Jared was bored, and no matter what he tried to do, it was just not exciting. He went out with his friends, and he blogged about it. He played games with his girlfriend Allison, and he blogged about that. He went to work, but thankfully he never blogged about it.

In an effort to spice things up, he decided to go sky diving. Allison refused to go, so he went alone. His instructor was a cute girl, and he rather enjoyed his first tandem jump with her. He had a blast and went home to blog about it. He even gave Allison some extra attention that night.

Jared became bored again the next day. Nothing in the house could hold his interest for more than ten minutes, if that long. He decided to go sky diving again, but this time they made him jump alone. Even if he had jumped tandem, the instructor was a big, burly man with a ZZ Top Beard. He did not get the same thrill from it, but it alleviated his boredom for a while again. He blogged about it, and Allison certainly enjoyed the new found attention.

The next day, Jared was once again bored. He decided to try bungee jumping, and again, Allison wouldn’t go with him. He found lots of cute girls there and enjoyed the trip far more than the sky diving. He blogged about it more, and he was more attentive to Allison than ever.

When he came down from the bungee jumping, Jared went out again to cure his boredom. This time, Allison secretly followed him to see what was making him so happy. She found him flirting and carrying on with half a dozen girls then did his jump. The girls all swooned over him.

Allison was furious, but she reined in her anger and went home to wait for Jared. That night, she told Jared she wanted to try sky diving with him. He naturally agreed, as that would help cure his boredom for the next day.

The next day, they went out for the sky diving lesson. When it came to time to jump, Allison got scared and refused to jump. Jared did not jump because she would not. The instructor jumped with the other students, leaving the couple in the plane.

On the way back to the airport, Jared and Allison discussed the events surrounding Jared’s boredom. They discovered that the cure for Jared’s boredom was not death defying acts and the attention of girls. He just wanted to go out and do things with Allison.

I did a guest blog over at MadUtopia about what’s going to be going on here on GT over the next few weeks. Let us just say it involves #FridayFlash and a challenge. Check it out here.

While that is going on, another challenge of sorts went on over the weekend between Amazon and Macmillan. Check this stuff out. Thank goodness I was not in the middle of THIS storm!

All the Many Ways Amazon So Very Failed the Weekend by John Scalzi

Amazon.com Mysteriously Removes Macmillan Book Titles by Paul Boutin

Amazon Pulls Macmillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement by Brad Stone NYT

Zinc Blinked by Scott Westerfeld

And if you need more on this, I am sure it can be dug up with very little effort. Feel free to discuss here or at any of these sites (I think my personal favorites are John Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld). I have several more posts on the topic on my twitter feed if you really need more, as I was RTing the heck out of these links. Enjoy, and come back with encouragement for the #FridayFlash February Challenge!

Parrant spat a curse out at the stone floor as he picked himself up from his fall. Traps were an unavoidable part of creeping through lairs, but he always hated when he failed to find one. Some were so crafty that even with his full attention, he would never spot them. His party was either in the same predicament or worse, so he dusted himself off and took stock of his surroundings.

He stood in a long stone hallway with very little light. He had enough light to see by, but he found no discernible source for it. Behind him was a nebulous cloud. He moved toward it thinking it was the way he had come. A wall of force shimmered up between him and the cloud before he got there, and he frowned. “Of course it is not that easy,” he said.

The sound of his voice echoed down the hall, but when it returned to his ears, the words were different. “Hail there traveler,” came the words from the other direction.

Parrant whirled around, but the gentleness of the greeting stilled him from reaching for a weapon. He found a copy of himself staring back at him, smiling. Such events were not unheard of, but rarely was it so calm. He nodded to his mimic and said, “Well, hello there. You are looking good. Have you been working out?”

The mirror laughed and said, “No, but you are looking good as well.”

Parrant asked, “Well, you obviously inherited my sense of humor as well. Are you in here looking for the cure for the dragon?”

“Why yes, I am. Have you had any luck?”

Parrant shook his head negatively and said, “Well, I’ve checked over here.” He gestured at the nebulous cloud without looking back at it. He asked, “How about you double check over here, and I check over there?” He pointed past the copy.

“I am afraid I cannot do that.”

“Why not?”

“I am not allowed to let you past.”

Parrant smiled at himself, in an eerily literal fashion, and reached back for a pouch firmly held against the small of his back and said, “Well then, perhaps you have met my friend, Mister Plat?” He withdrew a platinum coin and held it up for the mirror to see.

The copy tilted his head curiously then smirked and said, “Well, I’ll be, I think you are right, I have met him before. I should like to meet him again.” The fake elf held out a hand to receive the coin.

Parrant handed over the coin, and in the process, both elves touched hands. A bright light flared from the mimic, then faded along with the body into wisps of smoke that dissipated soon after.

Parrant looked around for a few moments, then looked at the coin. He glanced back to where the other elf had been. After another second of thought, Parrant dropped the coin for his ex-self and headed off down the hall to freedom. The mirror copy had earned his pay, and Parrant had long since learned that when opportunity is knocking, the price is best paid quickly.

Parrant pointed at the dragon tracks and told his companions, “Be ready, these tracks are fresh. It is also large.” His ranger training told him the dragon had to be an adult, which meant potential trouble.

Kylen shrugged a plate-covered shoulder and said, “The larger the better. Scales and horns are worth a fortune.” She stepped past the wild elf with plates clanking against chain mail. The noise grated on Parrant especially, as he valued silence for both safety and combat advantage. He let out a long sigh in time for Felligan to catch up.

The robed man with a wizard’s staff patted Parrant on the shoulder and said, “Worry not. Kylen is just cranky with having had to come this far.”

“Kylen is always cranky,” came the comment from Welentia, the chain-clad battle priestess. The three snickered for a moment, and Kylen told them to hurry up. When they did, they crested a rocky slope to see the cave further up the pass. Parrant scanned the opening of the cave and was able to make out the tell tale signs of a dragon near the entrance.

He nodded to the others, and they got their weapons of choice ready. Kylen drew a large claymore with arcane runes along the blade. Felligan took a double-handed grip of the staff, but stayed behind the others. Welentia got the shield off of her back strap and secured it to her left arm then pulled her spiked mace from her belt.

Lacking a crow’s nest to launch himself from, Parrant left his longsword at his hip.  He smirked in recollection of only time he remembered using the blade:  skewering a sea dragon from above. Instead, he readied his bow, as it was his real weapon. His bow converted any arrow shot from it into a bolt of lightning, and he cherished it more than most people. When he was ready, the group moved forward single-file: Kylen, Welentia, Parrant, Felligan.

As Kylen neared the cave opening, the dragon roared at them, and the sound reverberated and echoed over them like a tidal wave of sound. Parrant quickly broke ranks, sprinting left and around the entrance. No dragon he had ever fought would do so inside its home. They always came out when challenged. He nocked and drew an arrow, and the moment the dragon’s head cleared the threshold, he loosed the lightning bolt. The dragon was already prepared to breath fire at the elf’s companions, but the lightning bolt that exploded in its right eye made it reconsider.

Parrant loved starting fights with dragons like that, even if it did no good. Dragons could sense everyone around them without their eyes, but Parrant found that taking out their eyes annoyed them considerably. This dragon was no exception, and as it turned its head on the archer, he loosed another lightning bolt into its left eye. He gave a laugh that was an odd cross with a cackle, and finally the others started to move.

Kylen charged forward with her sword, hacking at the dragon’s chest. Welentia called on divine protection for everyone, and soft white light radiated from each of them for a brief second. Felligan pointed his staff at the dragon and spoke a word of power. An icy missile shimmered into existence and flew at the dragon.

Parrant found cover then frowned. The dragon should have breathed fire all over the area where he had been. He risked looking at the scene from behind his rocky cover, and confirmed his suspicion. The dragon was fake! He suspected it was not an illusion, as Kylen’s sword was connecting. He fired an arrow past the dragon into the cave, watching the illuminated area until the bolt dissipated. The roar from inside the cave confirmed his theory: the dragon was still in the cave and sent out a puppet of sorts.

The faux dragon evaporated, and the real dragon barreled out of the cave heralded by the screams of the assembled adventurers. This dragon was easily three times bigger than the other, and Parrant established the battle as being hopeless.

His companions must have thought the same thing, because all four sprinted back the way they had come. Kylen was weighed down slightly by her plate and fell behind. Parrant quickly passed her and thought back to his first dragon hunting lesson.

His teacher had said, “If you need to retreat, do not be the last.” Parrant made a quick calculation, then stopped, swept a leg out, and tripped the plate-wearing warrior. He shouted an apology and darted after the other two members of the party.

—–

Years later, Parrant was teaching a band of rangers and told them the story. At first, they were outraged, but then he explained, “We needed the Wizard to whisk us safely away. We needed me to find the warrior’s remains when we came back with reinforcements, and we needed the Priestess to revive the warrior once I did!”

Rain pelted the top of Lotus’ black cloak as she gazed out over the city. It was always raining in Seattle. Maybe that was why she and Paul had enjoyed their time there. She looked down at her wedding ring and frowned, twisting the petals of her name sake tattoo on the left side of her face. Two of the petals were hidden behind the lenses of her thermo-shades, but her eyes could not make out the digital images at that moment. She was watching the astral reflection of the city, analyzing the lines and colors of it.

The city’s buildings blurred and melted together when she looked at it this way. It reminded her of abstract art or expressionist paintings she’d seen in her Humanities classes combined with a lava lamp effect that caused globules of color to float and sink together and then blend together to form a new color. She took a deep breath and looked down at her ring again. She had once felt a link from it. An emotional link to the man that had given it to her. She rubbed the date etched into it in orichalcum: February 14th, 2061. Her third anniversary was coming up, and it had been six months since she had seen her husband.

“You are difficult to find these days, Miss.”

She whirled around slowly compared to cyber-monsters, but she processed who was behind her before visuals caught up. One of many people she had helped in her travels, Felix sat crouched on the roof licking his hand. He was certainly one of the stranger shamans she had met. She smirked at his comical position, though she knew it was fitting of his totem, and said, “That is the idea. It is good to see you, Felix.”

He cocked his head in the feline manner of arrogance and said, “Of course it is good to see me.” She closed the gap between them in two steps and scooped the much smaller form up for a hug. “Hey now, watch the fur!” She released him, and he sighed before resuming his cleaning.

His astral form was not as small as a house cat, but he was half her height and very cat-like despite being an inch taller than her physically. She looked around the empty rooftop for a moment, then asked softly, “Did you find it?”

“It wasn’t easy, Miss, but I did owe you.” The cat man nodded then smiled and added, “Got one though. It took some work though. His file was buried quite deep. As you suspected, it was not deleted, just hidden. Not sure how helpful it will be to you, but our decker uploaded it to a place you can safely reach it.” The cat shaman rattled off the host information for her, and she took out her pocket secretary to record it.

She nodded and said, “Thank you Felix. You have been most helpful.” The host had been an off-site data backup with no matrix access. Felix’s team had to physically go to the site to get the data for her. She bowed to the astral shaman and asked, “Everyone made it out safely, I hope.”

The cat shaman got a sad look on his face and said, “I am afraid there was a serious injury.” She frowned deeply, and Felix continued, “Baretta lost her foot to a grenade. If the grenade had ended up under our vehicle, we all might have been in trouble.” Baretta was an elven Somatic, and a friend of Felix.

Lotus cursed, loudly. Felix quickly said, “I sterilized everything, so I am sure she will be fine.” If she had not been angry about the situation, she might have snorted at the idea of a cat shaman sterilizing everything.

Though she appreciated the poetry, she turned to look out at Seattle again. She was quiet for a bit with her fist curled under her chin, thoughtfully rubbing her jaw. She knew Felix knew the posture and would remain quiet. Finally, she said, “I’ll add fifteen for her to get another grown. It does not alleviate the pain, but it will certainly convey my apologies. Please extend them for me, and I will transfer the funds in about an hour.”

The shaman nodded, and dissipated into the background of the astral realm to depart from her. She growled and closed all of her eyes, blocking out the astral realm for the time being. She left the roof of the building and found her bike nearby. She punched in the grid guide coordinate for the Seattle Library. She went in to use a public terminal to send the authorization code and increased payment to Baretta’s stick. Then she used her deck to get the data and erase all of her tracks from the library hosts, including the transaction logs.

She logged off of the matrix, leaned back in her seat and stretched. It was expensive, but well worth it. Paul’s personnel file might contain information she needed to hunt him down. If he was still alive.

Buster Hicks belched loudly for the umpteenth time. Jim, the bartender, rolled his eyes and wiped a glass clean. Buster was his only customer on a Tuesday nights. Jim often wondered around this time every Tuesday if Buster was the cause of the empty bar. Jim had seen Buster repeatedly run off newcomers on Tuesday night by regaling them with stories of his heroics.

Jim picked up a glass and prepped another scotch on the rocks for Buster. The obviously inebriated hero uttered a thanks and started sipping the new one, and Jim nodded, picked up the empty glass, and cleaned it up. Buster stared up at the TV in the corner, and Jim checked what channel was on it. Jim almost spit a curse when he saw the news on TV. That was a sure fire way to get Buster rattling about himself. Jim grabbed the remote and turned to a channel with something more entertaining on: The Lone Ranger, in black and white from the old days.

Buster muttered something about changing channels but continued to drown himself in his drink.

Jim sighed and despite himself, he could hear Buster talking about his heroic glory.

Twelve years ago during December on a Tuesday night, Buster was driving home and saw a wreck happen. He stopped his truck and rushed to help with getting people out of the cars. In one car was a pregnant woman in the passenger seat and her dead husband in the driver’s seat. The other car contained a dead drunk driver. Buster had hurriedly dragged all involved out of their cars and called for help with his brick phone. The ambulance arrived, pronounced the two males dead and rushed the woman to the hospital. The woman and baby girl survived.

Jim did not beget Buster some heroic bragging for the event, but unlike the Lone Ranger, Buster clung to that moment like the jocks of yesteryear clung to the football game where they scored four touchdowns for Polk High. Jim was convinced that those people caught dwelling in the past were not equipped for what the future would bring. They let down their guard to be blindsided by events that would have never caught them before.

In Buster’s case, he had clutched the moment of glory like a security blanket and wrapped himself in it every chance he could. Buster visited the Ronda, the woman from the wreck, repeatedly after the event.  Ronda learned of her husband’s death and the events surrounding it. She looked for a rock and found Buster. Buster married her a couple months later, and then Penelope was born. Penelope was fine till she was about six and her parents told her about the accident.

Penelope asked only one question, “Why didn’t you save daddy?”

That was when the drinking started. Every Tuesday night, Buster would visit the bar, get sloshed, and have Ronda come pick him up. Anything that could be done to avoid Penelope and the guilt.

Jim glanced back up at the end of the episode on the TV: the Lone Ranger riding off into the sunset. If only Buster had had that hero’s grace, he thought, switching the newest empty glass for a full one.

There is a new link up at the top for #NaNoWriMo09! That is correct, that is where the new story is located. I am posting each chapter as it is finished. These are unedited, unrevised, and quite frankly, unpublishable, so please, keep criticism to a low level. I know it isn’t perfect. The object of NaNo is to write, not edit, revise, etc.

This story is something I originally tried to write in my freshman year of high school. The plot is fairly simple, but it has my twisting behind it.

Overview: The Way of the Dragon Blade

A lady wizard hires the mercenary Cyrus to escort her through a dragon’s territory. It is a simple job, and he needs the money. He is just as startled as the wizard and the dragon when a legendary artifact appears in his hand, setting him down the path of a dragon slayer. But how best to use this newly gained weapon? For self benefit? For the betterment of humanity? Or for something else all together? Cyrus decides for something else all together, and everyone starts calling him a villain! The path to peace is fraught with many obstacles, so Cyrus dares to go against everyone and be the hero the world needs by being the villain it so richly deserves.

I have decided to do something different for NaNoWriMo. I was originally going to re-start Price and continue on, but that is not going to work. I have a block on it (which is probably why I have not been writing on it already). Last time I had a block, I started Price and was able to finish Veil. It worked out fairly well, ducking back and forth between the two. So now I am pondering my next story.

I cannot use stuff from Monday Machine, as that has already been written. So that leaves me with … well, a whole lot of options and very little cemented in my head. Kinda makes me wish I had thought this planning thing through before November instead of relying on Price to carry me through it. Thus, I am going to sit on my couch with a pad of paper and a pen and see what sticks.

Also, I have no intention of stopping my #FridayFlash, so a little extra pressure for me. Juggling crazy deadlines does seem to be where I thrived in college. Fifteen page paper due today? Null sheen. Ten page essay due tomorrow? Easy. Another essay on the Victorian period due the day after? Piece of cake. Wake me when it gets rough. Yep. 50k words due in three weeks or so? Ok, issue, but I’ll get there. Just you watch. I’m going to post them here every day I finish a decent amount with the NaNoWriMo tag. Check back every so often to read if you like.

“What does ‘gay’ mean, daddy?”

I damned near rear ended the car in front of me at the light when my six-year-old son asked the question. I blinked a few times and tried not to look at him to conceal the deer-in-the-headlights look on my face. “Well, son,” I said, then paused to give myself time to think. “There’s several meanings for that particular word.” I rolled through several scenarios, trying to figure out the easiest way to explain what it meant and employed another stall tactic, “How did you hear it used?”

“Jimmy Carter told me I was gay, and everyone went ‘OoOooo!’ like he’d said something bad.”

I said, “I see. What’d you do?”

“I called him a meanie head.”

“Well that’s a decent come back at least, son.”

“But what does ‘gay’ mean?”

The light changed, so I had an excuse to hold the conversation for a while longer. At the next stop for a sign, I said, “It used to mean that you were happy, son, but these days it has taken on a slightly different meaning. Your mom and I are straight. That means she likes men and I like women. Someone that is gay likes whatever they are.”

“I play with lotsa other boys, so that’s ok, right?”

“Not the same kind of like, son. The kind of like that we’re talking about is like kissing and stuff. You don’t wanna kiss anyone do you?”

“No!”

“Good, then let’s leave it at that for now, alright?”

“Ok daddy.”

I let the conversation lull for a bit, and a couple of blocks from the house, he came up with a new question. My son asked me, “Daddy, what is a bastard?”

I winced and said, “Son, please don’t say that word any more. Did you hear Jimmy say that one?”

“No.”

“Alright, it technically means a child born out of wedlock, but a lot of folks call someone that when they are being a jerk.”

“Ahh, so I could call Jimmy that.”

“No, son, you shouldn’t call Jimmy that. You shouldn’t call Jimmy anything.”

“Ok, daddy.”

I turned my truck into the drive way to our house, and my son asked one more question, “What’s a son of a bitch?”

“Son, where did you hear all of these words? Who called who a son of a bitch?”

We stepped out of the truck and started for the door when my son said, “It’s what mom calls you when she’s on the phone.”

———-

#FridayFlash Picks for this week:

J. M. Strother’s “Cat House”

Tony Noland’s “Back of the Class”

Dana Larose’ “A Dash of Evil”

Laura Eno’s “Midnight Swim”

Maria Protopapadaki-Smith’s “Riot“

Self-publishing or traditional publishing?

Ready? Fight!

Agents to the left; writers to the right. Everyone with an opinion in the middle. No, it is not a horrible spoof of Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter IV, this question is becoming increasingly more important to up and coming authors. The advent of simple, readily-accessible ebook creation software/websites has placed even more power in these authors’ hands.

Simply put, nothing stops an author from publishing. Nothing at all. Money is not a factor unless you are a best seller. Most publishers seem to be reluctant to help newbie authors get established. One author I spoke with indicated that publishers only give new authors a month to turn a profit before dropping them. Let us think in terms of a small (or even many large) business. I have seen statistics about many new businesses operating in the red for the first two to five years. If a business cannot turn a profit in five years, how can a new author with no support turn a profit in a month? Yes, any agents reading this are yelling (mentally or physically) at their monitor saying that the work should sell itself.

I read Nathan Bransford’s post about this week in publishing, and one of the key points I picked out is that several other companies are coming out with ebook readers! How awesome is that in terms of self publishing your ebook? I invited Nathan to visit, and he linked me to another post he made about whether or not authors will even need publishers.

Then there is this post from Joe Konrath. For those unwilling to click, Konrath details his actual financial information with relation to his traditional and self-published novels. I am submitting this as evidence of a success story for self-publishing, but it should be noted that he had a real publisher first. That means there could be some name recognition that aided his own publishing attempts.

Laura Eno has self published, and while she did not share specifics about her financial gains, she was the one that told me about the one month factoid. She also provided the link to Joe Konrath and this link about Lisa Genova. Genova originally self-published her book, and later, a real publisher picked it up and it was on the best seller list. This story gets told a lot, usually by people trying to take advantage of new, frustrated authors, but it bears repeating as it is a potential and plausible scenario for the new author.

And then there is this post from Publishers Weekly about Cory Doctorow’s rather unique methodology. He has a regular publisher, but he also releases each of his books electronically for free on the same day as his printed book. This strikes me as particularly counter-intuitive, but if it works for someone, it is worth mentioning in what I hope will become an awesome discussion.

What really strikes me though, is that agents and publishers have not caught on to this fact. If an author can produce their own works, publish it, sell it, and move books without them, then why are agents not embracing this new outlet (which Nathan touches on)? After difficulties with a few agents, an author might be tempted to skip the agent/publisher route. If an author believes strongly in his or her work, then what is really to stop them from quite literally cutting out the middle man?

All of these articles serve to provide insight into a variety of possibilities for the new author. Self-publishing is more feasible now than ever before. The Era of Ebook Readers has opened whole new doors to author entrepreneurs. Self publishing is a lot of hard work and dedication on the part of the author. Traditional publishing still provides the author with some very different avenues that would ordinarily not be available to them. Name recognition is a fairly potent seller of books, and most new authors will not be capable of gathering that kind of platform.

To be fair though, I would love for some agents/publishers/editors to come over here and give some feedback. I invited Maria Schneider from Editor Unleashed to have a little discussion on this. Perhaps if there were some questions here, she would be so kind as to provide the answer or her own insight into the matter. Let them rip, and disclaimer to all new authors: this post is not advising anyone to a singular course of action, and each author must come to a decision individually.

Everyone should be familiar with this event, but if you have been living under a digital rock, let me fill you in:

The month of November is the month in which a whole bunch of authors, wannabes, amateurs, and professionals get together and attempt to do a feat unlike any other: write a novel in a single month. That is correct. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of authors world wide try to sit down and knock out a novel in thirty days. And I am sure every literary agent in the world cringes to check their inbox on December 1st to see what wonderful presents the Wrimos have left for them over night. Because 175 pages of unedited, unrevisioned, frantic writing is exactly what an agent wants to try to sell to a publisher.

All joking aside temporarily, there is the charity aspect of the program, which if you are into that kind of thing is pretty neat. If you wanna sponsor me, click here, and see my “medical condition” below (joking will now resume).

Honestly though, I am in this for practice. Yeah, I need practice. Not in the whole novel writing process, but definitely in the “sit down and write already” area. That is what I am hoping to gain from NaNo, the drive. I suffer from a rare but debilitating medical condition known as Chronic Procrastinitus. If I can do anything else in the world besides write, then I do. There are no cures for this horrible disease, but there are ways to alleviate the symptoms. Rope seems to work well, if someone else ties me to the chair, but since my hands need to be free to type, I eventually get loose.

Regardless, I intend to write my little fingers off starting on November 1. The novel is already in my head, just need to scrap what I have of it and take off fresh. To all the Wrimos out there, good luck, and good speed.

Bill and Maria vote to solve all of their disputes. Each of them has one vote, and if they do not agree, they compromise until they win the other person’s vote. They have had many happy years of marriage because of this, and they are looking forward to many more.

Their house is full of bipartisan voting.

They have a dog and a cat. Bill prefers dogs; Maria loves cats. Bear stays outside with his dog house; Shiva stays inside and owns two humans.

Bill drives a large Ford F-150. Maria drives a Mazda Miata. Maria likes to sleep during the day, while Bill prefers to sleep at night. They sleep early in the evening to get the best of both worlds.

Bill’s wardrobe is plain, consisting of mostly black and blue shirts with jeans and slacks. Maria’s clothing could fill a department store during any season.

Bill wanted to have a boy for their first child; Maria wanted a girl. They managed to get twins, one boy, one girl. That was a lucky turn of events, because who knows what might have happened if only one child had been born.

And yet, with all of these differences, they never bicker. They discuss their issues in a quiet, controlled fashion. They were an example to all of their friends and co-workers for how to solve their disputes.

One night though, they had a horribly loud argument. She screamed and cussed him. He called her all sorts of unsavory things. He went to stay in a motel; she stayed in the house. Everyone in town was baffled and curious about what could cause such a dramatic shift in the couple’s behavior. The pair would not tell anyone what the fight was about, but a few days later, Bill moved back into the house.

Everything seemed to be going fine, but the argument started up again. This time, Bill was gone for a week, and Maria was seriously considering divorce. This fight even made it into the local news paper with the title “Exemplary Marriage in Danger!” Bill eventually smoothed things over and moved back in, and the town cheered the couple for working through their latest problem.

A month later, the argument came up again. This time, Maria filed for divorce and custody of the children. Bill was unable to prove that he had a stable home for the children, so the courts awarded full custody to Maria with child support.

Bill was found two weeks later having hung himself from a bridge over the river. The townspeople could not take it any more and demanded to know what sort of fight could have led to such a disaster. Maria agreed to tell everyone at a press conference now that Bill was dead.

At the press conference, she delivered the following speech with a straight face:

“My husband Bill, Lord rest his soul, was a wonderful man, a caring father, and a fabulous lover. We worked through all of our problems by voting and compromising, but as you may know, we had one issue that we could never compromise on. Simply put, the topic was sex. He wanted to do me in the butt, so I countered with, ‘Go fuck yourself’.”

The paper ran the whole speech the next day with the headline, “Why Can’t Congress Work Like This?”

———-

My method of limiting Twitter spam fest for #FridayFlash: Once I read a story that I like and feel like commenting on, I will post it here, like so…

J. M. Strother’s “Flanders!”

Mazzz in Leeds’ “Of Blood and Bare Breasts”

Laura Eno’s “Carnival Time“

I got a Google Wave invite, for which I am very thankful. By way of thanks, I said I would link the person here: @Siddey from Twitter and his site. He seems to be into Augmented Reality and such, so it also fits the required Geek Factor.

As for Google Wave, it is difficult to judge it currently. With so few people on my list, and no public access at all, I am left just feeling like I have a neat toy that no one else can play with. That is simply no fun. I even tried to embed some waves on this site, and came away feeling both annoyed and frustrated. On the plus side though, a Wave Object can easily fit within a Widget, so once it comes time to set things up, I can easily do that.

What I -really- want though is an automatic Wave Generator to coincide with the creation of a blog entry. Increasing interaction with an audience is awesome for a writer, and when folks post stuff for critique/editing/revisions, it would be awesome to have all the edits/fixes done like that (especially with the play back feature to go through them in steps).

I would also like to see Gmail integrated. Especially contacts and conversations. The idea behind Google Wave is to be Email redone to today’s specifications, so it should automatically grab your Gmail. That just seems logical to me.

What will I do with Google Wave? Once it is a little more developed and I have some robots setup, I see myself doing quite a bit. I want to incorporate Wave Objects onto GT (especially if I can auto-create them with each post). I can see business applications even on GT. If I get into pod casting/readings/etc., then I can see some embedding and interaction benefits to waves. I could also see adding a single Wave on the left side of the site to maintain a continual conversation with everyone.

And most of all, I am a geek. What self-respecting geek would not want to play with the latest Google Gadget? Exactly. I am eager to meet my current goals, and I am excited to find new ways to pass them. Unfortunately, all of that will have to wait until more development is done. Luckily, I am considered quite patient these days.

Anyone that visits with regularity has probably noticed the distinct lack of anything resembling sidebars. It is not a website problem any more so than anything else on this page is. Nope, it is me doing that crazy remodeling that I have been talking about doing for months now. The first step was unfortunately turning off all my widgets to actually be able to preview what the various themes look like with my content. I have found about four themes that all look good, but none of them look “Oh, wow, look at that!” great.

In fact, none of them actually do the things that I want them to do. I am rather picky. I want a three-column (two side bars), variable-width, easily-customizable, easily-expandable, sleek, neat, clean, red theme. Guess what? It doesn’t exist. I am starting to really ponder whether the theme doesn’t exist because the color red is such an “aggressive” color or if no one likes it. Red themes exist, please do not misunderstand, but being red is simply not enough. Some red themes even look really cool, but they have fancy pictures and stuff that I do not want to use (especially with the name of the theme on them, seriously).

What is a computer-savvy author to do when their rudimentary programming and web design skills completely fail at what they are attempting to do? Simply put, I have two choices. A, find someone willing to help out for free/cheap that I can trust to make the alterations that I deem necessary to the point that I am either happy with the results or capable of editing the results with my current skill level to achieve exactly what I am after, or B, learn to do it my own damned self. Guess which one I lean toward.

If you guessed “Learn to do it my own damned self,” then you would be . . . Absolutely correct. Let us face facts here. I enjoy doing this kind of stuff anyways, so why would I pay someone to have fun in my stead? Seems a little stupid to me. Besides, what self respecting geek would pass up the chance to flex a few geeky muscles in the pursuit of the perfect web site?

Regardless, it is taking time. My skill got me what I had before, and I had to stretch to get that. Now I need to stretch again. I am perfectly willing to accept any tips, advice, and assistance, but most of it will fall a little flat unless you are willing to look at the actual code I am monkeying with. I would not object to links to themes that fit my criteria either. In fact, that would be pretty awesome.

In the mean time though, I apologize for the rather feature short website at the moment. I hope you all understand that it is temporary.

“Yatta!” David cried gleefully while throwing his arms up in the air victoriously.

The three other people around him lowered then shook their heads in mock shame, but after a few moments, they burst into less somber giggles and patted David on the back in congratulations.

“Let’s get started,” David said, and the group quickly agreed. Phoenix had brought the table and his needed materials for the session. Milo had brought the chairs and some sustenance as well as his materials. Katie had brought her backpack which contained essentials beyond only her meager materials. David had supplied chairs and the place for the bi-weekly ritual.

This ritual was special though, being conducted on the special day of Samhain, or as most people referred to as Halloween. The group preferred the more archaic sounding name, as if the name changed their perspective of it to something beyond mere mortals.

Each person went about a task with a sense of duty and urgency. They did not have long, so they needed to begin as soon as possible. They wanted to be ready long before the witching hour. Thunder rumbled outside letting them know that a storm was brewing. The noise also loosened their nerves, and they began talking about little things to distract themselves from the current menial tasks that had to be done before the actual event.

Katie produced several small candles and distributed them around in windows and on shelves to provide mood lighting. Phoenix setup the table with David’s chairs. Milo got out a bag and a leathery mat, which he laid across the table with deliberate delicacy. The writing on the mat was valued by all present. Months of their work was easily evident on the surface that now covered the whole table.

Katie set up a pot on a counter and started bringing it up to temperature. David laid out all of the materials that would be needed on the table. He carefully arranged everything so that their tomes were holding down the corners of the mat that were trying to curl back together. Milo deposited the appropriate writing implements onto the tomes to be within easy reach then took a seat at the table. Phoenix followed suit opposite Milo and produced a folder from his supplies. He pulled small stack of papers from it and set them neatly atop the folder in front of his place.

Satisfied with the brewing pot, Katie took her seat across from David’s seat. David took his seat last and said, “Are you all prepared?”

The others nodded their agreement, and Katie and Milo quickly got out their own papers. David tried his best to give a sinister smirk before continuing, “Then let this session begin.”

The words had barely left his mouth before a closer rumble rattled the windows and door. Moments later, the room plunged into semi-darkness, lit only by Katie’s candles. Milo made a startled noise. Katie started glancing around as if to find a source of the power outage. Phoenix remained stoic and crossed his arms over his chest.

David lowered his voice and said, “This is perfect weather for this. Where were we?”

“About to attack the zombie leagions,” Phoenix said without looking at his notes.

“Ahh, yes,” David said. “Everyone roll initiative, and let The Treasure Box’s Samhain D&D session begin! What a great way to break in our new game store.”