The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul

Not Everything That Involves A Goat Is Good

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:30:42 GMT

Yesterday my wife and I drove down to my dad's house to visit he and my mother and while we were there, took in a movie. We saw The Men Who Stare At Goats, (TMWSAG for short) and although I can't speak for what everyone else was expecting, I was at least wanting a few laughs. After all, that's how the movie was billed, if you have been (un?)fortunate enough to have seen the trailer.

This is really not the case. It's not a case of the movie being billed as something that it is not; my hallmark example in this arena is the Kevin Spacey/Frank Whaley movie Swimming With Sharks, which is billed as a comedy in every video store I've ever seen it in, and the movie is not a comedy in any shape, manner or form. TMWSAG is lacking in laughs because, quite simply, it is a bad movie. I know that if I sat down and broke bread with the critics who gave it such glowing reviews--and it should be noted for the record that these people are in the minority--that in all likelihood they would tell me I "didn't get the movie the way it was intended to be experienced" or some other claptrap that implies I am the one at fault for not appreciating what the filmmakers were trying to do. I respond to this as I always do when I told that I'm not erudite enough to appreciate the subtle nuances of celluloid fuck-fests like this; by pointing out I am a certified genius, and then making a rude noise.

This movie attempts to elicit the majority of its yucks by juxtaposing wildly opposite things, which is a standard of comedic filmmaking. In this case, it is hippies and the U.S. military. Any intrinsic comedy in this image usually disappears about the third time it makes its way on screen, and this bell is rung over and over again. Unfortunately, this has much the opposite effect; instead of chuckling each time Jeff Bridges or George Clooney does something very flower-child in the middle of their olive drag outfitted compatriots, you begin to wonder just exactly how realistic this portrayal is. Wouldn't somebody step in at some point and tell Bridges that he needed to hack off his two-foot-plus long ponytail? I mena, really?

It's particularly sad because the casting feels so wrong, and it's not because the actors themselves are bad at their craft. Jeff Bridges' legendary performance of The Dude in The Big Lebowski feels recycled here, and George Clooney (who was so comedically good in Leatherheads, O Brother Where Art Thou? and Burn After Reading) is trying to make the best out of a bad script. Kevin Spacey is given virtually nothing to do, and any filmmaker who wastes a talent like that should tarred and feathered. The main spotlight goes to Ewan MacGregor, who although is a nice, serviceable actor, gets the majority of the non-flashback related screen time and is forced to play straight man to Clooney, whose jokes are unfunny to begin with. There are also no women in this movie, which has the added effect of making it feel woefully imbalanced.

TMWSAG wants to be a hip, ironic, dark comedy, but without any comedy, it makes it feel like New Age superficial twaddle. Avoid this film at all costs. If you have to chew off a limb to escape the cinema turnstiles, I'll loan you a nail file to make your teeth sharper and speed up the God-awful job. The one saving grace of the nearly two hours if my life that I will never get back is that I saw a preview for next year's horror film The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero film starring Timothy Olyphant, who was soo good in Deadwood that I gave the awful film Hitman a try on Netflix. The Crazies looks dark, horrific and thoroughly entertaining.

The Men Who Stare At Goats: it's sad when a preview becomes the saving grace for an entire afternoon.

A Damned Good Deal

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:40:29 GMT

Okay, so you've heard me trumpeting the greatness of Jim Butcher for the past couple years in this space, and while I love his series The Dresden Files (also available as an alternate universe television show on DVD which aired on the Sci-Fi Channel), I'm even more impressed by his high fantasy series, The Codex Alera. The story is that Butcher took a bet from one of his pals that he couldn't write a fantasy series which involved Roman soldiers and Pokemon-style monsters, and not only did he succeed, he created the best fantasy series since... um, well, ever.

Now, y'all know that I love a good book, but I also love a great deal as well. The final book in the six novel series, First Lord's Fury, is going to be released on November 22nd. If you pre-order this book on Amazon.com, the usual twenty-five dollar or so price has been slashed to an unheard-of low, low price of exactly NINE FUCKING DOLLARS.

I repeat: nine fucking dollars. For a hardcover book that's probably going to be better than any other one you read this year. If you pass on this deal, do not pass Go and collect your two hundred dollars. Instead, receive a kick in the ass.

Now go get the first five novels, read those, pre-order the final one at a whopping discount, read the climax of the best damn fantasy series to ever come down the pike, and then, and only then, you may thank me.

Good stuff should always be shared. Now go and do likewise.

Day Four Metrics And Other Stuff

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:51:24 GMT

The word count at the end of today on Dead of Winter was 12,323 words. Not too bad. I am beating the per-day average of 1,667 words by about a 2-1 margin, and the fair Bebe has served as an excellent nemesis to compete against. I feel good about the way the plot is unfolding, and I am enjoying the banter between my characters. So far, it's been a major change of pace from last year. In 2008, I was writing a doctoral thesis. This year, it's an actual novel.

My Steve McNair jersey should be here in a few days, since it shipped today via priority USPS and is only coming from Los Angeles. I may have to make a photo post where I lay out all my jerseys; the collection is pretty extensive. Another item I am waiting for is my upgrade copy to Windows 7 (provided free via Dell for those ordering within a certain time frame), so I can dump Vista and its annoying constant stream of pop-ups asking me if I am sure I really want to run a program, upgrade a driver or in general do anything at all. Vista is all right, I suppose, but I am definitely looking forward to increased stability and wringing some more drops of horsepower out of Nemesis.

Oh, and I had a BSOD with the Alienware after installing a new set of display drivers, so thank God for Windows Restore Point software. Whew.

Got a few more days left on vacation, and it's been rather restful this week.

Night, all.

Addiction: It's A Beautiful Thing

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:43:41 GMT

I watched for a week and it all came crashing down tonight. I bought another sports jersey. Steve McNair Tenneessee Titans #9. Price in store: $220.00. My price: $39.95.

Thank you, Ebay. And thank you to my wife for putting up with my addiction.

Word count right now on Dead of Winter is 7,784. I'm having a glass of $60 per bottle wine to help my wife celebrate that one of her crappy co-workers got the axe today; my nickname for her was "The Emperess." I am enjoying The Proposal with my man Ryan Reynolds, and the reboot of V comes on tonight.

Wow, occasional tooth pain aside, this vacation is going well. How's your end of the 'verse today?

Day One Metrics

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:22:52 GMT

So today I finished the prologue chapter of Dead of Winter and also started the first chapter as well. I finished pretty close to 5,000 words, and I got a lot of football watching done, plus I showed up for a taping of Good Morning Sacramento at 8:30 or so this morning. You can see the story they ran on our group at this link, and I am the one in the red and white flannel shirt and the ponytail. Plus, they used Nemesis for the starting point of the video, so I had a good hitch of pride there. All in all, today was a good day.

Going to a write-in tomorrow and I'll play some Dan Patrick while chewing into the book. All in all, a good start.

Ooooh, It Be A Pretty

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:34:09 GMT

If anybody ever decided to make me this, they would instantly be promoted to Head of The Internet.

Here's a hotlinked pic:

(drool)

Untitled No. 1

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:38:38 GMT

Some people have been after me for a while now to post some original music, so here's one. Hopefully after the new year I will be able to use my new equipment to have a fully mixed MP3 with drums and bass, but for now, here's the bare-bones rhythm riffs. My wife did the taping and the composition is original and copyrighted so please, play if you like, but don't steal.

This one's for you, Elizabeth.

Plot Summary In 3, 2, 1...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:55:34 GMT

I've been asked by some people what the plot is for this year's edition of National Novel Writing Month. Here's the sales pitch:

A grisly murder in Lake Tahoe draws the attention of a fledgling paranormal investigation team working on behalf of private interests and the United States government. The previous incarnation of the group met an unearthly fate at the hands of unknown gathering dark forces, and now it appears the team is in over their heads as the mystery darkens and the body count rises. Will the team even be able to save their own souls, much less those of the people they have sworn to defend?

That's the cover letter response. The pat answer I give people is that Dead of Winter is "part The X-Files, part Ghostbusters and part CSI... and deadly business." It's got ghosts, demons, serial killers, ritual torture, police procedure, skulduggery, smokescreens and general hellraising.

So yeah, that's my newest project.

Oh, and the laptop? It's apparently going to arrive on Friday. This Friday.

Life's good, my devoted peeps. Life's good.

It's A Good Thing

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:33:06 GMT

Jesus, almost a month since updating? Really?

Well, right now we're fostering three kittens that we're attempting to find homes for... I think this will come out as a positive push on the great wheel of karma for me, and I suspect that it's already beginning to pay positive dividends. Why, you ask? Two reasons:

1) My three literary torpedoes are still in the water, running hot and true, and have yet to be turned away from their prospective targets.

2) OMG MY NEW LAPTOP WILL ARRIVE ON MONDAY!11!1!!!!1!11

I've been using the same Dell Inspiron 6000 since about March 2004 and while I love it it to death and have done a lot of quality writing (he prayed devoutly) on its keys, time marches on and does with with a particularly heavy tread over electronics. I occasionally get the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death), the DVD-ROM drive does not always wish to eject discs and most distressingly, the sound is completely kaput. Not even headphones will work, my devoted peeps. In the last few months, I have gotten to experience a silent world via my Inspiron and... and quite honestly, it sucks.

Enter Nemesis.

It's an Alienware laptop, which means that not only is it dreadfully expensive, it will also play Doom 3 at speeds and graphic resolutions that previously I could only pray bitterly for. I love Doom 3. Loooooooove it, but unfortunately it requires more oomph than my wife's laptop can provide. The new model will have this in spades (drool), plus Microsoft Office (sweet), a sturdy-as-fuck alumnium chassis (hell yes) and glowing red backlit keys (positively deadly). Yes, it is aptly named. Nemesis, goddess of divine retribution. Oh, and with a Blu-ray DVD player.

It's my Christmas present, but I don't have to wait to open it up; it will be here in time for my vacation and therefore for National Novel Writing Month. When it was ordered, the build date was scheduled around the end of the month, something which past experience has taught us is usually off by about two weeks at the least.

This time, the time lapse is in our favor.

What's good in your life lately?

Keep Rolling

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:14:25 GMT

I know I said this space would next feature what else happened during our weekend, but I have a different report instead:

Another torpedo is in the water. The Phoenix Initiative has been submitted. That makes three novels--The Phoenix Initiative, Salvation and The Final Nine--that are now in the submission mix all at the same time.

Hell's bells, a good carpet bombing has to hit something sooner or later, right? ;)

Disaster Knows No Day Off

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:24:32 GMT

I had Friday off from work because Lady Jade and I were going to head down to Concord and spend the weekend with Mad Evil Chris. Among the events that would take place were a baseball game (Oakland A's versus the Cleveland Indians), my cherry-popping at the hands of the video game Guitar Hero, and probably a decent amount of alcohol abuse. Hey, maybe even the Oakland Raiders would win a game!

Getting Friday off was a smart move, in theory. It was a premeditated maneuver, one that would allow us to fit in a lot of extracurricular activities in addition to the drive down to the Bay Area. However, the will of the universe hates to be challenged, so I present with an alternately heavy and head-shaking heart, a special edition of Ups And Downs:

UP: We woke up with gladness in our hearts and Five Hour Energy in our veins to take on the day.

DOWN: We got a late start. Even though we woke up at about nine, we didn't actually get out of the house until almost eleven-thirty. I don't know if it was my fault... okay, it wasn't. I hate saying that, but it's true. At least we got a shower out of the bargain.

ALSO DOWN: One of the items needing to be addressed was to go to Kaiser and get a note from my doctor stating that I'd be unable to go to work on Tuesday because I'd be getting a stomach probe. Seriously. My doctor was out of the office for the next two days (naturally), the backup doctor was currently out of the officde because it was lunch or something (of course), and the lady running the front desk was being a bitch (shocking). We had to make plans to come back later in order to get my note (hopefully).

UP: The other part of my visit there, getting some blood drawn for the evil geniuses in the lab, went very smoothly. It eventually turned out that everything seemed normal on that front, so a two-for-one in the win column.

DOWN: Costco was our next port of call to get a tri-tip roast for grilling at the house before leaving for Chris'. We also needed gas, but the line was so grotesquely long we decided to get lunch first, because I was developing a noticeably amount of bitchiness.

UH-OH, DOWN: Lady Jade's pizza arrived accompanied by delicious looks and lovely scents. My own calzone showed up about fifteen minutes later (and seemingly an hour or so more in the frustration column), stuffed with regular sausage and not the spicy Italian variety I had ordered. Terribly disappointing product from a place that usually is five-star in the food department, and didn't help my already sour mood in the slightest bit.

UP: Grazing at Costco alleviated most of my seething anger, and we got a great deal on a lot of wine.

SURPRISINGLY, UP: My doctor's note was ready when we got back to Kaiser, I turned it in to the bummed-looking dispatcher at the bus company, and home we went for final packing and the grilling of the tri-tip.

HOLY FUCK, DOWN: Five minutes after the grill was lit, off it went. Lack of propane. Jesus. Off to the refilling place, and a check of the clock indicates it is now quarter past three. We should have been on the road three hours ago. The gods can be cruel.

UP, SORTA: The tri-tip turned out great, but that's a given. I take my grilling seriously. The final packing is done, we collect the cats and, oh yeah...

MAJOR DOWN: Although it's nice to be taking Hera the Brave One and Marcus the Backup Kitty down to Chris', we're doing it primarily because they're sick and we need to give them antibiotics twice a day. Specifically, my daughter Hera is the one who really needs the attention. They're good traveling companions, but the reason behind the necessity of bringing them doesn't sit well with me.

CATACLYSMIC DOWN: We're about forty minutes or so from Chris' house when OMG WE FORGOT THE FUCKING TICKETS! Lady Jade offers to drive back once we arrive at Chris' house and retrieve them herself. I'm tempted by this self-sacrificing offer, but there's no way I could allow her to do that because I'm not a shitty husband. We turn the Mighty Dodge around and head back to Sacramento.

SLIGHT UP: We take this opportunity to pick up a couple other items and a quick Taco Bell meal, because it's now 7:25 PM and if I hadn't gotten today off, we'd be leaving Sacramento about half an hour later than we currently are. This day has been a case study in Murphy's Law.

DOWN: After a pleasant (albeit shortened) evening, we retire to bed and the reason behind my doctor visit makes itself known again as I violently puke my guts out about an hour after bedding down.

Hell's bells, what a day. Day two report to follow later...

Legacy Of (Stomach) Brutality

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:05:02 GMT

So the tale of the tape in the doctor's office has revealed a very interesting factoid about myself: despite being an avowed horror movie fan, a dedicated follower of the Oakland Raiders and not having killed my in-laws yet, I have been diagnosed with a "weak stomach."

You'd think the Raider thing alone would prove I have a gut of cast-iron, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. What I actually have is a slow digestive tract, and I got to find this out by going to my local Kaiser branch and eating irradiated scrambled eggs, whereupon their progress of lack thereof were then tracked through my digestive tract for the next two hours. In case you were wondering, the eggs were horrible. Not even cafeteria eggs... lab eggs. Most likely some kind of experiment gone awry. The substandard speed with which they traveled through told them that they were dealing with a person whose stomach just doesn't run at the speed it should.

What does this mean in practical terms? Well, several things. First of all, I should be eating several small meals throughout the course of the day rather than two whopper meals the way normal Americans do. This is actually a blessing in disguise, because eating in this way actually speeds up the metabolism of your body, making it much easier to lose weight.

Incidentally, since we're on that disagreeable subject... 209 pounds. Seriously. That is so fucking far from being okay that I can't even really begin to wrap my head around it all. Being 5;9" and 209 pounds is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.

Anyway, on to point number two of my new health plan, which is that the last meal of the night I eat should be something both fairly easy to digest and should also give my stomach a nice coating to fight off stomach acid. What's the meal of choice? CEREAL! Yes, I have slogged through all I have gone through so I can chow down like a little kid. While we're being honest, though, I have to admit that once again, this is actually fairly okay. See, I happen to really like cereal, it's a very cost-effective meal and I get to have a desert as well. Vanilla almond Special K followed up by Cocoa Krispies equals YUM. So once again, not too bad.

Point three sucks, though. Carbonation is bad, so that means... nighttime beer is a no-no. Nooooooooo! What will I do without my beer, that thing which usually keeps me from murdering my in-laws?

Well, I'm not a wi-no... I'm a wi-yes! Wine has no carbonation, less of an acid content than hard liquor and goes well with cheese. It's also tasty and gives a nice, mellow buzz, so there you go.

I'll let you know how my health plan goes but thus far, after two days I have had zero bad spells whereas before I had three out of four nights with the night pukes. I guess something must be working.

Peace.

Look Who Joined Our Household

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:18:17 GMT

I promised a picture of Hera, and now it has been delivered.

She is sweet. Definitely a Daddy's Girl.

Dark? Like Midnight In A Coal Mine, Baby.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:29:34 GMT

Last night I went to be about 9:30 PM or so; an hour later, I was yarking my guts into the Porcelain Throne. That's right, the return of the dreaded Night Pukes strikes again. Once that was done I weaved my way back to bed and fell into a sodden sleep...

...which was not interrupted at the God-awful hour of 5:00 AM by the alarm clock. See, I had set the alarm for that time, but mistakenly had calibrated it for PM rather than AM. So when I stared blearily at the time of 5:32 AM, I immediately realized that with a checkout time on my bus of not a second later than 6:04 AM, I was going to need to grow a rocket between my ass cheeks in order to get to work on time.

Thankfully the coffee was already brewed up and I was able to get to work on time, but I felt awful all morning. I'm not going to my second half and am in fact going to see my doctor about this, because this problem was supposed to be handled and when I described how I was feeling, I was asked a serfies of questions that I have never been posed before and quite frankly worried me. Things like, "Have you recently had an organ transplant?" and "Are you currently undergoing chemotherapy?"

Gulp.

Oh, and I also got shot down again on the submission front, so booooooo to that as well.

Basically, today blows. I hope it's going better for you.

UPDATE: Uh-oh. This may be more serious than I thought. Not to go all TMI here, but the solidity of what I threw up (it was like barfing out an old Dungeons & Dragons gelatinous cube monster) and the fact that it only seems to happen at night may mean that my stomach is not digesting at the rate it should. It could also have something to do with my liver. When I went to the doctor today, I had some blood drawn for analysis at the lab, which in itself is a highly unamusing process. Lurking in the future is eating irradiated food and seeing how long it takes to leave various parts of my digestive system. Not as painful, but potentially more ominous for what it may reveal.

Man, this is not good. Not at all.

Happy Anniversary! And Serious Loserness!

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:14:40 GMT

Lady Jade and I have been married for six years as of today. I love you, honey. Thank you for the best years of my life.

On another note entirely, Mad Evil Chris and I have renewed our annual bet concerning our respective NFL teams, the St. Louis Rams for him, the Oakland Raiders for myself. Whoever has their team finish with a better record (the "winner") will then get from their opponent (henceforth referred to as "the loser, loser, loser") the spoils of war, which in this case is a large box of TGI Friday's Buffalo Wings and a six-pack of whatever beer they desire.

I use quotation marks around the appellations of "winner" and "the loser, loser, loser" because of the tiebreaking formula used. Both of us predicted what our team's final record is going to be; in the event of a tie by our franchises, the winner will be determined by who was closer to their team's final record. We picked as follows:

CHRIS: says the St. Louis Rams will finish with a 4-12 record.

JESSE: says the Oakland Raiders will finish with a 5-11 record.

So actually, going with the amount of faith we seem to have in our teams, there doesn't seem to be any winners this year.

Locked In

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:15:37 GMT

I've made my dental appointment for Friday, October 30th, at 8 in the morning. This is the one where I will be having four, count 'em, FOUR wisdom teeth extracted. I'm a little conflicted for the following reasons:

PRO: Since I scheduled so far in advance, I was able to get the Friday that I start my vacation as my date with the oral surgeon. This means that my plan of having it done while off work so I won't take it out on the public or be unable to drive is an unqualified success. It also means that since I will having it done so early in the morning, I will have very little time to be terrified before going under the sleep gas. Hopefully I wake up, be groggier, go to Folsom, and then be even groggier for the rest of the day. By Tuesday, I should be pretty much myself again and possibly even able to eat solid food once again.

CON: I am volunteering for very invasive oral surgery, which makes me feel like the biggest masochist of all time.

Sometimes being an adult blows.

The Clashing You Hear Is My Teeth :)

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:45:17 GMT

I'm in the middle of The Wait right now; I capitalize the first letter of each word of that label so I can give it the due it deserves. The Wait is when an aspiring author (or an established one) sends in a query/proposal/manuscript to a publisher/agent, and then embarks on a lengthy period of time where they try to not think about what they have done. I submitted about two and a half weeks ago; therefore, I am once again embroiled in The Wait.

It is what it is.

Incidentally, established authors have this happen to them as well. While chatting one time with rachelcaine , I was astounded to find out that she had recently sent off a proposal to a publisher, and was now waiting on pins and needles to find out what the verdict was going to be. I am not trying to sound mean when I say this, so please don't intepret it that way... but in a way it did my soul a tremendous amount of good to know that even somebody who has almost two dozen novels in the bookstore under their belt isn't immune to this sort of literary teeth-grinding. I told her this, and we laughed about how odd the universe can be.

The process of The Wait is one that on some level, you never get used to. Take it from me, kids; I've been in this racket for nearly two decades now and I still get the butterflies, inflated hopes and heaviness in the pit of my stomach caused from this process every single time (and not just every time, but every single fucking time!) I do this literary throwing of a dart at the Yellow Pages. I have tried a multitude of different methods to distract my brain from turning over the possibilities and nothing works. Like Bill Parcells said, it is what it is.

In order to do this career choice, you have to have to possess the ability of doublethink. As those of us who read George Orwell's 1984 know, doublethink is the ability to hold two equally opposite views in complete balance, believing them both at the same time. Now the rest of y'all know it, too. See, you really do learn something new every day. In this instance, the process of doublethink allows the nascent author to hold the following viewpoints right up near the front of their gray matter:

1) I am sending this off and I know it is going to be accepted;

2) I am sending this off and I know it is going to be rejected.

The sad part is, you need to have both of these philosophies and you need to balance them accordingly. You have to have both yin and yang. If you start thinking only that you're going to succeed, every form letter rejection and invitation to find a new career path is going to burn like hydrochloric acid. On the other hand, calm belief in doom will eventually result in pulling a Sylvia Plath in some way or another. You may not literally stick your head in the oven, but you'll stop submitting and then possibly writing as well, which pretty much adds up to the same thing when consulting the (not-so) grand scorecard.

It's a tough series of downs, but you have to play the hand you're dealt.

Good thoughts to you and yours.

Gauntlet: Thrown

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:46:16 GMT

Well, I've registered for the 2010 San Francisco Writer's Conference. I perused the list of agents and agencies who will be in attendance and found, much to my mixed delight and discomfiture, there were three agents of the twenty or so in attendance who I had previously contacted and was--of course--rejected by.

At the very least, it settles any lingering doubts I might have had that everybody was going to be a bunch of nobodies.

Still waiting to hear back on a submission of Salvation I tossed out two weeks ago.

Other than that, life is a holding pattern. Peace.

Announcement: New Family Member

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:16:34 GMT

We have rescued a kitten.

Her name is Hera.

Pics to follow.

Screw That "Getting Along" Garbage

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:23:50 GMT

The trailer for the new and updated version of the science fiction classic miniseries V premiered at Comic-Con. It has already been scrutinized as having an anti-Obama message and is also being touted as a program that, much like Battlestar Galactica, is sure to become a favorite of neoconservatives everywhere.

(slow burn)

You know, I would for once like something to come out with a depth to it that is more than mud puddle-deep and not have its alleged hidden symbolism assigned to one political camp or the other. That would just be fucking super.

"It's Like My Mother-In-Law Going Off A Cliff... In My New Mercedes."

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:11:16 GMT

I feel conflicted.

Our next-door neighbor got foreclosed on. All their stuff is gone, there is a notice in the windows stating that the property is now under the purvey of Wachovia Bank and there was a big yard sale this weekend, where everything had to go. We lived next to them since the day we moved in, and he was an okay Joe. Didn't complain about very infrequent noise or leaves from our side of the fence.

On the other hand... he was a pit bull farmer. There were upwards of four full-grown examples of these carefully bred killing machines at any given time on his property, for the most part confined to kennels and causing even more conflict on our parts. While we are not the greatest fans of this breed of dog in the world (I'd be just as happy if somebody quietly and tastefully hit the ERASE button that controls the universe, personally) we are also animal lovers to the core, and seeing dogs penned up most of the time strikes us as creatures being forced to essentially serve a life sentence in prison. We checked the laws; what he was doing was legal, so there was nothing we could do.

Oh, and they also barked. On weekend mornings. Early. Far earlier than I was ever comfortable with, leading me to scream the following things out the window on otherwise bucolic Sunday mornings:

"Does somebody want the hose?"

"Shut up, you fucking miserable animals!"

"Accept your fate and be quiet about it!"

And so on down the line. This is what happens when you are exposed to this sort of low-class garbage for upwards of three years.

So yeah, I'm conflicted. And I'm also loving the peace and quiet.

Michael Vick: A Question Of Evil Intent

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:18:52 GMT

Michael Vick has been reinstated by the NFL. Well, sort of. It is now time for the great bleating to begin; this is where a large amount of people who should know otherwise start a vast chorus of moaning and wailing about the inherent unfairness of the NFL justice system. How terrible it is, they'll say, that this man who has dutifully served his time in the prison system should be denied the opportunity to re-enter the league. How tragic, that we simply cannot leave this man alone and insist on extracting every pound of flesh we possibly can.

You know me, people. I believe in plain, simple talk. So believe me when I say that I'm one of those people who'd love to get an extra pound of flesh or two from Vick, and my implement of choice in removing it would be a pair of rusty vice-grips.

For the last two months, I have listened to some of the most inane arguments ever leveled in print, radio or television, and the one that crops up over and over again is as follows. Dante Stallworth, another player in the league, served a 30-day jail sentence and will serve a lengthy stint of probation as well as dropping a 2-5 million dollar settlement against the family of a man who, while Stallworth was high and legally drunk, struck and killed with his Bentley. Vick did 23 months in federal prison for dogfighting, animal cruelty, racketeering and conspiracy to commit felonies across state lines. How then, these people ask with perfectly straight faces, can one man do less than five weeks of league time in the pokey for causing a human death while the other kills dogs and is confined to a federal institution for 23 times as long?

The answer is distressingly simple, and the gall it takes to even pose the question in the first place speaks to a vast ignorance the likes of which I will never personally experience. What Stallworth did was a tragic accident. His actions resulted in the death of another human being, true, but he did not get into his car that night with the express purpose in mind of slaying somebody. The last time I checked, intent is the difference between accidental vehicular homicide (five years if the judge is feeling peckish) and premeditated first-degree murder (in Florida, you ride the lightning). That's intent, people. It's the difference between being a passenger in your buddy's car when the cop's dope-dog starts going nuts and being the driver of said vehicle. Intent makes all the difference in the world.

Stallworth did not intend to cause a death. Vick did.

In fact, Vick went quite a bit further. There are so many things associated with the gruesomeness wrought by Bad Newz Kennelz and the monsters running the joint that many of the details were reported once and never spoken of again. People seem to find the particulars of this case unpleasant; therefore, it's better to simply not talk about them. It's better and more palatable for most to talk about this case as the question of how much the life of an animal is worth against that of a human being, and by that simplistic assumption, it's a cut-and-dried case.

This case is something different. Maybe we don't like talking about the "rape stands," the devices that female dogs were tied onto in order to facilitate matings to produce more puppies, lashed into place so they had no choice but to submit. We definitely don't like talking about the metal bars and devices used to pry apart the jaws of dogs who had locked a death-grip on their opponents, or the fact that blood was sprayed nearly up to the ceiling in the fighting room with the subterranean pit. Ditto with the dead dogs buried on the property, or that dogs which didn't cut the mustard were simply killed outright, and not in allegedly humane ways like with the gas chamber. They were beaten against the ground, or electrocuted, for starters. Didn't I say something before about riding the lighting?

Oh, and we definitely don't like thinking about the concept of bait animals. It's just--

Bait animals? Yeah. See, this is where the arguments breaks down for me, the comparison these empty-headed clowns try to make between Vick and Stallworth being reduced to utter nonsense. This is where the story tales on a whole new horrifying angle, one that has never been brought up by any of Vick's so-called "defenders." The thing is, even a pit bull doesn't always want to get the motor running for a gladitorial match to the death. You have to get them psyched up for the event. Sometimes you do it by starving them. Sometimes you do it by beating them. And other times, you take a dog, cat or some other type of animal, you duct tape its jaws shut (or file down its teeth) so it can't fight back, and you throw it, alive, into the pit to be torn to shreds.

If you're Michael Vick, you do this despicable act with your own household pets. Now you see why the argument has become so simplistic. You can't defend this with a straight face if you know all the facts. When you get to the subject of bait animals, you have officially passed the event horizon.

Look over at your cat or dog right now and imagine them, terrified and doomed, being thrown to a rapacious monster who will eviscerate them alive without even a puncher's chance to fight back or at least get in one solid bite. See that person throwing them in the pit? Now, try to see that person as being one of your friends or co-workers. That's not enough.

To truly appreciate how vile this, you must visualize the monster doing this as yourself.

That's why Vick deserves a lifetime ban, and that's just for starters. What he did was not a mistake. It wasn't a tragic accident, done by a person under the influence who didn't have a straight head on their shoulders. It was deliberate. It was premeditated. It was carried our with cruel intent and callous disregard for life. It was some of the worst of human behavior, done in the name of a barbaric "blood sport" whose supporters should die a slow, cancerous death in a part of the world where morphine does not exist.

We have a word for acts like what Vick did.

That word is evil.

Property Values Are On The Decline, And This Isn't Helping

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:29:25 GMT

Our neighbors across the street suck.

I know, I know. That's not being positive. That's hurtful. That's making a blanket statement about people who are all unique snowflakes, all of which are God's creatures and each brings something special to this world we live in. It's a close-minded statement.

I repeat: our neighbors across the street suck.

Allow me to don my Superiority Hat for a moment and explain the situation. I have already posted in the past about the general suckiness of our neighbors, and this is the third set that we have rubbed elbows with since buying our house. To be brutally frank, there has been virtually no difference in the first awful collective and the current terrible one. Neighbor Set Two was a nice woman who worked as a teacher, but was unfortunately forced to move all-too-soon due to cutbacks in the district she lived in making her unable to afford the rent. Trust me when I say that it was a sad day when she moved out, because she opened the door for the current mob we are forced to deal with.

This is being posted because as I arrived home at just before 9 AM, there was a full-bore yelling match going on in the front yard where the lady of the house (nattily attired in a sports bra and cut-off sweatshorts that were not even remotely up to the desperately-needed task of covering her woefully substandard body) was stomping off down the street while her man took off in her car. At least, I think it's her car. I don't know. Anyway, he took off in a squeal of tires, groaning of fan belts, clatter of gaskets and merry shouts of "BITCH!" while she walked two houses down, stood in somebody's front yard to yell about what an ass he was, and then went back inside the house across the street that I have christened The Crap Zone.

Now we start getting mean. You've been warned.

Much like the first group of mouth-breathers, these people are avowed hip-hop lifestylers and that leads to all kinds of awfulness. I can already people getting ready to curse me and defend their favorite kind of music, and you can just go ahead and set those burning torches aside, because there is no need for them. I am not speaking ill of people who have a love of hip-hop music; I am speaking ill of people who have a love of hip-hop culture. The difference between these two classifications is sort of like the gulf that exists between Pluto and our sun. People who love hip-hop music are normal folks. People who love hip-hop culture are terrible. Plain and simple.

Unlike many people, I am very up-front about the fact that I prejudge my fellow man and so far I have been very correct about our neighbors. When I saw the mode of dress and heard the music, I got a sinking feeling in my gut, the kind that tells me I am going to hear the dreaded N-Word more times in the next year than I would if I were spending all my free time at Klan rallies, and so far I have been one hundred thousand percent correct. Look, issues of free speech aside (don't worry, I'll address my own feelings on this at a future date), there is really only one reason you would use the N-Word in public. It's because you're an idiot. The frequency it is uttered determines just how large of a waterbrain you truly are and using this criteria has tabbed at least two of the house residents as being functionally retarded.

Ethnicity, you may ask? Doesn't matter. Idiots are idiots.

In addition to this, I have gotten to see a collection of jalopies, hoopties and rattletraps descend upon the place across the street that make my eyes burn. Yes, I know; don't judge somebody by the car they drive, blah, whatever. What-fucking-ever. If you have a 1985 Buick with two different colored doors and paint looking like leprosy topped off with 24" wheels and sparkling rims costing at least three times what the car itself is worth, that pathetic argument is over before it even starts, my friends. I am also not saying for a moment that hip-hoppers are the only ones who engage in this sort of grotesque car fuckery; it is, however, certainly the kind that opens itself up for the most ridicule. Examples can be seen here, here and here, in case you are interested. As you view these automotive horrors, try to keep in mind the fact that these are finished products that are held in high regard, not the typical rolling horroshow that is so prevalent in my neck of the woods.

Is this mean-spirited? Yeah, I guess it is. I don't care, though. The truth is ugly. By my calculations these folks should be out of here in about four months, if the previous calendar of events have been any sort of indication, and then we will spin the wheel of fortune again.

No house numbers this time, please. Or, for that matter, house music.

Some Kind Of Fun

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:04:56 GMT

Here in Sacramento it's currently 103 degrees at 6:55 PM, but I don't care. See, I'm plotting,

When asked where he got his ideas for writing, Stephen King had a stock answer: "Utica. There's a nice little shop there where I go in and browse around until I see something I really like, and then I buy it and go." It's a great answer because the honest to God truth is that there is no one place where ideas come from. They can be as fantastic, ordinary or strange as can be, and you'll never know where inspiration will come from. All you can count on is that when the iron strikes hot, the ideas will flow like water.

I'm a huge fan of CSI, the J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts In Death series, urban fantasy fiction and a classic good versus evil struggle. Dead of Winter will provide the opportunity to indulge all those joneses, so maybe that's why I'm already outlining the third chapter on yWriter and having a blast doing so.

And really, in the end, it's just good to have the passion bucket overflowing again.

Not A Shock At All

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:58:13 GMT

Okay, I bought another sports jersey. A #21 Asomugha model, Oakland Raiders, white, retails for about $260.00 and I paid $41.98, so sue me. The first step in overcoming an addiction is admitting you have a problem.

Phhhhbbbbbttttttttttt. Savings, my peeps, are savings. Besides, Asomugha is one of my favorite players and definitely my number one for this year's edition of the Raiders, so what the bleep ever.

I'm also going to be registering for the 2010 San Francisco Writer's Convention, to be held February 12-14 and my wife is not going to let me get out of this. "It's an investment in your career," she told me sternly. "Besides, I can write it off on our taxes."

Open mic readings. Over 100 editorial, agent-y and writer types. 80+ workshops. Contests. Agent speed-dating. Face time, held one-on-one. Big gala party to close it all out.

I'm doing it. It'll cost $545.00, but hey... it's an investment in the future.