Man, doesn’t the guy who owns this place ever come in and serve the guests? Or at least turn on the lights?
Oh wait, that’s me. Right, right. And I couldn’t even get in at first; my browser was feeding me the wrong login, and I didn’t see it.
Well, you probably wonder where I’ve been. I’m still here, still working on Sunborn. And finally finished with our local children’s theater’s run of Damn Yankees, which was loads of fun and loads of work and loads of time spent in the theater. I miss it, now that it’s over.
About a year ago, I wrote here that I was acting in a very small indie film being made here by the same guy who operates the theater where we hold our musicals. Pops the bum, if you please. (Take note, Leonard Maltin and Roger Ebert.) Well, I can’t announce yet that the film is finished, because they never got the last scene shot before winter set in. But they’re planning to do that in about two weeks, and that will be my last performance of Pops the bum—at least until the sequel. (The last scene takes place in the street, and requires closing off the street and I believe engaging a few police cars and officers to appear in the scene, also. My part, as I understand it, will involve sitting slumped against a wall looking bewildered. An easy role for me.)
And yes, outside of all that, I’m plowing ahead through the hardest part of the rewrite—the long middle—which was the biggest mess in the first draft, and requires the most rethinking in the second. Making good progress. Not as fast as I would like, but steady.
So…I gotta get back to it. But first I have to say…
Twelve planets in the solar system? You’ve got to be kidding. (The International Astronomical Union, as you probably know, is proposing just that.) Ceres a planet? Anyone who read SF in the 50’s and 60’s knows perfectly well that Ceres is an asteroid, and very important to the economy of the future asteroid belt civilization. Planet, indeed. And Pluto and Charon both planets? Come on. Xena, now—I can see calling Xena a minor planet. But not opening up the Pandora’s box of a hundred planets called “plutons.”
Reconsider, guys. Everything Pluto-size and up should be a planet. Smaller stuff should be minor planets. Wouldn’t that really just be a heck of a lot easier? And think of this: we could keep the name Xena, and it wouldn’t be breaking with tradition on the naming of major planets. Go for it!
substandardTim
I’m currently reading “The Ring of Charon” by Roger MacBride Allen. It calls Charon a moon of Pluto. This is the first that I’ve ever read one of his books. He’s excellent at making stuff up (isnt that what fiction is?) and what I mean by that precisely I’m not sure but I think it’s mostly that he’s good at making up scientific sounding reasons for why what’s happening is happening in his book.
tsmacro
Yeah I was wondering how Charon could be both a planet and a moon. One of the definitions of “planet” ought to be that it has it’s own unique orbit around the sun and not be in orbit around another planet. Otherwise we could start arguing that our own moon should be called a planet, after all it’s bigger than Charon. Hey not to mention the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn, shouldn’t those also be planets also if Charon is allowed to be one? This could be a confusing time for school science text book writers!
Charlza
I just don’t get the planet debate.
I’ve got plenty to read in the meantime. I’m sure you’re plowing along at a nice pace. That makes for better quality 🙂
tsmacro
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20060824/D8JMT3I00.html
iWon News – Astronomers Say Pluto Is Not a Planet
Ok in a week we’ve gone from 9 planets to 12 to 8 now. Of course this is what the astronomers have decided, the question becomes will the average person even pay attention or care that astonomers say that Pluto isn’t a planet anymore? You’d think there would’ve been a way that they could’ve “grandfathered” Pluto and let it remain an “honorary planet” or something.
Julia
That’s what I’ve been saying. Make your definition, then include Pluto for old times’ sake. And don’t tell me that’s not scientific – after all, star types have random letters attatched to them: something along the lines of O,B,A,F,G,K,M,R,N,S because when they dicovered they were wrong about the density or something they rearranged the order of the stars in their list, but left the letters as they were. And somewhere in there is a graph that reads from right to left because nobody bothered to put it straight. So I’d say there is plenty of precedent for leaving Pluto a planet.