There are lots of little things I've wanted to mention...

First and foremost, the Strange Horizons Fund Drive is currently underway. Every little bit helps, and they're a worthy cause. They're a two-time Hugo nominee, and they consistently publish great fiction and poetry, and they're incredibly supportive of newer writers. Help 'em out if you can.

The final Hugo Ballot has been announced, so I can publicly congratulate Chris Rowe and Ben Rosenbaum and Kelly Link for making the Novelette ballot. I nominated all three of those stories, so I'm glad they made it! They're three of the best stories published last year, hands down. I'm almost glad I'm not eligible to vote this year, because I don't know how I'd choose among them.

And on the Campbell Ballot, I'm delighted to see David Moles and Elizabeth Bear! It's a really strong ballot overall this year -- Kirsten Bishop and Steph Swainston are both awesome writers, too. (I haven't read anything by Chris Roberson.) I suspect Steph Swainston will win. It's a British Worldcon, and most of the voting members will probably be British, so I think a Brit writer will have the edge, and the award also favors novelists, so that's my bet.

And Frank Wu's up for best fan artist, and A Certain Magazine is up for best semi-prozine, and Locus Online is up for best website, along with Strange Horizons... it's very strange and gratifying to look at the Hugo ballot and see so many of my friends, and people I know through my day job...

Now to indulge in some idle predicting: The novel ballot is fairly strong, and interestingly it's all UK writers. I think the edge might go to Iain M. Banks, since he's a literary superstar in Britain (though I haven't read the book). The novella ballot is also pretty strong. I'd say Charles Stross has a lock on it. He's got two stories there, but with the Australian-style instant-runoff voting used for the Hugos, that doesn't mean a split vote will undercut him. In which case it could go to Bujold. I like Bradley Denton's story best of them all, though. I'm underwhelmed by the short story ballot. The James Patrick Kelly story is far and away the best one, so I hope it wins.

I got a raise at work yesterday, so suddenly financial pressures have eased a bit. It's more money to put in the wedding fund, anyway. My boss also gave me a gift -- a tiny stone frog he brought from Australia that I greatly admired. So day job things are quite good.