SwampLog 3.0

Time Won't Take The Boy Out Of This Man

I wonder what I'll look like in twenty years.

The changes from twenty years ago to now are simultaneously subtle and dramatic. I'm the same height, and have much of the same features, but I'm quite a bit heavier, and look incredibly goofy without a goatee or some sort of facial hair.

Today, while getting ready for work, I saw a few random white hairs around my temples. There are a few stray grays in my goatee as well. Amanda says she can see it interspersed through my whole head of hair, which is totally fine. My hair is light enough where it'll be a gradual changeover, and I think it'll look fine.

Marty insists on making his grey hair go away, but I refuse to color or "augment" my hair in any way. If I go completely grey, that's alright by me. I've earned it.

A Gift To You

As you may or may not know, I have a yearly tradition of making a soundtrack CD for the year and releasing it into the wild as a Holiday gift. This year's CD is finally complete.

'Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride' will be making its way around the planet in the next couple of days. The companion web site is partially up -- enough to let you know what's on the CD and whatnot. Enjoy, and have a great season, whatever season you're celebrating. Or not. Just have fun.

Overheard

M: So going to hell... So going to hell...
D: Look, we've known we're bound for Hell for quite a while. Just think of this as calling to confirm our seats on the bus.
M: "We have you and Mr. Pike confirmed for Route 666 to Perdition. Would you like a smoldering or non-smoldering seat, Mr. Yawnick?"

Arrrr!

From Das Leemer:

My pirate name is:

Dirty Davy Kidd

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Chapter and Verse

For the 500th post for SwampLog 3.0, here are the chapter titles for my first book, When the Blinking Stops:

First Things First
37 Things I've Learned in 36 Years
What Do I Want?
Growing Up Devin
Transformation
Musique Nonstop
Never Say Goodbye (HIGHLY tentative)
Hold The Line
Superheroes
They Teach Classes, Don't They?
Interlude with Inner Bastard
I Am What I Play
The Three Amigos
Somebody Scream!
The Lesbian Who Loved Me
Finding Your Inner Madonna
Three Hundred Sixty Feet
Radiation Vibe
Interlude with Inner Bastard
Buzz In Now!
Confidence Man
Tug-Of-War
The Period of Abject Stupidity
Thump
Songs To Roast Your Eternal Soul By
Last Call
When The Blinking Stops

The first draft will be done and to editors by 15 December, and I look to have the book available through Amazon.com and direct Web sales by the end of January, unless a publisher picks it up.

500 posts later, I'm still amazed anyone's even reading SwampLog. Both Marty and I thank you for looking in on our charmed little existence, and hope you stick around. The coming months are bringing a lot of changes, both in our lives and with DAM.com.

Mazel tov!

That Thursday in November

After so many years of having a fractured family (my parents divorced when I was ten years old), going to multiple Thanksgiving gatherings had become second nature to me. The scheduling was a true nightmare, but I made do because that's what was required of me.

So, Amanda told me that her family's Thanksgiving was a singular event on Thursday, and I was more than happy to let my families know that I was booked for the holiday.

It was the first time I had met anyone in Amanda's extended family, and the grilling wasn't nearly as bad as they make it sound in the movies. We did have to tell the story of how we met, and it was sufficiently disgusting. Apparently, I passed muster, since everyone was saying "welcome to the family" as we were leaving.

Four fried turkeys. My favorite was bacon and jalapeno, with creole butter coming in at a close second.

The college kids started throwing the football around after dinner, and Amanda and I jumped in to make it a three-on-three touch football game. Amanda's 30, and I'm 36. We were gassed by the second possession, and my knees still hurt. I could care less.

This was the best Thanksgiving I've had in any recent memory. No pressure, no awkward silences, and no shouting matches ending in clenched fists. Phenomenal.

A gift for you --wrist clock

The best piece of spam I've seen that doesn't involve the word "enlargement"...

The cost of these is simply too good to pass over. So you don't have to
talk yourself out of it.
Make sure while you are at the internet-site, that you also get the little
box to keep it in.

This is a special little something for you, because of all the people I
know, you have truly earned it.

I have seen this webinternet-site open on your screen so many times. I know
think I even know which w atch you will choose.
You are going to be able to watch the route your w atch takes to you so you
can feel safe that it will arrive.
Splurge on yourself. Sometimes we just don't do that enough.

http://it.geocities.com/tuan_konowal/?ow=nmaf

Catch up with me later

clea

Quick Bits

As I'm heading out the door to do a service call, here's a couple of things afoot in Devin-land:

* Queen For A Day is playing Friday night at FireWater Grill in Dallas. This is an Officially Sanctioned DAM.com Night Out. I may try and get an interview with one of the guys for DAMradio.

* Work on the NaNoWriMo book continues. I'm still on pace to hit the 50,000-word mark on schedule. I don't quite know what I'll do with the book once I finish it -- whether I shop it around to publishers or put it out myself depends on how much I like the finished product.

* 'The Boondocks' animated series debuted on Adult Swim last night. While I didn't laugh my face off as I have with numerous strips from McGruder, I know this will take time to find its rhythm. A show that isn't on the schedule for [AS] yet but should be is 'Lucy, Daughter of the Devil,' which ran last week as a pilot try-out. It was absolutely funny, and deserves a full-season shot by the network. (You hear me, Williams Street? Make with the Lucy love!)

* I now own an authentic A-Team lunch box, complete with Thermos. Photos in a bit.

Original of the Species

From my childhood friend (really from my childhood, unlike Marty, whom I'm going through my second childhood with) Erika, who's had a ridiculous stretch of bad relationships:

I'm feeling the need to just go out and do something completely off the wall. To put it simply, I'm fed up with people being such useless pieces of shit. This condition seems to be especially prevalent among adult males. I look around me and wonder when it became acceptable to be so completely worthless. Whatever happened to having a little drive and ambition to make something of oneself, to contribute something to society? Nobody takes responsibility for himself anymore. If a person is a fuck-up, it's somebody else's fault: My parents kicked me out of the house when I was a 17 year old drug addict so now I can't hold a job, my dad died and left me without a male role model so I knocked up my girlfriend because I didn't know any better, my ex-girlfriend broke my heart so now I can't have a functional relationship, I can't be your friend because God is punishing me and doesn't want me to be happy. Blah, blah, freakin' blah.

So bad things have happened to you, welcome to the world! How long are you going to let those things rule your life? Do you actually enjoy being miserable? Are you going to let that define who you are or are you going to take action to change it? I have a friend who has survived cancer, two heart attacks and a divorce or two and yet he persevered. He didn't give up and throw in the towel. And now, look. Look what's happened to him. He's found the woman of his dreams and is blissfully happy.

Is it just me? I mean, I don't expect to get any more than I give. Am I just asking too much from people? I refuse to give up faith in the Human Male because of a few ne'er-do-wells, but it seems like they're everywhere I look these days.

I responded:

Then we need to set you looking in different places. Cliche, I know, but truths are couched in cliches. Most of the time.

Her reply:

Truths are couched in cliches and stereotypes exist for a reason. You can quote me on that, too.

How Long Must We Sing This Song?

When people bitch about the current (read: dead) state of Star Trek, they'll bitch about Rick Berman and, to a lesser extent, Brannon Braga for running the franchise into the ground. How different would it be if, instead of Berman, Michael Piller had been handed the reigns after Gene Roddenberry's death?

Piller joined the writing corps of 'The Next Generation' during season three, and wrote one of the best eps any of the Trek series ever saw, the Borg-infested "The Best Of Both Worlds." He went on to be the driving force behind 'Deep Space Nine,' which Marty and I maintain was the best overall series of the current crop. After leaving the world of Trek behind, he created the brilliant USA Network redux of 'The Dead Zone,' along with his son Shawn.

Michael Piller died Tuesday, after battling "an aggressive form of head and neck cancer." He was 57 years old.

Though he'd been fighting the cancer for years, he hid it from the majority of his peers and co-workers. His death came as a shock to many in the television industry.

We half-heartedly joke that there's a cure for cancer out there in a lab somewhere, and the pharmaceutical companies cover it up for the profit potential of treating the symptoms instead of the disease.

I, for one, am tired of people whose work I admire and respect dying from the Black Plague of our generation.