I finally got to meet Bill Shunn in person last night at KGB. I was handing out Sybil’s Garage flyers and he turned to me and said, “Are you Matt?” “Why, yes,” I said. A conversation ensued. Turns out he likes his Johnny Walker neat and black. I said, “If I have one whiskey I’ll have to have ten more.” He looked at me funny. Then I said, “But I’m not an alcoholic. That only happens with whiskey.” Bill nodded, unaccepting. Anyway, I had a gin and tonic, and only one. There. If you are so inclined, you can check out Bill’s essay from Sybil’s Garage here.

So we’re outside KGB after the reading and I got to meet Nick Mamatas, and discovered he wasn’t as venomous as the internet folk made him out to be. In fact, I thought he was quite nice. When I asked him if he’d heard of Sybil’s Garage he said, “Of course, nothing slips by me.” So then we all split up planning to go home when Michael Henderson says, “Hey, let’s get one drink.” You know how that goes. One drink turned into three, and dinner ensued. Our waitress was cute, and they kept insisting I flirt with her while they watch. Somehow we ended up talking about wild turkeys and hugs. We didn’t get either, I’m sorry to say, although Michael’s taco platter did inspire me to create a story for Mamatas’ Spicy Slipstream Stories.

Lucy Lawless of Xena fame will be making a guest appearance on Battlestar Galactica for the 9th episode. One thing I always found with the Xena/Hercules TV shows was a consistently high special effects budget, but a consistently poor storyline. She’s a good, underutilized actress, and it will be interesting to see how she plays a reporter in her native New Zealand accent.

And in world news, China and Russia are conducting joint military training exercises this week to counter “terrorism, extremism and separatism.” But they’re using long range weaponry. What’s that all about?