Win a free copy of The Atheist's Guide to Christmas!

Usually I have a rule about No Christmas Stuff Before Thanksgiving, but I’m breaking it for this special occasion – the American edition of The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas is coming out next Tuesday, on November 2nd! It’s not just any godless book; I’m one of the 42* contributors! There will be a (hopefully) humorous chapter by yours truly called “Gifts for the Godless.” This is my first time having a creative piece published, so needless to say, I’m super exited. Not only will I be alongside people I look up to like Richard Dawkins, Phil Plait, and Simon Singh, but it’s for a good cause – all author advances and royalties go to the Terrence Higgins Trust.

November 2nd also happens to be my 23rd birthday. Since I can think of no better present for myself, how about I give a present to you? …And by that I mean “My editor is hooking me up with a couple free copies to give away at my discretion, how about I distribute them in a fun way?”

So, time for a contest!

Write new lyrics for an old Christmas carol that have a godless or scientific theme.

Rules:

  1. Post your entries in the comments. If you’re one of those people who’s still having trouble commenting, feel free to email your entry to me.
  2. Make sure to include an email address when you log in or in the body of your post. If you win, I need to contact you about a mailing address.
  3. Arbitrary bonus points will be awarded for things like humor, Blag Hag inside jokes, and singing your song or making a video.
  4. And really, my rules are lax – if you want to remake a famous Christmas-themed story or poem, or do godless lyrics for the dreidel song, I don’t care. Really, just make something in the spirit of the contest that you think I’d like, since I get to pick the winners.

Entries are due Monday, Nov 1st at 5pm PST. I’ll announce the winners the morning of the 2nd!

And remember, the American edition is different than the version that came out in the UK last year. There are a bunch of new authors, like me. So even if you have that version, you may want to check out the new one!

*Yes, that choice of number is intentional. Don’t you want to win it even more?

Have you had trouble commenting?

A bunch of people have told me they have had trouble commenting here lately. I’m going to attempt to fix the problem this weekend. If you’ve had issues commenting, please email me at blaghagblog(at)gmail(dot)com. To help me out, please include:

  1. What browser you’re using
  2. If you have anything like Adblock enabled
  3. How you’re attempting to login (blogger, twitter, facebook, disqus, etc)
  4. Exactly what sort of problem you’re having. Can you not log in? Are you clicking post and it’s never loading? Can you not edit posts? Does disqus open a portal to the nether-dimension? Let me know.

Sorry for everyone who’s been having issues. I blame Disqus, but I’ll try to fix it.

If you had issues either here or at your own blog but found ways to fix them, please let me know that too!

And all the bloggers wept

It was bad enough knowing a sedentary lifestyle can lead to weight gain. Now persistent exposure to light at night can too? I give up, I’m doomed. Pass the cheesy puffs.

I feel bad for all the computer addicts who put their computer in front of a treadmill in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. Resistance is futile! Accept your plumper future!

What? At least you won’t be as overweight? …Shut up, you.

(Via Boing Boing)

Yet another way to show your love of Blag Hag

I finally got off my ass and set up the RSS feed for Blag Hag’s fan page on Facebook. So, go like it and become a fan! Share it with friends! Yadda yadda etc!

And while we’re talking about being a fan of Blag Hag, make sure you’re using the correct RSS feed to get my posts. http://www.blaghag.com/feeds/posts/default is updated instantaneously. The old feed, using blaghag.blogspot.com, generally will lag for many hours before getting a new post up. Just so you know.

Oh, and you can follow me on twitter too. Yay.

Okay, I think that’s all. Phew.

Important! Meetup date change

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m going to have to change the date of our meetup to Sunday the 19th. Same time and place. Apparently there’s some new grad student social event on Friday that I’m expected to attend that I just found out about. Sorry again for the confusion and getting your hopes up if you could attend Friday but not Sunday.

If it’s any consolation, Sunday is Talk Like a Pirate Day. The Seamonster Lounge seems like a very appropriate place to celebrate this Pastafarian holiday with a bunch of heathens.

Seattle meet up this Sunday!

It looks like Friday the 17th will be the best day to have a little Blag Hag Seattle meetup for your schedules and for mine. Gah, change of plans, sorry! Make that Sunday the 19th. Here are the details:

Sunday, September 19th
6:30 pm until whenever
Seamonster Lounge
2202 N 45th St (in Wallingford)

I already found the place while wandering around Wallingford, so I know I won’t get lost, yay! Feel free to show up later if you want.

If you’re pretty sure you’re coming, please let me know and indicate if you’re bringing anyone else. Just need to know how many chairs to save. Can’t wait to see you guys!

Who do I blog like?

This is a fun little website that analyzes the text of a blog. Here’s mine:

“blaghag.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 26-35 years old. The writing style is personal and happy most of the time.”

Hey, not bad! I’m a 22 year old female, though I can see how my writing seems a tad more mature. And that happy to ranty ratio seems about right.

I wonder if this works well for other blogs?

“friendlyatheist.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing style is personal and upset most of the time.”

Oh, erm. …Never mind.