Spoke too soon

Okay, so I didn't get the podcast up this weekend. I had a full podcast recorded and Audacity crashed the f*&ker! Starting over sucks, but it's all a learning experience. I'll have it started up this next weekend.

And this time I mean it.

Rolling on

The podcast is going up this weekend! All technical and health problems are resolved and it's time to record. I just need to setup the libsyn acount and we're good to go.

In other news, I finally sent the first of ten query letters to an agent for my novel, Postmodern Prometheus. The novel is done and is under review by an editor, but I need representation to help sell it. The plan is to send a query to ten agents and see if anyone bites. If no one bites, then I'll send ten more queries.

I've got a few other writing projects that I'm not ready to discuss, but I have a few opportunities that I hope to get working very soon.

Bummer Day

I didn't have a very productive day. I got all of a paragraph done on my latest story. I hate days like this. It wasn't writer's block so much as mild attention deficit. I was easily distracted and found myself surfing the political blogs.

Which is always a great place to see the decline of American political discouse. Political blogs are where anyone to the left of Ann Coulter is a socialist who hates America and anyone who doesn't think that Bush is the worst president ever is a fascist.

Sigh.

Well, there's always tomorrow.

Oh. My. God.


I never watched this show, but when I came across this video, I just had to share it. Truth is, I can't stand either Maury or Connie.

I've always found Connie Chung rather irritating as a newreader, but I never imagined her singing could be this awful.

This is just one of those things you have to file under "what the hell were they thinking?" I have no idea what key she's singing in. I don't think she does either. But her really loud grunt as she slides off the piano is just hilarious.

Cheese Book

Confession time: I don't speak Spanish, so when I first saw the ads for the new Jack Black vehicle, Nacho Libre, my best guess based on the few Spanish words I did know and my rudimentary knowledge of Latin roots, was that the title meant "Cheese Book." A friend who knew better let me know that Libre is a name for Mexican masked wrestlers and Nacho is the name of Black's character.

The movie debute this past week and the reviews are almost universally bad. Some have even gone as far as calling the movie racist in its portrayal of Mexcians. And that made me wonder about how movies are actually pitched in Hollyweird. Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler? Was there actually even one person who heard this pitch and thought this was a good idea? Was their a producer somewhere with millions of dollars just lying around and nothing to spend it on? Just watching the trailers for this movie made me wished he'd spent it on a new boob job for his trophy wife.

I felt the same way when Monkey Bone came out. When movies like this are being shot, do you think that the cast and crew are aware that they're making a bomb or are they actually thinking that this is going to be great?

How can you make a piece of garbage like this and not realize it?

Sickness

I've been sick for the past several days with a vicious sinus infection and that's put the podcast project on hold. Sucks.

I think there's a conspiracy with the cable stations to motivate people to go to work even when they're sick. My basic cable package (yeah, I'm too cheap to spring for the premium package) has over 70 channels but the only thing on TV during the day is soaps, Jerry Springer, and Law and Order.

Actually, the various incarnations of Law and Order are pretty much on 24/7 these days. So I've watched a lot of L&O these past few days. There's something comforting about hearing that "dong dong" in between scenes. You know no matter how messed up these cases get, everything will be resolved in an hour. Not like reality, in which a special prosecutor can tie things up for two years and then announce, "Hey, we know something sleezy happened here, but we're not going to indict Karl Rove after all."

Sheesh.

Anyway, as much as a sinus infection really sucks, I guess I'm better off today than Ben Roethlesberger. Big Ben takes a spill on his motorcycle and breaks his jaw and fractures his skull. I find it ironic that a guy who wears a helmet in his job doesn't think he needs to wear one when he rides a motorcycle. I mean, isn't his main responsibility during the spring months staying healthy?

Of course, the real irony was the thousand or so cyclists who held a rally just the other week to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the repeal of Pennsylvania's mandatory helmet law. The reasoning behind the repeal still escapes me. We're in the middle of this national "click it or ticket" campaign telling drivers that you'll get two fines if you're pulled over and you're not wearing your seat belt. But motorcycle riders don't have to worry about any safety precautions. What makes their "personal liberty" more sacred than mine if that's what the repeal is all about?

Of course, the sensible thing to do when driving is wearing your seatbelt, law or no law. And the sensible thing when riding your motorcycle is wearing a helmet. The one thing you can't legislate is the common sense to realize this. Big Ben has already gotten heat for his "role model" status. Maybe this lessen will teach him that his moral responsibility, whether he likes it or not, extends beyond his own skull. Kids do imitate their heroes.

Maybe they shouldn't but they do. Big Ben, wear the helmet.

Podcasting Update

I recorded my first podcast! Once the editing is done, I'll have it ready for downloading soon, very soon.

Balticon III and podcasting

The highlight of Balticon was giving my reading of my fiction. I figures Jeff, Eric, Becky, and one or two other people I knew would show up, but not only I have about ten people listening to me, but they recorded me for the con's podcast.

Balticon had about six panels in their podcasting track and I managed to get to most of them. I learned tons from the experienced podcasters, so it's time to announce my own jump into podcasting. I'm planning on putting the first cast up with weekend!