We have a dog. It's not my dog; I didn't even want it. I consider it a crime against animals to have a dog in an apartment, and we live in an apartment. Our apartment isn't huge either. I don't want to sleep on the mattress because it gets too hot and sometimes it feels wet because I sweat so much in those sleepless nights that invariably occur ( Read more... )

So yeah, I wrote a 7-minute buddy-cop comedy movie. Here it is:

Sarah, the director, wanted to have a writer's commentary, but we didn't find the time. This is the closest you're going to get.

It all happened rather suddenly. Andrew Yung-An "Yin Yang"* Kung came over to my apartment at some dark ungodly hour saying that Sarah Bakabak wanted me ( Read more... )

I'm doing this NaNoWriMo thing. The idea is to write 50,000 of a book without editing or checking anything at all. I'm accustomed to writing in a particular fashion, mainly one that involves constantly re-writing, editing, checking for spelling problems, grammar problems, style problems, etc. This is the first time I've ever tried not to do that, ( Read more... )

She was hungry for information, so I fed her. She had a burning intelligence, and somewhere in my mind I felt that if it stopped - if I stopped - the flame would go out. When we were finished with my collection, we visited book stores and libraries. What should normally be a pleasant diversion became a difficult triage operation as we decided what ( Read more... )

An occasional series where I take something for which there is no word and invent a word for it.

Sliddy - attractive in a particularly futuristic way. "Have you seen the new iMac? It's really sliddy!"

Right Blindness - the inability (or unwillingness) of someone in authority to notice when he has lost an argument.

Sluddism - the opposite of ( Read more... )

An occasional series where I take something for which there is no word and invent a word for it.

Yoogling - searching for something on YouTube.

Spicious - not so much too spicy, but too much of the wrong spice, or a bad mix of spices that makes no sense to your tastebuds.

Snirk - to place an item on a shelf where you know it doesn't belong (esp ( Read more... )

This was originally published (in modified form) in an Irish tourist magazine aimed at young people. I was just told to do something about the Irish language. I have added some anchor tags to explain things for non-Irish people.

Her name was Janice McDonagh. For seven years afterwards, I had resolved to call all my female children "Janice", ( Read more... )

It's been 35 degrees Celsius in Riverside all week. For our American friends, in Farenheit, that's TOO HOT! Even seasoned Californians are slowing down. Signs that it's getting too hot include:

• The water from the cold tap is warmer than the water from the hot tap.
  
• People who are brown go one shade browner.
  
• Girls wearing very little look more ( Read more... )

An occasional series where I take something for which there is no word and invent a word for it.

Groocy - (doing something while) dirty, and not caring.

Typhot - a form of typographical error where you mistype an entire word instead of just a letter; for instance "open the willow" instead of "open the window".

Eterbally - in the manner of a ( Read more... )

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