The interview can be found here.

This is a long-time gaming buddy of mine who is also trying to flex his creative muscles.

I’m making great progress so far on the Loss re-writes. I’ll keep the word counts on the right updated fairly regularly. 6,000 words per week is a twenty week novel. Here’s hoping I can hang on to that pace!

Hopefully this finds all dads healthy, happy, and fulfilled. I spent yesterday at the zoo with my child. He was enthralled with the elephants, so much so that he wanted to have his very own stuffed elephant. The zoo “toy shop” had a range of animals that a helpful attendant would stuff (much like the build-a-bear workshop), so Jackson went through the entire process. When I asked him what he wanted to name it, he thought about it for a minute and said: “Penis!”

I was aghast.

“Peanut?” I said. “Peanut is a great name.”

“Peanut?” he asked.

“Peanut,” I confirmed. From that point on, the name stuck. Whew. By pretending to misunderstand, I averted disaster.

We rode the train and the merry-go-round, we saw all sorts of other animals, and we got to pet a hog, a goat, a sheep, and a young, longhorn calf. It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

This morning, my wife got me the super-fattening ham’n'cheese biscuit from Braum’s (there not being a Hardee’s in my part of the country) with some biscuits and gravy. I was presented with the new Tiger Woods golf game for the Wii (something I’ll discuss in another post), and two books–Acacia by Campbell nominated Anthony Durham and The Briar King by Greg Keyes. We’ll give them a whirl and see how they turn out.

I spent Memorial Day in Missouri with my wife’s extended family. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, actually. Sarah’s cousins have a nice home in the southeastern portion of the state. Despite still recovering from my wisdom teeth extraction, I played pool, ran around like a wild man with Jackson and his young cousins, ate pork steak (not pork chops mind you), told funny stories with a hydrocodone amplified brain/mouth filter, and ate at Lambert’s, home of the the “throwed rolls.”

What strikes me about Missouri is the vast difference in customer service in nearly every establishment. In every instance save for renting my car from Enterprise, the service was slow, sullen, and accompanied by either grumbling or mumbling. I’m not sure how things are in your neck of the woods, but in the DFW area, even fast food workers are efficient, friendly, and offer a smile. You may have to repeat yourself in a mixture of Spanish and English to be completely understood, but by goodness, you get in and out of a place quickly, and the friendly face sticks with you for a time.

Here’s a case in point. Driving from the the southeast corner of the state back to St. Louis, I decided to stop at Steak’n'Shake, which is a burger/shake place. A milkshake would hit the spot, I decided, especially with a still-sore mouth. I ordered my shake and went to the bathroom.

Conditions in the bathroom were roughly equivalent to a Civil War era outhouse. The odor of urine was almost overwhelming. To top it off, there was a large soap spill on the tile floor. I almost fell on my arse as I made my way to the urinal that was a credible stand-in for an abbatoir of death. I finished my business and disdained washing my hands (because I’d have to touch the sink). The manager happened to be outside the bathroom, stacking booster seats and high chairs.

Me: Hey, man. There’s a soap spill on the bathroom floor. I almost fell. It’s probably a good idea to get someone to clean that up.

Him: We just cleaned that bathroom.

Me: If by cleaning you mean that you spilled some soap on the floor, then yes, you did. You at least should put a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign in there. Someone could really get hurt.

Him: Don’t tell me how to do my job. That bathroom is spotless.

Me: That bathroom was so spotless that I didn’t wash my hands because I decided that my penis was the cleanest thing in there.

And that’s true, actually. Given the condition of the sink, I decided I’d risk a pube or two in the milkshake rather than soil my hands with the burgeoning super-bacteria undoubtedly growing on the crusty sink. I experienced the same sort of sullen resignation at the Comfort Inn and Suites (I know, that’s what I get for staying there), the Wolfgang Puck Express, and a McDonald’s. 

God bless Texas.

Here’s the re-boot of our weekly caption contest. This week features a harrowing scene of escape. Post away. The winner will be announced in the next contest. While there are no prizes, I’ll certainly respect you more if you can come up with dialog.

Finally, after a month hiatus, we’re having a legitimate site re-launch.

I’m launching in a magazine-style format in an effort to reflect the kind of content I’d like to present over the next few months. I’ll be focusing more on the business of writing, as well as offering my (unsolicited) opinions on all forms of media. As always, I’ll welcome comments and questions.

In order to familiarize you with the user interface, I should point out a couple of items. Hyperlinks are not readily apparent with the CSS that I’m using, so mouse over anything that looks like it might take you somewhere else. Odds are, it will. That includes my normally snarky links that I bury in posts. Consider them “Easter Eggs.” Additionally, to comment on any article, click the small number next to square with lines in it (a tiny icon that looks like page) to the right of the title. This number in parentheses indicates the number of posts on a given thread. If you’re reading the full version of the article, you can comment as usual at the bottom.

The pages are arranged on the top, in the header section. Here you’ll find easy access to my completed works (sort of like a curriculum vitae), the podcasts we’ve done on the site, and a consolidated book list of most of the books I’ve read over the past three years. The post categories are arranged immediately below my name and the blog tagline. If you’re looking for an article that fits one of my categories, those links will sort the posts by topic. I’ve tested the code in Google Chrome, Safari, and IE 7.0. If anyone has Firefox/Mozilla and has issues with it, please let me know.

One last thing, and probably the most onerous of the bunch–when I restored the backup of my WordPress database, the user information did NOT come with it. If you’ve created an account before, you’ll need to re-create account. Please do so at your earliest convenience.

Enjoy the site re-launch, and stay tuned for some bulky content, including reviews of all the books I’ve been reading in my hiatus.

UPDATE: It looks as though the images for the archived caption contests are gone. Since they were gathered from hither and yon on the web, I don’t see them being replaced any time soon. Also, if you’re having issues with the RSS feed, I am told by the Web Mistress (Kate) that this is now working. If it is NOT, then please let me know.

Enjoy this young harpist playing the Star Wars Cantina song. I wonder if he really likes it, or if his parents made him do it?

What is particularly amazing is how much concentration the lad has while he’s playing.