Five TV Shows I Am Really Enjoying

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I’ve caught a few new shows of late that I’m really enjoying. I thought I’d mention them. You know, since The Game of Thrones can bite my ass. Yes, I’m still all cranky about that. There are spoilers ahead, but I designed my writeups not to reveal more than you might learn in the opening minutes of each show. Orphan Black This is a new show from the BBC; it airs on BBC America here in the States. The show stars Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, a young ne’er do well trying to sell a big brick of stolen cocaine so Continue Reading →

Something Goes Wrong

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Something Goes Wrong

In writing, sometimes you just have to get back to basics. I’ve been banging my head against the wall for some time. It turns out that the answer to my problem was pretty simple. In fact, I posted it to my Instagram feed: Courtesy of My New Dry Erase Board Something Goes Wrong! Of course! That’s just what I needed. It seems so obvious now, but the truth is it took my friend and fellow writer Dmitri Del Castillo to help ferret it out. He’s great at that sort of thing.

Dave Hamilton & Schrödinger’s Amp

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Macworld/iWorld 2013 took place last week. In case you’re unfamiliar, this is an annual trade show and conference for users of Apple’s Mac and iOS products. It’s a ton of fun, and one of the highlight of the week is the party thrown by The Mac Observer and Back Beat Media called Cirque du Mac. This year marked the 10th Cirque du Mac event, earning it the moniker Cirque du Mac X. See what we did there? Anyway, I really look forward to it. Not only is it the biggest party of the week, it’s not a schmooze event like Continue Reading →

Scatter Shot: 12-12-12, Dobby, Two Rogers, & Instagram

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Dobby

Hey folks, it’s time for another scatter shot post. First up: The Stones OK, how did I miss this? When did Dobby sign with The Stones? To refresh your memory, here he is in one of the Potter films: And here is is playing guitar with Mick Jagger in the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief. It’s great to see that even a house elf can get a leg up in the world.

I Wrote the Book I Want to Read – What about a Book that Will Sell?

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Turtle Reading

I’ve been working on my first novel, a SciFi book about a PI who gets dragged into something much bigger than he thought. All he wants is to drink his strained-algae coffee, but it turns out he’s going to have to save the world. It’s called The Mason Truman Project, and I’ve blogged about it several times. I finished the book early last spring, and I’ve been working on refining it off an on since , while I also worked on the second book in the series. I started shopping it out in June, resulting in another raft of fine Continue Reading →

Work In Progress Blog Hop: The Next Big Thing!

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W.I.P. Blog Hop!

So there’s this thing called a blog hop, sort of an informal ring of unrelated sites posting on a related theme. In this case, the blog hop is for writers and the theme is our work-in-progress, meaning the book we’re writing. I found out about it from Diane Carlisle. As I understand it, the rules are simple: • Answer the ten questions (see below) about your current W.I.P. (Work In Progress) on your blog. • Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

What’s Up with All the Cheating on U.S. Top Gear?

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Cheating, Next Exit

Have you watched Top Gear? There’s two versions—the original is a BBC show featuring three brits as hosts, but the History Channel (of all networks) is broadcasting a U.S. version based on the original with three American hosts. I really enjoy both shows, but there’s something bugging me about the U.S. one, namely: what’s with all the cheating? In case you’re not familiar with the franchise(s), Top Gear is a show about cars. Three men do mostly manly things with, to, and in cars. They race them, they destroy them, and they test them. They praise the good and lament Continue Reading →

Life Is…Getting Older

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Life Is...Getting Older

I got a notification from GoodReads the other day. It was an update letting me know that one of the authors I had tagged—George R.R. Martin in this case—had new blog posts I might like. Here, let me show you what I saw: Talk about accidental poignancy! Two unrelated blog posts listed in reverse order, and they say, “Life Is…Getting Older.” Boy, truer words were ne’er spake. Then last night, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. During that chat, she asked me if I thought it was true that we undergo major transformations every ten years, Continue Reading →

Civility & Discourse

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An actual email I received

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. The biggest thing has been the rollout of a new site design and engine at The Mac Observer. Dave Hamilton, Adam Christianson, and Eddie Machado of outside design firm Themble did an amazing job of bringing The Mac Observer into the present. We also brought back the TMO Spin, a vehicle for our news guys to add perspective, context, and opinion to our news coverage separate from writing up the straight new itself. In that the thing that most interests me in my day job is the analysis side Continue Reading →

Scatter Shot: Quadrophenia, Stormdancer, GoodReads

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I haven’t made a post in a few days, mainly because I didn’t have a lot to specifically say. As I was trying to think of what to write about, I realized I should rip off John Martellaro, my friend and colleague at The Mac Observer. He does something called Particle Debris, a weekly column where he throws in whatever he came across throughout the week that didn’t warrant a standalone article. I think I’ll call mine…Scatter Shot. That’ll do for now, at least. I can’t promise to do it weekly, but periodically seems doable. Quadrophenia on Blu-ray by Criterion Continue Reading →