• 12:56 Not sure what to read every day online? How about 10 Blogs You Should Be Reading DAILY snurl.com/2rlx1 courtesy of PCMag.com #
• 15:38 The mail giveth (stimulus check) and the mail taketh awayeth (story rejection). #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

As if not having another rousing season of Doctor Who this summer weren't enough, the Brits have more greatness based on past properties in the pipeline:

The Prisoner is being revived, as a six-episode mini-series. And Sir Ian "Gandalneto" McKellenhhimself will be playing Number Two, the mind-mucking badguy. Amazing. Hopefully they'll give it a real ending and not a surreal Cirque de Soliel ending like the original show.

And am I the only person who thinks the title Quantum of Solace for the next Bond filme is pure awesome? Well, you will after you see the trailer.

If you don't read blogs... well, then you're probably not reading this. But if you do, and you're at a loss for what to fill your RSS reader with to take up time now that there's no TV, you could do worse than to read my latest story for PC Mag (and my first that's an online-only!), Ten Blogs You Should Be Reading DAILY. It was hard to pick 10 that update all the time and are worth reading by the entire world, but somehow, I managed it. (If you don't like any of the choices, well... you're just crazy.)

• 14:11 Bloglines.com has been down for 10 min. I feel like I've lost an appendage. (addicted to RSS? oh yes. May resort to Google Reader!) #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

When is going to an awesome, well stocked farmer's market no fun at all?

Just about every time I got to the Ithaca Farmers Market. Every single time, I vow never to go again, but I'm always back a few times a year. Mostly cause I love the breakfast burritos from Solaz, which are only at the market. But that still doesn't make it worth the two hours of life lost this morning.

Before we left, I told the wife -- whom I call Farmer Squanto -- that "humanity hasn't pissed me off in a while, so sure, I'll go with you." After all, she was buying.

I didn't think it would be so bad, though.

It took a full 20 minutes to get a parking space, which was only mildly annoying. But a full hour, from the moment I got back in the car until we exited on Route 13? Inexcusable. Not that the city put a cop at the intersect to alleviate some of that traffic, hell's no. Must be you need an MVA for that bit of public service to take place. I saw an Amish guy getting out of a pick-up and helping with traffic more than anyone else (he wasn't driving, so I guess it was okay... maybe he was Mennonite? I'm too pissed and ignorant to try and figure it out. He did have a very stylish purple shirt on under his vest, which I don't recall seeing in that Harrison Ford movie... but I digress).

The only time it's feasible to go there in the summer at all is before 9:30am, and I'm not a damn farmer, so I'm not up by then on a Saturday! For the love of all things organic, someone should re-think the parking or exit strategies in that area for next year. Preferably, by next week. Cause I really, really like those burritos.

• 23:37 Watching the last Resident Evil flick. I like vegas better covered in sand. Zombies seem par for the course. #
• 23:39 Zombies can climb the fake Eiffel Tower but not chain link fence. That's good to know when undead apocalypse comes. #
• 09:13 Dictionary.com Word of the Day: "harbinger". For years, I pronounced this "har-bring-er." #
• 10:36 first bad firefox 3 experience: had to completely uninstall/reinstall to get any extensions to work, even if I tried manual delete. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

Image via Wikipedia

Ever since I left the theater, I've considering how best to articulate my feelings about Wall-E. Beautiful. Haunting. Loving. Sleek. Dystopic. Greatest soundtrack going -- even the Peter Gabriel song on the credits. Maybe even hopeful, but then again, maybe not -- not for the humans, anyway, though the closing credits might try to convince you otherwise. No matter what, it's an achievement in every way.io9's full review sums it up just about perfect, thought they're a lot more pessimistic than I think Pixar wanted us to be (but that's Pixar's own fault for making that sugar-laden, cyber-addicted spaceship in the stars look just a little too real for the future of humanity.)

Oh, and the short at the beginning is fantastic... makes me wish Pixar had the rights to re-create Bugs Bunny in CGI. In fact, I think they pretty much did, without any need for Mel Blanc.

• 08:54 Finished radio interview #3... didn't ask much about the story, but I got to rail against tech & entertainment monopolies for a while. Fun! #
• 14:06 wettest dentist visit ever. Had to ask for towel to dry my face between his splashy trips into my pie hole. (result=2 temp crowns) #
• 16:27 my mouth is hurty. I miss the novacaine, even if it did make me drool. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

• 12:45 had to give up my desktop PC to the Wife so she could give an online presentation. actually "working" on the laptop is just not the same. #
• 16:53 I'm heading to the post office to mail my manuscript to my agent. Hopefully she will love it. tinyurl.com/4nfhr6 #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

I wish Rescue Me only came in five minute chucks for ever if they're as good as this one, which was better than the entire fourth season. You'll probably have to watch a commercial to get to the good stuff, which involves words George Carlin said you can't say.

Image via Wikipedia

• 15:56 Calling into second radio interview of the week with www.graveline.com. Plan to minimize ums & uhs for listening pleasure. #
• 21:36 70 pages of manuscript left to publish and toner cartridge needs a shake each 5 pages to keep printing. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

So, I just spent about an hour trying to print the final 70 pages of the manuscript for my book to send to my agent. Never get caught with your toner low in such a situation... I was taking the cartridge out and shaking it like mad every four to six pages, just to get the printer to see enough of it on the drum to keep going. Stupid smart printers.

I was so frustrated, I went shopping for a new printer immediately... it would be nice to get something that spits out, say, 30 pages per minute. I don't need color, I'd be happy with a monochrome laser (and preferable networkable), but all I can find are all-in-ones with scanners and fax and sandwich makers built-in, which I don't really need. I haven't sent a fax since 2005. Even if the price is good, the prices for ink are terrible -- yet the prices on the lasers are bad enough to make the ink jets look good. Blah. What a scam. Chances are I won't have to do a serious print job again for months anyway. Why bother. I should just go print stuff at the wife's office on the sly.

So, that put me off and instead I signed up for Amazon Prime, so I can get stuff sent to me 2-day whenever I order, just like that (as long as its from Amazon and not a partner). It'll be an excuse to buy even more from them. Luckily, I'll still get screwed by the new New York state tax on Amazon purchases, so I won't go too nuts. But if I don't go nuts buying on Amazon, the Prime membership is wasted! Conundrum City, ticket for one.

Now, i have to decide to whether to buy a new toner cartridge for the current printer, or get a new printer, or just buy some comics. Leaning heavily toward comics...

One of the tougher stories I've written in the last year was PC Mag's latest annual Future Tech feature. Not because it wasn't interesting -- seriously, how often do I get to write about electronic nose technology? -- but because narrowing it down and finding a theme for so much experimental research was a nightmare. I think it turned out pretty well (especially because of the art in all the parts I didn't write -- check out the uber-cool future laptop with roll-out screen). Readers like the future so much that I've got three more radio interviews in the next week all about it.

• 09:55 Found a snake in the garage last night...so small, he was stuck in a spider web. I've seen bigger nightcrawlers. I saved him. #
• 10:23 marketing copy I just wrote for Wall-E (opening Friday): "he will capture our hearts... and crush them into small cubes." #
• 13:02 Exactly one year ago today I applied to VPXI. Tomorrow, I'm going to send novel that got critiqued there to my agent. About frakin' time. #
• 15:46 Just did an interview on Wall Street Journal Radio Network about my Future Tech story. Not sure when it airs. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

• 11:20 wee! it's hazardous waste drop-off day at the county dump! So long, old, used engine oil stored in orange juice jugs. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

• 22:11 I can not believe I sat on my eye glass prescription for 18 months... its painfully obvious now I needed these new spectacles, bad. #
• 10:56 NYTimes on Love Guru: "downright antifunny...makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again." Gotta see it now. #
• 16:52 forecast: tstorms all weekend. Thank dog. Another week to avoid painting second 1/2 of garage floor. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

• 21:00 deep fried Oreo cookies at the Ithaca Ale House... better in thought than in practice. #
• 09:25 fried Oreos part 2: 2 hours of puking from 2-4. dreaming about encrypted RSS feeds over and over didn't really help. #
• 15:16 closing in on the closing of the RSS feed story. I think. I just keep finding more stuff to put in.... #
• 15:53 My chinese glasses are in... at the PO. I have to go pick them up. Oh, the joy of being a four-eyes again is upon me! #
• 18:43 New glasses: regular pair too small for my melon-head. Also, clear vision gives me a headache. Sunglasses rock, tho. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

Image via Wikipedia

• 23:39 The good guys win! And by good guys, I mean me and my neighbors. ping.fm/ragaq #
• 09:15 the best kinda dog? an incontinent dog. #
• 10:18 testing Skype beta 4. It's not permanently full screen like I thought it would be, but it does take some getting used to. #
• 13:04 To the rescue!... taking the wife a VoIP headset at lunch. Last time I did something like this, I got a speeding ticket. So far, so good. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

It's an interesting thing to be in a completely self-serving side of an argument and win it on the merits of the law.

A couple weeks back I got notice in the mail that the local zoning board of appeals would have a hearting June 17 to grant a variance to a guy who wanted to build some townhouses across the road from me. Yuck. So the wife and I went and sat in on the zoning appeals meeting. For TWO HOURS.

The immediate upside of this meeting: the first guy on the docket was the guy who sold us our house almost six years ago. And of course, we don't like him, cause he was a jerk at our closing. He's a developer type, and didn't get what he wanted from the board. Schadenfreude.

It took a while, but the quiet spoken board -- damn where they hard to hear -- finally got around to the townhouse guy. We were not alone in opposition to the plan of this eight-person townhouse rental property across the street. Neighbors I don't know and may never see again were vocal with worries about the neighborhood (such as it is on our 55-mile-per-hour "street") and the fill under the land in question, which is probably toxic. Plus, whatever septic they put in will probably leech into some neighbor's yards for his kids to play in. Fun!

None of which mattered: the rule is you need 5 acres to build such a thing, and there is only 4.1 (or 4.34, depending on what map you look at). Two speakers implored the board to follow the rule of law and not to disappoint the voters. Finally, the board said, "nay." (Even if they'd say "yay" the whole thing still needed to go through the Board of Health and the town planning committee.)

I'm not even sure the developer actually owns the land since the For Sale sign is still up across the road. So this may be the last we hear about it. For now. Someday someone will build there, that I'm sure. I just hope it comes after the economy shoots up enough that people would want to buy houses again... as no one around here seems to be doing much of that anymore. I hope the spot stays empty for years to come.

• 10:51 it's typo morning! Misspel something with me. #
• 11:01 your wi-fi sucks. You could buy a new router (and probably should). but there's other things to do. seriously. snurl.com/2jvh2 #
• 16:44 4GB USB flash drive I got for $7? still not big enough. #
• 16:51 66: A month ago this would have been a heat wave. Today I'm so cold, Ihad to put on pants. #
• 17:55 tonight going to a village meeting to see if some joker wants to build townhouses across the street. my vote: uh, frak no. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

If you're one of the six people who actually reads this blog in an RSS reader, then do me a favor: kill the subscription and re-subscribe using http://feeds.feedburner.com/SquishedFrogBlog. It's New! Improved! And will let me put some of my new mad RSS skillz (if such a thing exists) into practice. That is all.

• 08:08 For those keeping tracK: chinese glasses made it to Jamaica NY yesterday. That's 11 days since order. #
• 13:52 marinading in RSS all day today and beyond. steeped in feeds. saturated in atom and aggregators. #
• 15:21 just bought new cell phone charger from Verizon. Verizon cost: $32. Cost on Amazon: $2. Returnsville, here we come. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

For years and years and years and, I swear, YEARS, I wrote about nothing but Wi-Fi (or as we in the know don't call it, "the wiffie.")

Turns out I can't quite escape it, so even now, I write about it occasionally. Most recently, was for the Solutions section of PC Mag, where I covered "How to Improve Your Home Wi-Fi Network."

If you learn nothing else, learn this: you need a new router. And by "you," I mean, "I".

• 10:10 sitting in the driveway, watching over our freecycle sale of tons of crap. Come to my house if you need a vacuum, clip art, dresser, n more #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

moar funny pictures

(click the pic and vote to maek Kapur famus. (Damn, writing that way is addicting..)

A meme, a meme, how I loves a meme! It's like cat-waxing that appears to have a purpose.

Kim pointed this one out: take a book and turn to page 123 and blog the fifth sentence. She did it with her own books. So I shall as well. Cause it's all about ME.

• From The Random Chance Chronicles Book 1 (double spaced manuscript): "What? This is just...did you ever think that maybe my mom is just trying to bring people together? Make everyone in the Circle feel closer?"

• From Random Chance Chronicles Book 2 (single spaced and as yet unfinished): "Those bloody pucks. Where have they gone?"

• From Beta Test (single spaced): "For the love of Ditko!" Melvin said. "For that, they better have some elephants shitting gold in there."
  
  I guess those are each more than one sentence, but you get the picture.
  Posted by Eric G. at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)

Opening of the next episode features Admiral Adama on his knees in the sand yelling: "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

• 16:33 Spent 3 hours cleaning the closet in The Wife's packratted office, mostly all crap from pre-2002 (zip disks!). She's officially a Griffith. #
• 19:08 I must subliminally really want a new laptop. I just dropped Maui, my once beloved Vaio, on the floor. In the garage.A floor made of cement. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

Image via Wikipedia

I only read one headline (by mistake) in a review of The Incredible Hulk which said something like "incredible? Eh. How about The Adequate Hulk?" And they ain't wrong. [[As always, SPOILERS abound.]]

It'a better than Hulk, certainly, with that film's inscrutable ending and the dad who turns to lightning -- I think -- but one thing this "reimagining" (it ain't really a sequel) lacks is any emotional immediacy for the fight with the bad guy. Bruce Banner goes from being on the run and only caring about finding a cure to suddenly volunteering to "aim" his alter ego at the new bad guy. Why? Is Hulk suddenly a super-hero? I'd have bought it if the General had ordered it. Maybe.

All in all, anyone with a TV or Web access is not going to be surprised by anything in this film, perhaps with the exception of Tim Blake Nelson showing up as Mr. Blue and/or The Leader (another Hulk villain they're setting up for a sequel to this non-sequel). Thanks to the aggressive marketing done in fear that the film will tank, I knew everything in this flick ahead of time -- the talking Hulk (fanboy moment: about damn time), appearance by Tony Stark, etc. Would it kill a studio to try and keep the appearance of the Abomination (above) secret? I don't recall seeing Iron Monger in the lead up to Iron Man. But whatever, it wouldn't matter; these films aren't about surprising anyone, they're about the ride. Hulk rides are measured in the number of Hulk-outs. Remember the TV show? Two Hulk-outs per episode limit. In this movie: three. Longer sure, but maybe shorter would have been better, as the CGI is not exactly perfect. Doing skin and faces is not the same as doing cloth costumes (Spider-Man) or armor.

All that said, it's a perfectly cromulent flick, worth seeing for fans of the show or the comic, but I can't see it getting much beyond that group like Ironman has managed. Which is a shame. Then again, maybe not. Ed Norton, arguably the best part of the film -- tho William Hurt did a good job at Thunderbolt Ross -- probably won't be back, and I don't think the franchise would be in good shape with another complete cast change. I would look forward to a sequel that utilizes the whole multiple-personality disorder plot from the comics... seeing Banner and Hulk integrate into a smart, talking and mean-ass Hulk all in one would be a nice surprise. Though by the time it comes out, it won't be a surprise at all.

• 11:46 blogging up a storm today: snurl.com/2g8bb for GearLog and snurl.com/2g9h7 at Appscout. Okay, 2 posts does not= storm. #
• 15:34 For those who think rickrolling could ever die: snurl.com/2ggfz #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter and Blogmailr

• 09:18 Made my first purchase on Amazon that included New York state sales tax. I have to admit... it hurt. #
• 09:39 chinese glasses email update: "Your glasses is being shipped" #
• 12:04 Finally, it is known: THE SHIELD returns to FX for its final season on Sept. 2. #
• 12:37 I dislike the new Google Favicon (the lower-case blue "g"). Why mess with that? #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter

Image via Wikipedia

• 11:14 I've got to stop reading --even glancing at -- io9.com's spoiler posts. pictures are worth a thousand words. #
• 13:12 Tornado watch in effect for central NY until 6pm. Bad day to take up hang-gliding. #
• 14:31 Amazon sells Avon? snurl.com/2ew9w Many an overly-made-up elderly lady has lost their door-to-door job from the 70s. #
• 16:48 another story filed for work. Tomorrow: start another one. Duh. That's how it works. Next: Secrets of RSS. Sexy stuff. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter

Continue your training....

Image via Wikipedia

• 23:27 2,000+ words tonight in the new novel, which is chapter 3. Should have ended in middle of a sentence though... maybe I'll erase a few words. #
• 08:41 iPad, iPad, iPad. Finger's crossed. #
• 10:35 DAMMIT. after next week, BSG won't be back to finish the final eps until 2009! I better know who cylon 5 is on Friday... #
• 13:07 Which is more interesting, Jobs and a new iPhone, or David Sedaris on NPR talking about his ass boil? Discuss. #
• 16:49 trying out twhirl. It's already prettier than twitter.com for tweets. And now I'll get sucked into Adobe Air based interfaces. Why not? #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter

• 18:42 i epoxied that mother. may now have heat exhaustion. took cold shower, gatorading, sitting in the cool, cool basement to recover. #
• 09:43 Ah, summer. It reminds me that I did not miss all the damn flies. #

Image via Wikipedia

I spend a lot more time playing with new ways to post to my blog (or elsewhere) than actually blogging. Some might call it a character flaw. I call it research, with a hint of flaw. Here's a few methods I use.

1. Movable Type interface. This should be the primo way to post, though it's probably the least used method for me. Just seems too slow. Though the addition of Zemanta makes it more appealing.
2. Microsoft Word 2007. It's the best way to write for the blog since it tends not to lose a post while typing (something I learned to avoid long ago when still using blogger). It's not so great remembering the settings for uploading pics, but that's okay. Downside: gotta turn off the smart quotes and m-dashes or you post gobbledygook.
3. ScribeFire. My favorite method right now, this Firefox plug-in will pop-up on command, let you dash of a few words or an entire speech. It has all the formatting tools you'd want, plus uploads graphics via FTP. Even lets you easily embed Flickr images and YouTube vids now -- so I can search by my user name, find my videos, and click it to insert.
4. Flickr. Upload a pic via the right email address and flicker will send the pick and your text about direct to the blog (using the subject line as a title).
5. IMified. A great service that anyone with an IM account can use for a lot of things -- say sending IMs to Google Calendar or Remember the Milk to create new calendar or task items. I've got mine configure to let me post direct to this blog, as well as to twitter.com/egriffith.
6. Jott. Well, I would use Jott, if it supported Movable Type, but it doesn't. But I do use Jott to make phone calls messages that are transcribed to Google Calendar, Remember the Milk, and Twitter, as well as send myself reminders/notes in email.
7. Blogmailr. I don't tend to use this much – okay, at all. I would more, but it takes a long time to post, if it does at all. It is supposed to let you set up access to your blog, specify the emails address you may send from, and gives you a unique address to send to. When you send a message, it should plop it right into your blog, even if you're CCing the address. If you don't care about instant gratification of posts, it's a good way to backup your conversations, or perhaps to publicly humiliate yourself. If I combined Jott with Blogmailr, I could probably phone in blog posts... if Blogmailr ever works again.

Other failed methods of posting to the blog include using WriteToMyBlog, an online word processor specifically for blog posts (never got it to work, plus its sloooow) and the recent debacle of getting LoudTwitter to post my tweets to the blog on a regular basis. Lots of people like Windows Live Writer, but I guess having a separate app (like Ecto or Qumana, too) doesn't interest me. I'd rather post using all the tools I already have near me 24/7 – word processor, phone, IMs, and web sites.

I just IMed the wife a link to a Boing Boing story called New club drug: Preparation H? -- which is about club kids coating their bods with Prep-H, which shrinks muscles to look tight, just like it does hemorrhoids (tho no one cares what they look like).

Squanto: oh that's just ridiculous.

ecgriffith: but... I just smeared an entire tube on my abdomen!

ecgriffith: and I'm pretty sure I lost 20 pounds!

Squanto: LMAO

ecgriffith: you should see these rock-hard love-handles right now....

Image by chucks via Flickr

I am testing out Zemanta here for automatically (read: lazily) sticking in links, images, and related articles to "enhance" a blog post. I kinda like it. Cause I'm lazy. And I just did a post on it for AppScout, so it's also like doing work!

The chair pad under my chair here in my basement office is... moist. At first I thought, "Did one of the dogs pee on this?" (for it is not out of the question with a dog that is the equivalent of an 84-year-old woman who likes to fetch sticks). But our elderly canine no longer braves the stairs to the basement.

Then I realized, I'd left the windows open all night.

Holy crap. Condensation. The basement floor is like a cold can of soder-pop on a summer picnic table. Time to crank up the dehumidifier before it floods.

Not quite a decade ago, I spent the most worthwhile $5,000 of my life to have someone pry my eyelids open, slice my cornea like a peeled grape, then beam a laser into my peepers to burn away the bad and keep only the good. This LASIK surgery -- done on the back of a truck in the eye doctor's parking lot, no lie -- was a turning point in my life. After a quarter decade of wearing glasses, I was finally a man with only two eyes.

Sadly, the one truism I know, is that eyes balls change. After eight years things were not quite 20/20 anymore. 20/40 at worst -- it's not like I can't see to drive, read, compute, etc.Yet it was clear that things had evolved, so in late 2006 I got a checkup and a prescription and my plan was to buy some glasses mega cheap over the Interwebbing. My brother has been doing it for years, and they aren't exactly Milan fashions, but what do you want for $40? My wife has bought four pairs of glasses the same way in the last couple of years.

Me, I put it off for 18 months. The memory of glasses -- the thick, Coke-bottle-bottom monsters I used to wear... it was too horrible to go back.

But, I just ordered some glasses last night after having tried on Squanto's and realizing, hey... I can see! I bought two pair actually, one tinted for prescription sunglasses. Here's a (very bad) pic from the site, optical4less.com showing them in their frameless and hingeless glory:

They should sit on my face much like mega-lightweight goggles. (In fact, actual goggles are an option. So are big black Drew Carry/Cory Doctorow style frames. No RayBan looking frames for Blues Brothers sunglasses tho, to my disgust.). Buying spectacles this way costs next to nothing with such a weak-ass prescription as what I've got now, and are lovingly-hand-grafted by the same underpaid Chinese people who not only are trying to lead-poison our young, but also, I'm sure, they're the same poor souls who probably make the overpriced glasses for the eye doctors.

Next time you get a checkup, and they want to charge you $400 for new frames and lenses, seriously, take the prescription home (tell the doc to make it legible!) and buy a cheapo pair first. You will save money, and thank me. In fact, you can thank me with the money you save.

I'm at a crossroads with my latest mostly-finished book, as it is now in the hands of the wife (whom, if you don't know it by now, I call Squanto).

She is always the last one to read my stuff. This is for two reasons. One, she doesn't really like what I write. As in, she's not a fiction reader. Last book she read was probably Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (she didn't even finish the last HP book, so I don't mind occasionally telling her that Harry is a horcrux. She doesn't remember what a horcrux is though, so it's not much of a spoiler. So I tell her Harry knocked up Hermione.)

Even if she did read a lot of fiction, the kind of stuff I've written wouldn't be her fancy. Tough luck for her, cause I spent eight years reading every boring-ass article she wrote for magazines with names like BioITWorld until my eyes ruptured. Payback's a bitch, huh? At least I've got talking animals in my stuff. She never even threw me a zombie or ninja to spice things up.

The second reason is, well, she's good at this stuff. She's a great editor, with an eye for detail that I envy. I feel like, after she's read and edited something, anything, it just feels ready.

Of course, this puts us both in delicate positions. She's said as much: the pressure is great. She doesn't want to offend me by not liking it (Luckily, I already assume she doesn't! Points for me!) or indicating something that needs fixing. She knows I have an ego as delicate at as cat-ice that she could crush with a casual comment.

I'm just that fragile, people, so keep it in mind and always be nice to me, you asshats. (har! see what I did there? Me am funny.)

I've tossed out whole short stories she's read cause she clued me into the fact that they didn't make sense. Thankfully, this book has been pretty thoroughly vetted by a lot of people I trust, so I'm not too worried it needs much fixin' story-wise. (And yes, I'm still waiting for a few critiques-- don't think you people with it are off the hook.)

My delicate position is trying desperately to be patient as she takes her sweet ol' time getting through it. Waiting is killing me. Slowly. I wanted to get this manuscript to my agent a couple months ago, but it wasn't ready. It's so close...

I want desperately each night to say, "My benevolent, beloved, beautiful Squanto-licious one*... what frakin' chapter are you on?" Yet I can not, for fear of pressuring her when she already feels pressured, which would just lead to her putting it off... and then I'm worse off than ever.

I look forward to the heady days of actual publication (I should be so lucky) when all the waiting I do is because of people who don't share my house. That'll be much easier to live with.

If I hear at least one giggle out of her as she is reading it though... that'll make all the waiting worth it.

*I do, in fact, talk like that.

If it's not obvious from the ugly box on the right, I've become a little obsessed with Twitter over the last couple of weeks. I didn't really get it until recently... and that's cause I didn't know anyone on it I cared to follow on the service until then, and then suddenly I found a bunch of people from work and some VP friends (Hi Kim! Hi Julia!) are using it.

It's already more interesting than Facebook and MySpace have ever been. There's something about that 140 word limit that just makes it all good.

I'd like to have my many tweets (as they're called) show up here on the blog itself rather than in that separate "badge" but the only service I know that does that doesn't appear to work anymore. And i'm too lazy to cross post, even though I could do it from IMs using IMified.com (which anyone who lives in instant messages should sign up for, seriously).

Meanwhile, if you're twittering let me know, and you can follow my tweets at twitter.com/egriffith.