The Penultimate Genius

Stupid Bullshit

2012-01-12T08:23:00.003-05:00

Stupid Bullshit

You can quit reading this article at the end of the first graf:

Everyone who has ever become a parent can testify to the financial challenges that go with raising kids. In fact, the average cost of raising a child to age 17 is over $150,000 per year.

I've got three kids. It doesn't average me $450,000/year to raise them, and that amount is more than 4.5 times what my wife and I earn in any year. I hate assholes who write studies and stories like this. They don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Cities of the Dead #9

2011-12-14T08:36:00.003-05:00

Cities of the Dead #9

You know, maybe I'll get back to writing posts to this site. Maybe. I mean, I haven't deleted the blog, which I've thought about doing repeatedly for about the last five years. Just because.

That said, there are millions of The Walking Dead fans out there that have to wait several months before AMC puts on the second-half of the season. Until then, enjoy my series of zombie short-stories currently serialized under the umbrella title of Cities of the Dead: Stories from the Zombie Apocalypse.

The ninth story is now available at Smashwords and Amazon:

Another one next week, then hiatus until mid-to-late January for the second half of stories.

Cities of the Dead, Story #8

2011-12-02T23:46:00.002-05:00

Cities of the Dead, Story #8

Buy it. Read it. Rate it. Tell people about the Cities of the Dead series I'm publishing. It's way better than AMC's The Walking Dead television show.

Cities of the Dead

2011-11-09T07:54:00.003-05:00

Cities of the Dead

Oops. I forgot to link here at the old blog the two most recent stories in my anthology "Cities of the Dead: Stories from the Zombie Apocalypse." Egads, how could I forget to do that here? I mean, this is my primary driving site for advertizing...

Lots of zombie killin' in this one:

And here's one that's just running for your life:

A new one comes out Friday. It's a good one: All Hell Break's Loose. If you read Day 1 and wondered how long it took for the dead to infect enough people in Los Angeles to cause a serious outbreak, well, here's your answer.

Yeah, they're not in chronological order. On purpose. I'm doing zombies different.

Obama Puts on the Grinch Costume

2011-11-09T07:51:00.002-05:00

Obama Puts on the Grinch Costume

If the feds under Barry O! can't get your dollars, they'll come for your nickels and dimes. Merry Christmas!

The State of the Nation

2011-11-06T09:26:00.003-05:00

The State of the Nation

As usual, Mark Steyn nails it:

"They’re anarchists for statism ... demanding more and more total government control of every aspect of life — just so long as it respects the fundamental human right to sloth. ... It’s a grand alliance of all those societal interests that wish to enjoy in perpetuity a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. Only the criminal class is reasonably upfront about this."

This is what you get if you vote for Democratic Party politicians. It ain't "social justice" or compassion, it's thieves using the power of government to take your stuff at the barrel of a gun.

Unfortunately, most elected-class Republicans don't get this.

It's Christoween!

2011-10-26T11:55:00.003-04:00

It's Christoween!

I've always wanted one of these:

William Young's Amazon Author Page

And now I've got one. Finally, all those years spent in a darkened room listening to the clacking of a keyboard won't have been spent in vain. The digital revolution in publishing is upon us, and I'm actually out there on the leading edge, trying desperately to attract some attention to my work and maybe, just maybe, earn enough to put a down payment on a new car.

I'm thinking Porsche, people.

But a Hyundai will do in a pinch...

A Tale of Two Countries

2011-10-22T08:32:00.003-04:00

A Tale of Two Countries

Estonia.

America.

One country is moving forward with liberty and capitalism, one country is reaching into the past for government tyranny and centralized planning. Guess which one is doing better.

Cities of the Dead

2011-10-21T08:12:00.003-04:00

Cities of the Dead

The latest - 2nd - story in my Cities of the Dead: Stories from the Zombie Apocalypse is out!

That's the official Kindle site offering, but you can find it at Smashwords here., where you can download your copy in whatever eBook reader you happen to have - all formats supported! Yup: Kindle, Nook, iPhone, home PC, office desktop and even a .pdf you can print out and read on old school paper.

Spread the word. Link this on your social media. Tell friends.

The Tip of the Spear

2011-10-20T08:36:00.002-04:00

The Tip of the Spear

At some point, the average American (taxpayer) has to be able to push back against the bloat of the federal [and state/municipal & etc.] government about how it spends his dollars. This would seem a a good start.

I mean, if you can't beat this asshole, then maybe we need to undo the whole project and start again, only the next time, make liberals [socialists, communists, environmentalists, progressives and other obvious non-self-identifying leftists] three-fifths a person. And, instead of land ownership, let's make tax-paying a requirement for voting, and all voting occurs the day taxes are due in full. You don't pay taxes, you get welfare/government "benefits", you don't get a vote.

It's All About the Money

2011-10-19T07:30:00.003-04:00

It's All About the Money

State and county governments created a pot of gold under a rainbow when the state decided to authorize the building of a billion casinos in the state instead of reforming the state budgetary process and being honest with the citizens of Pennsylvania with taxes. There's no intent to lower taxes or restrain spending by Harrisburg, just every weaselly way to squeeze more money from the citizens in any way possible. And, well, letting them gamble themselves stupid was - politically - a genius idea in separating the gullible from their after-tax dollars.

But a funny thing happened along the way, at least to Montgomery County, and it's that not all counties will get a piece of the action. While other counties with casinos shake down citizens for millions, MontCo will get nothing as a result of a provision inserted into the 2009 law by county Rep. Mike Gerber, who thought it would be more fair to let other counties rake in the cash but deny his own.

Now, I don't think any counties should get anything. I don't think there should be gajillions of casinos generating filthy lucre for the state and county governments. But I think the explanation by Gerber for writing a law denying his own county money everyone else is getting is ludicrous.

And, I think the county officials whining they're not getting a cut are moronic fools. This is money they have never gotten, and they clearly don't need it. They just want it so they can spend it. Period. End of story. County officials can spend less, tax less and cut useless services to make the budget in MontCo work. But they don't want to do that. Don't want to.

And, oddly, the state has tied itself in knots to make it difficult to reopen the gambling law, which is a hilarious mathematical proof of how incompetently inept our state legislators are. They're afraid of the debate that might erupt:

But no matter what they make of the current setup, the county's legislators agree that changing it would prove a Herculean task. For two years, Pennsylvania's gaming laws have been locked in place for fear that introducing revisions could incite a legislative free-for-all of amendments and would bog down debate.

Clearly, the assclowns who govern us realize they have a problem, and have chosen not to deal with it. Really, you have to wonder what, exactly a "free-for-all of amendments" means to the morons who spend our money. I'm guessing they realize there's not enough room for graft for everyone in the potential money-stream, especially now that they know about how much cash stupid citizens are willing to give the state for the opportunity to dream about striking it rich on a lucky hand.

This is responsible governing?

Occupy THIS!

2011-10-18T16:12:00.002-04:00

Occupy THIS!

^^^|^^

I think that's the emoticon for giving someone the finger, although the thumb knuckle looks off to me. Anyway, that's my general sentiment toward the assclowns sitting around smelling bad in the various public squares across America.

Over the weekend, this "phenomenon" spread to Australia, and Tim Blair laments:

Leftists unerringly select the very worst aspects of US culture to imitate in Australia. Instead of First Amendment free speech rights, liberal gun laws and Buffalo wings, they go for apocalyptic climate terror, lame white-boy rap and pretending that gay marriage is one of the most important issues of our time.

The latest US import is the Occupy movement, underway in Wall Street since mid September and copied in Sydney (among other cities) over the weekend. Occupy Wall Street basically opposes everything: corporations, governments, university fees, greed, global warming, war and bathing.

My biggest wonder with the spreading "protests" is the adoption of the Guy Fawkes mask as modeled in V for Vendetta, graphic novel turned movie. First, these "occupiers" are "protesting" the wrong things for the wrong reasons (the government is in bed with Wall Street and uses crony capitalism to advance its ideological agenda), and two, they aren't original in either protest message or mask choice. I mean, these idjits are protesting the same exact things leftists always protest in exactly the same way they always protest them, and they've chosen to beclown themselves by choosing a mask of a wanna-be British terrorist from the 1600s (i.e., Guy Fawkes and the Hollywood-designed mask mean nothing at all to Americans).

Yeah, this is a "populist" uprising. Yawn.

They're Alive!!

2011-10-13T13:20:00.003-04:00

They're Alive!!

A day earlier than expected because I thought today was Friday all day yesterday. Don't know why, so the first story from my zombie anthology is out and ready for reading.

Yup. I did the cover. I don't know how, but it came together pretty well, for the most part. The Smashwords version is here. Same price at both sites, but if you don't have a Kindle, you'll need to get a version at Smashwords, which supports all eBook formats.

Don't Know Much About ... Anything

2011-10-12T07:34:00.003-04:00

Don't Know Much About ... Anything

You won't find this level of ignorance at a Tea Party rally. This is the indescribable nuttiness and irrationality at the very center of the American Left. The one "dude" thinks it would be easier to be respected as a "person" in communist China because ... hmm, because it ... hmm ... because something in America derailed his gender reassignment surgery or something.

And the other colorful fella has an interesting take on world history and Stalin, defending Stalin and communist Russia by saying nobody really knows the history of Stalin because none of us were there.

Also, there's apparently a "black book" of communist history that unfairly tarnishes the failed, evil governing philosophy.

Here we have a pair of fools begging for the boot to be pressed on their necks.

The Road to Hell is Traveled with Excellent Handbags

2011-10-10T08:12:00.002-04:00

The Road to Hell is Traveled with Excellent Handbags

This post sums up the nature of The College Experience quite well, and why I've been counseling my children not to expect to go to college when they finish high school. Unless you're going to learn a science of some sort - and not the "climate science" science - then a modern college education is completely useless. Worse than useless, actually, as the modern college experience seems designed by leftists to both inculcate a desire for centralized bureaucratic tyranny under the guise of "fairness" while also stealing as much money from the future earnings of the student. Who wants any of that? I'd rather my children apprentice as plumbers.

The Houses of Time

2011-10-03T17:19:00.000-04:00

The Houses of Time by Jamil Nasir

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Overall, an interesting book that purports to tackle the question of time travel. Sort of. It's more like The Elegant Universe take on time travel, speculating infinite realities and positing that there are some humans capable of shifting between the universes and into different parts of the time-space continuum, ergo time traveling within your own life like Dr. Sam Becket on Quantum Leap.

An easy read, too.

There's a lot left on the table with this given the secretive nature of the time travelers. And, there's no real sense of thrilling drama at work, pushing the story forward. The characters are all likable enough, even if most of them seem underwritten. You get no sense of "there" with most of them.

I thought Nasir should have made "the Church" aspect of the story more significant and detailed, since the idea of finding the parallel universe path to heaven and delivering an actual prayer to it is central to the story. Oddly, that crucial element of the story is really only hinted at, and you never get an idea of what the prayer is. And, by the novel's conclusion, it's a bit frustrating that you don't get to see what the "heaven" universe looks like (it's called something else in the book, like The Ultimate Source or whatever).

I mean, you write a book about preparing a guy to go to heaven and talk to God - and then find out he did it - you'd like to see at least a bit of that. That's the story, folks, the time travel practicing is just gravy.

All of that said, I picked it up for $1 at The Dollar Store, so it more than made up for the expense.

View all my reviews

Finding Whiners

2011-10-01T08:18:00.002-04:00

Finding Whiners

At first, I thought I was going to click on an article about some new edgy tranny - Anna Rexia - with a shtick. Only, after clicking, I read a couple of paragraphs about some wimpy news reporter's latest heartache:

As Times writer Jenn Harris reported Friday, the National Eating Disorders Assn. is horrified.
"It's disgusting that people have a costume about a potentially life-threatening illness," said Lynn Grefe, president and CEO of the organization.

Whatev...

Terra Nova - Extreme Suck

2011-09-30T21:16:00.005-04:00

Terra Nova - Extreme Suck

Let me get this right: a FOX TV show about a future Earth that shows the then-world thrown into total environmental collapse requires certain selected citizens to be transported back in time 85 million years to re-start the whole civilization process.

When did the environmentalists lose the battle for fresh air and clean water? Who, and why, argued the future would be better with polluted water and air? Where I stand in history, there isn't anybody who would argue that even a little bit of air or water degradation would be okay given the benefits of some newfound technology. What, for Thor's sake, was the benefit gained by blighting the environment? Did the people of this world not watch Blade Runner, because the writers/producers certainly did (lam3rs).

And, more importantly, why is the future a fascist society when the leftists control the media and wrote the television show? Don't they think they're benevolent ideology wins in the long run, or do they unconsciously yet accurately realize this is the endgame of their desires?

This show sucks. It posits a future world where - America - limits the number of children you can have and then makes narcotics detectives married to highly-specialized physicians live in Ikea showroom apartments that can be "tossed" by the police on the suspicion of having an additional child. What? And then, when the cop/dad fights the police to stop the tossing of the apartment, the wife and teenage son do nothing but stand and gape at the injustice?

Really? Right then, my wife, who's not into television very much, said, "Why isn't she doing anything to help?"

Because leftism has inured the populace to obey the authorities. They know best. And you know this is true, because the writers of a story about a "new beginning" equip the ruling class with guns and the power to keep the people in line. Really? Why in God's name does a new civilization with future tech designed to to show how good human life can be need to be organized around a dude who has supreme authority and a heavily armed police force?

I'll skip the extreme stupidity of the third-world-in-a-first-world prison escape idiocy and ask the most pertinent question yet: if they have the technology to travel in time, why have they spent so much money on time travel instead of environmental remediation?

Really? Air scrubbers. Trees. Something. But time travel? Faced with decades of increased human-caused environmental calamity, the humans opted to spend their money and time on creating at time-travel device to give a selected few a second chance at civilization?

And then they created a totalitarian regime to rule over that future-past civilization? And the supposed hero-anti-hero of the show tells the "ruler" of that world that he wants to be a guy with a badge who puts bad guys in jail. Really? After just getting out of jail for a stupid criminal sentence, he wants to work for the man?

REALLY?!?!?!?!

Ain't buying the premise.

So, right about there, I quit out of the show.

And, yeah, I'm guessing the real purpose of the show is the whole "humans interact with dinosaurs" shtick. But, you get the premise wrong, and I got better things to do with my time.

2011-09-23T07:23:00.000-04:00

Small Country by Nick Hornby

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This collection of shorts stories was called something else when it first came out and was part of a charity contest to name it. I guess "Small Country" won.

That said, only the Neil Gaiman short is any good (it's awesome). The rest are either dull, boring, or pointless.

View all my reviews

The SCOAMF Who Would Be King

2011-09-19T10:02:00.004-04:00

The SCOAMF Who Would Be King

Is he an idiot, moron or retard:"President Barack Obama will propose $1.5 trillion in new taxes as part of a plan to identify more than $3 trillion in long-term deficit reduction and slow the nation's escalating national debt.

Obama's tax plan is aimed predominantly at the wealthy and draws sharp contrasts with congressional Republicans.

It comes just days after House Speaker John Boehner ruled out tax increases to lower deficits. It also comes amid a clamor in his own Democratic Party for Obama to take a tougher stance against Republicans. And while the plan stands little chance of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support." (emphasis mine)

Since when is it "populist" to increase taxes on the populace? Lemme get this straight, "Read my lips, more new taxes!" is Obama's idea of a rallying cry to excite the masses and rally them to his cause?

That "Eureka" Moment?

2011-09-17T08:25:00.003-04:00

That "Eureka" Moment?

Maybe, after several decades of being attacked by Islamists, someone, somewhere inside the federal government is getting it:

The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”

At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”

The guy who wrote this article for Wired, though, seems pissed off that somebody finally noticed what Islam is up to.

A Piece of the Action

2011-09-15T10:08:00.003-04:00

A Piece of the Action

At the end of the day, no matter what, what your government wants is a piece of the action. Not because it needs it. Not because it will help out. Not because there's been programs/projects that haven't been funded.

Just because the government wants some of the money. Just because: “If we are going to get the burden, I’d also like to get the revenue to help us with that burden,” said Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr. “If we have to deal with the hassle of having a casino, it is just not right that we don’t directly get any of the revenue." {emph. mine}

Now, ask yourself, does every new business that opens in the county give the Montgomery County commissioners a slice of their revenue? Outside of the required permits and licenses local governments routinely use to hassle businesses, of course.

And, add to that this tidbit: “We are loath to raise taxes and want to keep taxes as low as possible,” said [Republican] Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr., the only incumbent in the contest. “But the truth of the matter is that we can’t say what situation we are going to find ourselves in because we don’t know how bad it is going to be and how bad it is now.”

It's almost as if -- across party lines -- these a**holes running our governments think our money is theirs and that the things they spend it on are more important than what I want to spend it on.

Don Suckote

2011-09-08T10:03:00.000-04:00

Don Suckote

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I will not finish this book. Perhaps the worst "novel" ever written. And - yes - I *get* what's supposed to be humorous, it just isn't.

View all my reviews

Argument Fail

2011-08-19T12:53:00.002-04:00

Argument Fail

The environmentalists tried to convince you with "science" that humans were changing the temperature/climate of the planet and failed to convince you.

Now, they're trying science fiction.

Set the Example

2011-08-19T11:50:00.002-04:00

Set the Example

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ: "We got to eliminate the rich." I say we start with him. He's rich.

Privatization NOW!

2011-08-13T08:35:00.006-04:00

Privatization NOW!

The state employees who run the liquor racket in Pennsylvania are scared to death of the return of the privatization movement of the state's liquor store monopoly. They should be. Whether the Republicans in the state government can divest the state of the liquor business is doubtful, though, but only because they're Republicans.

But the oddity of anti-capitalist union members and Democratic Party lawmakers arguing for the retention of the profit-generating liquor monopoly is proof the unions and the Democrats aren't against capitalism per se, but only against non-governmental organizations earning money selling goods and services. Here, you see, they argue against privatization because, apparently, increased competition will increase the cost of liquor, in direct contravention to Econ 1o1:

HARRISBURG -- A proposal to privatize liquor and wine sales in Pennsylvania will result in price hikes, including much higher costs on lower-priced items, the CEO of the state Liquor Control Board will testify today.

In testimony prepared for the House Liquor Control Committee, Joe Conti says the agency's analysis of pricing with a new gallonage tax under HB 11 shows "Jack Daniels rises $1.33, Bacardi Rum $1.54 and even Grey Goose (vodka) goes up $1.08. In wines, Cavit Pinot Grigio 1.5L goes up $2.75, Yellow Tail Chardonnay 1.5L goes up $2.67 and a 5L Franzia Blush Wine Box rises from $12.49 to $25.38."

"Simply put, the gallonage tax, as proposed, will produce large price increases," said Conti, a former state senator.

I don't know what the "gallonage tax" is, but I'm guessing that unproposing it will eliminate this douchebag's central argument. Alcohol is already taxed and sales-taxed, so I'm guessing the gallonage tax is either an additional tax or a modification of the alcohol tax. Get rid of that tax and, hmm...

And, typical of state-run monopolies that operate based on cronyism and political favoritism, some of the state-run liquor stores lose money. But the state's liquor monopoly is okay with that, because selling liquor at a loss is just fine when its tax-payer subsidized at the end of the day. I guess?

"For the pro state-store side, they can use the information to show that they are reaching populations where the private market might not seek to serve because of marginal profitability," said Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College. "Of course, those in support of selling off the stores will argue that if the market can't support the stores by themselves, the state shouldn't be subsidizing those operations."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the state won't argue that forcing McDonald's to open a location to serve a specific population "because of marginal profitability" - which is a weird way of describing losing money - is out of the question since McDonald's is already a private venture. And, anyway, lots of Democratic Party controlled governments are trying to do away with fast food options, anyway, claiming they cause health risks of some sort (but that's another post).

In reality, privatizing liquor stores will result in better service, lower prices and increased selection. That's why anybody who lives near New Jersey or Delaware buys their liquor across the border.

The Primary Reason to Hate Your Government

2011-08-03T07:42:00.002-04:00

The Primary Reason to Hate Your Government

Once the petty, small-minded douchebags of the world realize they can get away with anything if they control the levers of government, they will. This is because your average police officer is nothing but an automaton who will enforce any law, regardless of how unjust, idiotic or patently illegal. Cops are more worried about remaining employed as cops than they are about the society they serve, which is why they should never be unionized and should be under hyper-restrictive watch.

We empower these guys to catch bad guys, not enforce the idiocies of those who have managed to insert ridiculous laws into the legal code. But cops don't care, because laws are laws, and if they are ordered by the government to enforce a law, the vast majority of them will, because it's a law and they want a paycheck. Period. End of story.

At the end of the day, this is the kind of thing you get from your police and elected officials:

Jim Johnson, Reckless Profiteer, Economy Destroyer

2011-08-02T16:28:00.003-04:00

Jim Johnson, Reckless Profiteer, Economy Destroyer

You can blame the current economy pretty much on one person: James A. Johnson. This asshole is a former CEO of Fannie Mae and is singularly responsible for setting in motion the sub-prime mortgage crisis which ultimately crashed the US economy.

And he hasn't been charged with a crime of any kind.

Because he's a well-connected Democrat.

Yeah, I just finished reading Reckless Endangerment, and while there were a lot of people engaged in destroying the economy in the name of stealing money from the unknowing and unwitting, it was Johnson's idea and he implemented it first. And ruthlessly.

This book will make your blood boil at the sheer magnitude of the scheme and the utter incompetence of government regulators. And, nobody in government was fired as a result of allowing this looting of America's citizens. And nobody went to jail.

But a lot of people lost their homes, their jobs, their savings and their futures. All because some well-connected amoral Democratic Party operative was gifted a position in Fannie Mae because of his party connections and allowed to hollow out America's banking system so that he could become super rich.

Ken Lay of Enron was a grocery store clerk compared to this guy.

Sen. Bob Casey, Tax Loophole Crusader

2011-07-26T07:49:00.002-04:00

Sen. Bob Casey, Tax Loophole Crusader

This is delicious: the Democratic Party has all types of class warriors trying to impose all sorts of new taxes on us - closing loopholes and eliminating deductions, for the most part, such as Obama's tax loophole du jour, the "corporate jet" - and here we find a handful of Pennsylvania Democrats trying to find a way to create a new loophole/deduction for a hated, evil biotech coporation:

US Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Reps. Pat Meehan, R-Delco, Chaka Fattah, D-Phila, and Allyson Schwartz, D-Montco, visited the University City Science Center this morning to talk up a bill they back pushing tax breaks for biotech companies.

And Casey supposedly realizes that lower taxes create jobs, which is not something the average Democratic politician admits: "Casey also justified the tax-cut bill as a jobs creator."

So, tell me again why the country needs more and higher taxes?

It Means Something

2011-07-25T23:22:00.003-04:00

It Means Something

The Divine World: I have no idea what's going on, and I haven't made a penny on it yet:

Product Details

Paperback: 308 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace (April 20, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1461046939
ISBN-13: 978-1461046936
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #195,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Hell, I'm an indie author and look at my sales rank. I have no idea if that means I've sold two copies in the last month and jumped above the other two million indie writers who've sold nothing, or if it means the book is finding an audience.

But if it is selling, I haven't gotten a royalty check, yet. Although, to be fair, they come quarterly, and I have no way of checking my Amazon sales.

The Middle of July Post

2011-07-15T08:18:00.002-04:00

The Middle of July Post

What, you lookin' for fresh content? Here? Really?

Okay, click here and read the post over at notlikepie.com. I comment on it here.

And, if you're a non-facebooker, here's what I posted at fb this morning:

For whatever reasons, Amazon has slashed the price of my latest novel to $8 and, coincidentally (or not) my book rocketed from 2.1 millionth in sales to 315,000 yesterday (it's at 484,000 as I type this), so pick yourself up a copy and drive it into the 200,000 in sales! Amazon doesn't pay royalties in less than $100 installments, so I could use the sales. {although I don't know if I even get paid at $8/copy}

I'd write more, but, seriously, why? It's not like you comment on anything.

Half-Time, 2011

2011-06-30T23:15:00.003-04:00

Half-Time, 2011

Busy.

I guess that's a good thing, right?

Been working on The Future Kitchen this summer, turning it from a former TV Den turned into a stripped-out construction zone. It's now framed and has most of the electrical work put in. Another day of that and it's Sheetrock City, or is that Drywall Town? Then it's wait for the Money Train to arrive so I can put in cabinetry and new appliances. So, it might end up being just a white box for a while, but that's better than what it was when we moved in, and infinitely better than the room we've lived with the past two years. So.

And, no, I didn't know how to do any of it before I started doing it. Learning on the job and acquiring tools as necessary. I have to say, there's a definite sense of pleasure and accomplishment at the end of the day, looking on what you've done, tool belt weighing around your waist. And I'm saving untold thousands of dollars by doing it myself (and with the one-time appearance of Pool Boy and the several guest appearances of my father-in-law, which really helped to re-boot the stalled project [like I said, I didn't know how to do ANY of it before I started, I just started doing it, figuring - insanely? - that things would metastasize {I know} and start spreading]).

Nice use of parentheses, huh?

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

This book is a highly-detailed outline of a novel. I'm waiting for the other 600 pages that would turn it into a novel. As it stands, it's an interesting bullet-point presentation of some of the more-or-less kinda-interesting moments in the Robot Apocalypse. There's a story in there somewhere, but it's not in the pages of the book you get to read if you buy it.

All of the characters are pretty much the same character, and all of the stories are - curiously - told in first person. This was annoying. There are no "characters" in the story, just names of characters who aren't actually characters, but cardboard cut-outs awaiting definition. The story is told from the viewpoints of a handful of recurring characters, but for most of them, their stories just kind of peter out and die, unfinished. And none of them come across as anybody you'd want to root for, or, worse still, care about.

The action scenes are pretty lame, too.

In a weird way, this novel is a story that is almost written by a robot, and, in a perverse sense, I wonder if the author - a PhD type in robot sciences - didn't somehow program an AI of some sort to write a "novel" of the robot apocalypse from the human point of view, and this is the story a robot would consider "the story," just the random points on the graph that connect the dots, minus all the interesting stuff getting you from dot A to dot B. We humans want the lines connecting the dots, showing character growth, but to a robot, only the dots are important.

It reads quick, though. So it's got that going for it, and it doesn't exactly suck, because it leaves so much to the imagination (like, what the hell else happened?).

May I suggest a summer thriller for you? Here, get this:

Inappropriate Guffaws

2011-06-21T16:31:00.003-04:00

Inappropriate Guffaws

Okay, so I was sitting in dentist's chair yesterday morning getting ready to have a temporary crown replaced with a permanent one while almost certain that I'm going to have to have the root canal at the end of it all. A cavity led to the removal of an old filling, a new ceramic filling which cracked the tooth when it set, and the aforementioned crowns. Minor pain sometimes when I eat, major pain rarely under same conditions.

So, the temporary crown only eased the total pain by about 80%, which my dentist found encouraging in the sense that if the permanent crown didn't do significantly better, he'd be getting another month's mortgage payment out of me for his beach home in Jersey. Nice gig.

And then the dentist did something I didn't expect: he stuck one of those metal hook dealie's into my mouth on the crown and leaned into me like Jerome Bettis crashing through the defensive line. Bounced off my tooth, cocked his head, and came at me again, his face full of an intensity I've never seen in a dentist before.

The temp crown popped off onto my tongue and he fished it out and set it aside.

I began cackling, sitting there laughing hysterically at what had just happened. Dentist looked at me for a long moment.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

I pause laughing and catch my breath, "Of all the things I thought might happen, that wasn't one of them. Never entered my mind that that's how you'd have to get that out."

I resume laughing.

Today, I was on the phone with a CSR from Oakley, the sunglasses company. I bought a pair that you couldn't get around here in stores (the Plaintiff in chrome iridium lens) and when I pulled them out of the box my brain said, "Nope, way too big." I tried them on and looked in the mirror and was like, "Dang, they're about 20% too large for my face."

Nuts. They looked cool in the pix online, what for being essentially fancy-shmancy mirrored aviators.

So, I'm on the line with the CSR to get a return merchandise authorization number, and he puts me through some initial ID verification, puts me on hold, and comes back on line with a 7 or 9 digit number.

Then, he astounds me with what he says, "Okay, sir, so what happens next is that a customer service specialist will contact you within 48 hours with details on how to prepare your package and how to use the mailing label. After that, expect a refund to your acccount within 2-3 business days after we get the product on our end."

My mouth drops just a wee bit. "What?"

"Excuse me?"

"Did you just tell me another one of you is going to contact me with instructions on how to return this to you?"

"Yes, sir," he said, then repeated the shtick.

I start laughing. This is hysterical. Never before have I been told this. THEY are going to contact ME to tell me their returns procedure, and they're going to do it later, not now that they've got me on the line already wanting to do it.

The CSR is confused because I'm laughing, and it's genuine mirthfulness, not contempt or scorn or disbelief: this is truly amusing in a Monty Python stupidity kind of way. Hell, Amazon is all automated for this kind of stuff. They are going to call me? Maybe, he said, it might come via email.

Well, now. That is truly amazing.

This is a Non-Post

2011-06-14T07:51:00.002-04:00

This is a Non-Post

I thought I'd post something today, but instead I'll just post the topics that I might have written about, had I actually gotten up the gumption to write about them:

1) My ongoing thwarted attempts to upgrade to an iPhone ahead of my "upgrade window." AT&T are real assholes about this.

2) My experience re-mortaring (re-pointing) the brick column on the side of my front porch.

3) Random thoughts on my year of self-teaching myself how to play the guitar.

4) Something about my transition from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigs, and what almost a year of non-smoking is like after two decades of smoking.

But, well, I'll spare myself the hassle of hassling you with something to read. I thought facebook might be a way to reconnect and share with the people in my life, but, well, it isn't. Or hasn't been. The only thing I've really gotten from that experience is that the people who you used to know and haven't talked to in 20 years are probably people who are supposed to remain that way, otherwise you'd have kept them in your life (for the most part, with the odd exception or two).

I've tired of the platform and have been winding it down, which may mean I'll be back here, but who knows?

Life Lived Large

2011-06-10T08:09:00.004-04:00

Life Lived Large

Wow. You want to read a story about a life lived large? You want to read this:

Robin Olds lived the life I would have liked to live when I was a kid, before I realized there would be no more aerial dogfights between rival fighter pilots. It's all missiles over-the-horizon, now. Oh, sure, it'd still be hella fun to fly a modern jet fighter, but the glory days of the business are in the history pages. Which is where we now find Robin Olds, having died a couple of years back.

His memoir has it all, and I mean that. He grew up the son of a WW1 fighter pilot and some of the biggest names of military aviation sat at his father's dinner table talking about the future. Olds would live the future they dreamed, ultimately as a P-51 ace in WW2, then as one of the pioneers of jet fighters, and the leader of the famed F-4 Wolf Pack in Vietnam, where Olds downed four MiGs.

He also married a movie star, told President Johnson off to his face (sorta), and spent time as the commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy.

The book is stupendously well written. Lots of military memoirs are filled with boring details and skip the "lifestyle" elements of the writer's life. Not this one. This one is jam-packed with only the good stuff and reads like a thriller. The pages fly by as you read about his exploits, both in and out of the cockpit. He lets you know what life was like in the military without bogging you down, and his descriptions of aerial combat are just lean enough to not confuse.

One of the best things about it his the writing style (he's aided by his daughter and a professional writer), which is so easy that it's almost as if he's sitting on a bar stool next to you with a pint, amiably telling you whatever you ask. It's just easy to read and flows effortlessly.

And the story has an ending, which is a little odd for memoirs, which often just end abruptly. The last few pages are a brief reflection on his life, with a nod to how it all began and that at the end of it all, Olds is still at a bar in heaven, drinking beer with his pals, telling the stories they've always told, and having a grand old time.

The Little Bit Off the Tip

2011-06-04T08:09:00.005-04:00

The Little Bit Off the Tip

I am, for what it's worth, generally anti-circumcision. I didn't have either of my sons cut because I can't see a single reason for the removal of a male human's foreskin. Zero. Zilch. Nada. We males are born with foreskins and I think they come with a purpose, namely the protection of the tip of the penis, which you may or may not have heard is a sensitive area of a male's body. Makes sense it comes with a protective cap.

But, as millions or billions of males throughout history could probably attest - me, too, I guess - not having had one hasn't negatively affected sexual desire or performance or enjoyment. I wouldn't know, not having had a foreskin to sheathe my rod during downtime (so, sex might be more pleasurable). So, not having a foreskin isn't a big downer.

Still, given the option, I chose not to inflict unnecessary pain on my infant sons and let them remain 100% unadulterated human males. I liken circumcision to female genital mutilation: there's not a single reason for it. None. Humans aren't born with spare body parts that are meant to be removed as part of some religious observation, and I don't care if your ancient Jewish, Muslim or Christian customs require it.

But I wouldn't go so far as to outlaw it. And I certainly wouldn't countenance this approach. I don't know what it is with the Jews that engenders such outright hatred and hostility toward them, and why it has persisted through the millennia with such potency. Clearly, the push to ban circumcision in San Francisco is anti-Semitic through-and-through, and this "cartoon" is so over-the-top in its depictions of Jewish stereotypes that it's offensive. This kind of shit makes me think this idea is a good one.

City of Brotherly Love and High Taxes

2011-06-02T08:11:00.002-04:00

City of Brotherly Love and High Taxes

I usually refer to it as Filthadelphia, but Taxadelphia is pretty apt, too. But, this is what you get when you elect Democrats - specifically - to run your government for several decades in a row. You get waste, graft, corruption and incompetence. And more taxes.

Curiously, this has led to "white flight."This is a curious way of describing the scale of said fleeing: "The number of white residents lost by the city, 263,254, is larger than the entire population of Buffalo, N.Y.," the Pew report says.

Now, I'm not going to say that since 1984, blacks have been in charge of the city for 20 years and will be in charge for the next four, and isn't it weirdly curious that that's the exact time frame of the white flight from the city (I'm not going to point that out because I have no idea what it means because I doubt there's any polling data about "white flight" and "black governance," but, you know, that is a statistic you can derive from the data...). But if you change "blacks" with "Democrats" you might get something meaningful out of why the wealthier people are leaving the city for the suburbs. Wealthy Democrats, I'd wager, if I bet on such things. That's the problem with politically-uneducated Democrat voters: they vote Democrat, don't like the long-term results of the government they get, then move somewhere else looking for lower taxes and smarter government, and vote for Democrats all-over again.

Once upon a time, I'd have liked to live in Philadelphia: it's a great-looking city with all the amenities, and I love the occasional night out on the town, now that I no longer smoke and don't have to stand outside from time-to-time. But I wouldn't want to live there because liberals - Democrats - have turned the place upside-down over the last 60 years since ousting the Republicans from government (Republicans led the city for the 100 or so years before the 1950s).

Content Warning

2011-05-26T11:24:00.001-04:00

Content Warning

Yeah, sorry, but if you want to read something I write, you'll have to buy it. Or click here for a comment I've left at Protein Wisdom.

American Gods

2011-05-16T14:17:00.003-04:00

American Gods

Just finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman. On the whole, I liked it. It was a fantasy-fable kind of story positing the notion that all gods continue to exist after they have no followers to believe in them, because they were believed into existence in the first place. On the face of it, a kinda-sorta interesting idea, but Gaiman largely pulls it off. I didn't really completely accept his premise that the "new American gods" were capable of being actual gods in any sense of being deities, because, well, they were completely silly gods willed into existence by Gaiman to serve as some sort of cultural narrative on us Yanks, I guess.

I mean: nobody but nobody actually worships television, neither as a hardware nor programming. But, I got his point, so I let it slide.

It's a longish book, too, but it reads quickly. For me, I was way more interested in what Mr. Wednesday was up to than I was in the storyline of protagonist Shadow. And, I totally hated that the main character had a made-up nickname as his name (and, no, I don't remember if the reason for the nickname was told in the story, but I don't think it was). For me, when Wednesday was on the pages, the story rollicked; when he wasn't around, I wondered why Gaiman was bothering to write the pages, mostly. I suppose he had to, he thought, to get to the weird second ending to the story, but, really, he probably could've chopped 150 pages off the story if he'd have just focused on Wednesday's and Shadow's road trip across America.

That is: he didn't need the super-duper double-trick ending he put in there, which necessitated the 150 pages of extra story. And, the extra-ending is so densely hidden - to me, anyway - that I totally didn't see it coming (although, YES, I knew Hinzelman was some sort of god 100 or more pages earlier in the story).

Lots of fun to the story, so check it out if you're up for a bit of ... I dunno, larger-than-life fantasy paranormal storytelling. Or something.

The Divine World

2011-04-27T22:32:00.002-04:00

My latest work of fiction is now available.

Book format:

Amazon Kindle version:

Smashwords e-book version (all formats - Kindle, iPad, Nook, html, Blackberry, iPhone etc...): http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/49623

If you opt for the e-book version, you get bonus material! Yeah, the original short story of the idea and the work-up television pilot script version. Watch how a writer works! Yep, you'll see how a short-story turned into a novel and be able to say to yourself, "I could so do that." The Smashwords edition is only 99 cents. So, you know, if you're reading this, really, do a friend a fave and just buy the damn thing. Then, review it on Amazon.com.

The One-in-Six-Billion Option

2011-04-20T07:39:00.002-04:00

The One-in-Six-Billion Option

Been busy. There's this, until I feel up to more of the other rigmarole:

from Patrick ma Ching hang
to William Young
date Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 5:17 AM
subject FURTHER DETAILS.
signed-by yahoo.com.hk

hide details 5:17 AM (2 hours ago)

Dear friend,
Thank you for your interest, and here is the details of the deal i have to transact with you in my bank (Tai Sang Bank) and I need you to observe utmost confidentiality in every details disclose to you in this transaction. Mr. Ismael Saleh (Contractor) has a fixed deposit investment of US$29.6 Million with my bank.

As his bank adviser assisting him in the management of the fund, which I help turned over in the purchase of securities in the capital markets. being previously given the instructions to liquidate the investment made by Mr. Ismael, after sometime to enable him pursue some other investment requiring payment in Europe. I made effort to contact Mr. Ismael in the line of duty for some final instruction, just to discover that him and the only son had been killed by gunfire between Arbil and Dabieka, Iraq on the 18 August, 2008.

The reason why i contacted you is that, I want to place you in that position to instruct my bank to release the deposit to you as the closest surviving relation. Since the original owner and the son died living no other of next of kin. If accepted and willing, you shall receive 40% of the funds, the balance 60% for me.

In order to proceed, i will need you to email me your full name, address and a private telephone number. So that my attorney can commence on the backup documents that will place you as the next of kin to Mr. Ismael. While I will use my position to influence the move of the funds to the bank account you will provide, after you have been made the next of kin. As we are going to adopt a legalized method and my attorney shall prepare all the necessary documents in your name.

There is no risk involved in this transaction for I am very confident that we will be able to establish the trust that is needed to complete this deal, all that I need is your willingness and commitment, so that we can conclude the transaction in the next 10 working days.

Please reply as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Mr. Ma Chung Hang, Patrick
General Manager
Tai Sang Bank
Central, Hong Kong.

--- 2011年4月20日星期三，William Young 寫道﹕

> 寄件人: William Young
> 主題: Re: Reply..
> 收件人: mr.chingprick@btinternet.com
> 日期: 2011年4月20日,星期三,上午2:33
> Mr. Hang,
>
> I have a deal in my pants worth
> US inches 9 7/16th. If interested, Reply with
> Mrs. Hang.
> Regards,
> Mr. Hung
>
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011
> at 11:09 AM, Mr.Ching Hang <mrchingpatrik@wowway.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Greetings;
> I have a deal in my bank worth
> USD29.6M.If interested,Reply
>
> Regards,
> Mr.Hang.
>
>
> --
>
>
>

Not the only version of this scam I've gotten this week. Once upon a time, I'd do weeks of back-and-forth with these clowns. Now, not so much.

Blog Post

2011-01-22T09:15:00.001-05:00

Blog Post

Meh.

He's Baaaaaack. Well, almost.

2011-01-07T16:20:00.003-05:00

He's Baaaaaack. Well, almost.

Well, now, look at that: it's January of the year 2011. Nice. Have to say, I wasn't much of a fan of 2010.

So, I've got 8 free minutes here to type before dinner prep calls, so what can I say? Okay:

1) Read China Mieville's The City & The City. Review: an implausible but highly readable slow-moving and nearly indecipherable detective story in the noir mode a la Chandler. Only written in urban fantasy. It's good in a "hmm, this is weird, let's see where he takes it" kind of way, is very well written, but contains no clear-cut ways for the reader to believe that the detective in question has any way of actually solving the case he's working. Plus, there's no action. And: the "setting" of the story is so totally unconvincingly unbelievable that suspending disbelief to believe the narrative is something you are constantly aware of. I mean, you know that you know.

But it's good. I wouldn't recommend it, though. I know, weird thing to say about a book. But if you want a weird story told well:

2) Nearly wept at the end of Toy Story 3. Managed to keep it to a few manly tears, which still totally astounded by boys, who, apparently, think Dad is incapable of crying. Now, nearly incapable.

3) Started fourth go-round of P90X on Monday. Gained back a portion of my gut while on recovery from the hernia surgery in October. I'd say "a portion," but it looks like the whole damn thing came back between Oct. 7 and Jan. 3. Well, then, the fight is joined...

4) Working on the winter writing project, which is a collection related short stories I'm calling Stories from the Zombie Apocalypse. It'll also feature a novella-in-four-parts with David Arris and Gregoire, the main characters from last winter's project, The Divine World. Only, this is related to that in that it's not the sequel to that, but a story much later in the history of Arris and Gregoire.

I'll be back. Peace Out.

2010: Year of Change - The Official Soundtrack

2010-12-28T22:58:00.004-05:00

2010: Year of Change - The Official Soundtrack

These are the songs that defined 2010 for me. They are the songs that went into the playlist "2010: Year of Change" when I realized - unexpectedly - that this year would be a year like no other. Unexpectedly? Yeah. I should have seen it coming, I was told, but that's a whole 'nother story.

But here is the soundtrack to a year in the life, my life, and there was only one rule, really, for a song to make it onto this list: I couldn't actively search for a song to be on the list. It had to come up, naturally - organically - on the radio or in a shuffle mix or discovered on a music site somewhere or whatever, and it had to somehow "fit" into the year.

So, if you know me, this explains why there is no The Cure or The Smiths. Ahem. Cough.

And, FWIW, the list is: song title, artist, genre, album title ... except where it's obvious one of those elements is missing. Sorry.

Red Light - David Nail - Country - I'm About to Come Alive

Lover I Don't Have To Love - Bright Eyes - Rock/Pop - Cmj New Music Vol. 104

Hope's Outpost - Rachael Sage - CMJ New Music Monthly May 2010

Breakeven (Falling to Pieces) - The Script - Rock - The Script

Un-thinkable (I'm Ready) - Alicia Keys - R&B/Soul - The Element of Freedom (Deluxe Version)

Unfaithful - Rihanna - R&B/Soul Unfaithful - Single

Beautiful Is Gone - The Ruse- Rock - Midnight In the City

If You Talk Too Much (My Head Will Explode) - People In Planes - Rock/Pop Cmj New Music Monthly Volume 138

10 Seconds - Jazmine Sullivan - R&B/Soul - Love Me Back

Submission - Paradoxxx - Electronica - New Devotion

Poker Face - Lady GaGa - Pop - The Fame

Your Love Is My Drug - Ke$ha - Pop - Animal

Rude Boy - Rihanna - Pop - Rated R

Kandi - One eskimO - Alternative - One EskimO (Deluxe Edition)

Nothing Ever Hurt Like You - James Morrison - Rock - Songs for You, Truths for Me

She Will Be Loved - Maroon 5 - Rock - Songs About Jane

A Drowning - How to Destroy Angels - Electronica - A Drowning - Single

Palace - Paper Tiger - Hip Hop/Rap - Made Like Us

Damage - Tiefschwarz feat. Tracey Thorn - Dance & DJ - Eat Books

Impossible - Shontelle - Pop - Impossible - Single

Apologize - OneRepublic - Rock - Dreaming Out Loud (Bonus Track Version)

Misery Business - Paramore - Alternative - Riot!

Misery - Maroon 5 - Pop - Hands All Over (Deluxe Version)

Beautiful Disaster - Jon McLaughlin - Pop - Indiana

Believe - The Bravery - Alternative - The Sun and the Moon Complete

Oscar Wilde - Company of Thieves - Alternative - Ordinary Riches (Bonus Track Version)

The Truth - Jason Aldean - Country - Wide Open

Just a Dream Nelly - Hip Hop/Rap - Just a Dream - Single

When I Go Away - Levon Helm - Blues - Electric Dirt

Whataya Want from Me - Adam Lambert - Pop - For Your Entertainment (Deluxe Version)

1901 - Phoenix - Alternative - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Waiting Here for You (Night Music Edit) - The Thrillseekers - Electronica - Waiting Here for You (feat. Aruna)

Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore) - B.o.B - Hip Hop/Rap - Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore) - Single

Draw Me a Map - Dierks Bentley - Country - Up On the Ridge

Cry Me a River - Justin Timberlake - Pop - Justified

Oh, The Divorces! - Tracey Thorn - CMJ New Music Monthly May 2010, #161

Need You Now - Lady Antebellum - Country - Need You Now - Single

The Man I Want to Be - Chris Young - Country - The Man I Want to Be

Dead and Gone (feat. Justin Timberlake) - T.I. - Hip Hop/Rap - Paper Trail (Deluxe Version)

Come Home - OneRepublic & Sara Bareilles - Rock - Come Home - Single

Drunk Enough - Matt Stillwell - Country - Shine Deluxe

Undisclosed Desires - Muse - Alternative - The Resistance

You're Not Alone - Olive - Electronic - Extra Virgin

The High Road - Broken Bells - Alternative - Broken Bells

Pretty Buildings - People In Planes - Alternative - Beyond the Horizon (Bonus Track Version)

How to Save a Life - The Fray - Rock - How to Save a Life

Ambling Alp - Yeasayer - Alternative -

What Goes Around.../...Comes Around Interlude Justin Timberlake - Pop - FutureSex/LoveSounds (Deluxe Edition)

Pray for You - Jaron and The Long Road to Love - Country - Pray for You - Single

Nothin' On You (feat. Bruno Mars) - B.o.B - Hip Hop/Rap Nothin' On You (feat. Bruno Mars) - Single

All the Right Moves - OneRepublic - Rock - Waking Up (Deluxe Version)

Halfway Gone - Lifehouse - Pop - Smoke & Mirrors (Deluxe Version)

Paradise Cove - Pete Yorn - Alternative - Back & Fourth

Dive In - Jennifer Knapp - Pop/Rock - Letting Go

Somewhere Down the Crazy River - Robbie Robertson - Rock - Robbie Robertson

Phony- Capitol Air - Rock/Pop - Cmj Volume 108 December 2002

Home - The Goo Goo Dolls - Rock - Home - Single

Tell Me You Get Lonely -Frankie Ballard - Country - Tell Me You Get Lonely

A Thousand Miles from Nowhere - Dwight Yoakam - Country - The Very Best of Dwight Yoakam

Everything Comes With A Price - The Ruse - Rock/Pop - Light in Motion

Dig - Incubus - Rock - Monuments and Melodies

End of Me (feat. Gavin Rossdale) -Apocalyptica - Rock - End of Me (feat. Gavin Rossdale) - Single

Save Yourself - Stabbing Westward - Rock - Darkest Days

Blurry - Puddle of Mudd - Alternative - Come Clean

Fine Again - Seether - Rock - Disclaimer II

Never - Tina Arena/The Roc Project w/ Tina Arena Other

Driving Nails - Demon Hunter - Rock - The World Is a Thorn (Deluxe Edition)

Last Man Standing - People In Planes - Alternative - Beyond the Horizon (Bonus Track Version)

Freetime - Kenna - Rock/Pop - New Sacred Cow

The Way We Get By - Spoon- Rock/Pop- Cmj New Music Vol. 104

A Little Bit Stronger - Sara Evans - Country - A Little Bit Stronger - Single

Move By Yourself - Donavon Frankenreiter - Soul - CMJ 140

Live Like We're Dying - Kris Allen - Pop - Live Like We're Dying - Single

This Ain't Nothin' - Craig Morgan - Country - That's Why

Love Dog - TV On the Radio - Alternative - Dear Science (Bonus Track Version)

Perfect Girl - JB and the Moonshine Band - Country - Ain't Goin Back to Jail

Animal - Mike Snow

You Found Me - The Fray - Rock - The Fray

The Fire - The Roots & John Legend - Hip Hop/Rap - How I Got Over

Haven't Met You Yet -Michael Bublé - Pop - Crazy Love (Deluxe Edition)

Nothing Left To Lose - Matt Kearney - Rock/Pop CMJ Volume 139

A Moment Changes Everything - David Gray - Pop - A Moment Changes Everything - Single

I Will Possess Your Heart - Death Cab for Cutie - Alternative - Narrow Stairs

Use Somebody - Kings of Leon - Alternative - Only By the Night (Deluxe Version)

Gimmie That Girl - Joe Nichols - Country - Old Things New (Bonus Track Version)

DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love (feat. Pitbull) - Usher - R&B/Soul - DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love (feat. Pitbull) - Single

Tidal Wave - Longwave - Rock/Pop - Cmj New Music Vol. 111

Teenage Dream - Katy Perry - Pop - Teenage Dream - Single

Better Than Her (feat. Akon) - Matisse - Pop Better Than Her (feat. Akon) - Single

There Goes My Baby - Usher - R&B/Soul - Raymond v Raymond (Deluxe Edition)

Amazing - One eskimO - Alternative - One eskimO

I'm not going to defend the songs on the list. They were the songs that were this year for me. And, no, they're not in the "original order" on "the official" 2010: Year of Change playlist. That list, that order, is just for me. This list, this order, is for you.

Festivus Update

2010-12-16T00:01:00.002-05:00

Festivus Update

The last of The Feats of Strength are done, ended yesterday at 12:00:00 AM, or would that be at 11:59:59 PM or in the space in-between the two, that small moment of no-time recorded only by those running a distance against a clock?

Relief? No. But, yes. Another chain broken at great expense. Been that kind of year.

Next up: The Airing of Grievances. Well, actually, that went hand-in-hand with The Feats of Strength and is pretty much done, too. Those horses are dead. I could beat on 'em a while longer, but not even the passage of time can undo them.

I know, I know, another in the stream of indecipherable posts by me. But, well, sorry. This little backwater blog is an online journal, not a blog, well, mostly not a blog, and I put on it what the universe would otherwise not record at all. And I do it in a way that will make the universe wonder why I even bothered, since only I and a handful of others will even know what the hell I'm talking about.

I'd tell you. Sure, I would, and that would be the day this online journal got a million hits. And, well, still that would mean that next-to-nobody would actually know or care.

Funny how the universe/blogosphere works, isn't it? I mean, a million unique hits on this blog on a single day would mean, ultimately, nothing, in the scheme of things. Oh, yeah, I'd be weirdly excited by it for a day, but just like the few Instalanches I've had, nobody new would come back tomorrow.

But, you know, I'd also probably not post tomorrow, either.

It's not that I don't care, ... it's that it doesn't matter.

That and it bores me.

w00t!

Perfect Girl (official video)

2010-12-02T15:52:00.001-05:00

Today's offering via YouTube, because otherwise, I got nuthin' ...

Your Morons in Harrisburg at Work

2010-11-30T16:11:00.003-05:00

Your Morons in Harrisburg at Work

Gov. "Fast" Eddie Rendell signed it into law, which means morons on both sides of the aisle thought it was a good idea, but in the end, it has nothing to do with "the environment" and everything to do with money:

Manufacturers will need to register their plans with the Department of Environmental Protection, and pay an annual five thousand dollar fee. If a company doesn’t register, they can’t sell appliances in Pennsylvania.

Crikey, we need a better class of politician. I mean, WTF, the state of Pennsylvania is forcing manufacturers of electronics goods to come up with a program to deal with/collect/"recycle" used/unwanted electronics items that would normally just get pitched out and spend X thousands of years turning into dust and gravel and then decides that in order to comply with this new law, these companies will also have to pay the state $5,000.

Seriously. Chris Ross, the Republican asshat from Chester County who sponsored this bill - a douchebag, apparently, because his rationale is the whiny "we in government are burdened with the costs of getting rid of our old equipment" - needs to find a new line of work that doesn't involve collecting and spending other people's money.

The One with the Fart Joke

2010-11-26T11:35:00.001-05:00

Written and directed by me this morning using the xtranormal web site. I've titled it "The One with the Fart Joke"

Mid-Month Update, With Micro Reviews

2010-11-23T08:43:00.003-05:00

Mid-Month Update, With Micro Reviews

(walks on stage, taps microphone)

Okay, okay, so I've been away for most of the past month. Sorry. I did post something the other day, didn't I? So ...

Been super-sick for the past six weeks, and by "super" I mean "constantly," not deathly or in some superlative sense. Sinus thing with intermittent chest explosions. Non-stop alternating between complete nasal blockage or non-stop hysterical sneezing/runny nose. Pick one. For the past six weeks, it's been one or the other at any given point in the day. Tried every sinus OTC med available, and the only one that gave any relief was the nasal squirt dealie which warns against using it too often or ADDICTION!1!!1!

I used it too often, anyway, and I'm not addicted. Anyway, this illness started the day I got my hernia surgery, which made the first few weeks of recovery none-too-enjoyable as you use your lower abs every time you sneeze or cough, and after you've sneezed twenty times in an hour you've pretty much used up all your ab pain tolerance. Now, go sneeze 200 times throughout the day. And cough some.

This means that I've also been away from the P90X regimen I'd been on since the beginning of February, and after six weeks of not working out, I'm officially out-of-tone and pre-fat all over again. Probably. The wife, too, since she can't motivate herself out of our warm comfy bed at 5 a.m. to workout all by her lonesome, she needs me to share the burden and get her into her exercise togs. This I can't do, yet.

On the other hand, and by "other" I mean "in addition to that," the damage done to my rotator cuffs (both of 'em, though the right way more than the left) from the summer home DIY rehab is going to take some time to heal. Sore doesn't describe them. Been doing at-home physical therapy for two weeks now, and the motion range is returning, slowly, but the pain is not diminishing markedly.

On the plus side, I haven't re-started smoking since quitting, and my usage of the e-cigs seems to be dwindling a bit. Oh, yes, I see the irony: I quit smoking and immediately came down with an ever-present sinus-and-chest cold. I get it. That's just how 2010 has been rolling, so if the Ironic God(s) want to keep flipping me off this way, well, have at it. I already know what model Porsche I want and am totally prepared to buy a used Hyundai instead.

Saw Ghost Town the other night. The movie sat on the TV hutch for almost two months, and I had no idea what it was about. Funniest movie I've seen in a while. Laugh-out-loud funny throughout, with some clever writing. Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni, if it matters. Thumbs up or whatever. If you're looking for a comedy...

Currently reading The City & The City, which is one of the books I came across on some Best Novels of 2010 list. It got rave reviews, is sort of SciFi-y, and I was up for something new. This book is a serious contender for Bore of the Year through page 62, and it is making a serious case for me just putting it down and getting something new to read. Oh, sure, the idea behind the book sounds intriguing, which, honestly, is the only thing that got me to slog through pages 11-62, but that's not going to be enough if something doesn't fucking happen right quick. The only thing saving this book is the fact I've nothing else at hand to read.

But I do have video games to play, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is supremely awesome to behold. Heck, I'm going to play a level right after I finish this post and before I break my morning fast.

Anyway, I've had enough of this for one day.

This Post Contains Common Scents Smelling Salt

2010-11-21T19:49:00.005-05:00

This Post Contains Common Scents Smelling Salt

Let me just put it this way: I have never, ever, for a single moment, ever considered gas mileage when purchasing an automobile or an automobile part. Never. Ever. Not once. Hell, it's never ever been something I had to actively not consider. It's irrelevant to me in the entire car owning/driving experience.

Your mileage may vary: "It was about a 1 mpg difference as far as I could tell."

Not that there's anything wrong with considering gas mileage when purchasing a car or a car part, but from my own personal experience, the incremental differences are so meaningless that you're better off worrying about the color of the car you're about to buy. You'll notice that every time you drive it. Gas mileage, not so much.

(So, yes, I have an entire opinion on the whole coal-powered car delusion currently sweeping out of the green movement and through the public zeitgeist, but, you know, if you're seriously considering buying a coal-powered car because of the gas mileage it saves, well, personally, I think you're asking the wrong questions about fuel sources and mileage.

And, yes, if you buy a car not 100% powered by gasoline (and I'm ignoring the weirdo impractical ethanol and sugar cane and biofuel and etc... variants), you're buying a car partly /entirely powered by coal.

COAL, people, not electricity.) [With apologies to the rare individual able to access hydroelecrtric, but the greens hate hydro power, so, you don't score any points there, sorry]

Yup, I Got Nuthin'

2010-10-26T08:35:00.003-04:00

Yup, I Got Nuthin'

Spent a little over six hours sanding the ceilings and walls of the Great Room yesterday, getting it ready for its paintjob in colors that have yet to be chosen. At the end of it all, the perfectionist in me - well, the "this is not quite good-enough" in me - looked at some spots and determined another round of spackling-and-sanding was required, and that's what's on tap for this morning/today. I have long since tired of this particular activity in this room, but it's the room everybody who comes to the house will see, so it needs to be done fairly well.

It also needs to be done soon, because the hot water radiators are disconnected from the walls, rendering the house's heating system impotent just days before November. Of course, it was almost 80 yesterday and another day of that set for today, so I can just open the windows and lock in some warm air in advance of the expected cold. But, still, I need a palette to paint so I can do the walls behind the radiators and reconnect them, at the very least.

It shouldn't take long, and this dithering at the keyboard will be over quickly, since there's only so much ado about nothing I can tolerate typing.

(20 minutes later)

Well, I guess that about sums everything up, then.

2010: Year of Change ... Another One Bites the Dust

2010-10-14T13:08:00.001-04:00

2010: Year of Change ... Another One Bites the Dust

So, it's been about a month - four weeks, actually - since I stopped smoking cigarettes. Smoked 'em pretty much full-time since college, when I slowly took to them over the years because all of the hot chicks smoked and I was ... convinced it was a good life habit choice for me. Although, really, I had attempted smoking over the years before then as a young kid, occasionally filching a cigarette out of one of my parents' packs and sneaking into the woods with a book of matches to try it out.

Curiously, I never inhaled. Not until college, when someone at a party pointed out to me that I didn't appear to be actually inhaling the smoke, but, rather, just puffing smoke in and out of my mouth/cheeks. Oh. Didn't realize. Sorry... corrected that problem and the rest was history.

As a smoker, I was mostly just a half-packer, going through 10-12 most days, 15-20 on "drinking events" at bars and what not. Mostly dated only girls who smoked, too, although none of the non-smokers ever complained. Married a girl that smoked, until she peed on a stick one day and realized she had a whole host of health improvement lifestyle choices to make, which included quitting. Not me. Didn't occur to me, really, to quit. Well ... sure, it did, but not really, if you know what I mean.

So I didn't. I took to smoking outside the house when the first kid was born, and this change in habit eventually reduced my habit down to 4-6 cigarettes a day, usually with coffee in the morning and cocktails at night. After a while of this - several years, really - I started to come to the decision point where quitting was inevitable and I might as well start talking myself into it. I no longer hung out with my friends who were smokers (left 'em in Pittsburgh when I moved) and didn't meet anybody new who smoked. It was no longer fashionable among the friends and family I continued to see, and I was tired of being forced outside of private bars and restaurants to stand on the sidewalk and smoke like some pariah.

That, and I was increasingly agitated by the constantly upward ratcheting of the price of a pack of smokes as politicians everywhere kept adding newer and newer taxes to them. Actually, this began to seriously piss me off a year or so ago when smokes jumped almost a buck a pack over the course of a few weeks as several new governmental levies were put on them. But I only smoked a half dozen or so a day, so I figured, eh, it's just an indulgence, I can afford it at this level.

So, this year was meant to be the year I quit. Mean to do it as part of the new P90X workout regimen and come out after the first 90 days as leaner, fitter and tobacco free.

Then my personal apocalypse began and instead of quitting, I found myself smoking almost a pack a day. This was financially unsustainable, of course, since smokes around here in Pennsylvania are almost $6 a pack.

Now, don't get me wrong: I like smoking cigarettes. There's something comforting about the habit: the inhalation/exhalation of smoke is calming, and for whatever reason, blowing the smoke out of your own mouth and nose is significantly more visually appealing than watching someone else do by the side of an office building [yes, I've made the interior journey of equating smoking with cool to equating smoking with stupidity - i.e., blowing smoke out of your body looks like a completely stupid thing to do]. Plus, there's therapy in the tapping of ashes from the tip and the sound of a Zippo wheel turning quickly to engage the flame is an aural sensation only a smoker would understand as ushering in the beginning of a five-to-seven-minute period of solace and relaxation: the pause that refreshes, as it were.

Of course, there's so much circumstantial scientific/statistical evidence that smoking cigarettes causes a variety of harms to your body over the long haul that continuing to smoke is silly after a certain point. What point, I don't know. Plus, if you're married to a non-smoking anti-smoker, you can understand being tired of the nagging to quit because of the smell. Apparently, burning tobacco smells bad to most non-smokers, and the lingering odor of cigarette smoke on clothing and breath is a serious turn-off.

And, mints and mouthwash do nothing to cover or conceal the breath taste of smoke.

So, I finally came around to the realization that now was the time to stop smoking. Good-bye, my old friends, you rascally little coffin nails, you conferrers of artistic authenticity, bad boy edginess and non-conformity. No longer would I risk the statistical increase in the actuarial tables regarding my health.

Yes, I tried the gum. Chewed through a box of it over the course of a couple of months on the initial ramping up to The Great Quit Event. The gum sucks: no flavor. Also, no chewability. And: the sensation of nicotine running down the back of your throat is not really enjoyable. That said, the gum does curb the nicotine craving, although it does not curb the desire to actually puff on a cigarette. If you can get the difference. Smoking a cigarette is not always about the nicotine delivery, sometimes it's about the getting-away-moment that smoking a cigarette can give you, allowing you to just zone out in a zen way and ponder the exhaled smoke and relish in the inhalation.

Throughout the year, though, I kept reading about electronic cigarettes, wondering how they worked and if they worked. Finally, I decided to try them out and see what happened. That was a month ago.

Not that you asked, but in case you're curious:

This is the type I've been using for the last month: Blu Electronic Cigarette. Good value for the money, from what I could research. The same size as a tobacco cigarette (lots of other brands are a little larger), comes in two colors (black and white), and has five "flavors." So far, I can only tell the menthol flavor with any certainty. Coffee is 1/100th noticeable. Vanilla is 1/100th noticeable. Cherry and "classic tobacco" taste sort of like nothing.

As for the nicotine delivery, well. I get the highest level cartridge - 16 mg - and I haven't noticed any "withdrawal" symptoms or anything from the switch. Haven't noticed anything, really. I went almost two weeks without e-cig or real cig while waiting for cartridge refills and had no desire to go back to tobacco smokes. Hell, when the cartridges did show, I had no desire to use them, either, from a physical desire, but started using them again just because I like the habit-y aspects of smoking.

When the cartridges are new/fresh, they work just fine and feel like you're smoking an actual cigarette. You get a warmish sensation in your mouth/throat, you feel the pull in your throat, and there's a vague sensation of something being inhaled. When you exhale, you get a cloud of vapor that is thick like smoke, just not as big a cloud nor anywhere near as persistent. Also, no smell/odor. Visually, from the smoker's perspective, it's pretty satisfying. Smokey-wise, it's almost as good as the real thing while the cartridge is new.

A cartridge is about equal to 5-7 cigarettes, depending on how you puff them. I used to get 10-12 puffs/cigarette. With a cartridge, I probably puff half that per "cigarette smoking event." Which is to say, puffing vapor seems to satisfy my need to "smoke" much more quickly than an actual cigarette. Although, a month into using them, I no longer have any physical desire to smoke anything, but I like the habit of puffing out "smoke" while drinking coffee or cocktails. And, for the first time in years, I can "smoke" inside while writing at the PC.

When the cartridge winds down toward the end, though, you get significantly less vapor to inhale/exhale, but if you're like me, you keep going until you get nothing to maximize the cost of "vaping." (FYI: other brands have different size cartridges equaling different amounts of cigarettes, and this review is Blu specific). So, for me, a cartridge lasts about two days worth of "smoking activity," or about 10-12 cigarettes worth of satisfaction.

And, so far, nobody in the real world has complained about it when I've been in a bar or restaurant, though I've only been in three bars and one restaurant where I've used them. No odor/smoke means most people don't passively notice anything going on, and I'm guessing that the people who accidentally notice me "smoking" have no idea what I'm doing, since it doesn't smell or produce smoke and the tip glows blue. Plus, you're not breaking any laws and you can tell any anti-cigarette busybody to eff off should they become offended by the look of the product.

Downside: well, this particular company has crappy customer service. They claim to be overwhelmed by demand, not just suck like an ordinary lame company. Maybe true. My first attempt to order the black e-cig was never filled by the company - they claimed eternal back-order status and could not even give me a day/month/year when they would have a new stock of the product. Really. So I ordered the white model and it came three days later. Weird. Re-ordering cartridges took 15 days from order to arrival. Amazon delivers next day (not this stuff, though, just for example). Also, even though you get two batteries with your order, only one of my batteries holds a full charge. The other craps out after a short while. This is a minor problem, though.

The King of Prussia mall has a version of these for sale near the food court by the Sears store. They'll let you try them out, too. Good puffing sensation, same flavor issues, similar price. They're somewhat larger than a real cigarette, though, which was kind of an issue with me.

Here's a YouTube search of some product reviews. Supposedly normal people trying the various brands, but it could be guerrilla marketing. Probably some anti-vapor Nazis in there somewhere, too, complaining about the as-yet-un-researched-and-unknown health problems with these devices. Not sure how nicotine-enhanced water vapor is dangerous, but I'm also not entirely sure how the gel substance in the cartridges turns into water vapor.

Here's a website which purports to review the various e-cig devices out there. Probably run by the companies that make them, but who knows? You can Google and Bing through the web for more information, should you desire.

For me, these things took the desire to smoke the real things right out of me and eliminated the odor from my body and breath which eliminated the not-too-frequent-but-often-enough-to-be-naggy requests that I not smoke. Now, I can sit right there on the couch and puff away and nobody can complain: no odor, no smoke, no ash.

So, do I feel different now that I've been smoke free for a month? Eh ... not really. I don't feel healthier or smell/taste more intensely. I don't breathe more easily, but, then, I've never had an issue with that (I exercise rather regularly and intensely, so...). So, if there are any health benefits I haven't noticed them, although they might all be statistical in nature: reduced cancer risk, reduced emphysema risk, & etc...

The wife hasn't had any cigarette issues to mention, now that there's no smoking during cocktail hour and no smoking in the cars, so that's a plus. At work, I can "smoke" in the office instead of heading outside. And, with winter coming, I won't have to go outside to smoke, which I expect will be good.

I am glad to be off of them, though, if only for the reasons above: reduced spousal complaining and reduced federal/state taxation. I don't miss actual cigarettes, but only because - probably - I can access the simpatico e-cigarette for the habit aspects (and, suposedly, nicotine delivery) of a cigarette.

UPDATE: Came across this YouTube video of Katherine Heigl using an e-cig on the David Letterman show, which, you'd think, would start to glam-popularize the product:

So, it's now time for the anti-smoking Nazis to begin demonizing e-cigs because, you know, of the word "cigarette" being attached to them, and the design of them, and the potential for "nicotine addiction."

Post-Op Ad Hoc Post

2010-10-11T15:53:00.003-04:00

Post-Op Ad Hoc Post

Apparently, after you get a surgical procedure like a hernia operation done, your body likes to sleep a lot. A lot. So, I've been doing a lot of that the last few days. And napping. I love napping. Haven't napped much in years, though, the result of losing the ability to nap and having the necessary set-aside time to nap.

On the face of it, Neverwhere is merely the millionth re-telling of the unwitting hero cum fish-out-of-water story, complete with all the necessary plot points and character types to make any lover of a good fantasy tale feel right at home.

And then Gaiman spins the world 17 degrees right and 149 degrees over and tells the same old story with a different name in a brand new, compelling, and super-entertaining way. Sure, we get Richard from "normal world" who unwittingly enters "abnormal world" where he will take much of the story coming to grips with the unknown-only-to-him fact that he is the "hero" of the story. And there's Door, the girl on a quest who needs his help, and the marquis (the wizard), and Hunter (the bodyguard) and a variety of bad guys, kinda bad guys, probably bad guys and just general unknown quantities.

But the simple and hugely pleasant fact that the story is not set in some medieval fantasy world nor involves the normal medieval fantasy world button pushing to move the story forward makes this story an incredible delight to read. Okay: page-turner. Gaiman re-invents London by burying it in its living history and then making the history live rather than fade away. Not gone are the times of London past, as time/space has a way of folding in on itself in this world just below the surface of our world. You still can't go home, again, but you can get a look at some of the stuff you missed out on the first time around. Sort of.

The story is a race to the finish. Gaiman doesn't - indeed, with this story, he probably can't - let you ponder on some of the weirdness of his landscape. You get fleeting glimpses of the weirdest things, and then overhear snippets of conversations about things you'll never encounter, all of which builds in a more complex world than the simple cat-and-mouse, race-for-your-life story at the center of the novel.

The story is also beautifully and elegantly written. Gaiman ignores the fiction writer's guild-required "fantasy prose construct" and writes easy, flowing sentences. His writing matches the descriptions the words convey, always smoothing the story along or butting you into a brand-new totally-unexpected scene in just the right way: you'll understand when you follow the main character and the marquis on their first up-and-over and down-and-through journey of London, which takes you from the muck of the sewers to the roofs of skyscrapers, all without blinking an eye.

Stand back from the fantasy shelf of wizards, thieves, warriors and clerics and pick up this intelligent, quirky and unique take on the genre.

-- Sorry, that was my Amazon review. I didn't feel like writing a new one, or altering that one for here, so, well, ... eh. Good book, though, and I sped right through it - for me, anyway.

I've been doing other things along the way, too, some of which may or may not make it into the annals of The PuG, depending on whether I bother to type them in. I mean, I think I've finally finished with cigarettes, having been off of them for a month, now. That's a small tale. Then, there's the fact I think I'm actually successfully teaching myself how to play the guitar - I made a major breakthrough today in both tuning the thing and playing chords (hey, just five months to figure out a couple of the basics!), but, well, eh.

So, well, that's your post for ya. Me, I gotta start prepping dinner...

The Post Wherein My Guts Are Sliced Open

2010-10-08T07:33:00.003-04:00

The Post Wherein My Guts Are Sliced Open

So, a year ago or so I noticed a lump in my abdomen near my privates, consulted the doc, and determined I had an inguinal hernia of a rather modest condition. Spent a year watching it get worse and finally went under the knife yesterday.

Ouch.

What to make of such an operation? Not much, really. Surprised one medical type after another with my "low resting heart rate" in the high 50s. Yeah, I exercise vigorously, regularly, which I guess is a surprise coming from a fellow my age. I also take no regularly-scheduled/required medication to deal with any physical conditions (no cholesterol issues, no blood pressure issues, no digestive issues, & etc...) . Nothing. Hell, I don't even take ibuprofen when it would be called for: I just deal with that kind of pain. But, hell, I'll use a nasal decongestant inhaler all spring or fall long just to deal with seasonal sinus issues. I like to breathe.

As the saying goes, "if you don't have your health, you've got nothing." Apparently, I only have my health, so I guess that's something. Or everything. Well, except for the persnickety issues of the hernia and a couple of other minor annoyances life will deal you.

Showed up at 6:30 a.m. for surgery, first in line for the day - which was a relief given that I was prohibited from eating or drinking after midnight even if my surgery was scheduled for the afternoon ("Even water?" I asked. "Yes, even water," the nurse said.). This meant I'd get lunch at home.

What's this surgery look like from the patient's perspective, you wonder? Sure. Glad to help. Put on hospital robe, lie in bed. Doc A hooks you up to an IV bag while Doc B - the intern/resident assisting your surgeon - marks your body part with ink so they don't cut off your right arm by accident (doctors, so crazy, just mixing up surgeries like they work a widget line!!!). Nurse comes along and says, "Are you ready for the Valium?"

"Yep, sure," I said.

They wheel me to the OR. Inside, I notice the ... clutter of medical supplies. Not at all like an episode of ER or House. Doc A walks up to me and says, "Here's comes the happy juice."

Next thing, I'm looking up at the mirrored bowl of an operating lamp focused on my abdomen, watching some blurry hands touching my body. I feel nothing.

"Hey, that's neat," I said.

"Look who's up already," said my surgeon. "Almost done here, just another couple of minutes. You feel anything?"

"Nope, just watching you in the mirror behind the light."

I fall back asleep. Wake up in recovery. Groggy. An hour later, the wife drives me home and I spend the day on the couch. Not too much pain while motionless. Brief, intense flashes of pain when rising from couch or returning to couch. HUGE pain when trying to get into bed later that night, even after taking a Percocet to dull it.

Not sure what the "addictive" nature to Percocet is. From my perspective, all it's doing is lessening the pain, not altering my mind. Dang. Was kinda hoping for some "high" aspects to the meds, what with all the anecdotal stories of people getting hooked on it. I mean, it's a narcotic, right? Oh, well, better off not getting addicted.

That was yesterday. Today: more ouch. Nothing on agenda, though. Going to be beautiful outside.

Does This Qualify As A Post?

2010-09-27T22:35:00.003-04:00

Does This Qualify As A Post?

Awright, awright, so I've not been posting. What have I been doing?

Well, today I finished the demolition work on the living room/dining room, a project I thought would take two or three weeks. Took eight. You ever scraped texture paint off a ceiling and all the walls? Even with a heat gun, it takes time. That, and it takes free time to do it, which I didn't have as much of as I thought I did when I started. But, well, now it's down to some final plaster repair, about 20 hours of sanding, and then painting.

And then the LR/DR will be done, except for the floor, but, well, it will look different. And I will have effected this difference. Year of Change, y'know.

Of course, I'm going to need some intensive physical therapy to repair the repetitive motion disorder I've suffered in my shoulders. Ouch. Scrape scrape scrape. Sand sand sand. Paint paint paint. Yeah, finishing the last three hours of scraping today killed my shoulders.

Also, finished reading Noisy Oulaws, Unfriendly Blobs ..., a collection of short stories put together for some noble purpose - supporting a writing/reading school/project in NYC, I believe. If it's a good cause and you like to support good causes, by the book. Read the short story by Neil Gaiman and then put the book on your shelf, content you've done some good for somebody. But, don't read the other short stories. Waste of time, even the one by Hornby, who apparently typed his story out over coffee one morning. I speed-read/skip-read the other stories, so uninteresting were they.

If you want to read some good shorts, pick up anything by Raymond Carver or My People's Waltz by Dale Ray Phillips or Poachers by Tom Franklin (I'm just looking at my bookshelf for examples).

Went out on the monthly Date Night with the wife on Saturday, and we cashed in some long dormant movie passes to go see ... a movie. Cough. Ahem. Well, the passes covered the cost of the sitter, so it was a zero-sum night out for us, and we got to go out for a while. Saw The Town, the theoretical "comeback" film for Ben Affleck, the writer/director/actor of our times from whom we are demanding insight and something into our times. Or something. Some people just won't go away.

I'm sure Ben's a nice guy to have beer with.

But his film is a bore. Oh, sure, it looks exciting, but you've seen this bank heist/caper film a billion times before, sometimes with more violence, sometimes with less, but, trust me, you've seen this movie before. Worse, while watching this movie, you can predict just about everything that's going to happen in each act to follow.

I'm guessing this is Affleck's response to Good Will Hunting, only this time, Affleck gets to play the working class maladjusted super-genius gone wrong who gets to go right by the end of the film (sort of) and get the girl (probably). Only, in Affleck's telling of the tale, there are lots of gunfights with machine guns because, you know, those happen every-freaking-fucking-day in modern-day America.

You read about one in the paper this morning, right? How a gang of thieves armed-to-the-teeth with machine guns shot their way through superior police manpower and radio communications and helicopters and made it to their hidden lair in the white ghetto?

When the credits rolled, I turned to my wife and said, if "If I was whoever Affleck's character's name was, I'd have stayed with the hot slut from the bar scene because she was a lot hotter than the other chick." My wife looked at me and said, "I think he was wearing a skirt in the final scene of the movie."

Disconnect. Your results may vary. Go see the film and give Hollywood another reason to give Affleck another chance to direct a film. Hell ... we're stuck with him.

Mid-Month Update Just Because

2010-09-14T22:45:00.002-04:00

Mid-Month Update Just Because

Erm.... hiya!

Just muddling through the days, actually, and not ignoring this blog. Just not writing to it. Yet. Oh, there's the whole Best Summer Ever recap to come, and, boy-hoydee, will that be awesome. Was the best summer ever, too.

Yeah, in spite of all the apocalyptic nightmare scenario stuff that led into it. That stuff got better and/or dealt with. Mostly.

In general, just been spending the days working on the new LR/DR complex, which I'm calling a "great room," although there won't be much "great" about it in modern-day McMansion architectural terms. Tore down walls, repaired the plaster ceiling, scraping paint, repairing plaster walls, that kind of stuff.

Working on another re-write of the current story. Going well. Had a brain storm about it, but, well, nobody to bounce it off of who's read it except the wife, who wasn't sure what to make of the idea (hint: add another stream of characters/plot to flesh out the intentional "mystery" of the story and make it a little more obvious what's going on). Not sure I'm going to do that, but I might. I've nothing else on my writing plate once this minor re-write is done, except to spam literary agents with my query/synopsis.

Six months of sending resumes out and so far, nothing. Not a peep. *(well, a peep, as in a four word email from an HR dude that he'd received my email)* I figure I've sent out about 30 resumes to writing jobs since March. And nothing? NOTHING? The economy really is bad.

Saw the first episode of the new Doctor Who and thought the new doctor didn't suck ... not entirely, anyway, so that's good. Maybe. I'll get around to ep. 2 sooner or later.

And, started Phase 3 of P90 a coupla weeks ago. You know, I'll be honest, after six months of 5 a.m. wake ups to work out, this time around it's not so ... easy. It's supposed to be a 13 week program to get you ready for summer - Beachbody is the original name of the program - and when you've done that, well, getting ready for winter is kinda whatever the word for less than motivational is. Not that I want to gain back the 15 pounds I lost.

Oh, and right, I've got a hernia surgery to deal with.

Let's leave it at that.

Details to Follow ... Whenever

2010-09-06T22:29:00.003-04:00

Details to Follow ... Whenever

The Best Summer Ever ^TM is now over. And it was the best summer, ever. I guess.

Not the best year ever, but, then, 2010 is branded as The Year of Change^TM, and, boy-howdee, things are changing. And, well, it's only September, so things can continue to change. Hah! Change. Get it? ...

I'll be back. Life is busy. Not that you care, of course, but you do, of course.

Hiya!

(You can always follow me on Facebook ... I almost never post there, either!)

The August Score Card

2010-08-24T22:54:00.005-04:00

The August Score Card

For those of you keeping score - and, hell, still clicking over to see what's what - my iPod died the other day. Five years of faithful service and then kaput. I think a kid spilled something on it. Fugnuts, as they say. But that's the way the year has been.

Spent last weekend on Long Island. First trip to the beach of the summer. Will be the only trip to a beach this year. Box checked. Still, I could use and actual vacation this year. These mini-breaks aren't cutting the mustard. You know, like maybe three whole days off from anything, instead of 47 hours from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Hell, how about three nights and four days? That's almost a vacation, what being a long weekend and all. You know, just so I can get away from it all for a while?

Yo, God, you listenin'?

Start the third iteration of P90X tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. Sheesh. You'd think you could just get in shape and stay that way for a while. This whole continuing operation is sleep depriving. But it gets me up and motivated to write, what with the blood pumping and the mind revived, so the third re-write of the current novel begins tomorrow, too. I'm thinking I need to to flesh out one of the sub-plots I intentionally left on the table as bait for the second story, but the more I think about it in a vacuum, the more I think it probably needs some semblance of a conclusion. Fortunately, I've already written the outline for it, so it won't be too difficult to crank out.

And, I've been spending an awful lot of time on repairing the ceiling in the LR/DR and there's a hella more to go, so there's that to keep me busy. It's looking good. The plaster was peeling from the lathing onto which it was laid along a corner of the wall, and after some research, I settled on a repair technique in which you drill holes through the plaster and squirt liquid nails through the holes, then brace the ceiling against the lathing and hope for a good seal. It worked! I expected it not to, but it did, and now the four-foot long crack/sag is sealed and level. Some finishing work to do to make it invisible, but, dang, I like it when a plan comes together.

I like learning all this DIY stuff. Makes the whole existence in The Sahdness more manly.

Now, I need to find a full-time job and become a worker drone. Yeah. I need to do that.

Life's challenges, they do not end.

Until they do.

But, then, that's life.

Hit the tip jar, post a comment, drop a line.

Or not.

2010-08-09T07:49:00.003-04:00

The First Fable of the Reconstruction

I'd say "urgh," or something, but no apologies are necessary for the lack of posting. Been super-califragilistically busy the last week. So, no time for this.

Tore down the wall between the living room and dining room to create a large open area, which was a project we'd identified as necessary while we were looking at the house before buying it. Took until now to do just because it got back-burnered by other projects, some of which are still unfinished and awaiting final design approval. Or money. Mostly money. The rebuilding of the LR/DR is mostly going to be sweat and paint, so that was identified as doable this summer, so I'm doing it.

Which means scraping a ton of texture paint off the ceiling. Not fun, that. Today will finish that burden, which will bring in the plaster repair portion of the project, followed by hours of sanding and fine-tuning before painting. Then, install a laminate floor to cover up the 100-year old shriveling pine plank splinter inducers and the room will be finished. At which point, you'll be invited over for dinner or drinks or something. Just don't mention the unfinished future kitchen, the semi-deconstructed "master" bath, or the second floor hallway woodwork refinishing project....

This weekend also marked my 12-year wedding anniversary. Wait for it. WHEW! Spent the weekend in Philadelphia just toodling around, like fully-functioning members of the metropolitat. No kids for 48 hours, so the world was ours. Nice. Even after a nuclear holocaust, flowers will bloom, again. Plus, you get to wear cool post-apocalypse leather fashions, carry bulky-yet-functional futuristic weaponry, and drive down lonely stretches of highway at high speeds. While shooting bad guys.

Also got my first "royalty check" for my novel, which was really just a direct deposit into the checking account. But: I've been paid for writing fiction! Nice. Sold about 21 copies so far, which is 21 copies more than before, so ... that ain't *nuthin'*.

The work on the current project remains in limbo - I've tinkered with a few words here and there while I wait on beta readers - although there was a brief two-week bit of excitement and daydreaming. Sent out a query letter at the end of June after working on it for two weeks. Yeah, two weeks on a query letter. Sent it to one literary agency - a big name brand in the lit world - just so I could say that in the first half of 2010, I'd at least tried to get an agent, despite the roughness of the work in question.

And they wrote back asking for more, saying the idea "has merit." Sent the first 50 pages to them, and they got back to me a week later with a standard "thanks, good luck, not for us" letter. But, for two weeks, I floated along in the buoyant hopes of an actual writing career being born. Or, at worst, having an agent. Hell, I'd take the success of a mid-list author who has to crank out a novel a year to put food on his supper plate at this point. I could do that, I think. The idea of cranking out the resumes full-volume for a regular day job after so long in The Sahdness does not fill me with glee, although, honestly, I wouldn't mind the work and adult interaction.

Filling out the TPS reports, on the other hand ...

But one letter to one agency and I got a bite! That's the right track, I'm guessing, especially since the agency in question is one of the bigger, more connected ones with high-visibility clients. Now, back to the research phase of finding other agencies that rep writers who produce "supernatural action-adventure" stories.

Although, to be honest, I can't find any others in the same/similar genre as mine by searching through Amazon. All I can find are alterna-world swords & dragons stuff aimed a kids and angsty metrosexual vampire tales aimed at tweener girls. My story is set in the here and now and features machine guns and magic swords. Oh, well.

End of the Month Update

2010-07-30T16:22:00.001-04:00

End of the Month Update

Little known factoid about me: my "favorite" real-life pirate (John "Calico Jack" Rackham) was executed on my birthday. I wear his Jolly Roger in ink.

My favorite book is Catch-22. The movie version is pretty good, too, but I confess I hated it on first viewing and had to force myself to re-watch it after re-reading the novel.

My favorite movie is Blade Runner. I've read the book this is based on but don't remember anything from it except it was the first book/anything in which I encountered the word "codpiece." Don't see that word much.

Other than that: super-duper double-plus busy. Fishing. Working. Household demolition projects. Rearing children. You get the picture.

Was going to try to output something more bloggy posty, but, well, that stuff'll have to wait until I get the time/gumption curves intersecting again.

Soon?

Mebbe.

The Handyman Sleeps Tonight

2010-07-22T06:40:00.003-04:00

The Handyman Sleeps Tonight

The Best Summer Ever progresses apace. Yesterday was the weekly Fishing Event^TM, a morning activity of walking to the banks of the mighty Schuylkill River and drowning worms in it. At least, the worms that Little L hasn't tortured while their mates are drowning.

Week One yielded a total catch of one rock (Harrison) and one crawfish (Owen). Week Two totally skunked us. The kids, though, had immediately grown to love the activity of fishin' w/Dad, so this was instantly not a chore, but a fun time activity, as intended, despite the lack of actual fish pulled from the river.

Yesterday, that changed. The first hour, nuthin'. A couple of stolen worms, but the nibbles were too faint for the kids to detect them, so we had no action. Then a local Old Salt came down the dock and started chattin' w/me re: fishin' w/kids, and suggested I take the bobbers off their lines and let them dangle the worms on smaller hooks closer to the dock, where there was evidence of "sunnies" at work in the river murk. This I did, changing over Harrison's rod first since Owe had - again! - tangled his line around his reel (how he does this I have no clue, but he does it frequently). So, I baited Harry's line and set him on the river's edge while I worked on Owe's reel, when moments later WHAM! "Dad, Dad, Dad! I catched a fish!" and there was Harry, reeling away and sliding a small "sunny" out of the river, a tiny fish about four inches long and full of wiggle.

All of the kids were stunned, then highly interested in taking a peek at this little creature. Harry beamed with accomplishment, and if there's one thing a parent loves to see on his own child, it's a smile of pure joy and satisfaction like the one Harry was sporting. Harry tossed the fish back in the river and went back to work at the end of the dock while I finished with Owe, who stood in the shade of a tree and waited for the lurking fish to make him a hero, too.

"Dad! I got another fish!" Harry said moments later, again reeling wildly and hauling another small green fish from the water. Everyone crowded around, and right then the wife texted me back regarding the first pic of the first fish I had just texted her, congratulating us on our victory.

Back in the river with that one, and I switched the boys' spots on the dock because I could tell Owe was now Instantly Dispirited and suspicious about the whole fishing activity, since it was clearly impossible for him to not catch a fish while his little bro caught two. I showed Owe where Harry had been dangling his line for the sunnies, and Owe followed suit, when all of the sudden, "Dad Dad Dad Dad, I caught another fish!"

And we all turned and watched as Harry reeled in another one, standing in the exact spot where Owen had been standing just minutes earlier. This totally deflated Owe's confidence, but he went back to dipping his worm in the water, hoping for a bite. And then Harry caught another, even bigger small fish within seconds of putting his hook back in the water, and everyone celebrated Harry's luck, and then Owe gave up hope of catching a fish, I looked at my watch, and it was time to walk back home.

Whiled away the rest of the day on teensy chores, as is often required of The Sahdness, before the sudden poor-functioning of the aircon unites re-entered my consciousness. It was a hot, humid day of extreme heated humidity, and the unit in the boys' room was barely creaking out air. Weird, as it's only been running 24/7 for a week or two...ahem. So, I pried off the cover and voila!, the condensor was covered in a sheet of ice. You forget this can happen. So, turned the unit off and let it thaw out. Checked two other units and discovered clogged air filters were limiting the inflow air, thus limiting the outflow of cold air. Clean, replace, problem solved.

Nearly finished with Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, the 300-year old adventure story of a man stranded on the largest desert isle ever. If I weren't so close to finishing it, and so determined to say I've actually read it, I would stop reading it. I mean, sure, the novel as a story-telling platform had to have its origins somewhere, with various and sundry writers attempting to suss out how to do it, but this, clearly, isn't a way to tell a story. Blah. Boring, over-written, filled with useless information about lots of things that have nothing to do with the plot, of which, I should mention, isn't in this story unless by "plot" you mean: Dude is stranded on desert isle, lives by doing these things in this order. Defoe spends countless pages telling you about how Crusoe builds and reinforces his perimeter wall, tames wild goats, plants a garden and learns how to make basic pottery, and then skims over vast stretches of time with lines like, "and then I lived the next five years in relative quiet."

Well, alrighty then. The infrequent build-up to the confrontation with the cannibals is, at best, underwhelming, and, at worst, infuriatingly short on suspense, detail or description. I think everyone in the world is aware of this aspect of the story, and when you get to it, it's a thinly-worded assault on a group of natives sitting at a campfire getting ready to feast on Spaniard when WHOOMP! out of the bush comes Crusoe with his 57 muskets and handy right-hand man/reformed cannibal Friday, and they discharge their weapons and kill the natives in two paragraphs or so. Twenty-one of them, to boot.

I would hate to be a high school or college student forced to read this and come up with some metaphor or allegory buried in the novel and how it's a timeless eternal tale of man vs. nature vs. man vs. man and the undying spirit of the soul. Or something. It's a dude in a tent on an island.

Also, it's written in First Person, Boring Old English Style and contains almost no dialogue, which is especially interesting since Crusoe teaches Friday how to speak English, then never relates any of their conversations as conversations. Talk about tiring. Plus, Crusoe never finds out Friday's native name,which is odd, unless my eyes were glazed over on Skim Mode when I came across that information.

Well, that's the latest update from 2010: The Year of Change.

The Things That Were

2010-07-12T09:13:00.003-04:00

The Things That Were

It is not a memory I will have to remember, the sight of my 3-year old daughter's hands breaking through the surface water of a swimming pool, a floatie bobbing nearby, the panicked shriek of my younger son filling the air. This will be my wife's memory, though, and even the fact that the incident lasted less than 30 seconds will likely do little anytime soon to erase the unwritten script of what could have been two minutes hence.

I just got the text message while at work:

Omg...bad story to tell, with THANK GOD good ending. Apparently all bad karma was for the good karma I had today at just the right time. Lauren almost drowned :( all ok now, and she's back on horse in water

What? The wife and kids went to a pool party/surprise 40th birthday party for one of her friends, and this was the first text I received from the afternoon she was away. I was at work.

Yeah, you can imagine the rest from there: the discovery of the floating body, the rush of adults into the pull to get Lauren out, the desperate attempts at CPR, the call to 911, the arrival of the ambulance, the taking of the body to the hospital ...

... and then the phone call to me.

I've been on the receiving end of that phone call once already, and I can do without another. There's no way to describe the crushing sensation of every bad emotion suddenly descending on you from Olympus, squashing you into a empty ball of grief and despair into which no mitigating goodness can penetrate. Trust me on this, as I went through the exact same emotional state in the spring, so it's fresh in my memory.

Instead, the wife was only tens of seconds behind Lauren, not minutes, and the near-drowning was averted by my wife jumping into the pool and snatching a totally confused daughter from the shallow end. Both wept afterward.

2010: The Year of Change did not get infinitely worse.

Actually, it got better.

This was the best weekend yet of the year in that it was -- near-drowning aside -- all good. The wife and I went on a date to The Beer School of Philadelphia for a class and tasting on Belgian style beers. You know a Belgian style beer when you taste/smell one, and now I know why that's why they are that way. Suddenly, my favorite style of beer is the Belgian, which, by and large, translates over to a sizable percentage of American beers, since the hallmark of the Belgian style is "ignore the beer making rules and do what you like."

I think Budweiser is right out, though.

The class was just 22 people in a classroom mock-up of a bistro restaurant in Philly, with a youngish instructor -- the cicerone -- leading us on a four-flight excursion into the basics of Belgian styles. I enjoyed it, even if there wasn't enough beer consumption. But it was about the learning more than the drinking, and the night was really about a date with the wife doing something we'd never done before, and on that count, it was a success.

Took the train in-and-out of the city, too, which was a new experience. I have decided that all trips into and out of the city anymore -- at least on activities involving drinking -- will be done via train. Depending on your time needs, it's either about as expensive as driving in and parking, or much less expensive, the only hitch being the timing of the trips. Unlike a car, the train requires you to wait for it and to be on time for it. But I pieced together a series of rides that got us in and out rather fluidly -- MUCH to the wife's surprise (she had predicted my exit route strategy would be a complete failure of n00b public transit coordination, and was somewhat chagrined to find that I didn't strand us downtown but got us to the early train on time).

The only downside to the event was the unfortunate prank the minor deities played on the wife, which was to drench her in a vicious downpour on her way to the train from work -- necessitating a shower on the home end of the trip to get ready -- and then suddenly re-drenching her on the date end of the trip with a surprise downpour as we got out of the cab at the destination (not ruining her look or anything, but not helping - her opinion - either [I thought she looked great] ).

Saturday afternoon and evening was just a hang-out-and-chill night on the front porch, spent drinking beer and kinda watching the townies and strangers come in and park on the street for the annual St. Augustine's Italian something-or-other. It's a carnival with scary rides (because of the machinery involved), bad music, predictable street festival food and a beer garden in the church parking lot. Sometimes, it's nice to do nothing but chat with your spouse about nothing.

Sunday morning I headed out for what's becoming a nice little ritual: the - ahem - Sunday morning bike ride. Just 18 this weekend down and up the Schuylkill River trail, which, really, is long enough - I'm not looking to becoming some sort of Lance Armstrong type, just a head-clearing sprint down a trail through the woods (mostly, even if "the woods" are just a thin band of trees along an abandoned rail corridor between the river and urban civilization).

Okay, I've been at this long enough, time to get the day started. Have a good one on your end.

This Post Has Been Flagged for Removal by the Site Administrator

2010-07-07T10:07:00.000-04:00

This Post Has Been Flagged for Removal by the Site Administrator

Some days, you wake up knowing you don't want to do anything. As in: nothing. Gonna be hot out, again, and already the mammal brain wants to sit in a darkened, air-conditioned room under a blanket and work through the final levels of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (awesome game, btw) while my human brain says I should find something productive to do that doesn't involve housework.

Today started out as they often do, with me pacing the house in the post-dawn darkness wondering if my wife had been killed by The Schuylkill River Strangler, a serial killer totally invented by me as the minutes ticked by and my wife did not come home from her pre-dawn run on time. Yes, I worry about this stuff. Sometimes. She headed down to the river trail for a 5-mile run just after 5 a.m., as she does sometimes, and had not returned within the time-tolerance for such a run. Time ticked by, and my lil' ol' 3-miler was ashcanned as I waited.

Went and got my cell phone so I could sit on the front porch and wait until 7 a.m., the official time at which I would report her missing to the local PD, which would probably tell me it was too early to call in a missing person's report. I wondered how long it would take for her life insurance policy to be issued, and how long the money would last. I wondered if she fought back or was taken totally unawares. I wondered who would show up at her funeral.

And then she popped in the back door of the house streaked with sweat, singing loudly to her iPod, apologizing for her lateness but she had accidentally forgotten how far she was running, and ran too far down the path, tweaked her knee, and had to walk home, a combination of situations that caused her run time to be 150% of normal.

For the purpose of padding out this post, I bring you yesterday's unfinished and un-posted post:

Lies:

1. Please pay attention to the menu choices as the options have changed.

2. Due to unusually high call activity, ...

There are others, but those are the ones I'm dealing with at the moment.

Had a more-or-less splendid weekend, with a heaping helping of "Aww, crap" mixed in to almost ruin it. Didn't quite upset the balance enough to tilt the weekend success-o-meter to the crap side, though, and Monday did wonders to push the needle into Awesome Day, saving the the whole shebang.

And, yes, Monday was an awesome day: just hung in the back yard with the family, drank a few beers, slow-cooked some ribs on the grill (to absolute perfection, w/homemade BBQ sauce) and simmered in the hot summer sun. You know your ribs are done perfect when your wife - who's a rib eater, but not a meat eater (hair splitting) - cuts her half-rack in half as "enough for dinner" and then goes back for the other half of the half-rack mid-way through the first-half of the half-rack.

On the whole, though, the last few days have been fairly empty of newness. Well, except for the fit of new that occurred on Saturday night when the wife and I headed out on a date. Went via train (new way to travel) to a new town to have dinner (new restaurant) and see a show (new band). Didn't actually see the band, though, except for the last 30 seconds of the last song, in which the lead singer said, "Thanks for coming out to see us tonight, good-night!" and the band rolled up their gear. Blame the restaurant, which in the process of serving us excellent food took a godawful amount of time to do it, thus causing us to miss the show.

So, we saw some of another show at a local joint here in town. Mission accomplished.

Been a while since the wife and I went on an actual date. A long while, really. I recommend dating your spouse on a regular basis. Otherwise, you become two people with kids and bills in common.

For those of you who might have been kinda-sorta wondering what 20-weeks of P90X will do to your average technically-middle-aged white couple, I bring you this photo from Monday, which the wife asked I not post to facebook. This is not facebook.

Not sure what the wife finds offensive about her bikini-worthy body (this summer is the first time in YEARS she's ventured out in a bikini, and, IMO, she's always had a bikini-ready bod), but she thinks she looks fat in some sort of demented perfect-body image world. I think she looks like she has the perfect body, but I'm biased.

On the other hand, I have no idea what to make of myself, although I'm way glad to be back down in the 180s (189 at last "official" weigh-in). Fortunately, there are no pictures in existence of my brief flirtation with 230.

And this is a sort of interesting link to a snippet of lecture on something being called "The Menaissance." Ahem. Take from it what you will, but more evidence that The Culture Wars are no longer one-sided "progressive" assaults on mainstream Americans. The counter-attack has begun - well, began when the Web browser was invented, you ask me, and anyone had access to a virtual printing press/(now) TV-studio. I'd like to take back Hollywood and make some decent movies, but at least we have television (which lives or dies each week by giving viewers what they want to watch, not what the producers want to say to them).

I wouldn't mind if the metrosexual died off, as I'm somewhat annoyed that an entire generation of men is being raised to feel embarrassed about their chest hair. And arm hair. And leg hair.

Plaid, however, can die off.

Well, except for Blackwatch plaid. But only I can wear it.

I suppose I should go live my life, now.

A Post About a Book and a Movie ... Enjoy!

2010-06-30T09:27:00.005-04:00

A Post About a Book and a Movie ... Enjoy!

Finished Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett the other day, the fourth installment in the Sonchai Jitpleecheep detective mysteries. Excellent story, maybe the best one yet. Burdett has such an easy style of writing, and Sonchai is such an engaging character, that even the preposterousness of the mysteries is easily overlooked. I don't read much detective fiction - well, aside from the one Raymond Chandler a few years back, none, technically - so I can't really compare it to anything. Suffice to say the stories are over-the-top in a good way, with half-way believable explanations, and the characters are vivid and unique.

Burdett gives you a good feel for what it must be like to live in Thailand, from descriptions of the wretchedness of Third World daily life to the oddity of the cuisine and culture that you get the feel at the end of a book that you've actually been there. Almost. Kinda. If anything, his descriptions of the red light district in Bangkok is actually a strike against it, despite his attempts to make it sound normal for the culture, if only because it sounds so lame and pedestrian and ... "every Westerner is doing it." If I ever get to Thailand I think I'd be more inclined to take the backpacker excursions to the jungle-encrusted temples and other historical places than spend a night knocking back beers and banging young Thai girls in Soi 8.

So, I finished that and had nothing else to read on the shelf. How about that? No book just sitting there waiting for its turn to be read, having languished for months gathering dust wondering when my fingers would caress its pages. ! ... So I turned my head to the bookshelf and saw Robinson Crusoe sitting there, a novel that's been sitting on my shelf for about a decade, having materialized there out of thin air, never purchased by me nor lent to me. One day, poof, it was sitting there between Homer's The Odyssey and Dickens' Bleak House.

You forget how ... awful ... the writing style of the original novelists of the English language was when you've gone awhile without reading the prose. Been a long time, maybe since college, since I've picked up anything more than 100 years old and plowed through it. It's not the stories that suck, it's the voluminous amount of words used to say simple things or describe events. And the repetition of these things, just to make sure the readers gets the details. Right. Modern day thriller writers can barely squeeze in adjectives in their 8th-grade-level nine word-long sentences, and 300 years ago Daniel Defoe was writing 56-word sentences with helical logical structures, multiple punctuation usages and words the publisher needed to mark with an asterisk because the meaning no longer is the same as then.

I'm thinking when I fail at being a novelist, I'll take all these in-the-domain novels from hundreds of years ago and re-write them into modern prose.

!

!!

I wonder if there's any money in that, or if current day high school teachers and college professors see something more in the words used as written by the original authors or if it's the stories they are teaching? Hmm. I honestly can't remember what it was the professors were trying to teach me when I took my Victorian Lit classes in college (I exploited the strangest of loopholes in my English degree, navigating through a series of oddball literature classes to avoid having to take the almost-always-required semester of Shakespeare [yep: I'm a rare non-Shakespeare-learned English major!!]) {Love Shakey, by the way, just didn't want to be "taught" Shakespeare after the miserable Sister Virginia experience in high school}.

And, no, I wouldn't want to re-do the fiction in the format of the ever-so-current-and-"hip" reworking that's being done in the "Let's Change Jane Austen's Fiction Into Monster Fiction" genre that's sweeping the bookshelves. Although, full disclosure, I did read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and it was quite amusing.

Watched 9 the other night. Well, most of it. Suffered from the "we'll take the plot as read and move directly to the action" school of storytelling that's been corrupting movies for the last decade or so. The movie starts and forces you to accept the premise, and as much as I was willing to suspend disbelief at the premise of animated miniature burlap sacks as sentient lifeforms, I was unwilling to believe that every creature would just go along with the idea of going on an epic quest with the brand-new guy fresh from the hinterlands. So, yeah, I quit watching about 75 percent of the way through because it was trying my patience in the logic department.

With about 40 minutes more plot development it might make for a decent movie. Looks awesome, if you're into anime, so I was really hoping for the best. But time is precious, and I'm not wasting time staring at a flickering screen if the story emitted from it is merely wasting my time. I can use the sleep, too.

And? What, that's it? That's the post for today? Lame "reviews" of stuff. Oy. More to come.

Randomly Generated Blog Post

2010-06-23T14:45:00.003-04:00

Randomly Generated Blog Post

Finished the re-write of the current novel last week, and the thing weighs in at just under 57,000 words, which is normal length for a story by me. The one I'm selling right now via Amazon is just under 40,000 words, so, yeah, that's a bit of a shortie, but it seemed to work at that length, and nobody has said anything about it so far. So, well, my "debut" fiction in the marketplace of ideas is a novella. So what about it? Where's your story?

Sorry, not to be confrontational.

The one at hand is the supernatural action-adventure I've mentioned before, which is based on a short story I later turned into a teleplay for a pilot episode to a television series that will never air. I turned that into a novel, went through that version and edited and made notes to it, then went through it again note-by-note and re-edited it. So, not really a "re-writing" so much as a nitpicking. Theoretically, two people are currently/will-be-soon reading it for actual re-write needs.

So, in a sense, I feel good about this story. It's been written and re-written several times, and expanded and expounded upon in the process, so, unlike many of my previous stories, it's gone through a writing process in which I've had to invent and re-invent the story each time. So, in that sense, it has been through a re-write phase or three. So, yeah, I'm hair-splitting on rewriting the damn thing. I have, and I haven't. Sort of.

And the thing feels like a whole, complete, fully inhabited story. At least, to me, but then it exists in my mind as well as on paper. Not to mention that I've already also written eight or nine follow-on episodes to the never-to-be-aired television series, so I know who the characters are, where they're heading, and what to expect from the set up. So, it wasn't just seat-of-the-pants typing every morning at dawn. And, yeah, I wrote at dawn with coffee, after an hour of exercising, and the writing process under such a circumstance was way better than waiting for everyone to go to bed and writing at night with the aid of Scotch. Get more done, think more clearly, enjoy life more.

So, while I wait on my ad hoc editors, I am preparing the cover letter and synopsis of the story for final rejection by agents and publishing houses. I'm taking my time on these, too, to try to get them done just right. Whatever that means. I've tried to get - what? - five different novels represented or published over the last many years and achieved nothing but a folder stuffed with rejection letters, all form letters, only having one publishing house request a full manuscript.

2010 is officially the Year of Change around here, and in that spirit I've given up giving up on getting published "officially" and will once again submit myself to the cruel vagaries of the publishing industry. Only, this time I know exactly who my target audience is. Kinda.

Other things behind-the-scenes are changing, too, and not all for the good. I think. Sometimes you have to wait a while to evaluate what it was that you just went through to see if it really was the shit it seemed to be at the time, or if it was something else entirely. Oh, don't get me wrong, much of this Year of Change stuff is borderline white-knuckle living-on-the-edge of cruel twists of fate in-your-face premium grade Your Life Sucks, Asshole! stuff, but, well, it's my life. At least I eat well.

One day, maybe, I'll be able to relate the Tale of Woe, Official Version, Redacted and Revised Limited Barstool Spoken Word Edition while knocking back a whisky or three with you. Probably not. Something tells me much of 2010 will be seared in the soul of my memory, yet have to be taken to the grave. Makes you wish you could just simply remember all the good things that you've done in your life that you now no longer remember doing. But, no, I don't think 2010 will go softly into the night of half-forgotten mis-remembered memories of a time that wasn't quite what it was.

And I make this assessment at the half-year mark, so things can clearly get worse. I expect they will. I'm an optimist in that I fully expect things will get worse.

Other than that, life's been what it always is here in The Sahdness, Only now, it's the summer kids-a-plenty version. You forget how differently a day moves without the rigors of deadlines to hit at various points of the day: much more lazy, slow and easy. Makes them more enjoyable, knowing they have a length to them that doesn't have hurdles. Just mosey on along.

Anyway, back to the grind ...

Life Is In The Details

2010-06-16T16:05:00.001-04:00

Life Is In The Details

Or is that the Devil?

Anyway, I've got no details, just a few broad brushstrokes.

For those of you keeping score at home with your crytonomicrons, yesterday was yet another day of Complete and Total Weirdness. On the heels of a weekend of same.

Did you know illegal Mexican aliens who speak almost no English can possess multiple driver's licenses and, when questioned in a "court of law," claim to be "residents" of America and therefore be accorded the entirety of due process and leniency? I didn't. And did you know you can be an - cough - illegal Mexican alien in America for five years and still not speak a lick of English and need a translator to help you process your court appearance? I didn't.

How the hell do you spend five years in a country and not become at least functionally fluent?

Whatev.

Super busy of late, so not much time to chat via the blog. Sorry. Not that I've done anything worthy of posting about, except for the stuff I don't post about but would sit on a bar stool next to you and talk about, were that an option.

Anyway, I'm making bolognese and gotta run.

This Post Comes to You Free of Charge

2010-06-08T09:17:00.004-04:00

This Post Comes to You Free of Charge

Oh, yeah, I'm procrastinating. Not sure what I'm putting off other than straight-forward housework and chores, but that'd be enough. So, why not post something?

Then again, why bother?

So, finally got around to popping Surrogates into the DVD player, after it sat around for nearly three weeks waiting for an opportunity to be watched. The fact it took so long for me to bother to jigger my schedule so as to find time to watch should be evidence of the way I feel about movies these days: why bother? Most suck. This one came close to sucking, but managed to just hover around "eh, not a complete waste of time." Totally predictable, for the most part, and stuffed with so many car and foot chases you can do something else - head to the kitchen to fix a snack, fold laundry, listen to voice mail - for long stretches of time.

It's kind of amazing that Hollywood still turns out the same metaphorical drivel when it comes to this kind of subject material - living life vicariously through an alternate medium - when there's so much science fiction in the local bookstore to adapt. I mean, shrug, if you could live your life through a multi-sensory robot and ensure you were nearly 100% harm/death free, would you?

Uh, no. Not me, not most of the time. Sure, I'd do all sorts of weird things you can't do in a meat puppet - free fall from100,000 feet into the mouth of a fiery volcano, for instance - but I don't think I'd want robome to hang out on the back porch with the robowife and pretend to throw back beers and breathe air while my real me was wired to a computer in a dark room on the second floor. I'm thinking colostomy bags might be required, and that would just ruin it for me.

Go read Steel Beach by John Varley if you want an interesting take on what it would be like to be able to more-or-less live forever and change your body over time.

Going sideways, my state government has taken to spending my tax dollars to annoy the piss out of me about how I should live my life. Well, not my life, but the efftards running the state have gone full nanny lately on the radio, and the morons behind the ads think it's wise to credit Gov. "Fast" Eddie Rendell for the effort. Maybe it is, seeing as he's through after this term, I believe.

Heard an ad on the radio the other day in which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is urging women who are new mothers to breastfeed their newborns because it is the best thing for newborns. The. State. Of. Pennsylvania. Is. Urging. Breastfeeding.

Okay, first off, we know there is absolutely ZERO evidence that breastfeeding beats formula, and we have decades of study showing this to be the case. You want to breastfeed, fine (the wife did, I have no complaints about it nor an axe to grind against it). You want to formula feed, fine. Your choice. YOUR choice. The effing state of Pennsylvania should be silent on the topic. It should not have a single bureaucrat in employment who spends a single moment considering the subject and a proper/official policy position for the state government. Indeed, all such bureaucrats should be fired post haste.

And then I heard yet another ad the other day in which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is trying to shame parents/guardians into "exercising" their children at least 60 minutes a day. WTF? The ad goes on to list various activities the state approves of as vigorous exercise and then beats listeners over the head with the necessity to do any of these activities at least 60 minutes a day.

Uh, hello, but this is not the kind of stuff a bankrupt political operation is supposed to be spending money on, much less thinking about. The morons ultimately behind all these ads are the same inept kleptocrats who have been behind the roadway widening on River Road outside Conshohocken for the past two years, a stretch of road about 100 yards long that is still not wider despite two years of widening it. I think US Navy seabeas could build fully-graded airstrips in a week for B-17s to land on, and yet the full power of several layers of government can't finish a short road widening project in a single summer.

And, yet, the voters of this state continue to hand the reins of power to the same morons every election.

Will someone please tell me when we started electing politicians to dictate how we should live our daily lives, what we should eat, what kinds of cars we should drive, how much power we use and whatever else our elected political class deigns to spend its time on these days? If I want to drive a Hummer to a fast food joint for a double-quarter-pounder with cheese before heading down the road to drink whisky and smoke unfiltered cigarettes in a privately-owned saloon, why the hell does the governing class think it ought to have a say in any of those activities?

I complain because I care.

Ahem.

Oh, and I have come to a conclusion about one thing: if I make it, I'm going to drive a Porsche. And by "drive" I mean "own," and therefore drive. Yeah, I ignored the question of what kind of car would I drive were money no option because, well, my entire life money has been the obstacle so the whole idea was rendered pointless. But, well, I've recently begun answering questions like this that I heretofore had not, and I've come to the decision that I must be a Porsche kind of guy, because I can see myself in a Porsche.

May never happen. Not sure what "make it" looks like, either. But if you see me in a Porsche (no idea what model), then you'll know I've made it.

You can hit the PayPal tip jar up there on the left to help out, though...

They Don't Just Come in Threes...

2010-06-04T09:54:00.004-04:00

They Don't Just Come in Threes...

Well, is there anyone who hasn't just or isn't currently or is just-about-to get divorced from their about-to-turn 40 or just-turned 40-year old wife?

Anybody?

So, with that in mind, I bring you this Tracey Thorn song - "Oh, The Divorces!" from her just-released album. Great song about a sad (well, not always sad) subject.

I post this just because every time I turn around, yet another friend/acquaintance is either pulling the eject handle on his (bad/miserable) marriage - or, more often - being forced out of his marriage by a suddenly unhappy wife. Strangely, none of the marriages are ending/have ended because my friend or acquaintance was banging some chick from the office/bar/conference.

Not that I'm keeping score, mind you.

Whatever and Ever, Hey Man!

2010-06-03T09:35:00.003-04:00

Whatever and Ever, Hey Man!

It's going to be hot today. I'm going to take this loop off, as it were.

Anyway, finished the first edit of the new novel I'm working on. Yep: used the new-to-me "insert|comment" feature Word has and went through the thing just making notes and minor changes. Tomorrow, the real re-writing begins. With actual notes, though, this shouldn't be the bear it often is, as I'm not trying to remember anything with my actual brain, which, if you know me, doesn't like to remember things anymore. Maybe it never did?

Unlike The Signal, which I sent "direct to video," as it were, I'm going to actually go through the snail-mail and online submission rejection process with this one. I'd like to say it's my best work to date, but, then, I almost always say that until a couple of months of form rejection letters beat the enthusiasm out of me and I realize I'm going to remain a member of the unpublished wanna-be hoi polloi writers with access to a word processor and a printer. I don't know how that makes me re-evaluate the worthiness of anything I write, but it almost always does at some point. All my "great American novels" are, now, kinda lame attempts at trying to expose some great "truth" about the world.

Not that anyone would know, as I'm the only person who's actually read them (well, except for the few friends who've read some of them and the dude at the publishing house who read one and said he liked it but it wasn't the kind of story the house published, so sorry sucka). Although, to be honest, Once In A Lifetime is a hella good tale, my opinion, and once I get around to re-editing and re-writing it (later this year?), I'm going to push it through the self-publish process and let it wither in the real world.

Although, really, I should edit and re-write The Pink Pill (currently called The Cure) since that tale is more current, but, who knows? Not me.

Other than that, life is ... ahem. Still trying to get back in the workforce of full-time professional people who happen to be endowed with an English degree and the ability to fly airplanes and helicopters, though, assuredly, the latter skills are kinda useless outside of bar convo with like-trained friends from the military.

"Discovered" Pete Yorn over the weekend, and by discovered I mean I'd known about him for a long while now but never actually heard his music, just read reviews. Turns out I had two tracks by him in my iTunes library, so I played them and was like "Wow, this guy is awesome." This is one of those tracks (I've since been buying more, so I'm converting over to official fan):

Awesome song. He's from Jersey, so I'm hoping he shows up locally so I can see a show.

I got nuthin' else. Some might say I had nothing to begin this post with...

Point of No Return on Horizon

2010-06-02T14:01:00.003-04:00

Point of No Return on Horizon

So, like, it's June, man.

...

Already!?!?

You know, if you'd just buy my book, you'd have something to read for a couple of morning's worth of constitutionals, if you know what I mean. Or, if you roll that way, something to knock you out at the end of the day while you sit in bed. Scroll down for the link, or hit the Twitter feed over there to the left.

Twitter? What the hell do I use that for again?

Random Update, Out-of-the-Blue Edition

2010-05-26T08:40:00.003-04:00

Random Update, Out-of-the-Blue Edition

Okay, okay, life has been busy. Crazy, hectic. Busy.

Have I mentioned this:

OH, right, I have. Sorry. Buy it. Read it. Review it on Amazon.

And, yes, I am going to continue to self-publish-on-demand some of the other novels I've written over the years, as soon as I get the time to get to re-editing them, now that I've finally figured out how to use the Insert|Comment tool in MSWord, which, honestly, I never knew was there and would've saved me untold hours of times in past editing sessions. So, well, live and learn. What else can Word do that I'm unaware of? May never know.

So, all of that other stuff has to wait while I continue the first edit of my newest fiction, a novel-length supernatural action-adventure tale. Yes, I'm aware some of you are aware I'm doing this. Just reminding is all.

In some regards, life is getting down to some brass tacks around here, and I have no idea what that old saw is supposed to mean. None. Some sort of finality? Resolution (nah, can't be that, none to be had here). Or, that which does not kill me only makes me stronger (reconcile this with getting a quadruple amputation). Hmm. Life plods along.

Some days, I feel like a Marine on D-Day on Iwo, clambering up the volcanic ash-sand amid a torrent of bullets, shells raining down on me, my buddies dying by the bushel, wondering what the hell I'm doing here and how the hell I get off the beach alive. Other days, I feel like a soldier in the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, aware that the Soviets have totally surrounded me and are making the ring around the city thicker every day, reducing the possibility of escape or surrender or living through the siege. Weird.

And, then, more often than you'd expect, I have a totally awesomely normal day. Eh.

As for the P90X stuff, for those of you googling around looking for success stories, let me just say that now that I've swapped out the basement cardio routines for outdoor running routines, my endurance and stamina are showing what a credit 13 weeks of P90X is on that front. I'm barely three weeks into running (this is Week 3, Take 2 of P90X; or, if you will, Week 16 of 13; or, P90X Graduate School) and I'm already going just farther than 4 miles, with the goal of trying for 5 sometime in the next two weeks. Doesn't seem a stretch, honestly.

Also, added five reps to each exercise in the Ab Ripper X routine, because I felt like I was plateauing there and needed to kick it up a notch if I'm going to see any actual six pack results. Oh, sure, you can see said 6-pack under certain conditions, but I'm not going to be flexing my guts for the rest of the summer/life, and since I'm so close to readily visible naturally-occurring abs, well, why not see if I can't just get them, even if only for a week or two before easing back into normal abs?

I know: five reps? Doesn't seem like much. But, it's something.

Parallel Lives

2010-05-18T09:38:00.005-04:00

Parallel Lives

This did not happen to me. Still, I'm going to fill out the customer satisfaction survey, anyway. They will hate "William Young" by the time I'm done with them...

Dear William Young,

Thank you for your recent stay at Aqua Bamboo & Spa. We hope you enjoyed your time with us and will make plans to visit again in the future.

We strive to maintain high standards in both facilities and service to assure you a quality resort experience. Only you can tell us if we are successful. Please take a moment to tell us how we did during your visit by completing our Guest Satisfaction Survey.

Please click here to participate in our survey

Thank you for your feedback and we truly look forward to serving you again in the future.

Albert Roque
Director of Operations
Aqua Bamboo & Spa

It's good to know there are "William Youngs" out there living spectacularly awesome lives. I hope this one had fun wherever this resort is located.

Another Reason Not to Buy Your Local Newspaper

2010-05-16T17:41:00.002-04:00

Another Reason Not to Buy Your Local Newspaper

Occasionally, I pick up a copy of the local daily newspaper. This is almost always a mistake. Sometimes, I check out the website version of the local daily newspaper. This, too, is almost always a mistake. I spent 12 years in the trenches as a newspaperman, and if there's one thing I can tell you about how your news is made, it's this: it's usually made by incompetent lazy know-nothings who can't write very well.

So, today the wife brought home a copy of the local daily newspaper, the Times Herald, and I read one story. One. One was enough. This is that story. And here's why it sucks (from the email I sent the reporter this morning):

Hello Carl!

Some comments on your Page 1 story re: Joseph Hoeffel's bid to become Pennsylvania's governor:

First off, the first five paragraphs of this story are a waste of time. They do nothing to lead in to the story, nothing to set up the story, and contain no useful information for a reader. I am unsure why you would think anybody would care that Hoeffel is "juggling his schedule" or was late to your meeting with him. Additionally, who cares how long the interview was or why? Nobody. Nobody in Montgomery County cares that he was going to fly to Pittsburgh regardless of the reason.
By CARL ROTENBERG
Times Herald Staff
NORRISTOWN — Montgomery County Commissioners’ Vice Chairman Joseph Hoeffel has balanced his duties as a commissioner with his active political run for Pennsylvania governor this year.

During the first ‘live’ Web stream of a “Politically Direct” interview with a local politico on Thursday afternoon, the former three-term U.S. Congressman described how he is juggling his schedule to accomplish both tasks.

The videotaped interview started nearly 15 minutes late because the Thursday morning commissioner’s meeting delayed Hoeffel’s arrival. The interview was limited to 30 minutes so Hoeffel could fly to Pittsburgh Thursday afternoon in time for a “get out the vote” rally.

“I’m doing both and attending all the county commissioner’s meetings, I am staying in touch with (county) staff by phone and e-mail,” said Hoeffel. “I’m fully up on the challenges of the county and also doing my political work as a candidate.”

Hoeffel said that in the last month of the gubernatorial campaign he “has mostly been a candidate.”

Here's the lede, which you buried in paragraph six and your editor hid after the jump to page A9, by which point anybody interested in the story had quit reading:

The Democrat advocated three specific tax increases for Pennsylvania: A severance tax for Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling, a change from the Pennsylvania flat-rate income tax to a graduated rate and corporate tax reform to guarantee that all corporations pay the same net corporate income tax.

Uhh, HELLO! He's advocating THREE TAX INCREASES in the middle of a severely struggling economy and you bury that deep in the story? Who edited this? Who wrote the headline? THIS is the nut of your story: Democrat Proposes Tax Increases Amid Struggling Economy.

You do nothing to explain what any of this means:

“The (Marcellus shale) money should be used to increase our environmental protection programs. We need money to monitor the drilling, to invest in the communities where the drilling is occurring,” he said. “Their roads and bridges are getting beat up. We ought to extend job training and community college services.”

I have no idea what "Marcellus shale money" is. Nor do I know how or why it should be used to increase environmental programs, or what programs it should be considered for. Monitor drilling? Of what? Invest in communities? To what end? How does "roads and bridges" getting "beat up" = "extend job training and community college services?" This is gobbledygook of the worst order, and you let a politician say nothing after proposing raising taxes in a severely down economy where the average person has no extra money to give the state.

Hoeffel said Pennsylvania should become the 35th state to adopt a graduated income tax rate.

“That could allow tax relief for lower income residents. Middle income people would pay roughly what they pay now,” he said. “Wealthier Pennsylvanians would be asked to pay more.”

Graduated income tax rate? Okay, so I know what that is, but WHY does Hoeffel think people should pay taxes at a different rate simply because of the amount of money they earn?

While the corporate income tax is at 9.9 percent, a lot of large corporations don’t pay the full corporate income tax rate because they assign income to other states or are registered in Delaware.

Under a proposed tax change, the state would collect the same amount of revenue if the corporate tax rate was dropped to 6.99 percent and every corporation paid corporate taxes, according to the Pennsylvania Revenue Department.

Did you ask Hoeffel why he is so singularly concerned with collecting taxes from anybody and everything he can?

“We need to both increase revenue and decrease spending,” he said. “The Republicans don’t want to raise taxes and the Democrats don’t want to cut spending. The only way anything is going to happen is if we have a balance and you do both in equal measures.”

Hoeffel pointed out that Montgomery County governmental spending was cut two years ago by 1 percent and last year by 3 percent. “That’s what a new governor should be able to do,” he said.

Hoeffel wants competitive awards of professional services contracts on the state level to reduce costs. “I’m sure the state is paying too much,” he said. “We should do a better job collecting the taxes that have not been collected. There is more than $1 billion in tax avoidance that ought to be straightened out.”

Belt-tightening and the competitive award of contracts would reduce overall state spending, he said.

“We cannot keep increasing the state budget above the annual level of inflation,” he said. “That is not sustainable. We certainly need economic recovery so our income, sales and corporate taxes begin to get back to their prior levels.

“Whatever it takes to have balanced budgets,” he said, “like we’ve done at the county, I would do at the state level.”

Tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. That's Hoeffel's mantra: find money for the state to spend. And you don't call him on it?

Hoeffel would continue Gov. Rendell’s $300 million increase in education spending. “I want to fully fund the school subsidy formula that is designed to raise our state share of education from 35 percent to 45 percent over a six-year period of gradual increases,” he said. “The national average is 45 percent. I would finance that with the graduated income tax. It is a high priority.”

Hoeffel is “very much opposed to private school vouchers. Public school choice is fine; public school charters are fine. Competition within the public system is a good idea.”

“One of my competitors wants to use public money for private school vouchers,” he said. “That would destroy the public schools.”

Again, you let Hoeffel get off with hot air, here. How does private competition with public schools "destroy the public schools?" Why does he think public education needs more money? And on and on and on. You challenge nothing in this piece.

Hoeffel said cutting the state budget would “be a big challenge.” He pointed to the county privatizing the assisted living facility as an example of belt-tightening.

“The governor has to call in the department heads and make them manage and cut parts of their budget,” Hoeffel said. “It’s not easy but that’s what a chief executive does.”

This last bit is a laugher, and you should be embarrassed to have included it in the story: nowhere has Hoeffel suggested cutting anything. Indeed, he has proposed tax increases throughout the entire interview, and you end it with a lame quote about budget accountability. This is pathetic. I'm confounded how you could interview this candidate, be told this stuff, and totally bury it in rehashed bureacratese as if it were unimportant for the readers of your paper to understand. This guy wants to increase taxes and spend more of their money, and you spend the top of your story whining that he was late and relating some bit about how tough it is to juggle his schedule as a candidate. Really?

Usually, these news reporters are so thin-skinned they write back. If he does, I'll update this with his response.

Oh, The Wonderful Places You Won't Go

2010-05-14T10:03:00.004-04:00

Oh, The Wonderful Places You Won't Go

Grrr.

I've been getting updates from these people for a couple of months now. Clearly, the "William Young" they know DOES NOT want to get these emails, otherwise he wouldn't have given his "dear friends" MY freaking email address. You know, some William Youngs are complete assholes.

Look at this crap:

Last Sunday, Mother's Day, Rick and I were asked to speak in our branch. The reason that is worth mention is that two weeks ago we came in just as meeting was starting because we just got out of another meeting, and sat down on the back row. After the sacrament the Branch President announced that we were the first speakers. So then they decieded we should speak again because thaat was baring our testamony. Rick talked for ten minutes. That wasn't so wonderful but I have a feeling it could happen often since there is only about forty people that attend our meeting. We are in Cataraqui pronounced Cat a rock way. It is near Kingston. They run together like Orem and Provo. We love it. In the Mission Home they call this the country but it is not what I would call the country.
We were asked to work with the Young Single Adults for the whole district. The district is about the size of half of Utah. The YSA range in age from 19 to 29, Most of them are more like over 24. Not what I call youth but here they are small spirits in big bodies. Some of them were baptized and left the church about 80% on our lists are inactive. We are suppose to seek them out like the lost sheep and maybe a few of them bring back to the fold. Not an easy task.
You know we had to find our own place to live. The Lord truely blessed us. When we arrived we met with the District President. In our meeting he was telling us he wanted us right in Cateraqui and the boundries. Suddenly he said I have an idea maybe someone I know who lost his wife in December would be will to let you rent his basement. He called him and he wasn't so sure. I suggest he let us meet him and he could think about it. The next morning we came to see John Champness. He is just a little older than Rick. He showed us around his home upstairs. He said his son was coming that weekend and he would talk it over with him.
Since we didn't know whether he would want us to live there we continued to look for other housing. We were staying with President of the Cateraqui branch and wanted to get out as soon as possible even though they we really good to us and we liked them.
We looked at several places some of them were not avalible until May and some not until June we didn't want to do that. You know how it is to rent some of the places you see you don't want to live in they are to icky. We finally had a place we thought we would live in it was a nice place but of course we had no furniture and only a few basic nessities. I didn't really think John was ready to move on and rent a part of his home. One other tidbit Johns wife was not a member I believe she may have been a bit antaginistic. John hadn't been active untill just recently.
On Sunday we saw John and his son at church they told us we could move into the basement if we wanted so monday morning we went to see the basement. Oh wow! Did the Lord ever bless us we have a wonderful aptment right looking out on Ontario Lake it is not what you would concider a basement it walks out onto a deck about 15 feet above the water. It is completely furnished. I even have a dishwasher and washer and dryer. I couldn't believe it. John just want to leave pretty much everything so he didn't have to deal with it. I cleaned out somethings in both of the closets that were his and his wifes and took them up to him because I said I would. He picked up a few things and Monday night we moved in Monday night at about 8:30 pm. I believe God blessed us so we would have a good place to meet with the YSA. We started having Family Home Evening with the YSA the following Monday.
We are doing well but we do get discouraged at times. We are not always busy and it makes us feel guilty. We spend hours on the phone and going over list of inactives and searching out any information on them and the so called actives.
How are things back home with a new bishop and all. I bet the ward is a little different with a new bishop. I'm sure Bishop Forste is a good man though. By the way we miss our ward and you couples too. You could join us here if you like President Eyre would love to have more couples.
Well I must go for now take care. Your friends, Elder and Sister Christensen

Pictures speak louder than words.

They attached a bunch of photos to the email. They're old fogeys of the uninteresting-looking variety, but if you read the above-encaptioned email, you already got that bit.

Now, click on over and buy my brand-spanking new debut novel. It's short. It's sweet. It's to the point. It's not the great American novel. Wasn't meant to be. It was just an idea that turned into a story that I think is pretty interesting. Buy it, read it, critique it. And then word-of-mouth it until some agent hears about it and signs me up.

My ueber-best-seller is currently in the rewrite process. It's a supernatural action-adventure story. It's good. I think.

How Things End

2010-05-11T09:23:00.003-04:00

How Things End

So, I'm a officially a "graduate" of the P90X workout program. Yup: 13 weeks of "extreme" physical fitness training was completed this past weekend. Sunday morning, to be exact, with the final yoga installment. Ahh, to be done.

Ripped? Sorta. Well, almost. If I flex a bit, yes. Just standing there all normal like, kinda. I did lose a ton of weight, though, and now none of my pants or shorts fit. None. Plus, I had to punch extra - tighter - holes in all my belts.

How was it, you wonder? I loved it. Well, "loved" it. Eventually, I fell in love with it.

There are 13 disks to rotate through, so you don't get bored (well, kinda not bored) because you're not doing the same routine every day. At most, you do the same routine once each week for a period of three weeks, then switch it out for a week of new routines, then back to a routine, so you're mixing things up.

The worst part about it was the time of day I did the routines: 5 a.m. Yeah, pre-dawn. The first wake-up was the hardest, and, now, I love getting up at 5 a.m. Get a workout in and then spend some time writing, then deal with the kids and shift gears into The Sahdness. Then stand by the door in The Department Store, home, rinse, repeat.

Well, it's a living.

Started the whole program over again on Monday. Sigh: you have to do something to maintain. Today I swapped out the basement aerobics routines for an actual run on the track up the hill at the local park. Cranked out 3 miles in a little under 30 minutes, which is par for the course for a slow-poke like me. That I could do 3 miles on the first try is what surprised me, though, maybe it shouldn't have, considering I did 20 miles on my bicycle the other weekend. After all, I have just spent 13 weeks in intensive exercise. I'm no longer out-of-shape, but, rather, in shape.

Just finished reading The English Major by Jim Harrison, a book I'd never heard of by an author who was unknown to me. Came to me in the mail courtesy my mother, which was just as much of a stunner as anything else, seeing as how my relationship with her and my dad has been non-existent for a long time. Don't know if she read it, or if she got it for me simply because of the title and the fact that I am/was an English major. I guess I still am; I never gave the diploma back.

Completely awesome book. It took me a while to get the hang of the loose semi-slang almost-run-on sentence breathlessness of the story telling, but once I did, the rhythm just clicked and made a certain kind of sense. The story is about a 60-year-old dude whose wife leaves him for another man, divorces him, sells his farm out from under him and the resultant "cross-country" drive the guy takes as a means to figure out his new life.

There are literally tons of little philosophical nuggets buried in the story, some phrased so well they're laugh-out-loud funny. LOL. Grr. It's a road novel for people who've lived enough life to know a thing or two about why you would go out on the road in the first place.

In a way, it's a perfectly ordinary journey for Cliff, the main character, as he drives his beat-up car across the mid-west, spending his time in motels and fishing in streams for catch-and-release trout. For part of his journey, he travels with a 40-something woman who's a bit of a flake, allowing Cliff to ruminate on the nature of sex, which is interesting. Indeed: much of the novel is concerned with the sexual relationship between man and woman, regardless of the woman in question. At 60, Cliff is nowhere close to giving up the ghost of getting a good lay. Which, reading the story, is more comforting and disconcerting than it sounds. That is: still a desirable activity while at the same time still a mind-boggling biologically-required pursuit.

While on the drive, Cliff chooses to pursue an "artistic goal" of renaming all of the states and official state birds of the nation, which I thought was a bit lame. But, then, Cliff is a bit lame, which he admits to frequently. You can pretty much understand why his wife would've finally had enough of him, her college love turned boring farmer husband. No doubt, many a marriage goes this route, which, perhaps, makes the entire story more believable.

Eh. Not up for much more of a review than that.

Now, don't forget to buy my book. I need to generate income, word-of-mouth, and street cred.

What, you don't have $14? It's not like I get much of it. Read the thing, then leave it on a table in a coffee shop if you don't like it.

How I Bleg

2010-05-08T23:04:00.003-04:00

How I Bleg

Okay, so I've descended to self-publishing. It's respectable, now, in the new media era. It's no longer vanity publishing - I'm not paying to publish it, you're paying to buy it. So, buy it. Go on, do it, make me a fully-fledged officially-sanctioned fiction writer (that is, someone who sells fiction to people):

It's called The Signal, and it's the novel I wrote last year. It's short, so ...

And it's cheap. I think. I had to deal with the Amazon pricing, so, well. Did I say it's short, for a novel? And cheap? Just buy a copy, read it, then email me here telling me how much I suck.

No, it's NOT the novel I just finished writing. That one is still in second-draft revision status, and, trust me, you'll LOVE that one. Sorry for the all caps stuff. This is just to get my name out there. Yeah: William Young. I know, I've got doppelgangers galore, so, well ... my name is already out there.

Signs of the Apocalypse, Continued

2010-04-22T09:34:00.000-04:00

Signs of the Apocalypse, Continued

So, I finally came to that moment in life where you use a fire extinguisher on a fire. That moment came Tuesday afternoon, dinner time, when I looked through the kitchen window at the BBQ grill engulfed in flames. Nuts, there go the hamburgers, I thought, as I rushed out to shut the burners off. And, yes, for a moment I wondered if the propane tank would explode, impaling me with grill shrapnel and turning me into a 3rd Degree burn victim, stuck in an oxygen tent in an ICU in downtown Philadelphia.

That would have been, like, totally awesome.

It was a grease fire, so turning the gas off did nothing. Flames poured up from the grease on the bottom of the grill, grease that had accumulated since the last cleaning in February. Yes, I do clean the grill a couple of times a year. Not often enough, apparently. I removed the burgers to a patio table and darted back to the kitchen, got the fire extinguisher, and doused the grill with white powder.

That was cool. Seriously.

So, it took eleven minutes from ignition to conflagration, a couple of seconds to kill the fire, and 2 hours to clean the damn thing yesterday morning, returning it to usable condition. I wonder if the fellows at Servpro have some sort of matrix with timetables like this on it, showing how long it will take to make it like it never even happened. That's their motto, right?

Later, I was moving junk wood from the garbage area to the curb when I felt a squish. Juicy fluid squish. I looked down at my right pointer finger and saw it firmly pressed down on a largish maroon and tan spider, the tan abdomen split open, squished flat. I quickly pulled my hand back and watched the arachnid try to move, but he was stuck by body matter to the board, so I ended his life with a stomp.

And then I looked at my finger to see if I had been bitten. For a few minutes, I felt a phantom bite, the same kind of sensation amputees sometimes get when they think their limb is still attached. But there was nothing there, no puncture, no swelling, no redness, no pain. Just a spot on my finger where a spider had been touching.

So, I waited a while, ate lunch, and wondered why in the name of Sam Hill things that can't eat me can kill me. This is the only reason I have a - ahem - healthy respect for the eight-leggers: I don't know which of them has deadly venom. Ditto with snakes, only less so. Alligators, lions, Polar bears, sharks, them I fear because I can be an authentic dinner for them, so it's kind of okay in the scheme of things. But spiders and snakes? They's gots poison thata can kill me, but theys can'ts eats me.

I dunno, it's just something that happened.

And, another thing. School safety is a complete joke in this world, at least around here, as is municipal building security. Two cases in point:

1. Had to go to the local district justice for some routine district justice, and the office was inside a brand-spankin'-new MEGA government office structure, the kind of building that says, "Yeah, you paid for this building, now shut up and wait to be served by your bureaucratic overlords." Because I didn't know, I went in through the main doors and was confronted by a geriatric deputy sheriff and a metal detector/X-ray machine. The deputy was inconveniencing everyone by having them empty their pockets into a bucket and then having them step through the metal detector while he examined the contents of their pockets on a monitor.

Right. Because county municipal buildings are high priority targets for Muslim extremists, or, for that matter, anybody. These are places nobody wants to visit, let alone explode. Most people don't really know they exist, so the likelihood some terrorist will identify one as a target is rather low.

Well, on my keyfob is one of these multi-tool dealies. You should have seen the look of CONCERN on the deputy as he pushed by keyring around the bucket with his forefinger, tapping the multi-tool as if it might electrocute him. Then he looked at me, took the tool of the fob, and said, "You'll have to leave the knife with me. Sign here."

KNIFE!!! The thing has a quarter-inch long blade. This is your fucking government at work.

But, wait, it gets worse. Once I made it to the district justice's office, I realized there were several other UNGUARDED entrances to the building, including the DJ's office, so if I had walked in any of them, I could have come into the building with an RPG launcher, a Samurai sword and a duffel bag full of Semtex.

This, my friends, is your government at work.

2. Had to pick the boys up from school yesterday for a trip to the dentist. Was buzzed into the building without so much as a "how do you do?" through a loudspeaker. Walked into the office, and, though I'm up at the school sorta every weekday, I'm not really much of a hanger-outer, so I drop the kids off and split. Which is to say, most of the adults in the building can't/don't have any idea who I am when I show up.

Still, once inside the office, all I had to do was say the names of my boys for the secretary to make the calls to the requisite rooms to root the boys out of class and into my custody. No ID required. Nothing. Just sign right there that I'm taking the boys out of class early, and all is well. I could have signed "Ebeneezeer Scrooge" in the box and nobody would've noticed, since nobody checked.

Now, sure, you'd think the boys would recognize I wasn't their dad once in the office, and wouldn't come with me, and there's probably some of that at work on behalf of the school administrative staff, but, c'mon, you lock the freakin' building from the inside to keep people out. You should at least check their IDs.

You know, not that I want to be hassled, of course, I'm just saying.

D Minus and Counting

2010-04-16T09:12:00.002-04:00

D Minus and Counting

Yesterday was the weirdest day of my life. If this blog were a bar, and we were sitting at a stool, we'd throw a few beers back and I'd tell the tale and you'd be likely astounded.

Or not, if you know me in the real world.

But, yeah, probably you'd wonder how my head hasn't exploded.

It's irony. Only thing is, I didn't realize it came in an undiluted strength. Leaves a funny aftertaste, kind of like a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Once More Into the Breach

2010-04-12T14:04:00.004-04:00

Once More Into the Breach

I'll never understand people named William Young and their strange attraction to my email address. The latest work of one of my doppelgangers:

Hi All,

Came across an event happening at the YMI that I think may benefit the East End Community.

I read Nathan McCall’s book “Makes You Wanna Holler” some years back. He’s an excellent writer with his finger on the pulse of current events and race relations.

His talk and new book may help us as we do our vision for the East End Community.

If I’m in town, I will be there.

Carmen

UNC Asheville will host a talk by noted author Nathan McCall at 7 p.m. Friday, April 23, at the YMI Cultural Center, located at 39 S. Market Street in downtown Asheville. His talk, "Race, Community and Gentrification: What Will We Do with Them?" will address the process of renovation and displacement of poorer residents accompanying the influx of affluent people into deteriorating areas and its effect on race relations. The event is free and open to the public.

McCall has worked as a reporter for the Virginian Pilot, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Post. McCall is the author of "Makes Me Wanna Holler," an autobiography, and "What's Going On," a series of essays about race relations in America. His most recent publication, "Them," is a fictional novel addressing the complex interplay of class, race and economics in urban America. McCall currently serves as a visiting lecturer in the African American Studies Department at Emory University.

The event is co-hosted by the YMI Cultural Center and UNC Asheville's Bremen Professorship, Cultural & Special Events, the Provost and Office of Academic Affairs, and the Sociology Department.

For more information, contact John Wood, UNC Asheville associate professor of sociology, at 828.251.6977.

Yeah, I was polite with this one:

Hello Carmen!

I am not the "William Young" you think I am. Can you please delete this email address from your list and inquire of the "William Young" you know why he gave you a false email address? Or, rather, why he gave you my email address instead of his.

Otherwise, have fun with your event.

William Young

Life is weird. Sometimes.

A Snapshot of a Day in a Thousand Shades of Gray

2010-04-09T09:22:00.003-04:00

A Snapshot of a Day in a Thousand Shades of Gray

So, yesterday I was at the Berkley & Jensen shopper's club - ahem, BJ's - and I was pulling into a parking space in the lot. Bright, beautiful sunny morning, and etcetera, and I realize I'm not going to put the Suburban into the slot perfect, so I throw it into reverse and slowly back up to re-align. And, since I'm me, I'm turned looking over the back seat through the rear window, watching the two fat women and their kid load their little Saturn with whatever fat sacks of shit eat. Sorry.

When one of the women suddenly yells out, "Hey, people here!"

I yell out, "I see you" and then grumble that she shouldn't start pushing her empty cart behind my car while I'm backing up, as I was backing up first, and such. But, whatever.

I get out of the truck and am instantly confronted by these women, who are super-god-bothered that "You almost ran over my son" and "You almost hit my nephew."

"Well, then, that's something I didn't do," I said.

"But you almost hit him, swearword, non-sequiter, imagined scenario," said one or the other.

"Yeah, I 'almost' did something, which means I didn't do anything, which means nothing happened, so you can stuff it," I said.

And then the 'heated' portion of the argument began, with the two fat chicks getting themselves super-pissed off that I had almost done something which I had not in fact done, that everything was fine and dandy, and nobody had been hurt and no property damaged. You know, something had ALMOST happened.

Other shoppers stopped to listen to this argument and were amused. I was almost amused, but mocking these two chicks with logic simply went over their heads, and they threatened me with various and sundry criminal acts to my car and person, none of which I took seriously and which they soon shrank from when they realized I was reciting their car's license plate number to them as the information I would give the police should anything happen to my vehicle or person.

They left. I shopped. Weird.

And, later in the day I stopped at the local metal scrap yard/automobile parts yard. You know, a couple of acres of dead cars sitting under the sun waiting for someone to come by and remove the part. Used to do this kind of thing with my grampa all the time way back when, but that was 20 years+ ago. In the office, the owner said he didn't get many people like me asking about cars and parts, so the sign was obviously either a lie or optimism. Mostly, he bought junk cars and crushed them into cubes to re-sell the metal.

Fine. But he did have a 94 Mercury Sable sedan on the lot, which was not a station wagon, but his check of the parts manifest showed the driver's side mirror was only cosmetically different than what I was looking for, and might not be noticeably so. Right. Well, since parts this way are way cheaper than parts any other way, I said, sure, let's go get it.

He pawned me off on a lackey, and the two of us walked out to the crushing prep station, where the Sable was being drained of fluids before being turned into a metal box. Whew! Just in time. Ten minutes later, I had the mirror in my hands, and walked back to the office with it.

"How much you want for it?" I asked.

"Fifty bucks."

I tilted my head. "I've got a five in my wallet, will that cover it?"

"I said fifty bucks."

"But I can get the part online for $25 brand-new and exactly what I need, why would I give you $50?"

"You can't get the part for $25 online. Right there on my computer it says the part is $102.50 new from a dealer," the owner said.

Okay. "Why would I ever buy a part from a dealer? I just looked online yesterday and found the part new for $25. You won't take $5 for it?"

The guy looks at me like I'm nuts, checks his computer screen, and said, "Well, I can cut you a deal and give it to you for $40."

Now, remember, just seconds before I walked into this guy's life, that mirror he's trying to sell me was going to be turned into tiny bits of cracked plastic and glass, worthless garbage he'd have to have his lackey sweep up and throw away. Here I'm offering him $5 for it. I'd go to $10, but he doesn't take plastic.

"No thanks, I'll buy it new online," I said and walked out, totally unable to believe this dude won't sell a worthless-to-him mirror for $5, that he'd rather turn it into dust than part with it for less than $40. I get in the car, turn it on, and the dude comes out of the office holding the part.

"Okay, since we already took it off the car, how 'bout I sell it to you for $25?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I've got $5 and I can get the part brand-new for $25. Forget it."

And I drove off, came home, and ordered the part online.

I write this post only to illustrate how my real behind-the-scenes life has been going lately. Poorly. Weirdly. Bewilderingly.

And it's only going to get worse before it starts getting better. How much worse is anybody's guess, but worse is what's on my dance card.

Like I've said: at least it's going to be interesting. Excruciatingly interesting, but interesting all the same.

Twilight

2010-03-31T22:46:00.003-04:00

Twilight

That would be The Twilight Zone, not the world of angst-ridden teenage metro-sexual blood-sucking vampires.

It's where I live, now. Weird place. It totally re-defines The Sahdness, which oddly now turns out to have a double meaning heretofore unknown to me. What? Nobody saw that one coming a mile away?

Good thing I'm a crepuscular creature.

Yo! A Post About Not-Posting Regularly

2010-03-16T09:47:00.003-04:00

Yo! A Post About Not-Posting Regularly (how original)

It's not like I haven't been here, I just haven't written anything. It's all bad news on my end, and I don't spend time writing about the bad stuff. At least, I don't yet. This whole 2010: The Year of Change stuff is going in exactly the opposite direction I'd intended.

Mostly.

But if it really gets super-duper double-plus god-awful, well, I guess I'll tell the tale and headline it something like Twenty Hate Screeds and the Hair Metal Ballad of Despair.

Although, I will put this out there. Q: Should I wear it, or wait for the apocalypse? Just asking, is all. I mean, I'd probably have already worn it if the following weren't true:

about a dozen illegal Mexican aliens moved into the house three doors up the street, and I'm not sure how wearing a fleece "serape" would fly (ie, gringo doucebag)
there are a mix of Mexican construction workers (probably illegals) working on the townhouses up the street, and I have to walk by them every day (ie., gringo douchebag)

Now, I'm not going to return, because, oddly, it is kinda cool. I can see wearing it under a variety of conditions (zombie hunting, avoiding cyborgs in post-apocalyptic future, slaying Orcs on way to Mordor, & etc), but whenever I put it on, the wife is always reminded of some Bill Murray movie where he wears a serape and a silly hat.

Although, I almost wore it for the walk up the hill to school this morning except that as I was getting ready to put it on, I realized I had camo cargo pants on, and one of the Modern Rules of Modern Style for the Modern American Man is that you don't wear camo on your top and bottom halves, especially unmatched camo patterns (even if in same colors). Generally, you wear a camo something and a solid something, and that camo something is almost always pants/shorts. Or, in one case, a super ultra moderne pair of shoes/sneakers/sandals I bought last summer.

Right. And now I'm suddenly talking fashion?

So.

There you have it, for now.

Oh, yeah, and a teensy bit about the switch from Comcast (and Vonage) to Verizon FiOS and phone service. WTF, over?

First off: non-stop telemarketers call the new non-VoIP number, and the DNC list hasn't taken effect, yet. You forget how many telemarketers can call in a day when you go with VoIP and cell service only for a while.

Second: Verizon somehow screwed up what I subscribed to, which, when I'm done typing this, I have to rectify with tedium on the phone with a CSR.

Third: On the form Verizon sends you telling you about your new service and phone #, it says this: "If you have a question or problem, please call your Business Office on 1-800-640-4155." When you call that number, a recording tells you that number is non-operable and you need to call 1-800-VERIZON. How f*cking stupid are these assclowns?

Creation v. Evolution

2010-03-10T10:02:00.003-05:00

Creationism v. Evolution

It's the ongoing battle at the scientifico-religio intersection of what I like to call "reality." Sadly, I once got into an argumentative debate with a friend and his friends after they said something about evolution and I simply noted that evolution is a theory, not a scientific law. They spent a half-hour trying to make me sound foolish and I felt sad for them and their certainty that we all evolved from something with a tail. Maybe. Maybe not.

Nobody has ever been able to prove anything evolves from anything else. It just sounds like it makes more sense than some omnipotent, omniscient "god" creating the planet X years ago and doing whatever your version of "creation" is (you know: god either started the planet 4.5 billion years ago as a super-heated coalescing ball of gas, or he created it 5,700 years ago complete with dinosaur skeletons and buried civilizations).

Here's an example.

Me? I don't have a dog in this fight. If there's a god - take your pick which - I'm pretty sure he started the universe 15 or so billion years ago and set everything in motion, with or without a purpose. If evolution is really how things work, that doesn't rule out divine creation. At the end of the day, science can't rule out religion in this intellectual battle, it can only undergird it.

Like, what? Someone's going to prove there's no god? These scientists can't prove evolution.

But this is the laughable part of this whole ongoing argument: the scientists are terribly terribly afraid to defend their proposition that evolution is how things work here on planet earth from a group of people who argue that some invisible deity who lives in another dimension created everything on a whim. The fucking scientists are afraid of this counter-argument, and they fight it like humorless thin-skinned pricks.

"I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids," said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago.

This notion that - in his worldview, I'm guessing - a make-believe phony-baloney "god" suddenly created everything in seven days is a "lie" that he fears, somewhere deep inside his psyche, he won't be able to argue against with his battalion of facts and figures reveals a weakness in his belief in his contention that everything started out as a blob of goop in a hot tidal pool. You know, because his years of scholarship and research will never measure up against ... the Bible.

What is it with modern day "scientists" that they can no longer stand scrutiny or debate?

I'll tell you what it is: they are the new self-anointed priest class, and they shall show us the One True Path to Enlightenment.

This also explains The Religion of Environmentalism and The Cult of Global Warming.

Science can return to its natural, beautiful state of analyzing the world, but I'm going to go out on a long, long and thin limb here and say that to do so, the world - specifically the West - is going to have to stop demonizing Christianity/religion and let people who need to believe in a religious "faith tradition" go back to believing in a religion that can't constantly be disproved with contrary facts and figures.

Change, Ver. 2.019a/1^k

2010-03-09T12:33:00.003-05:00

Change, Ver. 2.019a/1^k

So, a week or so ago I finally pulled the trigger on a decision I've been mulling since last summer: Comcast or FiOS? They put the FiOS lines in last summer; I've used Comcast since the early 1990s, when I first signed up for cable. I've never had a personal problem with Comcast; indeed, since signing up for high speed cable a couple of years back, my personal interactions with Comcast actually improved.

Yeah, I'd call about a cable or Internet outage, and whoever was on the other end of the line was always knowledgeable, patient, polite, courteous, efficient and quick. At times, I'd call with non-Internet service provider issues that were almost assuredly some eff-up on my end trying to install a software or hardware product, and the CSA on the other end of the phone would solve that problem, too, even the time I called knowing I was having a router issue with a Vonage product.

But Verizon finally sent me an offer I couldn't refuse. And, then, while on hold waiting for a CSR to come on the line and deal with me, I came across an online offer that was even cheaper, so I hung up and filled out the form. A couple of calls later, and a technician was at the house, underwhelming me greatly at the change that was coming. In essence, the tech put up an additional plastic box on the side of my house, right next to the one the cable people put up all those years ago, and strung a FiOS line from the box to the telephone pole, changed out the DVR and the set-top SD boxes with cable boxes, and voila, I had FiOS.

At first, I felt like I was trading a steadfast wife for a hot young thing, but so far, I haven't even had the chance to use the multi-room DVR feature that lured me to the FiOS.

On the other hand, the new FiOS package also included telephone service, which, as sorta noted above, had been delivered via Vonage for the past five years. No issue with them. Don't use a land line, but it was something the wife always felt was important to have, even if it was VoIP. Almost nobody ever called it, using our cell phones for primary contact. So, the phone never rang. If it did, it was either the mother-in-law or the school district.

Now, the damn thing won't stop ringing. Telemarketers galore. Put the number on the DNC list, bu that hasn't taken effect, yet, apparently. It's not instant. And, whoever had the number before us had creditor problems with a lot of people, so I've been fending people off who're looking for some woman whose name I don't remember. I haven't given the new number out to anyone, yet, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to doing so. Why bother?

In any case, the primary reason for the switch was that it will save us $58/month over the course of the first 24 months of the service, which is the contract length, and that's not nothing. I'll keep you posted. Oh, and there are a ton of "extra features" offered through FiOS that maybe someday I'll get around to exploring, if I ever see the need to find out how useful it is to access Facebook through my HDTV or play Tic-Tac-Toe on it.

What else? So, last night I loaded in the Xmas present from my brother, last year's graphic novel adaptation of Watchmen, a movie which, judging from the trailers, made me almost totally uninterested in seeing it, no matter what Time magazine said of the comic book when it came out in the 1980s (one of the 100 best novels of all time, or some such thing). Made it about halfway through while folding several loads of laundry.

Looks like a beautiful movie. Art direction and cinematography through the first half of the film are quite impressive. I may never finish watching Watchmen if only because it's stupid on a level 11 out of 10. Maybe, just maybe, this movie thirty years ago would've held some water or inspired some amount of I care in the story, but the thing appears to be about some fear of a global nuclear war. Right. Back in the 1980s when this whole fear of nuclear war was all that your liberal friends and media types talked about, I didn't care about the - to me, then totally phony and trumped up - fear of a sudden global nuclear war. I didn't spend a single minute worrying about whether Reagan or whichever Russian was in charge was going to suddenly start an ICBM launch.

Weirder still is that there are superheroes of, so far as I've seen through half the movie, undetermined super powers who are living in fear of the prospect of a nuclear war. That, and there's a naked blue super-duper hero with extra-weird powers who has changed his life's goal from fighting evil into searching for an alternative energy source that will be cheap and plentiful, making fossil fuels irrelevant and issuing in an era of peace where there are no more wars over the resources of the world. Or is that the other superhero who gave up his secret identity to form a multinational corporation that makes superhero action figures? I dunno.

So, I may never get around to finishing it.

And on that note, it's time to finish baking the chocolate chip cookies, clean the kitchen, and begin thinking about dinner prep. That's normal life in The Sahdness! Mmmm, choc chip cookies...

The Two Americas on Display

2010-03-05T09:57:00.007-05:00

The Two Americas on Display

Via the Instant Pundit, a couple of photos that are exemplary in their depiction of what it means to live in America in 2010. First, via Twitter:

The signs were printed by "socialistworker.org," which ought to tell you something about the genius level inhabiting the office space where these were dreamed up. How long did it take these two chicks to figure out something - anything, Bueller .... Bueller? - was wrong with the signs? I bet they didn't notice right away, although the girl on the right noticed sooner than the one on the left, given the nature of the hand-drawn "e" on each sign. And, no, these two village-idiots-in-training are not aware of the apostrophe. On that point, they are totally CLUELESS.

WHO'SE

And the left, in general, thinks a college education is the key to future success and something the society/government should be compelled to provide to the masses "free of charge." There is no quicker way to an indoctrinated idiot class than to send everyone to college.

I have no idea what these two morons are protesting, but I'm fairly certain the core of their argument is "I want more!!!" And they want you to give it to them.

And then there's this:

LOVE IT!! Good ol' American capitalism at work, in a weird, super-exploitative, instantly-adaptable-to-the-conditions sorta way.

The Pandemic That Wasn't

2010-03-01T11:25:00.003-05:00

The Pandemic That Wasn't

Remember the dreaded Swine Flu Pandemic and the resultant mad-dash by the mainstream media to de-pig the flu strain because it might possibly could maybe theoretically offend Muslims (who don't eat pork)?

Me neither. Well, until just recently, when I remembered how the mainstream media, US government and the World Health Organization all panicked Joe and Sally Sixpack into a frenzy of panhysteria. Hell, I took my daughter to the emergency room one night last fall to get her chin stitched up, and I asked the ER nurse about swine flu, and she said about 80% of their then ER visitors thought they were infected but that they'd only seen one actual bona fide case of swine flu up to that point.

Sure, you found skeptics like me out there wondering how a less lethal flu that pretty much affected certain demographics [only] should be more worrisome than normal flu, but we were ignored. And, probably, I didn't write about, either, then. My take on it then was that it was one part serious potential health problem, nine parts hype.

I did not, however, think it was a conspiracy theory to sell pharmaceuticals or some curious psychological operation launched by the US government to distract America from something else.

This is just yet another in an endless list of cautionary tales that should make you wonder why you should believe government experts on things that defy common sense (cf. "global warming"). The government has a vested interest in making the common person think the government is expert in the various activities it undertakes, but, as is all too common, the government is filled with common people who aren't truly experts in anything.

Even when it's the experts talking.

So, really, keep your wits when the government or media is trying to stampede you in a direction.

And, another word of caution: if the mainstream media is running hard with a story, take with a grain of salt, assess reality, and go on with your regular life. I mean, I paid absolutely zero attention to the Chile earthquate/WORLDWIDE TSUNAMI HYSTERIA!!!11!! Zero. Zilch. Didn't read a story, blog post or watch a television news segment. Not one.

The $100 Hamburger Meme

2010-02-27T10:07:00.004-05:00

The $100 Hamburger Meme

This is getting a bit of traction on the Internet the last day or so:

Environmental activists have blasted Harrison Ford for making "unnecessary" trips by air, following revelations he once made a jet journey to buy a cheeseburger.

The "Indiana Jones" star began flying when he was 52. After receiving his license, he went on to purchase several aircraft, which he keeps at Santa Monica Airport in California.

He recently revealed in an interview the extent of his love for piloting, telling Britain's Live magazine, "Learning to fly was a work of art. I'm so passionate about flying I often fly up the coast for a cheeseburger. Flying is like good music; it elevates the spirit and it's an exhilarating freedom."

This is almost assuredly much-ado-about-nothing. In the world of pilots - of which I am one - the so-called "one-hundred dollar hamburger" (or whatever) is nothing more than an in-joke among pilots as a shorthand way of off-handedly excusing yourself for having such an expensive hobby. Although Harrison Ford might actually be flying to some exotic cheeseburger locale, it's way-more likely that Ford is just saying what all pilots say when explaining their hobby, which is that it's just an expensive way to get lunch.

Yeah. You see, you fly somewhere, land, and while the gas truck is refueling your airplane, you eat lunch. This "lunch" costs you an arm and a leg, not just the $5.95 for the burger and fries, but also the $3/gallon for the avgas, which'll run you whatever it costs to fill the tank up so you can fly back home.

So, as a pilot, you shrug and say you went out for a hundred-dollar hamburger. Or whatever. You know: expensive hobby, sheesh, I know, I know, wink wink.

This doesn't make Ford any less of a douche for waxing his chest "for the rain forest" a while back, nor does it excuse his earring, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's an environmental hypocrite.

The Future Is Not Now

2010-02-27T08:44:00.003-05:00

The Future Is Not Now

There is no amount of crushing despair that cannot be endured, no length of dark tunnel that does not have a light at the end of it, no hole so deep that it cannot be climbed from.

Death comes to us all in its own time, there is no need to hasten its arrival. You will be missed.

That burden of shame, failure, or self-loathing is weightless once you put it down on the side of the road; it never had mass, anyway.

More.

Where I've Been

2010-02-24T12:26:00.001-05:00

Where I've Been

It's not comprehensive, just mostly. So, I've been some places; plenty more to go. Hell, most of the planet is still on the "To Do" list. Hit the PayPal tipjar and help out...

2010-02-22T14:49:00.002-05:00

It's an Open Journal Style, Not "Diary"

Uhh ... yeah. Stuff's going on, but mostly the sort of stuff that isn't much worth reporting, except for the stuff that is, but can't be reported on, if you get my drift. These "open diary" blog formats can be a bit tricky, I guess.

Suffice it to say that this morning I went to the post office with two boxes and asked the clerk behind the counter to mail them. Wink, wink.

To the North Pole, care of Santa.

Yes, it's only February, but my boys wanted to get their Santa wish-lists in early, just to be sure, so they wrote 'em up and put 'em in discarded Amazon.com boxes, addressed them, and asked me to take them to the post office. Awww.

Too cute. I know.

So, this I did, letting the clerk know sotto voce he could just throw the boxes out once I left the counter. All that was important was for Harry to see me hand him the boxes.

Otherwise, I'm just trying to figure out the - I think - final boss battle in MGS4, which is against Psycho Mantis, I believe. Haven't a clue, yet, but tire of the level.

And, well, I'm on my 3rd DVR in eight years, the previous one having died ignominiously on me last week, taking with it about 35 hours of television. Nuts to that. Guess I'll catch some shows on disk this summer, or stream them through Netflix, if possible, or whatever. Although, I think I'm going to switch to Verizon FiOS since it's about half-as-much for the same thing as cable. Plus, you get the DVR where you can watch on any television, not just the one in the room.

But I'm here, and I'm down for the struggle, so there's that.

Oh: absinthe tastes exactly like Pernod, only it packs about three times the wallop. Oof. You've been warned, should wish to try it. Pernod works for me, just fine. And, stay away altogether from Chartreuse: no redeeming quality to it whatsoever. Blech.

The Thing I Didn't Do

2010-02-19T11:55:00.003-05:00

The Thing I Didn't Do

Another variant of me, at work in the past, only now just catching up with me:

memberservices@clubquarters.com show details Feb 16 (2 days ago)
To: WILLIAM YOUNG

From: Club Quarters Member Services
Tel: +1 (212) 575-0006 (US) or +44 (020) 7451 5800 (UK)

This is to confirm a reservation at:

Club Quarters, Rockefeller Center in New York
25 West 51st Street
Opposite Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10019

Telephone 212-262-3200

Arrival: August 21, 2009

Departure: August 25, 2009

Average Rate: $224.00
Single or Double Occupancy
Taxes are not included

Room Type: Standard Room

Confirmation Number: 10B9ZP

There is a multiple occupancy surcharge of $20.00 per person
per night for guests over 12 years of age.

Cancellations made after 3:00PM local hotel on the day prior to
arrival will incur a full night's charge.

Thank you for choosing Club Quarters. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Your Club Quarters Member Service Team

Sigh. Now, first, I think this is the reservation I dealt with last summer much to the incredulity of the reservation's center employee who had to jump through hoops to ensure me I wasn't being charged for this idiot-douche's use of my email address.

So, well, yeah, this "confirmation" email shows up today and I call the number in it and say WTF, cancel it. They say, "It was canceled last August, so there's no reservation." I look at date in email, slap forehead, wonder "WTF, over."

Then I signed up for one of those identity protection services. F this sh!t, a$$holes the world over keep using my email as their fake email, so what's next? I'll let you know how that goes, if there's any going to let anyone know about.

Peace Out, War In.

(And, "Hello, Delta Messenger folks! What the heck do you keep stopping by hoping to find?")

It's the Spare Kind

2010-02-18T09:32:00.003-05:00

It's the Spare Kind

Yes, I told you there was going to be change in 2010. Change you can believe in. And there is. More on that, later, after the change has effected change, and, well, I'm changed. Got that?

Oh, so here's a taste: I finally put my Meetup.com account to use. You got one of those? Just an online sign-up sheet that allows you to access a gazillion portals into local area (or not, natch) groups that meet on a whenever basis to do whatever. I registered back in 2006, toodled around on the site looking for something I might want to do, came up with bupkis, and promptly forgot about it. Until recently, when I figured, hell, why not? Typed in my zip code, entered the search parameters, and came up with results. That was Tuesday.

Last night I went to my first-ever meetup local meeting ... up? Surprise: it's a writer's group. It was either pure, random coincidence that the local, newly-formed writer's group was having its 2nd meeting ever within 24 hours of me joining it, or it is Odin's (or, maybe Loki's, but probably not Yaweh's) way of f*cking with me. Yeah, it has to be something sinister, else wise the meeting would've been scheduled for weeks away.

So, yeah, I went. It was held in the back corner of a chain pizza restaurant, but it being mid-week in The Great Recession, the place was half-way empty *(or full). Still a little loud. There were about a dozen people there when I showed up (on time), and they ran the gamut from "disheveled, unshaven writer guy" to "theoretically-artistic extrovert middle-aged lady" to me (sahd blogger aspiring to be a writer!, dude), and everything inbetween. Oh, you wanna talk shades of my first-ever undergrad fiction writing class, you got it. Every character type was there (NTTAWWT). Every, including the super-annoying elder-statesman "WRITER MAN" sage who knows all about writing, publishing and leading a group of unpublished wanna-be writers.

I hate those guys, and there's (at least) one in every crowd. You know, the guy who sits there and thinks he's being clever/witty/funny by being "technical" about English Writing. Seriously, the dude thought he was making a "joke" about the grammar term "appositive." I wanted to scream as he half-giggled to himself about where to put the comma. Motherhumper. Of course, the dude next to me had to ask, just motherhumping had to ask, what the heck and appositive was instead of just keeping his mouth shut and nodding grimly at the lameness of the freain' anti-joke. Yeah, there's one of those in every crowd, too. Usually, more.

Other than that, it was two hours of sitting there reading snippets of novels, shorts, plays and poetry and offering thumbnail criticism on each. As you'd expect, the material ran from the almost-irredeemably-bad to the eh-not-that-bad-could-use-another-run-through. Everyone was nice, even in the delivery of literary criticism that might make an author wince a bit. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next months, though I have low expectations (as always, I know, sigh...). I've never been a member of one of these groups before because I always figured they'd be open-nerve reconstructions of undergrad fiction classes, where there were always a certain number (read: almost everyone) of people in the class who regarded criticism as personal attacks or, as often, deliberate put-downs of the material for the sake of reducing the writer to (internal) tears.

Yes, 99% of criticism seems to/does involve pointing out the problems of something, but that doesn't mean that you're labeling something as worthless, bad, embarrassing or whatever merely because you're pointing out faults and weaknesses. Most people don't get that, though. Maybe I'm a rare bird, but criticism≠negative. It can, sure, but it's not an automatic.

Eh. Then everything broke up and I went home. Now, I'm frittering away the morning prattling on about nothing. So. Well. And, no, I really don't have anything I must get to, but there is housework. Always, there is housework. And child rearing.

Such is life in The Sahdness.

Anyway.

And, yes, this is change. I made me do it. It's not the kind of thing I would normally do, but it's the kind of thing I need to do normally. Find your way into the Archives and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Heh, Indeed

2010-02-13T09:39:00.002-05:00

Heh, Indeed

Sometimes, you find the most perfect truisms in the most throw-away blog posts. Courtesy Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit:

TOOL TIME: Got the Black & Decker Ready Wrench. Looks pretty handy, though I wonder how it would hold up under hard use. But it’s more aimed at being something you’d keep in your car or in a small toolbox, I think, and it should be good for that.

I have a lot of tools that I just keep in the car or a small toolbox...

As the World Turns

2010-02-12T16:26:00.004-05:00

As the World Turns

This is interesting: the world's largest democracy is suddenly finding itself beset with gun rights advocates. Of course, you should be packing in India, a land where the terrorists roam free and attack frequently.

I love this:

"An armed society is a polite society," said Rahoul Rai, a member of the campaign.

Sometimes, I get the distinct feeling that world is, finally, moving away from the hate-infested totalitarian ideologies of the early and mid 20th century (liberalism, progressivism, fascism, communism, socialism, environmentalism, and a bunch of other isms) the more the world connects together via the Internet, satellites, and other communications devices. The best of the world's best cultures are, slowly, melting into some of the world's worst cultures, sowing the seeds of freedom.

No culture is safe from the "corrupting" influences of liberty, choice and safety (from government). As for the cuisines, that stuff just naturally sorts itself.

Unfortunately, there's no short supply of wanna be totalitarians (soft or hard) who think - despite all the evidence - that they know how to organize civilization better than the citizens in the civilization. Maybe in the past, before anyone could know anything with a few clicks, but the game has changed.

This Post Contains a Deja Vu, Just Click the Link When You Get There

2010-02-11T08:07:00.002-05:00

This Post Contains a Deja Vu, Just Click the Link When You Get There

Somebody is going to die shoveling their driveway or curb-side-parked car today. Guaranteed. Heart attack and all. You'll read about it tomorrow if you don't catch it on the local news tonight, if you still watch the local news. Or read the local paper. I don't do either with anything akin to regularity, partly because you know "reporters" that made it through the snow and into the news rooms today are waiting - consciously or not - for the tragic occurrence of some dude dying while shoveling.

And, how could it not happen, given that the last 24 hours dumped nearly two more feet of heavy, wet snow on top of the two feet of snow Gaia poured on us overnight Friday-Saturday? Around here, in greater Philadelphia, it's the most snow ever recorded, outpacing the 1993 winter which had been holding the title.

That dude could've been me, this morning, by the way. The wife and I got up at 5 a.m. per our new routine of awaking before dawn and exercising for an hour, part of that "change" I told you was happening around here in 2010. It was an hour of cardio, after which we both donned our winter garb and headed out into the pre-dawn darkness to begin shoveling out the Sable, which is the primary drive-to-work vehicle. This meant shoveling the porch, steps, and sidewalk, first, as a way to even get to the Sable, which is parked on the other side of the street, neatly and tightly sandwiched between a green car owned by my elderly neighbor and a rust-"painted" car parked permanently on the street by the illegal Mexican aliens living in the house a couple of doors up the street (yes, you read that right, and I may write about this more at length later, but the car is "rust"-painted in the sense that the entire paint job is rust).

Started re-shoveling the car out, intentionally piling the discarded snow atop the rusty car, which was already pretty-much plowed in and snowed-under. After a half-hour, I had cleared the snow from the front-right quarter panel of the car when I realized that I was done. Finis. Pooped out. No energy left in the battery. The snow was deeper and heavier than I had anticipated, with the bottom foot weighing about 20 pounds per shovelful. Ninety shovelsful later and I was done. Trudged into the house, filled a glass with water, and lay down on the couch. The wife came in a few minutes later, looked at me, and asked if she should call an ambulance.

Uhh, no, I wasn't experiencing chest pain or light-headedness, I could just tell in my core inner being that there was no more to give, and that I needed to sit down, hydrate, and remain motionless for a while. Yeah, and now I'm "blogging" about it in real time: yay, you!

So, Snow Day, Part Deux hit hard and heavy, and everyone stayed home and inside. Mostly. The boys are snow dogs who didn't know they were snow dogs, but, then, aren't most boys? It just doesn't snow much around here, or very often, so snow - especially the likes of which we've just gotten over the past week - is an event not forgotten. Me? I grew up in a great Northern land, where it snowed always, so this is no big deal to me. Snow? Winter? Well, sure, you betcha. Kinda go hand-in-hand, you ask me. Winter without snow is sort of an extended Fall/pre-Spring waste of calendar space, you ask me.

So, yeah, we had cocktails all day. Once upon a time, in a lifestyle far, far in the past, we'd have headed to the local bar by noon and spent the afternoon with neighbors, but kids and such have changed that metric, so it was mimosas (i.e., you're not really drinking if you're drinking a champagne cocktail, are you?). I spent the bulk of the afternoon on the Crying Wolf boss battle in MGS4, which took two tries to win and endless experimentation in anti-tank weaponry. For whatever reason, I finished off the chick with the Mk. 2 tranq. pistol instead of a real weapon, just to see what would happen, and was surprised, sorta, to see that she lived, kinda, and her body was spirited away by a wolf. Now, I have to go back and redo the other two boss battles against the octopus girl and bird girl to find out if similar fates await them if I don't kill them after they shed their super-suits. I don't know if I get a bonus for that, somehow.

Snow Day also reintroduced me to Californication, the not-so-new David Duchovney Showtime vehicle about Hank the novelist in California who spends a lot of time getting laid while pining away for his long-term live-in girlfriend/mother-of-his child. First impression: thank Odin the show doesn't incorporate the mostly-awful Red Hot Chili Peppers song. Second impression: I like it, through episode 2, which is where I am at the moment. So, you'll have to wait for more.

Also, yesterday was the day I deleted all the episodes of Caprica from my DVR, not having watched a single one of them and totally uninterested in watching any of them, considering this is the prequel to the ultimately disastrous modern version of Battlestar Galactica. Ron Moore got me the first time around and ruined it; I'm not going to fall for that crap again, and, judging from the weekly teaser commercials, the show appears to be complete sh1t. Plus, I've got a couple of seasons of Californication to work through. And, Stargate: Universe returns in the Spring with fresh episodes, so why clog the DVR with a nightime scifi soap opera set in the world before the Cylons destroyed it? That's what Dallas is for. Dallas? Man, am I dating myself...

Additionally, Snow Day marks the about-a-year foray into facebook (if you click that link, you'll see that this is the point last year which featured a Snow Day!!), which I can now declare to be an almost complete waste of time and energy on my part. You could be my friend, by the way, if you start up an account (I'm the "William Young" with the Pokemon profile pic). After a year, I've more-or-less connected and shared with no one in the current time-space continuum. Facebook is a portal to my past, to the people that I used to know once-upon-a-time, the people who, historically speaking, are lost to me in the past. They all seem fine, and most of them seem like they're nice people, but almost none of them are people I know or, I guess, cared to continue knowing.

I'm positive this assessment is mutual, so I'm not dissing the friends of my past. I mean, almost none of them have made any actual effort to re-know me, outside of adding me to their friends queue and, maybe, keeping me in their news stream. Don't get me wrong, there are people in my past with whom I would love to be connected to, again, and, to some small extent, some of them are in my friends queue, but, curiously, they mostly don't use facebook except as a function of being able to tell people they have a facebook page. Sorta like having a landline phone, I guess: got one, don't use it much, so if you're not in my cellphone, well, ... hi!

Oh, sure, I have people in my friends queue who appear to use facebook as a modern-day communications platform with the other people in their lives, so it's useful to some people, just not me. Sort of like this blog, I guess (insert winky emoticon here). So, a year into the venture, I'm doing the unbelievable (I think, at least in facebook terms) and eliminating "friends" from my friends queue. That probably makes me some sort of heretic, seeing as I've been unfriending people based on a) they are the spouses of people I know, but I don't actually know them, b) they are people I knew but, well, didn't ever wonder what happened to them in the 20-years or more since I last knew them, c) they post entirely meaningless, pointless, uninteresting, boring or embarrassingly shallow status updates that are completely meaningless, pointless, uninteresting or embarrassingly shallow, and, d) a they do a,b or c and post way too freaking frequently.

But the people I used to know that don't post to facebook at all or do so rarely? Them I'm keeping as friends. Much like you, gentle readers, who come by and don't comment, but especially for those of you who come by and comment viciously or negatively!

It Snowed and I Dealt with It

2010-02-08T07:43:00.002-05:00

It Snowed and I Dealt with It

So, it was the snowstorm of the century, not that I'm going to all cap that phrase. And it was, what with this being a newish century and all and there not having been much of a snowstorm in the years that have been counted off so far. These things don't much impress me, as 24" of snow was a normal Tuesday night for me growing up in the great Northern wilds of Erie, Pa. Hell, you'd get that much snow in March or October, sometimes. Well, November, but March, for sure.

Of course, the world shut down around here. Me? I went to work, but mostly only because I could go to work and had nothing else to do. Put the Suburban in 4WD and just tooled the four miles to the store, much to the surprise of the skeleton staff that had arrived: I mean, why would I show up for work on a snow day? I'm not essential personnel, really. I'm just the store guard, a dude in a cop suit, not trained in using a cash register nor tasked with stocking shelves. I just stand there, mostly, which is pretty much all I did until they closed the store early due to a lack of employees and customers.

But, still, there were customers. People showing up looking to buy something to do on snow day as whatever they had on hand at home was insufficient to the task.

That said, the new dryer wasn't delivered on Saturday, as promised. Well, you could understand that. The old dryer died last Monday morning, giving up the ghost after delivering its final load of dried laundry. Nuts. That means in the course of seven days, the Sable's radiator cracked in half; the ceiling in the bathroom leaked during a rainstorm; and, now a major home appliance had decided to push up the daisies. Yeah, it never rains, it pours. And, as a friend noted, these things come in threes, and they did, eventually, even if you ignore the fact that two gauges on the dash of the Suburban are wigging out. So, let's say four?

Last week, the wife and I briefly discussed the issue of a new dryer, I spent some time online pricing them, and then, after all that, I just shrugged into my winter coat and drove to The Home Depot, walked into the dryer department and bought the cheapest gas dryer they had. Period. Special features? Bah, who needs 'em? Green compliant? Forget that, I want one that emails the UN IPCC and lets the global warming fundamentalists know exactly how much CO2 I'm emitting.

So, the dryer comes this morning and the haulers spirit the dead one away. I know, I know, I'm going to tell you I installed the dryer myself. Why? Eh, it takes up lines in a post, is why. Always, though, when I'm installing something like this, I'm wondering if this is going to be the moment when, despite everything being more-or-less foolproof, the gas appliance is going to explode, enshroud me in a fireball and leave me twittering on the floor, a charred, incinerated human. Hopefully, the kids would realize their peril and run outside before the floor burned and collapsed, but you don't know, and, anyway, I'm already dead in the basement.

So far, though, no explosions, so I'm going to go out on a limb and pronounce success.

Book review, anyone? Sure, I'll be short. Finished Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, his latest novel. A fine novel, much better than his previous two, but not up to his earlier works, High Fidelity or About a Boy. It's the story of a couple of people who have a odd fascination with a retired, reclusive rock'n'roller who quit making music in the 80s, leaving only a couple of albums in his wake. Why there would be anybody so intensely interested in an artist is a mystery to me that was never satisfactorily worked out in the novel, but I suppose there are people out there with similar preoccupations.

The main couple is a strange-to-me version of a couple that has settled into a predictable routine in their life until the relationship comes apart over, oddly, the release of Juliet, Naked, a stripped version of the rocker's - Tucker Crowe - album, Juliet. I had trouble believing this would be enough to split a couple, but, well, I've been in relationships where something equally trivial was the final straw (there was a time in college when I broke up with a long-term girlfriend when she could not place the major continents of the world in approximate locations on a circle drawn on the back of a placemat - yeah, seriously, she had no idea how Africa and Europe were situated with regard to each other, and that was that, game over).

And then Crowe contacts the woman - Annie - and starts an email dialogue with her after she posts a negative review of the album on a fan website moderated by her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend/ex-boyfriend. Crowe agrees with her, and the two correspond and get to know each other. Along the way, you get some sort of backstory on Crowe, why he quit playing/making music and what he'd spent the last 30 years doing instead. The story cruises along on autopilot, for the most part, delivering some set piece scenes, flirting with becoming obvious at points before settling down into a nice rhythm that hits all the plot points you were waiting for, wondering how they would be turned in, and then dumps you out at the end with a realistic ending that is neither satisfying nor unsatisfying. Just there.

If anything, the story felt like it needed another fifty pages of character development because I felt like I never really got to get a good feel for the "who" of any of the characters, and, to be fair, there's an awful lot of description about the people, their motivations and their relationships to one another. But it just felt off, short, shallow, not quite all there. I don't know if novels are supposed to leave you wanting for more, but this one did, if only because you wanted to know that extra little bit before shutting the book and shelving it in the Hornby section.

The Avatarocious Movie Deconstruction by America's Up-And-Coming Serial-Killer-cum-Film Critic

2010-02-02T12:33:00.002-05:00

The Avatarocious Movie Deconstruction by America's Up-And-Coming Serial-Killer-cum-Film Critic

Mr. Plinkett is back with another movie review, this time it's Avatar, the latest James Cameron extravaganza. I haven't seen Avatar, and don't really have any desire to see it, considering I already know the story arc, character stereotypes and "hidden meaning" behind the film. So, yawn. And, no, super cool special effects are never enough to get me out to a theater to witness spectacle. I like story, plot, and characters.

That's Part 1, Part 2:

Mr. Plinkett points out all the nonsense and idiocy of the movie, while also noting the compelling portions and describing why, as a movie, it works. Doesn't make it a super-awesome or even a good movie, but it's a movie that works like an input-output machine. You enter the theater, are stripped of your cash, are shown a spectacle of dubious plausibility, and you exit happy to some degree or another, much as when the Ewoks took down the Empire in Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi.

Since I haven't actually seen the movie, it would be wrong of me to comment much more on it than to say watch the videos.

They're Ba-a-a-ack!

2010-02-01T09:30:00.003-05:00

They're Ba-a-a-ack!

What? It's been a month already? Time flies. Not that I've been up to much, anyway.

Sprang out of bed Sunday morning and filed my federal tax return, because it was just one of those things that needed doing urgently! With a sense of speed and alacrity! And, because I need the cash to replace the $450 I gave to Hutch for replacing the radiator in the Sable. Sigh, yeah, so the story goes that for much of the past month, something under the hood of Ol' Blue has been making noise. Kind of a whirring, ratchety, scrapey noise that never, ever repeated if you parked the car and listened while it idled. Never. Not being one of The Driving Wallendas, I wasn't going to have the wife drive while I climbed out the passenger window and onto the hood to perform some act of derring-do engine diagnosis.

(Note to self: future circus act routine has now been identified)

So, last Monday the wife calls on the way home to notify me that the car is blowing more smoke out of the tailpipe than normal, and it's running hot. I ask, "how hot?" She replies that the needle is continuing to move up, and soon is in the red. She asks if she should pull over, but when she tells me she's only two miles from home, I say no, to bring it on in. A couple of minutes later and she's driving down the street toward home and I'm watching from the front porch, and the smoke isn't coming from the tailpipe, but from the engine block!. And then I have to watch for 60 excruciating seconds as she tries to parallel park the car and fails on the first three times, and she's pretty much an expert at this now. SMOKE POURS!

Yikes. I take a quick look at the engine to make sure it's not actually burning, shrug my shoulders and head off to a previously scheduled engagement. The car will wait.

Next morning, I call Hutch's Garage down on Main Street and get the assistant. I tell him I need to bring my car in and why, and he tells me to wait a second while he checks the schedule on the wall, and returns ten seconds later with the news that my car will have to wait until next week because Hutch is totally backed up with inspections. I say, "Monday?" and the assistant says "sure, what's your name?"

I said, "Will Young."

He repeats, "Will Young" and, I assume starts to write my name on the calendar in the Monday block, when in the background I hear Hutch say, "Will Young? Give me the phone."

And within a minute, I'm on the books to bring my car in the next day, and Hutch will prioritize it!!! This, ladies and gentlemen, shows the importance of having and knowing your local neighborhood car repair shop, and getting to know the owner/mechanic on a better level than just handing him your credit card. Of course, I've handed him my credit card $2,000-worth of times over the past couple of years, and had my cars towed to his shop a couple of times, so I'm more than just the guy who shows up for inspection stickers.

Now, last Monday was more than just a car problem, though, as it was raining - typical winter for the greater Philadelphia area, which is to say, useless weather. It's cold and rainy outside, so you can't go sledding or snowball fighting or anything, you just have to sit in the house and work your way through a handful of levels on Metal Gear Solid 4 (absolutely gorgeous game!), when Harrison came into the living room and told me the ceiling in the bathroom was leaking.

!

Wha? Now, there only thing above the 2nd floor bathroom is the guest room, which could technically leak into the bathroom if the radiator in the room were somehow leaking, which it wasn't, because the hot water system in the house won't keep the third floor radiators filled with water of any kind, necessitating ceramic space heaters. So, I checked anyway - no leaks - and put a bucket on the floor of the bathroom to collect the water. Yeah, this was the first time for this nonsense, and you could see the water pooling in the ceiling, behind the plaster, foreshadowing the coming destruction of said ceiling as it was, now, likely ruined.

The next day it hits me: a couple of weeks ago we had a wicked wind storm here in the Schuylkill River valley, the kind of storm that causes your house to make a loud "wicka wicka wicka" noise that turns out to be eight feet of aluminum roof/wall siding high atop the third floor roof. A roofer came out and made an emergency repair late in the afternoon, screwing the siding back onto the wall and telling me I should consider a proper job sometime later in the season when the weather gets better.

Yeah: it's no longer water tight up there, apparently, so I'll be calling (to be fair, he asked me if I wanted an emergency repair to screw the sheet back or if I wanted a "real" repair, and I said "emergency" repair because I was broke and in a hurry to not have the entire roof siding peeled from the house and sent flying across town).

And, for those keeping score: the basement pipe leaks have dwindled to just one, so I think I'll wait it out until spring before I try and fix it. Yeah, it probably just needs to be tightened, but I'm not up for that right now.

Other things are, indeed going on behind the scenes, here, or are about to go on, too, so I'll keep the entire freakin' world updated of some of these things as they occur, or at least those 3-4 of you who might have bothered to check this site out to see if I've returned from the dead. I have, maybe, and the month off has been good, if not entirely intentional.

Other things happened, and you missed out on 'em 'cause I didn't write about 'em, but just to let you know one thing: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune rocks as a pretty-much-perfect video game. I couldn't stay away from once I started it, and I was sad when I finished it. If you don't have a PS3, this game is reason enough to get one (and there's a sequel that is, apparently, even better- click the link and check out the trailer for Uncharted 2).

Anyway, I'm probably not going to write on a daily basis, or, if I do, it won't be the semi-long journal entries all the time. I've tired of the format, to be honest, and, well, I've just spent 30 minutes tapping this stuff out when I could've kicked Harrison off the PS2 and fired up MGS4 for an hour of gaming, although, really, I've got to get the 49 loads of laundry moving, so, well, there's that.

2010 is going to be the year things change. Because I'm going to change them, and because I'm writing my best work of fiction, ever, and it's clicking along like nothing ever before. Come along for the ride.

2009-12-31T20:42:00.002-05:00

He said the word with "er"on the end, said Owen

Watching "Happy New Years, Charlie Brown" (or whatever it's called),and there's a moment where Charlie Brown is asked to list his issues for the upcoming year, and -- I swear to God/god/Yaweh -- Charlie says, "Keep the ants out of the shitter."

Yep. "Keep the ants out of the shitter."

Played it three times. Same result each time. I'm going to keep it on the DVR until I figure out how to upload it to YouTube. Could be a while, since I don't bother with YouTube much. Hold. Your. Breath.

But trust me, Charlie brown says "shitter."

Otherwise:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

What I'm Doing on "Snow Day"

2009-12-19T15:13:00.005-05:00

What I'm Doing on "Snow Day"

Circulating on the Interwebs lately is this seven part deconstruction of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Hilarious. Accurate. I hated that movie and the other two new episodes. Almost ruined the franchise for me, and, lemme tell you, the Ewoks nearly ruined the franchise for me.

Watch:

I'd track down the link to the post I wrote years ago about how Star Wars will be made right by some other director/producer in the future after Lucas dies, but I'm spending "snow day" (today) drinking Bloody Mary's with the wife and neglecting the children. That's me.You, you can use the search feature at the top of the page to try to track it down. If I still had archives, that might be easier, but you can thank Google for killing my archives when it bought Blogger from Pyra Labs all those years ago.

Me? Meh. I don't care. Archives? Who needs 'em?