A quick warning and a tale of two books
I’m messing around when I said “a quick warning,” because I’ve reached that point again. I’ve got the last few chapters of OTHER THING in my sights, meaning I expect to finish it this week. Huzzah for finishing drafts of books, right? Right.
Except.
I’ve given myself a pretty firm deadline to type the “The End” on draft zero, and it’s one I don’t want to miss. As you can see, though, as of the time of this posting, I’ve still got almost a third of the book to scribbled down. Now, I know that seems bad, but trust me, the end parts come out quickly. It’s the middles where a writer will tend to drag his feet like a kid headed for the dentist’s chair.
Anyway the point is that posts will be light this week. I know, I know, “they’ve been light”, you say. You have a perfectly valid point. I’m sorry. But trust me, it’ll all be worthwhile. I swear.
And by “worthwhile”, I make no specific promises of any kind. Sort of like your typical game show host.
Weekend Debate: Movies in theaters vs. Blu-Rays at home
Posted by Jason in Blog, Movies, Weekend Debate on May 17, 2013
Since I went to all the trouble of detailing the summer movies of 2013 that I intend to see, two of them have hit the theaters already. And somehow I’ve yet to set foot in the MegaUberCineplex or purchase a single kernel of exorbitantly overpriced, heart-clogging movie popcorn. Obviously, this makes me have a little sad. I mean, back in The Day, I’d happily wait in line at midnight, no matter what day of the week it was nor what time I had to be somewhere, you know, important, in the morning, to see a premiere.
As I’ve said before, though, I don’t have that kind of time anymore. Something about raising four-fifths of a basketball team while working full-time and trying to squeeze in an hour or so of writing regularly and, oh yeah!, not neglecting the poor Puddinette. So nowadays, if I really really want to see a movie, I generally go to see it at the Creeper’s Showing, which is always the 10 PM-ish viewing on Sunday night.
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Trust me, go see a movie about then. You’ll pick up on what I mean. I swear I’ve had entire showings to myself before. Which is, admittedly, nice, but then again, I always end up wondering if there’s something creeping up behind me.
Or maybe that’s just me?
Evidence of my continued existence
I swear I’m not dead. I just had to do some traveling this week. I spent two more wonderful days in lovely Wallingford, Connecticut. But I’m happy to say that by the time this post is publish, I’ll be at 29,000 feet or something, winging my way home after a brief stopover in Charlotte, North Carolina. Then again, can you really say you’ve been in and/or to a place if you’ve only spent a few hours in their airport?
Now that I really consider it, I think maybe not. I mean, I didn’t even have any pulled pork or sweet tea while I was here. Oh sure, I thought about hiking all over the terminal in search of some, but I hardly think the citizens of Charlotte would want me to judge their prowess at barbecuing pork butt by airport terminal kiosk purveyor.
A movie in 100 words or less: Here Comes the Boom
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this or not (and quite frankly, I’m too lazy at the moment to open a web browser and type in a couple of search terms to find out, which seems like I’ve leveled into a whole new echelon of slothfulness, if you ask me), but I’ve been doing an absolutely miserable job of curating my Netflix queue lately. I mean, I believe I have some of the most recent releases somewhere in the basic vicinity of the top of the list for the disc-by-mail service. Then again, I once believed I could run so fast no one would see me. So, my personal faiths might not be the best thing to hang your hat on.
The worst thing is, I’m also not remembering to remove movies I don’t need to get anymore. Case in point, a few weeks ago, I watched The Hobbit via pay-per-view – because, I’m impatient like that sometimes – and then, just three short days later, received that very film by mail because I’d forgotten it was currently King of the Queue.
And nobody’s got time to watch three hours of the same first third of a book twice, knowutImean?
Weekend Debate, Mother’s Day Edition
Posted by Jason in Blog, Family, Weekend Debate on May 10, 2013
I wrote a Debate post last year for Mother’s Day, back when the “Weekend Debate” was still the “Saturday Debate”. What you should takeaway from that is that last May, I was fool hearty enough to think believe could squeeze a discussion topic post out every Saturday afternoon. Clearly, this was before I realized my weekends often make the President’s daily agenda look simple. And he’s got an entire staff to keep him on track.
In fact, I think I’m going to start referring to the Puddintopia writing area as the East Wing. Because, why not?
Summer Movies for 2013 in, well, more than 100 words
I didn’t really intend to start a whole thing when I wrote last year’s summer movie preview post. But the time went by and summer became fall, Halloween gave way to holiday fun, which then became cockle-shrinking, frigid, horrible winter. All horrible, overdone things end eventually, though – at least, that’s what I tell myself every time I see they’ve made another Hangover movie – and so winter became spring, and now, we teeter once again on the edge of summer.
Which means that it’s time for More. Summer. Movies! Huzzah!
As I looked over the list of movies coming out this summer, one thing became abundantly clear right away: there was no way in pink, puffy, Marshmallow-Land I could possibly give you 100 words about each of the motion pictures I’ve got checked on my “to see” card this year. If I did, this post would scroll longer than a Beyonce contract rider*, and most of you would die of old age or extreme disorientation before you got to the end. Plus, bed sores.
Well, I guess not everyone reads my blog on a tablet in bed. Can you get “office chair sores”? “Toilet sores”?
Ahem. Right. Off topic. Rambling, even.
Postscript: In Defense of Aquaman
Posted by Jason in Blog, Comic Books, Geek, Opinions, Philosophy, Rant on May 7, 2013
It never ceases to amaze me how every time I start with something small and intentionally shallow, I end up contemplating it hours later in a completely different way.
Case in point, yesterday’s post about finding “Aquaman” scrawled across the door frame of a men’s room in New England was intended to be this quick, one shot thing. I’d just post a camera phone picture and hammer out a few dozen words about it, and just like that – Wham! Bam! Thank You, Bob’s Your Uncle…
Err, wait, I think I messed that up.
Anyway, whatever, I’d be right back to putting words together for Secret Project: Other Thing.
Which, by the way, is coming right along, as you can see by the progress meter at the right, thank you for asking.
From this time last week
No time for a good, old fashioned ramble today. Kids to feed, words to make, yadda yadda yadda, etc, etc.
Instead, I offer you this seemingly random image.
A week ago today, I was in Wallingford, Connecticut for reasons. While I was there, I had dinner at the Old Dublin pub, which might just be the most awesome craft beer pub I’ve ever personally set foot in. But that’s a different — much longer — post. One I imagine you’ll see on Hoperatives before too long.
As for the image above, well, as is typical in most of your better beer-drinking establishments, there was a bounty of random things scrawled on the walls, etc. Normal I ignore all such nonsense because, believe it or not, I’m not ever really in need of knowing whom to call for the proverbial entertaining time.
For whatever reason, though, someone had taken a moment to leave their mark on the door of the Old Dublin by invoking the name of Aquaman, who I think we can all agree is the least super of the super heroes of our youth.
And if that isn’t the most ironically awesome piece of public bathroom graffiti ever, I don’t think I even know you any more.
Pud’n
Weekend Debate: Kindle Fire HD vs Nook HD Tablets
Posted by Jason in Blog, Geek, Opinions, Technology, Weekend Debate on May 3, 2013
I’ve been contemplating writing a post for quite some time about the Nook HD versus the Kindle Fire HD. Since we have one of each, I’ve definitely formed an opinion about which one I prefer to use on a daily basis.
Admittedly, there are many different facets to this particular topic of debate. Some people just don’t like Amazon. As the 600 lb. Grape Ape, er, gorilla, in pretty much any room Amazon enters, that’s not terribly surprising. There’s especially quite a large and vocal contingent of writers and publishing-types that can’t even look Amazon’s way without thinking they should probably hid the good silver and send the kids to another room for their own protection.
