BOOGER!!!!!

Here's something that makes me look super old. Remember the show WKRP in Cincinnati? No? Well now I feel old. Thanks a lot. Heh.

I had the opportunity to be on WSPL's Morning Show with Jaimie London and it was a lot of fun. She even remembered me from the talk we had when Howling Legion was released. What can I say? I'm a guy, so it's nice to have women remember me. I've done a few interviews for all the Skinners books and I always get nervous. Thanks to some great hosting, I think I sounded all right. I'll see for sure if I embarrassed myself when I listen to the playback sometime. For those of you who know WKRP, do you remember how Dr. Johnny Fever got fired from one of his old jobs? He said "booger" on the air. Hey, it was funny in the 70's! I can still see Howard Hesseman sitting at his mike during a moment of rock 'n roll rebellion and growling, "BOOGerrrrr!!". Well guess what I have to concentrate very hard NOT to say when I'm doing a radio spot. Somehow, I controlled myself.

Thanks, Jaime. See ya for Book 4!

Online Multiplayer -OR- Meeting New Jerks From Across The World

So I've been playing a lot of ModNation Racers on the PS3. Very cool game and ranks high on the Cute-o-Meter, which is a fun change from my normal splatteriffic, headshot-heavy fare. The online component is huge with this game and it really shows the variety you get when you dive in to multiplayer.

First, there's the good side. At times, this game makes me realize why I've got my console hooked into the internet in the first place. Racing with cool people who take a lot of time to put together some awesome tracks and then being able to download those tracks after the game. We comment on how fun it was, go on to the next one and I feel good about dropping the cash for the game.

Then, there's the bad. I join another multiplayer lobby and immediately get to hear everyone swearing at everyone else or singing. Yes...SINGING. Now I realize I was just talking about how bad my language gets when playing Mario Kart, but that's not when I'm playing with other people. Somehow, it just seems like I'm getting hosed so much worse when the computer is the one doing it. Oh sure!! Of COURSE you get the perfect power ups for every situation. You're the freaking COMPUTER!!! Let the human win every now and then. Remember Tron?? The users were GODS there and the programs worshipped them. That's how it SHOULD be!!!

Sorry about that. Back to the singing lobby. I don't have a headset hooked up and don't know how to mute other players (or if I can) so I ignore them and go about my race. Even knowing they're real people that I can't see makes the whole thing less stressful for me. I lose a race, I stick around for the next one. I get hit by a power up and I keep going, even though that power up is accompanied by a scratchy, vaguely anonymous "Take that, bitch!" from some dude's headset. The loading times are a bear on this game, so I stick around because I don't want to take the time to find another lobby. The icing on the cake is when I finally win one race. ONE race goes my way and as soon as I get back to the lobby, I get the boot. I'm out, by myself, wondering why I bother interacting with anyone and expect it to be fun. High school all over again. Doh!

Woo-HOO!!

Picked up Super Mario Galaxy 2 and was not disappointed. So far, it's every bit as well made, easy on the eyes and just plain fun as most of the other Mario games. Maybe it's bad for my "horror dude" image, but I don't mind sitting there, grinning like an idiot while living vicariously through a mustachioed plumber riding a little chubby dinosaur. Let's face it, life sucks sometimes. Sometimes, it sucks a LOT and Mario is like a dose of happy mainlined into your arteries. Who wouldn't want to spend some time in the Mushroom Kingdom when times get hard. Then again, I suppose a lot of people spend time there, but rehab usually follows.

I've heard about nursing homes using the Wii for physical therapy, but they should put Super Mario games into mental hospitals to help relieve depression. Keep it away from the folks with hallucinations, though. Seeing talking mushrooms and floors that fall away into nothingness won't do them any favors.

I'm seriously considering getting ModNation Racers for the PS3. Another dose of cute, but in go-kart form. Creating my own tracks and karts looks just easy enough for me to give it a go. Speaking of karts, I haven't stopped playing Mario Kart on the Wii. I've got to say, despite its Mario-cute factor, I spew more obscenities per second during that game than any other. And that includes games where I get shot, stabbed, or otherwise worked over by an unrelenting and unforgiving AI with superior processing power behind it. Getting tea bagged by some dickhead 11 year-old on XBox Live? It happens. Getting dicked over by a stuck-up blond princess throwing a blue mushroom at me when the finish line is in sight? That's tough. Hearing her honk, yell and wave at me as she drives by to steal my victory for the 5th race in a row?? That mother f*%$ing little bi&$h has gotta PAY!!!!!!

Chick Has Very Low Pain Threshold - Watch more Funny Videos
Not long ago, I finally got the piece on my leg completed. It's a Skinners tattoo with Paige and a Full Blood that took upwards of 30 hours total to complete. Jesse at Nuclear Ink did the work and it's freaking awesome. Although there were rough patches sometimes, it was NEVER as bad as this. Yowza!!

Bram Stoker 2...this time, it's PERSONAL

Remember how I'm appearing all month long at the Barnes & Noble Paranormal book club? Well if you haven't stopped by, get over there! Wait...after you read this blog.

So far, there have been some fun discussions on the board but I sure didn't see this one coming. Paul Goat Allen's blog was all about me and the Skinners saga (it's pretty cool for me to think of it as a "saga") and frankly, I was blown away by the title alone. It's called Vampires, Van Halen and Video Gaming: Why Marcus Pelegrimas is the Bram Stoker of the 21st Century. Click here to read it for yourself. My first thought was that this was a tongue in cheek sort of thing that would end up with a big ol' "Bazinga!" Not that Paul is a mean sort of guy, of course. Like I said before, I was just blown away.

So go read the blog and keep reading while you're at that site. There's plenty of great stuff to catch your eye.

I have to go play some more Split Second. With the push of a button, I can collapse a building or drop a dry-docked boat onto my fellow racers. How could I not love this game??

I'm one happy geek

Yesterday was a big day for game releases. Actually, Tuesday is always a mini-event because new games as well as new DVDs are released so it tickles me on a few of my sweet spots. That sounds more than a little nasty, but you get what I'm saying. Nothing hit as far as DVDs that I wanted, but there were games coming out the wazoo!! And by that, I don't mean this guy. He's The Great Gazoo. I don't want anything that comes out of him.

Anyway, I was trying to decide if I should break down and buy a new game and, if so, which one. In the middle of that process, I checked my Facebook page and found a little somethin' that a reader whipped up. It's a Magic: The Gathering card featuring the Blood Blade! How freaking cool is this? Just the sight of it made my geeky heart skip a beat. Even stranger is the fact that I actually have this knife. Bought it at a con because I thought it looked like a Blood Blade. Coincidence? I think not. Actually, probably is a coincidence, but still a cool one. Thanks, Michael!

On the video game front, Alan Wake, Split Second, new Prince of Persia, and Red Dead Redemption were some of the releases that had caught my eye. I intended on getting Red Dead simply because someone FINALLY made a high quality open-world western game. The only thing that stayed my hand was the fact that I'm in the middle of some open-world goodness now (Infamous, Fallout 3, GTA 4 -- I know these have been out for a while, but I'm slow!!) and would like to wrap up at least one of them before diving into another. Alan Wake is about a horror writer who fights monsters, so that was a no-brainer. Plus, I think I can find a way to use that as a tax write-off. Research? While I was in Best Buy, the girl in the blue shirt wandering the aisles told me they had the Split Second demo set up on one of their plasma screens. I checked it out, fell in love with the idea of blowing up buildings while racing and dodging debris, and picked that one up too. Damn you, Best Buy Temptress!!!

Boob tube is sagging

I have REALLY lost touch with reality television shows. Have no clue who won Survivor. Don't know who's singing what on American Idol. Haven't the foggiest who stumbled or soared on Dancing with the Stars. It's all just sliding by. The upside to this is that less of my limited brain capacity is being devoted to them. Funny enough, I usually just watched them because they were on. I did get into the whole thing sometimes, but I really don't miss them now that they've been removed from me like an appendix that was broadcast into my living room. Now don't get me wrong. When Hell's Kitchen comes back, I'll be all over it.

Tonight is a new Big Bang Theory that answers one of my Big Bang questions. Just how did Sheldon meet Leonard?? Ok, so it hasn't really been weighing me down or anything, but it should be a good episode.

The other day, I watched Let's Make A Deal. I have NEVER seen that show. Not the classic version and not the new one. It was pretty good, I guess. Wayne Brady was hosting and he did not look happy. Sure, he did his job and all. He's a cool guy, but he seemed to have genuine fun on Whose Line is it Anyway and Don't Forget the Lyrics. Was that the name of that karaoke show? Anyway, he had a look in his eyes on Deal that screamed, "I'm doing this for work. Please kill me." Maybe it was just a bad day. We've all been there, Wayne. Keep your chin up!

Always more to do

I really need to get crackin' on updating my main website. So far, the only real stuff I've done to it is to put new covers on when the books come out. Actually, I should say Webmaster Steve does that sort of thing. I have high hopes for the appendixes, but I have to do more than hope on those. I actually need to sit down and write some things. When I do (which won't be long), it'll be pretty cool. The MEG Files will be a reference to the main characters and the Skinner Field Guide will be a reference to the creatures. Doesn't sound like a lot for me to do, right? Well, it's really not. That's my fault.

Just got finished with the edits for Skinners 4 and they're looking great. You'd think I'd learn something by paying attention to all those copy editor's notes. I do! I pay attention, but my strong suit has never been comma usage. That's what the copy editors are for and I'd hate to put them out of a job. By the way, thanks to my copy editors. You're the busy hands dusting me off, straightening my tie and slicking back my hair before I present my books to the world.

The first draft of Skinners 5 is moving right along. Just got finished with a major action scene and some pretty cool interactions between Cole and a newly introduced Full Blood. Could I be more generic than that? Let's see...Paige is also kicking someone's butt and flipping someone else some attitude. More generic?? Seriously? Ok. Somebody else is doing some stuff and interjecting dialogue along the way. Heh. That was fun.

More computer woes

So just when I think I'm in the clear after getting my computer all snaked and swiffered or whatever else they do to clean it out, the damn thing pulls another fast one on me. I pull up my Word file for Skinners 5 (just a Word file. Nothin' fancy.) and it says it's not available. I panic. I say obscene things to my monitor. I try to fix it. Apparently, it's trying to pull up my Word '03 files as Word '07 documents. So now I'm being forced to upgrade??? Not cool.

Long story short: I did get it back on track. I fixed it myself, which was cheap, but I won't try to make it sound like I diagnosed the problem and repaired it. More importantly, I did NOT upgrade against my will. I kept fiddling until it worked. I think my laptop has the same problem, but I'll tackle that one later.

In other news, Big Bang Theory was a good one last night. The gist of it was a simple message. Nerds can be kinky too. Heh.

Will I emerge from the bubble?

With everything being so crazy (working on Skinners 4 & 5 while editing and doing other projects), I've put myself on a new schedule. One side effect is that I rarely leave home or see more than 1 or 2 people per day. I just realized one day that I didn't even use my normal speaking voice until well past 9pm. While that sounds nice and relaxing on paper, it does have its drawbacks.

First of all, there's the whole "crazy hermit" thing. Lord only knows what my neighbors thought of me before. Seeing me poke my head out to collect mail and scurry back in before the sunlight touches me doesn't help my image. Secondly, it becomes increasingly difficult to visit the outside world. Case in point: Iron Man 2. While I've pretty much given up the movie theater experience in favor of the less crowded, cheaper and all around more enjoyable one in my living room, Iron Man 2 is one of the few movies I don't want to wait for on DVD. And yet, there's a part of me that hesitates to leave my little bubble.

I should just suck it up and go out while I'm still coherent enough to know there's a potential problem, right? It'll be fun! Hey, it's IRON MAN!! That's what I'll do. Or maybe I'll just take a walk. Or, if that doesn't work out, I can turn on the Wii and take a virtual walk with my virtual dog. Maybe Iron Man will be playing somewhere in there. Or I could just wait for the DVD.

NO! Out I go!!!!

Run Silent, Run Co-op

Finally got a chance to play some Splinter Cell: Conviction. And FINALLY real co-op is back in that series!! Webmaster Steve and I played so much of the co-op missions in SC Chaos Theory back on the old XBox (Ebony) that I barely got a chance to dabble in the excellent single player campaign. We had our hopes up for SC Double Agent on the 360 (Ivory), but the co-op was nowhere near the predecessor. Now we're back in business. Not only is the co-op phenomenal, but there's even the Deniable Ops mode which is like Terrorist Hunt on the Rainbow 6 series. Tasty!!

My only gripe now is that I don't have enough time to play as much as I'd like. And when I refer to "as much as I'd like", I mean all day / every day. Oh well. I'd better get crackin', though because I'm seeing previews for the new Ghost Recon, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games that look brain-melt-tastic. If there was only a way to convert my XBox gamer score into currency, I could pay bills AND keep playing.

Through the lovely month of May

Once again, I've been invited to be featured on the Barnes & Noble Paranormal / Urban Fantasy Book Club message board. It's always a pleasure and I'll be there this entire month. After chatting about Teeth of Beasts, you can look around at all the other stuff there. It's a great site, so do yourself a favor and bookmark it.

In other news, I finally got around to seeing Avatar. I was resistant simply because I've been hearing the hype for this movie since I was about...what...eight years old? Much like Titanic, the more I was ordered to see this spectacle and COMMANDED to love it, the less I wanted to go. Contrary by nature, I suppose. Still haven't seen Titanic, but that doesn't have aliens flying on little dragons and Marines in battle armor. First of all, seeing Avatar on Blu Ray was amazing. Secondly, this one truly did live up to the hype. For the 4 or 5 of you out there who may not have seen it yet either, it's definitely worth it.

My editor is asking for title suggestions for Skinners Book 5. I always have a title in mind when writing a book, but it just gets filed under the "Nice try, but no dice" category. More often than not, the final title winds up better than my first choice anyway. My first title for Book 2 was Beneath the Flesh. I thought it pertained to shapeshifters and sounded creepy. It got rejected because it was too creepy. Heh. Anyway, Howling Legion is a lot better than that one.

Ok. I need to clean up the place and maybe dig in to some games. Maybe I'll pick up the new downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2. Yeeeeeah....