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....