Even though writers really don’t get weekends off, strictly speaking, I tend to cut myself way more slack over the weekend. Sometimes to the point of doing no writing at all. Imagine!

Recovery time is very important. Especially when you have a condition like dystonia, in which your hand and foot have been twisting non-stop for nearly seven years. Yeah, that last bit was hard to blog about at first. Like I said, no one wants pity, but I’m trying to raise awareness, and you can’t do that by being silent, can you?

Anyway, enough of that. Here are some really tasteless corny headlines.

“Waiter, I think there’s a really weird fly in my soup.”

Is Apple rotten to the core? (Apologies to frequent reader and rabid Apple fan Paul Downie, but there you are. ) Are Americans with iPads and iPods simply going, Duh!

Looks like FatWallet and its ilk will be forking over the bucks, while the big boys won’t give a sh*t.

I wish I could figure out how to make this work for me somehow.

Sorry. The last one wasn’t funny at all. Or maybe it was.

But wait — there’s also great news.

Check out the latest about Matt Smith and Karen Gillan of Doctor Who winning the National Television Awards. (via Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar)

Plus, hurray for the First Lady of Maryland! Way to go Katie O’Malley!

Finally, here are two awesome videos. One from a new follower, ooamerica.

And one that Michael Faria tweeted recently.

You’re welcome.

To be honest, I think that expression is ridiculous. Because if you don’t get up, you’ll just lie around feeling bad. And the more you lie around, the more time you waste when you could have been doing something to make yourself feel better.

For instance, I woke up this morning with a terrible, horrible, seemingly non-stop pain in my knee. I had no idea how horrible non-stop pain could be until that moment. I jostled around for a comfortable position, but none was to be had.

Well, I’m kind of lying. Actually, I’ve experienced pain before. I’ve been waking up with pain coursing down my arm almost every morning. The left arm, that is. The arm affected by my dystonia.

So … I laid there, drifting off to sleep. When I woke up, I had to really force myself through sheer effort of will to get the hell up.

Now, keep in mind that on this blog, I’ve announced my book launch, which will hopefully take place in early February. God (or whoever) willing! Ha ha ha …

I say this because I’m currently in a holding pattern waiting for the Spanish in the book to be confirmed as okay. Got that?

You see, the person who was handling this relied upon an unreliable person who ended up disappointing both of us. Yeah, boo hoo. It happens. No one is to blame. Really!

Good news, however! I found a translator, who can take care of this. Fast! All because I got up this morning (barely) and got to work on it. Score one for me!

I even found a little time to work on a screenplay for a short film that if things work out could possibly be produced in time to be submitted into this contest. If not that, then there’s always this contest, to which I could submit my actual finished feature length screenplay. How big can a slightly gimpy author/aspiring screenwriter dream?

So … in the spirit of good blogging, here are some really bizarre/fun headlines.

Why doesn’t the church just mind its own business? Oh, I forgot. It’s in the business of telling people what to do.

Occupy DC: Just like camping, with more trash.

Leave it to the Washington Post to prove the very point it’s trying to refute.

I’d move to Virginia, except the traffic really sucks there.

I can think of at least one fireman who won’t like this news at all. But he’s retired, so it’s a moot point. Yay!

PS: Here’s the cover of my new book. Isn’t it awesome?

PPS: Did you know there was a TV show called Riptide, which (thankfully) bears no resemblance whatsoever to the story in my book.

PPPS: I got an email from someone who wants to know how to get started in publishing. OMG! Where do I start? LOL

My, what a wonderful weekend it’s been. Especially for the Grim Reaper, who’s been in the news a lot.

For instance, on Sunday, before I even opened the pages of the Washington Post Magazine, I couldn’t help noticing the words Death’s Door: Committing suicide couldn’t be easier — or more complicated printed right across the cover.

Well, thank you for the reminder.

But, before I got to reading that fun article, I read this column, as is my habit.

Now, most people would read that and think, Contra dancing? How nice! What a great way to spend your time. Cool!

Unfortunately, the coolness of the article was overshadowed for me, by the memory of my dead friend.

If you click that link and read my column, you’ll see he used to contra dance, too. He invited me, but I never went. A missed opportunity that I now regret.

So … dance while you can, okay?

But back to the subject at hand. Death and assisted suicide and this article about a Baltimore doctor who helps those who’d like to kick the bucket, but can’t pull it off alone.

That face. Those eyes. They say a lot right there.

I read the article:

Dust speckles shelves up on the third story. Wood floors creak. Walls and cabinets in the cramped office, tucked into a red-brick Baltimore rowhouse, channel a generation’s worth of sloganeering.

“We shall overcome Reagan”

“Nuclear Free Zone”

“Don’t buy war toys”

Lawrence Egbert comes here almost every weekday, taking calls on an old white push-button phone with a handset darkened by years of smudged newsprint and perspiration. He climbs the stairs, slower now since a bicycle accident two years ago cracked his pelvis, but steady and resolute.

Amid the kaleidoscope of distractions, a lumpy white garbage bag slumps on the floor against a metal bookshelf. Egbert doesn’t object when I ask to peek inside.

I pull the yellow drawstrings, and the bag sags open. A muddle of plastic lies before me. Long plastic tubes twine around each other, refusing to let go, like stubborn tendrils of ivy clasping tree branches.

Egbert, a slightly built, genial and energetic retired anesthesiologist with a snowy goatee, turns to his computer, his back to me, content to answer an e-mail while I sort through the pile. Once I finish untangling, I hold in my hands a curious plastic sack, about 21 inches long and 18 inches wide. A bunched white elastic strip, reminiscent of a garter, circles the mouth at the open end. A thick plastic tube runs into the sack, stretching 37 inches before branching into a T-shape with 12-inch arms extending from each side of the joint.

Egbert calls it an “exit hood.” It’s a contraption that can end a life in minutes. The 84-year-old doctor, who formerly served as a campus Unitarian Universalist minister and has taught as an assistant visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, offers to explain how it works. The tube connects to two helium tanks, he says. He lifts the hood over his head and lowers the open end, letting go as the garter clamps to his forehead. Then, he says, you release the valves on the tanks, streaming helium into the hood.

“You fill it up until it feels like a New York chef’s hat,” he says, stretching the hood to demonstrate.

Then, he says, you pull the hood down. And he does just that, easing it past his eyes, his nose, his chin, and cinching it even tighter at his neck with a sweatband. His face goes hazy behind the plastic, a blurry image of a man whose life and work are prone to distortions and intrigue. His breath fogs the plastic, but he holds the hood there for a moment, saying something that I can’t quite make out.

Might he need saving?

Another breath. More fog. Even though there’s no helium coursing into the hood, I’m anxious. Should I pull it away?

Another breath, and, finally, he lifts the hood. He inhales deeply and smiles.

“That’s how it’s done,” he says matter-of-factly.

In those final seconds before his patients lose consciousness and die, the words they utter sound like Donald Duck, he says, imitating the high-pitched, nasally squeak familiar to any child who has sucked a gulp from a helium balloon.

So, this is how a human being can leave this Earth?

Okay. You get the idea. Here’s the thing. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I haven’t considered taking the easy way out. Or is it? The will to survive is mighty strong.

If you read the whole article, you’ll see that Egbert has been sued, indicted, compared with the Nazis and so on. Yet, he didn’t stick a gun to anyone’s head or issue orders from on high like Hitler. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty obvious there many differences between Egbert and Hitler.

In fact, my dead friend with cancer might have even appreciated Egbert’s help for all I know. He was suffering something fiercely toward the end.

What would Christopher Hitchens say?

One thing I can’t help but notice is Egbert’s difficulty climbing the stairs. This gets explained at the end of the article, like a footnote, but to me it’s an essential part of the man.

On a wet September night in 2009, the tires of Egbert’s bicycle skidded through a patch of soggy leaves, and he was thrown to the roadway.

He had been on his way to deliver a sermon at Johns Hopkins. (Since his arrest, the university has not renewed his position as Unitarian campus minister, and he has not been asked back to review medical school applications, he says.)

The accident cracked the front and back of his pelvis. Surgery wouldn’t help, the doctors told him. He would have to learn to walk with a broken pelvis. Every time he shifted his weight or tried to take a step, pain shot through his body.

In his agony, Egbert, who has witnessed the endings of so many lives, considered ending his own. “There are some people who like to suffer — that there is a religious gain in suffering,” he says. “I don’t believe that.”

Amen, brother! Ha ha ha …

But he began to mend, and thoughts of living pushed aside thoughts of dying.

If only I could … mend, that is … but I have to keep living even so.

When the end does come, Egbert figures, he’ll “go into the ground and rot.” He doesn’t believe in an after-life, though many of his patients have found comfort in the belief that they will be going to a better place. “I don’t think it’s worthwhile to worry about what happens to you when you’re dead.”

Damn straight!

He has been explicit about his wishes for his own death. He doesn’t want to die in a nursing home or on a ventilator. When he’s gone, he wants his body taken to Johns Hopkins University. He’d like it to be given to the researchers in the Parkinson’s laboratory.

I don’t want to waste away before I die, either. And if my body can be useful to researchers, I’d like someone to figure out how to cure … guess what? … dystonia. Big surprise!

They can place his body next to the bodies of people who died from Parkinson’s disease, he reasons. He wants his body to be the scientific control. He hopes his body can be an example of a human being who died “a natural death,” a death without extended suffering. A death without a hood.

Yeah, let’s hope for the best for us all.

(video via Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar)

BTW, rumors of Joe Paterno’s death were wrong. Then, they weren’t. Then, the emailed Sunday NY Times blew the story completely.

And how many death threats has this guy gotten?

PS: RIP Etta James. My, what a terrible pun my headline turned out to be — but not nearly as tasteless as this headline.

UPDATE: This is really late-breaking news, but it seemed so appropriate that I couldn’t resist sneaking it in. So here it is. I guess we all have to go sometime, right?

 

You know, sometimes I read the news and what some people might take as bad news, I see as a failure to communicate.

For instance, this article about gay marriage legislation, among other issues, in Maryland.

Yeah, just when I was feeling so good about my state and all. I know, I know …

But I digress. With respect to the issue of legalizing gay marriage, the article states:

A new poll finds Marylanders closely divided on two hot issues that will likely appear on the November ballot – same-sex marriage and tuition breaks for illegal immigrants.

Voters are nearly split down the middle on the two proposals.

The poll of 808 registered voters taken last week by Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies found 49% favored same-sex marriage and 47% opposed it.

“Opposition to same-sex marriage among African-American voters is what keeps the issue close in the state,” pollster Patrick Gonzales said in his analysis. “If black support was equivalent to that of Democrats, as it is on many issues, same-sex marriage would be in a solid majority in Maryland.”

Two-thirds of Democrats (68%) support gay marriage, but 60% of African-Americans are opposed, as are 62% of Republicans.

About 38% of voters “strongly” oppose same-sex marriage, while 34% “strongly” favor the law, which will be sponsored this year by Gov. Martin O’Malley. If it passes, it will likely be petitioned to referendum.

What’s really interesting is what this article doesn’t say. In point of fact, many black African-American people object to homosexuality on religious grounds.

But religion and state are kept separate in this country, right? And just because gay marriage is legalized, that doesn’t require you to participate in it. It just allows it, between people who do believe in it, okay?

And it’s not up to the government to tell us right from wrong, is it? That’s a matter of religious belief and personal choice, correct?

So … you if don’t want to marry someone of the same gender, you don’t have to just because the law says people who want to can do so. Now do you get it?

And speaking of things you don’t have to do … you don’t have to watch TV shows that you find personally offensive, do you?

And, yes, I will quote the article about this televised taste travesty:

ABC’s Modern Family is releasing its f-word payload tonight despite attempts by a some protestors to halt the episode from airing. As EW.com previously reported, two-year-old Lily will horrify her parents by learning the word “f–k” on tonight’s episode “Little Bo Bleep.”

Since news of the episode broke, the always trusty Parents Television Council and a student organization nobody has ever heard of until now called the No Cussing Club have lined up against the hit series, outraged the Emmy-winning program would portray a foul-mouthed toddler.

“Our main goal is to stop this from happening,” said No Cussing Club founder McKay Hatch. “If we don’t, at least ABC knows that people all over the world don’t want to have a 2-year-old saying the ‘F-bomb’ on TV.”

Okay, some group is horrified about a show in which parents are horrified about their kid’s language. I’m sorry this is too funny.

But wait! It gets even better!

“It is certainly in poor taste,” added Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education for PTC to Fox411. “The more we see and hear this kind of language on television, the more acceptable and common it will become in the real world. Since television is constantly adding to the likelihood that children will be exposed to this kind of language, we will naturally see more and more children eventually emulate that behavior.”

Modern Family co-star Eric Stonestreet tweeted angrily about the controversy: “Lily didn’t ACTUALLY say FU*K. She said fudge. How bout see the episode, THEN form an opinion. For fudge sake people. Chill the f–k out … how bout redirecting energies of the No Cuss Club 2 reading 2 the elderly, picking up litter, feeding the hungry…”

OMFG! Awesome!

Indeed. During the taping, the actress who plays Lily said “fudge,” so it’s not like producers taught a tot some profanity. But the show bleeps and blurs the word, and the reaction of Lily’s parents Cam and Mitchell make it clear the character supposedly said “f–k.” And to be fair, the Cussing Club and PTC is clearly concerned about what’s being portrayed to viewers in the show.

LMAO!!!! ROFL!!!! Ha ha ha ha … I can’t go on.

Here’s the thing: Since “f–k” is masked in the episode, the only way a child watching the show is going to know what Lily is saying is if an adult tells them. And if the PTC doesn’t think the f-word is already “common” in “the real world,” well … every person’s reality is almost entirely subjective, but most versions I’ve seen have profanity in it.

Oh, please, let me wipe the tears from my eyes. You’d be surprised about what some people’s realities are versus other’s.

Word to the wise: if you hate the show, change the f*cking channel, okay? Ha ha ha …

Oh, and is the world really going to go to battle over this? Seriously?

Do we need the UN to step in?

Personally, I’d rather take a ride in a TARDIS to this place. (via Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar)

And speaking of Paul Downie, look what article came up in a Facebook discussion with him, Nina Haglund, and Trevor Veail this very day. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

PS: Did you know that the ancient Peruvians ate popcorn?

Peruvian Popcorn Turds

Isn’t that awesome?

PPS: Tomorrow is Squirrel Appreciation Day. Go nuts!!

These are sopapillas. They're just fine, okay?

As everyone on the Internet knows by now, there’s this horrible thingy going on in the US of A, which for some reason concerns the entire world. Well, in fairness, it’s because the horrible thingy is federal legislation concerning Internet usage, which is a world wide thing, of course. The legislation is none other than the fiendish thingy SOPA, aka SOPA/PIPA (it has developed a split personality).

Now, while I cannot claim to have read all of the gory details of this explanation of why SOPA/PIPA is so horrible it should die screaming, including embedded links I might add, I have skimmed it and let me tell you, I’m not liking what I see.

Okay, so considering the source of the information is reddit, one of the big Internet companies concerned about the schizoid legislation, I’ll also include a link to this NY Times article. As if they don’t depend on the Internet to spread information as much as anyone. Whatever.

So … in answer to this awfulness, many Internet entities are choosing to shut down in protest. I know this hit home for me when I got on my computer this morning and my home page came up looking like this.

Right. So, yesterday on Twitter, I tweeted something to the effect of, “How will not using Twitter fight SOPA?” I haven’t been on Twitter today, so I don’t know if anyone answered. What if it were a rhetorical question? Ha ha ha … I meant, what if it was perceived as a rhetorical question? Now, I’m too tired to think about it. Forget I even brought up the subject.

All I know is I’m not sure I see the point of this big blackout. How is it really going to effect the outcome of the vote on the legislation? Doesn’t it in a sense defeat the very purpose of the Internet? Shouldn’t we be talking MORE about this and not less?

It seems the editors at Wikipedia have their own concerns about this. To quote the article:

Can the world live without Wikipediafor a day? The planned shutdown of one of the Internet’s most-visited sites is not sitting well with some of its volunteer editors, who say the protest of anti-piracy legislation could threaten the credibility of their work.

“My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that’s a slippery slope,” said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. “Before we know it, we’re blacked out because we want to save the whales.”

Wikipedia will shut down access to its English-language site for 24 hours beginning at midnight Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday. Instead of encyclopedia articles, visitors will see information about the two congressional bills and details about how to reach lawmakers.

It is the first time the English site has been blacked out. Wikipedia’s Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The bill did not advance.

The shutdown adds to a growing body of critics who are speaking out against the legislation. But some editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.

One of the site’s own “five pillars” of conduct says that Wikipedia “is written from a neutral point of view.” The site strives to “avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them.”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues.

“The encyclopedia will always be neutral. The community need not be, not when the encyclopedia is threatened,” he tweeted.

The plans for the protest were moving forward even though the bill’s prospects appeared to be dimming. On Saturday, Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Democrat, said the bill would not move to the House floor for a vote unless consensus is reached. However, Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said work on the bill would resume next month.

The White House raised concerns over the weekend, pledging to work with Congress to battle piracy and counterfeiting while defending free expression, privacy and innovation in the Internet. The administration signaled it might use its veto power, if necessary.

That the bill seems unlikely to pass is another reason Lawton opposes the blackout.

“I think there are far more important things for the organization to focus aside from legislation that isn’t likely to pass anyway,” he said. He’s been contributing to Wikipedia for eight years.

Danny Chia, another contributor to the site, said he had mixed feelings about the blackout. The neutrality applies to the content, but a lot of people interpret it as being about the site as a whole, said the Los Altos, Calif., software engineer.

In an online discussion, others raised the same point about the blackout: Appearances matter, and if the audience sees Wikipedia taking a stand, it might not believe the articles are objective, either.

Wikipedia has seen a small decline in participation, from a peak of 100,000 active editors a year ago to about 90,000 now. Wikimedia Foundation blames this mainly on outdated editing tools, and believes it can get the number growing again with software upgrades.

So … big Internet companies are shutting down their sites for a law that seems highly unlikely to pass, anyway? And, even if it did, the president is signalling his intention to veto the sucker, in any case. Big whoop!

Thanks so much, guys for looking out for my civil liberties. What would I do without you? Don’t answer! That was a rhetorical question!

BTW, careful what you shut down. These guys are still tough competition.

And speaking of shutting stuff down, look what else may be disappearing…

Everything about this post gave me a headache. Quick! Avert your eyes …

Now … that’s much more like it. Awesome!

Hold on … whoa!!!

It’s a bit ironic, because it’s one of those so-called national holidays that isn’t celebrated in every state in this awesome country of mine.

Do I really need to supply quotation marks for you to catch the sarcasm? Ha ha ha … But I digress.

I’d like to note that yesterday I saw this article about Dr. King on Twitter.

And I really loved this excerpt from Dr. King’s speech in the article:

I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live. You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.

Well … unlike Dr. King was at the time, I’m a bit older than 38. Ahem! Frankly, I’m not afraid of much. Certainly, death gives me pause, but I don’t fear it. There are things way more horrible than death, including death of the spirit.

Now, there are many things going on that deserve our attention. Like this whole business about SOPA. I don’t know much about it, but I’m hearing enough to where it’s giving me heartburn.

And here’s another article about it from the NY Times.

I’m more than a bit concerned because Anne Wayman, a freelancer whose views I respect, has weighed in against this.

Even The Bloggess has done a short video against it. Well, kinda.

So, I think this is a matter we should all be concerned about. In the US of A, anyhow. I know many of you out there in other countries have dealt with this very issue, and I’d be interested in hearing reading your thoughts on government control over the Internet.

Okay, so moving on … and I’ve blogged about this before. Repeatedly. On other blogs. Maybe someone will pay attention here. Who knows?

I’ve blogged until I can’t see straight repeatedly about Amazon. You can actually find all the links in this post.

Now, if you actually read the post, I state right up front that I’m not defending self-publishing and I am clearly not saying that Amazon is the only option for buyers and authors. It took a consumer, i.e., reader to see this.

That’s how wrapped up in their own little world some authors and people in publishing can get. Seriously! You’d think the entire Internet was geared toward selling and reviewing books and having their little debates about whatever stupid issue big thing is going on, blah, blah …

But there’s a great big world out there. Full of real people with real needs. Which is why I really liked this article.

And why I’ve gone out of my way to support indie booksellers on one of my blogs.

That post has spawned a series of posts about indie bookstores, including this one, which actually drew a comment from the owner. Yay!

So, whether I am Amazon’s bitch or not, what’s my point? My point is that Amazon may giveth, but the ultimate price of its generosity may be more than we want to pay.

I’ve also written on another blog that trying to set yourself up as your own book retailer on the Web is essentially something like this.

Now, Joe Konrath is an author who sells a whole sh*tload of ebooks, and he’s compared book content to nookie. He claims Amazon wants the nookie, so they’re willing to do what they need to in order to get it or he can sell his ebooks from his own website.

Have you ever heard of Joe Konrath? Would you go to his website to buy a book? Just based on his name? I would love to know. I’ve given talks and asked the audience (usually, mystery lovers or well-read people) if anyone has heard of him. People just look at me. They don’t know him. He’s well-known in publishing. That little world I mentioned.

But out in the real world, what would happen? How well would he fare without Amazon? Well … in his case, he has no worries, because he’s signed an exclusive contract for them to publish his books. So the whole I can sell my books from my own website argument doesn’t wash. He’s got the money all sewn up. And so do a bunch of other authors. An increasing bunch.

And now indie authors are hopping on the bandwagon. Amazon’s dangling the Lending Library money before them like the proverbial carrot.

Frankly, I have a different opinion about Amazon’s reasons for offering these incentives. In the hood, Amazon is like the local crack dealer. Here you go, everything you want, isn’t that nice?

Authors are high as a kite on the empowerment. Can you feel the Kindle love? Can you see the money pouring in?

Writers have always gotten the short end of the stick. Now, they don’t with Amazon. F*ck you, Big Six publishers! Ha ha ha … Big drama! Big whoop!

I’m stepping away from that tempest in a teapot, okay? To the extent such a thing is even possible, because you never know who’s Googling you, right? Plus I’m tweeting this.

Now, here’s a hypothetical for you. What happens when the crack dealer Amazon has run everyone else out of business? How nicely will it treat its authors and customers at that point? Hmm?

In the hood, a crack dealer usually jacks his product’s price right up through the roof. And if you don’t like it, you can go pound sand, buddy. Just try to survive on the street without his help once you’re hooked. Ha ha ha …

And what about the Main Street businesses? Will people even bother to leave their houses?

Because, of course, this affects WAY more than books.

Ha ha ha …

So, seriously, are we going to stand by and let Jeff Bezos take over the Internet?

And run Main Street out of business?

I fully understand the irony of publishing and selling through Amazon. However, I refuse to publish and sell exclusively through them for the above reasons.

I will continue to champion indie booksellers and other online publishers and retailers.

This might not be a popular position with many of my peers, but as Paul Downie likes to remind us, everybody votes for a dictator.

In conclusion, although my faith is based on concepts more nebulous than Jesus and the Bible, I do have a strong moral compass. This video is a tad long, but well worth it.

PS: I couldn’t be prouder to be a Maryland citizen today.

PPS: If the 1% are a diverse lot, it stands to reason that the 99% is amazingly diverse. So, everyone is a singular human being, right?

That's me, giving someone the finger!

Please forgive the pathetic headline, not to mention the almost equally pathetic post that follows. Typing with a hand and a half (maybe — who’s counting, right?) isn’t all that easy. Yeah, I know. Boo hoo.

I’ve been kind of going out of my mind busy, between going over the copyediting for my next novel, agonizing over deciding on the cover design, and blogging like a madwoman every day, plus I managed to finish three reviews to be published (maybe) in Mystery Scene Magazine. And I submitted them early. Hurray for me!

Not to mention all the administrative bullsh*t crap, medical appointments, emails, Facebook stuff, Twitter, etc., etc.

So … I’ll keep this short, okay. Here are two really awesome tunes that Paul Downie tweeted during #FollowFriday on Twitter today. Which I participated in, because I do that now and then. Because I refuse to stop.

This piano version is awesome.

I used to play the piano, before I became gimpy retarded disadvantaged stopped years ago. Ha ha ha … yes, that’s a joke. Feel free to laugh.

Yeah. That’s one of my laugh tracks. From this blog. Pretty funny, huh? Here’s another one from the UK. I wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or cry, but I found it (disturbingly) easy to relate to, actually.

But wait! There was a second tune I wanted to embed. But I digressed before that happened. This is another version of the first that’s also awesome for wholly different reasons.

And while I have your attention, I often hear read other authors complain about how they aren’t making the kind of money this person and this person are. Frankly, I’m not envious of them at all. I wish them nothing, but the best. They’ve worked hard to get what they have. Hard work, talent and luck — yes, luck! — will take you a long way.

I wonder if anyone can understand how I could possibly envy this woman. Because, deep down, I sorta do.

Okay, that’s it. Except I’d like to add that everyone should read The Animal House, because Jay may be a grump, but he’s a really funny blogger no matter what he says to the contrary.

PS: And now I want to be a screenwriter, too. I need to get my head examined. Ha ha ha …

I have a little story. It’s about a blogger who will remain nameless, but who decided (in roughly this order) 1) to stop taking comments, claiming to be overwhelmed 2) to write posts that, frankly, and IMHO, amounted to so much navel-gazing, and I’m not talking about insightful deep thinking, just word after word that went nowhere … yuck … 3) to write other posts making tedious arguments about arcane issues, blah, blah … who cares? 3) then, wrote a post, in which the blogger rejected the very idea of blogging as outright ridiculous, or even crazy, like walking up to random strangers and sharing your opinions.

Well, that’s a bit ironic coming from a writer who tells stories to random strangers, don’t you think? Because, yeah, the blogger does write stories that are sold on the Internet. Plus if you reject the idea of blogging, why are you blogging about it? Seriously! And isn’t blogging just another form of e-publishing? I always thought so. But this blogger disagrees. Apparently. Not that I can ask. Comments are switched off. Even though, no one would expect one person to respond to a sh*tload of comments, right? Famous people don’t, do they? And this author isn’t a household name, but the author made a point of going around stirring up sh*t on the Internet about publishing for a time. So, he/she got lots of attention from authors and readers and thought the whole world revolved around him/her and was easily bruised, if anyone rubbed him/her the wrong way. Believe me. Because the last time I dared blog about one of the author’s posts, the blogger tore me a new one sent me an angry email. I ended up deleting the post (post-haste — ha ha ha …), in the interests of maintaining amity. And sanity. Mostly my own.

Anyway, who’s to say it’s so crazy to talk to random strangers, anyhow? How do people meet people in real life? They find each other randomly and sense a common bond.

Perhaps the world would be a much better place if random strangers did this more often, huh?

PS: A big shout out to lonelym who’s following this blog now. I was especially moved by this post, because when I published my first novel IDENTITY CRISIS, and worked SO hard to market and promote my book and write the next one, despite my disabilities, my daily mantra was, “Climb the mountain, climb the mountain, climb the mountain …” Really!

PPS: The Internet is a very big place, and I doubt the blogger will read this. However, if you’re reading this, blogger, it’s my opinion. I think it’s a positive message. I’m entitled to it, and I’m sticking with it. I will neither debate you nor delete this post. It’s possible that, if you keep an open mind, you might learn something from it. Maybe. If you don’t like it, you can lump it. And I don’t run from bullies, okay?

UPDATE: While I was tweeting this, I found out that a fellow blogger, Paul Downie, has been quoted in this article. He’s blogged a whole lot about the development issues discussed in the article on Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar.

And, of course, (former) councillor Karen Chilvers blogs about it quite a bit on her blog.

Plus you can find both blogs in the sidebar of this here blog.

Isn’t that awesome?

You know, you really have to wonder. I know I did when I saw this CNN article that read as follows (and I quote):

Papa John’s Pizza fired a cashier at one of its New York restaurants and apologized to an Asian-American customer for a receipt that identified her as “lady chinky eyes.”

“We were extremely concerned to learn of the receipt issued in New York,” the company said in a statement posted on its Facebook page Saturday.

You might be wondering, why on earth is a big company like Papa John’s issuing statements on Facebook about such things? Why is CNN even covering this story? Seriously, WTF?

Because, believe it or not, this crazy b*tch nutty lady Asian-American customer didn’t just go back to the store and complain to the manager. No! Here’s who she is and what she did, straight from the article:

Minhee Cho, a communications manager at nonprofit investigative journalism group ProPublica, posted a photo of the receipt on her Twitter account Saturday morning and by the afternoon it was picked up by a local newspaper.

Along with the receipt, Cho tweeted “just FYI my name isn’t ‘lady chinky eyes.’”

Well, hardy har har … nice going, Miss Communications Manager for a nonprofit investigative journalism group. And what do you suppose happened next? Please, do tell …

The receipt had been viewed online almost 200,000 times by Sunday afternoon, according to the counter on the Twitpic page.

My … what a surprise! Not.

Cho did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment, but her boss did.

Yeah, I can just imagine!

“This blew up far beyond Minhee’s expectations,” ProPublica spokesman Mike Webb said in an e-mail.

Excuse me? Ha ha ha ha … okay, we’re talking about a communications manager for ProPublica, which according to its website, prides itself as “an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with ‘moral force.’ We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.” This lady woman professional communications manager took the trouble to photograph a receipt and make snarky comments about it on Twitter, instead of simply taking her problems straight to the manager and quietly dealing with them. And she actually expected no one to notice her tweet! Yeah, and I got a bridge I’d like to sell you …

“She has reporters coming to her apartment, and that’s annoying.

No sh*t! Now the shoe’s on the other foot. Ha ha ha …

So she wants it to blow over and she has nothing more to say.”

Sound familiar? I would think the reporters at ProPublica hear that a whole lot.

Cho was a customer Friday night at the Papa John’s on Broadway in Manhattan’s Hamilton Heights neighborhood, according to the receipt.

That’s right. CNN is covering this great big story, because this idiot dissatisfied customer didn’t simply go back and discreetly handle her problems with the manager at one store!

“This act goes against our company values, and we’ve confirmed with the franchisee that this matter was addressed immediately and that the employee is being terminated,” the pizza company said. “We are truly sorry for this customer’s experience.”

I’m truly sorry, too. And I’m following Minhee Cho on Twitter now. Because who knows what bizarre thing she might tweet next.

Minhee Cho

“Well, really, I was just joking. LOL”

“My brother works for Dominos and I got carried away. ROFL!!”

“Okay, so my ex is the regional manager. You know what they say about a woman scorned. Ha!”

“I’m looking for a job. I have great communication skills. Really!”

These are just things I’m making up, of course. Because I’m a fiction writer who blogs, and I have an active imagination. It’s not my job to be a journalist and figure out why the hell Cho did what she did.

That would be a real journalist’s job, right?

PS: Your Twitter account isn’t an island.

PPS: Even an innocent tweet can end up being the butt of a joke. Twice. LOL!

There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Truth is way stranger than fiction.

Well … what would you have done under the same circumstances?

Goodbye and good riddance.

Now, here’s someone actually worth emulating. And I must admit, I am envious of the guy’s problem-free existence.

PS: Gene Weingarten actually replied to my last post on Twitter! Awesome. However, since he didn’t bother to actually check the magazine, I keep wondering if I should consider this an adequate response. Because without looking at an actual copy, I would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles he was wrong, but I’m not going to argue the point with him. He also didn’t post his response in the comments, if you want to get technical about it. At this point, Gene probably has completely forgotten about the whole thing. I haven’t. We’ll see how it goes from here. In any case, feel free to click on the link in the column, to help Gene get an AK-47, if you think his response is adequate at all. If you have an opinion on the matter, please feel free to share it in the comments. Thanks!

PPS: What can I say, except … Omigod!!!

And have a great weekend!