{"id":1750,"date":"2010-12-03T08:52:48","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T16:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2010-12-03T08:52:48","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T16:52:48","slug":"the-way-things-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1750","title":{"rendered":"The Way Things Are."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Packing for Frankfurt. \u00a0No time for thoughtful analysis of \u00a0the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/content\/early\/2010\/12\/01\/science.1197258\">Mono Lake Arsenic Monster<\/a> (although I <em>did<\/em> take pleasure in watching Keith Olbermann correct the NASA scientist who screwed up \u00a0the name of Star Trek&#8217;s Horta episode) beyond saying: Cool, but I actually think that the discovery of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biomedcentral.com\/1741-7007\/8\/30\/abstract\">anaerobic metazoans<\/a> has more profound implications when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Jonathan-Strahan-The-Best-Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy-of-the-Year-Volume-5.jpg\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1751\" title=\"Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Jonathan-Strahan-The-Best-Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy-of-the-Year-Volume-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Jonathan-Strahan-The-Best-Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy-of-the-Year-Volume-5.jpg 332w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Jonathan-Strahan-The-Best-Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy-of-the-Year-Volume-5-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/yearsbest2011.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1752\" title=\"yearsbest2011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/yearsbest2011.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"233\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/yearsbest2011.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/yearsbest2011-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I do have time, though, to pat myself on the back for the success with which I&#8217;ve stolen someone <em>else&#8217;s<\/em> take on extraterrestrial life. \u00a0&#8220;The Things&#8221; is now officially appearing in two Best-of-Year collections \u2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/archives\/2010\/12\/toc-the-years-best-science-fiction-fantasy-2011-edition-edited-by-rich-horton-w-free-fiction-links\/\">Rich Horton<\/a>&#8216;s and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/2010\/12\/02\/the-best-science-fiction-and-fantasy-of-the-year-volume-five\/\">Jonathan Strahan<\/a>&#8216;s \u2014\u00a0and is also apparently a finalist for the Black Quill Award in the &#8220;Darkest Scribble&#8221; category (assuming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkscribemagazine.com\/4th-annual-bqa-nominees\/2010\/12\/2\/and-the-nominees-are.html\">this announcement<\/a> isn&#8217;t some kind of cruel hoax). \u00a0 Don&#8217;t know much about the Black Quill, but they gotta have at least some credibility based on last year&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkscribemagazine.com\/3rd-annual-winners\/\">&#8220;Reader&#8217;s Choice&#8221; award for Best Collection<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So if you happen to live in Frankfurt, this will be an excuse to look me up and buy me a beer. \u00a0That alone makes the accolades worthwhile. \u00a0I&#8217;m given to understand that these Frankfurters know a thing or two about that beverage&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Packing for Frankfurt. \u00a0No time for thoughtful analysis of \u00a0the Mono Lake Arsenic Monster (although I did take pleasure in watching Keith Olbermann correct the NASA scientist who screwed up \u00a0the name of Star Trek&#8217;s Horta episode) beyond saying: Cool, but I actually think that the discovery of anaerobic metazoans has more profound implications when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,7,35,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biochem","category-extraterrestrial-life","category-on-the-road","category-writing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1762,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions\/1762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}