Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 

And no, this isn't some lurid, avatar-on-author book action. It's...well, words escape me at the moment. As a matter of fact, I'm scratching my head in trying to consider my thoughts on this. It's not every day you see a well-known author verbally eviscerate her fans in an Amazon Books review of her own book.

You'll see Anne Rice's reivew of her readers' reviews of "Blood Canticle" about halfway down the page. Look for: From the Author to the Some of the Negative Voices Here.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/037541200X/ref=cm_rev_next/
002-5262353-1298444?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-
SubmissionDate&n=283155&customer-reviews.start=31&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER

This is reminiscent of Stephen King blasting literary critic Harold Bloom. I think King more took issue to Bloom's comments regarding King not being a real author, and how King could only write pulp crap...which does bring up the question of what a "real" author is as opposed to an "imaginary" or "unreal" one. Maybe they're talking about fanfiction authors, who are not really official authors, so they're more of an "unreal" phenomenon.

Though admittedly I myself think of Bloom as a bit of a jaded twit since the only books he ever wrote were books about other peoples' books. Or so my mostly-uninformed opinion goes. Feel free to correct and/or enlighten me if it's otherwise.

But getting back to Rice's rants, I find this as a shining example of how to be a literary megalomaniac, or why most authors should fear their own fandom rather than their book reviewers. Not "hide under the bed" fear, but hold a distinct leeriness in wondering if one day they're going to end up strapped to a bed with a rabid fan wanting to marry them, or one day discovering their entire fandom has grown up and subsequently grown disenchanted.

Maybe Neil Gaiman's right: When you publish a book -- when you make art -- people are free to say what they want about it. You can't tell people they liked a book they didn't like, and there is, in the end, no arguing with personal taste. Different people like different things. Best to move on and make good art as best you can, instead of arguing.

I think Anne Rice going on Amazon and lambasting her critics was undoubtedly a very brave and satisfying thing for her to do, was every bit as sensible as kicking a tar baby, and, if ever I do something like that, please shoot me.

This is also why I really am not much of a sequel kind of guy. I'd rather not write a sequel if I can get away with it, if only to avoid warmed-over characters and a story that lacks the punch of the original. (Unless you're talking "Fanboys", in which case I just enjoy a story that involves the warmed-over characters getting punched and warmed-over from the latest Dragu Slave spell. A lot. In which case the story, and my latent literary sadism, calls for it!) Then again, I get to worry about how any and all new stories I write will get compared to their predecessors and be stamped as "recycled" instead of "original."

But enough of me ranting about authors ranting about fans ranting. I have to go to Connecticut now for a week or so, where Mel & I get to attend a family wedding, and I discover how silly I look in a tie.

Today's Chaos-on-Chaos Review: I'm right. You're a silly tit. If you disagree with those two statements of fact, I hope and pray that one day you'll be freed of your delusion.

(Of course, this would all get changed if it read: "I'm right, and I'm a silly tit." That happens a lot. Especially the second part. Not so much the first part, mind you.)



posted by Phillip at 5:52 AM

 

Today Mel & I visited the just-about-24-hours-old Gabriel Robert Neville. He was very small, very quiet, very very cute, and surprisingly wrinkly. But I guess that's what happens after you've been floating around in embryonic fluid for 9ish months. Gabriel was also very very asleep, though every now and again he rouses himself just long enough to make really wierd faces at me when it was my turn to hold him. Apparently even newborns have an innate "baka sense" built into their genetic structure.

Welcome to the world at large, Gabriel! Chaos (or as Mel likes to now refer to me, "Uncle Baka") welcomes you to it! And may you not pee on me the way you've been so far trying to on Kevin and Donna.

Mel would also like to insist here that I am absolutely forbidden to see to it that Gabe's first word is "Puchuu."

Today's Lesson: babies are born without eyebrows. I never knew this before, and now that I know, somehow this fact just disturbs me.


posted by Phillip at 9:23 PM

 

It's a strange and wonderful relationship Mel-chan & I share. It's a relationship based on nurturing and understanding. Like how yesterday, I blatantly lied to Mel, leading her to believe we were merely going out for banale coffee, only to pull up to a local Renaissance Festival instead. And upon realising the extent of my surprise for her (I believe Mel realized something was up as we turned onto the street where the festival parking lot was and first saw the sign "Waterloo Renaissance Festival"), Mel uttered those five amazing words every man wants to hear: "You are such an ass."

To further prove my point, consider tonight, where Mel threatened to bash me over the head with a plastic bottle frozen full of ice.Whereupon I took said bottle and dribbled water down her back. Whereupon Mel smacked me across the back of the head with a dinner roll. Four times. Not once, not twice, not even a third time for a charm. No, four times, with that last one being done just for good measure.

It must be love. As far as I know, there's no actual name for the psychoses we share together, so it has to be love. If not by default, then until a disorder/dysfunction is named after us.

Today's Lesson: while being hit four times across the back of the head with a dinner roll doesn't exactly hurt, it sure sounds like you're taking quite the beating.

posted by Phillip at 8:11 PM

 

To start off, I'd like to apologize to the nice neighbours around the local playground who, around 9:30ish, discovered that it is quite possible to take a number of crude English vulgarities and splice them together to create new hybrid vulgarities. I know you're trying to raise your kids well, and as a result I'm sure the last thing you wanted them to hear through the open balcony window was my voice screaming, "Bloody fucktwat!"

Ideally they have no idea what those two words mean apart from each other, let alone together. Upon reflection, I'm not entirely sure I have have any idea what that word means.

Ultimately, tonight has proven a first for me: I snapped. Wholly, completely snapped. Those of you suddenly panicking upon reading this, fear not: I did not snap at Mel, nor was any of this due to her. No, the due honour for actually locating that precision point belongs to someone else.

Tonight I found myself virtually enraged beyond words, my entire body shaking with a near unbridled fury. Rare is the moment where I physically lash out (the previous and only other occasion saw the unfortunate brutality against Jerry the piece of drywall), and even rarer is when I voice anything out in the open beyond cold, seething mutters. Tonight there was both. Grass was pounded, which happily no one can really object to, since I probably treated the ground more humanely than the kids running around during recess. And the aforementioned hybrid vulgarities were uttered with impressive sound.

The situation with my parents separating, while ugly to begin with, just enterred a new form of grotesquerie. It leaves me with nothing but respect for my father, and nothing but contempt for my mother. I don't care how pious you act. I don't care how holy you want to be. I don't give a right bloody damn about how perfect you want others to see you as. When you're a sanctimonious asshole, you're a sanctimonius asshole. There are no two ways about it. When you're a hypocticial Janus-bitch who preaches prayer with one hand, and delivers a vile form of personal betrayal with the other, expect me to harbour an extreme loathing of everything that comes from your mouth. You have burned almost all your bridges, reduced your family into strangers and expendible assets, and it will come as a great and terrible shock to you when the beast you are creating will one day devour you down and then spit you out.

It's easy to use religion to justify anything you want. Some of the greatest atrocities commited by humanity have been done by those claiming to be in "God's service". She's going to make religious zealots look like choirboys at this rate.

It's all coming to a head. My Dad, despite everything he's had to endure for the last 3 years, despite everything he's put up with and all the times he's sought out a resolution even when it meant taking personal hits to prove his sincerity and committment to their marriage, still dares to ask me to try not to rail against my mother. To not verbally attack her without mercy. To not choose sides. For that alone he's earned my eternal respect in this situation.

"There are no sides. There will be no winners when this ends. We're all going to lose."

Tonight he asked me once again not to choose sides. And I saw it in his eyes: he realized I'd already chosen where I would stand, and would not remain neutral. The events of tonight have pushed me to a point where I'm no longer willing to stand aside and say nothing. It's an end to politeness. It's an end to civility. In the coldest of terms, it's the beginning of wrath. My wrath.

A war is coming. It's not going to be pretty. I almost look forward to it. It's about time I let my voice be heard; about time I stood against all that my mother's doing wrong regardless of what she thinks otherwise; about time I let her hear me bloody roar.

I just wish it didn't have to be for reasons like this.

Customer Insult of the Day: "wanker."


posted by Phillip at 9:21 PM

 

To start off, I'd like to apologize to the nice neighbours around the local playground who, around 9:30ish, discovered that it is quite possible to take a number of crude English vulgarities and splice them together to create new hybrid vulgarities. I know you're trying to raise your kids well, and as a result I'm sure the last thing you wanted them to hear through the open balcony window was my voice screaming, "Bloody fucktwat!"

Ideally they have no idea what those two words mean apart from each other, let alone together. Upon reflection, I'm not entirely sure I have have any idea what that word means.

Ultimately, tonight has proven a first for me: I snapped. Wholly, completely snapped. Those of you suddenly panicking upon reading this, fear not: I did not snap at Mel, nor was any of this due to her. No, the due honour for actually locating that precision point belongs to someone else.

Tonight I found myself virtually enraged beyond words, my entire body shaking with a near unbridled fury. Rare is the moment where I physically lash out (the previous and only other occasion saw the unfortunate brutality against Jerry the piece of drywall), and even rarer is when I voice anything out in the open beyond cold, seething mutters. Tonight there was both. Grass was pounded, which happily no one can really object to, since I probably treated the ground more humanely than the kids running around during recess. And the aforementioned hybrid vulgarities were uttered with impressive sound.

The situation with my parents separating, while ugly to begin with, just enterred a new form of grotesquerie. It leaves me with nothing but respect for my father, and nothing but contempt for my mother. I don't care how pious you act. I don't care how holy you want to be. I don't give a right bloody damn about how perfect you want others to see you as. When you're a sanctimonious asshole, you're a sanctimonius asshole. There are no two ways about it. When you're a hypocticial Janus-bitch who preaches prayer with one hand, and delivers a vile form of personal betrayal with the other, expect me to harbour an extreme loathing of everything that comes from your mouth. You have burned almost all your bridges, reduced your family into strangers and expendible assets, and it will come as a great and terrible shock to you when the beast you are creating will one day devour you down and then spit you out.

It's easy to use religion to justify anything you want. Some of the greatest atrocities commited by humanity have been done by those claiming to be in "God's service". She's going to make religious zealots look like choirboys at this rate.

It's all coming to a head. My Dad, despite everything he's had to endure for the last 3 years, despite everything he's put up with and all the times he's sought out a resolution even when it meant taking personal hits to prove his sincerity and committment to their marriage, still dares to ask me to try not to rail against my mother. To not verbally attack her without mercy. To not choose sides. For that alone he's earned my eternal respect in this situation.

"There are no sides. There will be no winners when this ends. We're all going to lose."

Tonight he asked me once again not to choose sides. And I saw it in his eyes: he realized I'd already chosen where I would stand, and would not remain neutral. The events of tonight have pushed me to a point where I'm no longer willing to stand aside and say nothing. It's an end to politeness. It's an end to civility. In the coldest of terms, it's the beginning of wrath. My wrath.

A war is coming. It's not going to be pretty. I almost look forward to it. It's about time I let my voice be heard; about time I stood against all that my mother's doing wrong regardless of what she thinks otherwise; about time I let her hear me bloody roar.

I just wish it didn't have to be for reasons like this.

Customer Insult of the Day: "wanker."


posted by Phillip at 9:21 PM

 

posted by Phillip at 10:23 PM

 


You tell me I can't slow down
You tell where I've gotta be
I speed into the darkness
But I swear that I can't see a thing in front of me
You know it's true
I'm not driving anymore
I can't keep up with you

You're closing in behind me
Well I've got headlights in my eyes
Don't you get too close to me
Can't you see that we'll collide and end up casualties
There's just no room
I'm not driving anymore
I can't keep with you

So leave me on my own
Run me down and race away from me
I've got nowhere to go to
And I don't think I can get back on my feet --
Back on my feet

You came right out of nowhere
Eyes wide and terrified
And I can't put my brakes on
And I can't swerve to save your life 'cause then I'll lose control
And I can't choose
I'm not driving anymore
I can't keep up with you
Get me out of harm's way
Can't you see I'm paralyzed

Can't you see I'm through
I'm not driving anymore -- I can't keep up with you
Can't keep up with you

I'm unfit for consumption
I don't know how to play my part
I swear I'm all alone in this thing
I'm a blind man driving in my car into oblivion

Let it come soon

I'm not driving anymore
I can't keep up with you


--Rob Dougan, "I'm Not Driving Anymore"

posted by Phillip at 7:51 PM

 

Consider the following poll put out by BBC Entertainment: who is your favoirte TV/movie scientist? You've got all kinds of famous ones to pick from: James Bond's Q, Mr. Spock, Dr. Who, Doc Emmet Brown, Frank N. Furter, Dr. Evil, Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Frankenstein, and Dana Scully.

And who beat out the competition 2-to-1 when the polls were over and the dust cleared?

www.bbc.co.uk/cult/scientists/beakerhoneydew.shtml

I guess that when you get right down to it, people would rather invest in gorilla detectors than time machines, trans-dimensional phone booths, or a man with blonde hair and a tan.

Today's Lesson: it's probably a good idea to have some life lesson already planned when you do a 'today's lesson' segment, so when you sit down to write it, you don't blank out and panic at the last minute.


posted by Phillip at 9:50 AM

 
Survivor: Back to School

The weekend has come and gone, and finds me...alive. Somehow. Defying the odds. Though in all honesty, Sunday almost destroyed us. And by us, I mean collectively as a store. A line-up of 8 people that never shortened and only grew longer for 4 out of the 5 hours we were open; messy customers; bitchy customers; did I mention how horribly messy the store was made every 2 minutes after we just finished cleaning it?

If I may be allowed to continue with the last little bit of nowhere's analogy of Aliens, I would consider the business we did on Saturday to be that period of time where the Alien facehugger falls off you. Business was brisk but not horribly busy, and the customers were pretty decent all around. I thought we were going to survive unscathed after all. I thought we were in the clear. After the proverbial facehugger was gone, I thought nothing bad could happen.

Cue Sunday...and that sudden, explosive "Gyaaaarg! It's tearing a not-very-sexy hole through my sexy chest and wearing my intestines like a bad toupee!" Lots of customers--almost non-stop, really, though thankfully they petered out in the last few minutes before the mall closed, allowing us to seal the doors in peace with no one laggin inside. Lots of messy customers too. There must be a Murphy's corollary somewhere, since the customers who leave the greatest mess behind seem inexplicably attracted to whatever area of the store you have just finished cleaning. One day I'm hoping for someone to try making a mess of the upper shelves of luggage just after I'm done cleaning them. Many fail to realize how loaded those suitcases are. Yes, I freely admit the ensuing paperwork and filling-out of an incident report would be tedious, but I'd be doing with a smirk after some idiot decided to manhandle the luggage up near the ceiling and subsequently crushed themselves beneath its weight.

There was also one particularly rude customer who, I must admit, if she were to come into our store again, I wouldn't even have the chance to tear her head from her shoulders and violate in rather unpleasant ways. My co-workers would be skull-fucking her before I'd even realize there was blood in the air. I don't like to dwell on the 'p' someone left in the 'gene pool', but suffice to say she left all of us with nasty homicidal twitches. And on the plus side, the complete sympathy of every other customer in the store for the twenty minutes following her departure.

I really am growing to loathe customers. Of course, I don't think I'd mind this job so much if we were given tasers and the authorization to use them at our discretion. Oh, the sheer happiness of that thought...



Today's Lesson: however long it takes you to clean up any size of mess, it will take only 1/10th of that time (and usually a single idiot to the 3-4 people on clean-up detail) to completely mess it up again.

That, and it appears that today, my little bit of nowhere is not allowing anything to be written in Bold. You'll just have to settle for monochrome text, alas.

posted by Phillip at 7:54 AM

 

There's that infamous scene (one of many) in the movie "Aliens", where our heroic and soon-to-be eaten/coccooned marines are making their way through the Alien nest. To good news is: they've found the missing colonists who disappeared. The bad news is: the colonists are pretty much all deceased, and glued to some really funky-looking walls in the Alien nest. They manage to find a colonist who's still alive. She in turn manages to hoarsely whisper, "Please...kill me!" moments before a little Alien chestburster explodes out from her chest in a painful and bloody mess.

Life can be like that sometimes. Alas, I think I'm that colonist (minus the cleavage) stuck to the wall at the moment. This is the last weekend before the dreaded phenomenon of 'back to school'. We sell backpacks for kids & students. Lots of backpacks for lots of students. This means that this weekend is the last real chance any last-minute school supplies can be purchased beforehand. Now there will always be people who go out and buy things after the fact, or after it's begun. They can live. There's not a lot of them. I can deal with that.

However, I'm right at that point where I'm torn between wetting myself and uttering those immortal words: "Please...kill me." Because in my world, the horrific droves of customers are the Alien chestburster. And our store is the ribcage (okay, so it's not the greatest metaphor here, but work with me, people! Work with me!). Today marks the first of two days that will see hordes of customers explode into the store, and tear it apart to ratshit. It's going to be bloody. It's going to be messy.

I wish I could say I had more faith in the people who visit our store. I wish I could believe that the people will be clean, courteous, friendly, patient and intelligent. Or at least possess two of those attributes. Alas, I've almost completely lost my faith in humanity, so I cannot gaze upon this weekend with such optimism. Work retail or any other customer service-oriented job. You'll become a cynical bastard too.

I'm sure I'll survive it when all is said and done. But the scars will linger in my fragile psyche. I'll probably be muttering incoherent words of terror, as if I've glimpsed a colour of out space or a Shoggoth doing the macarena.

Today's Religious Theory: if there is such a thing as Purgatory, where you're not exactly damned to hell, but not on the straight ride up to heaven, and have to atone/work out all your lesser iniquities as penance, then I truly believe Purgatory will be a large retail store. All the people who've been chronically rude will suddenly find themselves trapped behind the cash till, having to deal with rude customers (perhaps even rude incarnations of themselves, if vengeance is indeed best served cold with a side order of poetic justice) all the time until they are broken and recant.


posted by Phillip at 5:55 AM