The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship is DONE! Well, except for the afterword, which I’m going to redo and turn in next week. Other than that — it’s done and submitted to Paladin Press. Just looked to see when the first email arrived from Donna at Paladin proposing the project.A month ago today. From zero to completed manuscript (about 2/5 new material, 3/5 compiled columns — but even those had to be edited and updated, so still quite a project) in exactly one month. Whew! (Ulp. I also just realized, in re-reading Donna’s first message, that I didn’t really…
Category: Books and Movies
Fueled by coffee (which I rarely drink, being a tea wuss), I just spent the evening not working on the Paladin book and am now about to get back to those almost-final polishings. Meantime I enjoyed an excellent noir thriller which is as much a meditation on love, loss, regret, memory, and obsession as it is a murder mystery. The Secret in Their Eyes. It won this year’s Best Foreign-Language Picture Oscar — one of the few times I think I might agree with the Academy voters on a foreign film (they usually vote too politically correct or two just-plain-sappy…
I’m tired. I’m very, very, very, very tired. It’s been one month and two days since I set out to move cross-country, close on a house I’d never seen, and fix up said house while writing/assembling a book for Paladin Press with a deadline of just over one month. And suddenly, I’m beat. Not sure why it’s hitting now. Things are going great, actually. The book — The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship — is right on schedule. I’ll be sending the manuscript to Paladin by the end of this month and they say (wonder of wonders) they’ll have…
Okay, patient people. With some luck your patience might soon pay off and I’ll be back to regular blogging. Friday, I’m scheduled — for the second time — to get Internet at home. That’s the good news. The bad news is … it’s via Comcast. And opinions on Comcast (oh, thank you, G.W.F.) are so very cheery. However, Comcast was my only alternative. So there it is. If all comes together as hoped, you should see more of me after Monday. And here’s more in the patience-will-be-rewarded category: By October, I should have two new books out! One you know…
Sunday night as I write this. I’m sitting amid the rubble of a whole weekend spent doing illustration. Pencils. Colored pencils. Scissors. Kneaded erasers. Tortillons. Paints. Odorless paint thinner. Markers. Tissue paper. Illustration board. Reference photos. As I say, rubble. And all this is strewn across the standard rubble that quickly takes over life when you live in a fifth-wheel and have to work, eat, and Web surf at the same tiny table. It’s so bad at the moment that when my fellow hermit Joel came over for dinner earlier he not only had to cook it himself — outside…
(I’m not sure what all this means. But it seemed like a good idea when I wrote it.) For the first time in a sad number of years, I opened the email file I labeled “RebelFire Futurestuff” and read. I’ve longed to go back and further the tale of Jeremy, Cedra, Rey, and the band RebelFire. I had (and to my surprise still have) notes for a sequel and at least one more. Unusual. Plotting is my weak point and I’m not good at thinking ahead. I also had links to articles on privacy and technology, philosophical concepts, etc. —…
Housing. It’s double-dipping. Anybody here surprised? “Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse.” Arthur Laffer says the illusory recovery of 2010 will go blooey on January 1. Bounty hunter offers Colton Harris-Moore $50,000 to surrender. Don’t fall for it, Colt. The secret wars expand. “Special Operations commanders have also become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush’s administration … ‘We have a lot more access,’ a second military official said. ‘They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly.’” Forget…
I know this is last week’s news and it’s already gotten a fair bit of circulation. But I think it’s worth a second read. Or a third: “Warning: Crash dead ahead. Sell. Get liquid. Now.” Paul B. Ferrell. I know that much doom-gloom needs to be taken with a healthy sprinkling of salt. But you do gotta wonder when we’re finally going to teeter over this brink we’ve been wobbling on. “The part of me the Watchers couldn’t see.” Encouraging. And apropos of nothing except a coincidence of wording (and some evils of government), I’m currently re-reading one of my…
Okay. It’s Friday. It’s May. The weekend is coming. The sun in shining. It’s a good day for being naughty here at the blog. Don’t tell Dave Duffy (aka The Boss), but today let’s cover things strictly illegal and fattening. To wit: You just know cannabis is finally out of the Reefer Madness days and inching toward the mainstream when the New York Times runs a straightfaced article on how chefs’ and other staffers’ personal use of the herb is influencing both food and atmosphere at restaurants. Well, makes sense. Cannabis. Munchies. Yeah. And along those lines: Dan D. Lyon,…
I’m sorry for not blogging the last few days. Last-Chance Gulch had company from far away and we were busy doing wild-n-crazy things. I intended to blog about the visit and our flamboyant visitor. But as I considered what to write, I realized that our activities — while harmless — were nearly all illegal, immoral, or fattening. Or at least some of the above. Now that I’m recuperated, I may take time and use my better judgment before writing up any of our scandalously fun behavior. Or not. In the meantime, I’ve been collecting. And some of what I’ve gathered…