Man-Super

The Boy just learned about Batman villain, Man-Bat. He thought it was a stupid idea and suggested a Superman villain called Man-Super. I said maybe he's a super-powered janitor. The Boy said:

"Man-Super, I asked you to turn the water on six times!"

"Never! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!"

The Challenge

As I said, I wanted to have seven more shows in the can this weekend. As I also said I took yesterday off. Ideally, I'd like to finish seven partial scripts today (some of those are extremely partial), record them tomorrow while The Boy's at work, and spend the rest of tomorrow editing and scheduling them.

I'm just sitting down to work now, after hanging with my daughter, going to the comic book shop, grocery shopping, and making and eating lunch. It's almost half-past four. I don't think there's any way I can make this happen, but what fun is there in not giving it a shot?

Off I go!

Future Failed Experiment

Just had a thought to use this blog like Twitter or Facebook. Post a lot more and say a lot less. We'll see if it sucks or not. Deep in the shit with MuchoMangoMayo right now. I learned from yesterday and will record this morning while The Boy is out of the house. Talk to you later. Maybe. You, of all people, know by now that I'm super bad at follow through with most things. But then, we never know where and when we'll surprise ourselves, do we? That's why it's surprising.

Poster Syndrome

Sorry I haven't been here in a couple of months. I moved across town and it was hairy working that around my day job. I did take a week off, but then all sorts of awesome people I usually don't see were in town and available, so they took precedence.

I went to ICFA a couple of weeks ago, hung out with old friends, made new ones, spent too much money on books, had the most magnificent steak of my life, soaked in Ellen Klages' tales of Clarion down under, and got brain freeze with Ian McDonald. It was awesome.

Because of these things and my short story writing frenzy the first two months of this year, I am, as usual, way the hell behind on Mangoes. My boss, who's a fan of the show, says I was even farther behind last year. I still have to record all four April shows (yes, there will be an April 30th show this year), and of the thirty-one shows I need for MuchoMangoMayo, I've only finished writing the first one yesterday! I hope to have the second done today.

I inadvertently shot off story 148 of The One-Thousand the other day. It was a twitter story and I submitted it before even realizing I'd taken another step toward my goal.

The Boy made supper for me today. Ravioli and garlic bread. A nice surprise for my exhausted ass. And for the rest of me as well.

Another Cerberus story is nearing completion! I always have to check the spelling on that. Being a comic book geek, I always want to write Cerebus. It's a fine line between a three-headed dog and a talking aardvark. Anyway, the current version of the story is deep and cloudy (that's good). My esteemed co-authors have begun to write some things that are just beyond my comprehension and I'm loving it.

I have other writer friends and acquaintances who talk about having imposter syndrome, which is crazy, because they're all great, published writers. I was explaining to one friend recently that I've always had the opposite problem. I'm convinced that I'm much better than I actually am, and why hasn't the world recognized my genius? Rather than living in fear of being caught, I live in disappointment for not being caught. How boring life would be if we were all satisfied. Embrace your issues. Hold them tightly. Love 'em up.

Beware the Hairy Mango 100!

Celebrate Beware the Hairy Mango's 100th episode video style with Lobsterman! With special guest stars, my kids! http://bewarethehairymango.com/episode-100-lobsterman/

Or watch it right here:

The Writing Advice At The End

I wanted to record Mango 100 today but both The Boy's voice and my own are jacked up due to sickness. Yes, he's going to be in it and so is his sister. But don't remember this in case it falls through.

Saw a beautiful movie called Somewhere with the daughter. She hated it. She claimed nothing happened. Don't listen to her. She's the one who picked it out and she can't remember why. I just wanted to see it because it was a Sofia Coppola film. It was my second and Sofia's two for two. Looking forward to three.

Here's some advice for the writers out there. It's one of those obvious things that we still need to be reminded of from time to time. You non-writers can probably get something out of it too:

Don't waste your time reading work that doesn't excite you. Don't waste your time writing what doesn't excite you. You don't have nine hundred years here. Get to the good stuff.

The Boy Graduates!

The Boy, also known as Ian Alexander Sanborn Smith, graduated from Treasure Coast High School tonight. Yay! Looking at his grades a couple of months back, I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to pull it off, but he did lots of make-up work in the last few weeks of school, and here we are. 

The ceremony was held in the Adams Ranch Equestrian Arena. This made me hope that all the graduates would come barreling in on horses. No frickin' dice. Speaking of barrels, the blue one in the foreground is for garbage, not rodeo clowns.

Here are the graduates in the school colors, the boys in black, girls in gold. As you can see, we were in the nosebleed seats.

Here's The Boy with me. He looks like he stepped out of a Superman film.

Here's the blurry Boy with his sister. His mother was on his right but she demanded that she not be blogged

One Of My Favorite Things In Life

I saw this ten years ago, loved it, and saw it again today and still love it. It's stuck with me all this time. I told the boy about it years ago, we often say it and he saw it for the first time today and he also loves it.

So.

I've loved it long enough that I can declare this one of my favorite things in life. If I ever have a deathbed and I'm asked "What was best about your life?" this is one of the things that I will say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApmvDU5RmyY

Taking A Breather

I'm taking a little writing break. It might last a day, it might last twenty years. Who knows? I'm going to do some reading. I'm not thrilled with what I've got on my writing plate at the moment (that's right, I write on a plate, doesn't everyone?). It all seems pretty mundane. I want to do something different but I don't know what yet. I'm thinking.

The boy's back in the house for the summer and I'm very happy to say that he's reading voluntarily and asking me for books. Yay! He's reading the Pendragon and Ranger's Apprentice series and he told me he just began the first Elric book. Double yay! His summer reading list is really lame, a bunch of that depressing shit that schools throw at kids. Racism, poverty, Holocaust, post-apocalypse. Not our thing. I think I'm going to give him a pass this summer. I'd rather he read what he enjoys now that he's finally doing so, rather than sour him to reading once again with yuchy stuff.

The high school my daughter will be attending in the fall made Newsweek's list of top U.S. high schools as, I found, it usually does. This year it's number 312. I think that's cool.

I go to Google's street view thingy every few months hoping that views of my childhood homes will be accessible. they aren't. The damn view veers off like about a quarter mile from the cool house, the one built in the 1840's. Someday. I get sad looking at the old town though. I'm cut off from that life as by an ocean.

Paul's got a trailer for a cool looking movie called Air Doll over on his site: http://www.pulpmovies.com/trailers/air-doll

Here's some of that hard-hitting shit you'll only find at The Huffington Post:
GOP Dominated By White Conservatives: Gallup Poll
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/01/poll-finds-gop-is-dominat_n_209764.html

It's this kind of investigative journalism that gives me hope that all will not be lost when the last newspaper disappears. Who knew there were conservatives in the Republican party? Or that they were white? It gives me chills to know that they've been lurking there all this time.

Ooooooo!

I've got a new follower! Welcome, Melissa. For those of you who aren't Melissa, we used to go to school together in another life. I've been something like thirteen hundred miles from home for a long, long time and it's always good to see someone (or their .jpg) from the salad days.

Strangely, another old school chum is working with me this week. Lance (yes, Missy, that Lance) is training in my store before heading back to his regular location. I saw him yesterday after a twenty year hiatus. I like it when mildly interesting things like that happen. I'd like it more if really interesting things would happen, but I take what I can get.

So I've been after the boy to talk with his guidance counselor so he can take those dual enrollment classes (I'm sure I mentioned them here at some point. College classes in high school, earn college credits, absolutely free.). Last Thursday, he brings home his worst report card ever. One B, One C, four Ds and an F. Suddenly I went from dreaming of college to wondering if he's going to be spending a second year in tenth grade. His mother and I assessed the situation and decided that he should live with her at least while class is in session. He spends far too much time with his friends and not nearly enough studying. So now he should get his homework done, study for tests, get more sleep and eat better food (His mother is a great cook). He moved in yesterday and I brought his bed over there today. That leaves one dog and me here. I'll miss the boy while he's gone, but I'll get more sleep and the house will be a lot more quiet.

Birthday. It was nothing spectacular, but I had a great day. Ate some Big Macs, which is sort of a tradition for me. If you hadn't figured it out yet, I'm a man of coarse tastes. Bought some comics, another thing I don't often do, went to the wife's house for cake, ice cream and socks and all in all had a nice day. Even with the worst ever report card the day before and the knowledge that the boy would be moving out, I was determined to have a good day. I turned off my internal misery machine. Why don't I do that more often? To be honest, I hadn't noticed the switch on the back before.

I've purposely not written anything for days now. I wanted a little break and I wanted to get a little bit of reading done, I'll probably start again soon. Let's go to the board now, shall we?

Let's see, current age has rolled over, we're now at 40. Current story count is 101. That means I have ten years left in which to write 899 stories. To be more precise, 3,649 days (I have a little widget that tracks that) or 1 story every 4.0589544 days.

Piece-a-cake.

Quickly! Before Sleep Takes Me!

I don't know when, but Fusion Fragment will be publishing my cyberpunk story, "For the Love of Ceelie," sometime in the future.

I finally, FINALLY, finished Fiction Crawler 6 and shot it off to Tony today. Thanks to Church for his input.

Didn't read any of The Terror today, exercised though, and looked into Dual Enrollment for the boy. That's where he takes college classes while still in high school. The classes are free and he gets college credits for them.

I've been forgetting to post StarShipSofa stuff here. Luckily, I think almost everyone who reads this blog is familiar with the Sofa. Hours from now, Tony will be posting all seven Nebula nominees for best short story 2009. I'll link to them tomorrow.

Gotta go. Morpheus awaits.

But Wait, There's More!

I have one more month of my thirties. People say that life begins at forty, but it actually begins at zero.

I watched some Schoolhouse Rock vids with the boy on Saturday morning because for some reason the song Fireworks kept playing in my head. It's a groovy little tune:


But this song was always my favorite, riding the wave of fifties nostalgia in the seventies (Grease, American Graffiti, Happy Days, Sha Na Na). This was done by The Tokens, the guys who sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight:

Another Day Wasted

Let's see, what's been going on around here? Not much. Did a day of work. The former wife and the daughter saw Coraline in 3D. They weren't gushing about it, but they liked it well enough. The boy and the dog and I stuffed our faces with pasta and meatballs and garlic bread and dog food. Only the dog did that last one, other than that we were all on board. I read a bunch of crap on the internet and that brings us to now. Another day wasted.

I watched a few videos by this Haleybop lady. This song, I feel, stands above the rest.

94

Sleepy tired. I sent story 94 out yesterday. It's called The Creepy Little Mailbox Man.

The boy has hand-delivered me to the edge of madness this week. I dealt with the stress the way I always do. Comfort food. I turned two very big sub rolls into a bunch of cheesy garlic bread and downed it all. Later I had moose tracks ice cream. I like that kind because it has real chunks of moose in it. Though I once chipped a tooth on a piece of antler. So now I'm big and bloated and full of stinkbreath. Come and get me ladies!

Near brush with greatness: I almost saw Robert Wagner and Jill St. John today.

I feel good about my ongoing struggle with Process Five. I think I've got a handle on it now, and I've solved enough of the problems to make it a real story. Once I've done that, I'll see if I can turn it into a good story.

Likee Vid of the Day:

Shopping Spree

Steve! Welcome, my friend. Nice to see you here. The love train continues.

The best thing about having a stomach virus is that when you're getting over it and someone says, "You're full of shit," you can stand with fists firmly on hips and announce, "Not anymore, I'm not!" Not that I'm getting over a stomach virus or anything. These are just the things I think about when I'm grocery shopping without my iPod. And have to go to the bathroom. Now I can't wait for my next stomach virus so I can try that line out.

I'm lightening up on the iPod a bit, as well as the radio and the internet. My TV consumption is much less than it used to be. I used to eat about seven television sets a week. I'm now down to less than one. And, now that flat screens are all the rage, my waistline is really showing it. But I'm pulling back from net surfing because I want more writing time and I'm shooting for less audio input so I can sit and think. I don't do a lot of that anymore with ears constantly full.

And speaking of the grocery store, while shopping earlier, I bought a 12 ounce package of provolone. The package proudly proclaimed "50% MORE." Below that, in little print, it read, "Than our 8 ounce package." I thought that was a hell of a deal and bought two.

Then there was the mustard (Turkey subs/grinders/hoagies/heroes/atomic tarantulas for supper). The Wal-Mart "Great Value" brand stated on the label that it was "Prepared mustard." The word "prepared" didn't jump out at me on any of the other labels, so I thought I'd better buy the Wal-Mart brand. I didn't want to squirt anything on my sandwich that wasn't ready to be there. What have the other mustards been doing there on the shelf all this time, anyway? You'd think they would have plenty of time to pull themselves together and implement a plan. Ian was afraid that if he squeezed a bottle of the unprepared stuff, mustard seeds would come out.

Just Skip To The Good Part

If you want to avoid all the crappy boring stuff, just skip to the video at the bottom. You've been warned.

The weekend. The wife was up at 4 am and I at 5 am to make breakfast for two-hundred people for the PTO's breakfast with Santa. Save for the part about getting three hours sleep, it was kind of fun. I had a brief Lileks moment. Understand that because of the way these meals had to be served, we had to package them individually, as if they would be purchased for take-out. The little packages of syrup we included were not labeled "maple syrup" but instead labeled "table syrup" and I pictured the stuff inside being refined from the sap of freshly squeezed tables.

Then a quick trip to the wife's house, walk the dogs, and off to the five hour parenting class, which made watching paint dry seem like downhill racing. Suddenly it was dark again and my daughter needed to get to my computer for a couple hours for a science project. Dropped her off, came back, started working on something for the Sofa. The wife called, this was like midnight now, and we had to talk out some stuff so I went over there, talked it out, got a couple hours sleep, went home, slept for another forty-five minutes before being called into work early.

You can imagine what a pleasant mood I was in by that time. I don't totally remember what happened last night (I know there was driving involved), but I had to go to the Dreaded Monday Morning Meeting today, and after errands and my quarterly visit with Dad (Who, as a veteran who fought at Pearl Harbor, was bumming because he received very little mention in yesterday's paper on the sixty-seventh anniversary of the attack), I went home and slept and slept. My son came home from school and after our post-school meet and greet I went back to sleep. Then supper, library with daughter, and now, at 10:20 pm, I'm thinking I'm going to sleep again. This is normally very early for me. It's partly about catching up on three night's of lost sleep, partly trying to wash the memory of the weekend away.

I'm posting this, because it's one of my favorites for Christmas. Hall and Oates got intentionally goofy here and the video is as much fun as the song:

My Little Hunter

The boy and I spent Thanksgiving at the wife's house. She stuffed us magnificently as usual. I got in a little golf on the Wii and dragged my score down. I'm out of practice, but at least I'm still pro.

We watched the new Futurama movie, Bender's Game. I'm sure there'll be a lot of haters out there like for the last one, but I loved it. It had a Dungeons & Dragons theme as the ads made clear, but they didn't spend as much time in the fantasy setting as I thought they would. Lots of Lord of the Rings jokes, D&D jokes and an inordinate amount of dwarf-eating. The family mostly slept through it as I laughed.

After my nap, I got up to see that my wife and her dog were gone. My dog, Cutie (I didn't name her), was whining to go out so I took her out and she struggled to run as she always does. She's a hunter and I assumed that she was on the scent of my wife, daughter and their pug, Pepper. I figured we'd catch up fast so I jogged behind her (as best I could). They weren't to be found right away, but I knew the dog was on the case.

She's the kind of dog that can take care of herself if left to her own devices. Years ago, when we would let her run loose, I'd find pieces of rabbit in the front yard. She ate well. She's almost ten, but she's got a clean bill of health from the vet and she's young at heart. I trusted her. We searched.

My wife sometimes takes rather long walks, so I wasn't put off by the lengthening journey. I kept thinking that we were about to find them around the next corner and my wife would say, "How did you find us here?" and I'd point proudly to my dog and say, "She tracked you here!" My wife would say, "No way." And I would say, "Yeah way." And then my wife would be so impressed that she'd call her sister on the other side of the state and her mother in Brooklyn and tell them about my incredible dog and they would be equally impressed.

We probably got past the mile and a half mark when I realized that Cutie had brought us around in a small loop and into a new direction I didn't think my wife would take. I checked the next street sign, walked a little farther and looked down at the dog.

"Bitch, you don't know where the fuck you're going, do you?" I said. She sniffed and tried to keep on. "No, I'm taking over now," I said and we made our way back. It was dark, it was cold (yes, it was only Florida cold, but if you live here for twenty years, it's the same as regular cold), and all I was thinking was, They're all just going to laugh at us now. My wife, my daughter, her sister, her mother, maybe even the pug. Cutie had seemed so confident!

Finally we got back. My wife said she had just walked around the corner, sans daughter, maybe two blocks away and come back, surprised we were gone.

My little hunter.

Now I walk and walk and walk, it's been part of my job for years. I can walk for miles and it doesn't bother me. But on this excursion, I moved pretty quickly, using my muscles in a running way more than a walking way, so three miles or so have messed me up. For some reason my left ankle told me to go screw. It doesn't hurt, but it doesn't want to bend upwards any more, either. So I've been walking around like some sort moronic monster movie creature for the last four hours, having to lift my leg up more than normal to move my foot forward. My wife and daughter got good laughs. Not Futurama type laughs, but good just the same. Here's hoping I'll be closer to normal in the morning.

Take Flight

This bit from episode eight of Flight of the Conchords is the sole reason my son took French this year: