Now this just isn't fair. Somewhere in Italy is a fantastic looking monastery up for sale. It's got eleven bedrooms, twenty-six hectares of land, a stable converted into a restaurant with a professional kitchen, and it was recently fully restored.

It costs about three-and-a-half million dollars, and you might think that's a lot of money, but really, it's a steal*. You know what I could get for that much in Dubai? A decent four bedroom villa in a cubbyhole 'planned' community. In India I may manage to get a three bedroom apartment in South Bombay. God only know what kind of matchbox that money would buy in London or New York.

*(Not that I have the money, and any attempts to amass such an amount would require actual stealing, hehe).

Beyond that, the property is clearly begging to be turned into a quiet out-of-the-way hotel. If I tried to open something of a similar size in Dubai I would need about five times as much money, and about ten times for Bombay. And none of them would have the kind of view this place has.

Of course, if it seems too good to be true then it probably is, otherwise why would such a tempting looking thing be unsold, and that too found on the freaking interwub?

Ghost Infestation. Has to be.

....Still, very, very tempted.

V

Oh my.

Steven Brust, he of the magnificent Vlad Taltos books, has just released a Firefly novel.

The best thing is, My Own Kind of Freedom is a fanfic. Yup, completely unauthorised, and released under a Creative Commons licence. Apparently it 'demanded' to be written, which always results in the best stories, I find.

Your moral and religious standpoint on Fan Fiction may preclude you from greeting such news with joy. Me? New Steven Brust work. New Firefly work. For FREE. How can that be a bad thing?

V

Usually these sorts of things get plugged in the "Things that Catch My Eye in Feeds" section that's under the big orange RSS graphic (and indeed it is), but I felt that in this case, a link deserves further highlighting.

So click here for Rachel Papo's beautiful photo-set on the women of the Israeli Air Force, Serial No.3817131.

V