50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
Me: Hey, I have to get up at 6am to be on TV.
My Brain: Yeah, I saw that.
Me: So it’d be awesome if you’d, uh …
My Brain: If I’d what?
Me: If you’d, you know, just be quiet for seven hours or so. Just stop cranking out story ideas and stuff and let me get some sleep. We can get back to writing all these awesome things tomorrow when we get back from the studio.
My Brain: Well … I’ll think about it.
Me: Yeah, you see, that’s kind of the problem…
I’m not thrilled that my blog has recently been filled with announcements instead of original content, but that’s sort of the way things are shaking out in my life right now. It’s not bad, because I’m incredibly busy and working on awesome crazy ideas, but I feel like I’m kind of neglecting something that’s important to me. I’ve never intended for my blog to be a purely promotional outlet, but these things I’ve been mentioning are important to me, so there you go.
Anyway, to celebrate this, have some more announcements:
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be on the KTLA Morning News in Los Angeles to talk about the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend. I’ll be on between 7 and 8 in the morning, if you’re local and want to tune in.
Friday night, I’m performing at the LA Weekly’s LA Weekend. I’m doing a reading and a book signing at 7:30pm at the Montalban Theater in Hollywood. Here’s the best part: admission is entirely FREE, so everyone who is local can come out and see me perform a couple of my favorite stories. FOR FREE. Also: Henry Rollins, one of the guys who inspired me to become a writer, will be there. Oh. Em. Gee.
Saturday, I’m appearing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I’m on a panel about social media in Franz 1178 at 10:30am that I understand is already sold out, but I’ll be doing a book signing as soon as it’s over. Seriously, folks, if you’re in town, you should really come out to UCLA this weekend, because it’s just sensational. Also: Charlie Huston will be there. Oh. Em. Gee.
I don’t know why, but Woot never e-mailed me to tell me that my shirt design was going into the Reckoning, and it slipped to number 22 when I wasn’t looking. I was told that I’d get fair warning before it was in danger of being Reckoned, and I’m pretty pissed that that didn’t happen. In fact, I’m so upset that nobody bothered to warn me about this after I was told they would, I better not say anything else that I’ll eventually regret.
Anyway, the bottom line is: I guess that means that my How We Roll T-shirt will go away and never be available again after midnight Central time tonight, so if you wanted to buy one, this truly is your last chance.
As promised yesterday, this month’s Geek in Review stands entirely on its own, but also goes well (if I do say so myself) with this week’s LA Daily.
As a matter of fact, I have played Atari today
“You’re the undisputed master of Combat,” I told my son. “As your reward, you get to watch me play Adventure.”
I flipped switches on the Flashback II, and was soon on my way to collect the various items required to complete my quest.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s my sword,” I said, pushing my little box against an arrow-shaped icon.
“What do you use it for?”
“Slaying Dragons!” I said, as I entered a once-simple maze of passages that the passage of time had made as vexing as it was when I was eight.
“You realize you’ve gone into that dead end five times, right?”
“Quiet you. This is how we did it back in the 80s.”
“You ran into the same dead end over and over again?”
“Yes, it was part of Reganomics.”
I finally found my way out of the maze, and approached a castle, anxious to impress Nolan by grabbing the chalice within. That’s when the dragon showed up.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a dragon, of course,” I said, holding the joystick out in front of me like I always did, convinced that if I moved it around, it would help me escape faster. That’s when the dragon ate me.
“This is really what you guys did for fun?”
“Well, there was this, and we’d occasionally fend off Indian attacks when we weren’t Dinosaurizing our caves, yeah.”
I say this every time I link to my Geek in Review, but I know the one time I don’t, someone’s going to lose their shit at me: my column and the newswire are Safe For Work. The rest of the site is delightfully NOT SAFE FOR WORK. If you just stay at the news page, you don’t have to worry about encountering anything naughty, but the logs aren’t going to know that, and you may have a hard time convincing your IT guys that you were just reading it for the articles.
It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I announce the release of the final D&D podcast in season two:
"Here we go, folks – the final episode in our second series of podcasts with Acquisitions Inc. How will it end? The necromancer has the party on the ropes… can they hold him off? Or will they simply surrender in ignominy?"
After you've listened to the podcast, take a look at this. I believe it will amuse you as much as it amused me.
The number one FAQ about the D&D podcasts is some variation of, "Will you do more of these?" I don't have the authority to give a definitive answer, but I think it's pretty safe to say that all parties concerned are amenable to the idea.