All posts by Mike

Gene Wolfe book club

It's a SciFi World, Reading

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, and for grandiose resolutions, and for Gene Wolfe’s fiction…

I’m going to try to read all 12 books in Wolfe’s Sun series this year. I already had written “read a bunch of Gene Wolfe” on my list for 2009, then ran across John Klima’s introductory post of The Gene Wolfe Book Club over at Tor this afternoon, and so here I go.

The Gene Wolfe Book Club.

I’d better start reading.

“The number 143 means ‘I love you.’”

Being a Dad, This Made Me Smile

the-fred.jpg

While we’re talking about uber-nice people, let’s take a minute to fondly remember all those quiet moments we spent in front of the tube as children (or even adults) watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

And, courtesy of Mental Floss (via CNN, of all places), a list of “15 reasons Mr. Rogers was best neighbor ever.”

This particularly blew my mind:

In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5 a.m.; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life.

He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that Rogers found beauty in the number 143.

According to the piece, Rogers came “to see that number as a gift… because, as he says, “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”

Fred Rogers is like a god in our house.

Basking in Fabulosity

Being a Writer, Elsewhere, Making Life Work, Observations, Stuff I Like


Colleen Wainwright (aka the Communicatrix) is rocking the Internet these days. Or maybe she’s always rocked the Internet and I just figured it out. At any rate, she’s on one of her patented “21 Day Salutes,” which you should definitely check out if you have any interest in changing something about yourself in the new year. And, of course, you do. So go.

And I absolutely love her newsletter, which you should also sign up for. It will make you smile and it will make you think, which is ultimately, in my opinion, the entire purpose of the Internet.

But my point is that I think Colleen is a shining example of someone just Taking Control of Her Shit and Living Full Volume Online.

So rather than trying to give you an exegesis on how wonderful her online work is, please just go check out her site, and dig deeply (there’s a lot there). She’s also on the twitter.

And maybe, just maybe, some of Colleen’s Fabulosity will rub off and inspire you to rock the Internet too. It’s working for me.