Hooray! Good for you guys! Congrats.

Mercedes Lackey and I had a great time with Chris in our interview. He's enthusiastic and knowledgeable. I am going to rock this new interview today while I work.

Since BoingBoing readers are so interested in Steampunk lately, I think Jay Lake would be a good interview. His new book, Mainspring (on Tor) was a great read with a great premise: a clockwork universe.

And I would soil my trousers if Chris could get Gene Wolfe on the line. ;-)

-- Steve

One day, I received a strange phone call from my (now former) boss, asking me to come in for a meeting to discuss commissions.

When I arrived, breathless with anticipation of finally (finally!) getting paid these overdue commissions, I was instead hustled into a room with two foreboding strangers. They were detectives from the Vancouver, WA police department.

They grilled me about my IP address, what kind of laptop I had, etc. until they gave up and revealed that a stolen laptop had been detected on my IP address. I explained that there was a public park across the street from my apartment, so it was likely the crooks used my open wifi to do their dastardly deeds, which was pirating music files.

The detectives lightened up quite a bit and became very friendly. We had a great talk about their jobs, how they find stolen computers, pirating music ("we couldn't care less," they said). They warned me that if the crooks had downloaded child porn over my connection, I would be in a legal morass trying to prove that I had no involvement. When child porn is in the mix, the law comes down hard. I would have needed a lawyer, they told me.

Scary stuff. I went home and secured that connection post haste.

::Does anybody know if these are delicate?::

Only a bit. As far as I know, the funk band of which I am a member, The Golden Greats, is the only other act that uses a Drum Buddy live, courtesy of the remarkable Danny Norton. We take GREAT CARE with it, but partly just because the wooden casing is gorgeous and doesn't appreciate scrapes and dings. I have been spoiling to make a flight case for it for a while.

Our newish website is going up; meanwhile, you can access it at http://www.stevelibbey.com/goldengreats/. There is plenty of Drum Buddy-spiced instrumental funk music and some live footage to satisfy your curiosity about the instrument. I must say, it is a blast to play with! Folks always run up to the stage to see what the glowing box is doing.

- steve

Methinks BoingBoing needs a "Cincinnati" label in the spirit of Fark.com.

Stories like this make me miss old Cincinnasti, my hometown. No... no, wait, that was just gas. I am glad to be gone!