Time Keeps On Slipping, Slipping, Slipping, Into the Mall

• The Winner of the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry is (drumroll please) JonArno Lawson! Woot woot! Those of you who haven’t read his Man in the Moon Fixer’s Mask are missing out. Seriously missing out. Thanks to Monica for the link.

• Love the Hot Men of Children’s Literature pieces or hate them, you can’t deny that they’re influential.  Just ask Perry Moore.  He’s the author of the gay superhero YA novel Hero and the Sexy Man of the Week in the November 16th edition of People Magazine.  They had him pose with a surfboard in a wetsuit, poor bloke.  Still, the guy’s a good sport.  I’d post the picture here, but I’m not sure if People would care for that.  In any case, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

• I skip reading Lingwe for a single week and look at what happens.  I come this close to missing out on an article that discusses how Microsoft is now creating a J.K. Rowling-inspired invention.  The Whereabouts Clock is basically the equivalent of that clock in the Harry Potter books that shows where a person is at a given time.  Says the piece:
  "The Whereabouts Clock works by using cell phone data. When a family member’s cell phone is on, it automatically transmits SMS messages to the device when that person moves from one registered zone (such as ‘home’) into another registered zone (such as ‘school’). Registering these zones only needs to be done once for each zone when the software is first installed. Thereafter, users need do nothing except switch on their phones. If they do not wish to be shown on the clock, they simply switch the application off. Additionally, users are given the option of texting in more specific information about their activities in each zone. So, for example, if a person is ‘out’ but shopping, they can text ‘shopping’ and the text will appear under the person’s icon on the Clock."

Does that mean you could designate your workplace as "Mortal Peril"?  The possibilities abound.  My boss pointed out that some technology has been influenced by sci-fi novels.  This may be the first time the same could be said of a fantasy novel as well.  Thanks to Lingwe for the link.

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