A Long List of Leftover Links…

 … from last year that couldn't grow into posts. Now I can clean up my 'TO BLOG' bookmarks folder and continue pretending to be a blogger:

Robert J. Sawyer, Pakistan, Synchronicity and Last Minute Changes

Robert J. Sawyer, winner (and multiple times nominee) of Hugo and Nebula awards, has become one of my favorite science fiction authors recently. I was reading one of his novels "Flashback" last week, and noticed a small mistake where it said:

"Islamabad, Pakistan (autotranslated from the original Arabic): In my vision, I have two arms-but today, I have only one (I am a veteran of the India-Pakistan ground war)."

The above sentence implied that Arabic (and not Urdu) is the language spoken in Pakistan, which comes as no surprise as a lot of Americans think we are part of the Middle Eastern Arab nations (I've been called a towel-head in jest more than once before I corrected their misconceptions).

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The Wheel of Time

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.  Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.  In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose… The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of time. But it was a beginning."

Ouch! Robert Jordan, the author of the 12 volume 'The Wheel of Time' saga, died last week, which is sadly ironic, as the Wheel of Time didn't let him finish the last book in the series. I read 11 of the 12 books last year, around 10,000 pages, and was waiting for the last book – now the millions of scifi and fantasy fans will have to settle with someone else telling the story that he began. Makes me want to pray for the health of the other dozen authors with unfinished stories that I'm reading … at least until they write the last book in the series … after that, they can go to hell.

B(ack)log Links – Part One

I just took a look at my 'FOR BLOG' bookmarks folder and was amazed to see the number of pages (66) I have bookmarked during August, with the intention to write about them here, but never got the chance. So, in an attempt to cross that task from my TODO list, I'm posting some of them here (minus the planned commentary/discussion/blogging) and deleting the rest. They should have converted into 66 posts, but oh well!

I need a break from all the copy/pasting now, and will have to split this post in two parts. So these are the things that have been using up my brain cycles this month. If you find any of the above things useful/fun/entertaining/offensive, do leave a comment so that I can justify spending the last hour or so on this.