Entries by Mike Miller

I just updated the sidebar with a semi-official title for one of the stories. The Curse of the 5 Pennies.

Whether I finish it in time or not, I'm writing it in response to the E-book Challenge of at Paperback Writer's blog.

I'm hoping to finish it on time. The story is a campy horror story with lots of action and a fair amount of violence. There are only 6 characters and 1 monster so there can't be that much violence, eh?

And it takes place between a dirty, run down gas station and a creepy, old, abandoned bridge with evil looking drawings on it. On Halloween, of course.

And there's a monster that just can't possible exist...right?

The stories in the challenge don't need to be creepy or have anything to do with Halloween, but with an October 31st deadline, how can I resist.

No matter when I finish, and it better be before October 31st, I will publish the story over here in PDF format. I'm working on getting in touch with an artist friend to make a cover that will make downloading the story worth while on its own. He's good and can do creepy with the best of them.

So far, I have finished doing an extremely quick and dirty run through of the plot. It has sentences for everything that needs to happen from start to finish. Now, I need to go back and fill in all the details, dialogue, and killings. Oops, did I say that out loud.

Are you planning on entering the challenge? If so, how is your story coming.

There is just no escaping it sometime. Every once in a while you have to go grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Despite the dozens of check out lines, only three of them will be open. You will have two gallons of milk and two kids that do not want to be in line any more.

And somebody in your line will be using coupons that they forgot to dig out of their purse before the last second, writing a check they did not prefill out, and need 10 price checks.

People like to make fun of the military and how poorly they manage everything, but line problems do not exist at the commissary (grocery store on the military base for all of you career civilians).

What did the commissary figure out that the rest of the world still can't get?

You only need one line.

They forced everybody into a single file, waiting for the roller coaster type of line. You wove back and forth as the line steadily advanced. When you popped up to the front, you were directed to the next empty register. Any register that was taking a long time, did not impact any individuals waiting for that register. Amazing. Simple. Efficient.

And apparently something that only the military can coordinate. It's almost enough to make me want to sign back up.

Do you have a character stuck in the woods? Does she need to find her way out or further in? It sure would be nice to know which way was north, right? Tired of having your characters look for moss on trees?

Go read article of 13 ways to find north if you're lost int he woods.

Make sure you do your research before using them to make sure the methods listed are acurate. If you ever get lost in the woods and get more lost using these techniques, don't come looking for me.

What the hell. Come looking. You won't find me. Your already lost in the woods.

I'm writing again. Buy me a cookie.

I'm going to try to write a minimum of 50 words for each of 3 stories that I am working on. I'm not planning on having many 2000 word days and don't really care at this point. I figure if I make myself write 50 words every day, I will normally write a little more. For example, today I wrote 75, 193, and 78 for the stories.

50 words can't possibly scare anybody. I can cough fifty words. Typing them takes about 2-3 minutes. Our new hamster could pound out 50 words a day. My big fear with this new experiment is finding out that the hamster writes better than me.

A couple friends recently have been politely pestering me to write something. So, I figured if I can put a little progress bar like you find in the sidebar, they can see my progress and only pester me when the sidebars don't move for a few days.

Verizon has a couple dead zones on my route home. My new cell phone which is actually an old piece of crap that my sister lent me because I lost my phone makes the dead zone even bigger. There is now about a 10 mile stretch of road where there is a huge amount of traffic that I cannot use my cell phone. It was only about 2 miles with my old cell phone.

I thought cell phones in the heavy population areas had finally gotten to the point where phones worked everywhere. At least, that's what I learned from the commercials.

Verizon, can you hear me now? No? Wait until I drive out of this giant dead zone and try again.

I was watching Celebrity Fit Club last night while trying not to fall asleep on the couch. That show is pretty damn inspiriing.

Watching a bunch of former models, musicians, actors balloon up in the public eye is always good for the old morale. But, watching them sweating, cursing, dieting, crying and screaming to get in shape makes me want to do the same.

Now, I just need to hire a professional dietician. Well, I don't really need that. I think I could pretty easily identify the dieatary changes I should make that would make some pretty significant changes.

Then, I need to get a professional trainer. Well, not really. I grew up very active. I like to workout and I have a decent idea how to plan workouts and the motivation to actually carry them out once I get started.

They also use a crazy psychotherapist that analyzes why people have the bad habits that they have and makes everybody cry. I know a lot of my bad eating/drinking triggers and I'm pretty good at dealing with them when I'm not just being lazy.

The show is so inspiring that I always feel like getting started immediately...the next day...when I'm not resting on the couch.

I found this website with some really funny comics yesterday. They remind me of thoughts I have every once in a while...but these are funnier.

This one cracks me up.
This one is just oh so true.


The main site is xkcd.com.

I read every single one. If you do to and you find the one with the sudo reference, could you let me know the link. I like that one too but can't find it now.

Update: Here's the one with the sudo reference. If you don't know Linux, you probably won't think it is funny. Special thanks to 37Signals for randomly deciding to link to that comic recently.

I was riding back from the Iowa - Iowa State football football game on Saturday. We stopped at a gas station in Rochelle, IL for potty and snacks. I walked into the tiny, slightly dirty bathroom and noticed about 4 flies buzzing around which just made the whole room seem a little creepier than it should have been.

There were 4 pennies sitting on the back of the toilet bowl and 1 on the ground next to the toilet. 5 lonely pennies in a dirty bathroom in a medium sized town in the middle of nowhere.

As the flies buzzed around and I made room for another Pepsi, I realized what those 5 pennies were doing in the bathroom. Scary, scary stuff. I was smart enough to leave the pennies where they were.

One of the characters in a soon to be written by me story will not be so smart. He and his friends are sure going to regret that decision.

I had kind of give up on writing a book/story for a while. I've been working on my daddy blog and it is taking care of all of my writing desires recently.

Yesterday, I had a flash of an moment in my past out of nowhere. When I was in tech school in Monterey, CA back in '96, I spent Thanksgiving alone. Almost everybody else went home for the holiday. I went down to a bar and met this older civilian couple. They were in their 50s. I was 21.

We hit it off instantly and were talking and laughing all night while listening to a cool reggae band.

They found out that I would be spending the next day, Thanksgiving alone on base eating some lame food in the food hall. That was unacceptable. They invited me over for Thanksgiving with them.

But, there were some problems. They couldn't drop me off at base because I had no real way of contacting them the next day. This is pre cell phones everywhere. So they let me spend the night. Then drove me home so I could shower and change the next morning. Then drove me back to their house to eat all day with them.

Amazing story right there.

But, it was a little more bizarre. They had a daughter that was 19. We flirted for a few days afterward, but she ended up being a bit of a junkie so I bailed. My friend ended up dating her friend for a few weeks more. The friend had a baby which weirded my friend out a bit and they ended up calling it quits without much fanfare, too.

So, I was remembering that night in the bar and the day eating at their house and meeting their daughter and the whole thing and thought, "Hey dummy. There's a story there."

And my wife might be interested. There won't be any dragons.

If I ever get around to writing it that is.

By the way, if that couple happens to be reading this, thanks. That was one of the most memorable nicest things a stranger ever did for me.

Random House has settled a lawsuit concerning James Frey's "autobiography" "A Million Little Pieces."

No matter what you paid, you can recover the retail price of the book as long as you bought it on or before Jan 26th, 2006, the day they acknowledged that the book was probably more fiction the "memoir."

To collect, you need to either have the receipt (which we all keep for 9 months after we buy the book) or page 163 from the Hardcover or the front cover of the paperback. You "will also need to sign a sworn statement that they bought the book because they believed it was a memoir."

I wonder how many page 163s of the hardcovers and front covers of the paperbacks will go missing on any copies in bookstores or libraries across the country.

I'm also thinking of starting a new financial get rich scheme. I'm going to buy, at discount, all of the copies of the "memoirs" that seem a little fishy. Then when the lawsuit settles, I'm going to return them for retail price.

What a bizarre end to a stupid bit of publishing history.

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