Various and Sundry things.

A couple days after watching Prince Caspian and going all frothy about it, I watched Wall-E.

Pixar never fails to amaze me. I can’t help but wonder how, as a team, they manage continuous brilliance. Well… to be fair, Cars was merely great. But other than that, everything they do is just a different flavor of incredible. Constantly manufacturing a good creative product is hard enough. But constant excellence produced by a changing team. That’s nigh-impossible.

Frankly, I expect some manner of pact with dark powers.

Or, more likely, Pixar has something like cull-the-heard Wednesdays. Where once a week someone quietly wanders through the office and has a close look at everyone. Susan is doodling a palindromic sestina on her napkin at lunch – Check. Terry is spontaneously reciting pi to a song of her own creation while using the Xerox machine – Check. Dave is humming the theme song from “Land of the Lost” while sending out zombie invitations on Facebook….

On Thursday, when the other workers ask why Dave’s desk is empty, management explains that they transferred him to a nice animation studio out in the country where he’ll have plenty of room to run and play.

So… yeah. Suffice to say that if Pixar wanted the rights to make a movie of the book, they wouldn’t have to fight very hard.

Sarah and I have almost managed to put the fundraiser to bed. Tomorrow should be our last busy day. After it’s all done, I’ll post up some pictures, give the final donations totals, and talk about our plans for the future.

I won’t be posting up a list of winners and their prizes because that would involve me putting folks’ personal information up on the web without their permission, and that isn’t cool.

Also, I didn’t e-mail everyone who won, because it would have taken WAY too long. So you might have won something even if you haven’t heard from me. But don’t e-mail me and ask about it. Seriously.

In other news, I’m on Goodreads now. I’m not planning on spending a huge amount of time there, but you can add me as a friend if you’re into that sort of thing.

And lastly, could some tech-savvy person out there do me a bit of a favor? Namely, could you change my Wikipedia picture, preferably to one that makes me look slightly less like a serial killer?

I appreciate that someone went through the trouble of uploading a photo. And I don’t deny that it’s a fairly accurate depiction of how I look most of the time. But still, if there is going to be a picture of me, I’d rather it not look like something that was pulled from a pamphlet titled “How to Spot a Sociopath.”

Later all,

pat

This entry was posted in Goodreads, hodgelany, recommendations, social networkingBy Pat31 Responses

31 Comments

  1. Shaanti
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 9:40 AM | Permalink

    Holy cow! That is a scary photo of you on Wikipedia…had to scroll quickly past it because it creeped me out so much.

  2. marky
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 10:57 AM | Permalink

    The photo does look like a bit like somebody’s stole your favourite toy. If they ever do a horror version of the Unseen University, you would make a brilliant grumpy wizard. Good luck with the rest of your prize packing.

  3. Captain Joe
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 11:02 AM | Permalink

    Turns out I’m tech-savvy.There go, Pat, got a much more cool pic now with a lot less serial-killer in it. Wikipedia has a surprisingly easy way of doing things, once you cut through all the hard crap.If you’d rather another picture, just give me a shout.Wall-E was simply fantastic. I haven’t enjoyed a movie like that in about ten years, since Toy Story. Oh those were the days…To infinite, and BEYOND!

  4. Captain Joe
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 11:09 AM | Permalink

    Aw heck…To <>infinity<> and beyond.Lost the moment now.

  5. Murdoc
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 12:43 PM | Permalink

    I’m wondering if that new Wikipedia image is going to get past one of the over-zealous user and/or image bots. Unless I’m mistaken, Joe isn’t actually the copyright holder on the picture and therefore cannot release it into public domain. It’s a better picture by far, but I don’t know if it will last.

  6. logankstewart
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 1:30 PM | Permalink

    Too slow on the draw there. I’m wondering what the sociopath picture was….

  7. greg
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 2:16 PM | Permalink

    @logan – the great thing about wikipedia is that it stores the history of a page as well. the previous picture was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patrick_Rothfuss.jpgthe new picture does need some referencing as being officially released into the public medium by its creator though.

  8. Cecrow
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 2:22 PM | Permalink

    Uh-oh. Guess I better run a self-diagnostic. After your earlier post I rented Prince Caspian, and it’s not so bad after all (sorry). And I’ve already seen Wall-E and found it was just ho-hum, good parts aplenty but somehow lacking (sorry, again). I do agree though, they’ve got a lot of consistent quality over there. I think they spend a lot of time (a LOT of time) getting the story right before they start production, which I’m sure you can appreciate. Wonder how Toy Story 3 will turn out; they didn’t want to do it on the basis of being uncertain about having a worthwhile story, but Disney’s forcing them into it anyway. Leave it to boardrooms politics to mess with a good thing.

  9. ripshin
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 2:30 PM | Permalink

    Holy crap! That original pic is just horrendous…and to think, the lovely Sarah has to see THAT everyday. I guess you can rest easy, Pat, in the knowledge that she’s not just with you b/c you’re a mimbo.Btw, I offer this in full commmiseration as a fellow “photogenically-challenged” individual.ripWF: unbunw – A random collection of letters, from which it is linguistically impossible to create a faux-word in the English language.

  10. Subterranean
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 3:29 PM | Permalink

    Re: the original picture…It puts lotion on itself…Bill

  11. Snall Trippin
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 4:47 PM | Permalink

    Now it looks like he has plans in the back for his shooting rampage…I’m just saying..

  12. Steven Weyerts
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 5:22 PM | Permalink

    Wall-E was good.That picture was better.Seriously. It’s a horror classic.

  13. Melanie
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 6:38 PM | Permalink

    I have a nice picture of Pat that I took, and he’s even smiling, so I could use that one for the Wiki page if the current one is breaking the wiki rules.Word verification: liter…I cant say anything about that, since it’s a real word…

  14. Amanda
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 7:00 PM | Permalink

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoTKhbtIflEI thought you’d really appreciate this. All about Heifer, only set to the llama song for a while :)

  15. AndyB
    Posted December 18, 2008 at 11:05 PM | Permalink

    The “someone” who “wanders through the office” is Steve Jobs. He doesn’t do it quietly but it has the same effect. He’s < HREF="http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Black_Wednesday.txt" REL="nofollow">notorious<> for hiring and firing on whims based on whatever he sees employees working on.The nice thing about Wikipedia is that you can see all the revisions to an article.< HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patrick_Rothfuss&oldid=256398926" REL="nofollow">Scary pic<>< HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patrick_Rothfuss&oldid=258832002" REL="nofollow">Cute pic<>< HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patrick_Rothfuss&oldid=258841036" REL="nofollow">Promotional pic<>I do have some pics of Pat that I could upload to Wikipedia but I doubt that Pat would appreciate that…@Snall Trippin: The “shooting rampage plans” are the <>least<> disturbing thing on that blackboard. Just be glad you can’t see the off-camera parts. Trust me…

  16. AndyB
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 1:09 AM | Permalink

    I don’t know which is worse, that Pat has a tag called “reccomendations” or that he’s used it on < HREF="http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/labels/reccomendations.html" REL="nofollow">26 posts<>

  17. jaimo
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 2:02 AM | Permalink

    Pat, I think someone should put up the cat ears photo from DragonCon. I don’t think anyone would mistake you for a serial killer then. It’s just not a “serial killerish” photo.

  18. AndyB
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 2:52 AM | Permalink

    In case anyone thinks that Pat is just being lazy for not editing the article himself, it turns out that Wikipedia < HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autobiography" REL="nofollow">has rules about that sort of thing<>.

  19. Malikelm
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 6:22 AM | Permalink

    Ahahahaha! In the old picture pat looked like an angry Dwarf! What happened? Did an elf hit on your girl? Ahahaha…ehm. I’m sorry, i know, too far…I love you Pat…Agh!Again too far…Your cool man, and your books are, are, are awesome! *punches pats shoulder* lets go look under girls skirts.

  20. Cecrow
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 12:51 PM | Permalink

    So I check out your wiki page, and it says you were born seven days after me. Your novel is famous, mine’s in a drawer. I have been chastened thoroughly – no more laziness!

  21. LiquidWeird
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 2:48 PM | Permalink

    @jaimo: I second the catear photo!WV: obermyle – the kind of tea that you walk over a mile to get

  22. Pat
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 2:57 PM | Permalink

    Andy: Wow. Cull-the-herd Wednesdays was supposed to be a joke….

  23. Anonymous
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 3:09 PM | Permalink

    This word verification was too good to pass up.Latenci – when your internet connection is slow on a Starbucks wifi network

  24. rebecca
    Posted December 20, 2008 at 7:36 AM | Permalink

    Wow, that gnome photo is extremely cute – in a beardy sort of way. Brilliant hat!The promo one in the Joss shirt is my favourite though :) Love the sketch of the University on the board in the background.

  25. pdxtrent
    Posted December 20, 2008 at 9:24 AM | Permalink

    I actually have nothing to say…. come to think of it, that may be my usual state. But my word verification was just so good……ilisec- a small portion of a millisecond, losing some at both the beginning and especially the end.

  26. Harvey
    Posted December 30, 2008 at 7:17 AM | Permalink

    I had the browser on your Wikipedia entry and I mentioned to my wife that I was wondering why all you fantasy authors have big beards. She remarked upon seeing the picture (without having read this entry), “He looks like a serial killer.”Unfortunately, that is with the one that is up there now.

  27. King Sheep
    Posted December 30, 2008 at 11:44 AM | Permalink

    RothfusSaves! I don’t know if it’s a fundraiser name, but it would sound good as a cheer/chant.

  28. white-tean
    Posted January 14, 2009 at 5:49 PM | Permalink

    Cripes, that old photo really does look too serial killery!Also, totally excited now that I’ve discovered the joys of RSS Feeds so I can easily follow your blog as opposed to just trying to remember where I filed the link…And yay, now I know of an author I read on Goodreads!

  29. Avi
    Posted February 11, 2009 at 4:51 AM | Permalink

    Rejoice, O Patrick, for the misanthropic media is no more. Future generations of readers will be saved the horror peering out from the frowning brow and bearded visage that heretofore was the harbinger of Rothfuss.And excuse the overdone ham-handed prose, please :)

  30. justinefay
    Posted March 4, 2009 at 7:40 AM | Permalink

    Oh I’m disappointed. The original photo has gone missing.. and everyone’s talking it up…

  31. Posted April 21, 2023 at 7:55 AM | Permalink

    So… yeah. Suffice to say that if Pixar wanted the rights to make a movie of the book, they wouldn’t have to fight very hard.

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