Subscribe! Subscribe!

Just put your e-mail address in that little box on the sidebar, that says Subscribe. Every time I post, it'll get sent to you, so you don't have to come back and check all the time.

But you still should.

Also, check the counter down at the bottom. I put it on today.

The Moment I Knew

The moment I knew the Tigers were going to win, Curtis Granderson had just been pitched a his second ball. He had a 2-1 count. The camera showed Craig Monroe on deck, with a bat on his shoulders.

At that moment, for some reason I became calm. And I said, out loud "We're going to do it. Granderson's going to walk, and Monroe's going to hit a home run." Libby heard it. You can ask her.

So Granderson reaches, on a walk. As per my prediction.

Craig Monroe steps to the plate. And as soon as that ball went off that bat, I knew. And everyone else watching the game on my floor knew. And I was out in the hall high-fiving people I've never seen before. That's how awesome this was. That's how amazing this was.

If you don't know - Craig Monroe hit a 3-run home run in the top of the ninth. We'd been trailing 3-2. We won 5-3. So, Steve was one run off on his interpretation of my dream numbers. But still, Steve. That's really good.

Good News, Tigers Fans

Um. Well, here's the good news.

I had a dream the Tigers won against the Yankees today. That's good news because so far I'm 8 for 8 when it comes to dreaming the outcomes of sports games this year. And it started with the Pistons.

Other, less meaningful (maybe) news: I dreamed the outcome of this particular game was 7-4.

I'm not saying this will actually happen...just that if it does, I want it to be on record that I said it would happen BEFORE it actually did happen. And yeah, it's 6:18 right now.

Said game begins at 7:05.

EDIT: The bad news is that my awesome powers of perception didn't tell me there was going to be a weather postponement, which will make us have a doubleheader with NYY tomorrow.

So. We're probably going to lose both games. By a lot.

Moved In

All right, so I'm here. In East Lansing, for the second day. I moved in yesterday, and I'm still waiting for people to show up. Lib's here, and that's good. But there are people screaming in the hall.

I hate that.

Except when it's me doing that.

IF: Match

Crawly Things

What is it called when you keep seeing blurry crawly scurrying things out of the corners of your eyes and then when you look they're gone?

I can't stand it.

It might be called staying up too late, eating too many all-dressed chips (straight from Canada (you need a passport to visit there starting the first of January, 2007 (I have to get one now, because I'm addicted to these darn chips.))), and worrying that I'm not spending my time on this planet with the urgency I need to get what I want to get done...done.

I'm going to a wedding today. I'm going to be wearing something, but I don't know what yet, since my mother hasn't picked the clothes out yet (I don't usually let my mom dress me, but this is a wedding for crying out loud.) and I'm not usually the kind of kid who worries about things like what I'm going to wear.

These damned crawly things! They're turning my nervous system inside out.

Oh, and by the way: When I was in Ann Arbor the other weekend, I bought some comics. Flight 3, which I've been looking for everywhere but have just now got my hands on, Neil Gaiman's Eternals Issue 1...of 6. There's a comics shop in Lansing so I'll be able to get them all as they come out...I'm a completist, but only when it doesn't come to my own work. And I also picked up volumes 8 and 9 of Gaiman's run of The Sandman, World's End and The Kindly Ones. Read them both; they're both good.

I have to say: When I have kids, they'll have plenty of comic books to look at. Not that I'm rushing it or anything.

Gah. I'm also reading the short stories from the Nebula Awards Schowcase 2003 at the moment, and the general vibe I'm getting is that if you write something quirky and lifeless, with witty dialogue and a plot that's completely forgettable, you might just get a Nebula Award.

That's just my impression; doesn't mean it's right or anything. But it probably is.

~---------~

One last thing. Let's say it's summer time. And you eat a plum, only it's really not ripe, and it's really bad, and you're not within easy walking distance (let's say twenty feet) of a trash can. Please don't decide to just wrap the half-eaten thing up in a kleenex and leave it on your bedside table. I speak from experience; I didn't know so many fruit flies could assemble so quickly.

And yeah, sometimes they're the crawly things.

Tigers Clunker, Rangers Win 2-1

So that was a clunker - the Texas Rangers just beat the Tigers 2 to 1, our only run scoring when Dmitri Young homered in the fourth.

Then, in the bottom of the ninth, when you're only behind a run and your leadoff batter hits a triple...you're telling me none of the next three guys can hit a fly ball to get him home? Young. Ground-out. Ordonez. Ground-out. Guillen. Ground-out. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Great pitching by the Rangers tonight though. Gotta give it up...but we should have been able to do something there in the ninth.

Only six more days until I move back to East Lansing to start my sophomore year at Michigan State University.

Excited, I sure am.

Pacing With Neil

So Neil Gaiman posts just about every day. I decided that if he posts something, then I have to. Even if it's nothing.

Tigers play the Rangers tonight...I'm a bit nervous for them.

Also, I have to sand and paint the house. Again.

Meat Update...& CAD2K6

So here's what happened with that meat, since I know you've been dying to know. My mom brought it back to Meijer the other day, and took it to the returns department. The lady at the counter wouldn't even let her open the thing there, and so called over a guy from the grocery department ... and, well, any other employee who was in the mood to see something completely disgusting (it turned out to be like seven people).

Long story short, my mom got fifteen bucks back from Meijer and she's also going to get a call from QC once they "analyze" it to discover just what the crazy meat is. Which I thought was pretty darn awesome. I mean, it was in my mouth. Wouldn't you want to know?

The CAD2K6 thing isn't regarding any computer program used for architecture and design. It's Creation-A-Day 2006, a thing I'm running in September. What is it? Well, every day I make something. And I post what it was that I made up on the blog. And since I'm very creative, and I make a whoooooole lot of different things, it should be cool. Not to mention that I just came up with it five minutes ago. Yay.

Stories, photos, drawings, songs, jokes, you name it.

CAD2K6 is COMING!

Innocence Lost...Or Taken By Meijer

Hypothetical Prestory

If I’m going to put something in my mouth, I want to at least have some idea of what it is beforehand. If it’s a burrito, I have a pretty good idea there’s going to be chicken (or beef), beans, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese - all wrapped up tight in a tortilla. When I bite into that burrito, I expect to see those things and taste those things. If, for example, I find something in my burrito I that shouldn’t be in my burrito (think inedible thoughts), I do one of two things. I go back into the burrito place, and ask for either a refund or a new burrito free of charge. The other thing I do is tell everyone I know that the service I had at "Burrito Place X" was terrible, and yes, that there was actually most of a fingernail and a few short black hairs in my food.

Story

This story isn’t about a burrito. It’s about something I usually enjoy more, a food of American tradition. A food you can find at graduation parties and tailgate parties and...well, just about every other party you’ll ever go to (by using the word party" I’m excluding certain women’s gatherings where gifts are exchanged, fondue pots are out in force, and Project Runway is being watched - these are more generally called "showers" except by those in attendance).

The food? Shredded beef or pork, slow roasted in barbeque sauce, so that all you need to do to eat it is scoop it up with some tongs and slap it on a bun. Barbeque. The very essence of the American dream.

Until today.

Today, that dream was shattered.

Excuse me for being dramatic, but when something like Barbeque is ruined for you, it’s a climactic and traumatic event. An event that deserves to be examined in full detail. Full sickening, slimey-tentacled, nausea inducing detail.

__________________________

Warning: If you’re grossed out by watching medical shows on television, such as those shown on Discovery Health, or one of the dramatized hospital shows (ER, House, even....Grey’s Anatomy (...pshaw, yeah right)) the following images may make you uncomfortable. I’m not responsible for any headaches, heart attacks, seizures, or homicides these images might induce. You’ve been warned.

__________________________

Exhibit A: The Meijer Barbeque Bowl - A triumph of convenience, or so it seemed.

But what's this? A larger piece of barbeque? A treasured extra-big bite that I'm priveleged to have on my sandwich? Wow. I can't wait.

Yum. Doesn't that just get your saliva glands pumping?

Exhibit B: The Thing In My Sandwich.

Yes, that was in my mouth.

And because it was so chewy, it was in there for a while. Now, to give you a sense of size of this thing, I present to you:

Exhibit C - The Scale Comparison.

Needless to say, all appetite was lost. My love for Barbeque was lost. (And my father, who was only a witness to this travesty but reports foul-tasting meat in his sandwich as well, was not feeling so great and threw the whole bucket away.) My mom's taking it to Meijer on Saturday to show them just what kind of quality they've got in their QC department. And little things like this are always fun to notice:



So, Meijer, I'm issuing a question. Not a complaint, or anything like that. I just want to know.

What is this thing?

Is it even part of the cow we were supposed to have been eating? Part of its head, some kind of ear thing? Arteries? A stray testacle? Have someone figure it out, and send me a message.

If not, I'll just find you, you who passed this bucket o' parts through the QC department. I'll get to know you, and I'll be your friend. I'll even take you out to dinner, and I'll say I have a surprise. I'll give you a blindfold to wear and you'll put it on, because we're friends and you trust me not to stick anything nasty into your mouth and tell you to chew it while I wrap a roll of duct tape around your head to stop anything nasty in your mouth from using any tentacles it might have to squirm free.

I mean, you'd trust me, right?

-Adam

IF: Captured

How Do You Expect Me To Get Any WORK Done?!?!

Jeez. Here I am, trying my darndest to work on my novel, finishing up the scene with the Red man and Rebecca the higher level girl, when I look at my desktop clock and it says '8:33.' Promptly I remember there is supposed to be a Tiger's game on tonight. But when?

I pop over to the Detroit Tigers Weblog and find out it was at 7:15. Sooo...I go to detroittigers.com and see it's in the fifth inning. The Cleveland Indians scored 3 in the first and another in the fifth. It's four to zip. Darn.

I go hop in the car, remembering an errand I was supposed to run but forgot, and then stop at the Speedway for gas. The Indians put on another run, and the Jim Leyland takes Bonderman, the starting pitcher for the day, out. In the bottom of the inning, we score two somehow, and it's a three run game. Not impossible, I think. I drive home, and turn the radio on downstairs, where I eat some of the Teriyaki beef jerky I bought and listen to the game. The Indians add ANOTHER run, to make it 6-2. I'm not feeling so good.

Then Sean Casey hits a double off the right-center wall and the two baserunners who were on already make it home. It's 6-4. The inning ends.

It's the top of the eighth now, and somehow Roman Colon ends the inning with no Indians making it around the bases. Still, I'm freaking out. Can the Tigers do this? Or am I nuts for believing they can?

I'm up in my room again, trying to squeak out a sentence or two into the novel that is not moving very fast because I keep forgetting about it, when I notice on the GameDay application (the one where you can watch the game "live" only you're not watching it at all...it's just a thing that show's who's batting, where the pitches go, and who's on base) that Polanco and Rodriguez have both singled, and that there aren't any outs. I run back downstairs and turn the radio on again. Ordonez comes to the plate. And hits a ball that I swear, the announcers believe has to be a base hit. But it's not. The Cleveland right-fielder, Choo or something, makes a diving catch that leaves everyone in Comerica Park speechless. Polanco gets to third. One out. Runners on the corners. Guillen (who used to be on the Mariners - hehe) comes to the plate. And hits a ball that everyone thought was a home run...until it went just foul of the right field pole. He flies out, Polanco coming home to score, making it a one run game.

6 to 5, Cleveland. Pudge is still at first.

And stepping to the plate is Craig Monroe, sole possessor of the come-from-behind grand slam in that game earlier in the season.

The ball from pitcher Cabrera's hand strikes Monroe's bat and the crowd at Comerica Park can't believe it. A home run, left field. Or it would have been, had it not hooked foul at the last second. And that, many Tigers fans felt, was it. Good fight Detroit, but you couldn't quite make it all the way.

I, on the other hand, was in Monroe's head. If he throws me another one of those, and I can hit it as hard, it's going to be a pitch he'll regret. You know what it is, I thought. Get it this time.

The very next pitch.

All I can remember from the highlights is Pudge pumping his fists as he gets to round third base, the crowd surging up to fight for the game-winning ball. Craig Monroe being lifted up by every fan in the stadium and at home as the man with the golden bat, our own Big Papi.

My novel looks stale now, compared to the drama I witnessed tonight. All the work I'd been planning to do: gone. All the words I'd imagined I'd write: still in my head somewhere. But maybe I, and all other Tigers fans out there, got something better than what we'd been planning to accomplish tonight.

We found out how much our team loves us, their fans, and we know we love them too.

Thank you, 2006 Tigers, for reminding us why.

Who Do You Think You Are, The King? Oh Yeah...

It seems Stephen King has been abusing his literary clout as of late, urging an author to write her books the way he wants them to, now that they so obviously need his advice, after selling (in total) more books than (perhaps - I haven't checked) King himself.

The author? Breakout YA novelist J.K. Rowling, author of the six best-selling Harry Potter books. She's revealed that in the seventh book of the series, two main characters die. She's also said that while many people will love the book for her decisive life-ending prose, many will hate it for the same reason. So, Stephen King and John Irving (author of The World According to Garp - On the OSC Literary Bootcamp list of books Orson Scott Card definitely recommended writers read (I haven't)) have made a public plea to Rowling, begging her not to kill Harry Potter, star of every preceding book (duh).

Before this, Stephen King had issued a challenge to the writers of the show LOST, saying they'd be doing a disservice to the public if they didn't complete the story arc by the seventh season. On this point I agreed with King, and applauded him for his outspoken advice to less experienced writers. However, I also know that he's a fan of the show, and is therefore inserting his own wishes as Stephen King (i.e. "If I were to do this show, I would..." And we all know what happens when the King is given any kind of movie or television show to execute total creative control over - it ends up sucking.)

So, now we have this King not wanting Harry dead, and so appealing to the author not to kill him. If this man were not Stephen King, it would not matter. But since he is, it means two things. 1) That he's hoping his influence as a force in the literary world will actually sway the outcome of Harry's end and 2) That he's Stephen King and he wouldn't kill Harry if he were writing the seventh book.

I sincerely hope King's not actually wishing for Rowling to alter her ending just because of what he's saying, because if he actually ended up doing anything, the book wouldn't be Rowling's anymore. And it wouldn't be the right thing for her, and for the characters she knows so well. She knows what she's doing, so let her do it. I mean, The Dark Tower just came out a year or two ago, and I know PLENTY of people who hated the ending of that (also the seventh book in a LOOONG running series) but it's not like King was going to listen to anyone else - he's the freaking King!

So...in the end, I have this to say. Stephen King - keep your hands to yourself. Ever since you retired, it seems like you don't have enough to say about other people's art. Maybe it's time you started making more of your own again.

Sketchbook

It's done. I built a handy little sketchbook application in Flash for showing my sketches online - all I have to do to post them is to scan them, name them, and upload them to my website. Flash does all the rest.

You can find it here.

Also, the sketchbook link on the main site animation now works as well. Yippee!

Back

I'm back. And I'm tired. And I have an idea for a new short story - a modern retelling of Rumplestiltskin, something I've been wanting to do for a long time but only just figured out. Hopefully I'll get it published in IGMS, as they're looking for the kind of story it's going to be. But it's not going to be like my usual Twilight Zone fares, even though I like writing them (I have to quit!).

I taught myself how to make a dynamically loading image gallery in Flash today, so that'll help when I make the Sketchbook on the main page work as well. One at a time, folks. One at a time.

I'll be scanning some of the drawings I did over the weekend pretty soon - some of them are pretty darn good. I'm an artist for some reason.

Finished Orson Scott Card's Treasure Box. If it was about witches, why didn't you let me know? One of those times where you think you're reading one kind of story and then BAM. You're not. And not in a Twilight Zoney way. In an "Oh my God I guess my wife doesn't exist now that I've been married for half a year" way. Let's just say I wasn't all that impressed with it.

The trouble with writers reviewing other writing is that most times the writer doing the reviewing sucks worse. Like me. I suck worse.