Alice Bentley's Journal

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AKICILJ
So, I'm thinking pretty seriously about going back to school part time and getting an MBA. The eventual goal is to get a fairly well paying job working full time for someone (not freelance).

The part I loved the best about some of my past jobs were learning a fairly complicated system, then making a best match between what the system had to offer and what the customer needed. I enjoy retail sales, but that's not likely to lead to "well paying" work. I like Customer Service, but ... same deal.

Looking over all the options, it seems like Marketing best matches things I love to do with jobs other people are willing to pay for. Cruising through job postings, experience matters (so running my own shop was good, and my decades of time with the book and comic industry is great) but education is also critical. And I haven't been to school since 1981.

Using the web to research school options, Argosy University is an easy commute, offers both classroom and distance learning, and is very upfront about their costs and options. Both UW and Seattle University offer an MBA program, but are less informative about what it covers or how much it costs, although it looks like UW is about twice the cost of Argosy.

My questions for you:
1) Would you think this is a good direction for me to try?
2) Can you point me to a good resource for comparing schools? The Business Week lists (for example) don't seem to break down by physical location much, and neither Argosy or Seattle U is listed at all. I would dislike to put in the time and money only to find that an MBA from my chosen school is disregarded.

On Mondays I typically work until 5:30 then drive across town for a 6:30 aikido class. Between class, traffic and the ferry schedule I'm usually home by 9:00.

But yesterday I felt some serious slowing down by 2:00 and decided that perhaps working the convention this weekend had taken more out of me than I allowed for. So I left work early, skipped class (sniff), and was home by 5:30.

Now I'm really glad I was cautious as I woke up this morning with a nagging cough, a very sore throat, and a general feeling of bone aching weariness. It may even be time to stop reading email and go back to bed. But I'm not sleepy!

Emerald City Comicon has an impressive number of folks lined up for the Exhibit Hall. I'm looking forward to getting inside and selling tons of books.

But right this moment I'm bored and poking this message into my iPhone.

It's been up for almost a month, with more than 500,000 views on youtube, but I only saw this on Tuesday, and I realized I wanted a convenient place to not loose the link.

I really enjoyed The 60 second Discovery Channel Ad.

Getting a grip on the problem
I really enjoy reading folks LJ posts. And I feel like I ought to be contributing my own observations, thoughts, questions and what-have-you as part of the conversation.

But when I go to put together a post, a dozen different things occur to convince me not to finish it.

Most commonly, I realize the thing I planned to write about is so trivial and unremarkable that it doesn't warrant bringing up.

Or the topic is about something that upset me - and writing about it is also upsetting. And I don't like to be upset, so I stop.

Sometimes the topic is a question so specific, and so unlikely to match my readers experience, that it feels odd to ask.

Recently there have been several cases where I really want to comment on someone else's post, but I don't feel like I'm close enough to them to make the sort of personal remarks their subject calls for.

This particular middle-of-the-night post almost foundered before it was begun, as I realized I didn't have an icon that fits my idea of "can't sleep, don't want to work". But I was strong and wrote this instead. And I'm just going to use my current default.

So, throw me a rope please, oh internet friends. Tell me what you'd like to read about, what I should push myself to write about, and I'll do my best to answer. (Answers not guaranteed to be prompt, especially since this weekend is the Emerald City Comic Con, and I'm expecting to work my butt off there.)

A grey, somewhat chilly, likely to be rainy day.

I think I'm going to stay home, turn the heat up a bit (cutting a potential exercise class), and watch the Stellar Jay on its endless round of "Hop onto the lowest branch of the big cherry tree - now hop up another two feet, again, again, again, again. Reach the top of the tree, fly down to the ground below the bird feeder, look for dropped seeds. Hop onto the lowest branch ... repeat."

Lovely blue bird, exuberant pink tree, dramatic red azalea below - and no easy way to photograph the scene because the scales differ by so much. Looks great in person though!

One star reviews
Over on his blog, John Scalzi amuses his readers once again with some prized quotes from select Amazon reviews. He then invites other writers to do the same.

I'm not a writer, but it did make me curious to see what Amazon's reviewers had to say about Girl Genius, and if there would be choice bits to highlight.

Well, Volume One has eleven reviews - all 5 star.
Volume Two has nine reviews, 8 for 5 stars, 1 for 4 stars.
Volume Three has two reviews, both 5 star. (and is the only book offered without a discount)
Volume Four seven reviews, 5 for 5 stars, 2 for 4 stars.
Volume Five has five reviews, all 5 star.
and Volume Six has five reviews, 4 for 5 stars, 1 for 4 stars.

So, no pithy one-star complaints to pass on, but a fun afternoon of reading.

Internet back up - but we're going to watch a couple of hours of Avatar rather than surf.

Have fun without me, and I'll catch up on everything on Saturday!

Internet down at home since yesterday - I'm posting now through the kindness of unknowing strangers since my clever plan of hanging out at the coffeeshop was foiled by them closing at 7 PM.

Signing off and driving home before someone thinks I'm some weird stalker typing away from the front seat of the car...

The girl genius radio play was great fun - and initial reports suggest that the recording was successful.
Nice art show, very costumy Dealers Room, bought a Tshirt from OffWorls, dropped $20 in Match It For Pratchett, and am now on the ferry home.

Posted from my iPhone.

Can someone attending Minicon do me a favor?
I've mailed several art prints by Phil and Kaja Foglio to hang in the Art Show at Minicon.

I'm hoping someone who's attending can report back to me on which pieces sell and for how much.

I'm sure the Art Show staff will do a fabulous job, but I've found that my niggling curiosity doesn't like waiting the perfectly reasonable several weeks until after the convention to know how things went.

Master Li in the news again
Those with long memories will remember ten years ago when I, Bob Garcia and Kaja Foglio put together an omnibus of Barry Hughart's three marvelous novels Bridge of Birds, The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. Back then only Bridge of Birds was still in print, and the project served the double purpose of bringing the other two back into print and celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of my science fiction bookstore, The Stars Our Destination.

The book came out beautifully and remains one of the projects I am most proud of.

Today Subterranean Press has announced that they will be doing a new omnibus of the three novels, probably limited to 2000 copies. Subterranean Press does some of the finest work in the industry, and I'm just delighted that they've taken on this project.

It's been a bright sunshiny morning, which I really hoped would counter-act the bone deep muscle soreness / tiredness that I woke up with. Mostly it makes me dread the arrival of my yardwork helper.

Then, to my amazement, as I craft this very posting, dark clouds have rolled in and a heavy rain has begun. We don't work in the cold rain, so I'm off the hook for today!

I can comfortably keep answering emails, doing data entry and sipping hot chocolate. Yeay for me! (OK, the naproxen helps too.)

using LJ for scribble space, move along, move along...

Buck Godot

What's New with Phil and Dixie

Gary Gygax, RIP
On March 4th, the news rocketed through the blogosphere that E. Gary Gygax had died. I was amazed and sometimes delighted by the outpouring of memory and inspiration this released. And as I'm already starting to loose track of what I saw where, I'm listing a bunch of the links here.

Comics
Dork Tower
Full Frontal Nerdity
Order of the Stick
Penny Arcade
Questionable Content
Something Positive
xkcd

Postings, with commentary
Boing Boing
Fark
Isaac's LJ
Making Light
Bill quotes rec.arts.sf.written
Slashdot
Howard Taylor
Websnark
Aaron Williams

News Bits
BBC
CNN
Wikipedia
Wired
Yahoo

In between triaging email, I've been surfing. Since both Boing Boing and Making Light linked to Kevin Kelly's article on 1,000 True Fans I feel I might be chattering about something "so 15 minutes ago", but I never claimed to be cutting edge.

Implicit in his article is the involvement of the internet; as a fast, free way of getting the information out there, and as a way of fulfilling both orders and payments. Overall, it was really nice to see something that both encourages creators, and helps caution them on realistic expectations.

And the Bruce Schneier reference was nice too.

On a completely unrelated note - doing the prescribed abdominal muscle exercises specified by my chiropractor leads to a whole new respect for breathing.

A comic I really enjoyed is going to be reprinted - and completed. So says SF Site about the incomparable Scud!

Webcomic Luv
Last week the brilliant reviewer Eric Burns began updating his Websnark for the first time in a long while. He's now doing a daily State of the Webcartoonist, with a different strip he follows being discussed each time.

I assume he will eventually post the list of all the comics on his sidebar, but since it's not there yet, I made a checklist for myself.

Feb 18, Preamble
Feb 18, Aeire, Punch and Pie, Happily Reading, Regularly Checked
Feb 19, Nicholas Gurewitch, The perry Bible Fellowship, The Hoi Polloi, Occasionally Checked
Feb 20, Danielle Corsetto, Girls with Slingshots, Rabidly Following, Regularly Checked
Feb 21, David Morgan-Mar, Irregular Webcomic, Darths and Droids, The Hoi Polloi, Sporadically Checked
Feb 22, Elanor Cooper and J. J. Naas, The Broken Mirror, Why Do I Read This Webcomic Again?, When I Remember To Check
Feb 25, Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza, Least I Could Do, Happily Reading, Regularly Checked; Looking For Group, The Hoi Polloi, Occasionally Checked
Feb 26, R. Stevens, Diesel Sweeties, The Hoi Polloi, Regularly Checked
Feb 27, James Grant and Mel Hynes, Two Lumps, Happily Reading, Sporadically Checked

I eagerly await his next update!

Webcomics meme
I don't usually do the meme Thing, so I'm a little unclear on the proper procedure. But, here's a ginormous list of webcomics that I'm familiar with (I don't read every one every time...).

Bold the ones you really like. Strike out the ones you dislike. Add favorites that aren't listed at the bottom.

( Long List of Webcomics )

Ah, webcomics
I love webcomics. Bucketloads of entertainment just waiting for my passing glance. There's almost a hundred titles I keep a watch on, and another fifty or so that I check in on once a month or so.

Since each one takes only moments, this still doesn't add up to more than 30 minutes a day. Often scanned while eating breakfast, so it's not even time lost.

The review site Websnark has recently started posting again, after a long hiatus. And now I'm sure to be introduced to even more fine reading material.

So many people seem to be doing movie memes, which I don't participate in because I have seen so few. I'm tempted to start a webcomics meme - would that be fun?