Snakes on a Submarine

/ Shane / Leave a comment

It was bound to happen sooner or later. There were plenty of jokes about it when Snakes on a Plane came out, so you know someone was going to try to capitalize on it. And now it is here, Silent Venom:

And those aren’t just regular snakes! According to the synopsis, there are giant, mutant snakes.

I’m not surprised that the movie was made, but I am surprised that it stars Luke Perry! And not only that, but he appears to be just an assistant to the main girl. Oh Dylan, how the mighty have fallen. (Side note, I happen to notice that lukeperry.com is strangely devoid of a Silent Venom mention…)

I’m still holding out to see Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth when Hollywood* sees fit to deliver us two pieces of fine cinema.

*You know, Hollywood or Sci-fi channel, or someone’s backyard…

Weird Sandwiches

/ Shane / 15 Comments

When I was little, we used to eat something called a “Tiger Sandwich” which was a peanut butter and butter sandwich (get it, it has stripes like a tiger).

At the time it didn’t seem gross, though I have to admit, as of right now it doesn’t sound too appetizing. That being said, it doesn’t sound more disgusting than butter on a ham sandwich, something my mom insisted on making.

On the other hand, for lunch today I had a PB and cheese sandwich, which is quite delicious. Sara thinks this is so disgusting, so she consequently asks everybody their opinion. Far and away, everybody seems to agree that it is gross.

So now I’m opening this up to wider audience (and trying out the poll do hickey). What say you? And leave other sandwiches that you like but other people find disgusting in the comments.

Raoullllllll

/ Shane / 4 Comments

There’s a guy where I work, let’s call him Raoul*. He’s a professional guy, possibly even a lawyer. I think the last time I saw him he was wearing a tie. So if this guy is an intelligent, well educated guy, can someone please explain to me why he adds a bunch of extra l’s at the end of his name when he sends and email??

The first time I got an email from Raoulllllll I thought, “Hey, maybe his finger slipped or something.” The next 10 or so times I got an email from him I thought, “Maybe a long time ago he accidentally messed up his signature on his email and he doesn’t know it.” But then I took the time to count the l’s and I discovered that it is not consistent! So he must be typing in all those extra l’s every time. Raoulllllll. And this is not just to me, he signs things this way to actual customers.

So tell me, what is he thinking? Is his name really Raoulllllll with a long ‘l’ sound at the end and he is silently cursing everyone for getting his name wrong all these years? Does he just have a jittery ring finger? Does he think it makes him look cool? Any other theories? Because I am baffled.

*Name changed to protect the innocent.

Slooooow writing

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Finished another story, which is good. It took me almost exactly 4 weeks to write 3,500 words, which is bad. Pathetic actually. That’s about 125 words per day. And it had one less revision than normal since I sent it out before my editor-in-chief has read it yet. Worse yet? That was last Thursday and I haven’t started my next story yet and probably won’t until at least next Tuesday.

It is so hard to find time to do it, especially when we are so busy all the time. I read blogs of professional writers and they usually write roughly 2,500 words per day, so about 20 times my recent word count. It is especially discouraging when I think about working on the novel I have in mind. At my current rate it would take me roughly 640 days to bang that out, or just under 2 years. The pros usually strive for maybe 2 novels a year, plus short stories published in between. Of course they may or may not work a full time job and they may or may not have a family including a small child, but that is small consolation.

On the plus side, I think that my writing has definitely improved already. Especially in my most recent story, I feel like I learned a lot about how to handle dialog. So that is a good feeling. What I’m really lacking the most right now is a couple of readers who aren’t afraid to rip me up, so I can improve. I do want to join a workshop of some sort, but I don’t know if I can make that time commitment when my writing time is already so precious. My current plan is to joining Critters when my inventory is built up enough to make it worth my while. I also have a couple of people that I wouldn’t mind asking to be first line editors but I will probably wait for a while until either A) I make my first sale and this whole thing comes to light, or B) it becomes obvious that I won’t make my first sale until I get some good criticism.

Oh well, I have 4 stories out to market and that’s 4 more than I had 3 months ago!

Did you miss me?

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Of course you didn’t, because you didn’t know I was gone.

It’s been a long week and a half or so. Evie and Sara were in MI all last week until Thursday when we met for camping. Always when Sara is going to be gone I think to myself, “I am going to have sooo much time to do whatever I want!” and then I end up being busier than I normally am trying to get all the stuff done I’m supposed to get done while they are gone. So I was actually staying up late every night trying to finish everything I needed to do and didn’t get a lot of free time.

I ain’t complain’ though, because Sara had it much worse. Evie has taken it into her head to have some real tantrums, screaming, kicking, the whole nine. I remember a particular phone call in which I could hear Evie in the background yelling gems like, “It is nice to bite mommy!” Most of these tantrums involve the potty in one way or another. She is very willful and doesn’t like being told what to do, therefore, every little thing becomes a battle of wills. I understand this is pretty typical of her age, so once we are through it, we’re hoping it will go dormant again until she is a teenager.

Many of the problems are exacerbated by being on vacation. First off, she doesn’t have her usual routine going on around her. Second off, she is getting less sleep since her sleep schedule is off and her naps are often shortened because of stuff that we’re doing. Third, she is having a really good time and doesn’t want to do the things she needs to do (like sleep). Finally, when we are busy trying to do things she has more power to disrupt our life and she knows it. And she does not use this power for good. All of this lead Sara to proclaim it the “worst week she’s ever had as a parent” and seriously think about canceling the vacation altogether.

All that unpleasantness aside, there have also been some bright spots on the potty training front. She doesn’t really have a lot of accidents and she is starting to stay dry through naps and even through the night sometimes, despite her diaper. One night she even got Sara to take her to the potty in the middle of the night so she could go.

The actual camping went really well. We were going to tent camp, but the prospect of a wet weekend caused us to upgrade to a cabin and I think it was a wise choice. We were basically unaffected by the rain. One of the highlights of the trip was going to a u-pick strawberry and cherry farm and picking our brains out. Each strawberry was better than the last and I probably ate a pound of cherries.  We may have overdone it a little bit on the strawberries; I don’t know how we can eat them all before they go bad. We’re doing what we can though and even as I write this I am eating fresh strawberries!

Evie also had a great time. When we got home she stayed in the car for about 15 minutes hysterically crying for us to get back in the car (right now!) and drive back to the camp site. She has also been asking to do some of the things we did while camping, such as “see the doggies” or “go swimming”.

So that’s about it, back home safe and sound, at least until the next vacation. I don’t have any quotes for you today, although I’m sure she said plenty of hilarious stuff over the long weekend.