Go to hell, “R” key. Go to hell and die.

Go to hell, “R” key. Go to hell and die.

Posted inRandom Musings, Rants
It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools. That's how the saying goes, at least, but you know what? "It" being the conspicuous lack of a goddamn "R" in every other goddamn word I type from my goddamn laptop. I may or may not have mentioned it before, but I don't write on my desktop. Too many distractions. I have to get away from my desk and get someplace with as few bright and shinys as possible. That means grabbing the laptop and doing all my writing at the kitchen table or out on the back deck. I'm too prone…
The 5 Most Powerful Geeks of All Time

The 5 Most Powerful Geeks of All Time

Posted inGeek Stuff, Random Musings
Let's jump back a few years. Shortly after the release of Geek Wisdom, a book I was honored to contribute to, I was contacted by Men's Health magazine to write a piece about the most powerful geeks of all time. It sounded like a fun assignment. I wrote the piece. It was supposedly filled with "awesome stuff" and "everyone at the office [loved]" it, according to the editor who contacted me. But they never used it, and I never heard from that editor again. Rather than let it languish on a memory stick, I figured I'd yank it from the…
Sandra Bullock has a cool (but flawed) approach to closing Hollywood’s gender gap

Sandra Bullock has a cool (but flawed) approach to closing Hollywood’s gender gap

Posted inFilms, Random Musings
It's no great secret that aside from a small handful of silver screen legends, Hollywood is not a place where older women thrive. There have been a slew of complaints about a lack of roles for older actresses -- and in Hollywood, "older" often means "not in your 20s," even for actresses like Anne Hathaway -- a battle cry that has been growing in recent years. While some (like Russell Crowe) say the fault is with the actresses, not the scripts, studies show that in Hollywood, men talk and women show skin. Vulture also took a look at some films and…
Here is the self-indulgent writer’s life post (yay!)

Here is the self-indulgent writer’s life post (yay!)

Posted inRandom Musings, Writing
I started this blog however many years ago* for admittedly cynical reasons. I wanted to be more established as a Writer rather than a writer, and by all accounts having a blog through which you connect with people was an absolutely integral part of the equation. Supposedly, blogging is just what writers do. Since that time, I've had some books published, five of them by traditional publishers and three via my own sweat and blood. I s'pose that's not bad. Can't say this blog has had much to do with any of that or that it has helped in any…

The writer who doesn’t blog

Posted inRandom Musings, Writing
I'm a writer. I have books and stuff. My latest, about how to be a good groom, came out yesterday. But despite being a writer and having to do all that comes with the job description, I do a poor job of blogging on a regular basis. All the modern wisdom about what it takes to make it as a writer in today's world says I'm going about this all wrong. You've got to build an audience, they say. You have to keep your name out there. You have to connect with people. You have to utilize the web --…