Blog Archives
Actually, This Is Me With a Mustache
In my last post, I posted a picture of Ron Swanson with the caption, “this is me with a mustache”. In actuality, this is me with a mustache:
Random Grab-Bag O’ Thoughts, December 5, 2016 Edition
I talk about Westworld, but it’s spoiler free. Promise.
1. Westworld just aired its season finale. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly urge you to do so. It’s on HBO. If you don’t subscribe to HBO, someone you know has HBO Go. Get their password from them. Ask nicely. Catfish them. Threaten them. I don’t care what you do, just get the damn thing and watch the show. The writing is amazing. There is no such thing as a throwaway line. It’s so tight. I couldn’t write that if you gave me a billion years and a copy of the script. It’s a great example of Chekov’s gun principle: if there is something shown or said on the show, it will be for a reason. The finale pays off in a big way.
5 Things for Tuesday, October 25th, 2016
1. Jack Chick died today. If you don’t know who he is, you probably didn’t play Dungeons & Dragons back in the ‘80s. Chick was a fundamentalist Christian comic artist who wrote tracks presented in comic book form. These railed about the terrible things bringing American civilization directly into the ARMS of LUCIFER HIMSELF, like Masons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, sports, role-playing games, music, bare navels, evolution, peach pits, homosexuality, Halloween, girls wearing pants, critical thinking, and wearing sandals without socks, to name a few. They were, and are, terrible, bigoted, narrow-minded, and thoroughly, deeply hilarious. They never fail to make me laugh every time I see one. So in his way, he brought a lot of joy to my world. I think if Jack Chick was right about his beliefs, he’d probably be in Hell right now, but if my worldview is correct, his consciousness is no more and he is as one with the Universe now as he was before he was born. I think that’s a nice thought. It’s certainly more than he would have ever wished for me.
This is laughably inaccurate. When we play D&D, we wear white robes and only draw 2 circles around the pentagram.
Reblog: Cancer Feelings: Fear
I haven’t had much to say here of late, obviously. I entertain notions of doing so, but time and circumstance and lack of anything meaningful or interesting or funny that I want to say (ed: Never stopped you before.) (Shutup.) has prevented it. Someone who HAS things that are not only meaningful and interesting and funny to say is my wife. She’s writing a series on the feelings that cancer causes from her own perspective. She just posted about Fear, and… let’s just say that it’s deep and insightful and entertaining as hell, because she can write better than I. See for yourself:
Speaking of our house, that’s probably been the hardest and scariest thing. We bought a house in September and I was scared to death of it for the first month. I didn’t want to be alone in it, and I still won’t go into the basement when Alan’s not home (that may be more because basements in general are scary and I’m a child). It definitely helped to get all the furnishings of the old, religious couple who lived here before out (multiple. cherub. switch plates. I shit you not.), but I would still go through the house with a golf club or a sword a lot of the time when I got home alone. I’d ask Alan to draw the curtains at night because I would jump at the movement of the reflections. I couldn’t shake this feeling that something was hiding in our house waiting to attack me. I told my cancer shrink (yup, I have a cancer shrink. She’s a stage 3 breast cancer survivor, 22 years in remission, and she rocks) and she made a very good point. “Of course you’re scared there’s something lurking in your house trying to kill you. There was something hiding in your body for 10 years that just tried to kill you.” And just like that, Carol exploded my brain.
Go here to read the rest of it. Say hi to her when you do. She’s really nice.
Top Ten Inexplicable Names Rich People Give Their Sons Which Are Jobs They’d Never Allow Them to Do for a Living
In order of pretension:
1. Tanner (leather maker)
1. Chandler (candle-maker)
1. Baxter (Baker)
1. Fletcher (arrow maker)
1. Brewster (Brewer, often a female brewer)
1. Carter (one who moves things from place to place, in a cart or as if they are a cart)
1. Hunter (self-explanatory)
1. Cooper (barrel maker)
1. Harper (one who plays a harp)
1. Mason (stoneworker)
And the most horrible name no one should give their son but would probably expect him to do for a living:
Wexler (money-lender)
What I imagine everyone named these things sees in their mirror every day.
Don’t name your children like this.
Five Things on a Monday – December 8th 2014
He hungers for souls.
Since I don’t have any opinions on hotly-contested topics I wanted to express – today, anyway – I thought I’d fall back on an old thing I used to do, five brief blurbs about something that I find interesting or annoying or happening or some kind of ing. Here are those five things for today:
1. I saw BBC’s Sherlock for the first time this past weekend. I’d heard a lot about it from people – well, mostly about how people of all sexes want to carry Benedict Cumberbatch’s babies – but I’d never gotten a chance (well, actually, I’d never carved out the space for it) to see the show before. I thought it was a great show, with an excellent cast doing an amazing job of putting Sherlock in the modern day without losing the Holmesy feel. BC (even I have my limits on how much I want to type) and Martin Freeman absolutely sparkle in their interactions and make a script full of superb dialogue really crackle like a mouthful of locusts. Moriarty, Lestrade, Irene Adler – they all put a different spin on the classic characters and really shine, but none more so than Moriarty (played by Andrew Scott), who makes both the funniest and scariest villain I’ve seen in a long time – he is just flat-out crazy and awesome. So if you have missed this obscure series (it’s only won several Emmys, BAFTAs, and Golden Globes and is the most-watched drama series in the UK and insured international stardom for BC – it’s been flying well under the radar and you’ve probably never heard of it), I’d recommend you give it a whirl. And unlike those people who expect you to watch the entirety of The Wire and Dexter and the Sopranos and Parks and Recreation and Scandal and etc and so forth – watching all of it would take you just one longish Saturday binge.
I Want You To Write My Novel For Free (Updated with FAQ)
It’s a win-win, right? You do the writing, I copy and paste it, slap my name on the cover, and pay you in those most priceless of gifts, an Acknowledgement and a death in print! (It’s priceless, you see, because I will not be paying you in actual money in any way, therefore having no price for me whatsoever.) I mean, who could pass up a deal like that? You won’t find a better one – well, at least maybe a more honest one – in town!
OK, so now this is where I explain that I haven’t gone completely off the deep end, thereby invalidating the prize for everyone who had April 17th 2013 in the pool for Yep, Alan’s Finally Snapped and Needs a Burly Escort to the Rubber Room.
Winter in Derenemyn 