commander and his squad are out?

SENTRY: Affirmative, with a few more soldiers.

OP: Receive. Looks like one of the positions dropped her.

HQ: What, did you see the hit? Is she down?

OP: She's down. Right now she isn't moving.

COMPANY COMMANDER [to HQ]: Me and another soldier are going in. [To the squad] Forward, to confirm the kill!

cc [to HQ]: We fired and killed her. She has . . . wearing pants . . . jeans and a vest, shirt. Also she had a kaffiyeh on her head. I also confirmed the kill. Over.

HQ: Roger.

CC [on general communications band]: Any motion, anyone who moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, should be killed. Over.

From here.

The Weird Turn Pro

Weapons for Her

Japan has made several other contributions to the world of womanly weaponry, most of them used by the female ninjas known as kunoichi, who began slipping through the shadows in the 1500s. The kunoichi’s secret weapons included poisons, blinding powders and stealth weapons like the kushi (hair comb), kasa (umbrella), kakute (spiked ring), nekote (steel claws or fingernails) and hari (sharpened needle). These dual-function weapons went mostly undetected on kunoichi disguised as dewy-eyed geishas, but each could be used to kill, and the kunoichi trained hard to do so, quickly and quietly. Worn as jewelry, the kakute made it easy to slice a throat; the kushi could be holding hair one moment and stabbing a vital organ the next.

YouTube

Apparently, you can indeed upload videos to YouTube. They just take a really awfully long time. I'll be playing with this new camcorder during the break so I hope it's not just, you know, broken.

Too Much to Do, Too Little Time

Someday, writing will steal my soul!

Quote of the Day

"We are all born ordinary. It is our choices that make us extraordinary."

All I Want For Christmas

Due to the staggering cost of plane flights, I ended up staying in Dayton for the holiday, which wasn't the worst thing that could have happened, but I do miss spending Christmas on the Oregon Coast.

In any case, had a pretty fantastic Christmas this year with J. Too much Chipotle and carmel corn was eaten, also there were gift exchanges and much silliness. Which just sort of seems to happen. The silliness, that is.

J. got me the much-needed printer, which is super awesome and makes me uber gleeful. He also got me copies of Rosetta Stone, French level 2 & 3, which is just about the best thing ever, and kick started me back into my French study. It sure beats playing video games.

My parents sent me a fine electric mixer (it's red!), and David sent over a fine array of gourmet cheeses (always appreciated!) which showed up right on time on Christmas eve. Stephanie gifted me with a fine bonsai and pony ornament, which shall take center stage after I paint it some gaudy but appropriate color. Which I will do with the airbrush paint set that J. also discovered was far more useful for my pony mods than his miniatures.

I spent a little time over the break on some dayjob projects (that'll teach me to check my work email), but they, too, were generous over the holidays, and I arrived back in the office to find that we'd all been gifted with one of these fine toys.

Video blogging here I come! Apparently it creates videos perfectly compatible with YouTube. But man, I don't know if the world can handle a Kameron Hurley channel. Mainly, it will be about blood, bugs, and injustice!

Or something.

As said, I spent much of Christmas in and around bed with J., reading books, watching movies, and eating out and in. There was much cooking, and aforementioned silliness. All in all, a good vacation.

Next year, tho, I want more time off and more cash. I ended up digging out the credit card there at the end and putting about $100 on it. Blast it all.

Still far better than usual, but not ideal.

The best part?

I get Thursday and Friday off this week as well, and will be spending time up in Cincinnati with J. watching Spamalot.

Yeah, yeah, I know:

Too much boyfriend, not enough rollerderby.

Working on that.

Stay tuned.

You've Been Warned!

Stuff & Things

I am alive. I am full of stuff and things.

I HAVE A PRINTER.

30 PPM.

It prints double-sided.

That is all.

Quote of the Day

"The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed."

-G.K. Chesterton

Yucky People

My tolerance for yucky people has lessended considerably as I've aged.

Doesn't this stuff make you sick?

I'm having more and more days where I'm really not proud or comfortable with the idea of identifying as "America."

Americans don't do this. Or torture people. Or... well, yeah. Yeah, we do.

"We."

I just don't identify with this country anymore.

Things I Do in My Spare Time

Write words.

Merry Christmas from United Healthcare

United Healthcare Member Inquiry/Appeals
PO Box 30432
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0432

Dear Member Inquiry Representative;

I am writing to request a formal of review of the decision made by United Healthcare to deny my health service claim of 10/01/08 for a service already formally approved. Please see the enclosed EOBs.

My service provider, Degc Enterprises, provides me with an insulin pump delivery system to regulate my blood sugars. In-network rates and approval for this insulin delivery system were given by United Healthcare prior to 7/1/08 when the company billed United Healthcare for the first medical shipment.

Since starting the pump on that date, my A1c has improved from 6.5 to 6.1. I expect to see a further improvement at the end of December when I have my next checkup.

As a Type 1 diabetic, I cannot live without continuous insulin delivery. My condition is a genetic immune disorder, which I fully disclosed to United Healthcare through my employer. As is well known, controlled blood sugars are vital to the avoidance of complications for Type 1 diabetics.

My use of the Omnipod pump, provided by Degc Enterprises, has dramatically transformed my life. Unlike other pump systems, it has no tubing, which results in fewer accidental disconnections that could adversely affect my blood sugars. It’s these higher blood sugars which contribute to the expensive conditions diabetics are prone to – like blindness and amputation.

Initial cost of the pump is also less than that of many other brands of pump. Its ability to regulate my blood sugar with greater reliability and efficiency than other pumps also greatly reduces my risk of expensive complications. Since using this pump, I have experienced 75% fewer episodes of low blood sugar, which – if not caught in time - can often result in costly medical claims for your company.

It was for these reasons that my pump was approved and covered at an in-network rate on 7/01/08 (see attached EOB).

Until you have provided Degc Enterprises with the payment you have contracted with them to provide, they will be unable to provide me with the insulin pods which have allowed me achieve this improvement in my overall general health and quality of life. I will be forced to revert back to using vials and syringes as my insulin delivery method. This method will undoubtably result in erratic blood sugars and set me down the road, once again, to extreme – and expensive – diabetic complications.

Repeated contact with your customer service line has shown me that they have little control over the approval/denial of claims process. It is for that reason that if it becomes necessary to escalate this matter, I am fully prepared to lodge a more formal complaint with the Attorney General. If necessary, I will also recommend that my employer drop our UHC account in favor of a company more consistent in its approval process.

I am sure you understand that as a Type 1 diabetic, my life and health depend urgently on the quality of coverage and care I receive. My employer considers me a valuable asset to the company, and knows that my decision – and the decision of many of our employees - to stay on board is greatly influenced by the quality of our healthcare coverage.

Thank you so much for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Kameron Hurley

(or maybe, what we really need to improve America's health is a "fat tax". That would be so much easier than universal health coverage that works. I'm sure it would be just as good as real healthcare. After all, we wouldn't know the difference)

A Word Lesson

At what point did it go from a "bailout" to a "rescue"?

Tumbarumba: That Was Wicked Cool

A couple of weeks ago, I installed the firefox addon Tumbarumba. This app randomly embeds fragments of stories into ordinary web pages. When you spot them, you click on them to slowly unravel the rest of the story.

I installed the app and pretty much forgot about it until today, when I was reading a Wikipedia article with an overview of Jorge Luis Borges story, "The Aleph."

I'm reading along and reading along and I hit this total nonsequitor, something about "she being detail oriented" and I'm like, WTF there weren't any women in this story. I went back and re-read the stuff leading up to it twice.

Then I realized what was going on. I clicked on the weird sentence.

And another sentence was revealed.

Another click another sentence, in this fade-in magical webbiny way that gave me that awesome sense of awe you get when you slowly discover/uncover something previously hidden. Isn't there a word for that?

Then another, and another, and then you click on it and there's Greg Van Eekout's story, The Temp, sitting there in a faux Wikipedia skin.

It was like... it was like something weirdly magical. Like uncovering some secret thing. Super web magic.

It was spectacularly cool.

I love this app idea, but I'm shortly going to run out of stories (there's only a handful to get through, really).

It's going to need more stories to really kick butt, and they should be even a bit shorter to cater to internet audiences, but man... wow, that was neat. What a spectacular idea.

Sign up for Tumbarumba! It is full of goodness.

My Agent Makes the i09 Top 20 Movers and Shakers of SF List

Jennifer Jackson, at #16, the only agent (literary or otherwise) on the list.

Sweet beans.

(BioWare, where my buddy Patrick works, also made the list at #12!).

From the Trenches: $6!

From the Trenches, an anthology of SF war stories that includes my short story, "Wonder Maul Doll," is now on sale for $6 from Carnifex Press.

These are the last of the copies (the publisher is going out of business), so if you want one, snag it now.

Oh, IKEA, Sometimes you Confound Me...

So I've been looking into expanding my work/desk space for some time now. A simple 4ft desk/table can run $50 at the local mix n' stuff shop, but for the same price, I could get this great table/bookshelf combo from Ikea that even matches my current desk.

Just $50! Yay!

Excellent, I thought. $25 in shipping makes for $75, which isn't so bad for what is, basically, a whole new desk that will expand my workspace.

So I clickity clackitied and went to check out and then...

Shipping charges were $140.

No, no, seriously:

My order total, with tax was over $200.

From a store that's half an hour away.

Ikea, sometimes you confound me.

Bloodsong

There's this scene in the book where the kid goes to kill the mutant "dragon" (who turns out to be less and more of a monster than he suspects), and he ends up tearing and clawing his way into the guts of this creature that won't die, clawing and swimming up through its guts and tearing out its hearts while the creature tears into its own body even as the flesh tries to knit back together, trying to claw the kid out of its own flesh.

And at the end of this scene, I found myself a little stunned at breathless and was like, "Wow."

I still think Bloodtide will turn out to be the better book, but man, I love these books. I need to read more Burgess.

Took a long time for him to come onto my radar, mainly because he's marketed as a "young adult" writer.

Ummmm?

Whatever sells the books, I guess.

Highly recommended if you love some post-apocalyptic shenanigans. Mutants and nuclear fallout and fantastical fantasy tropes with SFish rationalizations and kingdoms and family feuds and in-your-face prose oh my!