Or “My adventures outside of work, which include proofreading, some writing, and a small touch of drinking. Also: Watch_Dogs, in which I remember how I am terrible at driving and stealth, but great at blowing things up.”

Happy Sunday, people! Or sad Sunday, because I don’t know a single person who thinks, “Crap, I can’t wait for it to be Monday so I can wake up early and get to work”. If you are one such lucky person, I hold no hard feelings in the sense that I want to hit you. With a car covered in barbed wire and stabbing implements.

Maybe that was a little excessive.

More important than excessive, hypothetical violence, however: Happy June! May was, as far as I’m concerned, a rather impressive piece of crap. There’s been plenty of good to it, too, so there’s that, but this isn’t My Misadventures in Personal Existential Angst. I’ll try to not hear the impressive whoosh generated by the collective sighs of relief at that.

This sort of post is something The Bloggess does on a weekly basis, and since I am nowhere near on the same level as her I don’t feel particularly bad about borrowing the idea (not to say it’s exclusively her idea, but she is absolutely brilliant and so I’d be willing to credit her with inventing the concept of blogging; there was more of a point here, and it got lost because The Bachelorette is on TV and it hurts my soul and concentration).

In Writing:

My first two posts have been drafted, and sent off to The Useless Critic’s Britt Kemp for proofreading. I’d prefer to not go into too much detail, as I’ll instead shamelessly plug that stuff once it’s posted. Until then, check out The Useless Critic. It’s run by folks I know, or know of, from my five-year tenure at Edinboro University, and they are damn good writers. As I said before, I’m really excited to contribute to such a solid pop culture site (even if my snark is not quite on the same level as that of the other writers).

I’ve had more short story ideas, but I’ve also been something of a vegetable when I’m not working. I’ve got to work on that. I am, however, making use of saving documents to my SkyDrive so they can be edited on either my laptop or my Surface 2 (which has quickly become my favorite shiny new piece of technology, a statement made all the more awkward by me typing this on my laptop).

In Reading:

The movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars is practically in theaters as I write this, and I had some pretty strong biases against it (which I have since written about; sorry, no more details there). However, I haven’t really given any books their due attention in longer than I can get my brain to remember, so I figured I’d give it a chance. Things I can say without spoiling my other writing: it exceeded my expectations by a great deal, and I will certainly be seeing the movie. I need to pick up The Queen of Dark Things, but I’m a little iffy after some of the reviews I’ve read. Dreams and Shadows was brilliant with its seamless interweaving of established mythical creatures with its own storytelling. I also now have a backlog of John Green books I’m now willing to give a chance (I may have thought his work the contrived works of a smug jackass. I never claimed to be infallible, folks, so I’ve got to concede I was wrong on those judgment calls).

In Booze:

It’s no secret I will occasionally indulge in a drink or two, but it’s less often than not as evidenced by the impressive collection of mostly-full bottles on top of my fridge. Those bits aside, I have a certain soft spot in my heart (or maybe my liver) for whiskeys and bourbons, with a developing affinity for scotch. I treated myself to a glass of Tullamore D.E.W. Twelve Year Old Special Reserve with a couple drops of water, over the whiskey stones my sister so kindly got me a couple Christmases ago. Very smooth stuff, though I do not claim to be quite the whiskey guru to the point I can really detect all of the different notes the packaging claims to be present (it’s exceptionally good all the same). I also, after mixing it with Angry Orchard and Johnny Appleseed a couple times, had some Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire on its own. Just the right amount of cinnamony burn with that familiar Jack Daniel’s finish; it’s like drinking an Atomic Fireball, and I think that may be what has earned it a permanent spot in my…well, my booze-fridge. There was no classy way of putting that, and I’m completely unapologetic on the subject anyway.

In Other Miscellany: 

Planning on being more active on Twitter and Tumblr (yes, Tumblr as well as Twitter). My Twitter, lurking over at @DreadPenguin, consists largely of my social commentaries, drinking antics, television live-tweeting, and general jackassery, but it’s a pretty good glimpse of what kind of person I am (which would be best described as despicable). My Tumblr is all over the place, and I’m not really sure how to describe that.

Oh, and I plan on trying to be more active. I mean getting back to taking walks, trying to be a little more healthy in my food choices, and so on. This, in itself, is a comedy of sorts, but it’s worth noting. I’m also working on bettering myself in terms of my own mental health, but we’re quickly creeping back to Misadventures in Personal Existential Angst territories.

Closing thoughts, because I’ve run out of witty things to say: I had brussel sprouts with dinner tonight, because something in my memory said they weren’t all that bad. What my memory really meant was they weren’t all that bad if they’re drowned in butter and Sriracha sauce.

Here’s to a solid start to a new month, because otherwise I might just have to find a way to usher in the End of Days (I bet I could if I tried really hard).