I’m traveling for the long weekend. Either I’m having bad luck with the epic heat waves or there have been a lot of epic heat waves, because again the short road trip threatens to be tyrannized by the hot air. It did at least touch 100°F this time, so at least it is a proper respectable heat wave. We are in a place called Hocking Hills, whose AirBnB has these OBX-style stickers that say “HHO”, which could either be confusingly “Hills, HOcking,” or perhaps “Hocking Hills, Ohio”, but not “Hocking hills OHio” as one might expect. I plan to stick the sticker upside-down for “OHH”, as in “Ohh yeah, I need to write a post on Tom 7 Radar for the month of August, and I need to do it on this mediocre wi-fi which Google Internet Speed Test describes as ‘fine’ while everyone else drinks beers outside.” Fair enough: This is a self-imposed curse and one that’s easily tended to at any time during the month.

During the month: I worked again on making my own video codec, which is a very bad way to spend one’s time, but I don’t think there are any modern lossless codecs that would be suitable for my use case. And I do like a data compression project because of the inherent benchmarkability. The use case is for the increasingly common situation where I have a program generating a series of video frames (e.g. BoVeX is making an animation), which I usually do by writing a sequence of PNG files to disk. I’m way ahead of PNG files so far even without doing any inter-frame stuff, which is not impressive, but does make me feel like it’s at least not totally pointless. (Still, it’s quite pointless: Sure I can make these files smaller at significant cost of complexity and encoding times, but these animations typically use space similar to like one second of 4K 60fps XF-AVC footage.)

Sometimes programming your own lossless video codec is a bit too fast-paced so you need to write a Wikipedia article from scratch about Clairton Coke Works by digging through newspaper archives. I haven't even gotten to the last 30 years of its history yet! I also rounded out the Cyrillic in FixederSys though I don't think I've uploaded a new version of that yet. As usual I did some hacking on secret projects.

UHH, elsewise, I did finish off Animal Well which I liked very much. My spoilerless advice to you is: Don't try to 100% this game without at least looking at a spoiler-controlled guide! But I did have fun once I felt like I was stuck-ish finishing the remaining postgame puzzles. I have also been playing Chippy, a bullet-hell twin-stick shooter that is quite hard (I usually feel good at this genre) and has several new good ideas in it. It's essentially all boss fights, and the chief innovation is that you fight the giant bosses by disconnecting pieces of them. I'm on the last boss so I will probably finish that one soon. As I have confessed many times, I like dumb first-person shooter games, and I played through Trepang 2 this month as well. It does have a few moments, but it was mostly pretty dumb, like I wanted. And then I started Touhou Luna Nights, which is a "Metroidvania" fan-game with great pixel art and music.

OK, I should get back to this vacation!

Hello team!

I turned 45! It happens every year (not the same age, but the same feeling, of time marching forward, with me along with it) so no big surprise. This weekend was the Great Race, also every year, but I unsubscribed from their e-mail list at some point months ago because they seem to operate this list under the misconception that subscribers want to think about Great Race 24/7 all year round. I thought: It should be easy to just remember when the Great Race is, as it always falls on the weekend near my birthday, and I do not need a list constantly mailing me reminders. Easy. But then I forgot about the Great Race, so I didn't run it.

I did take the day off for my birthday despite this being the busy time of year at work, which was worth it: I made some good progress on some projects that had been backed up in my anxiety-brain for some time. Of course they are confidential, but here is a graphic of some significant progress:

Minusweeper

I forgot to mention this one when I did it, but did you know that you can "buy" a Unicode codepoint, by making a donation to the Unicode consortium? So of course I bought ASCII 0x37, which is the digit 7.

True story: I did a lot of film photography when I was younger, and although I do miss film, I'll admit that the saddest thing I feel about its obsolescence is actually that those little black plastic film canisters are no longer all over the place to be repurposed to hold little objects. I found them very satisfying and useful! Fortunately now that I'm old I found another similar ubiquitous shape, which is these orange prescription medicine bottles. I've been using those for a while to "organize" small parts like screws (e.g. when I take something apart that I might want to put back together, I put the screws in the medicine bottle and label it) but then they just roll around in the drawer of crap. So this:


RxBox, Unpopulated
RxBox, Populated

A very simple part, of course, but what could be more satisfying than 3d printing your own holder for canisters for fasteners that goes in a drawer in a cabinet?

And speaking of satisfying, I finally finished Chippy (regular difficulty) which was really quite hard. Several of the last bosses I had to practice over several evenings before I beat them! It was a good and creative game, though. I'm mid-way through Solar Ash, which is good (but it's no Hyper Light Drifter IMO!) and just started playing Satisfactory, since they finally put out a 1.0 version of that. It's quite well done, but I'm not sure if I actually like it (seems a bit heavy on the cookie crafting; in fact I'm letting it craft in the background as I write this). I am getting a kick out of allowing thinking about my messy design as the "saddest factory," a joke which I'm sure occurs to everyone, but that's Game Design!

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever.

The game isn't without flaw, but I think most of those flaws are not interesting to talk about. I do have one petty but important criticism, which is mildly spoilerful and anyway will only be interesting if you played the game. There is an object called the Somersloop ("cool S") which allows you to double the output of a machine. Canonically this item is some kind of "loop" and the flavor text talks about how it is able to create more energy than you put into it. So when I'm out hunting for Korok seeds I have this thought that maybe I could create a loop of factories whereby it would create infinite resources by repeatedly doubling. And I'm thinking about it but the crafting tree doesn't have any notable loops in it, but I remember the "packager" which allows you to put a fluid in a container or the converse, and I'm like: Yes, that's great! So I get back to base and I am doing this, just for fun to create an infinite fuel factory or whatever, and I realize that the packager just doesn't have a slot for a Somersloop. They must just hate fun, elegant twists. It would not break the game to allow this (you can always get infinite resources lots of other ways) or cause any other problem I can think of. Hmph!

The thing about constructing a factory and watching it churn is that it's basically the same thing as a programming project that you invented for yourself, and it's probably better to do the programming project. Here's progress on my mysterious rectangle:

Minusweeper 2

It's good progress if I do say so myself! Anything but black here is a Satisfactory result, which is 90.55% of them at this point. I may need heavy machinery for the remaining 9.45%, but that is part of the fun.

I think that's really it for this month! Please vote in the US Elections if you can (but I guess also vote in any important elections. And obviously, vote for the good guys???). And happy Halloween!

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Tarot: Headless Horseman edition Nick Lawyer REDFeather (October 28, 2023) Reviewed by N. Richards What a wonderful way to honour the Irving Washington classic gothic story of 1822, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and the season of autumn as well as the art of Tarot all in one hit of […]

The post Card Deck Review: THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW TAROT first appeared on Hellnotes.

The Eerie Brothers and the Witches of Autumn Sheldon Higdon Scary Dairy Press LLC (September 4, 2023) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy The Eerie Brothers and the Witches of Autumn finds Horace and Edgar, the twin Eerie brothers, battling monsters to stop Hex from collecting one of the four globes to absorb the abilities of […]

The post Book Review: THE EERIE BROTHERS AND THE WITCHES OF AUTUMN first appeared on Hellnotes.

Ink Vine Elizabeth Broadbent Undertaker Books (April 12, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy When I heard Elizabeth Broadbent do a reading from Ink Vine, I knew I had to get my paws on that book. Her authenticity and unique voice, plus her sense of humor, shine through in this tale about standing up against […]

The post Book Review: INK VINE first appeared on Hellnotes.

Of Teeth and Pine Desiree Horton Independently published (October 31, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy Desiree Horton’s second novel is filled with blood, a taste of the beautiful outdoors, and a lot of snark. I fell in love with her main character, Vick, the female forest ranger who will not put up with any […]

The post Book Review: OF TEETH AND PINE first appeared on Hellnotes.

Wicked Abandoned A New England Horror Writers Anthology Edited by Rob Smales and Scott T. Goudsward Published by Wicked Creative, LLC  (September 25, 2024) Reviewed by Carson Buckingham All I have to say is that New England sure grows a bunch of great writers! Wicked Abandoned is one of the best anthologies I’ve read in […]

The post Book Review: WICKED ABANDONED first appeared on Hellnotes.

Some of the most common trials to face JPs nowadays are the Section 172 cases that arise from the ubiquitous speed cameras. Some people (such as Christopher Huhne) simply lie about who was driving the speeding vehicle, and others claim not to know the ID of the driver, but the consequences of being caught can be nasty. These cases tend to be listed in just a few courts, which can be pretty tiresome for the bench members. As it happens these cases are a rarity in my court, so this week the S172 that appeared on my list was the first that I have ever done, in about 30 years on the bench. The evidence was pretty thin, and we acquitted. The clerk told us later that these cases often fail to stick.

They are a tidy source of revenue for the various loophole specialists in the legal profession, as many people will cough up a hefty sum to keep their driving licence.

This is not a political blog, although politics inevitably creep in to discussions of matters legal. I have followed politics since I was at school, although I was never elected to anything. The current situation beggars belief, and I imagine that today's crop of journalists will shake their heads in their old age, and say "but you should have been there in the summer of 2016; everything seemed to happen at once. " I am now even more convinced that my belief in the iron Law of Unintended consequences is the right one.

I have had to cut back on my sittings of late, as I am awaiting an operation to give me a new knee joint, and although I can get around in the courthouse it isn't always easy. As I am due to retire from the Bench in late October I have excused myself from getting to grips with some of the more complex innovations that have recently been introduced, such as iPads on the bench. I own a couple of iPads and I am comfortable with using them, but inevitably any government-issued software is over-engineered and the last thing from user-friendly.

My court has a few boxes that contain the iPads as well as charging them overnight, but those JPs who wish to use them have to submit to training as well as an elaborate procedure to keep them secure. It is worse for judges of course, but then they are paid £130k and more to cope.

Given my impending retirement, I cannot summon up the enthusiasm to get stuck in to this 21st century stuff  (albeit the technology is a decade old).

I am trying to avoid becoming what old Army types call demob-happy so I shall concentrate on justice before bureaucracy.

A judge who was verbally abused by a defendant reciprocated at a court hearing where he was being sentenced for breaching an antisocial behaviour order.

John Hennigan, 50, who had breached the order by using racist language towards a black woman and her two children told Chelmsford crown court judge Patricia Lynch QC that she was “a bit of a cunt”. And Judge Lynch replied: “You are a bit of a cunt yourself.”

When Hennigan screamed back “Go fuck yourself”, the judge replied: “You too.” He reportedly also shouted “Sieg Heil” – a pro-Hitler chant used in Nazi Germany – and banged the glass panel of the dock as he was jailed for 18 months.

Hennigan, from Harlow, Essex, has dozens of previous convictions for offences including drug and firearm possession and common assault.

An asbo was previously imposed on him in 2005 when a swastika was discovered daubed on the front door of his council house.

I can understand the Judge's  reaction, but I have never used that word in court, other than in direct quotation from the evidence.


Perhaps a quiet word from the circuit presider might be in order here.

My bench recently arranged its AGM at a nearby Crown Court, in accordance with the sensible policy of using HMCTS property assets whenever possible.

Unfortunately the IT that we use to display documents and suchlike proved to be incompatible with the Crown Court kit. Surprised? Me neither.

I sat today in a bench of two with a liked and respected colleague who is to retire in a couple of months when she reaches seventy (although you would never guess it)..Before the off, we fantasised about how bulletproof we felt, as disregarding the guidelines could at worst result in ejection from the bench that would take longer than we have left to sit.

We dealt mostly with breaches of community orders: the miscreants were mostly addled by drugs, and immune to letters or calls from probation. I was obliged, several times, to explain in plain language that it was the defendant's reponsibility to stay in touch with probation, rather than the other way round.

Our powers are limited in these cases, so I went home doubting that we had achieved very much.

The House of Commons has just refused to allow pardons to men convicted decades ago of sex offences that are no longer illegal. The issue has stirred up the inevitable hornets' nest of Twitter and Press comments, and we are left with the illogical situation that those men (yes, all men) who have died will be pardoned but the living remain with a stain on their character.

I suspect that the furore is largely a matter of semantics; a 'pardon' has a defined legal meaning, but in common parlance it has different implications. If I offend someone, or tread on their toe in error, they my well pardon me for the wrong that I have done them, and that is that. However, a pardon for  a crime looks to the layman as if the offence was indeed committed , but the Queen will overlook it. That is not at all what the convicted men are looking for, but rather an apologetic wiping clean of the slate. Only the archaic concept of a  royal pardon looks to be possible in law, unless legislation can be changed.

Common compassion suggests that the huge shift in public attitudes to same-sex relationships should be reflected in the law. It is a small  matter in the great scheme of things, but means a great deal to the men affected. Parliament is rammed to the doors with lawyers: surely a couple of them could draft a swift form of words to clear up this relatively minor injustice? 

The TV news tonight interviewed various locals who oppose the proposed new runway at Heathrow, some of them in an emotional state. One lady said that she had lived in Harmondsworth for over twenty years - but the airport opened in 1946, since when anyone who cared to elevate their gaze might have deduced that there was an airport across the Bath Road.

I sat in my crumbling courthouse a couple of months ago, having edged past the permanently-stuck gate on the justices' car park, and made my way up the nearly-new lift to the assembly room. It is a handsome room, built in 1907 but has sadly not seen a lick of paint in the last decade-and-a-half and more.

Everywhere are signs of decay and neglect - but no matter. I understand the desperate need for the government to bring expenditure under control, even if that means denying resources to the public service that I have served unpaid these thirty years. There are still biscuits (amazingly) and most of the lights come on when you press a switch. There is some mysterious  kit that we think might be for use in the new all-electronic courthouse. It still bears the protective film that we see on expensive audio visual stuff to protect it on its long journey from a Chinese sweatshop.

I have recently received an email from  www.gov.uk/annual-tax-summary setting out the tax that I paid in the last fiscal year setting out the tax that I paid (direct tax only, so forget the taxes on consumption such as liquor duties and Council Tax (fifty quid a week on my modest Thames Valley bungalow).

Much more interesting is the breakdown of where it went, revealing how little our fellow citizens know of what is done with the country's collective cash.

Not that much goes on the justice system.

A colleague, who has sometimes posted here as Bystander N, has sent me the following, asking me to put it on the blog. It is gratifying, and I hope that it is true.

• Tomorrow is a particularly sad day for my bench. I know Bystander and he had no idea I was going to

  write this short piece. Tomorrow he will be officially “past it”, though of course in reality nothing like

  past it and he is as sharp as they come.

  Both here on this blog and in our retiring rooms we will miss his kindness, warmth, immense

  knowledge, sense of fair play, sense of humour and seemingly endless stream of amusing court

  anecdotes.

  I have not always agreed with him on bail and sentence decisions but that’s the way the system

  works. I have learned a great deal from him and I am really sorry he will not be amongst us any

  longer. I have heard him say that he thinks he saw the best of the bench many years ago. He may

  be right but I’m still sure, even if he will not miss all of it, he will miss most of it.

The current Press coverage that has featured Lord Chief Justice Thomas reminds me that I met him a few times, and heard him speak on several occasions. A rubicund Welshman with tufts of silver hair, he came to my court during the formative phase of HM Courts' Service. and was always full of accurately targeted questions.

As part of the process of setting up HMCS I attended a large meeting at the QE2 Centre in Westminster, representing benches in my part of London. Thomas was part of the platform panel, and I shall never forget his reaction when an HMCS Regional Director got to his feet and asked why, given his responsibilities, he could not be a member of the local Justices' Issues Group (as I was). Thomas delivered a devastating reply, which touched on the independence of the judiciary and the need for the new Courts' Service to get on with its job, rather than interfering in judicial matters. We all sat there spellbound, never having seen such a demolition of a public servant. Thomas' immaculately reasoned speech ended with him steepling his fingers, his elbows on the table, and stating with finality: "and furthermore, I shall not permit it."

We all breathed in again, but it wasn't over. The unfortunate RD still had the hand held microphone, and he got back to his feet as we all cringed, thinking "stop digging" but he raised the mike and said "Thank you". He looked squarely at the platform and said "I'll take that as a 'no' then" He brought the house down.

I mused in the train on the way home about His Lordship. As a schoolboy he must have developed a pretty robust style, having been given the name of 'John Thomas'.

I have just had a letter on lovely thick straw-coloured letterhead from the Royal Courts of Justice in which a Rt.Hon.Lord Justice thanks me for my 31 years' service on the bench. 

That's nice, and I shall pass it on to my granddaughters in due course. Both of their parents are solicitors. My impending third grandchild will have two journalists as parents, so that's nice too.

The MoJ's planning for recruitment to the bench is no better than their usual planning, unfortunately. When I was sworn in in 1985 I became one of about 29,000 JPs in England and Wales; today the Bench is more like 19,000 strong, the drop being largely due to the increase in out-of-court disposals such as fixed penalties and cautions. In the meantime numbers have gone up and down, and during the years of amalgamating benches just over five years ago there was a virtual freeze on recruitment for some time. Now the system is struggling to recruit enough JPs to do the job. Nowadays, the biggest obstacle is the reluctance of many employers to allow JP employees time off. This even applies to public services such as the fire brigade, who used to be known for being relatively generous with time off for public service, but are now more niggardly.

I shall not fill the blog with the minutiae of how to apply, because the website  (www.gov.uk)  is very good, but I can say that if you are even slightly interested in the justice system you should consider applying. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and your chances are probably better than you would expect

According to the news on my radio today there are calls to make the wearing of military decorations that have not been legitimately earned punishable by imprisonment and/or a fine. Of course we must treat our old soldiers with dignity and respect their awards, but is this really a sensible use of the scarce and costly prison system?

Since I joined the Bench in 1985 the prison population has soared to its current 85,000 or so. Posing as a decorated old soldier is more sad than evil, and there is no tangible victim involved. Expose the perpetrators in their local paper for the pathetic poseurs that they are, but prison? No.

The right-wing fanatic who is accused of the murder of Jo Cox MP has opted not to give evidence nor to call any witnesses in his defence. The jury will be directed by the judge as to how to deal with this.

He is of course perfectly entitled to remain silent, just as the jury is perfectly entitled to draw the inferences that it finds proper from his decision. In times past courts sometimes had to decide whether the accused was 'mute of Malice' or 'mute by Visitation of God'.

This is a situation that I have only faced a few times in court. We gravely retired to consider, and I took the bench carefully through the decision making process as if we were assessing a real defence. We then took great care to prepare our reasons for our blindingly obvious decision, reading them out slowly and carefully before handing them down to the Clerk for the file. It all felt a bit unreal, but it is in odd cases such as these that everything has to be done just so.

Guilty it was then, to no one's great surprise.

The Supreme Court is now considering a crucial case that will clarify the power of the judiciary vis a vis that of Parliament. Many of the country's finest legal minds will focus on this matter, and a verdict will be handed down. In the long tradition of European matters dividing our nation, some unscrupulous parties are attempting to discredit the Courts, in particular by focusing on individual judges and any perceived bias they may have. This is an appalling piece of vandalism, the worst offender being the Daily Mail. Recently that paper has given space to the risible Ian Duncan Smith, a failed Tory leader.  IDS' opinion reminds us how lucky we were to be spared his presence in Downing Street.

He repeats the now-customary jibe that judges are unelected. Of course they are, but then so are brain surgeons and airline captains, and we expect and receive a professional and disciplined service from them. Electing judges would fatally damage the public's confidence in the judiciary's utter impartiality.

We are blessed with a judiciary that is incorruptible, and that is why many foreign litigants choose to have their cases heard in London.

All judges and magistrates take the same judicial oath:-

 “I, _________ , do swear by Almighty God that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second in the office of ________ , and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”

That's good enough for me.

Prisons are in the news again, following recent outbreaks of disorder. This is an excellent piece from the Telegraph

I have been to Hollesley Bay a couple of times; it had a completely different culture from closed prisons such as the Scrubs, with a target of getting inmates ready for work on release.

A friend recently asked me to cast an eye over a summons she has received for a speeding offence. She was going too fast for a speed awareness course or a fixed penalty, and was duly reported. She is going through the Single Justice Procedure, which is a new one on me, but I expect that it consists of one JP sitting alone with a clerk, dealing with the simpler cases. In days gone by I used to sit alone on Saturdays when I could usually expect about ten or fifteen cases, mostly remands or discharges. My maximum power was a penalty of one pound or one day's imprisonment, which could fill the bill for he usual overnight drunks and nuisances. The real work was deciding on bail, and that is a serious matter when you are on your own.
I shall be interested to see how the new procedure works in practice; no doubt my one-time colleagues will be able to fill me in.

In the six months since my retirement from the bench I have not had cause to visit the courthouse. This week, however, I volunteered to show some local people around the building, and I was agreeably surprised to find that I still remembered the pass code for the car park. Our visitors were very interested and full of questions, which reminded me of my very early days as a JP when I found out just how little people knew about the court and its workings. That was a prime reason for my starting a blog a decade ago.

Great Britain's bobsleigh team call for all sliding tracks to be covered after heavy snowfall at the Winter Youth Olympics in Austria.

Watch it again on the BBC iPlayer

Ski Sunday will be back for the 2011/12 season

Ski Sunday presenter Ed Leigh is wowed by Sochi two years ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics

Why British figure skaters call New Jersey and Florida 'home'

Great Britain's Elizabeth Yarnold wins a bronze medal at the women's skeleton World Championship.

Sevenoaks slider Lizzy Yarnold says the fact Britain has no real purpose built tracks is the main reason behind British success in the sport

UK Sport announces a large investment in British Ski and Snowboarding to be spent in the run-up to the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

British number one Zoe Gillings finishes sixth at the penultimate round of the boarder-cross World Cup in Valmalenco.

Canadian skier Nick Zoricic dies from head injuries after crashing heavily in a World Cup skicross race in Switzerland.

British number one Zoe Gillings is "over the moon" with World Cup podium in Valmalenco.

Britain's number one snowboarder Zoe Gillings will receive podium funding towards the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia.

Great Britain's men's ice hockey team receives a grant from the IOC to help in its bid to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics

As of November 10, 2015, BORROWED TIME (the sequel to CHRONAL ENGINE) is now available in bookstores everywhere as well as online (in hardcover and ebook)!  Signed copies are available from BookPeople.

In an article titled, 'Borrowed Time' mixes paleontology and fantasy, Saturday's Austin American-Statesman had a great review of BORROWED TIME, stating it's "a slam-dunk for dinosaur aficionados and will appeal as well to those who are fans of literary time travel and outdoorsy adventure."

Sunday was the launch party at BookPeople! I had great fun doing a presentation discussing the connections between the book, Charles Umlauf, dinosaurs, Johnny Weissmuller, and me (really).

The dinosaur standees for the photo booth were a hit, as were the refreshments including water, soft drinks, wine and cheese, and crackers. (The wine, from the Languedoc region of France, is made from grapes grown in Cretaceous clays where dinosaur fossils have have been found).

But the real eye-opener was the mosasaur cake by author/cakelustrator Akiko White. About two feet high, it featured a mosasaur sculpted from modeler's chocolate on a chocolate cake base with buttercream frosting! She'll be doing a youtube video on the making of it soon (and I'll link when it's available).  Suffice to say that still pictures don't do it justice -- it was mounted on a motorized turntable and illuminated with a blue strobe that made it look like it was underwater!

Here are the pics:

Me and cake

Carmen Oliver and T.rex

Akiko assembles! (photo courtesy Akiko White)

Presenting (photo courtesy Akiko White)

Cake!

Refreshments

Signing

Frances Hill and Lindsey Lane (photo courtesy of Shelley Ann Jackson)

Shelley Ann Jackson and Lindsey Lane (photo courtesy Shelley Ann Jackson)

 Many thanks to BookPeople for hosting the event, to everyone who came for the event, and to everyone who helped out: Akiko, for making the awesome cake; Cynthia Leitich Smith; Carmen Oliver; Lindsey Lane; Shelley Ann Jackson; and Cory Putnam Oakes!

Cake topper in its natural habitat

This is a post I originally put only on Facebook in January 2015.  Click here for background.

And the first pizza of the January 2015 #PizzaADayDiet comes from Hoboken Pie! A thin crust sausage, mushroom, and green pepper -- all the ingredients were fresh and in abundance. The sausage and sauce were slightly spicy and the crust was really thin. It could have had a tad more body, but I liked the fact that it didn't feel like I was filling up on bread. Delivery was prompt and the pizza was warm out of the box. I will definitely order from them again.

Today's pizza a day diet pizza came from the Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. at 1305 W. Oltorf (right next to the train tracks).

I hit the place in mid-afternoon, so it was pretty empty (Happy hour is from 3 pm to 7 pm, though, so it filled quickly :-)).  You order food and beer at the bar and they bring it to your table.  Inside are long wooden tables with benches, for social/communal beer-gardening in the Bavarian tradition.  Outside are round tables under the live oaks for beer gardening in the Austin tradition. :-).

I ordered a sausage pizza (boring, I know :-), but I like to try new places out on the basics).  It was delivered hot and fresh; the crust was somewhat soft but firmed up after I let it cool a little.  It had a nice chew and stood up to the ingredients.  The sausage had a more subtle flavor than I was expecting, but I really liked it and its freshness.  The cheese and sauce were also quite good.


One of their "by the slice" choices had also caught my eye, so I ordered it as well.  This was venison, spinach, pesto, white bean, roasted tomato, roasted garlic, and ricotta.  This one was amazing (not that the sausage was bad).  The crust had just the right amount of crispness and chew, but the combination of toppings really made it.  It had a richness from the venison without being gamy or overwhelming, and the remaining ingredients provided a terrifically contrasting texture in every bite.


Oh, and the beer was darn good, too. :-).

Today's Pizza a Day Diet pizza is technically not a pizza.  It's a flatbread. NB: All pizzas are flatbreads but not all flatbreads are pizzas (A flatbread has an unleavened crust).

I happened to be up north during rush hour so I decided to find the closest Italian place and see what they had that resembled a pizza. :-). This happened to be the Maggiano's in the Domain.  The place has sort of a Disney-fied feel of a downtown Italian restaurant, which is not surprising since the first Maggiano's was founded in Chicago by the Lettuce Entertain You chain whose specialty is theme restaurants. 

Anyway, I took a table in the bar and ordered a Caesar salad and the sausage flatbread.  The sausage was removed from the casing but still distributed in large chunks and had that good Italian-sausage flavor.  The cheese was also abundant and flavorful.  And the crust? Nice and crispy at first and then steamed through. 

Here are a couple pics:

Day 8 of ‪#‎PizzaADayDiet‬ is another thin crust, this one from Southside Flying Pizza. They call it “Neapolitan style,” which I guess is a really thin crust. I chose the whole wheat crust and it was pretty good – it stood up to the ingredients but I wouldn't have minded if it had been a tad crisper. The cheese was thoroughly melted and excellent, though, as were the toppings. The sausage had a good flavor and the peppers were nicely al dente. And the side salad was really good, as well.

Today's ‪#‎PizzaADayDiet‬ occurred at Home Slice Pizza -- Don Tate joined me for the sausage, mushroom, and green pepper pie! This was the thickest thin crust I've had so far, and was sufficient to be not -floppy, yet not doughy, with a good, chewy texture. The cheese was flavorful and the toppings were each present in every bite.


Altogether, a most excellent pizza -- and they put the leftovers in a tinfoil swan (I've never seen that before in real life :-)).

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being one of the authors at the inaugural Lone Star Book Festival in Kingwood, Texas (just outside Houston)!

Here are some pics:

Edward Carey, Emma Virjan, Jennifer Ziegler, Bethany Hegedus, Carmen Oliver, and me

Carmen Oliver presents BEARS MAKE THE BEST READING BUDDIES

Jennifer Ziegler and Jo Whittemore discuss encouraging reading

I present CHRONAL ENGINE and BORROWED TIME

 Thanks to all the organizers, sponsors, and attendees! It's on its way to becoming a grand, annual tradition!

Just back from the Texas Library Association Conference in Houston! 

As always, it was great to see fellow authors and illustrators, as well as the librarians who've supported our books through the years.  And I always enjoy seeing what's new at the publisher booths.

We had a great time for my panel Tuesday afternoon, "What's New with Texas Middle Grade and YA Authors," organized by Susie Kralovansky, featuring Jessica Lee Anderson moderating, and fellow panelists Paige Britt, Cory Putnam Oakes, P.J. Hoover, Cynthia Levinson, Liz Garton Scanlon, Jennifer Mckissack, and Joy Preble.  Conversation was entertaining and enlightening.  

Many thanks to everyone who puts in the work to make TLA the best state library conference in the country!

Here are some pics:

Hitting the road

Rainy Houston from the hotel

Me, Cynthia Levinson, PJ Hoover

Carmen Oliver signs

Jennifer McKissack, Jennifer Ziegler, Joy Preble

Paige Britt and Donna Janell Bowman

Me and the world in the lobby of the Hilton

Signing BORROWED TIME

Janet Fox and Jennifer Ziegler

PJ, Jessica, and Joy

Me and Elaine Scott

Buffalo Bayou on my early morning run

Back in Austin!