Oh, poor New Orleans. My heart breaks every time I turn on the news. Every time I go online I see more photos, more accounts of devastation. I can't imagine what it must be like for the people who are even now losing their homes, and for the people trapped there. Alligators, coffins, knots of floating fire ants -- it's like something out of Dante. I'm too poor to give money to the red cross, but I should see about donating blood soon.

I've never spent much time in New Orleans, just a couple of visits in college, but it made an impression on me (and the city appeared in a couple of stories, notably "The Fallen and the Muse of the Streets" and "Rowboats, Sacks of Gold", both firmly from the tourist perspective). I've always wanted to go back and spend a few months living there, to actually get a sense of the place in a way you can't as a weeklong visitor. Heather and I had talked about doing our honeymoon there; I guess it's lucky we didn't.

On a happier note, my collaboration with Greg van Eekhout, "Robots and Falling Hearts", is being recorded for podcast by the good people at Escape Pod!