Author: Nancy E. Shaffer

NANCY E. SHAFFER has been an experimental psychologist (M.A., Cognitive Psychology, Rice University), a philosopher (Ph.D., History and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Davis), and software developer. She taught history and philosophy of science at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec and the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her philosophical work has appeared in the journal Philosophy of Science and her pop-culture philosophy website, All Things Philosophical on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series. Dis/inhbition is her first novel. She currently resides in Tempe, Arizona.

Two birds, one stone…..

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 16 Comments

I figured out how to solve two pesky little problems I was having by solving them at the same time: (1) finding time to read, and (2) motivating myself to exercise. Now normally, my idea of exercise is a brisk walk that actually gets me somewhere I want to go; but there’s not a lot within walking distance of my new house, and, fairly shortly, I would have to do my walking within an hour of dawn to make it at all pleasant. So since I have an allergy to gyms, I have my mom’s old exercise bike. Which is extremely boring. And there is no cable hook-up in my guest bedroom. But then I thought–that’d be the perfect time to read. Peddle away, catch thirty minutes of those novels burning a hole in my living room floor….

I’ve actually made my way through the next-to-last (next-to-next-to-last?) Dresden Files now. And am fighting those Girl Scout cookies with vigor. Yay, me.

Halp!

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 29 Comments

I’m looking for a word. A word for a “percussion composition”. If it were a break in the middle of a song with other instruments, you might call it a “drum solo,” but it’s a stand-alone composition. And the word “composition” is too formal for the context I’m writing in. I need a *hip*, general word for “drum composition.”

On my iPod this afternoon

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ Leave a comment

Set to “shuffle”, of course:

Queen, “Who Wants to Live Forever” – I don’t even hear my favorite band (when I was a teenager) playing. I just see Duncan losing Tessa.

Weird Al Yankovich, “Another One Rides the Bus” – Everyone is looking at me funny at work as I laugh myself hysterical. One of the reasons I’m glad I don’t live in San Francisco anymore!

Social Distortion, “Ring of Fire” – Social D just rocks.

Devo, “Mongoloid” – Makes me think of my niece, Laura. I hope her life is as good.

Also heard: Evanescence, Muse. Nothing particular comes to mind. But enjoyed.

School’s out for summah!

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ Leave a comment

So I officially withdrew from certification school today, and will get a 45% refund on my tuition, which is fine with me, as it is more than I actually have left to pay on my loan. I got a Microsoft certification out of the deal, although not the one I originally signed up for. More importantly, my time after work is now my own. Assuming I get time after work.

Meta (communicating about communication)

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 16 Comments

Sometimes I think it’s a wonder any of us manages to communicate with anyone else in this medium we call the internet, which is so lacking in the context most of our communication has, such as visual cues, or real-time responses which enable us to elaborate on what otherwise would be quick, casual comments.

I’m trying not to be bothered by a recent incident in which someone I very much respect jumped down my throat for a rather vague comment I made in someone else’s journal. She just misinterpreted what I said, and I was surprised and hurt by that. But everyone takes stuff out of context or reads too much into it or jumps to conclusions from time to time, even the best of us, and I did my best to explain myself, but maybe it was too little too late.

Anyway, how is everyone’s day going?

Phew!

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 28 Comments

(This was supposed to be a couple sentences of the happy and turned into a TD 210 commentary. Hmmm.)

I finally got a bit of feedback on the new TD episode. It sat there for over a day with crickets chirping, and I started to seriously second-guess myself. m3sektet challenged me to do a comedy episode, and comedy just isn’t my strong suit. In addition, I started to realize as I was writing it that my idea of “funny” is very visual and physical, and that’s hard to get across in writing, even when you’re writing what’s supposed to be a “television show.”

Also, a lot of my jokes were pretty “inside”–as in maybe funny only to me. TD 210 spoilers

Reading progress notes

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 4 Comments

Latest book: “Dead Witch Walking” by Kim Harrison

OK, I started this book back in June. Then I set it aside for HP 6, HP 7, moving to Arizona, job interviews, TD 209, and selling my condo. I checked it out from both the SF and Tempe libraries. But my lack of progress had to do as much with lack of motivation to pick it back up as busy-ness. Not that it’s a bad book. It has interesting characterization and a well-realized supernatural mythology, but when I set it down to do other things, it just didn’t “call to me” to pick it back up. Hence finishing it at the end of September.

Don’t take my word for it, though. If you like Buffy or HP or other supernatural series, pick this up and give it a try. Me, I think I’m looking this year, in the books I read, for the book I want to write. And I want to write a book where the supernatural is hidden and in the shadows, rather than right out in the open, which is the crux of the mythology of Harrison’s series. Hidden subcultures are a strong kink of mine. Would I read another in this series? I might. It depends on what it’s about.

“A Wizard of Earthsea”, Ursula Le Guin
“Proven Guilty”, Jim Butcher
“Dreamchild”, Hilary Hemingway and Jeffry P. Lindsay
“Guilty Pleasures”, Laurell K. Hamilton
“The War for the Oaks,” Emma Bull
“Shifter,” by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
“Neverwhere,” by Neil Gaiman
“The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger
“Eye of the Daemon” by Camille Bacon-Smith
“The Color of Magic” by Terry Pratchett
“Waking the Moon” by Elizabeth Hand
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling
“Dead Witch Walking” by Kim Harrison

Saturday musings

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 38 Comments

I haven’t said much about the whole LJ fiasco, because I’m generally on the outside of it all except as it impacts people on my flist. But I am curious where the line is. I think of Season 2 of BtVS, for example, where 16-turning-17 year-old Buffy is showing sleeping with Angel, who of course is an adult in every sense of the world. Or on Deep Space Nine, where the 16-year old Jake Sisko dates a 20-year old dabo girl.

There are underage-older relationships on TV all the time, many of them explicitly sexual, and that’s not illegal, depicting that. So what’s the line, anyway?