This is quite a first. I was invited earlier this evening to write a horror story on a specific theme for e-publication in an anthology by Renaissance Books. The person who IMed me to extend the invitation is herself a member of HWA and an editor. All it takes for me to become an affiliate member of the HWA is to sell a short story for $25 or more in the horror or supernatural genre. This is not a cattle call, but a personal invitation, no doubt as a result of my third place finish in her poetry contest--itself a bit of an in-joke among those of us who entered, given the topic for that one.

The beauty of it is that she's willing to be my editor to whip whatever I may write into enough shape to actually be publishable without being an embarrassment. A couple of names in the genre she knows have agreed to lend a story; the rest of us would be complete newbies. It's not even a contest. The deal is "Write me a story, and I'll work with you as an editor. I know you'll take editorial direction." Of course I'll take editorial direction. I have no idea what I'm doing!

I'm about to have a new adventure of my own--a scary one at that--if all goes well. Math nerd meets fiction?

I actually won a poetry contest conducted by Janrae Frank, an established dark fantasy author and sometime editor (editrix if you prefer). She announced the winner at her LiveJournal, so it arrived on my "friends" page when I got home from work this evening. I was completely floored. Mind you, there were three winners, and if they were announced in order, I nabbed third prize. It doesn't matter; we all receive the same prize. I know both the other winners, and both are actually writers who have sold their work.

My entry is here, under Janrae's DeadJournal's August 7 entry as a comment, per the contest instructions. Fair warning--it's x-rated, as are almost all the entries. You need to scroll way down to read it if you dare, but it's titled "I Suck on a Pole--I can" by Widdle Baby Nicky. My guess is the second version of the last line is the winner. The only real hook is that the title and a couple of the lines are anagrams of the subject's first and middle name.

I'm a little afraid the "real" authors will wonder how much I bribed Janrae. No--I'm kidding. They'll more than likely scratch their heads wondering how I sneaked in with them, then congratulate me. Everyone involved knows that I'm not a writer.

I entered the contest on a complete lark, and spent a whopping half hour tossing together that dreck. At least I had a little fun being temporarily evil. Yes, Denny . . . you now have a preview of my weekend confession to "Father Denny."

**witness Froggie trying frantically to remember even the most rudimentary rules of poetry from Junior High** Poetry? Poetry!? How do I do that?

If nothing else, it says something about the quality of the other entries, or lack thereof. Regardless, I'm thrilled to "show" in this horse race. The last time I won anything that wasn't a drawing was probably back in my days of horse shows (1970s).

Don't worry. I won't let this inflate my ego, and I won't give up my day job doing math. That having been said . . . whee!

Dinner was lasagna. We haven't made lasagna in a long time, but it was another rainy, gloomy day that felt nothing like summer.

On the upside, the road contruction crew finished the bridge reconstruction after just shy of a year. It was supposed to take nine months. That means I no longer have to take a long and circuitous detour to get the train station on weekdays. The entire span can't possibly be more than 100 ' over a river, but connects two counties, so there were a lot of politics involved. The Union county side has a brass plaque with the names of the Union county freeholders. My side had the one with the Morris county freeholders' names.

At least it's done. The old bridge was stone with a stainless steel eggcrate style thing that let the rain snd snow fall right through to the water. The new one's still stone on each end, but the road surface is concrete, and it actually has a pedestrian sidewalk. My only fear is that cars are going to go barelling over at at 35 mph, because it was widened by quite a bit. Two cars used to be able to pass slowly, but a car and a van could not.

Some people used to refuse to go over the bridge if any other vehicle was traveling in the opposite direction. That was usually unecessary, but it did create a bottleneck that kept accidents to a minimum.

I once saw a car pull so far over to the side of the road approaching the bridge when there was an oncoming car, that when she felt it was safe for her to go, she sideswiped the stonemasonry and ripped off her side mirror. I was stopped, waiting behind her, a good car length back. It was a single car accident, so she knew there was no point in holding up morning rush hour traffic. She got across the bridge, pulled off the side of the road and got out to inspect the damage.

The best she could do about it was call her insurance agent, anyway, if the dollar damage was high enough. At least the rest of the cars were able to get around her. The thing was, that in her panic after she hit the bridge, she was in such a hurry to back up and try again, that I had to honk at her before she backed into me. That would have really freaked her out, because it would have required an accident report--causing property damage to someone else's property instead of just her own. At least she slammed on the brakes before she hit me.

This article from Editor & Publisher is rich with irony. I love it. Barry Goldwater is referred to as a liberal by his granddaughter, who made a documentary on him.

NEW YORK An interview in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine with C.C. Goldwater reveals that her HBO film to be aired Sept. 18 paints her late grandfather, Sen. Barry Goldwater, "as a kind of liberal," with testimonials from Al Franken, Sen. Ted Kennedy, James Carville and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In fact, Hillary campaigned for Goldwater in 1964 in his race for president against Lyndon Johnson. "Hillary was a Goldwater girl," says the filmmaker, interviewed by Deborah Solomon. "She passed out cookies and lemonade at his campaign functions."

Solomon calls Goldwater "a half-Jewish cowboy from Phoenix."

The film -- made on a budget of $800,000 -- will note that the straight-talking Sen. Goldwater, author of the classic "The Conscience of a Conservative" (soon to be reissued by Princeton University Press) favored abortion rights and allowing gays in the military, and refused to attend President Nixon's funeral because he "cheated" the country.

Now, mind you, the NYT, bastion of liberalism run amok, covered this story with a completely straight face, so to speak. Either someone there has grown a sense of humor, or this whole thing's just an urban legend. Either way, it's plain old funny.

Cruise Control

(Image swiped from http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com/)

The story about Paramount dumping Tom Cruise's production company seems to be overreported. It's so full of "he said/she said" nonsense of the "you can't fire me--I quit" ilk. Of course, since his co-producer is his publicist, she leapt to his defense and bared her teeth. The press seems split on this one. While it may be unusual for Sumner Redstone himself to alert the press, and the WSJ at that, instead of Variety, I think it was a brilliant move.

Paramount overstated the dollar amount of its last contract with Cruise's production company at least threefold ($10 million vs. $3 million), and offered Cruise a piddly $2 million renewal, which his folks refused. It can be argued that Cruise as an actor starred in movies that made Paramount tons of money. It can also be argued that MI3 came in way below expectations, and his company produced a string of flops. But the reason Redstone cited was Cruise's unacceptable off-screen behavior.

Few actors besides Cruise have been held in such high regard in Hollywood. But his last film, "Mission: Impossible III," while raking in close to $400 million worldwide, did not do as well as hoped. And, in Hollywood, you are often only as good as your last picture.

Redstone said a key reason Viacom's film studio, Paramount Pictures, did not renew its deal with the actor was his off-screen behavior.

Redstone told the Wall Street Journal: "He's a terrific actor. But we don't think someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot."

Wow. But you know, I think Cruise is a jerk. He's become a pop culture punchline over the past year. He dumped his gorgeous wife, hooked up with Katie Holmes, who was not much more than half his age, got her pregnant, made a total fool of himself on talk shows, promised to marry Katie, but only after she'd lost her post-pregnancy weight, and months later still hasn't done so. He's also kept his daughter in hiding as if she'd shatter at the sight of sunshine.

Oh, and Katie as well has pretty much been in hiding, although her overzealous Scientologist wacko fiance has insisted she be called "Kate" now, because it sounds more mature for a woman who's had a baby. In today's world, that would make a bunch of teenagers "mature" by his reckoning. Stupid is more like it. The only difference in this case is that money's not an issue for Cruise and Holmes, like it would be for a 14 year old from East Orange or Camden. I've overheard far too many conversations on NJ Transit trains in which the teenage father refers to "my baby's mother" instead of his ex-girlfriend by name. That's really sad.

On the PR front, whatever happened to simply posing with the kid as you leave the hospital with her, the way Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker did with their kid? The press snapped their photos then went away and left them alone. That's the proper way to handle it.

I wouldn't want someone on my payroll whose behavior is, frankly, erratic and bizarre. Let some other company deal with him. That's exactly what Paramount did. Maybe Cruise and his publicist really do have a deal in the works with a couple of venture capitalists. Maybe they don't.

But the fact remains that Redstone beat them to the punch, and now that his publicist has refused to refute the $10 million former contract with Paramount, it does leave them behind the eight ball, so to speak. They couldn't possibly accept a deal for less than Paramount offered them as a renewal, at $2 million, but they'd look really bad if they accepted much less than the $10 million they didn't refute was the worth of their former contract. It's been pointed out, but is worth reiterating, that Paramount's contract was not with "Cruise Control" as an actor, but as a producer.

Good riddance, Mr. Cruise. I haven't seen a movie of yours since "Risky Business," and I caught that on cable one rainy Saturday afternoon.

Film historian David Thomson said he thought Cruise was having career troubles based on his age and the loss of his boyish screen charm.

And with Cruise gone, Viacom could sign younger stars at a cheaper rate, he said.

"The crucial thing was that 'Mission: Impossible III" did significantly worse than the first two films in the series. I think Paramount judged that as a sign of Cruise's waning appeal."

Amen.

I wrote about the horrible horror fiction author having a dual with an Iron Chef months ago, and losing because he cut off part of a finger. It was a short bit of fanfic. The idiot really did cut off part of a finger of his during his one week on the job that he held at a factory before being fired. A friend of mine in the UK sent me this as a reminder. Forgive me if I have sinned by laughing hysterically about it.

You can click on the image below to get the full sized version that's much easier to read. This guy has anger issues way beyond his self-mutilation during his ill-fated factory job.

STOP! Do NOT read any further if cuss words offend you. Hit your back button right now. I mean it!

One of these days, I'm going to attempt five minutes worth of "pussified horror." Blood, gore, and a female take on the way to do it would be funny as hell. It won't be easy, but I do have a rather active imagination, and excellent spatial visualization, as long as I have my hard contact lenses plastered onto my corneas.

I thank Janrae Frank for this opportunity. She's my inspiration. She makes real money from selling her writing. I don't know jack about how to write fiction, and I've never tried to publish it. But she does encourage me, and got a few of her friends and collaborators to visit my blog at Xanga as Widdle. They comment, and are indulgent of my crappy writing. I'm no threat to their livelihood, and they all know it. They have nothing at stake by skewering me. That's my ticket.

The following item appeared in today's NY Post under the "Weird but True" column.

"A waitress in Macon, GA, poured liquid bleach into a pitcher she planned to use to clean tables. Another staffer, not realizing what was in the pitcher, added some water and ice and served it to an off-duty deputy. He took two gulps before spitting out the toxic fluid, and is now undergoing tests to assess the damage."

What I want to know is whether both the "other staffer" and the deputy had completely lost their sense of smell. I know that when I mix even a 1/4 bleach to 3/4 water solution in a bucket to kill the algae or mildew on my patio that has accumulated over the winter below the snow, the chlorine stench is unmistakable from a good 20' away.

Next time the deputy hits a greasy spoon, he might want to bring along a bloodhound.

My Canadian compadres are really starting to drive me nuts. I owed them a laundry list of items to support the validity of the mathematical model we developed for Canadian Indoor reach and frequency. Peeled off a couple of them myself, then pounced on Gary to throw together a few graphs to round off the list. Found a mistake in some of the graphs, in that they referenced not GRPs as the x-axis, but something else that made the curves for the empirical data vs. our regressions look farther off than they really are, but he fixed them, and they look as though the pink and blue dots are practically on top of each other, as I knew they should be, from our r-squared values.

If this is zooming over your head faster than a jet, let me step back and clarify that I head up the Advanced Analytics department within my company. We make a living doing math and statistical modeling. The funny thing is that conventional wisdom holds that girls are lousy at math and science. Wrong. Two-thirds of my department are women.

Our client's complaints are numerous:

• "Your regression statistics are too good to be true."
• "Why didn't you alert us to all the holes in the data we commissioned from TNS/Canadian Facts?"
• "We were fine with your use of a beta binomial frequency distribution last week, and the week before, but we now demand that you use gamma poisson instead."

Yeah, the r-squareds are phenomenal, but it's not unusual for them to be good when you have smooth data from which to run your regressions. It's not our job to spend weeks looking for every hole in the data you commissioned--that's the data supplier's job. We can list them, and it seems like a lot, but yes, there will be holes when you look at demographics such as older age breaks for the college/university campus indoor advertising network, as well as no data at all for non-students. You'll also find holes in upper income breaks for college students. These are not data anomalies--they'd be anomalies if the data existed! Well, if you insist on us implementing a gamma posson frequency distribution, it'll cost you more in terms of data analysis on our part, because this was never covered in the contract, and you've already gotten an extra 2.5 weeks worth of freebie data analysis from us that was never covered in the contract, either.

People--get a grip. We're good at what we do. If there were data that made no sense, that would be a problem, but where it doesn't exist makes perfectly good sense to us.

This article really hit home. Sadly, it's true. For the last ten years I've supposedly had either 15 or 20 vacation days, depending upon my employer and number of years on the payroll. I've yet been able to actually take more than half of them. This is what happens when you report to the CEO, who has both your land lines and cell phone number, and thinks it's perfectly normal to call you at 10 pm on a Saturday. Every year, I head into Christmas and New Year with over a week's unused vacation, on the "use it or lose it" plan. I lose it. Why? Because I'm conscientious.

Once upon a time we Americans actually got to use our vacation days. No more. And Europeans now wonder why we're nuts? We never got the month of August off, but we did used to be able to depend upon national holidays for a day off. Now I find myself having to come up with an excuse for not reading and replying to my office email on a Sunday. "Gee, George, I must have been outside tending my garden, or taking a nap on the patio. Hang on while I fire up the box and log in."

I love corn chowder. The version to the left has shrimp in it. Shrimp makes it whole different bowl of soup, so to speak. And I really dislike dill, so I do not garnish it with dill. I made corn chowder this morning--no dill, and no shrimp. It's thick, and delicious. Perhaps it's not the breakfast of champions, but I'll take it over flapjacks any weekend. Only a cheese and 'shroom omelette comes close on my gustatorial roster of breakfast items.

The other thing I made was zucchini bread. It's not that different from banana bread, but I didn't have bananas, so . . .

You don't have to toast it, nor butter it, but if you do, be prepared for a taste bud meltdown. And a dose of cholesterol that most of us only get from bacon, or a cheesecake.

That reminds me--I make excellent cheesecake. Add to grocery list: one box of plain graham crackers, and three bricks of Philly cream cheese. The key to the filling is whipping it, and slightly underbaking it. The key to not getting fat eating this stuff is to just eat a bite or two, then shove it back in the fridge. Moderation rules. For perspective, I think 115 is my upper limit, at 5'5".

Now listening: Gordon, by Barenaked Ladies. Best thing to come out of Canada since hockey!

I swiped this from another NJ gal, The Unseen Undine. Her kids found it. It's hilarious, although a bit tedious to work your way through on the web version. Go make some friends . . . or not.

This little gem helped me blow off work yesterday afternoon, and still get things done that I wasn't capable of doing on my own. My number 2 was online just after 5 pm yesterday. He's online now, for that matter, but I don't bug him unless it's really close to work hours, or there's an emergency.

I used Trillian yesterday to catch him online on AIM and ask him to run out a list of the "holes" in the empirical data from TNS that we used to do the Canadian indoor advertising project. Far from being ticked off at me, he ran out the stuff I requested from his own home while I was on AIM with him. It only took him a few minutes. He dropped the output on the network and emailed it to me. I owe the kid (aka AAG #2) lunch at a decent place at my expense--maybe Union Square Cafe.

He thought it was hilarious that the Canucks all thought he was sitting next to me during our 3 pm conference call. I never said he was with me. In fact, he wasn't on the call at all. Canada #1 just assumed I was in the office, and AAG #2 was with me, and said so. Who was I to argue that point?

The gist is that all the work got done. I did what I needed to, and AAG #2 chipped in slightly after hours with his bit. This Canadian client is really pissy, but I think we now have her under control.

Technology is phenomenal!

Now I just need a haircut. Even in a ponytail, it's down below my waist.

I decided to take my first "Summer Friday" today. Every other Friday from the one right before Memorial Weekend to Labor Day, we get to take a half day. I haven't been able to take one all summer, so I just blew off the afternoon today (sort of--I'll get to that later), and left at noon. Managed to make it home by 2 pm, which is pretty good considering the off-peak train schedule that runs only a couple of locals per hour.

Had the scheduled phone call with my CEO at 10:30 this morning; he called me in the office. This morning, Canada #2 called me to schedule a conference call this afternoon at 3 pm between me, her, her boss (Canada #1), and our CEO. In fact, my call this morning with my own boss, our CEO, was all about the subject of this afternoon's call. CEO-man had heard all about this Canadian client crisis from Canada numbers 1 and 2, but wanted my perspective on the issues. This project has taken on a serious case of "scope creep" and the sales folks are panicking about it. I filled in CEO-man about a lot of the backstory of which he was completely unaware.

Anyway, I have approximately five minutes before I have to call into the toll-free number that Canada #2 thoughtfully provided. The fact that I have speakerphone at home on my land lines and full office connectivity straight to my office computer's hard drive from home makes blowing off this afternoon, but not completely blowing it off, quite easy to do. Nobody else on the conference call need know I'm not physically in the office, because none of them are in the NY office, either. We're calling in from NJ, Toronto, Chicago, and Des Plaines. If there's a dead giveaway that I'm not in the office, it'll be the sound of a prop plane coming in for a landing at Morristown Regional Airport, but that doesn't happen very often.

Some lunatic judge overstepped her jurisdiction and banned the sale of perfectly legal products, citing racketeering as the reason. This completely defies logic. The RICO laws were designed to nab mobsters. This is like saying it's okay to sell hard liquor but not beer or wine. I predict this one's going to end up in court for years to come on appeals.

"Ad groups had no immediate comment on the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler, except to say it was "significant." But sweeping advertising sanctions could set a precedent for other industries, including food and alcohol, leaving little doubt that the ad industry will move to involve itself in the appeal, probably through friend-of-the-court briefs."

Until congress enacts a law declaring tobacco products illegal to sell, this ruling will never float. But congress won't do that, because tobacco taxes are a huge source of revenue. The only way to make up for that lost revenue would be to legalize pot, meth, crack, heroin, etc., then regulate and tax them to death. Perhaps dear ol' Gladys would prefer that. Oh, right. That would also require new legislation by congress.

This is so wrong. I've been driving Saabs since the 1980s. Back then, there were 900s and 9000s. Their successors beginning in the late '90s were the 9-3 and the 9-5. I always loved the practicality of a hatchback in a two-door sport coupe, so I went from a 900 that I traded in at age 10 to a 9-3, which by now is eight years old, and in perfect shape with low mileage. It hasn't even needed any exhaust sytem work to date, but a couple of minor things have needed repair/replacement.

I have no intention of getting rid of my beloved 9-3 coupe until the repair bills start to exceed the worth of the car. There is no hatchback model with which I could replace it! The options for versatility in cargo space are now limited to either a station wagon version, or this butt-ugly new 9-7x SUV. This is so sad. Saab finally caved to the SUV craze. No doubt it's a business decision to reap the sales, but Saab's behind the curve on that score. SUV sales aren't what they used to be. The only thing about this 9-7x that even looks remotely like a Saab is the front grille. Saabs used to be so unique in terms of styling.

The expanding market in my area is pickup trucks. I'd buy and drive a pickup before I'd be seen driving an SUV. More than likely, I'd investigate Audis if I had to look beyond Saab. I learned to drive on an Audi, so they're familiar, and they drive like a dream, but aren't "your daddy's Lexus."

Don't even get me started on the dinky new entry level 9-2 model. It's sacrilege!

I believe this is what happens a few years after GM buys a controlling interest in a foreign car company.

Aside from this obviously ridiculous pose in front of a fiberglass Superman statue, Barack Obama made a town hall speech that covered global warming and fuel conservation, then drove off in a honking huge GMC Envoy. Were this not bad enough, his lackeys made up a completely false line about it running on an ethanol blend.

"Tommy Vietor, Senator Obama's press secretary, explains: "What Senator Obama has long advocated is the use of vehicles that are more fuel efficient, including but not exclusively hybrids.

"The vehicle senator obama travels in while in illinois is a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV), which can run on e85, a blended fuel made of 85 percent ethanol."

The only problem with that explanation is that the Envoy isn't listed on the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition's list of vehicles that can run on an ethanol blend. This leads me to another point not mentioned by advocates of running ethanol blends: e85 simply will not get you as high gas mileage as regular 87 octane gasoline. Ethanol blends are really just a subsidy to corn farmers, and are not widely available outside the Midwest.

O Canada!

O Canada!
You suck the life from me!
True patriot love when you I can command.

With glowing heart I see thee limp,
The True North weak and lame!

From far and wide,
O Canada, I stand on guard for thee.

God let me boost your reputation!
O Canada, I stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, I stand on guard for thee.


All this really means is that I had a particularly trying day on and off the phone many times with our Sales & Support Manager in Toronto, then later an hour and a half conference call with her, and three of our Canadian clients who are all involved in a huge project we're finishing for them that must be presented to their trade association's research committee this Thursday.

They're all pleasant people, but very pushy. They're exasperating. No, I don't dislike Canadians, but I do get frustrated with them. And yes, I am standing on guard for them. More to the point, I'm their crutch.

Hat tip to Kevin Stilley of Righteous Judgment for taking the time to sift through nearly 300 responses to the book meme. I found it fascinating what other people read and think are good books. One of my mentions, Jane Eyre, showed up on the 10+ list. Quite a few others on the multiple mention lists could have just as easily been on my list as well.

One thing I found interesting was that Kevin remarked about how much fiction showed up throughout people's responses. Considering the ratio of fiction to non-fiction in bookstores, I find nothing at all odd about it. Generally speaking, when I researched a subject for an academic paper in grad school, I hit the University library, and the Library of Congress. If Bucknell, Penn State, or Drew didn't have it, the librarian could get it for me on inter-university loan.

Those sort of reference materials and theses are simply not available from even Strand Books in NYC. For professional papers, I'd bolster my own research by citing other research papers available from trade associations such as the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation), or trade journals such as the Journal of Advertising Research.

I taught fifth grade CCD when I was in high school, but only because the church was short of adult volunteers. One girl's mother was shocked to discover that a HS kid was teaching her daughter and asked the nuns if she could co-teach with me. Fine with me, but she quit after three weeks once she realized I had no trouble handling the class and covering the lessons. That was the last I saw of her.

I teacher-aided fourth grade in English and math when I was in HS at The American School in London before returning stateside, so teaching wasn't new to me. Teaching religion, however, was. Still, it's pretty tough to mess up when the teacher's edition of the text material comes complete with marginalia in red text saying what to emphasize.

It doesn't surprise me at all that these kids would go home and grab a Nancy Drew or Alfred Hitchcock mystery. I loved the Alfred Hitchcock mysteries when I was in grade school. I still love mysteries, but P.D. James is a little more my speed these days.

With that, I bid you adieu, and wish everyone a reasonably chaos-free work week.

This is funny. I stole it from Barb the Evil Genius. Thanks, Barb! It's the Dysfunctional Family Form Letter. While even my extended family is not at all dysfunctional, I can think of someone (Nickolaus Albert Pacione) who routinely sends out email form letters much like this one to complete strangers. I've received a couple of them, as have quite a few horror authors. Jean-Loup Benet (his pen name) even sent a legal "cease and desist" letter to the jerk. Personally, I think the joke form letter is quite tame compared to the reality of what NAPpy-boy writes and sends people he suspects of ruining his book sales on Lulu.

Photo Credit: Ken's Salad Dressing

A week ago Friday, my car dash gave me a warning message "front light failure." That means I was driving a dreaded padiddle. Horrors! It's happened once before. Got my car into the Shell station just in the nick of time today. It didn't have my headlight bulb in stock, but the owner called his auto parts supplier five minutes before the shop closed to ask the guy to stay open for another few minutes while he sent over someone.

I seldom drive after dark this time of year, but I'd rather just get it fixed so I don't have to clear the message every time I start the car. Besides, with my luck, I'd be the only padiddle in the state to get pulled over and ticketed for the infraction.

We left my car there and walked a couple of blocks to the center of town to grab some pub grub for a late lunch. The car was done by the time we came back. It was probably done not long after we were seated and our lunch order taken. Half pound blue cheeseburgers with a mountain of fries and brewskis. I didn't even eat the bun/roll, and barely touched the fries, but I'm still stuffed. Dinner will not be before 9:00 pm this evening, if at all.

Episode 2, scenes 1 and 2 of "The Adventures of Winky" are now available for reading here.

Yes, sports fans, this is the new, er, face of airport security. Forget those long lines at the x-ray machine for carry-on luggage. They no longer exist. Yea! No more being pulled aside into tiny rooms to be strip searched by a security guard of your own gender while the rest of your family waits outside for you. Yea! The bad news is that you'll be on parade, naked, in front of a bunch of fully clothed fat ugly TSA goons with metal detecting wands and stun guns.

I propose a "fast lane," for air travelers, much like the highway system's EZ-Pass. Eat a slice of bacon or ham in front of a security guard, and you zip right onto the plane. Optionally, you can place your left hand on a Koran (the "unclean" hand), raise your right hand, and declare "I am an infidel." Boom--you zip right through security.

Since no toothpaste, lip gloss, anti-perspirant, shampoo, etc., is allowed in carry-on luggage, I propose not showering for three days before flying, and eating lots of raw onions and garlic an hour in advance of boarding.

Can you imagine what this will do to duty-free shops? Passengers make it past the main security checkpoint, then proceed past the duty-free shops to their gates, but can't buy anything worthwhile, because gate security will make them surrender those bottles of bourbon, fancy cosmetics, or perfume before boarding. The jury's still out about whether it's okay to carry onboard a cheesecake from Junior's to bring to granny in Minnesota. Nothing says New York like a Junior's cheesecake! Is the texture too creamy? Probably. Too runny? After it sits out on the tarmac in the blazing sun waiting to be loaded into the cargo hold, definately.

There is one thing that puzzles me, though. The terrorists were targeting American carriers. Heven't Americans traveling internationally known for years never to fly domestic carriers on transatlantic flights? Fly Virgin or British Airways. Virgin code-shares with Continental, so you won't lose any One Pass frequent flier miles.

Great minds think alike. I didn't know whether Mr. Froggie made a grocery run today (he works out of a home office), but I knew I wanted a few things, so I made a detour to the grocery store on the way home. It was driving me nuts that I was out of canned tuna and canned salmon, crackers, and meat. On a weeknight, I normally don't want dinner, or just something really light, especially if I've eaten lunch.

Turns out Mr. Froggie did go pick up a few things but none of them were what I bought. I finally found some sort of crackers, but really wanted Wasa rye crisps. Shop Rite has them, but Kings doesn't, anymore. Got some asparagus because it looked good, and some celery, because I really like a little crunch in my tuna or crab salad. Canned salmon is best for croquettes or cakes.

We've been eating vegetarian all week, which isn't necessarily bad, but I really did want to get some meat, with an eye toward grilling it later in the week. Got a nice small pork loin. They're usually so big that it was a bonus to find a small one. Plus pork is cheap. The meat selection on a Wednesday night was pretty slim, but I found a couple of nice looking filets mignon and a sirloin that's big enough for both of us.

The salmon looked excellent, but I only buy fish if I'm going to cook it the same evening. I knew Mr. Froggie was talking this morning about making either one larger loaf of sourdough or a smaller one after separating off some for pizza. Glad I didn't buy the salmon. A batch of tomato sauce was simmering away on the stove when I walked in. Pizza it was. Homemade pizza is great--and has a lot less grease than anything you might order for delivery. Maybe we can grill fish over the weekend.

We both actually enjoy cooking. It's sort of nice when we both pitch in unless the dish happens to be one of our particular specialties. Osso buco and pies are my specialties. Mr. F is great at pancakes and breakfast. Division of labor is a good thing.

Nicktion Ain't Fiction

Yesterday, I posted Episode 1, Scene 1 of "The Adventures of Winky" at WordPress. This afternoon, I finished and posted scenes 2 and 3. Episode one is now complete. Think of it as a soap opera. To tell the truth, it picks up the story several months after I began writing it. It didn't seem appropriate, however, to resume on a new blog host, having slightly changed some of the characters' names and start with "The last time we saw (our hero) he had gotten himself into a bit of a pickle with the law . . ." or some such introduction.

Our hero is a mentally disabled gothic horror writer who thinks his writing is flawless. Brian Keene, Ray Garton, Poppy Z. Brite, Mary SanGiovanni, and others of their ilk cannot hold a candle to the genius of Winky Patches. They do not adhere to the style of Poe or Lovecraft that Winky so reveres. He hates all of them. He stalks anyone else who comments negatively about his myriad misspellings and atrocious grammar. That's where I enter the picture.

I'll try to fill in any necessary backstory as I proceed. On a positive note, Janrae Frank has left me comments that she has enjoyed reading the story over the months. She is a published dark fantasy author with a real agent and publishing house. She used to be an editrix herself.

I've noticed that a number of "real" horror writers have given my parody nods of approval in one way or another over the past year. It's merely a statement that they know I'm not a writer by trade, and am no threat to their livelihood, but can be entertaining for 10 minutes at a time. It's the equivalent of patting a dog on the head. What we have in common is being the focus of Winky Patches' email and online stalking and death threats.

Dear Winky,

Start with an unabridged dictionary and a Strunk and White. You can add Roget's later. Failing that, at least run a spell check before you post your drivel.

Love,
Froggie

I've posted a snippet of fiction over at my experimental Wordpress blog, "Nicktion Ain't Fiction." Fiction isn't my forte, to say the least, nor am I any good yet at the nuances of Wordpress versus other blog hosts. Wordpress gets really weird about not accepting a second carriage return (enter) between paragraphs in RTF mode, nor will it accept a "greater-than-br-less-than" in HTML mode. I have the nuances of Blogspot and Xanga down cold.

If you do go give it a read, please forgive me for trying to start from scratch an ongoing soap opera on a new blog host, as though it were episode one. That's enough of a challenge for one evening. I'll get to scenes two and three tomorrow. For the moment, I'm totally bushed, and need some sleep.

This morning we were watching who knows what cable channel, when a travel segment came on that was about the area around Dubuque. It even showed the Fourth St. Elevator, formally known as the Fenelon Place Elevator. I practically screamed "Look, sweetie--it's the Fourth Street Elevator!" I've ridden that elevator. It was originally built by a banker to get from his house on the bluff down to his bank. It burned down a couple of times, but was rebuilt and opened to the public to ride for a fee. What I remember most about it was that it was scary-steep, really creaky, and I wondered whether anyone had ever accidentally fallen out of it and gotten killed. A shot from the top overlooking downtown Dubuque had me pointing to the tv, saying "Look! There's the meatpacking district." The view is phenomenal. From the bluff, you can see the river, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Of course there were the obligatory few minutes filmed in nearby Dyersville of the farm chosen as the site for the movie "Field of Dreams." Then there was the drive over the bridge across the Mississippi into East Dubuque, IL. Though I haven't been there in a number of years, everything looks the same.

I was a little disappointed that the show didn't do a mini-feature on Epworth, which is about halfway between Dubuque and Dyersville, but wasn't surprised. Other than being where my grandmother taught school for many years, and where my grandparents retired, it's famous only for being the home of a Chicago Bear. The whole town's only a few blocks long, and all you can really see from Rt. 20 is the Seminary. There's a turn-in off the highway at the East and West ends of town, but that's it.

For ten minutes there, I got to relive memories of my youth. *sigh*

The insanity doesn't stop when the Toronto office closes at 3 pm for the Civic Holiday Weekend. Toronto #2 was chasing me down by phone all day.

A couple of hours after I sent the email at 9:30 pm with the attached document she needed last night, I was able to connect via LogMeIn and get to my office email. She had sent me an email at 8:30 pm complaining that she was still in the office waiting for my email, because she had trouble connecting from home, and wanted to know where it was. Tant pis, mon amie.

I didn't reply to that email, because by then it was in her inbox. Whether she could get to it or not wasn't my problem.

I had just gotten out of one meeting regarding another crisis du jour, and went back to my office to grab a smoke and go outside for a quick break before my next meeting. The phone rang. It had a 416 area code. Never answer those unless you are prepared to deal with a rabid Canuck. I let it go to voice mail. The phone rang again just as I got back and was ready to grab my pad and pencil for the next meeting. It was 416 again. Voice mail got it. I dashed to my next meeting, which was a two hour long conference call with our Utah office.

Three times during that meeting the other line buzzed. Quality Assurance & Development #1 looked at the ID and said "That's Toronto #2. That's for you, Froggie." I got out of the meeting only to be told by my Advanced Analytics #3 that she had called him twice looking for me while I was in the meeting. She probably tried calling my Advanced Analytics #2 a time or two as well, not knowing that she was out sick today.

I hit the restroom, took another butt break, and walked back into my office as the phone was ringing. You guessed it--416. I picked up the phone and said "Hello, Toronto #2. I just got out of the meeting in QA&D #1's office. I'm just pulling up your email now." That's a minumum of eight documented phone calls looking for me within 2.5 hours.

The upshot was that Toronto #2 wanted me to approve some minor changes to our document for her client. These were truly petty changes that at most involved clarifying a sentence. No, she didn't misstate anything, and no, I'm not proprietary about my syntax.

I spent nearly 20 years of my life working for various advertising agencies in media research. In that role, I did research and wrote white papers. Sometimes I submitted them to the 4As, the ARF, ESOMAR, etc. If I got lucky, I got to present them at a conference, and score another feather in my company's figurative cap. I'm used to having them edited by others, whether it's someone circling a misplaced comma and making the swirly sign for delete, or penning in something as vague as "awkward" next to a circled sentence. Edit me, baby, if it helps clarify something vague, corrects a typo, or simply makes it "read better."

I got out of the ad agency racket a little over five years ago, but now work for one of my former software suppliers. My clients are now ad agencies and media companies. These are the same people with whom I've dealt my entire career, especially if my main contact is the head research person. That's fine in the U.S., but until a few years ago, I never really had to deal with Canadian clients.
I have one message for Toronto #2 (and Toronto #1, for that matter, aka Torpedo Tits): if you depend on me to throw you a lifesaver, don't piss me off, because I'll make sure you get an adequate amount of water up your nose before I drag you on deck.

versus


Office connectivity can be really frustrating at times. Most of the time it works perfectly smoothly. Normally, I use LogMeIn to access my office hard drive from my own home computers, but it wouldn't let me connect this evening. It probably had to do with brownouts affecting Cablevision's t-1 line speeds to our building. That meant that I couldn't access my office email from home. However, VPN worked and let me access the network drives.

Fortunately, a Word document that I had to email out to our extremely pushy Toronto officemates today was on an office network drive. Since I couldn't access my office email program but could access the file I needed to attach, I had to send it from my home email--at 9:30 or so this evening.

For added value, I loaded the document and resaved it, which updated the timestamp to approximately 9:20 pm. People pay attention to timestamps on email and attachments when they're office-related. They wanted it by COB today. I was more than happy to let them hyperventilate for another 4.5 hours. They got what they wanted in time to read it first thing in the morning, anyway. Let them stew in their juices before I save their asses.

I used to think that Germans were the pushiest people on earth. No way--Canucks win, hands down. And I'm convinced that it's simply because they're so neurotic and extremely poor at stress management. It's probably related to being a wider part of the stressful advertising/media industry, but every one of them with whom I deal as a client or coworker is like a person on speed. Sheesh. Take a chill pill. Go out for an iced latte. Ingest a quaalude. Or something.

I met a neighbor of mine out by the mailboxes this evening. I'd never seen her before, but she's lived just a few houses down the street as long as I've lived here. We struck up a casual conversation about a guy whose enthusiastic dog was towing him down the street at a trot around dinner time before it had started to cool off a bit. Its owner is very nice, and the dog's a sweetie. I don't know the guy's name, nor his dog's. After about 15 minutes the woman and I introduced ourselves, but then the conversation continued another 15 minutes before I went in the house and she got her mail.

I learned some interesting things about the homeowner's association, the current property manager, and my next door neighbor. I'm not the only one who thinks my next door neighbor is a doll, and loved her first dog, but really couldn't befriend the second one she got, as much as I tried.

The first was a lovey-dovey golden retriever who would just run up to everyone, flop over, and demand a tummy rub. He was 95 lbs., which was a bit too big and strong for her (she's been retired for a decade, and is no bigger than that dog was). She'd have to drop the leash, and just let him make a break for the object of his attention.

Her next dog was about half his size, but she was a real barker that got on everyone's nerves beccause she would assume an attack stance even when her owner and I were carrying on a conversation. Nothing could stop that dog from barking--not even doggie training at St. Hubert's Animal Shelter.

Apparently, she did the same thing to everyone in the neighborhood, except for one neighbor who doesn't work. I haven't seen my next door neighbor walk that dog in weeks. Now I know why. She dropped her off at St. Hubert's. Supposedly the reason was that she just wanted to run all the time, and a retired woman couldn't exactly run along beside her. I never saw that dog want to run; she mostly sniffed around my yard. I'm convinced the real reason she got rid of the dog, which wasn't quite a year old, was that no amount of training would get that dog to stop going into near attack mode at the neighbors. And we all love dogs. It wasn't a matter of the dog having a sixth sense about who was hostile toward it--none of us were. We tried to make friends with it, but it was just way too high strung.

The other interesting tidbit is that my neighbor shares exactly the same opinion of our current property manager vs. a previous one we remember. The current one blows us off whenever we call to bring up an issue, makes up by-laws on the fly to suit her whim, claiming it's "the spirit of the bylaws" not the letter of them that counts. Um, no--they're called bylaws because they are there for a legal reason. In that case, it's the letter of the law that matters.

Several years ago, the woman couldn't show me a bylaw that prohibited more than X number of plants on my patio, yet her letter told me I "had too many plants on my patio." If someone complains that they think something looks a little untidy, then she's all over us like hot glue, regardless of how ridiculous the complaint is. I refused to comply with getting rid of some of my orchid collection, but swept up the patio, in a show of conciliation. That was my mistake.

This year, she came after me for having an orchid bench on my patio. She claims a couple of neighbors complained about it looking untidy. I disassembled it, and shoved it in the basement. Then I called to demand that any future complaints she has with me will have to be delivered in writing, citing the specific bylaw I've violated.

That did not sit well with her, so she refused to deliver my pool pass this year, after I called to inform her that the one she delivered had my incorrect street address and name. She promised to correct it, never did, and gave me a hard time when I called to inquire what the status was. So, I'm showing a badge for a street address that doesn't even exist, and signing in as "Collins." The high schooler hired to be the lifeguard would never know the difference.

The former property manager was a doll to deal with--her background was in banking before she got into property management, so she came at it from a business perspective. The current one comes at it from a petty perspective like someone at the DMV, who'll give you a really hard time simply because they can.

It turns out that I'm not the difficult one with whom to deal. A number of other neighbors find the same thing I do when dealing with our current property manager. Even my next door neighbor, who's on the landscaping committee, finds that this woman just goes off and does whatever she wants whenever about giving the landscapers planting directions, without following the rules about clearing things through the various committees or the board of directors. It's her mini-fiefdom.

I wonder if there's anything we can do to get the board to force the management company it hired to request a new property manager who is more responsive to homeowners, and doesn't have an attitude problem. This occasionally happens in business. If a client has a real problem with an account manager assigned to them, they can call the supplier and request that someone else be assigned to their account. I'd love to see this happen.

Phew, is it hot! I plugged my home town's zip code into weather.com at noon, and it came back saying the heat index was 109F. At 3pm, it had risen to 117F, although the air temperature was only 97F. It was actually cooler in Manhattan.

Our office building's Facilities sent out an email, explaining why it was taking several elevators out of service, and dimming the lights in the lobby, as energy conservation measures to comply with Mayor Bloomberg's request. The email proceeded to give us tips to conserve energy, saying we should jack our thermostats up to 78 from 72, and run major appliances such as dishwashers early in the morning or late at night.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but whether I run my diswasher at 8pm or 11:30pm isn't going to make a bit of difference to the demand on ConEd's grid. Wrong state, wrong utility company. I'm not on ConEd's grid. In fact, during the blackout of August 2003 that affected parts of Canada, MI, OH, PA, NJ, NY and much of New England, my next door neighbor reported that our power only went out for five minutes.

Of course, getting home from Manhattan was rather rough that evening. After looking out my office window and seeing the death throes of two nearby power plants spewing thick, black smoke like you might expect from a oil refinery fire, it was obvious that the power wasn't going to come back on anytime soon. People unplugged their computers and began trudging down the nearest fire stairs.

A coworker and I walked a mile and a half to the WFC to catch a ferry. The line was at least four blocks long by the time we arrived, but people in neighboring highrise apartments were really good about coming out to refill our water bottles for free. People on line were more than willing to toss a buck at the water ladies, but they didn't want any money. There were impromptu block parties in SoHo and other neighborhoods as people with spoiling food hauled out their barbeques and set up shop on the sidewalks. One homeless guy was out directing traffic at the corner of University and 9th. He was having a grand old time.

My ferry dropped me off at a pier in Hoboken that I never knew existed, all the way at the north end of town. Apparently there were too many people already at the Hoboken ferry/bus/train terminal, so no more ferries were dropping off people at the regular ferry pier. That meant another mile trek all the way to the south end of town, only to be given a lot of misinformation by NJ Transit, as it tried to figure out how to handle the situation during the next couple of hours.

Finally it sent in a lot of extra buses to shuttle us to a handful of major stations along the various train lines. I heard one bus driver yell "Summit," and vaulted over a concrete barrier to sprint for it. I got one of the last seats on the bus. Frankly, I didn't care if I gave them a cheap thrill with an underwear flash when I vaulted in a breezy short skirt. I was never going to see any of those people again.

The bus driver was unfamiliar with the route, but had been given directions. One joker in the very back of the bus yelled "I-78. West!" It was pretty funny. The driver managed to find I-78, and we were on our way. By the time we got to Newark, it was obvious the power was on. Office buildings were lit like Christmas trees. That was a great thing to see.

Two women on the bus sitting behind me and standing next to me had recently moved to my town, but drive to a different town than Summit to catch the train. One of them finally got through on her cell phone to her husband, who said the lights were on in our town. I offered them a ride to the train station at which they were parked, which they accepted. We never exchanged names, and I've never seen either of them since. At least they managed to get back to their cars. We got home around 9:30 pm, easily five hours after the power blew.

Others in my office had stories about walking across the East River bridges to Brooklyn and Queens. After that, our employer issued backpacks stocked with emergency supplies to every employee. Probably the most interesting item in the kit is the hand-crank powered AM/FM/SW radio and flashlight combo. Other than that, it consists of the sort of things you might bring on a camping trip, minus the Coleman stove, lantern, and Pioneer Ware. We've never had to use these kits, but I sure feel like a Boy Scout with one sitting in the corner of my office!