Well, that went faster than I thought...

I just updated Brightdreamer Books, with the new ratings system and a new book list page that organizes reviews by genre. Turns out upgrading the ratings went quite a bit quicker than I anticipated, so I went ahead and tackled the genre-list project. That went faster than I thought it would, too. (My classifications may make little to no sense for most people, but they were the way I had them organized in my mind, if not on my shelf.)

Next up, with any luck, some more enhancements for the September update. I figure I ought to do something special, at least... Brightdreamer Books - at least, the new and improved incarnation of it - turns one year old on September 8.

Talk about things going faster than I thought...

Too True...

Courtesy of as SciFi Wire (sorry... now renamed SyFy Blastr, in keeping the the general degradation of the network's target  IQ)... Well, actually, they got from another site, but the ads there are even more obnoxious than the ones on SyFy.

The Lifespan of a TV Show

Enjoy... or cringe in sympathy as you remember favorite series of years past as they trudged along the arc of death.

Oh - and just so you don't leave on a totally depressed note:

Technovelgy, a site that shows how sci-fi-predicted gadgetry has become reality.

Web of Eternity

Offline, I just finished the Great Cross-Linking Project for Brightdreamer Books, a project I started in April.  This will be shown to the world (or rather the one or two people who stumble across the place) in the August update, but it has been such a monumentally time-consuming task that I had to note when I finished.

This is good news.

I also decided I needed to change how I reviewed books, namely adding a half-star for those books that fall right on the line between one rating and the next.

This is bad news.

It will require retrofitting over 600 pages and giving a quick re-scan to over 680 reviews to see where the half-star might apply.  It will be a pain in the tail to get done, but I know I'll be eternally bugged if I don't do it.  The site is also screaming for new graphics and a nicer layout.  I ought to consider listing books by genre as well as by author, too, one of these days.

Oh, yeah... I also wanted to try promoting the danged place in some way.  And I haven't even looked at Skyhaven in far, far too long...

Ah, well... I suppose the only finished website is a dead website.

Back at it...

Red Skies at Night

Today, the skies seemed hazy, in contrast with the area weather forecasts.

On the way to the weekly family gathering, I noticed an unusual amount of dust on my car.

As the day went on, the light took on an odd, orange tone, as if filtered through a slice of agate... a tone which shifted toward an unsettling reddish hue.

Tonight, I saw perhaps the strangest sunset I have ever seen in my life, something I can't recall witnessing outside of a sci-fi film set on planets far, far away.

Finally, it clicked. Wildfires east of the mountains have kicked up enough ash to dust my car and color the skies. (Actually, the news claims it was the fires in British Columbia behind it.)

Still creepy as heck, though...

(Yeah, this was mostly an excuse to post an I'm-not-dead-my-life's-just-dull update. I got new glasses which may or may not need realigning - still trying to figure out if it's me or the lenses - and I hit ten posts in a month over on Brightdreamer's Book Reviews, but nothing else has leapt out as postworthy.)