After more than five years and hundreds of hours of work, I have -- finally -- finished writing my novel Transmutation. In your face, everyone who said that I said every summer that I was going to finish!

When I finished writing the first three (a fantasy trilogy called The Spheriad, which I've never really tried to publish because it needs lots of revision and rewriting), it felt weird to be done. The project had been with me for half of my life (I'd started when I was in 7th grade), so I felt like I had a bit of a void in the back of my head. I'm sure I'll feel similarly here.

The image at right is from Barton Fink, the best film ever made about writing. The picture here is actually a composite; when Barton types "the end" on his screenplay, we don't see it all at once. What you see here is some masterful Photoshopping.

Now I'm going to celebrate by taking the day off, reading comics, and playing video games. Oh wait, I've done that every afternoon for the past two weeks.

An Analogy for Lebanon

I keep hearing over and over that Israel was justified in attacking civilian areas because Hezbollah was launching rockets from these residential locations, and Israel had no well-defined military targets to aim for.

Okay, imagine this: Ten people are having a party in a house. Police are tracking a criminal in the neighborhood. The criminal runs into the house party and fires at the cops. Are the police, then, justified if they chuck a load of bombs into the house?

During the American Revolution, British forces invited themselves into colonists' homes. Would American troops have been justified if they fired a cannon into such a home?

Obviously Israel is in a tight spot when Hezbollah uses civilian areas as launching zones for their rockets -- I condemn such actions in the strongest possible terms. But I won't abide Israel bombing those zones in return. This just makes the problem worse. (And it appears to have strengthened Hezbollah. And the Israeli soldiers haven't been returned.)

TimeWaster™

Orbital's The Box is a superb video. Watch it, quick -- before YouTube realizes it's copyrighted!

Today I'm listening to: Meat Beat Manifesto! (Especially Disc 1, Track 18.)