Once again, our North German weather seems to have skipped an entire season and plunged us from summer right into winter. Last weekend, we had warm and sunny temperatures of 26°C. This weekend, we have rain and daytime temperatures hovering around 8°C, while night time temperatures creep up to the frost barrier. In the space of a week, I went from summer dress to warm sweater. It’s rather irritating, particularly if your body is still set on summer.
Next, I’ve got a small addendum to yesterday’s post. Apparently, readers from Belgium and Monaco can now also purchase my e-books (or anybody else’s for that matter) from Amazon France without having to pay the two dollar Amazon surcharge. Now I don’t think I’ve ever had any visitors from Monaco in either this site or the Pegasus Pulp site. But I do get visitors from Belgium on occasion, including a regular or two.
And now for some links, mostly women themed:
Yesterday’s awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace and women’s rights activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni women’s and civil rights activist Tawakkul Karman should be one of those completely non-controversial decisions that everybody can get behind. At any rate, I vastly prefer this decision to the rumours that Helmut Kohl* would be honoured this year.
Alas, it seems that some people are disagreeing, as evidenced by this Guardian post and the comments. Though at least half the commenters are still bitching that Barack Obama got the prize in 2008, while the other half are bitching that Bradley Manning did not get it (though Manning would have been a good choice as well).
Here is a wonderful post from someone called Lindsay about why celebrities’ clothes always fit so perfectly, even if they are caught by a paparazzo wearing jeans and t-shirt, whereas most of us have problems finding clothes that fit our bodies.
Shanna Swendson has a good post on creating and developing characters.
iO9 has an excerpt from Margaret Atwood’s new collection of her thoughts and essays on science fiction, in which she clarifies her stand on and definition of science fiction. Let’s hope this will put the giant squid thing to rest once and for all! Though you still get the “Wah, the evil literary woman hates SF” wails in the comments to the article.
Here’s another gem (or Jem) from iO9, namely an interview with Samantha Newark who was the voice of Jem/Jerrica from the classic 1980s cartoon Jem and the Holograms. I was a big fan of the cartoon at the time, so big that the mention of a DVD boxset in the interview made me drool. I even named one of my character Jerrica, after Jem’s real life identity.
*For the record, it feels very strange to make a “click for further information” link for Helmut Kohl – probably like an American would feel posting a similar link for Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.
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