Life's Better With Ayoub™

Today is a day of significance. The 11th of September always will be, for me. I won't repeat all the political and social ramifications of that day. That will be handled by other, wiser people who are more educated in these matters.

Instead I will remember it as a day to honour the firemen, paramedics, and police officers who risked everything to run into those buildings and save as many as possible.

I will sit in silence for the ones that never came back out.

These amazing people are often woefully underpaid and overworked. They are seen as a cost, rather than a necessity.

But they are heroes.

I will never belittle the military. I have such huge respect for those men and women who are willing to die to protect their homes and mine, so when I say that I honour the civil defence forces to the same level, please understand that it is a compliment to both, and not a reduction in respect to either.

It takes a hero to run into a building that is on fire. It takes a hero to step up and prove a crime was committed. It takes a hero to fight to protect the innocent.

Too many heroes, both civilian and civil defence were lost that day.

I honour those heroes, today.

I will not be drawn into political debates today. If you have something political to say, I will not respond.

Wolf Dreams is now available on Amazon as a Kindle Download!

I am so very nervous.

The crazy is now out there!

The season finale is here.

Woo Hoo!

I tend to write characters in the fantasy genre. When I want a break from that, I write crime, or a little sci-fi. The nymwars pseudoym issue struck me as something that would concern a member of one of the long lived races I write about.

'What's in a name?' I ask myself, looking in the mirror. I'm several thousand years old, and have held many names, but only one has stuck. And by one, I mean, literally, one. A single syllable, a single word, a single letter. Not really a common name, but one that I've been known by for the last few millennia. It's also convenient, because the first name I took for myself is unpronounceable for most humans, and many other creatures. The problem is, it's not so convenient when it comes to official paperwork. I have a legal name. I've actually had a long list of them, but they're conventions. They're not me. My name, in as much as what I call myself, pre-dates record keeping as it exists today.
'So again,' I ask out loud, 'what's in a name?' I shake my head and laugh. 'Apparently, nothing.'

I use my real name on Google+, on Twitter, and on LJ/DW. It's worked for me. My personality profile is such that, if I use a pseudonym, I find it restrictive. It becomes a character that is only a part of me, and therefore, I get into character when posting.

But not everyone is me. I'm glad I have my critters in my head, though. They help me understand things.

When I was a wee lad, my mum used to drink coffee made in (what to me is) the weirdest way (she still does, by the way). She mixes half milk and half water, a spoon full of coffee grounds, and puts it on the stove to simmer for a while. I don't know anyone else who drinks coffee that way. As a wee lad, this brewing process made the coffee smell very, very bad.

Fast forward to my university years, and I discovered the effects of caffeine. Vending machine coffee was barely palatable, but it worked with a fair amount of sugar added.

And then I watched Hudson Hawk.

In hindsight, this proves that product placement works on me.

Because I started drinking cappuccinos wherever I could get them.

After that, I went to lattes, caramel macchiatos, and finally, to the greatest coffee taste in my experience: Freshly ground medium roast beans, a stove top espresso maker, and a little bit of sugar.

The point of this entry? None really. Just felt like talking about coffee :D