General Blog
Are we overexposed?
Feb 26th
Let’s face it, the days of privacy are just about over. And who do we have to blame for their dismissal? Ourselves. First, we found each other on Myspace, connected on BeBo, facebooked long lost friends and tweeted daily activities. Now everyone’s buzzing with google. And in the future? Who knows. As they say, the possibilities are endless.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love social media just as much as the next guy. As you can see to your right, I’m a frequent tweeter tweet-head twitterer twip twit user of twitter. I have those updates posting to my facebook account, and now they also display to the few people I might’ve missed on Google Buzz. If you want to know what I like to read, you can check out my shared items on Google Reader, or the list of books I’m reading and have read on Shelfari. Maybe you want to hire me? You can see my professional information on LinkedIn. I also blog semi-regularly if you’re interested in my thoughts. Occasionally I even talk to people in real life!
A man and his Kindle
Jan 8th
Christmas has come and gone again, and this time it has left me with an electronic reading device. You might’ve heard of Amazon’s Kindle, a nifty gadget that allows you to wirelessly download and read books. Another way to think of it is “an iPod for books,” which is a pretty accurate description. It can hold over a thousand books, but also has some other nifty features.
First off, it’s sleek and light. I was surprised and impressed when I took it out of the box and plugged it in for its first charge. It sort of reminded me of a data padd from Star Trek. For one glorious moment I was Geordi La Forge, reading the specifications on a Klingon attack cruiser to Captain Picard. Only I wasn’t La Forge at all, I was still Doug, and I was reading the user’s guide. (Which you have access to on the Kindle itself, not surprisingly.) It just has that new tech look to it that gadgetphiles love.
Speaking of that first charge, it took about 2 hours and the battery has yet to dip below half power in two weeks! I keep my wireless connectivity turned off unless I’m shopping for a book or looking something up on the internet, though, so you might see a different measure if you keep the wireless on. And yes, you read that right, you have wireless 3G access to the internet anywhere you go for the best price of all – free!
Fantasy Football, new books, and new friends
Sep 22nd
Sometimes you dig in, give it all you got, and still come up short. The Killer Bees, my Fantasy Football team in its sixth year, lost the second game in a row – despite recording the second highest point total in the league. The upside is I gained a spot in the rankings even with the loss, the downside is I’ve got to find a way to stop the slide if I plan to get to the playoffs.
The Carolina Panthers, my favorite professional football team, also finds themselves in a 0-2 situation. I’ve noticed that when I have a good season, they have a good season, and when I have a bad season so do they. Maybe we mimic each other due to the fact that I own one of their players (Steve Smith), or maybe it’s some weird coincidence. Even so, last year I had a dominating regular season (like them) and lost in the first round of the playoffs (again, like them). It’s a little freaky.
Update
Jul 15th
Well, as you can see, this is not the start of the aforementioned series of reviews. I’ve not yet been able to write said review and, in the interest of not leaving you all hanging, I thought I’d do a generic update. I haven’t been able to sit down and get a blog out lately, mostly because I’ve been busy with work and trying to get my joint writing work “Knight’s Woman” edited – among other things.
Some other updates since my last blog:
I’ve reduced my simming presence to a single simm, mainly due to the lack of time I’ve had to commit to it. I do not discount my previous comments on the importance of simming if you are a writer, but in the same regard I cannot hold positions that I’m unable to fulfill.
What’s in a title?
Jun 8th
I’ve decided to start a series. I thought of a great name for it. I thought the name should be “Book Reviews of Books that have been Reviewed way too much.” But then I decided that was way too long, so I switched it to “Book reviews of books that have been reviewed 100 times.” It’s a little catchier, maybe, but still too long.
So I picked out a good thinking rock and I pondered, with one hand under my chin and my other arm draped across my knee. I sat that way for a while, just thinking and staring at the ground. Then it hit me.
“Book reviews of books you should’ve already read.” Thinner by two words, sleeker, shinier. But it still didn’t have that something, that oomph that makes you want to park and read through my thoughts on some classics. I needed something better. Something catchier.
Running Out
Feb 19th
I’ve noticed lately that there’s something about me, some internal mechanism, that is terribly afraid of running out of something. I’m always leaving extra, making sure I have enough and paranoid that I’m getting too close to the bottom.
On my dresser, there is a basket full of cologne bottles. Yes, I like to wear cologne and I like to wear different scents, but the keen observer would quickly notice that over half of these bottles have 4-5 sprays left in the bottom. Why can’t I throw it away? In some cases, I have another bottle of the same cologne. Do I really think that one day, the situation will get so grim that I will literally be forced to revert to using the final sprays in all my previous cologne bottles before running out entirely? Apparently something inside me (my little man, as Kramer would say) thinks so.
New post for the new year
Jan 6th
Happy New Year everyone. And, well, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays as well. I haven’t checked in for a while and that’s because, well, I haven’t had time. The holidays have been quite busy, vacation wasn’t long enough, and now we’re all back at work and/or school.
So let’s get all the updates in. First of all, I finished my two seasons of Fantasy Football, missing the playoffs in the ESPN league and finishing third in the Yahoo! league.
I got lots of clothes, a new game, a cool clock, and some other miscellaneous items for Christmas – all of which I have yet to fully unpack and put away.
Top 5 ways to know you’re a writer
Dec 15th
Maybe you’re a scribbler of poetry or fiction, maybe you’re just an avid reader with a writing twinkle in your eye, maybe you’ve just always had an inkling to write something on a page. Whatever the case may be, I’ve spent some time this weekend thinking about some ways you can tell if you’re a writer. Now, I don’t claim that this pole is the be-all or end-all, but as far as this website is concerned – it is. 
And here we go:
The #5 way to know you’re a writer: You scribble plot notes on any kind of recordable surface you can find at any given moment.
I know I’m guilty of this, but when the idea hits you got to write it down or it will be gone. I have a tiny notebook filled with ideas and fragments of scenes. They hit me like bolts of lightning – fast and powerful. If I don’t record them my muse will gobble them as fast as the remaining chapters of my 2 un-finished novels and I’ll never see them again. Gasp! My best personal example? Just after I gave blood last (yes, I’m a type O hero) a thought struck and I wrote out some plot notes on my donor sheet – the only paper in my immediate vicinity.
Free Read Available
Dec 8th
So I spent this weekend working on the story for the free read my friend Mina Carter is offering and I’m happy to say the book is out on her website and ready for download. On the tail end is a short story from yours truly, my first romantically inclined work. I’m happy with the story and think it fits well with Mina’s novella. If you would like to download the book absolutely free, you can do so by visiting this page on her website. Please be advised that Mina’s work contains sensual scenes that are not appropriate for young readers.
Special thanks to Mina for the opportunity!
News and updates
Nov 18th
I feel terrible for the downfall in posting lately, but I promise as soon as we’re on the other side of November we’ll be good to go and back to normal.
As for the title, a few things to share with you. First of all, I’m taking time from blogging to work on my NaNoWriMo novel so I think you deserve an update. By today I should be at about 30,000 words, and I’ve managed about half of that. The problem is not that I’m not writing everyday, just that I’m not writing enough everyday. I’ve set goals for myself to meet everyday and, if I can do it, I’ll catch up in time to finish. If not, I should make it to 25k – which is respectable in a month. So far the plotting experiment has worked well, but I’ll let you know how it holds up when I get in to the meat of the piece.
In other news, my good friend Mina Carter has released another e-book and I would encourage you to head on over to her website and buy it if you’re a fan of the romance genre. In that same vein, I’ve been invited to write a story that will appear in a free read Mina will be releasing on her website during the holidays. Stay tuned for more updates, and special thanks to Mina for the opportunity!
