Rumor of the week: we must "sacrifice."

The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week. Its central theme will be sacrifice. The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.

So, here we go, boys and girls. With the de-facto partitioning of Iraq well under way, we're seeing the endgame, and it is not a pretty picture. Well, at least the prez will be able to leave office with the claim that he was never able to see his mission through because the Democrats wouldn't let him. His fanbase might even support that vision.

There are some images I do not need realized.

If you've never read China Mieville, this won't make a whole lot of sense. China, in his New Cruzabon stories, has a clade of people called The Remade, people who have been found guilty of crimes against the city of New Cruzabon and who, in turn, suffer remaking: their bodies are warped by infectious magics, and they are melded with animals, with machines, with the animated corpses of their victims, with whatever the sorceror on hand found amusing and appropriate and utilitarian. Mieville's universe has strange and horrible monsters, and being Remade with one of those about results in some of the most disturbing images Mieville has given us.

Yesterday, I was looking through some on-line doujinshii. I'm not even sure where, now. I deleted the copy I was looking at. I just did not need to know what Remade prison sex looked like. Really.

Just thought I'd share.

A new camera.

Omaha bought me a beautiful new camera, the one much beloved of BoingBoing and CoolTools, the DMC-TZ1 from Lumix. I'm still getting used to it (and I definitely need to invest in a gorillapod soon) but one of the first things I wanted to capture with it was the cool, empty feeling the Pike Place Market gives off first thing in the morning. By noon the place will be packed with tourists but before 7:00 AM the place is barely getting into motion. And it's kinda neat to walk through and see all of the activity (or non-activity) going on long before most people get there. I often go through just as the grocer is opening, picking up a grapefruit ($1.50 here, $1.85 over at the Safeway) or some other fruit, or a bagel (if the store's open when I get there; sometimes he isn't).

And, hey, it's my first Flickr Set.

Where Porn Is Born ™

My Office.
Hosted on Flickr!. Click to enlarge.

My office. Doesn't look like much, does it? To be honest, it's not much at all. But it has enough space for the laptop and the MP3 player, the coffee thermos fits snugly between the body of the seat and the wall of the bus, and in a 35 minute commute I can pound out a thousand words of smut without struggling for breath (although Omaha says I become apneac when I write, pausing, gasping, and humming. I never notice myself).

It's kindof an odd thing. It takes time for me to learn to write anywhere but here. On the bus is easy, it's a matter of habit. Anywhere else, the habit isn't built up much. But I'm working on that.