Funny And Heroic

 

This made me laugh, so maybe you'll get a chuckle out of it.

We had an all-hands meeting, which happens once a month. At the beginning, the meeting organizer said they wanted to know who everybody's "silent hero" was. Someone always ready to lend a helping hand, someone always working in the background to make sure things go smoothly.

Meanwhile, I never pay much attention to these meetings. I'm doing work. I just listen. 

Fifteen minutes later I hear her say, "Okay, we're wrapping up the voting but here's where we are now." I click over to look at the screen and see a bunch of names on the screen, but my name is dead center and bigger than everybody else's name.

I'm like...WTF? Like, sure I do a lot of stuff, and help people out pretty regularly, but still didn't expect to see my name up there.

Meanwhile, votes are still coming in and other names are getting bigger and smaller. I figure, my name will get smaller and someone else will win.

Nope, by the time it ended, I won the title. I get $50 to the company store, but it'll also look good on my next review. I expect to get a nice raise again, given how much I'm killing it.

They also offered some specialized training to people in the company to get some security certification, but all it would do would be to look good on my resume, and frankly, I don't really care too much. They're like "But the company will pay for it!" And I'm like, don't care--when I'm done here, I'm probably done working, so what do I need a resume for?

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On the book thing, turns out there was a couple of TINY issues so had them worked out, and printed out five new ARCs to send out to reviewers. Then I remember that I wanted to print out some glossy ones for comparison, to see which I like better, so had another five made.

Now I gotta find the reviewers I want to check it out.

Also been doing a lot of research on where to advertise. It's a lot, man.

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Went to the carnival last night. Hasn't been one since like 2019, cuz of the Vid. Good time, cuz the weather had threatened rain so it wasn't crowded. It only drizzled for about 5 minutes, and then was nice. Not that hot either.

 

 

Goodbye Snowden / Got A Copy

 

Thursday was gonna have beers with Malf, but he texted me back and asked if Friday would work instead. Said sure.

Got sad news that the movie theater that I premiered my first film at, and shot the entire finale of FOC at, is closing. Then I find out that they actually have one of those upgraded Screen X auditoriums--wasn't even sure what it was, but looked it up and asked my parents and my brother if they wanted to go.

They did, but then my mom wasn't feeling great so she bowed out. My dad, Mike and me headed up there. Haven't been there in a while. 

Turns out the Screen X auditorium is the actual one that we shot a big scene in FOC in. It's totally renovated with a wall-to-wall screen and nice seats. The gimmick is that at certain parts in the movie, two other projectors project extensions of the screen on both sides of the center screen.

It's not amazing, but it does feel like it adds a little immersion. The trailer for Meg 2 played in Screen X format, and we all agreed that would probably be a good way to see that flick.

We saw the new Mission Impossible. Pretty entertaining, but forgettable as most of them are.

I took some photos and a little video. Nobody's sure if the theater's getting turned into something else or whether another theater will buy it. A lot of people are saying that the company whose theater we usually go to is gonna buy it, but that theater is literally only like 10 miles away.

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Ordered some proofs of the Hween antho so I could read the interior and see if there are any formatting errors. It's pretty cool, and thick. 420 pages.

I dig it. Looks very professional, and I know the stories are fun. Gotta find who best to send some Arcs to. All physical. I'm not shipping out any electronic copies of this early. Don't fucking care if someone doesn't want physical--they can fucking buy an electronic copy of it when it comes out.

Also, am wheeling on the printing strategy. I've always used A-zon to print my books, but there's a bigger entity called roughly Ing Spark who can get your book into actual bookstores. I'd heard some good, some bad, so I planned on just going through them.

Then one of the people who I'd watched some videos on this stuff put a new video that's basically titled "Why I will never use (the Ing company) to print my books ever again."

So fuuuuuuck. Looks like I'm going to use A-zon AND Ing to do it, but that's gonna cost me a little more money. Can't use the free ISBN--gotta buy one for each version of the book. (print/ebpub/hc/audio) At $85 a pop, that'll add up.

Also added some work to my plate, but I started that this weekend.

 And hey--saw this and man did it take me back early. I remember for some reason when we were very young, probably like 5 or 6, my brother and I really liked different Disney characters. He liked Mickey Mouse, I liked Donald Duck.

So at our birthdays, my mom baked a different cake. The Donald Duck one below was for me, and she'd gotten a Mickey Mouse pan for him.

I know there's a pic somewhere of us with this cake on the table at a bday party, but a quick search didn't find it. If I see it, I'll post it.

 

Could Go For 5 Day Weekends

 

Weekend's almost over and I could use a few more days of sitting around vegetating. 

Went over last night to the parents house because an aunt and uncle I haven't seen in like 10 years were over so my mom made dinner.

Thing is, I never really liked this uncle much. He was a religious nutbag who made our lives hell as kids. Was always trying to take shit away from us even though he wasn't our dad. For some reason, like 20 years back, he sort of mellowed so now he's not so bad.

Which is kind of weird, cuz doesn't it usually go the other way? The older people get, the more set in their ways they are...

And he's now 80, which surprised me. Given how overweight he's been all of his life and the history of heart problems in my family, it's a little weird that he hasn't kicked off.

Anyway, dinner was good and we had some chat.

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Ok, so had a little discussion with the other book cover guy and he's gonna redo the almost-illegible title. My interior guy actually asked me if he could do a sample title to pass on to the guy, so I said hell yeah. He did--it looks great, uses the same font the first cover guy used so it matches somewhat.

Once that one has a new, decent title, I'm guessing most people will prefer his. Then I gotta decide if I'm cool with it being the paperback.

Also wondering if I shouldn't just do a regular hardcover edition with a dust jacket with the other one, and if I eventually do a limited, just get a new cover made. Because with how expensive it is, I'm not sure it will ever happen, and it would suck to have this cool cover sit around doing nothing.

This is a cool poster for BTF that I'd never seen:

 

 

The Musings

 

That's a cool pic. Looks like a combo of Brom and Bisley.

Been a busy couple of weeks, as usual. The job, then I had to shoot a video this past weekend that I'm still editing for my unwanted second job.

The lady had reached out on June 28th to ask if I could shoot a video maybe July 1-2nd, but I said no way. Told her I could do it the following weekend, which was this past weekend.

She also asked if I could do an auction in September. I'd told them I would be doing ZERO auctions(other than the short Wednesday night auctions) in September and October. So I replied, nope, not available. I reminded her that I'd told her.

I think she's freaking now. I'm not sure why she didn't listen to me when I told her they needed to get someone to replace me, but she's listening now. When I went to shoot the video with her this weekend, she told me how worried she is about being able to replace me.

The problem is that most people don't have the skillset I have. That's the first issue. Say they find someone who can do that--it's not a full time job. Yet, the company will want them to take off during the week for away auctions. So if this person has a full time job but takes this job on some weekends, they would have to take off possibly a Thursday/Friday before an away auction to travel. Who's gonna do that?

Say they find someone who agrees to that, though. Once they try the job, they'll see how insanely tedious it is. Sitting in place for 6-9 hours staring at numbers on the screen while the auctioneer drones on with the repetitive numbers. After a couple of hours, you're basically being hypnotized to sleep.

And you don't get lunch. You don't get a break. You can slip out to pee maybe once or twice when they change auctioneers, but you don't get any real break. 

I do all this because I'm used to being uncomfortable. I'm willing to put up with a lot of shit, and can go long periods of time without significant food. Most people--like my brother, for instance--won't do it. Hell, when my brother was working for the company as a runner and a packer, and the auction was mobbed, he didn't get a lunch and he WIGGED out. He goes low blood sugar, and he becomes an angry Hulk.

So they started making sure he got a lunch.

Anyway, I don't give a shit. I'm tired of it, and I don't need the money. I'd rather have my weekends free. (though it is kind of nice to cash these big checks and just have cash to throw around)

---

Regular work is a nightmare, but I won't bore you with that.

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I bought two really nifty mini drones--er, sorry, hover cameras. They were pretty cheap and are kinda amazing. Got one for me and one for my older brother. 

I didn't realize the reason they were calling them hover cameras until I ran into a video explaining that more and more the government is trying to ban drones. Literally, they want to ban the two biggest drone makers in the US--companies that represent like 90% of all drones sold in the US.

The drone I used in Ttory 2 is made by one of these companies.

This guy goes into some of the possible reasons for this ban, and it's plausible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZFtB9RwZY

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On the antho book front, it's with the format guy now. Completely done other than that formatting and the 2nd cover that I'm waiting on. Then I'll have a vote on which one is better, and decide what's paperback and what's hardcover.

An esquire article came out today about some of the best up and coming horror writers, and two of them are in my book. That's pretty sweet. (another two were people I invited--one couldn't do it, and the other never responded)

 

 

Can we finally fire K. Kennedy?

 

Been watching some TV. Started a new show on A-zon called Deadloch. Sort of a quirky Chapelwaite. 

Caught up on Naked and Afraid Lone Survivor. It's a lot of fun. The best of the best are for the first time competing rather than just trying to survive. Only one person wins the big prize.

Watched a couple of the new Black Mirror. Still good, but not as great as the other seasons. (though that first episode is scary when you contemplate how real it could be)

Saw Indy. Nowhere near as bad as part 4. The young Indy parts were cool. The rest was pretty so so. The attempts to soft reboot using that woman and her imitation Short Round was ridiculous.

But it bombed at the box office. It's another high profile Disney bomb. So can we just admit that Kathleen's been REALLY bad for the big D? Why won't they let her go?

And stop fucking with past franchises. Stop bringing back our heroes who went out heroes as some sad, pathetic versions of themselves whose happy endings somehow soured when last we saw them.

Didn't really watch a July 4th movie near July 4th. Thought about watching ROTD. Or Jaws 2. Maybe I still will tonight.