This journal is, for the most part, public. That is to say, most of what I have to say is visible to whomever wants to read it.

Certain posts will be locked to friends only, such as posts where I talk about anything work-related, how I'm going to be out of town for 3 days, or the secret location of the stash of gold bars I have buried in my back yard under the tool shed.

Only friends can comment freely. Anyone else can comment, but it will be screened so that I must approve it before anyone else will see it.

If you friend me, chances are I'll friend you back. after I determine you're not a robot or spammer. Or after my gold bars. MWAH Haha! You'll never find them.

If I friend you and you don't want to friend me back, no sweat.

I also regret that I have had to disable comments from anyone who is not already a friend. I loathe spam, and I refuse to deal with it.

---

I mentioned the other day that I submitted three of my very short flash pieces that have appeared here on my blog over the last year or so to a podcast called Toasted Cake.

I got a response back from Tina Connolly (podcastrix).

So as far as first rejections go, I’m not displeased. It’s a very good one, actually, encouraging me to submit again in the future.

Plus . . . now that that’s over with, I’m not dreading that first rejection anymore. :)

I still want to get into Viable Paradise, though, Universe, if you’re listening.

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.

It’s been about a month since I last updated my blog. I’ve had a busy social life and a sick cat and frankly haven’t written much. I also helped out a fellow writer by critiquing her entire finished novel over the last couple of weeks.

But another thing I did work on was submissions.

I finally bit the bullet and submitted a manuscript to Viable Paradise. In their own words,

I’ve wanted to go to VP pretty much since the first day I heard about it—Egad! Six years ago!—when podcaster and writer extraordinaire Mur Lafferty went in 2006 (VPX) and talked about the experience.

Of course, I’d also like to go to Clarion/Clarion West. But I have a full-time job and only 23 PTO days per year, and Clarion takes six weeks, or 30 PTO days. (Which actually isn’t all that bad, considering. They’d only have to let me do a leave of absence for seven work days . . .)

The shortage of time off still didn’t stop me from attempting to apply. I mean, once I got in, I could worry about getting time off, right? But I misread the submission guidelines. I worked for hours editing a story to get it as perfect as I could get it. And then with just about twenty minutes to spare, I was getting ready to email everything in and . . . realized they had asked for two short stories, each between 2500 and 6000 words. I had just the one, and it was 6900 words.

Here’s a tip: Read the submission guidelines thoroughly, boys and girls. <grumbleblather>

Not that Viable Paradise was a distant second choice, mind you. It could even be argued that my subconscious sabotaged Clarion on purpose. Dastardly subconscious.

I sent in my submission on April 16th. The deadline is June 15th. They will make a decision as soon as possible after that date and let everyone know one way or the other. Only 24 students will be accepted. They will, of course, have to read and evaluate all the submissions they get at the last minute, so I wouldn’t expect to hear one way or the other before the 20th of June, certainly.

So now, I wait. Patiently? Well . . . :)

In other news, I have recently started listening to a newish podcast called Toasted Cake by Tina Connolly. Tina is an accomplished author (and Clarion West 2006 graduate) and voice artist who frequently voices stories for the three Escape Artists podcasts, EscapePod, PseudoPod, and PodCastle, as well as Drabblecast and Three-Lobed Burning Eye.

She decided to podcast a flash story per week for 2012. She hit up her writer friends for the first dozen or so, then opened up for submission from interested listeners during April. I sent her three of my extremely short flash pieces to see if they strike her fancy. She likes ‘em dark and kind of twisted, which these three are. I sent the anti-Valentine’s Day poem, “Pot O’ Gold,” and “Nothing Lasts Forever,” all of which I have put on this blog in the last year. I should get a “Pass” or “Hold” email before too long. Submission deadline is April 30, and I sent it in a couple of days ago.

So that’s basically what I’ve been up to. Which doesn’t amount to much on the page, but I’m hoping one or the other or both of those pan out.

What I have done, writing-wise, is come up with a veritable mother-load of ideas for the second novel in the Urban Fantasy series I’ve come up with (which I’m tentatively calling The PCIU Case Files). You know, the second novel. I haven’t finished the first one, but my brain is supplying me all kinds of good stuff for the second one.

Stupid brain.

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.

I just sent this via their web site.

It has recently come to my attention that American Airlines intends to air an interview with a woman named Meryl Dorey who is associated with an Australian organization called The Australian Vaccination Network. In spite of its name, the organization provides no solid, scientific information about vaccinations, but is instead dedicated to preventing people from vaccinating their children. Ms. Dorey is an HIV denier and also believes that doctors lie and poison babies.

It is an extremely dangerous organization that has come under serious scrutiny in Australia. Her claims have been proven false time and time again.

Given that last year, 100 AA passengers had to be tracked down, and more than two dozen quarantined, because a child infected with measles was brought on a flight, I don't see how you can, in good conscience, even consider airing such a thing. It is providing your passengers wrong, dangerous information.

I must therefore say that if you do air this interview, I will no longer consider American Airlines a safe alternative for travel, and will make sure that all my friends and relatives know why.

By propagating anti-scientific, anti-vaccination propaganda, you're making the problem worse, not better. Please reconsider your decision. I've never had reason to complain before now, but I feel VERY strongly about this issue.

Thank you. I hope AA will do the right thing.

Probably won't do a bit of good, but I mean it. If they air this pack of lies, I will no longer travel by AA.

For more information, read the Bad Astronomy blog. Don't let the name fool you: Dr. Plait defends all of science, not just astronomy. And anti-vaccination is bad science.

On April 2, I called Charter Communications because there was bright orange cable lying on the surface of the road at the foot of my driveway and stretched 100 feet or so down the street in front of my yard and that of two neighbors, awaiting burial.

The problem was, I had landscapers scheduled to come, and wanted to know when they were going to get it buried so that I could hopefully avoid the worst-case scenario of them coming to dig up my freshly sodded yard.

Remember that? And how convinced I was that it was going to go wrong? And how I mentioned that I'm not the customer with the work order? And how I mentioned that it would be 'the end of April at the earliest'?

The same day I posted that—the very day I made my prediction—I got a message from my housemate that someone was digging in the front yard, but they had dug up the grass (read: moss and weeds) and put it back. And the orange cable was gone.

That same day I posted that—the very day I made my prediction—the landscapers dropped off a bunch of equipment and some sample rocks for me to look at. Remembering me mentioning that?

The very next morning (April 3), the landscapers showed up and got most of the work done. They finished up on the 4th. The yard looks great . . . ish. The grass is a bit yellow because it hasn't completely "set," and although we are watering it frequently—as instructed—it still looks like a patchwork quilt.

That same day I posted that—the very day I made my prediction—the yard guy who subcontracted the landscapers mowed my back yard.

Flash forward to today.

We've been watering the lawn religiously. The landscapers painstakingly placed flags in the newly sodded yard to mark where the paint had been, because I explained the situation to them. But because Charter had already dug up my yard and buried the orange cable, I didn't think anything of it.

This morning, while I was changing the cats' litter, I noticed some paint on the mowed grass in the back yard. Again, I didn't think anything of it, because Charter was already done burying the orange cable.

So, at lunch, I got a text from my housemate. "Did you call Charter?"

Still thinking nothing of it, I replied humorously, "No. Was I supposed to?"

And I forgot about it.

When I thought to check my text messages a few minutes ago, I had another text from 3 pm. "Two guys were here to bury your loose cables in the back."

Suddenly, in a blinding flash of clarity, it all came together. A true satori.

I called Charter and spoke to someone whose name I neither got nor care to know. I asked him about the work order.

Yep. The woman to whom I spoke on the 2nd decided that I was asking for cables to be buried. I will stress that at no point during our conversation did I ever say "back yard" or "my cable." I specifically said "loose, orange cable" and "front yard." I specifically said that it wasn't my cable, and stressed that I was not under any circumstance asking for work to be done, but merely to know when the already-scheduled work was to be performed.

But no. What she did was, presumably while having all ten fingers inserted into her rectum, enter in a new work order to bury my "loose cable" in the back yard.

I . . . may have gotten . . . a trifle furious. Maybe. I said, "Oh, my fucking god, she couldn't have gotten that any more wrong if she had tried!" I asked him to make a note that she had royally fucked up, and . . . well, he got a little terse with me and hung up.

Does that sound a trifle furious? <shrug>

Now, here's the thing.

There was no "loose cable" in my back yard. There was some cable that was originally attached to the outside of the house, and some of that had come loose. I was planning on getting it reattached at some point, but . . . hey, it's cable.

That "loose cable" is my Internet line that goes directly into my home office to the modem and my router. That's all I have. I don't have cable TV or phone service, just 25M Internet.

So, now, thanks to the unbelievable idiot whose superpower is apparently "Opposite Hearing," my Internet cable is—presumably—buried, and if there is a problem at this point, they'll have to dig it back up in order to diagnose it. What I wonder is whether they had to actually pull new cable in order to get enough "loose cable" to bury.

<headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk>

WHY CAN'T ANYTHING EVER JUST BE EASY? WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST LISTEN? WHY CAN'T THEY DO THEIR GODDAMNED JOBS? WHY OH WHY DO WE ALWAYS KNOW TO EXPECT THE ABSOLUTE WORST FROM THESE TOWERING EXAMPLES OF MORONITY?

GAH!

A haiku in honor of Charter Communication, their moronic customer disservice people, and their inner-rectal craniitis.

So fucking stupid,
Charter Communications.
Die die die die DIE!

I know a lot of you are, right now, saying to yourself, "Jesus, what the hell is he so furious about? So some cable got buried. Big deal." The big deal is that I never asked for this. What if she had misunderstood and canceled my service? I would now be on the hook for a disconnection fee and a reconnection, and who knows how long that would have taken? And it's not that much of a leap to imagine something like that happening. That is the big deal. And I predicted that something would go wrong because I have come to expect something to go wrong when dealing with these . . . people.

Honestly, this is why I hate planning things.

Back when the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan Area was in the midst of a years-long drought, we were told not to water our lawns. I was the only person in my neighborhood who actually complied with that rule. As a result, all of my grass died, and what's on my front lawn is moss and weeds. Some tree roots are partially exposed. It looks awful, but hey. I'm not one of those people that has to have a golf-green lawn with all the grass the same height to 1/16".

I finally decided to do something about it because the top soil has begun to erode. I have a landscaper coming to lay some topsoil down, re-sod, and while he's at it, re-edge my flower beds with stone/brick and not the awful black plastic crap that's there, now, and to raise two of my sloping flower beds to level¹, and wall them up with stone.² Oh, and trim my trees so the sunlight can actually get to the new sod. Turns out plants need light. Who knew? :)

It should look so much better when done.³ He sent me an estimate, I approved, and he said he'd put it on the schedule. Yay.

Then, a couple of Fridays back, I came home from work to find that someone had strung 100 feet or more of DayGlo orange cable from one cable junction box (the one near my driveway) to another one (down the street). One of the distinguishing features of my subdivision when I moved in was that there had been cable lying across yards and in the street for years, according to the people I bought the house from. So, I didn't think anything of it.

Last Friday, I came home to find that someone had painted bright orange paint on my weeds in the front lawn. Presumably, it was Charter's doing, and they were going to bury that cable. Well, yay. Again, I didn't think anything of it, because I didn't know when my landscapers were going to start.

Today, I walked out to head to work and there was a small stack of three different kinds of landscaping brick⁴ on the driveway next to my garage door. Presumably for me to select among.⁵

I'm not an idiot. I know how the universe works. Inevitably, the landscapers will lay down my new sod and finish the rest, then—without any warning, because I'm not the customer who requested the cable run—they'll dig a trench through my new grass and mess up my yard to bury the cable. On top of that, when my landscaper replaces my weeds and moss with real grass, those painted lines will go away, so they'll have to paint it again and then wait longer, giving my new grass just time to get all rooted and settled in and happy. Before they dig it up.

Don't look at me like that. You know as well as I do that I'm right.

So . . . I called Charter Communications, hoping to get a date.

Stop laughing. It could have happened.⁶

Since I'm not the customer whose work order it is, they couldn't tell me anything concrete. She said that for 'bury jobs,'⁷ they have a month. Since the lines appeared last week, that means probably the end of April at the earliest.

<heavy, heavy sigh>

Planning. It's useless. The only thing I accomplished with the phone call to Charter (I was a lot nicer than I could have been, let me tell you) was to get her to add my phone number to the notification list on the work order so at least I'll know when they're going to dig up my lawn. Of course, this is Charter Communications. They'll probably call me after the back-hoe has already started the trench.⁸

I sent email to the landscaper asking him when he intended to start. Let's see if I can put him off until after they dig up my lawn to put down the cable.

Next time you wonder why I procrastinate, think of this.

---

1. My front lawn is level to maybe 10 feet beyond my house's foundation, then it slopes rather precipitously down to the street. I'm guessing maybe . . . it's not quite a 45-degree angle, but I've never gone out there with a protractor to measure it.
2. The flower beds—I have five sweet gum trees, several camellias, and some flowering bulb-things (I didn't plant them) in one, and a birch tree with what I think is crepe myrtle around it in the other—slope like the lawn. So they simply won't hold mulch for long. I want them level so they will. But to do that, he'll have to raise the front ends up to be the same height as the rear. That will take dirt and some sort of stone for the "retaining wall."
3. I fully intend to take before/after pictures.
4. A 'red' one, a 'concrete block' one, and a 'concrete block that's been dyed slightly brown' one. Don't ask me colors. :)
5. I must have been in the shower when he brought them by because they weren't there at 7:30 when I took the cats to the vet.
6. In what universe, I don't know, but it could have happened . . .
7. I wonder if the guys doing it will have middle names of 'The'? You know, Vinny The Knife, Luigi The Undertaker, that kind of thing.
8. I'm sure they don't use a back-hoe, but it's what I'm picturing, so I thought I'd go with it.

The challenge:

I’ve been meaning to post my entry for several days, but I’ve been busy. Life, etc. You know.

Anyway, tonight (3/26/2012) was the deadline, and we voted, and although I didn’t even consider mine up to par with the others, much to my surprise, it won. Here’s what I came up with.

I wish the other five folks would post theirs because they were all so good. This was probably the hardest time I had selecting my top two picks of any of the challenges to date. Congratulations are due to Kate McCridhe and Paolo Alfa, who came in second and third, respectively.

We all went with “Concept Albums” where the songs all tied together on some theme. It’s funny, too, that I don’t think any of us overlapped at all, although I tried to overlap with one other person, but could never make the title work. She did, and it blew me away. “Lullaby for a Sonogram.” Mine was going to be something like “Trojan Defeated.” Hers clearly rocks; mine just as clearly does not. I’m glad I went with “Hod’s Missile (Toe)” instead.

Now, because I’m anal retentive (Should that be hyphenated?), I’ve put a link on each title to explain what it is in reference to, in case you don’t know. Probably very unnecessary, but . . . it’s what I do. The Icarus one is supposed to refer to the hang-glider in the image, and the Quixote one is supposed to refer to the windmills. Now you know more than you probably wanted to.

Note: The image above was created by Sherry D. Ramsey and I’m using it without any sort of permission at all.

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.

This post is about Spam. You may have gotten that from the ingeniously clever and subtle subject I worked very hard to craft.

Not too long ago—back in January, I believe—I was upset by the SOPA and PIPA thing. Enough so that I decided it was time to contact my congresscritters to give them a piece of my mind. Because I have so many to spare. (Pieces, that is. Of my mind.)

I used one of my several email accounts (myfullname@myisp.net) and wrote carefully worded emails to Senators Isakson (R - GA) and Chambliss (R - GA) and Representative Rob Woodall (R - GA).

Isakson and Chambliss ('s respective staffs) responded almost immediately with emails that actually addressed the subject of SOPA and PIPA. And that was the end of it. No more correspondences have been received from either of them since the responses to my original emails.

And then there's Representative Rob Woodall. Oh, Rob, Rob, Rob.

It took two extra weeks to get a response from Representative Rob Woodall (RRW for short). I guess his staff are less efficient, or perhaps they have more to do. I don't know and don't really care. The response I got back was . . . let's say, "only vaguely related to SOPA and PIPA."

And then, a week later, I got another one, that had nothing to do with SOPA/PIPA. And the day after that, another one. And two days after that, another one. And another one a week later.

In all, I've gotten one or two emails per week from RRW's office.

There was no "unsubscribe" link in any of them. It said at the bottom

If you have received this message in error, please disregard. Thank you.

I find it reprehensible that United States Code (Title 15, Chapter 303, Section 7704) requires unsolicited commercial emailers (That's Spammers to you and me, kids!) to include an opt-out or unsubscribe link right in the body of their Spam, but when I get email from a government official ('s staff), they're not. And the way they determine "unsolicited" is asinine. Apparently, since I contacted RRW, that makes it perfectly all right for him to automatically put my email onto some stupid Spam list.

So I visited his website and found an 'unsubscribe' link. Yay! I clicked it, gleefully. It had me fill out some information, and then I pressed a button and it was on its way! And now I would be—

<ding> You've got mail!

Hmm. It would appear that the 'unsubscribe' didn't work.

You are not subscribed to the NEWSLETTER-GA07 list under the address your message came from (myfullname@myisp.net). You are being mailed some additional information with a few hints on getting your subscription cancelled [sic]. Please read these instructions before trying anything else.

Well, those instructions were unhelpful and basically said, "You're on your own."

After another round of emails in the last couple of days, I finally called RRW's local office. I dutifully pressed 0 to talk to a real person, and waited on hold for a few seconds while my call was being routed to the correct department.

The man who answered sounded very friendly and helpful. I told him that I seem to have gotten myself onto some mailing list from which I could not easily unsubscribe, and asked if he could help.

Him: <sigh> "You're on the LISTSERV, correct?" [I could practically hear him rolling his eyes. I got the distinct impression—and this is just my interpretation, mind you—that I'm by no means the first person who has called to complain about this.]

Me: Yes.

Him: <sigh> "I'll need your full name and your email."

Me: <gives this information>

Him: <repeats the information correctly>

Me: "That's correct."

He told me he would get the information to the right people and asked if there was anything else he could help me with. There wasn't, so I hung up after thanking him and wishing him a nice day.

So, why was the process so easy for the senators and so stupidly, nonsensically complicated for the representative? Is this why it took two extra weeks to get a response? Because his staff is busy taking phone calls from the last few hundred people stupid enough to email him?

So here's a helpful tip: When emailing a government official, do what I should have done and create a throw-away email so that you can do just that: throw it away. It's easier than jumping through the hoops. I recommend Sneakemail, by the way. I've been using them for many, many years, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

This experience demonstrates why you should never, ever give out your real email. Give them a Sneakemail address and have that forward to your real one. And if you get spam on the Sneakemail address, delete it and create another one. Easy!

Why didn't I? Because like an idiot, I thought elected officials had to abide by certain rules of ethics. Yeah, I know. I'll never make that mistake again.

And now to try to figure out why the Spam on another of my accounts has increased by about 500% over the last month or two.

It's a never-ending battle.

Hi, everyone. I wanted to let people know that this-coming Thursday night, March 22^nd, 2012, at 6 PM SLT (Second Life Time), I will be reading my story “D Is for Dragon” live.

Second Life Time is the same as US Pacific Time, so that’s 6 PM on the west coast, 9 PM on the east coast, and 10 PM if you live in those extreme eastern provinces in Canada. You can probably do the math to find your local correct time.

The reading will occur in the Workshop building, on the second floor beside the traditional meeting circle. Our area is in the Pen Station region. The reading is a voice event, so attendees are encouraged to come with their “ears on” and their microphones off. Since the event is also being recorded, we request that you refrain from using audio “gestures” or other devices that create ambient noise.

If you get on, my name on Second Life is “Sathor Chatnoir.” Contact me or “Timothy Berkmans” (our host for all things podcasterrific) for a landmark to the event site, or click on that link above (on “Workshop building”). Show up early (15 to 20 minutes, I’d say) so you can adjust your settings for voice.

The recording (or perhaps a cleaner one) will appear on our podcast in the next couple of months.

Those of you who are not already on Second Life can get on (For free!) by going to the web site (See that handy link earlier in this sentence?), downloading the software (For free!), and creating a character (For free!). Those of you who don’t want to be on Second Life can wait for the podcast. (For free!)

Those of you who <sniff> don’t want to <sniff> hear my story (that I worked so hard on), I <sniff> understand. Really. It’s <sniff; wavering voice> OK. <sniff> Really.

For free! Did I mention that? (For free!)

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.

I went into the bathroom to wash my hands after lunch, and guess what? They've removed the delay on the towel dispenser and they've also fixed it where it dispenses 8 or 9 inches of towel rather than 4.

Yay!

I was just listening to a podcast (The Skeptics Guide to the Universe) on which author Scott Sigler was discussing his upcoming novel Nocturnal. It’s a science horror novel, which means that it’s a horror novel, but not based on anything supernatural; he meticulously made sure that everything in the novel is based on real science.

During his interview, they digressed onto how upset people were with the endings of Battlestar Galactica and Lost.

Supposedly, the creators of BSG and Lost both claimed originally that they had plotted out everything before they started shooting. The Lost creators in particular claimed that everything was important, and viewers analyzed every frame of video.

Then, after the series finale, the Lost creators admitted they were making it up as they went. There was no intended end-point from the beginning. Every plot was pulled out of the air, with very little to no thought given to continuity or arc.

Sigler compared the two styles of writing to an architect and a gardener.

An architect designs a building from the foundation to the roof, noting with precision where plumbing, wiring, fixtures, structural details, etc. are going to be located in the end product. And when the building is constructed, the building is a physical representation of the architect’s design right down to the finest detail. A beautiful example of this style of writer is Connie Willis. In several interviews I’ve heard with her, she has said she leaves nothing—or precious little—to chance. The plot is outlined before she writes a word. The characters are designed to fulfill the plot’s requirements.

A gardener, on the other hand, plants a bunch of seeds. He has some idea of the impact he intends, but these are plants, and who knows whether they’ll come up as intended—or at all—or how much they’ll grow or whether they’ll be the right color? And after everything sprouts, he can either replant or prune or fertilize, and what comes out of the other end is an organic (sorry, I couldn’t resist) product that may or may not be what he originally had in mind. It may look similar, or it may be something entirely different, even if it is just as æsthetically pleasing. This is where I am. It’s also called “discovery writing.”

I will add a third one to the mix to represent what I’d like to aim for. I don’t want to be an architect; the way I write, I would get bored with the story because in my mind, if I’ve drawn the blueprint that meticulously…then why write the story? And I will readily admit that the gardener approach isn’t working for me, either. I plant so many seeds that don’t produce, but in the meanwhile, they sprout and have to be weeded out. I waste a lot of words going down blind paths that don’t lead anywhere or scenes where the characters veer off into discussions that ultimately have to be pruned.

What I would like to aim for is the landscape designer. Someone who plans based on the best information they have, with an idea to what the project should look like in the end, but who also realizes that sometimes changes have to be made along the way. The ground might be harder in the spot where you wanted to have the pansies, so instead you put your bird bath there and move the pansies over here, but now the phlox has to go over there…

And sometimes, the landscape designer ends up with something that they never intended, but is better than what they set out for at the beginning. But because they had a plan, it still has the backbones in place.

OK, maybe the analogy gets a bit forced there, toward the end. But at least it gives me a convenient way to keep it in my head.

And you know is the first writer that comes to mind when I think “Landscape Designer”? J. Michael Straczynski, creator and main writer for the wonderful TV series “Babylon 5.” He had a five-year arc for the show and each character. But when the star of the show decided to leave (amicably) after one season, he had a contingency plan. And when an actor in the second season decided her character wasn’t getting enough to do and wanted out in spite of the fact that her character was going to be a huge, critical role down the road, he had a contingency plan. And when another main character departed after the fourth season, he had a contingency plan. And each time, the show quietly dealt with the loss, working them into the plot and coming out the other end better. Or if not entirely better, at least not utterly destroyed (I’m sure I don’t have to argue that the fifth season would have been better with Ivanova instead of Lochley, but that Lochley didn’t ruin the show, either).

I’m going to stop, here, before I gush more about Babylon 5, which you should be watching right now instead of whatever trivial thing you’re doing.

Originally published at WriteWright. You can comment here or there.