hello nice reederz its dennis the vizsla dog hay gess whut my dada is giving me my own blog isnt that neet its at http://dennisthevizsla.wordpress.com so yoo can follow all my ad … advench … all the trouble i get in ther now i mite even let tucker and trixie and even dada rite sumthing ther becuz thats the kind of dog i am ennyway see yoo over at the new site ill be ther licking myself ok bye
That First Step Is A Lulu
So seeing as the mainstream publishing world has never quite known what to do with me — I have a portfolio of rejection letters eight inches thick full of comments like “highly enjoyable but we have no idea how to market it” and “skillfully written, but not everyone wants to read The Books of Blood by Clive Barker” (I used to get compared to Mr. Barker fairly regularly) — I’ve decided to bypass them and start publishing books myself, with the first one being that old standby, the vampire novel, coming soon via Lulu. Watch for Long Before Dawn to be available in the next few weeks.
I’ve set up a small homepage at Lulu which for now will serve as my main writing, media, and publishing-related site, although I’ll likely continue to cross-post material here … assuming Dennis lets me sit at the keyboard every now and then.
The Crows Caught Up With Me
I’m not sure if they’re looking for royalties from A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder (hey, guys, I made hardly any money off it), or if they want to have a chat with me about how the crows were portrayed (call my agent … oh, wait, I don’t have one anymore), or if there’s just a lot of yummy garbage in the neighborhood. Let’s hope it’s that last one.
“Me and the boys would like to talk with you about that book you named after us …”
Nuts A-Poppin
So last night I cooked chestnuts in the toaster oven. Evidently you’re supposed to cut an “X” in them before you roast them, and if you don’t, they eventually start exploding, spraying shrapnel (bits of shell and meat) over a wide area. Who knew? (Besides the instruction label on the container, I mean. But who reads those things?)
Continue reading “Nuts A-Poppin”
New Story Available at Amazon.com
Hey, look, I’m using the blog for its original purpose! Don’t worry, though, this is just a temporary digression before we return to the regularly scheduled adventures of Dennis the Menace.
I have a new fantasy story available at Amazon.com. This one is called “Comfort” and it’s about the winter siege of a castle high in the mountains. It’s not horror, but don’t worry, plenty of people still die.
OpenDNS To The Rescue
So last night in the midst of the usual connection slowdown, I decided to take matters into my own hands and switched the router over to use OpenDNS servers instead of Cox DNS servers. The time to establish connections to sites immediately improved and there were no further timeouts. We will see how it works tonight.
The reason I suspected a DNS issue was because (as Cox determined) the modem signal was fine, and all the speed tests — when they would run — reported normal or near-normal download speeds even while sites were completely failing to load. The main issue we were having was that it was really slow to start a session with a new site, often timing out or giving “address not found” errors on the first try but working on the second or third. Once on a site, things were generally reasonably quick. This suggested that the difficulty was in either resolving the host name (i.e., turning “yahoo.com” into Yahoo’s IP address) or in negotiating the initial TCP connection (i.e., getting “directions” from here to Yahoo). Reasoning that Cox’s DNS servers might be saturated by the kid next door downloading porn, I took them out of the equation. So far it seems to have worked.
So go ahead, kid. Download the entire Star Wars series and every episode of Family Guy. See if we care.
Peak Time
So lately our cable broadband has been getting really slow in the evenings, starting around 6pm. In the morning it flies (18mb download speeds according to DSL Reports speed test), but come prime time, pages won’t load, valid addresses are not found, form submits time out — we’re talking narrowband stuff here, like a 28.8 modem from 1994. We don’t have anything better to do in the evenings than surf the Internet (except when we’re at the Arthur Murray or Dance North County) so this is kind of annoying.
How To Hand Out Halloween Candy
So Halloween came and went, and we didn’t get as many trick-or-treaters (hereafter known as TOTs) as I was expecting, given the numbers of kids that seem to be running around the neighborhood on any given day. There is a possibility that our dogs–who bark like lunatics every time someone comes to the door, let alone a group of six or seven someones dressed like axe-wielding maniacs, fairy princesses, and various forms of licensed merchandise–kept some of the TOTs away. I definitely heard some screaming and running off down the driveway when the dogs started up. (Dennis the rescue vizsla didn’t bark all that much, but he was watching the other two and taking notes.)
So anyway, here’s the proper way to hand out Halloween candy. First, buy extra bags. Then, hand out the candy in ascending order of how much you like it; this way you’re left with a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups instead of a bag of Honey Bunches O’ Angry Ants or whatever.
Oh, and give extra candy to the TOTs who say “thank you”. Even goblins can learn to be polite.
“A Flock of Crows” Reissued
The reissue of “A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder” is now available from Amazon.com. Now you can get it for $15.99 instead of paying $40 for an out-of-print copy. And there was much rejoicing …
You
The idea for “You” came from a coworker’s desk calendar of practical jokes, one of which was to leave notes for people that just said — wait for it — you. And what better time to leave prank notes than Halloween? “You” was accepted (and paid for) by Brutarian Quarterly for the Halloween 2001 issue, but it’s not clear that this issue ever appeared. It still counts as a sale though! They’re my rules, I make ’em up …
There wasn’t anybody at the front door, just a big jack-o’-lantern with a kitchen knife stuck through the side. Hank could see the blade through the thing’s gaping mouth, the metal blackened by the flame of the stubby candle that guttered within. He stepped out onto the porch, the old boards creaking and groaning beneath his feet. Whoever had left the jack-o’-lantern had rung the bell and then vanished into the night like a coward.
He noticed a piece of paper pinned to the creamy orange rind. With one hand steadying the pumpkin, he yanked out the knife and dropped it off to the side, then picked up the note. It said, in big black letters, YOU.
Was that supposed to be a threat?
He blew out the candle, picked up the jack-o’-lantern, and took it inside. He put it on the kitchen counter, then went back for the knife; but it was gone. Whoever had left the pumpkin must have taken it while he was in the house.
Hank returned to the kitchen and spent a moment looking at the jack-o’-lantern. Probably just some kids picking on him; maybe they figured he was some kind of weird hermit or an axe murderer or something. He remembered his own childhood, when he and his friends had harassed old lady McGill simply because she never came out. They would ring her bell and run away, leave flaming bags of dog shit on her porch, unscrew the bulbs of her outside lights … whatever they could think of. Never anything as overtly threatening as this jack-o’-lantern trick, though; they were just having fun. But times had changed.
He had become old lady McGill.
And the kids had become psychopaths.
