Archive for February 25th, 2010

“Babel Probe” wins Sacred Chalice of Glory!

I just received the following email from the folks at Drabblecast (http://www.drabblecast.org):

From: The Folks at Drabblecast
Date: February 25, 2010 12:26:38 AM PST
To: David D. Levine
Subject: Drabblecast People’s Choice Award 2009: Babel Probe by David D. Levine!

David,
Not sure if you were even aware of this, but your story, Babel Probe made the top 5 in the Drabblecast People’s Choice Awards.  Out of all the stories we ran last year- listeners in our discussion forums voted for their favorites, and the top 5 were:
Clown Eggs by Jay Lake
Annabelle’s Alphabet by Tim Pratt
Teddy Bears and Tea Parties by S. Boyd Taylor
Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs by Leonard Richardson
and then your story.
Finally, our listeners had to narrow it down and vote for their favorite of those– and you won!  You won “Best Story of 2009” in our 2009 People’s Choice Awards.  Congrats!  We announced it on this week’s show.  It’s a big deal for us.  That story was fantastic and I’m really glad that it won.  Even though we ran it all the back in April, our listeners still remember it and gave it crazy love.
So we have a cup called the “Sacred Chalice of Glory” that we’re having your name engraved on and that we’d like to send you, if you can provide us with a mailing address.
Again, congratulations, and thanks for the phenomenal story.  Hope we keep getting submissions from you– clearly our listeners would love that.
Best, Norm

The winning Drabblecast is a most excellent audio performance of the story, with music and sound effects and everything, and you can hear it here.

This is the story for which thepussinboots drew this awesome picture (click to embiggen):

I am so thrilled!

What do you get the man who has everything?

Sunday was my 49th birthday. (Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes!) It was a quiet day, but I ate some of my favorite things and hung out with my sweetie, who gave me the new Mark Knopfler CD.

I am a very lucky guy. I’m retired, which means I pretty much get to do what I want every day, and I have enough money that I can pretty much get myself whatever I want when I want it. This makes it really hard to buy presents for me or to do something “special” to celebrate a birthday. That’s okay; I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The day before my birthday, the TV interview I taped last week about my trip to Mars finally aired. I’m very pleased with how it came out, and you can see it below:

Today was the tech rehearsal for Ignite Portland, where I’ll be giving a 5-minute version of my Mars talk (at the Bagdad Theatre next Wednesday, March 3). I don’t feel quite ready but I’m sure it will go fine.

I have more news but this will have to do for now.