Like Nike Sez

I’ve been trying to convince Cindy to get her butt in gear, submit her writing and get her stuff published.

It’s a thorny business, especially since I haven’t worked to do the same for my own work in a good five years. Hypocritical, yes – but it’s also a testament to her abilities and my belief in them. I know her books will sell like gangbusters, the tricky part is getting her to believe it.

But ah – I think I know what the solution is. My talented Cindy is also very competitive – so the best motivator I can think of is to publish something of my own. Which means I need to get my own butt in gear and get something published.

Not that my stuff is all that great or worthy - I love it as I'm writing and hate it the next week - but there’s plenty of adequate and unworthy stories and books already out there, why not mine too? So I'm gonna get to it.

On that note, I’ve finally gotten around to posting some snippets of the work I did for my novella FAST - my entry for the 2005 NaNoWriMo – When you're in the mood, you can read it here.

Just Build Him a Beautiful Horse Tomb

I have a special place in my heart for Jim Reeves, a little-known crooner who did most of his work in the 50's and early 60's. (That's in the 1900's, kids)

My folks listened to Jim Reeves as I was growing up - in fact, at a very young age I thought my Dad sang all those songs, and he must have recorded them for us...But no.

Later, I met Cindy thanks to the fact that I had 'Jim Reeves' in my AOL user profile. (Yay!)

I was just listening to internet radio and one of my favorite Reeves songs came on, The Blizzard...It's a great song, well written and tenderly delivered...But it annoys me on a certain level...

Here it is:

There's a blizzard coming on, how I'm wishing I was home,
for my pony's lame, and he can hardly stand.
Listen to that norther sigh, if we don't get home we'll die.
But it's only seven miles to Mary Ann's.
It's only seven miles to Mary Ann's.

You can bet we're on her mind, for it's nearly suppertime
and I'll bet there's hot biscuits in the pan.

Lord my hands feel like they're froze, and there's a numbness in my toes.
But it's only five more miles to Mary Ann's.
It's only five more miles to Mary Ann's.

That wind's howling and it seems - mighty like a woman's scream.
And we'd best be moving faster if we can.
Dan just think about that barn, with the hay so soft and warm.

It's only three more miles to Mary Ann's.

Dan get up you ornery cuss, or you'll be the death of us.
I'm so weary, but I'll help you if I can.
Alright Dan, perhaps it's best, if we stop a while and rest.
For it's still a hundred yards to Mary Ann's.
It's still a hundred yards to Mary Ann's.

Late that night the storm was gone, and they found him there at dawn.
He'd-a made it but - he just couldn't leave old Dan.
Yes they found him there on the plains, hands froze to the reigns.
He was just a hundred yards form Mary Ann's.

Damn, dude!..Leave the stupid horse and get your ass over to Mary Ann's!..How long do horses live anyway, ten years?

I don't mean abandon him, but go in and get some help from Mary Ann, maybe...Get the sled, drag Dan into the barn. Die for a horse - Jeez!..100 yards. Humph. Hot biscuits are waiting, yo!

It's Not My Thing... Honest.

I don't care much for Reality TV outside of Mythbusters or Dirty Jobs. Really.

So it concerned me more than a little bit this evening that I found myself inexorably drawn to Rollergirls. I couldn't put my finger on what the appeal was.

Was it the strung-out wenches? The heavy makeup? The trashy clothes?..The in-your-face female can-do bravado?

I blame my exposure to Charlie's Angels as a child of the 70's.

Yep. Scarred me for life, it did.

A Most Independant Study

Almost fifteen years ago, I was in a car accident and picked up some scars - on my face, of all places. I have a short beard which covers most of them pretty well, but there are a few noticable gaps in the beard hair.

So I touch these spots up with eyeliner, which doesn't rub off easily and matches my beard color quite well. Early on, I wondered if eyeliner would turn out to have suprising scar-inflaming (or hey! scar-reducing) properties - I mean, you never know what will happen when you ignore the directions on a bottle.

So the results are in - and it turns out that Maybelline Line Works Ultra-Liner Liquid Waterproof Eyeliner, Very Dark Brown has absolutely no effect on scars, except to cover them up.

This Captioning was CLOSED.

I caught a bit of television at the gym this morning, and the President was speaking on some subject - what, I don't know because there was no Closed Captioning.

I'm not big on politics, so I've never noticed this before. (In my defense, I enjoyed the first three seasons of The West Wing very much).

I checked all three televisions, which were set to different stations, and none of them had Closed Captioning for the President. Is there a law that says you can't caption the pres? Perhaps the news agencies are afraid to misquote the President.

Surely during a prime time national address there would be closed captions, but not for a quickie Q&A... Anybody know?

What to do...

I spent some time this weekend trying to come up with a new piece of art for the header of my blog, (as seen on such distinguished blogs as Life, What the...) and I couldn't come up with anything good.

Short of a big Etch-A-Sketch or a series of random images, nothing seems applicable. Also, I aint got no art skill. I could easily collage something together with Photoshop, but what?

I threw something together, but it was just a blue-to-red gradient with a sponge-painted-blotted look and the title text. Blah.

Any ideas?

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

It's time again for input on the Bloggie awards, where we can all nominate our favorite blogs.

I've already put my two cents in, and you guys should head over there now and voice your opinion too!

I'd tell you who I nominated, but I don't want to bias you. Let me just say their name has a high ratio of vowels to consonants. Go!

If You're Gonna Dream...

I had a dream last night - In the dream I was taking a walk, and I rounded the corner of a building to encounter Dooce, of all people.

She was with her hubby and I exclaimed "Dooce!" in surprise, which startled them both. We then had a quick chuckle and chatted for a minute, during which I gushed foolishly about enjoying their blogs, and noted brilliantly how much taller they were in person.

It was a cute and harmless little dream, but if I have to dream about women, why can't they be more the - ah - more fantastic sort; Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson or Ziyi Zhang?

But Nooo, apparently my dream women are married, with child, and more than a little crazy.

At least I'm well prepared for the future.

Credi-Bull #5

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

Doctors in Germany have reported a recent breakthrough on the treatment of some types of congenital blindness.

In a backwards-seeming concept, patients eyes are exposed to direct sunlight for short, precisely measured durations (3.221 seconds) across a series of treatment cycles.

The sunlight causes a specific type of damage to the retina (A-Wave Macular Degeneration) which activates latent regenerative proteins from the Choroid and Fovea ocular regions.

68% of patients showed a 15% increase in light sensitivity over a six month treatment program.

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed tomorrow)

What's in an Adjective?

This is just a brief look at the fevered ramblings of my brain - shouldn't I be putting it to some more useful purpose? I mean really...

While toiling away at my desk yesterday, the boss walked through the office and said "Hey, John Roberts is coming by in a few minutes - he used to work here? Some of you might remember him, hefty guy?"

Now, I've never met John, so I don't know if he'd care for being called "hefty" or not. Is it applicable? "Hefty" isn't neccessarily a snide or rude comment, but you probably wouldn't say it to someone's face.

How does the boss describe me to others? Am I... Pudgy? Voluptious? Ample? Robust? How about Corpulent? ("Have you met Mike? He's that corpulent guy - sits over here? No?")

So I wait to see, what I think of John. If he's smaller than me, and he qualifies as Hefty, well I don't know what to think. I might have to re-evaluate my impression of the boss as A Good Joe. He might only like beautiful people.

John shows up. Okay, it might be applicable, though I would have said 'Beefy', which implies strength along with bulk, whereas nowadays "Hefty" is most likely to conjure images of trash bags...Hmn.

Just Wrong - Numbers

We very regularly get wrong numbers for AMC Theaters. It gets old, but we've yet to bother changing our number.

Being me, I get tempted to mislead these folks - teach them a lesson, make them think twice and hit those digits a little more carefully.

Me: Hello?

Goofus: ...Uh, is this AMC?

Me: Oh! Yeah sorry, this is my first day. AHEM! Thank you for calling AMC, this is Bill.

Goofus: Yeah I wanted to check the times for The Ringer.

Me: The Ringer is playing at 6:30, 7:15, 8:30, and 9:20, but listen -

Goofus: Huh?

Me: (stage whisper) Whatever you do, don't eat any popcorn. Good God Man, the things they do with the popcorn. I threw up for about fifteen minutes nonstop when I first saw the inside of the Popper. And there's rats dude. Big ones.

Goofus: .......

Me: Thank you for calling AMC, goodbye!