This year, the question I replied to was:

INTRO: We’ve already talked about literary villains, so we asked this week’s panelists about bad guys (and gals) of the big screen:

Q: Who are some of the best villains in science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror film?
[I'm specifically looking for villains from movies, not TV or books]

To see all of our answers, and the comments in response:
MIND MELD: Bad Guys We Love to Hate: The Best Film Villains in SF/F/H (with Various Videos of Villainy)

This time, John reminded me in time, and it was a good thing… this was a question near and dear to my heart that I did really want to answer.

The question: What’s your favorite sub-genre of science fiction and/or fantasy?

Go and read our answers. I will say now that there’s more than a few series and books I didn’t include, and that was because I didn’t want to make a long long list.

The funny thing is, at the most recent CopperCon 28 back in August, I was on a panel about the very thing I put in my answer… “Sleuthing and Crime Solving in Scifi and Fantasy”. We came up with a long list of fun reads and favorites in that panel… it’ll take me forever to get to half of them.

I’m seriously considering skipping Dragon*Con this year, and attending PME instead. It’s closer to home, and I’ve never been to one yet. I am still working out how to get to World Fantasy in Saratoga Springs NY this year… which may be a tough go, since all the nearby hotels are sold out, and I really don’t feel like trudging through 2ft or more of snow to get from the panels back to my bed!

So we’ll see what shakes out.

Albertson’s had a sale on Post Raisin Bran, 4 boxes for $10 or something like that, so I went for it. I’m not happy with the Post Raisin Bran, so I understand why they had a sale to clear some of it off the shelves.

Well, okay, I know that’s not the reason they had the sale, but I’m still not happy with the cereal.

Three Reasons Why Kellogg’s Raisin Bran is Better than Post’s Raisin Bran:

1) Better Flakes. I have no idea why, but the Kellogg’s bran flakes taste better. I don’t care one way or another about which stays crunchier in milk longer… I mix in other cereals anyway.

2) Better Raisins. I guess there is something to that whole “two scoops of raisins” promo blurb.

3) The inner plastic bag actually opens cleanly and easily.

Seriously… all of the plastic bags for the Kellogg’s cereals open without a fuss, and that’s important. Post cereals seem to be tough to pull open, and no matter how careful you are, they don’t open cleanly… you end up with bags that are hard to pour the cereal out of smoothly, and pieces of the cereal get trapped outside of the plastic and in the box. That’s a huge “not good”.

So, that’s my gripe for the day.

Things will be alternately busy and quiet, with the Dragon Page Radio shows, and with my new massage studio, which I hope to get up and running during the beginning of December.

I guess I’m just going to have to manage my time better and get through all the distractions one at a time.

The Dead Cities forum, the one where I quoted the “Artist’s Pledge” created by kick-ass author Matt Stover, has undergone a lot of changes over the past few months. Hell, the thread where Matt posed that pledge to the lot of us doesn’t even exist anymore because of a thread purge.

But some other crap has come up on the boards during the past month, more than reinforcing the feeling that I’d begun to get long before… that the board wasn’t the same place as the place I’d come to enjoy visiting and reading and contributing to, and it was time for me to move on.

Boards change when the people revolve in and out; that’s to be expected, and even encouraged. But when all of the “senior” members start leaving and not coming back for various reasons, and talking to a lot of the newer members is like trying to have intelligent conversations with drunk fraternity boys, well, expecting the same previous levels of civil discourse and disagreements is near impossible.

Combine that with having the history of the board wiped away on a whim, including long discussions on writing, philosophy, martial arts, and even bartending involving published authors and the resident wise souls, well… what was my main reason for staying?

So, I’ve decided to say goodbye to a forum that I’ve been a part of in three different incarnations, going back to 1998 or 1999… I’m not sure how long it’s been anymore. I just know I picked up a whole lot of books on the suggestions of a number of those people (many of whom also left the board long ago), and my library is far better for it, just as I know I have a handful of friends from there that I will always remember with both a mischievious grin and a heartfelt smile.

My travels through there were likely the catalyst for me getting a gig doing reviews for Fantastica Daily, which led to a really nice situation with the Dragon Page Talk Radio shows… a fun situation that is about to take a big step up.

So, for a lot of reasons, it’s time for me to let go of Dead Cities, and move on. Bye, guys. I’ll see some of you at WFC 2005.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve been real busy with that gig over at The Dragon Page. That’s why I haven’t been updating here as much as I’d like to this month. But I did get to arrange interviews with Scott Bakker, Kage Baker, Kelley Armstrong, Ben Bova and many more authors to come.