Monday Mayhem

There is a small, albeit moderately insane, portion of my mind that is convinced today was a test, for me from the Universe, to see just how many times I could string together expletives in the course of one sentence. If we take into consideration that I am a man whose verbosity and capacity for complex sentences is, at its best times, unrivaled, I would dare estimate that the total curse words I managed to cram into one sentence would max out around sixty. If I were actually keeping track of that sort of thing, anyway.

I’ve ranted plenty on Twitter already. I vented to my girlfriend. I even considered researching possible ways to bring about Armageddon (which, to the relief of many, is beyond my capabilities at present). Out of some weird, misplaced mercy, I will spare the additional ranting for other outlets. Let me just leave this portion of the post off with this open-ended question: why is it the universe is most prone to go to shit on Mondays? Ignoring the business of it being after a weekend, because some of us work on weekends.

My brain is a touch soft today. Whether it’s because I burned myself out writing three short stories and a blog post last night, or how the forces of stupid really stepped up their game today, I don’t know. I do know I don’t like this lack of motivation very much, as it puts a real damper on my ability to focus on anything at all (there’s a shock).

However, as a sudden plot-twist to this post, and thanks to some Twitter-chatter with @MortuaryReport, this story happened. I realize this is a rather abrupt transition into a short story that could have never happened, but that’s sort of how I do things on days like today. This is how I managed to be creative and destructive, all at once. It, like any story that happens out of nowhere, may have gotten a bit (and by a bit I mean extremely) ridiculous. I’m not sorry.

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This Week in Misadventures

Or “The post that almost didn’t happen because I have to be up for work at 5:30 tomorrow morning” with a dash of “Oh god, why am I still awake? Because I’d lose sleep if I tried skipping this post”.

It’s well past the 4th of July, which means everyone should be fully recovered from their red, white, and blue hangovers. Pet eagles should have been returned to the wild by now, free to soar high above the freedom and liberty of America until next year, when they return to their rightful owners to drink beer and cook burgers made from the crushed hopes of terrorists. I have no idea where all of that came from, but I’m not even kind of sorry.

This past week had ups and downs galore, but when everything is said and done it was awesome in terms of progress. That’s why I’m glad to make this edition of This Week in Misadventures happen. Continue reading

The War on the Moon and its Constellation Army

The following is a short story I wrote, inspired by The Bloggess’ 4th of July tweets. It turned out okay, but I don’t think it quite turned out how I expected. Admittedly, this story took on a bit of a life of its own, and things got a little ridiculous.

I have three and a half short stories to go before I’ve met my somewhat unrealistic goals for the day, and there will be the standard This Week in Misadventures later. For now, I hope this proves enjoyable.

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Old stories, new stories, and Saturday miscellany

Or “I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m accomplishing outside of work this weekend is licking windows, and I’m not entirely thrilled with that”.

Holiday weekends always leave me a bit catawampus. Friday seemed liked Saturday, and today seemed like Sunday, so I’ll probably wake up early tomorrow, very afraid I’ve missed the weekly conference call at work. I’m probably kidding.

Today was filled with unexpected episodes of nostalgia, which is the worst kind of nostalgia. It inflicted memories on me that I was happy to revisit, and some I could’ve done without spending time focusing on. Enough about that, though.

This isn’t a post about today’s weirdness so much as it is a post about tomorrow’s hopeful productivity. That’s the exciting stuff, I hope. The plan is to get up relatively early, which is easy enough since I’m no longer able to sleep past 8a.m. anyway, and get as much writing done as possible. I can’t think up a sufficiently clever name for it, so Sunday Marathon Writing Bonanza-Thing. It’ll be a little of the old, a little of the new, and enough writing to make my fingers bleed. Two stories that helped inspire my post on my story mortality rate. A story inspired by The Bloggess’ Fourth of July tweets. A story idea that happened at work or while I was celebrating yesterday or at some point other than those. I’m a master of Fuzzy Thinking today, with some particularly impressive Mush-Brain attributes. Maybe a new Warpt Factor, unless all of my fingers have fallen off by that point.

I’m beta-testing the pilot episode for Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting before, you know, recording an actual first episode. Not before figuring out how to convert and upload the pilot, of course. So that should be its own misadventure in dumbassery.

There’s also some exciting news for This Week in Misadventures. I guess I could just say how the news is about [redacted] and [withheld], but not without forgetting [spoilers].

I’m so goddamn funny.

That’s all for tomorrow. Tonight’s for recovering, Adventure Time, and remembering what day it is, because I still keep thinking it’s Sunday. In about an hour, that’ll be right…so hooray for small victories. I hope you all, dear readers, enjoyed a pleasant Fourth of July with your bald eagles, burgers wrapped in steak, and your assault rifles that launch fireworks, and avoided the standard Fifth of July Hangover. See you lovely folks tomorrow for the standard weekly recap.

 

Introducing the impending

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given my tendency to leap into trying new things with all of the preparation and thoughtfulness of a man on fire who happened to spot a nearby lake. I’m very excited to announce I’m actually going to take a crack at starting my own podcast.

By that I mean I’ve recorded the pilot episode of Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting, and now it needs attention in the form of editing. Once that happens, I need to either create (oh god, no) or obtain cover art, figure out how to actually disperse it for the enjoyment or suffering of others…and that should do it.

If you enjoy the snark I produce here, in written words, then I think it’s a safe bet to say you’ll also enjoy my upcoming podcast. Hopefully, once I get the ball rolling on it I’ll be able to bribe, coerce, or blackmail people into being guests, and I assume my editing skills will only improve with time.

Most importantly, what manner of shenanigans would you folks want from such a podcast?

Misadventures in accidentally creating my own brand

Or “If it walks like a self-congratulatory gesture, and talks like a self-congratulatory gesture, it might be one of my blog posts”.

Before I even delve into this post, I need to address the fact that this post started while I was watching So You Think You Can Dance. Needless to say, that time is well past and I have no idea how I got so easily distracted, but this is a very real problem with no probable solutions shy of me deleting all social media apps from my Surface. God damn it. Continue reading

Forgive them even if they’re not sorry. That’ll really piss them off.

Automattic Special Projects's avatarThe Bloggess

What I say to my small daughter when she’s nine:  Kids can be jerks but the best thing to do is to forgive them, even if they’re not sorry.

What I will say to my small daughter when she’s sixteen:   You should forgive people even if they’re not sorry because those people sound like real assholes and it will piss them off like crazy if they realize you’re forgiving them for being the dickheads that they don’t think they are.  Even better, just walk up to them and put a hand on their arm and say, “I forgive you.”  Then walk away.  And then you can feel better because you’ve fucked those assholes right in the head.  And also because forgiveness is next to Godliness.  Or cleanliness.  One of those.

Regardless, forgive them and you win.  Even better, forget them completely and then keep introducing yourself to them so they realize they’re not important…

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My ideas, and their woefully high mortality rate

At any given time, there’s probably about a dozen too many ideas rattling around in the vast weirdness of my thoughts. This can make keeping track of everything a bit difficult, though I say this as someone who also owns a good number of notebooks that are far more devoid of any writing than they should be. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m now working on the first draft of yet another novel idea, which arrives and leaves the forefront of my thoughts at its leisure. There are Warpt Factor plotlines bouncing off of one another like they’re all locked up in a particularly potent bouncy castle. Many short stories. Posts for Screen Robot. You get the idea. Continue reading