So, Read Any Good Books Lately?

All apologies for my extended absence from these marvelous interwebs. I hadn't really thought of updating, to be honest, and for that, I'm ashamed. Woefully shamed. If I had a hat, it'd be in my hand, crumpled, nervously being mashed in between my hands as I sought your forgiveness.

When three separate people asked me if I was going to update, well, I figured I should probably get off my lazy ass (or, better, to plunk it down in front of the computer) and start typing. Since I happen to be sleeping with one of those three and the second of those three yearns for my stimulating discourse to get him through the late nights while dealing with his new baby (feel free to leave congratulatory notes in the comments section...address them to Joe. He'll be crushed if you don't congratulate him...even if you're that pervert who keeps coming here after googling "belly button torture sex", leave him a note), I felt it was imperative that I put some of my thoughts on the screen for your reading pleasures.

With that in mind, I struggled with the subject material. I can't just puke words onto the screen and expect people to come back. Even that guy who keeps coming here after googling "belly button torture sex". There was so much to talk about, and yet very little of it is at all interesting. I could talk about how I've been raised to commander of Omega Squad on travian. I could talk about how my daughter likes Dirty Jobs just a little too much. I could talk about how my little boy wants to grow up and play basketball. I could bitch about the idiots on the talk radio some more. I could talk about Michael Vick, Phil Rizzuto, Karl Rove or how much I suck at large-scale purification (synthetically, however, I'm cranking out over 90% yields, but the Companion machine is pwning my ass when it comes time to clean up my molecules).

Instead, I thought I'd bust out a lame pick-up line, because that's the kind of guy I am. After all, I am trying to publish a book or three, and this blog was born of my love of writing and has since spiraled down into one never-ending dick joke.

Anyway...I've been rereading my latest opus. I'm a few chapters in, and I've realized that proofreading sucks. I know how the story ends, I come across a character and I'm like "he's dead, she's a bitch, this guy is a total polesmoker, too bad he has to die..." My hardest part is that I want to skim over words and such as if I'm reading a paper about Buchwald couplings or something, and I keep having to read and reread parts of the book because I skim over them and then I'm paranoid I missing something glaringly obvious, like a mispelling or some grammatical error And that's just not good eats.

I've also been finishing up a few other reads for leisure. Like, I just finished Tad Williams' "Shadowplay" and I'm almost done with Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", which isn't nearly as funny as some of his other books, mostly because he's writing for a British audience without the British wit. Speaking of British wit, I watched Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Wererabbit last night. Effing brilliant. We've had it since Christmas, but I just now talked the kids into watching it with me. "It's got bunnies in it!" was the clincher there (feel free to use that without royalties owed in case you want/need to talk your kids into watching it).

To be honest, this whole sudden interest in reading was sparked by my friend (she's not ex-that yet) over at Ex-Everything with the list of things she's read in 2007. It's impressive, and I admire someone who still loves to read that much (duh...), and so I pondered all this earlier in the evening whilst sitting on the best pondering place in my house: the crapper (while reading that Bill Bryson book). I decided (after deciding once again that, with two young children, there is no such thing as privacy) that I've had a varied diet of books that I've read this year. It's not an extensive list, but it is a break from my normal diet of steady fantasy (which I broke up late last year, deciding that I was fantasy-ing myself out between video games, books, writing...not to mention Betsy Hagar).

As for my own book, the Boar War. I should be done with it this weekend. So far, I haven't had to redo much. I realize a couple of things I'll have to smooth out through the course of the story, but that's to be expected. Plus, I need to work on killing people for effect, not just for the sake of killing them. It's a little more difficult in a single-shot stand-alone book, but it can be done.

I promise that I won't take three weeks or whatever to update again. I have some ideas for stuff I need to get done ere September 1st rolls around.

Also, if you want some good, mindless, pretty violence, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness gets the Matt Jenks stamp of approval. I went into sensory deprivation after wrapping up The Boar War and played that for about four or five hours. It was fantastic.