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And in an hours time I’m off to the airport. I’m a bundle of nerves this morning, but I’ve been singing this song for the last half-hour:

And tomorrow there is Worldcon.

’cause I’ve already started humming to chorus to myself every half-hour or so:

One of the nice things about the internet is that occasionally a friend will be all “dude, you have to check this out” and I’ll be all “dude! WTF? LOLS!”

Today is one of those days. I give you the Call of Cthulhu, summarised in two minutes or less in fluent Valley Girl.

For real, dude. Total WTF? LOLS

1) There’s is nothing quite so pleasant as heading out to one of your favorite bookstores on a rainy night and having someone read to you, but it’s doubly awesome when the topic du-jour is the Art of the Reading. The irony is that this totally wasn’t my idea – my sister e-mailed a few days back and asked if I’d be interested, and I was all “sick now, whatever, yeah? Put me down as a yes and leave me alone.” And so I was put down for a yes and Tuesday night rolled around and after I remembered I needed to be somewhere at somewhen there was much confused flailing and wondering what the hell I’d gotten into and then…then…then there was a pleasant night of awesomeness. And Nando’s chicken for afters, ’cause nothing says “pleasant night of literary discussion” like following things up with fast food.

2) I’m finally starting to find my routine again after nearly two weeks of being knocked about by allergies and the flu. The Spokesbear is pleased, although that may have more to do with the fact that my first resposne to bad news ceases to be curling up in ball and whimpering pitiously. The Spokebear has no pity.

3) Due to the pharmaceutical-induced cold-and-flu insomnia I happened to be up late enough to see episodes of Brad Garrett’s dire post-Everybody-Loves-Raymond sitcom, ‘Til Death. And it’s truly dire, not least of which because it’s falling back on the increasingly familiar trope of portraying married men as perpetual adolescents who need to be mothered by their wives. This shit makes me mad. Throwing stuff at the TV mad angry, actually. There is a rant brewing in the back of my brain about the need for male-oriented narratives that find a response to the rise of feminism beyond “act like children”, but ranting with lingering flu-brain is not the best idea.

4) Every time I use du jour in a blog post, I keep thinking about this scene from Josie in the Pussycats and giggling. If you haven’t seen the Josie and the Pussycat’s movie, you really should. It’s awesome. And Du Jour means crash positions!

Since it came up in comments on in the livejournal feed, I’m going to make quick mention of this.

I can understand the desire to make fun of country music, because much of it isn’t my thing and there are far too many examples of bad country music out there (especially in Australian, where the genre deserves to be razed to the ground merely for the existence of Slim Dusty). But it’s worth remembering that for every ten or eleven bad examples  there is at least one good, often lurking in the background, that wouldn’t exist if we put up with the genre as a whole. I mean, country music gave us the genre of rockabilly (which was good) which in turn gave us The Living End (which was not). It gave us Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails tunes and giving them a tenderness they never would have had in their original incarnation. I will argue tooth and nail that Country Music as a genre should be allowed to stick around for bit without being mocked.

I mean, if we eliminate the scourge of country music, we elimiante the possibility of Neko Case:

And honestly, there are some prices that just aren’t worth paying.
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 4
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 12/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)

My amusement probably makes less sense if you’re not aware of the band (and song) they’re covering, but this amuses me. Oh, how this amuses me; there is a line between cheese and genius. Methinks this dances merily along it:

There is a rumour that Ratt is going to release a new album through Roadrunner Records later this year.

Against all odds, this brings me joy.  And it will continue to do so until I realise it has the potential to be an ever bigger debacle than Chinese Democracy.

Oh hair metal, I miss you so.

Just, you know, don’t bring back the hair and tight pants when you slink in through the back door of teenage nostalgia.

Tonight, this song is the only thing between me and apathetic nihilism.

Which kinda begs the question of what I used to do in the days before youtube. I suspect I just went straight to the Smiths CDs and drank.

It turns out that spending two-to-three weeks writing by hand just wasn’t on the list of things I was willing to do. Fortunately this roughly coincided with the realisation that I could pick up a very cheap desktop (to replace the machine that died last September) and write it off as a business expense. It’s not as ideal as no computer problems at all – I’ve spent the last two days uploading the various programs and back-up files onto the new machine rather than working – but it has fringe benefits (hello, photoshop. I’ve missed you).

It’s a stinking hot, evil day outside my office so I’ve retreated into the air-conditioning with a pile of Primus CD and a large vat of coffee. The coffee because my sleep patterns are shot right now (going to bed at eleven, getting to sleep around 4 am). The Primus because I watched a lot of Robot Chicken in a row and it’s Les Claypool themesong reminded me that, yes, godsfuckit, they really were one of my favourite bands.

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 0
Days without coke and other soft-drinks: 0 <- Yes: FAIL
Days without chocolate: 3
Today the Spokesbear is: wishing I’d stop tooling around with the new computer and *get to goddamn work*

It seemed a good day to revisit these videos:

Way more fun than any academic discussion of the Catcher in the Rye I’ve ever had.