ryan.freebern.org

Seeing the Peanuts television special “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on TV was something I looked forward to every Halloween when I was a kid. It was on TV tonight, and is still amusing, and now nostalgic as well.

A year ago, the excellent online speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons published a short story that fans of the Peanuts special will appreciate. I’m linking to it now because even if you’ve read it before, it’s still wonderful: The Great Old Pumpkin, by John Aegard. Happy Halloween, and enjoy.

Strange Horizons, which is entirely volunteer-run despite paying its contributors well and being considered a professional fiction market, is conducting a fundraising drive. They hoped to raise $3000 this month, but their meter only shows about $600 so far. If you enjoy the story, and want to help keep a great zine in business, please donate a few bucks. I just did.

I’ve been reading Boing Boing, an excellent group-blog about technology, culture, free speech, and lots of other neat topics, for more than a year. I’ve also sent in a number of links that I found interesting, but they’ve never made it onto the blog.

Well, last night I managed to get something on there, because I know the difference between a loofah and a sea sponge. The poor loofah has certainly been maligned in the recent past; I wanted to make sure everyone knew that Hyperion just wouldn’t exfoliate with quite as much vigour as a real loofah.

Edit (01 Nov 2005: Oh yeah, I submitted the Lyttle Lytton contest link back in August, and they blogged about it. Stupid faulty memory!