Porn: The Gift That Keeps on Giving?

Porn Tax

I suppose as a woman, I should be completely offended by the very idea of porn. But for some reason, I find it rather intriguing. What is is about looking at pictures of naked women that appeals to men more than, say, going home and undressing their wives or girlfriends?

Then it hits me. Pictures can't nag before, during or after. And it's likely a lot easier to satisfy a picture than it is to satisfy a woman. Of course, having no experience in either department, I'm just theorizing...

But, oddly enough, I do feel a bit uncomfortable about the idea of this tax. I'm not particularly fond of taxes to begin with, but there's a growing trend to slap extra taxes on selected items. I don't mind taxing cigarettes into unaffordability, because they're bad for you. And smoking costs health care millions each year. I might even go so far as to say that if you smoke, you should forfeit your health care coverage entirely. Of course, I also watched my great-uncle die from lung cancer at a very impressionable age.

Now, what is it about porn that justifies levying an extra tax on it?

Do we slap entertainment taxes on X-box games? Nope. How about a show-off tax for all those who own a BMW or a porsche? Nope. Do we slap environmental taxes on overpackaged goods? No. We aren't doing that either.

So why slap an extra tax on porn?

First of all, it seems rather sexist, as I suspect the bulk of consumers in the porn industry are men.
Second of all, who does porn hurt? Okay, okay, get off the petty disgust angle. Especially in Europe, where all you need to do to see naked bodies is watch the average commercial for jeans or head for the sauna.

I know this might sound a bit like I'm pro-porn, but really, in this case, it seems like nothing more than a sneaky way to squeeze a bit more out of a man. And if they can start by taxing porn, how long before specialty items in those naughty adult shops come with the extra slap of a special tax?

And when that money still isn't enough for the government, what then? Special taxes on flavoured condoms? Levying fines on certain positions? Think I'm kidding? There are laws, you know. Ever wonder how they regulate these?

Check your position

How do people in Nevada reproduce?

I never would have written this six years ago. All this time I thought I was training my husband, and it turns out marriage has completely corrupted me.

You Can Lead a Whore to Culture, But You Can't Make Her Think

Santa Gets a Head

To make a long, boring story short and hopefully not as effective as a sleeping pill, I was looking up phrases and found this one:

"You Can Lead A Whore To Culture, But You Can't Make Her Think"

Now, that's a line that's likely fallen out of favour in our pc times. I'd certainly never heard it myself. But I can think of several people it fits perfectly. Not like you can just throw that one out there when the whore says, "Well I don't know why, but that's just what I think, so there!" at the next family dinner. Uh, did I say family? I meant gathering of very distant acquaintances. Yep, that's it.

It's one of my little pet peeves. People who are so narrow-minded you couldn't navigate a piece of thread through their ears.

Which brings me to the slaying Santa. Chopping off barbie doll heads and hanging them on tree branches sounds a bit more like the product of a hyper five-year-old boy getting into mischief around Halloween, not some Manhatten mansion-owning couple's idea of a statement about Christmas commercialism.

And then comes the kicker. In an interview, the guy says, "Christmas has religious origins,” he said. “It’s in the Bible. Santa is not in the Bible. He’s not a religious symbol."

Hello whore of the day. Forget to take your history classes did we? Or maybe you haven't actually read the good book you're supposedly making a statement on behalf of. I have news for you: Christmas IS NOT in the Bible!

Pagan Christmas Practices

Christmas, like Easter, originated as a Roman holiday dedicated to pagan gods with various practices that pre-dated the acceptance of Christianity. First Constantine converted, then the old pagan practices were converted into 'Christian' celebrations.

Why else do you think we have a fluffy bunny running around giving kids chocolate eggs when we're supposed to be thinking about Jesus suffering on the cross?

Christian Constantine

You know, it isn't the sentiment these people are expressing that bothers me. Christmas has become so commercial. I mean, check this out:

Ch-Ching

Damn, that's more than I spend on my mortgage each month!

The problem I have with the Krupnik's of the world is that by being misinformed, they make everyone who thinks that we should re-examine our priorities at this time of year and focus more on family than on gifts seem like religious nutjobs. You catch more flies with beer and honey than you do with crap, folks, and you leave a better impression on your neighbours.

So, maybe instead of desecrating Santa and Barbie you could invest your time and money in spreading peace and good cheer. You know, support a food bank. Help the homeless. Stuff some money in the Salvation Army collection plate. You know, actually do some good and show the world how you want it to be instead of creating a scandal that gets your name in the papers.

Seems to me that this is just about these people trying to draw attention to themselves. I'm surprised they didn't start ranting about how the name Santa is just an anagram of satan...

I wonder how these people would feel if next Easter, the people next door put up a 5-foot bunny carrying a basket of Mary heads with fake blood dripping from her eyes.

Beer & Popcorn

In every election it's only a matter of time before the mudslinging begins. After all, these guys practice hurling the insults at taxpayer's expense on a regular basis in this place we Canadians call parliament.

And if our own Prime Minister's communications director (I'll call him IDIOT for short now) had spewed off in front of the opposition parties, there might have been a lynching. Instead, he just blabbed to the cameras.

When asked about the Conservative proposal to give child benefits to parents, said IDIOT, "Don't give people 25 bucks (a week) to blow on beer and popcorn."

Uh, yeah, because what else would parents have to spend their money on? I mean, it's not like they need anything. Daycare is free and we're going nude so the clothing issue won't be so bothersome. And we can deal with childhood obesity by just not feeding the kids.Uh, yeah, right.

But it gets better! Another advisor to our Prime Minister (I'll call him DUFUS) chipped in and said that not only would the child-care money would be blown on beer and popcorn but these damned irresponsible parents would piss it away on coats and cars, too.

Maybe these guys should chip in with their big, fat slush funds of taxpayer's money that they use for dining with diplomats and paying for chauffeurs and expensive suits and such and rent an arena, set up a wrestling wring, invite all of Canada to come and watch as they sling some real mud.

Now that would be something worth investing money in beer and popcorn for. Stephen Harper, Jack Layton and Paul Martin tossing off the ties and having their hissy-fits live. Maybe intermission could be Peter MacKay and Belinda Stronach having a post-lover's quarrel.

But I'd settle for seeing This Hour Has 22 Minutes invite IDIOT and DUFUS on and have Mrs. Enid set them straight.

Which has prompted my re-discovery of the archive videos. http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/video.html Shitstorm tracker and Canadian weather report are definitely worthy of the downloads. And if you want to see some mudslinging, listen to Belinda Stronach. She has some interesting things to say about what a man should do with his caucus.

The List of Approved Subjects

No, this is not the working title of some historic piece about monarchy loyalists. It's about people. And writing. Because my split personalities have been arguing over what to blather on about today.

First, the writing. Recently, I was told that prologues are a sign that you're an amateur, they tell agents and editors you don't know how to fit the story into the context of the book and have to use this cheap, outdated technique.

Which convinced me that the person who said it didn't know a whole f*ckin' lot about the kind of books I read.

I mean, lets talk prologues. Val McDermid: A Place of Execution. Mark Billingham: The Burning Girl. Simon Kernick: A Good Day to Die. Laura Lippman: To The Power of Three.

Yep, these are all amateur hacks who've only ended up being published by some absolute fluke and will likely fade into oblivion after their second or third book. I wish I had a 'roll my eyes' emoticon to put after that comment. Clearly, nobody told these authors that prologues are out. Psst. Pass it on. What were you all thinking?

Same source critiquing the opening of the sequel to the manuscript they referenced above said it started too quickly with the action and they didn't know who anyone was.

Uh, if you read the first book, you would have. Ever skimmed the opening to Rankin's Black & Blue? Not exactly a "His name was Rebus and he'd been working with the Edinburgh police since 1937..." kind of intro. More like "smack, bam, in your face, figure me out later" - do people really want to start sequels with pages of back story? Not this reader. I mean, I don't mind back story as much as some people do, as long as it's relevant to the current story, but I don't want to OD on it in the first chapter.

All of this to say that every bit of advice you get as a writer shouldn't just be accepted without question. We learn best how to construct a story from reading the work of those we admire, those who write our genre. I'll go with the works of McDermid, Billingham, Kernick & Lippman over an unnamed editor any day.

Which brings me to people. There are some people who seem to have this criteria for conversation. "We can talk about this, but not that." What really burns me is when you've known someone for a long time, and discussed a number of things with them in the past, and then all of a sudden it's just, "I couldn't give a damn and won't talk to you about that now." And it's not like a conversation you've done to death. Something they told you about months ago has come up again, and there's been some news on the subject, so you ask what they think and basically get told to shut your trap.

Like, gee freakin' whiz people, if you didn't want to talk about it, why'd you bring it up months ago?

Recently, I got this email from someone I don't know, asking me to recommend a product to them. It's a long, complicated story, but I felt uncomfortable making general referrals to someone I didn't know, particularly of a product I don't use. So when I wrote back to this person, I was very careful to benchmark the few companies I did know of that they could consider with statements about how I'm not a client of any of them, have never been, blah blah blah.

The person wrote back to me and started off the note, "Look lady."

Look lady? WTF? First off, the person is likely twice my age. Second, nobody who knows me calls me lady. Insolent juvenile perhaps, but lady? I mean, why not just take that out and insert 'old geezer'?

Not to mention that I didn't ask them to write to me in the first place! Now, I always try to write back to people, and I always try to be nice and polite because that's my nature (shut up Stuart) but when somebody writes to me, unsolicited, doesn't use my name and just says "Look lady" they're asking for trouble.

Sorry, I just had to bitch about that somewhere. And this is cheaper than therapy.

Narnia

Last night I did something I seldom do anymore: I went to a movie. Now, in order to actually get to a movie theatre not only must I drive 35 minutes to get to the city, but then I have to battle the hoards of Christmas shoppers because of this ridiculous habit of putting oversized 16-screen theatres into malls. I mean, what are they thinking? That the average shopper will glance at their watch and say, "Hmm, lunch at the foodcourt or I could get a popcorn and watch a movie. And with all these bags from Sears and Reitmans and Chapters, it would be nice to sit down and rest my feet..."

So, I suppose it must boil down to something about convenience. Likely for that most insidious group of the population: parents.** Send the kids off to see a movie and go to the lower level of the mall for bowling. Or across the street to the adult bar. Or the theatre lobby for those kick-ass video games.

But getting back to the point, it's a fair drive. The parking sucks. Then, there's the ticket prices. Wow. For the price of two of us, I can wait six months and buy the dvd. And we aren't even talking about the absolutely crappy food for sale at outrageous prices. Personally, that recent box-office slump was cause to celebrate. It costs more to go to the average movie than it does to buy my nephew's birthday presents (and we do not cheap out on the birthday presents - X Box games and more) and I resent it when the Big-Name Actress is getting $20 mill for her part in the production at my expense.

Since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I can count on one hand the number of movies I've gone to see in the theatre. I can probably count on one hand the number of dvd's I've bought as well. If there's one thing Hollywood's really good at, it's producing predictable crap.

But the release of Narnia was an event that could not be missed. Since I was 7 years old, lying in bed one hot July with pneumonia, I've been entranced with Narnia. It all started with a (then) rare act of kindness by my older sister - she brought me home some library books. Man, way back then, we had to share a double bed. I used to kick her in the back while I did my nighttime gymnastics. Could explain the incidents with her holding a pillow over my head. Anyways...

I remember reading almost all of the Narnia books then, and I've always loved them. And I've always owned a complete set. The decision to make a movie had the same good/bad reaction for me that the news about LOTR did. Would it match up to the book? Or would I be disappointed.

Lord of the Rings was a fantastic achievement. In some ways, that made the forthcoming release of Narnia even more nerve-wracking, for there would be the inevitable comparisons. And how can you compare? LOTR was an adult series meant for an older audience. Narnia was written for children, but remains loved by adults. LOTR features adult actors. Narnia centers on four children.

If you haven't read the book and want to see the movie or don't want spoilers, don't read further.

The film is quite accurate. The essence of the book was in tact. One thing that might have been nice for those who didn't know, was an explanation about the wardrobe and who the professor is. But it's not necessary if you just accept the wardrobe as magic and leave it there.

And the beginning of the movie was great.

I thought they did a fabulous job with the battle. Of course, I wondered how they'd handle it, because Narnia is much more for children than LOTR was. But they didn't sugarcoat it. They also didn't overdue the violence, IMHO.

I felt the role of Edmund was played extremely well. Here's a talented young man who has a future in movies. Not that the others don't necessarily, but that role was vital. Susan, for example, could have been played poorly and it wouldn't have been as critical to the overall success. But if Edmund had been a flop, the whole movie would fall. And I thought he did a great job. I believed in him as the villain, and I believed in his change.

There was something disturbingly familiar about Tumnus. I must go check that actor's bio.

I haven't looked into it, but I do hope that Disney is going to do a few more of the books - oh, and please, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. That would be excellent.

And, if you're a sappy schmuck like me who cries easily, close your eyes if they show the preview for the story in the antarctic about the sled dogs. I'm getting all choked up just thinking about it. Damn, they need a guidance system for adverts like that - rated Tissue Necessity: Very High. That way you can get enough napkins when you're buying your overpriced popcorn.

** Seriously, it was nice to see so many families out for this movie.*** I actually overheard a father and son talking about reading the books on their way out of the theatre - music to my ears.

***And I'm sure it made Disney happy too.

Jib Jab

For those who could always use a good laugh, the Christmas Jib Jab's are up. Yep, Santa's whining about foreclosure and The Farting Elves are...Oh my, poor snowman. http://www.jibjab.com/Home.aspx

But my favourite is still the politically-irreverent 'This Land'.

Burn Gingerbread Burn!

Yep, it's here. The big night. I will galavant off into the city and pick up my niece - who must be wooed with dinner and excessive praise for passing up on a birthday party - and take her to my meeting where she'll get killed. Ah, that reminds me, one more thing to pack. See, she'll be playing the part of the Gingerbread protestor, fighting against oppression and torture of gingerbreads everywhere, one of the most prominent members of the NAAGP (North Americans Against Gingerbread Persecution). When she kicks the bucket there will be a lot of fingerpointing, especially at the beneficiaries of J. Dough's will. And the best thing is, even though I'm the event coordinator, I don't even know who's guilty! That's the benefit of working with yourself on a project when you have multiple personalities.

Now, seriously, I just realized I have one more thing to pack. I must find a needle...

I really need that toy!

Maybe you know how it is, when you're starting on a new project and the first order of business is to visualize that person, your protagonist, in your mind's eye. Sometimes, the image comes to me easily. And other times, the face seems to be veiled in shadows, remaining elusive.

I don't particularly mind stories that are vague on the physical details, as a reader. But sometimes, it helps to have that mental picture to refer to. It keeps you from turning your blue-eyed blonde of 5'1" stature into a towering 5'11" raven-haired model partway through the book. Unless frankensteinien experiments on leg extensions and physical alterations are part of the plot.

So, today, I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs, rearranging my office (shut up Kevin) because I'm trying to get a mental grip on these faces. And I'm thinking about this toy I had as a kid, with different heads, torsos and legs that you could put together and make an image of a fashion design. Evidentally attempting to teach young girls of the world that tight skirts don't look good with poofy poodle-like sweaters. But I wasn't thinking about the fashion - I'll spare you all the typing, I'm a lost cause - but I was thinking about how great it would be to have a similar toy that just let you put together facial features.

Which had me wondering if I could justify a Mr. Potato Head as a legitimate writing expense.

But then I found this: http://www.dressupgames2.com/facemaker/

So, for free I've been twiddling around with various eye and eyebrow combinations, and killing more time. Now, what I really need is a kick-ass exhaustive program something like this, that lets you play with face shapes and has a bit more selection. And then I'll have posters of all my villains instead of modeling them after my spouse.

So Santa, I've been relatively decent this year, I think. I didn't drink too much at Harrogate and I didn't swear too much at the kids on Halloween. Can I have some new software? Please please please?! Oh, and MAC compatible too, unless you're throwing in for a new computer.

Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It...

In December I have but one goal, one purpose that will be my sole focus.

I'm attempting to raise money for The Starving* Artists Fund.

The goal? To make enough money for Stuart MacBride to stay home in his pajamas and watch bees for years to come.***

How can you help me make Stuart's dream a reality? Buy a copy of the Spinetingler 2005 anthology, which contains a short story by Stuart.**** Yep, a hefty^ chunk of the proceeds will go straight into Stuart's slush fund^^ so he can save up for the replacement vehicle, or perhaps start the building project. Aberdeen does seem like the place where soppy residents would start hallucinating about animals in two's and big boats.

What do I hope to get with my comparable pittance? Maybe I'll be able to afford a new CD by my birthday.^^^ Hey, we all have to have our dreams!

Now, seriously, the anthology is out and you can find the link at www.spinetinglermag.com I was hoping to have some fancy purchase button up on my blog, but I'm technologically incompetent*^ and my husband has a pressing need to play Grand Theft Auto.




* Thirsty would be more accurate in some cases**
** Not inferring anything
*** Or whatever it is that he does when he isn't creating an inventory of ancient books.
**** And two by me, but I'm not that important.
^ Okay, I'm exaggerating.

^^ Donations can also be made by purchasing COLD GRANITE - the paperback will be out in January! I recommend printing a copy of the cover off of Amazon and giving it to friends and family with a big, bold note saying, "Your gift is coming soon." It's one way to beat the post-Christmas blahs by giving them something to look forward to, and it's really just a variation on the "box" with cardboard figures of Star Wars toys that people bought years ago when production problems kept the toy company from having enough ready for Christmas demand. If people could give their kids cardboard boxes, you can damn well give your spouse a letter. And especially your parents if you were one of the kids who got a box years ago!

^^^ Which is in June. And I'm actually counting on the new Simon Kernick being out with one day to spare. Wahoo! Although it sucks, because we often only get the trade paperbacks here and last year I got the hardcover of A Good Day To Die in the UK for a steal of a price by comparison... Same with Cold Granite.

*^ Comment on this at your own risk!

Slush fund

The day started out with a few 90-degree spins on some pretty slick roads. Uh, it's Canada, but have you people heard of plowing? I didn't realize that was a new concept out here. First you've got to fight the pull of the drifts and then you get out of the SUV and slide on the ice and land in a pile of slush. Not the nice, white powdery stuff. The grey-brown soppy guck that grows faster than bacteria in a uni student's fridge.

I just remembered that it's been a while since I dropped some coins into the box marked "Harrogate bar tab". Yep, that's right, thought I'd squirrel away the bucks all winter so that next July, when I get home from England (and Scotland if I manage it again this trip) I don't have to explain to my husband why I spent so much at the hotel but didn't bring as many books home. Of course, I'm sure I'd never spend as much as some people I could mention (Stuart, Mike...)

And this with Christmas shopping conspiring to rob me of every cent I can spare because the number of kids is multiplying - yep, I still have the hubby and now I have two nephews instead of just one. And for a baby, Dashiell has a surprisingly long wishlist. Must have worked out the telepathy early...or is that just the evil parents conspiring to squander our money instead of theirs?

Ah, love and joy and goodwill to all men. Judging from the way people were fighting over the last 'build your own lightsaber' sets at Toys R Us, it's more like the season to get your claws out. Seems like a good time to go find the 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer' cd...

Converted to Noodly Appendages?

http://www.venganza.org/

Okay, I’ve heard of some wacked-out things, but this is a cake-taker.  Not the theory of intelligent design in particular, but the church of the flying spaghetti monster?  Well, I guess there are stranger things to worship than pasta...

Evil**, thy name is Stuart MacBride... or should that be Stuart MacBride, thy name is evil?

Reasons I adore Stuart:
1.
2.
3.
..........
Okay, seriously, have you checked out Stuart's blog? I'd post a link, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Duh. The problem is that I've been so busy doing other things that I haven't been bored enough to bang my head against the computer for a while. That always brings changes, at least on my screen.****

So, get on over to http://www.halfhead.com/ and check out the witless*** wonderboy's write-ups. He's a laugh a minute, and not just because of the beard.*

Speaking of which, I saw on his beard kit that he recommends the use of duck tape. I wonder if that's some sort of Scottish variation on sticky tack... you know, you take some duck do-do and mix it with an adhesive and presto, perma-cardboard beard all over your face. (No need for aftershave, but I'd recommend cologne,)


* Absolutely not intended as a comment on his appearance.
** check out the latest Spinetingler Magazine issue for the background www.spinetinglermag.com - Winter Issue, Interview with Laura Lippman
***I meant witty. I'm sure I did. I can't imagine making such a scurrilous error. Someone must be contaminating my subconscious!
****I'm sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with altered mental state.

Round One: Batter Up - yep, the truth can be revealed. The gingerbread man is getting offed next week.

Diary of J. Dough, Gingerbread Activist
It was a dark and stormy night. First there was the staccato rhythm of gunfire. I was on my way out, but that stopped me cold. After all, I don’t want any thugs mistaking my buttonholes for targets. The wind was howling and then, ta da, the lights flickered and went out.
Which is, of course, when I decided I wanted to read. So I lit some candles, found a baker’s mitt to snuggle up in, and started skimming the classified. That’s when I saw it.
How Ginger Snapped starring CSS. There she was, playing the part of Ginger, the chainsaw-wielding gingerbread cookie, grinning with an evil look in her eye.
I confronted her outside the theatre on opening night. She cackled like a witch when I reminded her that she used to be one of us, one of the few promoting acceptance of gingerbreads around the world. She told me not to remind her of her crummy past and rushed off inside.
I hadn’t realized until then that she’d gone super-Hollywood. She’d had cosmetic surgery. So now, instead of being a gingerbread playing the part of a psycho gingerbread, she was actually a gingerbread who’d had surgery to look like a person who was using make-up to dress up as a gingerbread. It was horrifying. Like Michael Jackson using make-up to play the part of Mandela** in a movie. Uh, my apologies to Mr. Mandela for even thinking that…
I was speechless, but only for a few moments. When I’d seen the advert I’d had a flash of inspiration as bright as the Hollywood lights. I was ready.
I went inside, took my seat and waited until she raised her weapon for the first time. Then I ran onstage, dodged the security team and waved my sign, complete with pictures of CSS before the surgery. She couldn’t deny she was really a gingerbread then and ran off-stage, her fake icing smudged from her tears.
For days the story made the papers. Her career was over, but do you think she saw the error of her ways? Nope – it wasn’t long before I found it, CSS's blog, where she ranted on and on about the fact that some gingerbreads were clearly half-baked, and tasteless. I knew she was talking about me! So I hacked into her website and posted messages of love and goodwill towards gingerbreads everywhere.
The battle went on for months. I heard she sought counseling at the Pillsbury Clinic and then moved to Canada. That’s when I decided that I needed to come north to make sure she wasn’t causing any more trouble.
I started off checking out her schedule, with general background on the people she was meeting with. It was then that I learned that she was involved with the most insidious group of gingerbread persecutors in the world, disguised as a writer’s group, of all things. She was spreading her poison amongst the members of Mystery Writers INK.
September 13, 2005 Met with the president of INK. I wanted to see how much damage CSS had already done. I spoke at length about the misrepresentation of gingerbreads in the media, how gingerbreads were becoming the stereotypical villains. She nodded and appeared to listen patiently.
For a while, things were quiet, but it was all a ruse. It wasn’t long before I heard about it on the news.
“AJ, president of Mystery Writers INK, has endured 40 sleepless nights writing a story she had a recent flash of inspiration for. Her novel, BURN G-MAN BURN*, exposes the truth about gingerbread culture, the violence and the story centers around an horrific murder…”
I went on-line. Yep, there it was, being hailed by critics as “an incendiary new novel” with a quote on the front from JC, CBC Homestretch, “The revelation of the killer is a complete surprise; all I can say is it’s just icing on the cake.”
And there it was, in bold caps, an invitation to learn more about other books being released by INK authors. A few looked alright, but there were two that caught my eye.
HOW THE COOKIE CRUMBLES Killer Gingerbread Recipes* by JB Fletcher
COOKIE MONSTERS* by Sandra Ruttan
And then I learned the webmaster was CSS! No wonder she was giving prominent advertising to the evil stories about gingerbreads!
For a while I paced the floor until my feet started to crumble. Then, it hit me. The perfect thing to do.
I started with a letter-writing campaign. Newspapers, rights groups, MP’s – you name it. That’s when I found out about the NAAGP – NORTH AMERICANS AGAINST GINGERBREAD PERSECUTION.
November 7, 2005 Joined forces with the NAAGP and began candlelight vigils and letter-writing campaigns. BURN G-MAN BURN fell off the bestseller list and into fires at book burnings, which helped keep us warm during those late-night protests. It got to the point where you couldn’t give a copy away.
November 15, 2005 We tackled the recipe book. “Promotes Cannibalism”, one prominent spokesperson said. Oprah went on the record, saying the book incited hatred towards gingerbreads. Her legions of unquestioning fans followed predictably, and started a Wal Mart boycott until they agreed to nix the lucrative book deal JB Fletcher had been offered. The scene got pretty ugly and I do feel a bit bad for kicking her in the foot – I heard she’s been vowing vengeance ever since over the loss of income and the cast she’s had to suffer with for the past few months, and she’s armed herself with a solid steel cane that only looks like its made of wood.
November 24, 2005 I went after the most insidious author of all: Sandra Ruttan, who wrote a book for children. Brainwashing and conditioning of the worst kind. I found out every school she was scheduled to speak in and campaigned to come in and promote my children’s book, CHOCOLATE CHIP SAVES THE DAY exactly one day before she was scheduled to come in. I spread love and goodwill amongst the children and was sure to donate free posters so that she’d see them when she came in. It made the news. The children booed. Parents proclaimed their disgust and the publisher quickly cancelled the second print-run they’d ordered.
November 30, 2005 The NAAGP has scheduled a special event tonight in celebration of our recent victories and success at stemming the tide of discrimination against gingerbreads. I’m getting an award for all my hard work. And my book has knocked Sandra Ruttan’s into oblivion by selling ten times as many copies in the first week of release. She’s been spouting off on any talk shows where people are bored enough to listen, and I know all four of them hate me. I think I’ll hack into the website to remind CSS that I beat her. Just for old time’s sake. There are also going to be some award ceremonies over the next few weeks, including the Governor-General’s award.

Now, here's my question. Who do you think has the best motive for killing J. Dough? I only left my name in, 'cos, well, it's me. But it could have been CSS. It could have been AJ. Or JB Fletcher... I haven't finished the plot yet, so I'm open to suggestions...

** I'm really sorry about using you as an example...
* All books are ficticious. As is the plot. As is the hit that's been taken out on the gingerbread protester.
How will J. Dough's story end? Laid out on a baker's sheet or taken down with a cookie platter? Tune in next weekend to find out more.

I'm not that depressed!

Here I am, mouse-clicking away as I do research - yep, that's right, research - for an upcoming evening of murder and mayhem I'm planning. I'm filling in my graph, checking it twice, and notice that I don't have a time-frame for the effects of cyanide to take hold.

Well, how hard can it be to find that on the web? I type "cyanide poisoning time death" into the trusty old search engine, and presto, up pops the first of zillions of sites.

Being a simple person, I click on the first button. Hello!
Certainty: very certain
Notes: It helps to have an empty stomach (since the salts react with the stomach acids to form H.C.). A full stomach can delay death for up to four hours with the salts...

Being a bit of an idiot, it takes me a minute to realize that, yup, I'm really reading what I think I'm reading.

And it doesn't stop at cyanide. Check this one out:

Water
Dosage: 14 litres mentioned
Time: 12 hours or so?
Available: always available
Certainty: unknown
Notes: works by washing out the salts in your body, until the cells fail (osmotic balance buggered up). You need to keep drinking continually until you collapse. Unusual method. Someone suggested it would also cause cramps. The following is something from [2]: "About a year ago a local newspaper carried a story about a woman who had drunk herself to death. Apparently she had ingested something mildly poisonous, and when she called her doctor asking him what to do, he told her to drink lots of water and see him in the morning. She got to it and managed to drink no less than 14 litres of water before the osmotic balance in her body was so upset it could no longer function and she died (don't know how quickly)".

The above anecdote originally came from me, and the death described occured in Växjö, Sweden. Unfortunately I no longer remember which newspaper I saw it in.

Recently, I was told about a similar case in San Antonio. It supposedly happened a couple of years ago and was reported in the local San Antonio Express/News.

Death by drinking water. God, shoot me now. Can you imagine? After all that liquid consumption the person keels over and the muscles relax and... well, the clean underwear granny always said to wear will meet their end as well. Why do people say to wear clean underwear in case you get run over by a bus? Uh, nothing you're wearing will be very clean afterwards. The things that make you shake your head...

But getting back to the point of this rant, I just want to state publicly, for the record, that I was just doing research. If I keel over and die suddenly, it was probably the evil cat and I don't want him to get any of the insurance money. No diamond-studded collars for the little vampire.

Double wahoo and WTF?

Ah, our tedious little federal government has fallen at last. Yep, that's right, a Christmas campaign. I wonder if that means personalized Christmas cards from all the contenders? I do recall a few years back my sister got a nasty one with Jean Chretien plastered** amongst the holly. Scared the bejeebers out of me.

So, not only will we have egg nog and merriment, we'll have campaign promises along with all the festive cheer. Goody. And since it sounds like a January election date, that means we'll probably freeze our butts off trudging out in the middle of a blizzard and with our fingers vibrating like a chandelier in an earthquake, I'm not sure we'll even have the motor control to mark the box we're after.

Man, I'm so anxious for the feds to catch up with modern technology and have a remodelled pay-per-view system where we can just click a button to pick which clowns we want to watch the most from the comfort of our own couch.

And it's snowing. Oh, my dogs are so happy. Now, if only I can teach them to shovel all 230 feet of sidewalk we've got around our place...


And, in the WTF category, well, I read mail that is received by a magazine. So, yesterday, there’s this long letter outlining in detail the process of creating this elaborate story. I kid you not, the letter is like five pages long and I have to wonder if the writer knows the magazine publishes short stories. I mean, if the query is longer than the guidelines for the stories generally published how long is the actual story? Is it like an anthology of stories all on its own? Buy 1 get 20 installments?

Plus, the writer just sent this loooooooonnnnnggg outline. The writer didn’t ask if the magazine wanted to read this story. Didn’t ask if the magazine thought this idea had merit. The writer just told us about it. I really want to write back and say, “So?” but I’d get my ass kicked. The editor is so fussy about crap like that.


** This is not a comment about how much he’d been drinking, though he looked pretty relaxed for a politician. Must have been the pay-offs from the sponsorship scandal.****
**** Oh, sorry. Our politicians would never do anything wrong. That’s what Mr. Martin keeps saying. I must try harder to remember that.

too invested is your own opinion

There are moments when I haven't got a bloody clue why I subscribe to some internet groups.

Okay, this one in particular (which shall remain unnamed) is one I'd been harped on for well over a year to read before I finally signed up. And every now and again there's a nugget amongst the multitude of posts made each day.

But more often than not, there's just a lot of crap.

One person doesn 't like one book or series. Fine, fine. But beware the onslaught of defenders who will overwhelm the thing with the same opinion of their own, stated again and again and again.

Geez, WTF can't we have different opinions?

I mean, first one I read today says, "Series writers take note!" at the end, like a warning - in this case, the writer inferring that if your protagonist isn't giddy at the end, you're a crappy writer. Or a bad storyteller. Just plain not worth reading more from.

Who the hell appointed this guy the fiction god and said he gets to state what should and shouldn't be published, where writers should and shouldn't go with their stories? And it's not just this one poster - it's the tone of the whole thing some days. Some of these people should have a programmed key for the phrase, "I disagree so you're a complete idiot."

Surely someone will track this down and criticize me for expressing my opinion. Fine, but at least I'm not subjecting hundreds of people to it. Nobody made you come here. This isn't a subscription service. I'm not so arrogant as to type up the response that I think some of the posts on that unnamed group merit today and foist it upon everyone via the group.

Guess this is a classic example of how everything has a good and a bad side. I'm just glad that all **** people who subscribe to the thing don't feel the need to bang everyone over the head with their petty opinions about one specific writer, happy endings versus sad endings and the use of directions within the story.

No wonder some genre writers are marginalized. By spouting off formula after formula requirement for absolute satisfaction, they're marginalizing themselves.

(And as a fan of Rankin, MacBride, Kernick, McDermid and Billingham and the great tv show The Wire, I'm quite fine with endings that are a little depressing. I don't read books about murder and 'sin' to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Kudos to Laura Lippman for making me cry with her latest - clearly, that book resonated with me to evoke such a response.)

And Miss Popular is... still Aunt Sandra

My sister always said there'd be a day when friends would be more important to the kids than anybody else. Now that my niece is in junior high, I figure pretty soon I'll have to present an ID card when I go to the house so she knows who I am.

But not yet!

I asked her if she'd play a role in a little drama. Usually, a guaranteed yes. This time: "Well, when do you want me?"

"It starts at 7 so I'll pick you up around 4:30 and take you out for dinner." Usually, the nail in the coffin. An evening, with me, dinner to boot and no little brother tagging along. What more could a girl want.

"Um, well, that's when the party is."

Party? Hello, on a school night? And what party could possibly outshine the prospect of spending an evening with me and a bunch of mystery writers?

Nope, not a boy, not even a school friend. The kid next door. The much younger kid next door. I mean, like that can compare.

So, being gracious, I tell her it's up to her. So she asks exactly what it is I want her to do.

"Well, you're going to dress up as @!X%#@! and have a small part to play and then somebody is going to murder..."
"I get murdered?"
"Well, not for real."
"Cool! Okay, yeah, I'll do it!"

And I didn't even mention the fact that there'd be food and festivities to follow.

Good to know some people just can't resist the chance to get offed at a Christmas party.

Feel it in your bones

When I was a kid, I thought it was odd when old people talked about feeling the weather changing in their bones.

Now, I'm the old one who knows when a Chinook wind is on the way, or the temperature is about to plummet. Recurring knee injuries sensitive to changes in air pressure or whatever will do that to you, I guess.

And then there are these times when something happens and it should upset you or get you down, but it doesn't. And then something else happens, and you think maybe this is where it all begins. Maybe this is the thing you've been waiting for.

You never really know until it happens, I guess. Someone once told me 'every no is one no closer to a yes.' Sort of presumes the yes is a certainty and puts the focus on the journey. Maybe instead of chaffing at the bit to see results I should just sit back and enjoy the ride.

And the insane become...

Writers.

"Such a frustrated reaction to the story suggests someone unaccustomed to insubordination. His profession might be dictatorial in nature, with complete control over his underlings, a management executive or a foreman or maybe a writer." - Frank Black

"A writer wants his works to affect people. You'd prefer the effect not be expressed by death threats, but beggars can't be choosers." - Jose Chung

- Millenium, Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense

I'll bear that in mind the next time I send something to an agent. If they write back that reading any more would certainly motivate them to kill me, then I guess I can take heart in the fact that my writing made an impact.

Maybe the guy who wrote the episode was a writer with some psychological issues - kind of a self-love, self-hate thing going on. That could explain a lot.

Happy Huskies

Yesterday Mother Nature was out to get me.

It rained.

Which severely pissed off my huskies.

You'd think they'd go into the doghouse. That custom-built 6'x4'x4' wonder of a shelter that we slaved over. Heck, even the over-priced store-bought doghouse that occupies their space would be better than sitting out in the rain. But no. Sit they did, until they were equal parts of mud and fur and looked quite unhappy with the way their time outside was shaping up.

So I decided to bring them inside, which is usually an uneventful process. But not yesterday. Nope. The rain is pelting down - a cruel hoax of the weather gods because after all, it is November, and this is Canada...Rain? WTF? - and this is when the dogs decide to help me get back to the house in a hurry. Chinook twists around and starts running behind me while I'm trying to hold on to his collar and Nootka lunges forward. The end result? I look something like a pretzel as I land on my ass in the mud.

To make matters worse, it's like those dogs know what they did. Bearing in mind that they're now facing opposite directions and one is on each side of me, I'm getting licked by Nootka and whipped in the face with Chinook's tail.

I finally get them inside and they're grinning at me. Evil dogs.

And, as though Mother Nature had only been waiting until I had to peel off the mud-caked jeans, as soon as I go upstairs it has started to snow.

Which has undoubtedly pissed off a lot of other people. But the snow has made my huskies very happy.

If there's a lesson in there, it's this. Leave the dogs out in the rain.

And the moral would be that your misfortune is cause for someone else's celebration.