Quick on the trigger

I was going through my emails the other day and accidentally hit the "Clear All" button. Don't ask how. I screwed up. Leave it at that. The only reason I bring this up is that I saw there were some requests for signed covers in there and now they're deleted. So if you sent me a request for a signed cover within the last week or so, please send it again. I promise I won't wipe it out this time.

Give Scrooge a break

I know Christmas is over and it'll be at least three or four weeks before we start seeing decorations on store shelves again, but I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine about ghosts. Specifically, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and (my personal favorite) Future from A Christmas Carol. Basically, I asked the question as to whether these supernatural entities are ghosts or something closer to demons.

Now I guess you could define "demon" as intrinsically evil, but I think a ghost is the essence of a human who is either stuck in our world / plane of existence or lingering there for their own reasons. If those reasons happen to be mean-spirited or "evil", does that make them a demon? No. When I think of a demon, I think more along the lines of an entity that has unearthly power (something cooler than floating or glowing) and is not of our world. There's more to it than that, but that's the Cliff Notes version. You see a shadow figure or hear disembodied voices? Could be a ghost. Is your dog possessed or are you being thrown onto the ceiling when you're trying to sleep? Sounds like a demon. Is that stuff evil? Depends on if you or the dog had it comin'.

Which brings me around to Scrooge. Sure, this old man was a crotchety jerk. Maybe he worked too hard and expected his employees to also give 110% when they're behind their desk. Hey, back then coal really WAS kind of expensive! But these things that visit him aren't just ghosts! They're time travellers. They create hallucinogenic food. (Ok you tell me how GoCPresent pulled that off!). But they weren't evil. Or...were they? Take GoCFuture. Ok, you teleport Scrooge into the days to come and show him (spoiler alert!!) he dies sad and alone. Point made. You reduced an old man to tears. Happy? He gets it. How about shoving his nose against his own tombstone. He'll buy the damn goose, all right!! Jeez!! Well, he was being difficult and needed some tough love. How about shoving the old guy into his OWN OPEN GRAVE!!! Yowza!! Even I think that's kind of harsh and I'm a horror writer!!

So, you decide. Possessed dog and getting knocked around into some walls or taken into the future to see your own horrific demise and then booted into hell via the ground where your own worm-infested corpse is laying. Makes that thing in Paranormal Activity seem kind of tame, doesn't it?

Announcement

This is really tough, but I've decided to stop writing Skinners and start a new series with a more romantic twist. The idea is for me to shift Cole and Paige into a story where they can truly explore the longing they feel for each other and I can delve into their aching, tortured relationship. I'm thinking the Nymar will become less bloodthirsty and more "brooding". Also, the Full Bloods will sparkle in the moonlight.

APRIL FOOL!

You probably saw that one coming, huh? Oh well. Tradition!

Misc. Monday

Saturday was the Villisca investigation. Sunday was sleep. More on that later.

I've never watched much of The Apprentice, but have been getting into the new season of Celebrity Apprentice. Are they always 2 hours long?? It's not a bad show, but I start to lose interest when we're closing in on 45 minutes and I know I'm not even halfway through. Time for some MST3K on Netflix!

Red Steel 2 comes out this week for the Wii. Although the first Red Steel is known as one of the worst games ever, I wasn't so put off by it. Thought it was fun enough in a goofy way. This one looks pretty cool, though. From what I've seen, the motion tracking for the sword fights looks impressive. We'll see.

Got Ninja Assassin on DVD, but haven't watched it yet. FINALLY a higher-budget Ninja movie!! As long as there's plenty of sharp objects flying around and blood-curdling battle screams, I'll be happy.

My car is making a funny noise. I should probably take it into the shop before that noise becomes a funny rattle followed by a not-so-funny explosion. Isn't there a scientist working on that Portal technology?? Step it up, people!!!!

A slice of my day

The new tattoo is healing nicely. Sometimes it feels like my skin is one size too small below my knee, but that's all a part of the fun.

Putting together the sneak peek scene of Skinners 4 that goes in the back of Skinners 3. Usually, it's a little preview along the lines of a Coming Attraction sort of thing. This time around, I'm considering it to be one of those cool little scenes you see if you stick around in the theater after the credits are done rolling in a movie. Short, but tasty. (Insert gross joke here)

Getting ready for another road trip to St. Louis for the signing next week. When that's done, you guessed it, ANOTHER road trip for Christmas. Ugh.

Beatles stuff OTHER than Rock Band???

Seems like I can't go to any video game store or electronics department without hearing Beatles music. It's pretty cool. 9/9/09 also saw the release of the remastered albums. On one hand, this is great because it keeps the music alive and vital. On the other hand, I can usually never really tell a difference when I hear older versions of songs as opposed to newer, "cleaner" versions. Unless the old one is from a scratchy record, my ears aren't sharp enough to catch all the tweaked nuances. That said, I bought a copy of remastered Revolver to see if I could tell a difference.

I put the new one on my MP3 player with the old one and did some side-by-side comparison. The difference wasn't mind-blowing, but it was there. I was especially impressed with the string sections. Listening to Eleanor Rigby made me feel like I was in the same room with the orchestra. So I guess that is pretty mind-blowing. It's a good time to be a Beatles fan. Although, it's also a time when I get to see teenage girls behind the register at Best Buy rolling their eyes while sighing, "More Beatles stuff? So is this, like, any good?" Just give me my receipt.

Chocolate in my peanut butter?

I just read that Disney has purchased Marvel for some ungodly amount of money. No matter how much the "rational" part of my brain tells me that this is "just a standard business deal" and that it shouldn't effect "comic book coolness" or that I put "too many" quotes around things, I can't help but wince. I just got finished reading an awesome Wolverine/Punisher crossover where Frank beat Wolverine by blasting him in the face with a shotgun, slamming him in the nads with a bat (repeatedly), shooting him some more and then running him over with a steamroller. Comic fans may smell Garth Ennis's touch all over this and you'd be right. Disney does not mesh with this stuff.

I know. I should just relax. Disney owns half the world already and things are more or less ok. They've been too big to make everything kiddie friendly for a long time. Plus, Touchstone Studios is Disney, isn't it? They put out some great stuff. Hell, Disney puts out great stuff. Wait a second, I just got an email. Ooops. Looks like I've been warned not to use "hell" and "Disney" in "the same or tangential sentences". Also I should seriously cool it with the quotes.

Can you tell I don't want to get to work right now? Maybe if I pretend some other non-issue is important I can justify blogging about it instead of doing some "real" writing.

**This post brought to you by Quotation Marks. For when you don't want to just say something. You want people to know you SAY you're saying it.

Far away on the surface of a nondescript blue-green planet orbiting an insignificant yellow sun...

…there was a young man who read a wholly remarkable book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Yes, the whole radio series on CD finally arrived in my mailbox. There’s even a few episodes that I’d never heard before. As pumped as I am to get to the new (to me) stuff, I’ve got to listen to them in order. First, I don’t want to fast forward through any episode of such a life changing show. Reading / listening to Hitchhiker’s Guide inspired me to try and write a novel when I was in high school. And who would want to skip over something as glorious as the “Share & Enjoy” song? Second, I wouldn’t know what the hell is going on if I skipped to the final batch of episodes. One of the amazing things about the Guide is how vastly different each version is. They all stay pretty close from the destruction of earth through the trip to Magrathea, but they diverge greatly from there. The books, radio series, movie, even the old computer game and record shows (yes I said record…as in those waxy discs with grooves on them that play sound. I did listen to the Guide on there too) were all different. The beauty is that Douglas Adams made them that way. The man may be gone, but his stories live on. That’s the big dream for most writers.

In other news, Megan’s trying to get me to watch Superstars of Dance. I don’t know. Some of the dances are ok, but I miss the familiar hotties from Dancing with the Stars. Cheryl and Julianne fill out their little outfits nicely. Anna Trebunskaya looks great, but she looks like an ass kicker. She really fights those judges! And I know Edyta wears sparkly clothes like everyone else, but she just always looks naked. It must be some strange cloaking mechanism designed to distract and confuse the males watching the show. Anyway, (changing gears drastically) I get a kick out of the Chinese guy from Superstars. Thanks to him, I can now go to China and interact with the locals by looking down, pressing a button and saying, “Pa. . .ehht.” Anyone who’s seen the show knows what I’m talking about.

I’ve also been seeing commercials for Heroes. Ahhh, Heroes. A little while ago, I said I was through with this season, but might give the show another chance when they started a new story arc. You know what? That show’s already gotten about 5 strikes so it’s OUT. I cancelled the series recording for it on the ol’ DVR and it felt niiiiice. Now, when I see Heroes commercials, I feel relieved and lighter somehow. You know when you quit a job that you really hate and then you drive past the old building? Your soul just feels better because you don’t have to pull in there any more. That pretty much nails it.

I just got tagged!

My Amazon exclusive Gears of War figure came in the mail. It's the one with the head frozen in mid-explosion after being hit by a round from a sniper rifle. Gruesome, but very cool. It also came with a set of COG tags, just like the ones scattered throughout both games. These, combined with the tags I got with the BSG box set means I have proper identification on both Caprica and Sera. It's the little things that make for some very big geeks. Oh well. Cheap thrills.

I also played the demo for the upcoming Lord of the Rings: Conquest. That's a game very much like Star Wars Battlefront, but in Middle Earth. Lots of huge battles. You can play as different types of soldiers and occasionally take the role of hero characters from the movies. Sound fun? It IS! Plus, there's split screen multiplayer so my wife and I will give the ol' controllers a real workout.

The Eagles beat the Giants today, which is cool. I'm not a die hard fan of either team, but I've been watching the Eagles this season. They're pretty impressive. Plus, my Dad's a fan so I went with them. Megan's pick all the way through to the Super Bowl is Baltimore. Her reasoning is that they're the Ravens and this year marks Edgar Allen Poe's 200th birthday. Some of the plays in that game did have the feel of being hexed by a renowned horror writer from beyond the grave. The Ravens did win their game yesterday and I'm not about to take anything away from Poe, so GO RAVENS!!!

Great. They're back

Remember how I was having that work done on the siding of my townhouse? That was a few weeks ago and I thought they were finished. Today, I look outside and nearly soil my britches when I find some dude in a hoodie standing directly outside my window. Thankfully, it wasn't a terrorist. After flying back and forth to Orlando and hearing all about the Orange, Red, Plaid and whatever other levels of alertness there are, I'm a bit jumpy. It's just another bunch of workers continuing to hammer and nail at the gutters.

Hey guys. Long time, no see.
Wait a second...it HASN'T been a long time. Are you going to be done? EVER?????

Fellow blogger

I was recently approached by a fellow blogger over at Popin's Lair to do an interview. I was surprised by the fact that someone was actually reading my blog and that, after reading all the crap on here, they wanted to hear even more of what I had to say. Check out the interview here and be sure to check out the rest of the site.

If Popin's reading this...thanks for thinking of me!

Back with a vengeance! Well...I'm back anyway

Just returned from Thanksgiving in Florida. No snow or cold weather, but plenty of food. It was a pretty good trip and I got to spend time with family. It just feels like I've been gone a REALLY long time. I've got a ton of work to do and another week-long vacation to plan around. Whew. I took my laptop with me to do some work and I'm constantly amazed at how much that cheap bugger can do. I got it on sale a few years back, hoping I could check email and tap out my Word documents. I never expected to play games on it, but I can watch video and everything! Considering 75% of the memory is taken up by Vista (yes...Vista. Ugh), I'm surprised I can do much of anything on it. The clunky guy did great, though, so no complaints.

Logging in to this page, I found the countdown clock for the Skinners #1 release date had dipped below 60 days. I doubt I'll have any fingernails left to chew once we cross into the new year.

All those plane rides gave me a chance to listen to the new Guns n' Roses CD. Seems like my predictions were mostly on track. There's NO WAY any CD could live up to 15 years or so of hype, so I didn't expect it to. All in all, I'd say this one hits more than it misses. There are some pretty cool tracks and a few that I could easily skip. Some had me scratching my head, but I got into them eventually. For example, If The World starts off with a funky guitar sound that was pulled directly from a 70's porno movie. Somehow, I found myself liking it after a while. Maybe that's because it reminded me of 70's porno. Heh.

I also got my hands on a copy of Fallout 3, so I will be playing that bad boy in a matter of hours. First, I need to unpack, get the mail and run some errands. Eh, who am I kidding? I probably won't unpack until I need that suitcase for my drive into St. Louis for Christmas.

TD in FL

I'll be spending this Turkey Day in Florida, visiting some family and basically making a pig of myself. Hey, that's what Thanksgiving is all about! Well...that and being thankful. Should be fun and relaxing. Hopefully, I can sit back and enjoy some down time without stressing about all the upcoming Skinners stuff. This is about the time when the first release date was set. Originally, it was supposed to come out on November 25th, but got pushed back. Ok...trying not to think about all of that.

It's always weird to go to Florida at this time of year because it's usually in the 70s or even 80s while back home there could be snow on the ground. It's a pleasant enough change going there, but arriving back home, I always wind up shivering in the cold airport parking lot because I'm still wearing Bermuda shorts and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. The bad part is that I hate to fly. That, like the whole movie theater experience, has really gone down the tubes the last several years. Also, like the theater industry, they make it worse by not addressing the real problems and then wonder why their business is down. All the millions that go into "de-terroristing" the airlines apparently means that guards demand certain items go into baggies and then those same glassy eyed security guards don't provide baggies!! Why should I have to bring a baggie? It's YOUR rule! YOU GUYS are the ones who get all the Federal aid!! Can't a terrorist take something out of a baggie after it was put in? Eh, I'm not gonna go off on some tired old comedy routine from twenty years ago (And what is it with the airplane food? Could it BE less edible?).

In other news, the new Guns 'n Roses CD comes out today. I already posted about it here, so click it if you want to refresh your memory. As before, I just want it to be good. I'm a fan from way back, so please, Axl, don't let me down! I'm pullin' for ya, buddy!!

Hear me baby? Hold together.

I have a bad feeling that my XBox is about to crap out on me again. It hasn't been acting funny, but it seems to be getting louder. Maybe I'm just paranoid because Gears 2 is on its way and that would be the absolute worst time for my console to die. I could be listening too hard and twitching at every whirring sound, but Microsoft hasn't given me any reason to sit comfortably and assume everything will be fine. Then again, if it did go, it would be my third red ring disaster. By now, I'm like a grizzled old dog with too much dead tissue on his hide to feel one more kick. It'll probably die again sooner or later. Just, please give me a few more months.

As far as the election goes. I did find one funny thing that may be ironic, although I kind of get fuzzy on what stuff truly is ironic or just strange. Anyway, with such a big population and so many campaigners and all that stuff, it seems like one vote really doesn't matter. I know that's a horrible thing to say, but it's just the ol' one tiny drop in a vast sea. Most people will tell you that the largest ocean is made up of all those tiny drops and we all come together to blah-blah-blah. We've heard it before. Anyway, I did my part and went out to vote like a good citizen. The process was just as easy and civil as always and I even got a discount at Scooters as a reward. Awesome! The results come in, history is made, people rejoice. When I look on the map, I see that it was all over before the results for my state were even registered. Guess that particular sea had enough drops before I got there. Heh.

Halloween!!!

Ahhh, Halloween. All the fun of the December holidays without all the crappy "family" garbage. You're not expected to hang out with distant relatives and whatever friends they decide to bring along for a free meal. It's perfectly acceptable to snarl, sneer, or flip off the camera during picture time. Horror movies instead of home movies (which are actually a non-fun sort of horror movie). Instead of getting up early to watch a parade, we get to stay up late and watch Ghost Hunters Live. The list goes on and on.

Not to say that I don't enjoy the December holidays (and yes, Thanksgiving is rolled into that). Those are great in a traditional sort of way. The main difference is that, unless you're a kid, most of us have to brace for the big ticket holidays. Halloween is great from the first orange and black candy displays at the grocery store to the inevitable "best scary movie" lists that pop up everywhere. There are none of those, "Oh God, how am I gonna make it through this year?" moments. Nobody's mad if you don't call or send a card on Halloween. Of course, there's still family stuff but most of that is the good kind. You're with the core group, doing stuff you're glad to be doing.

This turned out to be an uncharacteristically wholesome musing sort of post. Oh well. Seeing kids dressed up as bloody corpses and demonic overlords always makes me warm inside.

Quick note to anyone Trick or Treating in my neighborhood: Anyone dressed as a werewolf gets extra candy! That also goes for someone dressed as a Gears of War character or a fairy. Don't get creeped out by that last one. My wife added it to the list.

Assorted shtuff

- Added a bunch of moon gadgets to the blog. Don't know if I'll keep them but I think they fit nicely.

- Watching that TV show Chuck. Still funny. Action is still over the top just enough. Yvonne Strahovski is still amazingly hot. And how cool of a name is that? Plus, any show that works in a Thunderdome fight for no good reason deserves some high marks.

- I think the last episode of Heroes was a mess. That show is great and it came back very strong, but the time-travel stuff seems to be its Achilles Heel. Some cool nuggets, but I want to get back to the normal story. Just, please don't make this another season about ANOTHER guy blowing up.

- I'm back in the editing groove. Even better: I'm not only happy about the way things are going for Skinners 2, but am getting very excited for 3 and (hopefully) beyond.

- Picked up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Even though I've seen the bad reviews, I'm interested in the story. I played the demo and picked up on a lot of the flaws people have been talking about, but found enough fun stuff to keep my little pea-brain entertained. Throwing a lightsaber around, blowing crap up and tossing people into walls DOES sound like a worthy use of my free time. I also picked up Fracture. After being at the con for a few days, it was great to get back to Rock Band.

- Can NOT wait for Gears of War 2. Guitar Hero World Tour looks better and better. Legendary looks freakin' awesome. I'm also pumped for Resistance 2. I don't have a PS3, but may just have to break down before too long. Of course, like most of the country, dropping that much cash for another game console isn't the easiest thing to do.

- Being around all those writers made me eager to read a bunch of different stuff. There's a bunch of fantasy series I want to start, in addition to the dozens of books on my pre-existing list.

- My wife is cooking stew for dinner. It'll be...well...stewing all day. It's only 1 in the afternoon and I can already smell the meat 'n potatoey goodness. Must...be.....strong. Must not...attack the crock pot. Must form....complete sentences.

Good day for HD

Started watching the Tampa Bay / Chicago game today in regular resolution because I was taping it on the DVR and it takes up less space that way and blahblahblah. Anyway, caught up to the live broadcast, switched over to HD and had what I've decided to call an eye-gasm. I know HD is good, but damn! Going from one to the other like that is jarring! Not only that, but I got to see Tampa pull out a win in OT! Despite the snide comment I make about the Bucs in SKINNERS 1, I am a fan. I watch a lot of different teams mainly because there's no NFL team here in Nebraska. The closest we've got is Kansas City, Chicago and St. Louis. The Chiefs usually do all right (but not so far). The Rams. . .ehhhhh. . .let's not talk about the Rams. Chicago, however always puts on a hell of a defensive show. Why the Bucs? I'd like to say there was some serious research or some sort of childhood tie, but I like the skull and swords on the jersey. No, I'm not blond. When I started watching football a while back, I was deciding what games to watch and I went with the skull instead of throwing a dart at a TV schedule. Also, I played the Bucs a lot on Madden '05 and they always did right by me. So, despite a vaguely BS call in OT where the Bears got slammed for illegal contact when it was obviously of the TB players' fault, it was an awesome game. Ok...there's always some BS calls, so it was just an awesome game. I like to see Tampa win, but hate to see Chicago go out like that.

Wouldn't you know it, right after the game there was some beach volleyball on. FEMALE beach volleyball, no less! Those ladies may not look so great from the front or sides, but from the back it's quite a sight to behold. Not that they're ugly or anything, but there's just no beating those tight little butts wrapped up in those tiny bikini bottoms IN HD.

So that's my Sunday. Too bad Wing Stop doesn't deliver or I'd never have to get up.

Coolness is...well...cool

Damn! It is really nice outside!! I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts, because there's always that bit of cool air right before the last blast of summer. I think I might go out and frolic. Either that, or I'll just settle for a quick drive to Scooters for an Espresso Smoothie (chocolate peanut butter).

DO YOU FOLKS LIKE COFFFFEEEEE??? REEEEAAL COFFEE...from the HILLS...of CoLUMbia. (See the Duncan Hills jingle on the player to the right. Metalocalypse fans probably appreciate it.)

Blurbs, shooters, time distortion...the usual stuff

I’ve been messed up this whole week, and I don’t even mean the fun kind of messed up. I mean I had family over at the beginning of last week, which made it feel like the weekend. Then, I took a day off of work to be with said family so it REALLY felt like the weekend. After they left, there was a long weekend, which felt like a whole lot of nothing. The Olympics are over, so TV is just starting to come out of its shell. All of my normal gauges for time and space are off. Now, it’s Tuesday after the holiday, so it feels like Monday. I’m only one day off, which means I should be back on track sometime before Halloween.

And it’s September. Yessssss!!! I don’t know about the official season start/end dates, but summer is June, July & August in my mind. Therefore, September is the beginning of autumn. I LOVE autumn! The sun’s not so damned blaringly bright. The air is cooler. People are generally quieter. Pumpkin Pie goes on sale. Everything smells like apples. Ok, so maybe that’s all a bit much, but autumn is great.

Speaking of TV, a new episode of The Shield is on tonight. I love that show, but there better be one hell of a recap because it feels like it's been about 4.27 years since the last one.

I finally got around to finishing the single player campaign of Call of Duty 4. That game is simply amazing (old news, but still true). I’ve been playing the hell out of the multiplayer, which I like simply because it’s one of those games where you can die a lot and still keep playing. Tom Clancy games are freaking great, but a lot of them are “bang, you’re out”. More realism doesn’t exactly = fun for crappy players like myself. Still plucking away at Too Human, GTA 4, Ninja Gaiden 2, and so many others. I remember the good ol’ days where I had nothing to keep me busy but some school work and games. Ahhhhh.

My XBox Gamer Score is 22221. I NEED A ONE POINT ACHIEVEMENT!!!!

Still collecting blurbs for Blood Blade. I got some really good ones from some great sources! I’m just jazzed that these people are reading my book and not just using it for a doorstop. It’s coming out in February, but I can’t think about that too much or I’ll start to jump around like a monkey when some demonic evil enters the zoo. Or monsters. Eh, you know what I mean. Those movies where animals and kids always freak out when the bad guy comes close and…forget it.

The second SKINNERS is coming along nicely. I’m in the second half of the first draft, which means there’s a whole lot of work left to do. Still, it’s great to be working on it at all. Writing a sequel and thinking about all the continuity stuff for past and future volumes makes me think about writing a series in general. Writing western series isn’t as difficult, mainly because they prefer to stick to stand-alone types of stories. The fantasy genre (urban or otherwise) likes its continuing plotlines. I love thinking about over-arching stories, but it’s tough to strike a balance between explaining things to readers who pick up the second book first and continuing things for people who read the first one. Hopefully, this turns out to be enjoyable for anyone. In the end, though, it does say “Book 1” and “Book 2” right on the cover.

Time to stick my nose outside. Haven’t done that for a day or two. I’ll probably go to Best Buy to see what came out on DVD this week. Exciting stuff.

Randomness

A few scattered thoughts about the last week or so:

- There's this place nearby called Chicago Dawg House. They sell Chicago hot dogs, get them right (oh, so very right) and I've talked about them here before. One of their sandwiches is called The Fridge and it's an Italian sausage with shaved Italian beef on it, plus peppers and the whole thing is dipped in au jous (spelling??) sauce. I've been waiting for a sufficient appetite to tackle that bad boy and I finally got the chance. Holy LORD was it good! DAAAAMNN!!

- Been playing Too Human and I really like it. I don't see what all the bad reviews were about. I just want to have a good time playing. The fighting kicks ass, weapons are cool, so it's fine by me. I just wish there was local co-op so my wife could play too, but oh well. She says it's "too sci-fi" for her anyway.

- A bunch of Adult Swim DVDs were on sale at Borders, so I finally picked up those Venture Bros, Aqua Teen and Squidbillies I've been after for a while. Those are perfect to have in my computer while I work. Write a few pages...watch a 12 minute cartoon...write some more.

- Had some family visit over the last few days. They brought White Castles. Sometimes, family really ISN'T a pain in the ass. Love ya, guys!

- Sending out preview copies of SKINNERS to get reviews and cover blurbs. Ugghh. Let the stomach clenching begin.