My Picture Of The Day

It snowed last night. I got this picture of the tree in my front yard this morning. I kind of like how it turned out.

The Cat Carol

I may never be able to regain Rish's respect after admitting to this, but I like this Christmas song about a kind and gentle cat...

You just made that story up, there ain't no cat like that.

Want To Meet Rish And Big?

I know, I know. I wouldn't want to meet us either.

But let's just say that you had a mental disorder, and found Rish and Big's inane chatter charming and entertaining. Then you might want to meet them, and maybe hang out with them for a while.

Well, if you live in the Las Vegas area, or are attending the New Media Expo that will be held there, you finally have your chance.

A few weeks ago, Abbie Hilton contacted us, and invited us to be a part of a panel discussion that she was getting together for the NMX. If you don't know it, the New Media Expo (or NMX), is a conference for folks who create online content; bloggers, podcasters, video bloggers (is that what you call someone with a Youtube channel?), and the like. It's all about how to create, disseminate, and monetize that content.

And so, since we are content creators, they are having us on a panel discussion at their con. We're pretty excited to go, and we hope to be able to meet face to face with as many people that we've met online as possible.

The new media expo is from January 6-8, 2013. I believe that Rish and I will be involved in two panels on Tuesday the 8th.

Nothing's set for this yet, but I'd like there to be some sort of Dunesteef get-together at a local restaurant or something on Sunday or Monday . . . or maybe even Tuesday. We'll let you know about that when it gets closer, and we actually get plans firmed up.

A Podcastle Christmas

For those of you who look back wistfully at the days of late December 2010, when Rish Outfield read a Christmas story written by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw for Podcastle, never fear. The Dunesteef will be reunited with Tim Pratt, Heather Shaw, and Podcastle again!

I just finished recording Tim and Heather's story for this year. While my performance won't likely stack up to Rish's lisping six-year-old that everyone loved so much, hopefully, I'll bring something new and interesting to a story that, since it was written by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw, doesn't really need any help from me.

So, I guess, if listening to my reading is better than just plain reading it yourself, it'll be a Christmas miracle, right?

Luckily, it's a Podcastle original, so it's not available to read anywhere else yet. My reading will be all that you get.

Now, in an attempt to restore your holiday cheer, here's a picture of me dressed as Santa for my daughter's pre-school Christmas party in 2006

Just Messing Around

I was messing around with my camera last night, trying to get the best shot of my Christmas tree all lit up in the dark living room. Which shot do you like best?

Number 1:

Number 2:

or number 3:

I think my favorite is the last one. I know that filmmakers are always trying to shoot in the golden hour of sunset so that they can get that beautiful amber color to the light. But, for some reason, I prefer the lights when they're white. The last picture is more true to reality, so maybe that's why I like it. I don't know.

Sad thing is, I cycled through all the different modes for shooting night pictures that the camera had, and the picture I like the most was just taken with the auto mode.

Anyway, I'll stop wasting your time.

I Promised

I've been saying I would for months and months...

And now, finally, I'm working on edits of a story I wrote. A lot of work to be done. Too bad I'm not a better writer. Maybe I should write more. I've heard from various sources that that is how you get better, but I still don't believe. I think it's just that I lack a really good muse.

Isn't prolonged bouts of hard drinking the way you gain a good muse? That's what muses are drawn to, right?

There you go. I've finally found the solution.

I'm off...

Oh, wait, I've got to finish the edits first. Damn, looks like I'll never get better as a writer, because I don't even have time for heavy drinking.

At any rate, look forward to some stories about ugly people turning pretty, coming to a store...er, internet retailer near you!

Ugly Sweater 4

I said the other day that I was in the market for an ugly Christmas sweater. Then, by chance, I found what I thought to be a non-ugly sweater. I decided that I must have it.

But I'm cheap, and was hoping to get it for a lower price. I kept an eye on it, hoping that on Black Friday it would go cheap, but, despite every other sweater at the damned store going on sale that day, my preferred sweater did not.

I had given up hope, but just the other night, on a whim, I checked it out, and found that, lo and behold, it had gone on sale, for Cyber Monday!

Huzzah! Or at least you might think that's how I reacted. Until I looked closer. No. No huzzahs for me. The sweater was already sold out.

I guess I'll go back to wanting an ugly sweater instead. Ugly people like me wouldn't look good in such a nice sweater anyway.

Suggestions?

So, as a follow up to yesterday's post about the Carpenters, I wanted to get some opinions, if anyone has them, about Christmas music.

See, I like Christmas music. I know that's not hip with the kids and stuff, and it's cooler to hate things, and be counterculture, and to vomit a lot, but I fear for my tooth enamel with all that vomiting really.

My problem is that I'm kind of in that "I've heard it all" mentality right now. If I have to listen to another version "Sleigh Ride", "Do You Hear What I Hear", or "Baby, It's Cold Outside" I might wind up convicted of a violent crime, but I'll have a good defense, the crappy Christmas music drove me to it.

Part of my problem may be that I've been listening to the Christmas radio stations, which play as much Kenny G and Michael Bolton as they do Bing Crosby. But I'm tired to death of endless versions of the same songs with very little variety. I think I heard two different versions of "Do You Hear What I Hear" within a single five song block the other day. What the hell? Is there nothing else to choose from?

I believe that there must be something else to choose from, so I come to you begging for suggestions. What is your favorite Christmas music that I might check it out? Especially your favorite stuff that is original, and not endlessly remade by the hacks that are just out to fulfill a quick album in their contract with A&M or Geffen.

The Carpenters?

I'm a little freaked out right now.

I've been listening to Christmas music on the radio for the last few days, and I think I'm becoming a fan of the Carpenters.

I know that it's so uncool to say so, but I can't help it. It's the truth. Karen Carpenter's voice is absolutely unbelievable. It's the kind of voice that seems to be relegated to the past. I don't know anything about Karen, how much training she had with her vocals, whether she's just one of those naturally gifted people or not, but her voice is like, as they used to say in the old SNL skits, butter. She hits the notes with such ease and suavity.

My wife will sometimes put on those shows like American Idol, The Voice, or X-Factor, and the shlock and dross that show up wanting to be singers for a living makes me projectile vomit uncontrollably. Karen Carpenter is like day to their night.

But the Carpenters are a cheesy band from the '70s. They sing songs that are pretty much only appropriate on the Lawrence Welk Show. I'm not old enough to have watched that show. My older brothers or sisters probably loved it, but I'd never heard of its existence until I was in my twenties.

Yet I like to listen to her sing. What kind of a huge, HUGE nerd does that make me?

Studly

We did the turkey trot 5k on Thanksgiving again this year, and, just like last year, the whole fire department was out (except for the guys who were on duty I suppose) running the race in full gear, carrying their oxygen tanks on their backs.

They weren't always the fastest, but they were definitely the most respected.

Me 3 Cat 0

(Warning: This post contains accounts of the extermination of household pests, do not read it if you are offended or squeamish, please).

It was a low water year last year. What that tends to mean is that a lot of the critters that live in the woods start coming into neighborhoods in search of food, because enough of it didn't grow up in the hills. From deer to cougars to voles, there's just more critters in the neighborhood this year.

Unfortunately, what that has meant in my house is that we have mice in our walls. Mice! Now, I'm sure I've mentioned this enough times in the past that you all know by now, but I have a cat. It's an churlish, unpleasant standoffish beast, but until now, it was enough to keep the mice away. I guess the mice got word that my cat is scared of its own shadow, much less anything that is actually alive.

So, despite the fact that the cat isn't away, the mice are playing. What am I to do with a mouse problem and a worthless cat? Well, I got myself some traps, and set to work playing like I'm a cat.

My first trap attempts, the no view, no touch ones, got me nothing. The mice were not enticed by the peanut butter that lay within.

But one day my daughter saw a mouse in her closet. I went down and started removing all the items off the floor. I took with me one of mouse-kind's oldest enemies, a kitchen broom. Eventually, I removed all the hiding places for the mouse, and then the broom took care of it for me.

Cats are the natural enemies of mice, but I was the one taking care of them. The score was me 1 cat 0. It made me wonder why I was buying food week after week for this worthless thing that provided no usefulness nor affection.

Sadly, that was not the last mouse. As time went on, I saw another mouse, and it was brazen enough to scramble around my kitchen floor, skirting the edges of the cabinets, while I was still awake and in the room.

The fancy no touch traps continued to not work, so I had to move on to the old-fashioned kind that you see in all the old Tom & Jerry cartoons.

Rish Outfield and I were podcasting one night, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw the mouse make another brazen run from one spot of cover to another. I'd thought it had dashed into my pantry, so I grabbed the broom, and had Rish help me remove everything from the floor piece by piece, as I'd done earlier with the one in my daughter's closet.

No dice, however. My peripheral vision had led me astray. The mouse had probably been leaving my pantry instead. Eww.

We went back to podcasting, but as we did, Rish kept seeing the mouse venture out and grab at crumbs on the floor. We placed a trap out with a hunk of bread on it as bait, and the monster actually stripped the bread from the trap without setting it off, as Rish watched in amazement. It was like a scene right out of a cartoon. So tired and cliché, that it couldn't be believed if it wasn't seen.

I had to re-set the trap, and this time I squished the bread onto the trap so that it couldn't be pulled off without setting it off. I know, I set it off on my fingers once while preparing it.

The mouse didn't return, not while we were podcasting, nor for the rest of that night. It was probably gorging itself sick on the food we'd already provided it, I suppose.

I was determined, though. I knew where the mouse was looking for food each night now, and I was going to get it. I re-set the trap again the next night, and at four in the morning or so, I awoke to a strange clacking in the kitchen. My wife sent me out to investigate, and I found my cat trying to abscond with a mouse that was caught in a trap.

The nerve! I had caught that mouse, and my cat was trying to claim it as her own. Nice try, but the score is me 2 cat 0. It was becoming a rout.

It didn't stop there. I saw a mouse run behind my fridge, so I pulled it out, and found nothing. I was confused, because I knew it hadn't com out the other side. I realized that it must be hiding inside the fridge. Not where the food is, but underneath where the coils and wires were. I planted some traps down there, and sure enough, a little while later, got another mouse.

Now it was me 3 cat 0.

Now the question comes up. Just today, my wife called me at work and said, "It's you 3 cat 1."

I couldn't believe it. I was sure there was no way it could be true. I had set traps in the basement storeroom, because we were pretty sure there was a mouse nibbling his way into things we were keeping down there, but the cat was a useless mouser, so there must be another explanation.

She told me that the kids had found a dead mouse left on the stairs, and unless it crawled half way up the stairs then had a heart attack, the cat must be responsible.

I'm glad that we got another one, but I hate to give up the shutout. I find it really hard to believe. The cat's idea of mousing is staring at a place that a mouse is known to be for a while, then getting bored and going off in search of a good spot to nap.

I went downstairs, and checked the trap that I had set, and found it sprung. So, like those politicians who won't give up even though there really isn't any likelihood that the recount will come up different, I refuse to concede that mouse to the cat. I think the trap killed or injured it, and the cat just picked up my scraps, like she tried to do with the original mouse in the trap. She probably grabbed the dead mouse from the trap, only this time, unlike the first time, it came out of the trap, and she didn't have to drag it along with the mouse.

At the very least, we can call it a draw, or no contest, or whatever. I say it's still me 3 cat 0. Catch me another one cat, prove me wrong.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is upon us here in the U.S. of A. It's a holiday that encourages some introspection. In our busy lives, we forget to take time and do things like that. There's a reason why phrases like count your blessings, and stop and smell the roses were coined, because we don't naturally do that.

The economy has been tanking, then making recoveries, then tanking again. Social change has been making strides, then getting stymied, taking a step back, making more strides, then getting taken away again. So it's easy to look at your life and think that things suck worse than ever. Heck, I'll admit that things aren't better for me than they have been in previous years.

But to try to say that I don't have things to be thankful for is definitely not the truth. I may be working more and earning less, but I still have a family that loves me. I still have a podcast that brings me joy and fun week after week. I still have a job, and that's more than many people can say. I have enough food that I can have a Thanksgiving feast, and that's more than many people can say as well.

And I live in an era of unprecedented prosperity, really. I sit here typing on my computer, writing a blog post. I'm not so old that I can't remember a time when both of those things were unheard of. We had a typewriter in my house growing up, and I was out of the house before the internet became available there. I have a tablet that I can play Angry Birds or Cut The Rope on. Oh, and I might be able to put it to a worthwhile use as well. I guess I should look into that. Heck, even my kids have tablets to watch Netflix on, and video game consoles and so on and so on.

I'm not even close to a rich man, but all the same, I live in the lap of luxury compared to people fifty years ago, or even fifteen years ago. And I can't help but be thankful for that. If it weren't for all the advances that have taken place in the last twenty years or so, I wouldn't be able to have a podcast, a blog, a facebook account, or a website. And without all those things, I'd have no relationship with you, the reader of my blog and listener of my podcast.

And that's something that I'm thankful for this November. The people that I have met and associated with because of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. I may not have ever met any of them personally, but they've brought me some moments of real joy in the last few years, and I thank them for that.

Thanks for caring everyone. And Happy Thanksgiving.

Ugly Sweater 3

Ha ha! I found it!

I think this one might be worse than the last one. However, when I got it back in the day, I thought it was the most gorgeous sweater ever. Funny how tastes change as time passes. Things that are cool, stylish, and pretty, become lame, tasteless, and ugly. Weird.

So, which sweater do you think is worse, this one or yesterday's?

Ugly Sweater 2

I found a picture of me in one of my old ugly sweaters, so, for fun, I thought I'd post it.

The worst part is that I liked it enough that I wore it for more than one year's worth of portraits.

What do you think? It was nice of Bill Cosby to give it to me, huh?

I've got another picture of a different ugly sweater somewhere. If I can find it, I'll post it.

A Parachute Pants Rollercoaster

The first fashion frenzy that I remember being a part of was parachute pants. I actually wasn't a part of it, because I didn't own any when the frenzy was on, but I remember when it happened, and how everyone in the world HAD to have a pair of parachute pants. It was 1983. Kids were bringing flattened cardboard boxes to school and practicing their breakdancing backspins on them at recess. Parachute pants were so huge, because they were what break dancers wore. And who was cooler than a break dancer after all? No one, that's who.

I did finally get a pair of parachute pants, six months later, when they were old news and hitting the clearance rack. My mom knew I wanted some, and now that they were cheap, she picked me up a pair. Unfortunately for me, maroon was the only color available by this time. All the cool black, red, grey and white ones had been bought up months ago. And doubly unfortunate for me, they weren't all that cool anymore either.

Years later, in 1987, there was a day when all my pants were dirty as I tried to head to school in the morning. My mom made me wear the hand-me-down pair of parachute pants that I'd received from my older brother to school. At this point, parachute pants were about as cool as bell-bottoms were. Acid wash jeans were the craze this year. The time of parachute pants had long passed. I was so embarrassed to be wearing parachute pants to school, and I just prayed that no one realized what I was wearing. They might mistake them for Bugle Boy pants or something, which were super cool at the time now.

Alas, my fears were realized when a girl named Amy got in line behind me at the pencil sharpener and asked with disdain, "Are those parachute pants?"

All I could do was mutter an embarrassed yes, and make haste back to my desk.

As you can see, parachute pants made an impact in my life growing up. The experience of being the poor bastard who couldn't have them made a lasting mark. So, I was very surprised years later to be talking to my wife and have her tell me that she thought parachute pants were those big, poofy 1001 Arabian Nights-type pants that MC Hammer danced around in on all his music videos. I'd never once heard those called parachute pants in my life.

She was willing to admit that she might be wrong about their name, however. After all, she'd grown up in a town so small, it was officially classified as a village, because it didn't have enough people to earn the name of town. Not necessarily on the cutting edge of fashion.

Just the other day, however, I was talking about parachute pants with someone else who wasn't willing to admit that they might be wrong. I moaned about the fact that I might be the only person left in the world who didn't mistakenly think MC Hammer's pants were parachute pants, and I was unequivocally told that I was the only person in the world who was wrong in thinking that they weren't.

I let it slide off my back at the time, but something about it bothered me. I got more and more worked up about it as time went by. The first thing in the morning, I got onto the internet to try to discover if I really was wrong. I read the Wikipedia article on parachute pants, which told me that I was possibly both right and wrong. Parachute pants were the breakdancing pants that I remembered, but as the years passed, they might have evolved into the idiotic pants that MC Hammer wore around.

Still, I was all ready to get on my blog and have it out. Parachute pants looked like this:

Not like this:

I was ready to hurl insults in the direction of the person who dared to call me wrong. I had several very specific memories involving parachute pants to refer to after all. I knew I was right!

But before I could get some time on a computer, I had to hit the streets for my commute. With a little bit of time now, my anger was already beginning to fade. I started to wonder what my deal was. Why did I get this indignant fury when I knew (or at least thought I knew) that I was right. My wife runs from any argument with me, because she knows that I'll get this way.

My parachute pants blog post was taking a different turn, but it wasn't even done yet. Just minutes from my destination, traffic started going crazy. The cars in front of me all suddenly jammed on their brakes, swerving to avoid the other cars in front of them that were also pounding their brakes. What was going on?

Then I looked to my right, and understood. The dust hadn't even settled yet from a rollover accident. There on the side of the road, a Kia Sportage lay on its side, windshield shattered, body pummeled. But what really freaked me out was the toddler that had just struggled its way out of the car. She was the only one out of the car yet, and she was only feet from the roaring traffic of the freeway. I had to get pulled over, and make sure that kid didn't wander her way in front of a car.

Luckily for the kid, there were dozens of other people stopping as well. By the time I got to the car, it was mobbed with people, the car's occupants were all removed, 9-1-1 had been called, and the people in the car all seemed to be fine. Which is crazy, considering they were inside of this car:

Here I was again, riding another loop in an emotional roller coaster. Could who was right and who was wrong about parachute pants have seemed more trivial than it did at this time? The answer is no. Suddenly, the random and capricious nature of life and death was what was weighing on my mind. I was really freaked out as the cops arrived, and, realizing that I served no purpose here, I made my way back to my car and continued on my commute.

I found myself unable to control my emotions for the last five minutes of my trip, tears flowed, dried up, flowed again. It was weird. Maybe I was experiencing shock or something like that. I don't know.

Making things worse, I arrived at work, and told everyone about the accident, and everyone's response was, "Was this the rollover on I-80?"

It wasn't. Apparently, this morning there had been an earlier rollover accident in which the driver was thrown from the vehicle and died.

Two rollovers. One I witnessed. One I didn't. One everyone walked away from without any serious injuries. One with a fatality. Life and death are capricious and random. And at any moment, Death's scythe could be swinging toward me or you. There's just no knowing.

It makes you think, for sure. And it also makes you realize that there are things that are important in life, and things that aren't. And I'm pretty sure that parachute pants aren't.

All I Want For Christmas

I've never had one in my life. I've had some ugly sweaters before, but never an ugly Christmas sweater. But I've recently grown envious of those who do have them. I want an ugly Christmas sweater.

I searched the web for Christmas sweaters, and I clicked on the first site on the list, JC Penny's. That's a super old-school kind of store, so they ought to have some good ugly sweaters, right? I mean, the last time I shopped at Penny's it was likely still the 1980s. So I proceeded to check it out.

They had some sweaters that fit the basic mold, but they weren't particularly ugly. I think I really want this red sweater now. It's got that snowflake design and stuff, although it's not particularly ugly. I kind of actually think it looks really good...

I went back to the search page and tried the next link. OH MY GOSH! Now these are ugly Christmas sweaters! Maybe I'm not so keen on having an ugly Christmas sweater after all.

At the very least, I have a hard time justifying spending $30 or more on one, since I would only wear it as a joke, and sparingly. I'm just not counterculture enough to get away with wearing it. I'm old enough that people would just assume I actually liked it instead of seeing that I am wearing it ironically like the hipsters do.

Ah well. I guess I'll just go with the JC Penny's one. I really like that one, so it won't even be ironic, and people will assume correctly instead.

Integrity

A few posts back, I told you about my diet/weight loss goal for the rest of the year. I also told you about my cheat day. At the time I wrote that post, the cheating was a recent thing, but since that day, the cheating hasn't stopped. I've gone into a tailspin, eating whatever the hell I want, and now my exercise has been slipping as well. Since the snow hit, it's just been too cold to go out running in the morning

I don't know if the rest of you get this way when you get like this, but I've been really depressed recently. It's kind of a spiraling thing. I cheated, so I feel bad that I didn't live up to my promise, even if it was only a promise to myself. Being depressed makes me eat emotionally, further breaking that promise, so I feel worse, and eat even more emotionally, and so on.

It works the same way with writing too, I think. I don't write, and I feel bad, so I want to be comforted, so I watch TV or surf the internet, and I feel even worse for not writing, and it goes on forever.

So, I've been reading this book on weight loss, and it talks a lot about self-image and integrity. To succeed, I have to change the way I look at myself. I can't think of myself as a weak-willed fat guy. I need to instead think of myself as who I want to be, like a determined athlete-in-training or something. Because after all, if I am faced with a choice of eating the pizza and drinking the soda or not, if I'm a weak-willed fat guy, I'll eat the pizza, but if I'm an athlete-in-training, I'll probably make a different decision.

The integrity thing is important too. I can develop a great deal of self-confidence if I simply work on my integrity. Each time I live up to a promise I make, my integrity grows. If I mess up, I re-commit, and fulfill my promises. In time (so says the book's author), I'll be someone with a great deal of confidence and a whole new attitude.

So, I'm working on changing my self-image and developing some integrity. Hopefully, it'll help keep me from getting depressed and spiraling downwards. For starters, you'll never hear me refer to myself as an aspiring writer or a wanna-be writer or anything else like that. Nor will I call myself a fat guy or anything like that. I am Big Anklevich, writer and marathon runner-in-training. Hear me roar.

Master of the Occult

I play a small part over on the Journey Into... Podcast this week. Marshal Latham is presenting a story by Dave Thompson called "Ichabod Crane, Master of the Occult," and I play the role of Hans van Ripper. I've always been more partial to Buzzer or even Torch, but I guess you take what Dreadnok they give you and you don't complain, right?

Head over and subscribe to Marshal's wonderful podcast to get the episodes delivered right to your door each week, and for even more convenience, click the play button below to listen to this fine episode.

S'Winter

It's here. This was the view from my desk at work this morning.

I'm not really a fan.

Halloween Party

We have a little costume contest at work each year on Halloween. I never go all out. Half-assed is what Rish tends to call my effort level. But I always at least dress up. Here's my costume from this year, for those of you who haven't seen it already on Facebook or Twitter.

But a special treat for those of you who read the blog...an exclusive as we like to say in the news business. One of my coworkers dressed up as Announcer Man this year. He won the contest by a landslide.

What Doesn't Kill Me

This is me out running this morning. The weather here has been the exact opposite of what's going on in the east coast, so it's not even cold at 6:30 in the morning, but it's still hard to get up at dawn and go running several miles.

I'm hoping that it's all worth it.

Cheater

I've been doing this...for lack of a better word...diet for the last few weeks. Starting on Oct 10, It's been no sugar, no carbs. I've been very faithful to it, and I lost nine pounds.

But this past weekend, I decided would be my cheat day for October (in November it's going to be Thanksgiving Day, and in December it's going to be Christmas Day). Not sure why, maybe my body was already getting ready for the upcoming cheat, but just before the cheat day, I gained back about four pounds.

Then came my cheat day, which evolved into a cheat weekend, and I gained three more pounds. Now, after a month of no sugar, no carbs, and one weekend of lots-o-sugar, lots-o-carbs, I am basically at square one.

So, I'm here to say folks, don't cheat. It's just not worth it. Cheaters never prosper.

I Got A New Belt

It's been a really long time since I got a new belt. I've just been making do with the one that I had from way back when...you know, a year ago. This is my old belt.

You can see that it's been stretched and misused a lot.

And here you can see the extra holes I had to poke into it to make it fit me recently.

With this new belt, it's the first time in a while that my belt hasn't been cinched up to the last hole...or a new last hole that I had to create myself in the leather.

I'm pretty excited to finally start building up enough clothes that fit me that I can consider them a wardrobe. The best part about it is that, even though I haven't lost any weight recently, everyone keeps complimenting me on the fact that I look skinnier than the last time they saw me. That's a funny thing that happens when you start wearing clothes that fit, instead of the baggy old ones you had before.

Habit Forming

So, I was browsing through the Kindle store the other day, when I saw the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg I read the description, and was sold.

I've never bought a Kindle book before, mostly because I don't get a lot of time to do eyeball reading. Instead I do all my reading via audiobooks, but the impulse buy got me. That one-click purchase thing is a smart move by Amazon.

Anyway, I started reading the book right away, and it's really fascinating. I'm learning a lot of stuff about habits, how to create good ones and replace bad ones. Apparently, with habits you have a cue, which is the thing that causes you to perform the routine of the habit. Then there's the reward, which is the thing you get for performing the routine of the habit.

What I most want to do by way of this book is establish a writing habit in my life. I was thinking that I could set an alarm on my phone to ring at a certain time each day, and when that alarm rings, that is my cue. Then I could perhaps have a chocolate or something once I manage to write for a half hour or 500 words or whatever. That would be my reward, and I could have it despite my no-sugar-for-the-rest-of-the-year vow. I was also thinking of allowing myself even greater rewards if I manage to write for a week straight, and greater yet at two weeks and so on.

I went out and bought myself a bag of chocolate this morning, and I was thinking of getting that song called "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield for the ringtone of the alarm. It's the only song I know that's got lines in it about writing.

"Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find"

Here's to hoping that a song like that can cue me into a habit of writing. After all, there's chocolate involved right?

Vow Of Celibacy

Okay, not really. It's a vow to deprive myself of something wonderful, but not a vow of celibacy. Instead, I've decided to take a vow to abstain from sugar and carbs for the entire rest of the year.

That's right, through the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas seasons.

You see, that's the worst time of the year for me as far as weight gain goes. It's also one of the happiest times of the year for me as well...hmmm...I wonder if that means something. Anyway, I'm going to try to nip it in the bud this year.

I will give myself one day of for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas, though. But that's it.

Last year, I weighed 250 at the beginning of September, and by the time we started that weight loss contest in March I was 283. In six months, I gained 33 lbs. Most of it came on in the holiday months.

We'll see how it goes. I started on October the 10th, and I'm doing fine so far. It's hard, but I'm committed. It'll only get harder as Christmas approaches though. I gotta have nerves of steel if I ever want to have buns of steel, right?

Hoarder

Maybe this makes me weird, or maybe it's just the natural thing for a film school graduate to do, but I save all my movie ticket stubs. In fact, I save all my ticket stubs, from concerts, to the circus, to soccer and football games. I guess I think it's neat to be able to show that I was there or something. It's kind of cool to be able to look back and say at this exact moment in past, I was doing this. I can pinpoint my whereabouts twenty years ago.

I wish I'd started saving movie tickets before I ever went to film school though. I wish I could pull out my stub from some of the great films I saw as a child like Back to the Future or Ghostbusters or Brewster's Millions. Sadly, I didn't start saving them till the mid-nineties.

This weekend, I went and saw the 3D re-release of Finding Nemo. I got free tickets people, don't start accusing me of being a hypocrite. Yes, I would have preferred it if the film had been in its natural 2D state, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, in honor of that re-release, and my ticket hoarding habit, I thought I would present my ticket stub from May 31, 2003 when the movie first came out:

And this second time around:

I told my daughter that if she cried and made me have to take her out of the theater this time around like she did the last time I saw Finding Nemo, I wasn't going to be happy. She didn't think it was funny. She's ten years old now.

Barry Koleman, Hero

Over on the Journey Into... Podcast, I got the chance to play the titular role in a story called "Barry Koleman, Hero," by Mur Lafferty. It's a short story set in the universe of her Playing For Keeps novel. A fun time will be had by all who check out the episode. Those who don't, well, let's just say that you shouldn't be one of those.

Subscribe to the podcast for all the fun and good times that it guarantees. Also, hit the play button below to listen to the episode right here on this very blog page.

Can It Be?

This is a picture of me in 1998.

It was the year I got married, which I kind of mark as the beginning of my downward spiral into fatness. My wife's cooking is amazing for one, and I guess I figured I had a woman, so I didn't need to try so hard anymore.

I don't really know what I weighed then, but my guess is between 220 and 235. As an experiment, I've shown this picture to many people over the last week, asking them if I am skinnier now or if I was still skinnier then.

Everybody says it's hard to gauge, and they can't say so for sure, and they're probably just being nice really, but they have pretty much all said that I am as skinny as or skinnier than I was then.

Can it be? It's pretty exciting. My weight is 233 right now, which puts me right in the range. So, I suppose it could be true. I've managed to take off the 60 pounds I gained after getting married.

Only, I'm not done yet. I still have a lot of gut to go. I need to get to about 200 pounds or so. That's been my goal all along. So, this post isn't George W. on the aircraft carrier saying mission accomplished (which of course wasn't true anyway). It's just an interesting fact, and a mile post on my unfinished journey.

Blood Test

Remember a while back when I was having that health issue? If you have been reading the blog for a while, it might sound familiar. I had this problem where I was just worn out and sore all the time no matter how much I rested. I was even getting unexplained swelling in my ankles.

The doctor thought it was probably something called dilated cardiomyopathy. We did some blood tests, and that seemed to be the most likely thing, especially when my C-Reactive Protein level was at 7.5. Normal is between zero and three. 7.5 means your heart is in some kind of distress.

An X-ray showed, however, that my heart was normal, not enlarged. So, we were at a loss. The doctor said to come back in a few months to re-try the test, and see if the levels had come down at all.

I was really irritated, because I still felt like complete crap. It was like that line from the Howard Jones song, "Doctor says you're cured, but you still feel the pain." I suffered through several more weeks of the problem, dosing it with Tylenol to keep the pain down to a minimum. And then one day, I didn't take Tylenol, but I still felt fine. And that continued until now.

So, just last week, my wife and I decided to try the workout program that is called "Insanity." It's really intense, especially in the cardio parts. The makers of the workout program say more than once in their literature that you must check with your doctor before starting the program. This is not just a disclaimer, they say, we really mean it.

So, considering the fact that I had recent history of cardiac problems, I figured I'd better actually finally get around to calling the doctor back and having him run that test again.

He was upbeat, figuring that what I'd actually had at the time was a virus that kicked my butt for a while until I finally kicked its butt on out. We ran the test, and he called me the other day to say that my test came in at 1.5. Normal levels is between zero and three. So, I think 1.5 is about as exactly normal as possible.

Doctor says I'm cured. And now I don't even feel the pain.

Well, that's not quite true. I feel plenty of pain with each session of that "Insanity" workout.

Red Road

I was on the Journey Into... Podcast that Marshal Latham makes the other day. I have some lines in a story called "Red Road" by David Barr Kirtley. It's not much. I just play the part of a guard mouse...I think I might be third guard mouse from the left in the official IMDB credits. Still, you'll probably enjoy the story...in fact, you might enjoy the story all the more because of my limited involvement.

Vertical video syndrome on that story art, eh? Head over and subscribe to the podcast for more lovely stories like this one. And to hear the episode right now, you can just push play below.

Zombie Walk 2012

Rish and I went to a Zombie Walk in downtown today. It was a lot of fun.

We've been meaning to go to it every year for at least three or four years in a row, but we always don't find out about it until after it happens. This year, we made a special effort to discover when and where before it was too late.

There were a lot of people there. I overheard one of the organizers talking about it at one point, and they said that it was double the size of last year's walk.

There were an awful lot of really good costumes. Some weird stuff, and some very funny stuff. Here's the pictures that I took:

The baby eating the brain is a particular favorite of mine.

Rish was an extra in a zombie movie a few months ago, and he saved his costume to use particularly for this.

I brought along my youngest daughter, and Rish brought along his nephew and niece. His nephew, the little guy, was fawned over an awful lot by the other zombies and the random passers-by as well.

Little kid zombies are cute.

A Running Start

After winning the last weight-loss contest at work, the other less-successful folks in the contest decided that it would be a good idea to continue on with a second round. I was flush with cash, so I couldn't turn down the entry fee of $20. After taking everyone else's money the first time, I felt that I owed it, even if I didn't expect to be able to win the second go around.

And I seemed to be right. My weight loss stalled completely. I hovered at 245 despite doing exactly the same things as I had previously done. Well, I wasn't doing exactly the same things. My weekends tended to be...how could I put it?...splurgy? Spluge-tastic? I would gain back all the weight that I lost during the week, and took the proverbial one step forward and two steps back.

In early July, I decided it was time to change things up. I hadn't been exercising at all since I had that issue in April where my body was just aching all the time, and the doctor thought I might have a heart condition. Time had passed, and all the symptoms had subsided, so I decided to get back on the proverbial horse.

I started running each morning. It was much easier to do than it had been in the past, I suppose because I wasn't carrying the proverbial millstone around my neck. I was forty pounds lighter than I was in March. Imagine running with a forty pound backpack on, then stopping, and taking the backpack off. How much easier would it be to run now? It was great!

Of course, I'm not, and never have been, a runner. I've never run long distances. I played football in high school, where the whistle blows the play dead ever ten or fifteen seconds. You go real hard, then take a rest. You don't go and go and go and go...but that's what running is. So, it takes a lot of getting used to for me.

I discovered that my iPod has a stopwatch on it, so I've been using it to clock my runs each day. Unfortunately, since it's not standard from colon to colon, time is hard to divide up. What is 17:19 divided by a mile and a half? I know if I ran today faster than yesterday, but I don't know how long a mile takes me.

Eleven minutes and change is my fastest time for a mile, and fourteen minutes or so is my slower average (although, in my defense, that was on a longer three mile jog that I putted my way to that time). Some days are harder than others, but I'm steadily improving. And I'm improving in two ways, both speed and distance.

Today I ran four miles. Cue triumphant music! To put that in perspective, that's the longest distance I've ever run in my entire life. And better yet, I didn't poke along at a sluggish pace of fourteen minutes-a-mile either. I did an even 12:30 per mile.

I plan to keep pushing it, both in distance and speed. Maybe one day, I'll enter a 5K, and win it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the running jumpstarted my weight loss. I've come down another 12 lbs. in the last month. And even on days that I go splurge-tastic, I still don't gain. So, I'll be out there running every day.

Desert Rose

When I first moved out from Sacramento to this desert I live in now, I had a really hard time seeing anything but the brown, dead grass and the stark treeless hills. It seemed so ugly and drab to me.

In time, I came to see that I was wrong. Like any place, there is beauty here. My example:

It's a thistle flower. From this spiny jagged thorny, nightmare of a plant comes a flower whose beauty is enough to take your breath away.

Now sure, I like lush green forests better. Who wouldn't really? But just because something is different, doesn't make it not worthwhile. And I think that goes for a lot of things besides deserts too.

Long Run/New Story Idea

This morning I went out for a long jog. My normal jog is about 1.5 miles. I figured that out by driving it in my car last night, and resetting the trip counter. While I was doing that, I figured I'd check to see where I needed to go to run the equivalent of a 5K race.

I mapped that run out, and this morning I went out and jogged it. It took me 37:51 to get all the way through it. That's five minutes slower than the last time I ran a 5K race back in September. It doesn't surprise me that I've slipped, but I'm hoping to get back to that time, and even improve on it. So, I'll be doing that run many more times over the coming months.

Along with my long run came a new story idea. A song that I was listening to sparked an idea for horror story that I think will be really good. Now I just have to get my act together and get writing, because I haven't finished the last new story idea I came up with...or the one before it either.

At least this time it wasn't a paranormal romance story. That's all I've been coming up with lately. No idea why. This time around it'll be my usual creepy horror. The kind of stuff that Rish complains about because it proves that I'm a monster instead of a person. The child in the story will probably die once again...

Jesca Hoop's New Album Is Out!

For those of you who have begun to share the same passion for her music that I have, her new album is here!

I bought it yesterday, and have listened to it non-stop since. I really like it. It's another great output from her. As with all her other albums, there's so many good songs on it that picking one favorite is hard. I start with one song as my favorite, and then a few weeks later, realize that another one has taken that songs place as my new favorite. Then, as time passes, another moves in, and so on and so on, until nearly every song on the album has spent time in my mind as my favorite.

You can listen to the whole album, to decide if you would like to support this artist as well. Just follow this link. I hope you enjoy it.

Now I just need her to schedule a show somewhere other than the UK. I'd love to see her perform live.

Daily No Bread

It's enough salad to feed a whole family, a large family, and one that really likes salad. I eat it every day. It keeps my big mouth occupied, and keeps me from looking for other things.

But best of all, there's about as much calories in this whole bowl of salad as there is in two pieces of wonder bread. Veggies are basically free when it comes down to it.

Jesca Hoop's New Video

I guess this is the first single off the new album. It's coming sooooon folks. I'm so excited! You should be too.

How I Did It

Okay, so I promised that I would tell anyone who is interested how I went about losing 38 lbs. or 13% of my body weight over the last three months.

First of all, let me tell you what I discovered when my body aches started in April. I had to quit working out, and I was afraid that the contest would be over for me. I was in first place at the time, and the next week came along, and I continued to be in first place. What I discovered, and it has been backed up by comments from fitness professionals that I've heard since discovering it myself, is that, for weight loss, nutrition is the number one factor. Keeping the weight off later depends much more on exercise. But losing weight is all about nutrition (I say nutrition instead of diet because of the negative connotations the word diet has gained over the years. These cars are pre-owned, not used!)

Photo by Arctic Warrior

I did exercise for the first month, and I lost the most weight during that month, so that might mean something, but, in my experience, the first month is when the most weight is always lost. The easy to lose weight falls off quickly at first, but the more entrenched fat that is still hanging around later is harder to chip away. So, I'm not saying don't exercise, because I think exercise is integral to good health. But I am saying don't expect exercise to lose you weight. What it does is keeps it off when you're done. Which is kind of the point right? Nobody diets hoping to lose weight for just a week and then put it right back on.

So, what did I do? I loosely followed something that was introduced to me as the paleolithic diet, which instructs you to eat as your caveman ancestors might have. I kind of mixed that with the zone diet which follows pretty much the same style. These are both low-carb diets. They want you to eat a reasonable portion of meat, healthy amounts of vegetables and fruits, as well as some healthy fats too. Healthy fats include things like avacados, nuts, and olives.

I also made sure to keep my calories right at the level I was supposed to be eating. There's dozens of websites out there that will help you calculate the amount of calories you should eat to lose weight, I won't recommend one over the other. Just google it, and you'll find one easy enough. I found that with my body type, I was supposed to eat around 2,400 calories to lose weight.

So, I worked out a meal plan that factored those things in. For breakfast, I would eat an omelette. It consisted of my protein, which in this case was two eggs. My vegetables, which in this case was a bunch of chopped up bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms. And my healthy fats, which for this meal was half of an avacado. I mushed the avacado down to where it was like guacamole without the spices in it, and spread that over the eggs/veggies, folded it over, and chowed down. It was pretty satisfying.

I also have heard that it is important to keep you blood sugar at a certain level to promote fat loss, which means having a snack halfway between your meals. My snacks were much smaller, but had similar breakdowns for content. I had a mozzarella string cheese stick for my protein, a fruit for my vegetable/fruits, and a serving of almonds for my fats.

Photo by HealthAliciousNess

At lunch, I would eat another serving of almonds for fats (I really love almonds). I would have an appropriate amount of meat for my protein, usually whatever was leftover from dinner the night before, be it chicken breast, meatloaf, whathaveyou. And I made up a giant salad to have for my vegetables. I really do mean giant. At Costco, we buy the five pack of romaine lettuce hearts, the tub of baby spinach leaves, and the tub of spring mix lettuce. I mix all that together along with sliced red cabbage, shredded carrots, sliced celery, sliced cucumbers, and diced tomatoes. This makes a salad that would feed a group of ten people in a normal dinner setting. I don't put dressing on it, because if I used the dressings that I like (ranch, blue cheese) it would make the salad about as healthy as a cheeseburger. Besides, I like the taste of these vegetables, and I see no need to drown them in fat or oil.

I eat my way through this salad all afternoon. It's kind of like eating a bag of very, very healthy chips. It keeps my hands and mouth occupied in eating, which is something they like to do a lot, but I don't ingest a bunch of calories in the process. All added up, my salad has less calories in it than the handful of almonds that I eat, or the string cheese. I never worry about calories when eating vegetables. They are so low in calories that in my mind they're free.

About the time I head home from work, I eat another snack that is just like the one I described above, almonds, cheese, fruit.

For dinner, I eat whatever my wife makes. Sometimes, I'll skip the pasta or the bread component in it, but I don't put together something different than everyone else at the table is eating. My wife knows my dietary needs, and makes things that go well with that. So, it works out well.

Other tricks. During my three months, I made sure that I didn't feel like I was not allowed to eat things. At work, there is cake for people's birthday, or someone brings in a different treat to share with everybody. If it's one that I want to have, then I have some. I just make sure that it is a very small piece. For example, one time one of my co-workers brought in five different cheesecakes that he had made to share with everyone. Now, I love cheesecake like I love my children, so I couldn't just turn that down. What I did was cut off a forkful from each of the five cheesecakes, and enjoy those. I even went back and got a second forkful from a few of my favorites. I didn't feel left out. I was part of the fun, part of the group, the gathering, the joy, but I didn't eat enough calories to ruin my progress either.

Photo by AWholeLotOfSpinky

Also, I keep a bag of M&M's in the trunk of my car. It's a good place for them, because I can't just grab them whenever I want, especially not while driving, because that's dangerous. I get a handful in the morning, and eat them, and maybe another handful in the evening. And if I'm especially needy for sweets, I get a third handful during the day. A handful of M&M's is something like 75 calories or so. So, it gives me the sugar/chocolate fix I need, but doesn't allow me to overdo it like I normally would.

Lastly, I have a 52 oz. mug. It's one of those Wal-mart specials that are called Bubba Kegs. Probably because if you fill it with soda each day, you'll be fat enough that Bubba would be a fitting nickname (no offense to anyone who is actually called Bubba, I'm sure you look great sir, or ma'am). Instead of filling that with soda, however, I fill it with water. At least twice a day, I drain that thing dry. Lots of water really helps keep your body working right, and your stomach full. You will be less likely to overeat if your stomach is full of water. I've heard that many people drink so little water that they confuse the signal their body gives them to drink with that of hunger, and they overeat.

Photo by Carol VanHook

Drink water. Actual water. Not diet soda. Diet soda doesn't work. It may not have calories, but it has other problems too numerous to list here. And definitely don't drink non-diet soda. That stuff could replace those weight gain powders at the GNC, it's so effective at packing on pounds. Don't drink juice either. Juice is fruit robbed of all its nutrients, fiber and so forth. If you can even find juice that's actually made of juice. Juice is full of calories, and you don't need them at all. Just drink water. It's what your body wants, so give it to it. It will thank you for it by dropping some excess weight.

Anyway, that's what I did to lose weight. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and I'll do my best to respond.

I had myself a little party this weekend, eating a bunch of pizza, and drinking soda. Now, I'm back to work, and eating the way I should. They're doing a second round of the weight loss contest that runs for the next three months, and my goal this time is to make it to 213, that would be another 13% weight loss, and I will be looking supermodel-esque when I reach it. See you all on the cover of Vogue.

Cosplay

Each year in my town, there's the annual city celebration, complete with a parade. There's a guy who walks the parade that always has the most amazing costumes. The first time I saw him, he was dressed like this:

That's obviously not a costume that you can buy at the store. I know there are folks out there that make these kind of costumes. I've seen plenty of them at Comic-con, for example. The next year, he came with this costume:

Once again, really impressive. Now, he had become the highlight of the parade for me, and I was excited to see what he would be the next year.

Well, apparently, it was a bad year or something, because he was:

I was so disappointed. I assumed his reign of awesomeness was over.

However, yesterday was our parade, and he was back at it again. Check this one out:

In honor of the butt-kicking Avengers movies, he did a sweet Iron Man costume. I wonder what he looks like under that mask. He's never done a costume that doesn't include a full face mask. But he always rocks, even when he has to re-use a costume, and that's what matters.