Well, New Year’s Day was quiet.  We woke too early, with me hung over.  Spent the day playing with the kids, then watched to the end of The Wire.  Stunning stuff.

Woke earlyish this morning for my 45th birthday.  Had breakfast, did a little office work and talked to Gary while the girls were out.  Then got ready for a small party here at the house, just with family.  It was fun – a BBQ – and I got some swell gifts.

As we were waiting on dessert, a terrible sound was heard.  In our beautiful new living room. The one with the brand new lounge suite and the brand new stereo. The ceiling collapsed in a pile of dust and crap.  There was one minor injury during clean up, but it was pretty unpleasant.  We now wait to see if the insurance will cover it or if we’re up for the money, and what damage exactly was done to everything.  I think we were reasonably lucky, but who knows?

Oh, and yes, this means some minor delays on things and if anyone’s looking to get an anthology edited now’s a great time to ask …

A quick measure of how productive I was during 2008.  Setting aside the day job, I continued as Locus Reviews Editor while also blogging and working as an anthologist.

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Books edited:    5  (Eclipse Two; Godlike Machines; Wild Thyme, Green Magic; The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three; The New Space Opera 2)

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Books published:  4 (The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Two; The Starry Rift; The Jack Vance Reader; Eclipse Two).

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Books sold: 4 (Conquering Swords;  Dreamtime; Life on Mars;  Engineering Infinity)
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Reviews edited:  Approx 240,000 wds

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I also worked on the annual recommended reading for Locus, wrote a couple articles, thousands of words here, and countless emails.  All in all, a busy year.

Whilst the USians and so on are yet to join us in the New Year (hello back there!), it’s already next year here.  We brought in 2009 at a small gathering, and had a lovely time.  A great beginning to what hopefully will be a great year.

You all will see that there’s a new template for the blog.  I don’t know that it’ll be permanent, but I was so tired of the old one that I couldn’t face looking at it anymore.  So, something brighter!

I will be, intermittently, posting stuff about 2009.  I am, as usual, just a bit behind on things so I’ve got to finish my Locus year in review essay, get editing etc done, and work up this other project that I seem to be getting involved in.  It should be cool, but more with the busy.

and I’m not really blogging.  Went out, drank too much, got home v.late, feel v.guilty about babysitter.  A good night, with guilt.  May you\r 2009 be brilliant!

PS: Yes. New template.