My Espresso Stories have been accepted, everyone go read them and vote on them so I can be in the top 100 again :)

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11332

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11328

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11326

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11325

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11324

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11323

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11321

http://espressostories.com/story.php?story=11318

Danke

With another project eating my brain and soul I have had a very bad start to the month.

Day 1, Zero, Nothing, Not a Word, Zilch!

Day 2, 970 Words, 696.67 behind the daily par and leaving me 2363.34 words in debt right off the cuff. Not so good! Also, even with most of those words being written on BART and while walking, 16 words per minute stings a little.

Maybe a little catching up can be done tonight and I'm hoping to be back on track and maybe even a tiny bit ahead by Friday... we shall see.

I have a main character but no name to go with him. I spend entirely too much time trying to think of one so I just call him [name] for now. No title yet.

This week has been a sort of insane blur of too much work and not enough sleep. I think I'm doing about 5 hours at best and I think maybe two nights were that good, one all nighter and a few 5 or 6 hour nights has me in a daze. Combined with workdays up to 14 hours long and I am positively out of it! And in about 32 hours NaNoWriMo starts.

So yeah, if anyone sees me unconscious in a bush anytime soon... leave me be, I need the rest!

"Make your mechanism work"

I had to stare at it for a while... wondering if I had some mechanism somewhere that I had neglected, some wondrous machine running down that only I could make right...

Then I figured out they were talking about my wang.

Wordspew

"Turn it on it's head and it's still a turtle? See?"

Robert pointed proudly at the turtle that he had in fact turn on it's head. I stared at him in the mix of horror and amusement I reserved for really crazy people and made sure the couch was between me and him, just in case he lunged. "Right Rob, right, it sure is!" I tried to keep my voice light and nonthreatening as I moved towards the fireplace and the black iron poker that might be the only thing between me and being turned on my head.

Robert wasn't a bad man, don't get me wrong, he just liked things upside down... a lot. He had flipped just about everything in the house that wasn't bolted to something, and a few things that had been. The kitchen sink was interesting looking like that but his downstairs neighbors were getting pretty sick of the flooding that was happening every time he tried to wash his dishes. It was getting so that none of his friends or family would come visit him any more. I didn't blame them, this was probably the last time I would either.

"Hold on... check this out!" Robert ran out of the room like a kid on christmas morning getting a new toy to show everyone. Having turned everything he owned upside down he had been making forays into the outside world. First he started buying things he could flip, but now his credit card was maxed out and he had turned to just grabbing things and running. This was the reason for my visit. "Check it out, see?" He returned holding the Henderson's kid upside down by the ankle. The poor little guy was bawling his head off and his face was red as a beet. "Yeah" I said, edging closer to the poker "Look Rob, I'm going to have to give that kid back or things are going to get pretty ugly."

I could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn't like that one bit. It was him or me now. I dove for the poker.

Oops, I have been submitting espressostories but sometimes they are slow to approve and upload so none of those to show off... I have however let the wordspews fall behind... I owe you five so I'll try to do a few a day till I catch up, aren't you lucky?

One:

Buck Chucknick was slammed back into the acceleration couch like an invisible hand had decided he was garlic and the chair was a fine metal mesh good for smashing garlic through. Buck wondered briefly what kind of sauce the hand intended to make, or if perhaps he would be spread over toast. He didn't have long to think though because in an instant his trusty rocket, the XG-99, was in the thick of the fight!

He fought against the acceleration and won, his hamlike mitts closed over the control stick and firing controls and gripped them like a drowning man might grip a thing that would help him be less drowning. He began weaving in a half chaotic path that was as much zig-zag as it was spiral, lasers and heat rays dancing in the darkness around him. Buck thumbed the release on the XG-99s weapons hard enough to crack plastic and was rewarded by a deep but growing whine he could feel in his spine. He threw the rocket into a tight arc and squeezed the triggers spraying a fan of death into the enemy saucers.

"That's for Burbank you puce blooded bastards!" he shouted through clenched teeth and stomped down on the retrorockets hard. The saucer that was gunning for him overshot, lancing energy death into his compatriot who was coming in to try to flank Buck and the XG-99. He laughed heartily and jammed the rocket into full blast once again, feeling blood vessels burst in his eyes with the strain. He once again gripped the trigger in his all american death grip and the saucer flew apart into bright glowing pieces rapidly cooling in the merciless cold of space. "Now let's talk about all those cows!"

Two:

"Oh hello" she said.

My heart melted. It always melted around her for some reason, which is why long ago I invested in a case of the things that we could leave at her house. I also carried a couple spares about my person just in case we ran into each other in town. I don't know why she has this particular effect on my heart, I suspect some kind of low frequency radiation she gives off or maybe an arcane aura about her person, the result of some long ago curse placed upon her line or the botched results of some scientific endeavor gone rather south. Whatever the cause, the effect is quite real and quite pronounced. Had I not, in fact, invested in a modular heart in my youth, and had I not, in fact, happened to be carrying a spare at the time, I fear our first meeting would have been the end of our story.

As it happens though I fell madly in love with her, though she not with I. It is a tragedy as old as time itself to be smitten with one who sees you only as a loyal and trustworthy friend, and I have embraced this tragedy in full. For some twenty years now I have been sending her spare hearts by post and then contriving various errands that might take me near her house. At every turn I arrange to have lunch or diner with her, often with some suitor or another in tow. She trusts me, you see, to judge them and find them worthy or not. And I fear I am a most harsh judge. In conversation I draw from them their worst natures and parade them about the table for her to see. I squelch any attempt at nobility or civility and force to the surface their goblins and boogymen. There has never been a closet I couldn't find a skeleton in... until last week when I was introduced to her newest suitor... and my heart melted.

"Hi there" I replied

And Three:

AH GOD MONKEYS! And so it begins as it always begins, not in fire or in earthquake but in monkeys. All kinds of monkeys, big ones, little ones, indeterminately sized ones, and those odd monkeys that do not entirely exist inside space or time as we know them and are the cause of lost socks, bad punctuation in advertising, and migraine headaches.

God I hate those monkeys.

But what the tide of the universe dumps on our heads it is not our will that is strong enough to pick and choose so LO! There are monkeys.

I tried just getting along with them at first, but they just kept coming and never seemed to leave at a decent hour. Not to mention the fortune I was spending on cheap wine and mixed nuts, trying to be a decent host you see. I was being driven mad with lack of sleep, poor wit the constant expense, and friends and family avoided me because I smelled like monkeys. It was a horrible life.

So I tried murder.

I began inviting the monkeys in and just killing the little bastards. It didn't improve the smell any to be sure, and my sleep actually got worse with images of their screaming, pleading faces haunting my dreams. But at least it gave me a chance to be creative and it was substantially cheaper. The only problem was the increasing number of monkey corpses filling my basement.

I invested in a tree-shredder and at least I could make them more compact. And you know the old saying "What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys?" Well as it turns out... not much! But those piled up and made navigating the house quite difficult so I had to try other things.

Of my various and creative solutions Monkey Pie was the winner. I could use the slurry previously created and bolster it's texture with larger chunks of monkey. I then cut up vegetables and yes, Bananas, and baked them in small single serving pies.

I still smell terrible, and I haven't had a full nights sleep in weeks. But with the pies leaving my house by the van-load and at $5 a pie... I say Bring on the monkeys!

That will do for today.

Today three years ago at about this time we were probably as close to panic as we ever got in the process... but it all fell together just wonderfully. That sort of sums it all up nicely, not everything's easy, not everything works out, but it all falls nicely into place.

I love you Nadja, I still promise to not blast you into space, I have not grown weary of you.

-Will

Right now I'm just kind of baffled by my job... I am stretched in a lot of directions and if I miss any little detail it's like the TPS report scene from Office Space, at least three people have to give me a talking to about it.

The thing is, there are like 7 people typically in the office so about half the people here are my boss (ignore the fuzzy math there) and they all have entirely different sets of priorities.

I feel like I'm just sort of hovering and waiting for someone to notice that I can't possibly actually do all these jobs well unless I stop doing the other ones.

It's still not a bad job at all, and far far from my worst, but it does, I think, make me a little stupid.

Daily wordspew.... go!

"Don't eat that!" Tom screamed leaping through the air like some demented action hero star in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt and running shorts. I froze in horror, my spoon a few inches from my face as he slammed into my midsection and knocked me off the chair and into an Ikea end table which shattered under me cutting my back and arms up and knocking the wind right out of me.

"Huuuuuuuh" I managed by which I had hoped to say "Tom you son of a bitch, seriously, what the fuck?" but he had already leapt to his feet, grabbed the grapefruit I was eating for breakfast (sprinkled with a little sugar... OK a lot of sugar) and flung it through the kitchen window where it fell to the yard below in a rain of shattered glass. "Nghhhhhhhh" I said which really meant "Dude! You are so going to pay for..." I never finished gasping out my admonitions because that was when the grapefruit exploded.

Tom was thrown through the air, smashing against the opposite wall and landing in a bone chilling crunch. I fought to my feet and scrambled towards him but I could already tell by the angle of his neck that there wasn't much I could do. Hell, I didn't even know CPR! It turned out that i would be spared the bother of trying to learn on the fly because a bowl of grapes started going off like machinegun fire and I had to hide behind the sofa as the walls were riddled with seeds.

Looked like it was my turn to go shopping again.

[Edit, now there are some mightily run on sentences!]

I love this time of year... sort of.

The weather turns all ominous and dark, except for the random heat waves.

The world slows down a little like it's catching it's breath, except work becomes so busy i can barely breathe.

A nice creative burst seems to hit me, except my PC exploded yesterday and I gots creative stuffs on there I need to get done!

So it goes...

That there NaNoWriMo thing is about to get underway again, I know how much my darling love looks forward to me hunched down in a dark corner cackling to myself all evening (Not sure how this is different from the rest of the year, but she seems to think so), and how much you all look forward to me spewing lots of stats!

Yay stats!

This being my fourth year I have collected enough data to possibly become statistically interesting... I might post charts!

I am also going to begin my warmup today with a daily 10 minute wordspew and a daily submission to esspressostories http://espressostories.com/author_story_list.php?author=233

Here is the wordspew

There comes a time in every man's life that he must think about what he has done and come to one of two conclusions. The first is that he has failed and would better serve his fellow man by taking up shovel and pick and building a large wall in the wilderness. The second is that he has done OK, and he should go look for walls in the wilderness to knock over with a ridiculously large truck which he bought from that old man down the street who then went on to walk out of town sad and broken, carrying nothing but a shovel and a pick.

There may be other options, but none worth mentioning and certainly none which would be suited to a man of my stature and shoe size. For example one very confused young man who wasn't sure exactly how he was doing built a wall on top of a large truck, while another tried to build a truck using a pick and shovel... which is a very time consuming endeavor indeed!

This entire thing came about because in 1923 a man called Herbert Nightingale tried to breed his horse with a pear tree and was horribly horribly successful. Horse-Meat-Pears were all the rage at the nearby markets for nearly thirty minutes until someone actually bothered to take a terrifying and life altering bite and poor Herbert was pummeled to death with rotten tomatoes. Henry Walker who sold rotten peaches became very depressed and immediately took up shovel and pick and began trudging into the waste (which was at the time located fairly close to the old offramp, the one they tore down) leaving his misbegotten life behind him. Gerald Marlin on the other hand sold rotten tomatoes and, after a nasty bit of back and forth with the press over poor Mr. Nightingale, became very very wealthy and bought a rather large wagon.

True Story

Of all the bottom levels of all the pillowtanias in this mean city she had to crawl into mine.

I could tell at first glance the dame was trouble, one look into those soft beautiful eyes and I might as well have just set fire to the mendoza case right there and then because it sure wasn't getting done any time soon. She came towards me like the A-train and brother, let me tell you I was stapled right to the middle of those tracks like some sort of taxidermy marmot in a trench coat and a hat... well scratch the coat, and scratch the hat, and hell scratch the shirt because that was just in the way. Come to think of it a Marmot's not quite right either... what are those big things? Oh yeah, Wombats, stapled like a Wombat.

I opened my mouth to say something suave like "Heya toots, what can I do ya for" or "Hey babe, pull up a me and get comfy" or "Hi there basket of bunnies, you wanna watch some Dr Who? I got some Patrtick Troughton on deck" but instead about all I got out was "oomf" because before I knew what hit me (I would figure that out pretty quick) I was knocked over backwards and her warm soft lips enveloped mine like they were some kind of drug and this chick had a monkey on her back!

Actually it turned out to be a cat... on her back I mean. She was a chick... a dame, not a baby bird... well you get the idea...

After she ditched the cat she got back to business and buddy... business was good. Her tongue found mine and coaxed it from it's hiding place in the corner cupboard, she took it to town and showed it all her favorite places, she was nice to it, something it wasn't used to. She teased it and bought it some good pants for once and made it wear a shirt and tie... it cleaned up pretty good.

Anyway those two tongues went at it like a couple of firm slugs dancing dirty... no that's kind of nasty... how about a couple snakes with weight problems learning to dance in south america... better but still not there... hmmm... let's just say that my tongue and hers chased each other for a while, slipping in and out of each others mouths in an elaborate dance and our entire world was located entirely a few inches into eachothers face.

Then lips and teeth just had to get into the action!

The tongues retreated as we kissed each others lips and face, little fast kisses like we didn't have enough time to get the job done and wanted to get as many in as possible. I nibbled her upper lip and she nibbled the side of my face, low, almost to the neck. Our noses touched, rubbed together for a moment in the Inuit way... a little trick I learned once and has served me well over the years. Then more kisses, more nibbling then the tongues were back, happy to find each other again after so long apart.

A couple more rounds of this alternating with some tight hugs with faces pressed firmly into each others necks and things got a little freaky...

With a smile, her eyes looking into mine she brought her head down.

I smiled back and caressed the side of her face, a face that I could fall into and drown. At the last moment her eyes broke from mine and looked downward. She brought her lips to me, formed a perfect little circle, and blew a long and loud raspberry into my chest.

This first raspberry was followed by many more, on my chest, my belly, my upper arm, the side of my neck... I had never been raspberried so thoroughly or so expertly. She broke down into giggling and I'll be damned if I didn't too...

We ended up, as these things always seem to, on the cold concrete floor... trying to see what kissing was like upside down...

To hell with the mendoza case... I think I love this girl.

www.awesomeville.us tonight live, and stuff, that show I do, reminding peoples, wheeeeee

After two weeks of complete chaos that was a nice weekend. Fun games, some good video watching, a little cleaning and organizing, some quality time goofing of on my computer... this week looks like it will mostly be picking up the pieces and figuring out where they fit. Two weeks till vacation What Is Not In The Desert which has me doubly twitchy. One twitch for having to hold out for two weeks, another twitch for no burning man for two years in a row.

People should come over and watch some movies... from say... 8:00 till sometime.

Yes, people should do that.

Once upon a time I had friends who upon hearing something interesting was going on could drop everything and come over...

Once upon a time I was a friend who upon hearing something interesting was going on could drop everything and come over...

I realize these times have passed on... but I do miss it...

I do not trust the liedenfrost effect... it seems too much like science is trying to get me to stick my hand somewhere stupid...

http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner/

I expect Michael Bay to be remaking gone with the wind any day now.

Is tonight...

8:00pst, www.awesomeville.us DOWN WITH PANTS!

Haven't reminded this corner of the interblogs for a while, so consider yourself reminded!

So, this thing Nadja and I did, nicked from Benchilada because HA!









I need to get off my ass and learn "real" video editing software, but imovie is so damned easy!
Also the camcorder I got for less than $100 5 years ago? Maybe not quite state of the art... ah well, I am kind of a fan of lo-fi.

Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes and messages and cards and whatnots. And thanks to everyone who made it out to Forbidden Island and insured that my eyes are still having difficulty focusing. A good time was had.

So tomorrow I am 38

The number of slots on an American Roulette wheel, the number of known surviving plays written by Shakespeare, and the sum of the squares of the first three primes.

in Norse mythology the number 38 was The number was said to represent unnatural bravery. Most sagas were divided into 38 chapters with and the number recurring often throughout. The Heroes often fought giants or other beasts in groups of 38.

38 is also significant as the characteristic number of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death. Egyptian pharaohs were often buried with 38 statues of cat guardians, and their sarcophagi were adorned with 38 ankhs.

So I have that going for me.

Na Na Na Naaaaaa
You say it's your birthday
Na Na Na Naaaaaa
Well it's my birthday tooo yeah... exept it's not, that's not till tomorrow... damn this song just doesn't quite work does it... blast!