Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

“Be pleased with yourself and do not think on the tears your victory has cost.”

Sometimes the only solution available seems like one in which someone you don’t like gets his or her head thumped.  These sort of situations crop up on a daily basis, usually just pesky little things that warrant a minor thumping, something in the flick family even.  On occasion they come stomping and shouting into the middle of your life, kicking aside petty things like interests and amusements and basically becoming the center of your existence with no visible solution.

I’d like to tell you that I’ve found a solution to these kinds of problems, but I haven’t.  That’s just how life goes.  There isn’t always closure.  There isn’t always a happy ending.  No deus ex machina to save the day; no white knight on a fiery steed to do battle with the rising odds.  Too often life turns into a monstrous Gordian Knot, which probably explains why so many people try apply Alexander’s solution to the inappropriately imprecise metaphor.

You can’t start over, you can’t go back to the way things were, you can’t rewrite the past or undo damage done.  There are consequences.  When you start down one road, that’s that.  The difference has been made.  If you don’t like where you are, better luck at the next fork.

If you don’t feel uplifted by that, it’s okay.  That wasn’t the point.  If you don’t feel depressed by that, congratulations.  Nothing has ever gone wrong for you.  And I hate you.

I could be in such a rotten mood for any number of reasons.  Right at this minute I’m going to blame what can only be described as a famine of job opportunities for writers.  I’ve heard there’s some kind of recession going on, so that can’t be helping.  Apparently our country isn’t perfect at handling money.  Who knew.  I would have thought the sky-high education statistics would mean everybody here is a freakin’ investment banker by age 19.  Or it could mean that a frightening portion of our population can barely read, write, or do math beyond finger counting, let alone vote for reasonable laws or worthy government officials.

But voting doesn’t matter, right?  It’s all just a scam by the government to make the people feel like they have some say in their lives.  Big brother is running us all like robots because we’re obviously that coordinated as a nation.  Never mind that the existing welfare system still encourages reproducing at a Leporidaeic rate; industry can’t afford to even survey land for a factory on domestic soil thanks to unions that think it’s reasonable to be paid $35 an hour to perform a job that is apparently so sophisticated it can be handed to someone who literally can’t read or write in any language and doesn’t realize that 7 cents a day is not a living wage; and we promptly deport anyone who comes to this country to learn after spending years educating them at some of the finest universities in the world, presumably so they can go oversee those factories that we have driven to third-world countries with our top-to-bottom greed.

Thanks to semi-colons and a roller-coaster of a day that is both one of the longest and most cynical sentences I have ever written.

What’s more, I’m not even going to do a Comic of the Day today because, like most Sundays, nothing really caught my eye.  So go read my comic and we’ll call it even.

I will however give you music.  In keeping with the overall mood of the day, here is an exceedingly beautiful, exceedingly mellow version of a beloved oldie:

Can’t Help Falling in Love With You by Elvis Presley, cover by Ingrid Michaelson

Recently Matt Nathanson has kind of moved onto the radio, but he’s been around for ages.  This is an older song by his and one of my favorites both for the lyrics and the groovin’ tune:

Hold Me by Matt Nathanson

And with that I’m off to sleep in hopes that tomorrow is a better day.  I’ll tell you about my holdover of a financial opportunity in the midday post.  Until then, sweet dreams.

Tomorrow: Master Tae Kwon Do in four simple steps!

Have you ever had one of those days when you don’t want to give your brain a chance to catch up with you because you don’t know want to know what it has to say?  Whether or not you know why it’s there, dread is hanging out in the dark alley just off Introspection Way and it might be easier to take the long way through your day.  This was one of those days for me.

It happens frequently.  More frequently than it used to.  I used to trot merrily out the streetlights and into the shadows to see what sort of fascinating damage I might have lurking there.  It made useful material for my writing and still does when I can stand to do it now.  But now I know what sorts of things I can expect to find there.  There’s less wonder and more painful memories playing on loop in a dingy theater that goes Hotel California on your ass when you stumble inside.

So what used to be my most productive days are now my curl-up-in-a-mental-cocoon-of-any-and-all-mind-numbing-distractions-lest-I-go-completely-and-genuinely-berserk days.  It takes longer to say it and nothing gets done so it’s a lose-lose situation.  Luckily it isn’t overwhelming most days so I actually get more done than I did when I was writing on pure I-feel-like-it mojo.

Luckily I was invited to attend a happy hour get-together today and a couple pints of Newcastle—or rather a pint of Newcastle and a pint of some other brown ale that the server mistakenly brought me—and a Jim Beam and Coke helped keep at bay the anxiety that was going to be building all night.  We also had a good laugh at the genuinely horrendous service we got at the Sedona Lounge.  They had great happy hour prices, that’s what attracted the decision makers in the group, but we didn’t get much opportunity to take advantage of that.

Our drink orders were taken right away when we were seated… then again by the server who was apparently taking over our table but didn’t know someone else had already done it.  We’d more or less forgotten what we’d ordered by the time the drinks showed up and the rest of our group had showed up as well.  Since the server was already there delivering things he couldn’t quite manage to ignore the new arrivals and they got to order their drinks as well, but he manage to squirt away before we got a food order in.

Luckily someone at the table was hungry enough to shout into the room that she wanted food.  This was met with stunning indifference by both bartenders, the floor manager, and all four servers despite ours being one of five tables actually occupied in the restaurant.  A server we didn’t know and never saw again accidentally walked close enough for us to snag him and demand food.  He found our real server for us and we got to order.

As mentioned, they were packed to the gills with customers so it was totally understandable when our round of appetizers took roughly 30 minutes.  But the food was good when it eventually arrived.  It was about this time that we managed to secure refills for our long empty drinks.  I’m not sure if everyone else got what they ordered, but I did not.  It was still good so no harm done.

For those of you who aren’t involved in foodservice or happy hours in general, it’s a volume business.  They are barely making money, if at all, on the specials and pretty much all they’re selling to their profit is the experience or the possibility that you order something that isn’t discounted.  We all walked out of there stone sober and convinced to not return so the Sedona failed on both counts.  It is the first time I’ve ever received truly awful service and I hardly expected it to come from a place with $30 to $50 entrees on their dinner menu.

For music today I’m going to suggest some stuff that doesn’t tempt the mind to contemplation so much.  Instead we’re going to groovy stuff that makes me sing along and rock out when (I think) nobody can see me.  You’ve heard both of them on the radio, but that doesn’t make them any less good.  This one has a nifty little story in the video that is reminiscent of all kinds of mythology and mostly just fun to watch:

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring

And this one definitely lays on some philosophy, but it’s big idea style philosophy wrapped up in a cuddly package so it doesn’t threaten to shove you headfirst into any of Sorrow by Bad Religion

Today’s CotD winner is Bug.  They definitely deserve some attention this week, it’s not Bug’s fault that everyone else was bringing the thunder.  Today was somewhat thunderless on most fronts and Bug was solid as ever plus some thanks to giggle-worthy art.

Have a good night, team.  I’m off to keep my thoughts at bay until I pass out.

This title is less clever than what I’d planned.

My life coach has advised me that real blog posts twice a day are better than one and the Facebook reposts totally don’t count.  I agree and now with that motivation I will return to twice daily posts plus whatever else I feel like tossing up here.

Tonight I went to a writing club.  Not just a writing group, a whole club of people who write.  It hadn’t really occurred to me that being somewhere with a population greater than the maximum occupancy of an Arby’s might have enough writers to constitute a gathering.  Who knew?

There was diversity and enthusiasm and varying levels of skill and it was like a little world and it was a delight.  And there was beer.  Newcastle pint drafts for $3.50.  If you argue with that I’ll be fetching the spider-bat.

There was a speaker, Andrew Kiraly, an editor of some accomplishment and a now-published author, who spoke about how to really dig into your own work and eviscerate the parts that truly need it.  He talked about throwing away the affection all writers get for their work and approaching it as a thing that needs to grow and breathe on its own.  Basically he gave us parenting tips for nurturing our little literary progeny to maturity.  Check out his new novel, Crit.

He pointed out many of the flaws that writers make at all levels.  I make most of them, the few I’ve managed to correct on my own or thanks to others are a constant challenge still.  We get too attached to our own ideas even when people we should respect tell us they’re flawed.  The longer we’ve spent cultivating and manicuring those ideas the harder it is to let them go.  Regarding this I have simple advice, observe the Tao.  Some things are meant to pass.  This is true throughout all of life, the only constant is transience—gotta love philosophical paradoxes.  But on the page it should be more true, as the page is meant to reflect life to some degree, and it should be less difficult to do.

Once you start writing a story, it isn’t yours any more.  You’re the one telling it, but that doesn’t give you the right to mess it up because it isn’t turning out the way you planned.  Again it’s like life that way, but there are fewer consequences to changing the words to what they’re supposed to be.

There is no quick and easy way to find the real story.  Another comment made tonight—I can’t remember who said it and I wish I could—was something to the effect of: Successful authors aren’t good writers, they’re good re-writers.  It’s never right the first time.  Never.  Edit, revise, rewrite, start over, give up, set the pages on fire, throw your laptop out the window, get too drunk to remember your characters’ names.  Basically you need to rock the boat and see what shakes loose.  This was Andrew’s message and it’s the message of every writer who’s managed to finish something good and it’s the message of every writing teacher who knows their salt.  This is not an easy profession.  Not just anyone can do it.

I’m not sure I can either.  This won’t be self-congratulating until I’m a successful writer.  Until then I’m just an aspiring, runty hopeful with dreams of accomplishment and delusions of qualification.

Today’s CotD is near and dear to the topic of literature and to my own heart.  Sheldon has spent a few days running with this theme now, but this one in particular tickles me because it makes fun of Twilight.  Which I hate.  More on that some day.  (I did read it.)

And today’s music takes it down a notch.  Like medical marijuana for the ears, it’s clean and soothing and leaves you a little bit sad but strangely optimistic at the same time.  It’s just that good.

Gone Away From Me by Ray Lamontagne

And I really can’t leave you high and dry and gloomy so here’s another one with a special place in my heart.  It’s even appropriate for this time of year.  The video is a little trippy and the song is a lot groovy so be prepared to tap your toe, nod along, maybe clap your hands, and almost definitely hum it until you feel like your head is going to explode because the name of the thing isn’t nearly as catchy as the tune.

Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine

Happy reading, happy listening, and happy night to you all.

Hot dog and a beer for $2? I’m in.

The weather around here is just knocking my socks off lately.  Apparently this is normal for Fall, but I’m hoping it sticks around.  The paper today ran pictures of the lightning strikes last night; unfortunately I couldn’t find those for you because their website doesn’t want me to have them.  They were epic though, in the truest sense.  Great, towering, crackling things splitting the sky as high as you could see.  The thunder is a little different here.  Different acoustics I’m thinking.  Or maybe that’s in my head.  But it was pretty spectacular too when it rolled in close enough.

It has also been much cooler and you know I love that.  I get cold easily as anyone who knows me can attest and you would guess if you could see me and my 5% body-fat.  But it’s fall now and I like a nip in the air and reason to wear long sleeved shirts.  The shorts don’t have to go quite yet.  Maybe never, here.

We went to Fremont Street today.  If you are visiting Vegas, go there.  If you  live in Vegas and somehow haven’t been, go there.  It’s cool.  For those who really don’t know, Fremont Street is a covered street on the “old” strip.  This is where you can see the famous neon cowboy and his recent bride.  It’s also where you can see the “Viva-Vision” ceiling that both protects you—some—from the elements and advertises things in great hundred foot animations that pretty much define panoramic.  They also do large-scale animated sequences set to music at night that are pretty fun to watch.

Both sides of the street are lined with casinos and just because they aren’t the fancy shmancy new casinos doesn’t mean they aren’t worth checking out.  There’s a zipline that runs 750 feet down the middle of the street, more food and drink specials than you could possibly take advantage of even in a full day, and gambling for all skill levels and wallet depths.  It’s a bit like a theme park for adults.  Though most of the attractions aren’t rideable (just the zipline), at least in public.

It’s full of street entertainers too.  There was a contortionist, a couple musicians, several impersonators, among with were Bart Simpson, Batman, Alan from The Hangover, and Pee Wee Herman.  There were also a number of people just dressed up to be interesting.  Among them were these flamingo girls (I don’t know what else to call them, feathery burlesque girls?):

And this pirate:

‘nuff said.

There were also a few places with go-go dancers and a couple stages set up with attractive female dj’s who also danced and seemed to only be there to try to get the crowd to dance along.  It worked.  There’s a lot of booze on Fremont Street.  We got a hot dog and Coors Lite draft for $2 at one of the casinos.  It was a decent deal, definitely discount food, but everything tastes better when it’s for fun and even moreso when you’re starving.

With Fall comes Fall premieres.  Shows both old and new kick off and give Hulu a reason to exist again since the summer is pretty bleak for free streaming video.  Sure, Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef are fun to watch, but Hulu didn’t even carry the end of those seasons for free and, believe it or not, I don’t make enough money at this to buy the fancy version.  If you have a free moment I kindly request you  help with that by checking out our travel site, if you haven’t already, and clicking some of the sponsors.  Come on… you  can’t tell me you don’t want to go to Sandals.

The first show to really come out swinging on my radar is New Girl.  Zooey Deschanel is always a treat, even if you aren’t sure how to pronounce her name, and she’s in fine form here as well.

While I’m waiting for my phone to finish updating so I can get the pictures and video from Fremont I’ll drop another shameless plug, this time for my some-time roommate’s blog, the N Quadrant.  Hop over and give him a read; keep him motivated.

Penny Arcade came through again for today’s CotD.  Bug was one of those rare funny, but not side-splitting days and most of the others are invested in that “plot” thing I’ve heard so much about.  So go here and laugh along with the raw silliness and gamer-related eye-rolling commentary.

Today I’m going to post some more music that I’ve really been enjoying.  This one is pretty much impossible to not rock out to:

Fallen by Volbeat

And this one is an extremely credible cover of one of my favorite songs:

White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons, covered by Kate McGill

I’m not sure how much she’s cheating with the ol’ acoustics and post-production, but it sounds eerie and beautiful and heartfelt to me and that’s all I’m needing to be content here.

So get your groove on, get your ogle on, get your laugh on.  Do it in whatever order you like, and have a good night.

An afternoon dose of procrastination…

It’s a bright, sunshiny day in Las Vegas.  Surprise.  There were some clouds during the flight; I vaguely remember them standing a goodly ways off from Vegas and laughing at me as I flew by.  I should start a pool on how long it takes me to crack and start walking around with Wellingtons and an umbrella and conversing loudly with myself about how lovely the rain is this time of year.

But I did wake up to creamy potato soup for breakfast and an exciting day full of affiliate hunting.  I should really get some working out done at some point, though.  There were brief talks of moving to an apartment with a fitness facility so I let myself slack off up to now.  And of course by that I mean I am immovably lazy and cling desperately to any excuse whatsoever to not exercise.  But the moving dream is passed and so I must make do with what I have: enough floor space for sit-ups and crunches and a stationary bike.  I could go outside and run but, seriously?  Maybe when it manages to dip below 90 at 3 a.m.

So today I’ll crank the Mumford & Sons—if you haven’t heard them before, kindly follow the links at the bottom of the page—and work up a sweat.  Then I’ll have to continue working out for a while because even with air conditioning “a sweat” happens any time I look outside or move too close to another living thing.  And the cats like to cuddle.

And perhaps I’ll start another story today.  With Jump-Jet cooling its heels elsewhere and this month only being 30 days—I’m a procrastinator so that one day is a pretty big deal—I need to get the next 50 pages of fiction rolling.  Tonight’s post will also include the first of my Comic o’ the Day feature.  I’ll see about getting the list of webcomics I read linked up and I’ll briefly proclaim the wonders of my favorite each day and welcome the arguments or approval of any and all guests.  Please introduce me to any you might read that I’ve missed.  You may find this hard to believe but my knowledge of the internet is incomplete as of yet and I almost always like to find out about new things.  If it’s got a German URL I’ll probably be leery though.  That’s just good sense.

Have a lovely day and everyone wish Ferret good luck with her wrangling duties.

Little Lion Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E

The Cave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KkUeRPjc-Y

Winter Winds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KCg_QEHtkY

White Blank Page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Od0PJp6GI

Awake My Soul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHWsKTSdS74