I just submitted my entry for the Machine of Death anthology, over 24 hours before the final deadline of April 30.

Whew! This writing stuff is harder than it looks. But I think the story came out pretty well.

Now I wait and see if it is accepted. They’ll have the final selections by May 31, and will let everyone know between then and June 15.

Speaking of Bill Moyers below, he apparently came out of a brief retirement to air a new weekly series called Bill Moyers Journal. I wasn’t all that interested until I found out his first show featured two of my favorite people in the world: Jon Stewart and Josh Marshall. Click on their names to see their segments. It’s worthwhile.

It’s once again Tell Someone About You Are Dumb Day, so I am fulfilling my duty by telling you about You Are Dumb. My friend Bryan writes it. He is funny and angry, which is always the best combination.

Go, read, bookmark.

• In case you missed it: John McCain vs. Jon Stewart, two rounds, no holds barred. FIGHT! Round 1 and Round 2. I have to give it to Stewart on points — he said a lot of the things I want to say to McCain, but probably wouldn’t because I’m not as mentally nimble as Jon. This interview might end up being a seminal moment on the scale of Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire or Colbert’s performance at the Correspondents Dinner.
• Bill Moyers just aired a documentary called Buying the War about the media’s blind complicity before and after the run-up to the Iraq War. The whole thing is viewable here. I haven’t watched it yet (but I might follow the link later when I have 90 min to kill), but if you’re curious why I still have a hate-on for America’s mass media “journalism,” give it a shot.
• Meanwhile, Bill O’Reilly is apparently convinced that liberal billionaire George Soros controls the media, and he drew a chart to prove it. I’m constantly amused at the hate directed at Media Matters by O’Reilly and Rush. All it does is report their exact words, in full context, along with explanations of why they’re wrong or offensive. If O’Reilly can’t handle that, perhaps he should retire from his multi-million dollar media empire.

I flew X-Jet last weekend. While that sounds like I should have taken off from a bunker underneath Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, it’s really just short for Express Jet, a semi-new-ish airline designed as competition for Southwest.

Kristie and I have started booking X-Jet because they’re the only airline with non-stop flights between Tucson and Ontario, CA, near Riverside. Southwest’s service between our towns is more expensive and has a layover in Las Vegas. X-Jet, on the other hand, apparently exists to fly between smaller alternative airports — Tucson instead of Phoenix, Ontario instead of LAX, Colorado Springs instead of Denver, etc.

Their jets are smaller, too — much smaller. I’m 5’7″ and my head scraped the ceiling. If you have a carry-on larger than a purse (or maaaybe a laptop bag), forget it. There’s no room. They’ll confiscate your bag as you get on the plane. On the upside, they’ll hand it right back to you as you disembark, so you avoid the baggage claim.

Upsides: the flight attendants hand out headphones or earbuds for the free XM Radio in your armrest. More importantly, beers are only $1 and wine and cocktails are $3, so skip the expensive airport bars and get drunk on the plane!

Downsides: The small aircraft means you feel every bump and drop a bit more. Not so good if you’re a white-knuckle flier, although aside from some stomach-churning moments on the descent into rainy Ontario, I had smooth rides.

The flights were only $59 each way, although the price was recently raised to $69. Each plane was only sparsely populated, mostly by the sort of middle-aged middle-managers who are likely to be on the Internet enough to discover X-Jet. If their service doesn’t start getting more popular, I can easily see it going away or becoming too expensive.

• Alternative Press Expo was this weekend, and I missed it for the third straight year. Shaenon worked a table again, though, and this year amused herself with APE Bingo.
• More grist for the online audiobook mill: Cory Doctorow’s novel Eastern Standard Tribe is now available for free download from podiobooks.com in 12 episodes. The book is on my Amazon list, but now I’m tempted to listen to it instead. If you’re like Ron and listen to books on the way to and from work, this one is definitely worth downloading and/or burning to disc.

For my many gamer friends:

All quiet on the blog lately because I’ve been writing, believe it or not. Fifteen hundred words into the Machine of Death story, or two scenes out of a planned five, which is right on target. I’ve also been battling allergies, since it’s once again April in Tucson. And I’ve been drinking heavily at times to facilitate both activities, so the blog has gone by the wayside.

Meanwhile, this weekend I’m flying to Riverside for another visit with Kristie, hopefully to meet more of her friends this time around. I’m going directly to the airport from work, then returning on Sunday evening. Maybe I’ll even write some more on the flight…

Amazon.com is sold out of the big Vonnegut novels at the moment, and my usual web haunts have been filled with memorials:

• Warren Ellis
• Shaenon K. Garrity
• Matt Fraction
• Laurenn McCubbin
• Cory Doctorow (and again)
• Poputonian on Hullaboo

I’m surprised how many people first encountered Vonnegut at an early age. My first of his novels was Cat’s Cradle as an assignment in high school AP English. I wish I could say it was a lightning bolt that changed my life forever, but at the time I only thought it was “okay.” All I remember about it today is Ice-9.

Since then I read and greatly enjoyed Slaughterhouse-5, The Sirens of Titan, and his final book, A Man Without a Country. His combination of humanism, pessimism, and appreciation of the absurd resonates with me as an adult.

If his death has a silver lining, it’s that more people may be inspired to read his work.

• Neil Gaiman posted an MP3 version of his Hugo-nominated short story “How to Talk to Girls at Parties.” I listened to it today, lending more credence to the idea that people (including me) are more comfortable listening to prose than reading it online.
• On the heels of my previous Rifftrax post, the next movie is the classic Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with guest riffer… Neil Patrick Harris? I might like the movie too much to enjoy riffs at its expense, but the Doogie Barney factor has me intrigued.
• RIP Kurt Vonnegut, one of the all-time greats. My back cover design for the just-released Narbonic, vol. 4 referenced the title of one of Shaenon’s storylines, which in turn referenced Slaughterhouse-5.