Fire in the Hole

Clearly it does no good to assess the gun-control "debate" in a logical even-handed fashion. The discussion, such as it is, has nothing to do with anything sensible or reasonable. There are, in fact, sensible responses to the plaints of gun-control advocates that this or that measure worked in Britain or Japan or Australia or wherever. Near as I can tell, such responses have not been proffered much; by and large, the ante has been upped way past that.

It is a crystal-clear fact this is not an argument that will be won or advanced with mere reason. Any reasonable gun advocacy that might exist has been drowned in a steaming vat of hurr. And while it is somewhat heartening that a few of these mouth-breathing, window-licking, soul-deadened, nose-picking, dick-grabbing, ass-spelunking, knuckle-dragging irate goobers managed to shoot themselves at their own Mow-ron Super Bowl yesterday, the problem is that they thought it would be good sport to hold said event in the first place on the holiday for the victim of an assassin, the target of a chickenshit cracker with a gun and a grudge.

Coupled with their incredibly brave response to the tragedy of a lunatic slaughtering a classroom full of first-graders -- armed guards at schools, which has graced some hapless students with dipshits and child molesters (and if there is a god or even basic karma, explain the continued existence of Joe Arpaio) -- it seems that we are no longer dealing with two legitimately opposing viewpoints. We have one group of folks who, morally exhausted at the weekly massacres and spree-kills at schools, malls, wherever a deranged asshole with more firepower than sense decides to tune up his shit, timidly propose rather modest regulations and safeguards in the hope that said deranged assholes find even minimal resistance when they decide it's time to listen to the voices in their heads.

On the other side, you have the usual claque of industry lobbyists bolstering the usual clatter of misfits sporting laundry lists of imaginary grievances and paranoid fantasies, refusing to budge even a goddamned inch. Their "right" to immense quantities of firepower trumps everyone else's right to wonder if some shitbird will buy a Glock with a 30-round clip of some fucker's trunk at a gunshow, and give it a workout at the nearest place populated by people who can't fight back.

Cereal Killaz; Or, I Wish I Was Taller, I Wish I Was a Baller

Apropos of nothing, I just enjoy creative trash talk and thought this shit was funny:

Carmelo Anthony lost his cool after Boston Celtics bigmouth Kevin Garnett reportedly said his wife “tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios” — a dig at Anthony, who is estranged from his sweet spouse.

Funny, from the looks of her, and knowing that she's a baller-chasing, reality-show skeeza (and, um, she calls herself "La La", on purpose), I'd have guessed she tastes more along the lines of Juicy Couture and Allen Iverson.

Living in the Past

Terrific article in the NYT Magazine on the continued travails of America's Favorite Prolonged Trainwreck. Where to start? A washed-up child star, used up and turned out by her grasping, scumbag parents, once-promising career now completely ruined, destined to be an escort for minor Saudi princes (assuming she lives long enough). A crowdsourced movie made in borrowed locations by a porn star and a once-shining screenwriter, whose own wife warned him about the dubious merits of this project.

(For much more insight on Schrader and other classic '70s Hollywood characters, I highly recommend Peter Biskind's excellent Easy Riders Raging Bulls. Schrader, among several other high-strung artistes, seemed at times too driven by their inner demons, when they maybe should have trusted at least one other human enough to solicit and accept their opinion.)

It's worth noting that, in an extended piece littered with a variety of memorable people, that the most redeeming one out of all of them appears to be James Deen, the erstwhile porn star. The most consistent message I could glean from this narrative is that, while there may have been a point in time in Hollywood where your work ethic could afford to be inversely proportional to your star value (i.e., if Lohan was still marketable, no one would give a shit if she showed up late, drunk, or not at all), those days are long gone.

Even the days of "they can make you or break you" are done. What percentage of major-release movies per year now are staked on rehashed public-domain stories, CGI-green screen sets and action, half-assed script-doctoring, cardboard characters, indifferent directing? Actors are a commodity now; the era of true superstardom is over.

You know the PLR craze in internets marketing, where you take something that's been done a million times, reword it slightly, slap a new cover on it, and then sucker people into paying fresh money for it? That's what Hollywood does now, but with old public domain stuff. Don't believe me, while you're all moony-eyed over Les Miserables? Ask yourself how much Victor Hugo's estate gets from that, or L. Frank Baum's estate gets from the upcoming Oz movie. You can thank the mouse cult for that there bidness model.

Anyhoo, the sad thing about Lohan is not that her career is shot, it's that she doesn't seem to realize it. Even if she somehow got her shit together, there's no upside for any producer, micro or mainstream, to take the risk on her. And since she literally doesn't know how to do anything else, she can't fathom the notion that if you can't even keep from getting fired from a microbudget NC-17 gig that couldn't have gotten a real release in the first place, you have zero value to them. There's simply too many people there with close-enough talent who would crawl through broken glass to show up sober and on time.

NFL Playoff Predictions (Divisional Round)

Now that the wild-card games are out of the way (and no real surprises with any of them; although I would have liked to see the Bungles and Colts win their respective games, and thought they had decent chances, the odds were with the home teams), here's a feeble attempt to prognosticate this weekend's divisional matchups. Please, as always, no wagering.

Baltimore at Denver:  It would be a nice shake-up to see Ray Lewis and his wrecking-crew defense roll into Denver and give good ol' Peyton Manning (aka Rod Flanders) the what-for. And despite my prediction at the beginning of the season that Flanders would be an injury-prone bust, just one hit from the IR list, he's had a career season, and the Donks appear to be a proverbial team of density. Denver's D has also improved, just as Baltimore's offense has crumbled; even replacing OC Cam Cameron didn't fix the fact that they don't really have a deep-threat receiver to take pressure off mighty-mite RB Ray Rice. As long as Flanders is in the game, it belongs to Denver.
Prediction:  Denver 38, Baltimore 20.

Green Bay at San Francisco:  Credit Jim Harbaugh for taking a crummy team with a powerhouse defense, and giving it an offense that could at least pull its weight. Critical injuries in the Niner D became exposed against Seattle a couple weeks ago, and the Packers have a better QB and better WRs than the Seahawks. The Pack also have a porous o-line; Green Bay gave up the third-most sacks in the league. This may come down to whether all-world sack machine Aldon Smith is actually hurt or not; if not, Aaron Rodgers will be running for his life, since the Packers have no run game. However, the shenanigans Harbaugh has pulled, first with his starting QB and now with his veteran kicker, are going to finally bite him in the ass, especially when the Bidwills hand Alex Smith a fat contract to start in Arizona next season.
Prediction: Green Bay 20, San Francisco 13.

Seattle at Atlanta:  This has been a great year for prodigy rookie QBs, with Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, and Russell Wilson. The three have somewhat different strengths and skill sets, but all are going to be potent forces for their teams for years to come. All three made the playoffs, but only Wilson made the first cut. With Seattle's ferocious D, featuring a gang of 6'3" Adderall-popping defensive backs slapping down tall receivers like it ain't no thang, all Wilson has to do is minimize mistakes. The Falcons are loaded with talent, but tend to be one of those one-and-done playoff teams, and this looks to be an extension of that pattern. The main question from here is whether Matt Ryan will be sacked or intercepted more; either way, it won't be pretty.
Prediction:  Seattle 27, Atlanta 21.

Houston at New England:  Given my intense loathing for all things Patsies (mostly loathing at their utterly despicable string of competence, year after blessed year), I would like to like the Texans' chances here. The problem is, they already proved they don't have any, by waltzing into Bawston last month and getting completely dismantled by Tom Brady, who looked absolutely bored by the 4th quarter. Houston lost 3 of its last 4 games to end the season (and barely won that one; rookie phenom Andrew Luck brought the Colts to within 3 points in Houston), and is really the most over-rated 12-4 team in recent memory, despite a talent-laden roster. Arian Foster and Andre Johnson might make it interesting for a quarter or two, but whatever deal Belichick and Brady struck with Mephistopheles on a dark and snowy night seems to still be in effect.
Prediction:  New England 44, Houston 17.

So yay, an AFC championship matchup between Brady and Manning. Never seen that before. I think I have to sort my sock drawer that day. Come Super Bowl Sunday, we'll all be Seahawks fans.

Update [1/13/13 6:00 PM PST]:  1 for 4 over the weekend, jeez, you wouldn't know that I ran 80% for the entire regular season on the ESPN Pick'em. Ah well, Atlanta and Baltimore squeaked by on last-second breaks; the only real surprise was how thoroughly the Niners rolled the hapless Packers, who apparently decided to take run-defense pointers from the Raiders.

A certain number of NFL fans would like to see a Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh coaching matchup in the Super Bowl, should San Francisco and Baltimore win their respective conference games on the road. The Falcons look to be fairly easy meat, as long as last night's Niners show up, and while the Patsies are rolling, it appears that Rob Gronkowski re-broke his forearm in this afternoon's game, so Brady will be without one of his more reliable weapons.

Still, the odds, history, and common sense indicate that at least one of the home teams should win, so right now I would tentatively predict San Francisco and New England in the Super Bowl. This is dismaying not just because Patsies again, but because super-tool Randy Moss, now mostly a deep-threat decoy with the Niners, may finally get that ring. Which is his just reward after his shameless, check-cashing indolence set a reeling mid-aughts Raiders team back a couple more years [rolls eyes]. But Colin Kaepernick looks to be a huge talent for San Francisco and their shredding defense for at least the next several seasons, and the Niners would have a much better shot at beating either remaining AFC team than Atlanta would.

Update [1/20/13 8:45 PST]:  So it's the Brother Bowl (get ready to get sick of that one over the next two weeks of hype) after all. This should be a good matchup, strength against strength and so on. Joe Flacco, whom the Ravens will probably have to franchise-tag since preseason contract negotiations went nowhere, is having a career year, and actually has the highest QB rating out of all the quarterbacks who made the playoffs.

No doubt the Niners will be the early favorite, but the Falcons showed in the first half how San Francisco can be beaten, by containing Colin Kaepernick for the most part, and stifling the running game for most of the first half. In the end, Atlanta distinguished themselves by doing the exact same thing they did against Seattle last week -- jumping out to an early three-possession lead with their big-play offense, only to derp their way through the second half and let an overmatched opponent that had to travel across the country back into the game. The Seahawks were ten seconds and a decent kickoff from beating the Falcons, and exposed them for the weak-ass, can't-finish-anything-off team that they really are. Shit, the Raiders, who couldn't get out of their own way all season, came within 30 seconds of beating the Falcons in Atlanta in week 6, and in fact, the Falcons beat only two teams that made the playoffs all year.

Anyhoo, the point is that while the 49ers are very good, Seattle would have been more likely to beat them today than Atlanta ever was, and the Ravens' improving offense and big-play defense should ride their emotional wave just enough to get past the surging Niners.
Prediction:  Baltimore 37, San Francisco 31.

It's Hard Out Here for a Chimp

Apparently noted performance artist and World's Foremost Authority Ronald McDonaldDonald Trump has seriously decided to sue Bill Maher for making a joke about him. Awesome. This is totally not another publicity stunt, so stop it, you guys! He's a serious bidnisman and shit!

Again, people, if you need any further proof that karma does not exist, I don't know what to tell you, surf the cloaca of the internets, I'm sure it'll become much clearer, if you have the stomach. I know I don't.

By the way, super-genius, where's the proof we were promised a year or two ago about the falsity of Obammy's birf certificate? Yeah, that's what I thought. Fugging chump.

A Modest Proposal

So, uh, what if we tell this goofball that AIG wants to take away his guns, get rid of a couple of useless headaches?

Seriously, though, I don't think guys like James Yeager and Alex Jones quite get how their rather incoherent bluster tends to undermine their own arguments. Most people, regardless of their political bent, tend to feel that some sort of balance can be struck -- on the one hand, the Second Amendment does mean something, and just from a practical standpoint, it would be impossible to disarm everyone even if that were a desirable outcome; on the other, the idea of some these foaming-at-the-mouth "enthusiasts" packing heat makes my balls shrivel up.

I've used plenty of guns over the years, including assault rifles, including high-capacity magazines. They're fun. So are cars, so are drugs -- which, in case they haven't noticed, are regulated and controlled. These are dangerous things, and part of the social compact is that we take at least modest, token steps to ensure that psychopaths should not be able to easily obtain dangerous things. It should be more difficult to get a 30-round clip for a handgun, or hollow-point bullets, than to drive a car or purchase Sudafed.

What this issue begs for is a sense of balance, and so far the loudest pro-gun voices seem to be anything but balanced. They don't seem to understand the concept of profoundly disagreeing with somebody without wanting to murder them.

If gun enthusiasts are serious about protecting their Jebus-given rights to open-carry Stinger missiles to the fucking mall, then maybe finding a spokesperson capable of something beyond "me want toy or me kill! kill! kill!!1!!" would help their cause a bit. Because with guys like Yeager, who seriously seemed to think he could just sanitize his death-threat video (and then presumably claim that the lefty-librul media took his patriotism out of context), they're gonna find themselves shit outta luck before long.

Sometimes your best move, when you've talked yourself into a deeper hole than when you started, is to just cross your fingers, say a few pretend mea culpas, and shut the fuck up.

Also, too. Fuckin' merc. Figures.

Gohmert's Piles

The dumbest thing ever said out loud, until the next time certifiable dipshit Louie Gohmert opens his slop-hole:

“I refuse to play the game of ‘assault weapon.’ That’s any weapon,” said the Texas congressman. “It’s a hammer. It’s the machetes.”

The question is no longer how people like Loiue Gohmert get to be so unapologetically stupid. The real question is to wonder about the halfwits who keep voting for him. I'm sure they're doing wonders for the algae-ridden gene pond in Gohmert's district.

"Thank You, America"

As if the bloodsucking financial industry hadn't plumbed the "no good deed goes unpunished" depths quite far enough, the fine upstanding folks at AIG are considering joining a suit declaring that we didn't bail them and their fucking failure bonuses quite enough. The suit is being led by former AIG head -- and future wormfood -- Hank Greenberg, who seems to be having a contest with Donald Trump to see who can more conclusively disprove the existence of karma. Greenberg will be 88 years old in a few months, which means that as soon as his lawsuit's done, he'll probably run for the US Senate.

Keep in mind that the $182 billion that AIG grifted from you and me is more than the entire total of the combined state deficits at the time of the bailout. (And goddammit, I knew those suck-up commercials had an ulterior motive. Hey, America, thanks for saving our asses -- maybe you won't notice while we're picking your pockets.) Maybe Greenberg can explain that one to the thousands of state workers across the countries who lost their jobs so that Hank and his fellow thieves could keep their Hamptons vacation homes. Because it's hard goddamned work upending the world economy into your own pocket.

Seriously, the next time the economy collapses -- and it will happen; these animals learned absolutely nothing, except that we're dumb enough to reward corruption -- let them fucking die, go find honest work. Have a debt jubilee, circulate some medium-sized lump sums into every household, rich or poor, and set the machine going again. It can't possibly shake out any worse than a greedy, grasping, claque ruining the country with banana-republic levels of income disparity.

In Other News, Water Is Wet

If you aren't already, chances are within the next couple weeks, you'll be going over your Dubya Too forms and such, trying to figure out how much you have to pay The Man for all your potholed roads, half-assed schools, crappy reality teevee, and other such blessings you enjoy as a 'murkin.

Whatever your circumstance, no doubt you'll be gratified to know that the rich got richer, despite what you may have seen in such tragic reversal-of-fortune there-but-for-the-grace-of-sweet-Jebus-go-us-all schlockumentaries such as The Queen of Versailles. I know, shocking, right? The 100 wealthiest individuals gained a collective $241 billion, and are now worth $1.9 trillion.

Read that again. One hundred human beings. One trillion, nine hundred billion dollars in assets.

Remember that the next time you're spending the weekend trolling Monster.com for some bullshit job that might pay you a buck more an hour than you're getting right now (assuming you even have a job right now), if you manage to get past the other 150 applicants and ace the interview. And hey, maybe just maybe if you save every extra dime for the next forty years, and the market keeps landing just right, and you don't get your pension fund hijacked, and you play by the rules, you just might manage not to spend your final years living on cat food and trying to figure out where you went wrong. Good luck, America!

....And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor

Yes, it's another reminder to please take a moment, if you haven't already, and check out my 2012 retrospective Mockalypse. Without your support, my budget for vodka and Cialis would be severely curtailed.

This is how these little projects by no-names such as myself get going, with the help and support of each of you. Take it, read it, tell me whether you love it or hate it, spread the word, lather, rinse, repeat. Pay whatever you think it's worth, or nothing at all.

As always, thanks for your continued support.

Suffering the Insufferable

Bobo has some words of civility for all you kidz out there, and while he certainly has a point, I would submit that there's no percentage in dealing with your Akin/Mourdock breed of chumps politely, not to mention this horse's ass. Is there something in the water in Indiana or what? For every Dave Letterman or Kurt Vonnegut the state produces, there seem to be a half-dozen or so of halfwits like Steve Kruse.

At least California Republicans, bless their pointy little heads, know better than to waste the people's time on this sort of dipshittery. Sometimes I forget how blessed we are out here in Satan's Playground to not have snake-handlers in any positions of even nominal power, maybe a bible-thumping dog-catcher here or there, but that's about the extent of it.

There is a "school" of "thought" out there purporting to claim that illiterate Americans are illiterate because the tricky phonemes and orthographic irregularities of English are too difficult to master. I submit that perhaps it's because there are too many meddlesome morons infesting school boards and governing bodies, proposing to shove one parcel or another of religious claptrap down kids' throats. Instead of, you know, educating them.

Reason #590,785 why we can't have nice things, folks. Regardless, I submit that people who make a point of being jerkoffs do not deserve special -- or even common -- consideration. People like Steve Kruse or Todd Akin know exactly what they're doing, and deserve nothing beyond a swift and stern punch to the groin.

Second Amendment Remedies

It's true, what they say -- when finger guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have finger guns. On the other hand, firm responses such as this will certainly prevent workplace incidents, such as the d-bag from the fiscal department who calls everyone "Sport" or "Chief" while brandishing his semi-automatic cocked-thumb index models. Not sure where he got the infinity-round clip.

Profits of Doom

Not a whole lot to say about current events lately, although I suspect that I may have a meta-post lurking about why that is; in other words, I may have something to say about why I don't have all that much to say.

But as far as the "fiscal cliff" guff goes, well, it is what it appears to be -- mostly a media-fostered landscape of hype, because doom-hype is what sells pharmaceuticals and cars and hemorrhoid cremes. Obama's handling of it thus far has been just fine; one almost wonders if he feels slightly sorry for the disarray and near-mutiny that Boehner has on his hands with an increasingly fractious teahadi caucus mucking things up for him. Whatever the case, yes it sucks that working people lose about twelve bucks a week or so, but it was a payroll tax holiday, by definition a temporary measure.

The bigger picture that neither Obama nor any other pol will ever touch is the exceptional and increasing inequities underpinning the economic picture. It is not just that the money is mostly smoke and mirrors, as Kunstler points out on a weekly basis, it is that it is hoarded to no end, and globalization puts that excess hoarding elsewhere. It's not just your job that went to China, but also the profit that your former boss made by sending your ass home. This has created a stasis mode, for the most part. All else is merely posturing and scrambling for purchase.

One thing is always certain, and that's that there is money to be made prophesying economic cataclysm. Unlike the god-bothering variants of fire and brimstone, there's always a nugget of truth to dismal economic forecasts; when entire industries and fortunes are built on studiously ignoring the obvious, things really are one catalyzing event away from disaster.

That must be what we want, in the aggregate anyway. If we didn't, we would vote accordingly, not just at the ballot box, but with our dollars. Everyone who shops at Wal-Mart, to use just the most glaring example, is complicit in their own economic problems; you get the town you pay for when you support a multinational conglomerate that gutted all your local merchants, and you get the country you pay for when you support six people who are worth as much as the bottom 30% of Americans. It is not a question of "fairness", but an issue of basic math:  a healthy society cannot exist where an elite few own just about everything.

Game Changers

Trying to watch the Bungles-Texans playoff game. I enjoy how NBC had the foresight to stick one of their sideline mikes next to a retard apparently banging a metal spoon and a cooking pot, judging by the rapid fucking clatter after every fucking play. Jesus, where's a drunken bleacher brawl when you could really use one?

Update [1/6/13 2:45 PST]:  Apparently the same bozo(s) made his/their way to FedEx Field to clatter through the Redskins/Seahawks matchup, thus turning what should be an enjoyable showdown between two prodigiously gifted rookie QB phenoms into a headache. Every goddamned play -- clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-TING-TING-TING-TING-TING.

It sounds like a small army of those stupid wind-up toy chimps that clank cymbals together. Only more annoying. This is on a par with Thunderstix and vuvuzelas, two other devices that prove conclusively that if there is in fact a God, He enjoys screwing with us. I'm not kidding when I say I hope this guy's fucking balls fall off unexpectedly (or hell, expectedly). Just yell like a normal person, Holmes, there's no need to spend an entire afternoon acting like an autistic first-grader with a pipe wrench and a ride cymbal.

Keep Stealing

Just a friendly reminder to please check out Mockalypse, leave some feedback, spread the word, etc. It's no Fifty Shades of Grey, but there may be some bondage. Tune in and find out for yourself!

Last Call for 2012

Welp, it's been a wild and woolly year, and I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who's dropped by, made a comment, spread the word, or otherwise just taken the time to swing through here. Here's hoping 2013 is a good one for all of us.

Adventures In E-Publishing

So far, this dip of the toe into the proverbial e-publishing waters has gone better than expected. It's the holiday season, I'm learning as I go along, and it is a compilation book, comprised of posts that regular readers will already have seen. So I was not expecting to set the internets on fire in a matter of a few days; this is not warmed-over Twilight slashfic repurposed for horny housewives. (Don't get me wrong -- it certainly can be that, if the market is there. I know what I am, all else is mere haggling.)

Still, it's gratifying to see Mockalypse get any response at all. And I'd like to send a shout-out to the friendly folks at Balloon Juice for coming by and checking it out, in larger numbers than I had anticipated. I don't have a lot of time to check out many blogs these days, pretty much what you see on the sidebar and a few others (who will be on the sidebar as well at some point when I do some housekeeping), are on the regular to-read list. So I read and sometimes lurk at the Juice, but am not a regular (or even irregular) commenter there. I appreciate the fact that they responded to my open-thread spamming by coming through here and hitting the links.

There is a more comprehensive post on the subject of e-publishing in the works, but right now this is just a quick check-in and follow-up from the initial post for the book. Again, any and all comments, favorable or not, are welcome. As the saying goes, as long as the name is spelled right. Just check it out, give me some feedback, and spread the word.

Merry Christmas

If there's a better Christmas song than The Pogues' Fairytale of New York, I haven't heard it. Here's Oirish folkster Christy Moore with a great rendition. Have a great Christmas!

Steal This Book!

Okay, folks, here's one (and in fact, by far the smallest) of several projects I've been working on over the last few months. What you see is the cover to an e-book I was hoping to wind up (given its title and cover imagery) yesterday, but as I am not a graphic designer by training, and am still learning how to use GIMP, it's a day late and a dollar short.

(By the way, if you're just starting out with designing graphics for your own stuff, don't know where to turn, and can't afford -- or don't even know how to choose -- commercial software, I can't recommend GIMP highly enough. Such a cool program. There is a learning curve, but a ton of tutorials out there. Did I mention it's free? Awesome. The internets are a wonderful place. Go check it out now, and block out a few hours just to mess with the many cool features it comes loaded with. Disclaimer:  I have had zero contact with anyone from GIMP, nor am I being compensated in any way to talk about it. I just think it's really cool.)

Anyhoo, although Blogger has made the attempt to bump up its features, it still apparently does not allow you to upload PDF files. Weird, right? No worries, friends 'n' neighbors, Uncle Heywood found a workaround. You can go here to download your very own copy of this fine retrospective of the year that just transpired. Wasn't it just terrific? Yes it was, and you can relive it right now, by electronically thumbing through a couple dozen posts handpicked by yours truly as best representative of the year, and of my jabbering about it.

Now, I know you're all chomping at the bit to swipe your Visa cards and punch in some phat numbers, you just want to know what I'm demanding for such a hot commodity. I decided to try out the model used by Radiohead for their In Rainbows album from a few years ago -- I'll let you, Tonstant Weader, determine what this hot mess is worth to you. Go ahead and download it, give it a spin, and it's up to you whether it's worth five bucks or five cents. Or nothing at all. There's a PayPal link at the upper right of this page, as well as at the download page.

There are a couple things I do ask of you, and they are free, and will take only a modest amount of your sweet time:  One is that, whether you love it, hate it, or couldn't give two lonesome shits about it, you drop by and share some feedback in the comments thread. (Or email me your comments or suggestions; I do actually check the GMail account pretty regularly these days, and I will respond.) Love one of the selected posts? Awesome. Hate the cover art? That's fine too.

The second thing is that you tell a few people (I'm hoping at least two or three for each of you) about it. A comment on a site you frequent, where you think like-minded folks might be interested. That sort of thing. Just spread the word here and there in your daily rounds. It's not that I don't want your money, but right now I'd like to see how much interest can be generated. If that E.L. Fudge broad can turn Twilight fanfic into a kajillionty-pound cottage e-income, this should hopefully generate a ripple somewhere.

Just to be clear about what this book is, it's a compendium of posts from this glorious year. There is some new material, in the form of an introduction, as well as introductory material for each post. Collectively, I think (and hope) that it stands as a representative sample of what this blog has attempted to cover, and what hopefully makes it a bit different from other blogs. I dunno, you tell me.

Couple of final points:

• This project is what I would term a "first-final" draft, meaning that there may be a few minor, cosmetic changes forthcoming over the next week or so. Again, due to the self-imposed deadline, and the fact that I am something of a control freak on creative projects, I may revise the cover art a bit, reformat the main text slightly, create a back cover page, screw around with headers or footers, things like that. But the content itself is absolutely final as is right now, set in stone, will not be changed unless I spot a typo (after reviewing the whole thing at least five times in the past two weeks).
• I want to apologize in advance to any of my fellow bloggers, because while I will try to keep it to a bare minimum, I may occasionally barge into their open threads and pimp this thing. Again, my goal here is pure notoriety; I want as many people as possible to check it out -- and if they've never been here before and don't know what to expect, so much the better.

So that's about it for now. Please check it out, grab a copy, give me your feedback, tell at least a few other people about it. I have some more thoughts and concepts about self-publishing, which I plan to discuss in one or several upcoming posts, but this is a start.

In Bloggy News

Hope everyone out there is having a safe and sane Christmas weekend with the people they care about the most. I've been winding up a project that I hope to get posted here tonight or tomorrow. Details to come shortly, please stay tuned.