Ah the Singapore zoo. We went there just the weekend before National Day and a very hot and sunny weekend it was.
Submission call for Steampunk short stories!
Hello everyone! Remember Happiness at the End of the World? If you don’t, it’s the science fiction anthology we came out with next year. This time we’re opening submissions for steampunk short stories!
Here’s the short details:
Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy (an imprint of Two Trees) and The Happy Smiley Writers Group are calling for submissions for the second in their sci-fi short story anthology series. Following on the success of their first anthology, Happiness at the end of the World, Happy Smiley and Friends are going Steampunk.
Steampunk Short Story Guidelines:
1) Theme is science fiction steampunk with a happy ending.
2) Word length between 2000 and a firm 6000 words.
3) Deadline for submissions is 31st October.
4) Open to any age, any nationality but must be resident in Singapore. (Singaporeans studying overseas are eligible.)
5) Mail submissions to steampunk@twotrees.com.sg
6) For more details go to http://twotrees.com.sg/steampunk.html
Continue reading Submission call for Steampunk short stories!
SDS 2.5 – Song for Singapore
Hello everyone! Today is Singapore’s National Day! So instead, I shall leave you with our episode at the istana! Yes! Where the president works! The istana holds days for open houses and the day before National Day is one of them! You can usually check their website to see the dates for when you can visit them. So yes, this time we went to the istana open house!
Online Book Store Battle!
Hello everyone! This is an updated review of online book stores compared to back then when I wrote Open Trolley is my alternate universe Amazon! If you read the comments there, things got a bit heated up from the various stores telling me that they’ve got offers and whatnot and other people’s experiences with them. (The comments ARE very informative by the way.)
Now you need to know one thing from that era of me using Open Trolley, Acma Mall didn’t give free shipping to Singapore. That post was in August 2009 and then they had the free shipping later. That includes the existence of Book Depository to us Singaporeans even if the about page says it had been founded in 2004. It was just then, no one here really used BD to tell us it isn’t dodgy and all that.
I would like to quote George Stevens who had used all three before I get on with my review. This is one comment that’s very useful from that older post:
OK- tried all 3 of the stores above- here’s the results- all orders were for books shown as “in-stockâ€-
OpenTrolley- order placed January 6th, available for pickup January 15th- 7 working days. Paid $0.50 to pick them up at Plaza Singapura.
Acma Mall- order placed January 10th, delivered January 26th to my house- 12 working days. 40% off of best sellers and free shipping made this the best price, but the longest delivery.
Book Depository- order placed January 17th, delivered January 26th to my house. Overall good prices and best delivery time (6 working days), even though they are not local. Will probably continue to use them in the future.
I think both of the “local†bookstores are just a website who then order in bulk from overseas, thus the long lead times.
Right. So there you go. It’s pretty much the same timeline for me too. I’ve ordered from OT, AM and lately BD.
SDS 2.4 – 500 Miles
This event happens yearly and usually in July or in the mid year. Jo, Avariel and me registered for The New Paper Big Walk after one of the adventure episodes. It’s $10 anyway and you get a coupon for a goodie bag to be picked up on the day of the Big Walk and a t-shirt when you registered, we picked blue instead of red. The whole distance to be covered is 5 kilometers and the last time I did this was back in secondary school.
SDS 2.3 – Money, Money, Money!
This July was the Singapore Coins and Notes Museum‘s first birthday! It meant free entry for the first week from the 1st till 5th July. Heh, heh. Thus, the Adventure Crew hit the place up to learn about money. Also, because I prebooked a slot since we’d get a discount on “making” money.
Perfect!
She’s flying!
I think of that when I think of flying. Yeah, I like Azumanga Daioh.
In any case! Check out Joelyn’s causathon thing here. She’s involved with Project Reach’s Causathon and her group is helping out with the Very Special Arts (VSA) Singapore.
For her group, you can make a donation here and then comment with a line to complete the story of Captain Jon who has a love for aviation and a flair for creativity but is confronted by his disability. Get him a happy ending!
SDS 2.2 – Catch You Catch Me
Cosfest. This episode is on Cosfest. It is a yearly cosplay event at Downtown East, usually in the middle of the year! It’s free too and usually the preliminaries for those to represent Singapore at the World Cosplay Summit in Japan is on during that weekend. The first day is the band/karaoke/singing contest while the second has the main cosplay competitions. I went for both so the pictures below will be on both days and will be mixed!
The theme for this year is “Let’s make friends”. Yes, let us indeed. Also, this post will have anime and character terms so if you don’t get it, just look at the pictures instead for the pretty.
Oh silly spammers!
If you haven’t noticed, I just installed a “like” button since Tiramisue commented on it. So… Yeah, there it is! Pretty easy to install.
Meanwhile, I always check my spam folder and this is pretty disappointing. The spammer there is talking about Pikachu (albeit with typoes) but alas she is in the wrong post.
She should have talked about Pikachu on the other post here where I did go to a Pokemon event.
Silly robot spammers not spamming in the correct post when they had the chance!