This post features a french maid dusting a mummy, plus a quote from Dostoevsky, plus an explanation of the quote.

The translation of the phrase is "There's something of Piron inside of him," and as near as I can figure out Piron is "Alexis Piron," who is known as an "epigrammatist and dramatist." Piron rose to fame when me made an acclaimed one man show about Deucalion after the Deluge. He was "intimate" with two women, one of whom he married 20 years into their relationship.

The person who Dostoevsky says has a bit of Piron inside of him is Alexey's monk boss (?) who Alexey's dad is making fun of at the dinner when he (the dad) is drunk on brandy.  So now you know.

This is a post in which a sexy, barely-dressed woman looks out of some blinds and also there is a quote from the book "The Evil That Men Do."

You can buy "The Evil That Men Do" on Amazon for just $0.99 by clicking here.

****************************************************************************

Claudius wanted to be the first man to reach the stars, but did it take murder to get there? Read the mind-bending, chilling story of an astronaut adrift in space and in his own mind in Eclipse:

"This book is brilliant," says sci-fi author Michael Offutt.  Click here to buy it on Amazon for $0.99! 

This is a post about a story on another blog.

Today on lit, a place for stories:

"Sippy Cups, Earbuds, and Something That Surely Isn't Wine," a debut short story from Tina Downey about strange things happening during a rest stop in a small town:

Lisa gulps chardonnay and texts Keith again. The boys seem oblivious to the changes now, so she's not as worried about them. But what if something weird is happening to Keith?

Suddenly Tim is crying and Jace is trying to console him. 

Read it by clicking here, and remember: lit pays for your stories, poems, essays, etcs.!  If you want to get paid for writing click this link!

This is a post with a sexy almost naked woman sleeping and a quote from Dostoevsky.

"We here are all of little faith, only from carelessness, because 
we haven't time; things are too much for us, and, in the second place, the Lord God has given us so little time, only twenty-four hours in the day, so that one hasn't even time to get sleep enough, much less to repent of one's sins."

-- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

If Kim Kardashian gets a mohawk, I totally get credit for this.

I saw an article this morning that talked about how celebrities have to do all this crazy stuff to their hair to get noticed and keep looking hip and trendy: they dye it blonde or cut it short or spike it or some other dramatic (and probably damaging to hair) and long-lasting thing.

When what they could be doing is going to the http://finefeatherheads.com site and finding dramatic and interesting new looks without having to go to all that work.

I saw the featherheads site a while back and pointed it out to our own girls, who (I noticed this as an observant father) have hair.  The site offers various feather-based hair extensions and hair chalk: They can be woven into hair or used as accents and colorings that don't last for a million years or wreck your hair but still can look amazing.  If you are a girl, or know one, I'd check them out.  And if you're one of the stylists employed by those celebrities, I'd do that soon before you have to give Kim Kardashian a mohawk or something.

I think that I shall never see/something requiring as much work as ALL THESE STUPID TREES.

Did you get all your yardwork done before snow fell? Or are you one of those lucky people on whom snow never really falls? I hope you latter folk know how lucky you are. For the rest of us, snow is here, winter is serious now, and while that means that yardwork is pretty much done for a few months (other than shoveling out from deeper and deeper blizzards), it's not a bad idea to give some thought to the stuff you'll have to do once the snow clears and spring is here. (63 days and counting down as I write this!).

 Once spring gets here, you're going to have dead branches to prune off, probably some trees that didn't make it through the ice storms and snowfalls of the winter, and other work to do to keep your yard looking great and keep it from becoming hazardous.

Take it from a guy who knows, about that last part: a few years back we had a dead tree branch fall and knock out the power to our house, resulting in a dangerous situation AND my having to spend $150 for a hotel room at a place that didn't even offer continental breakfast!

So I keep a bookmark on the Sherrill Tree website. They've got arborist supplies for everyone, from pros to amateurs like me. Chainsaws to cut up fallen logs, eye protection and other safety gear, ropes and riggings for the guys who really do the technical stuff, if it'll help you take care of tree work, they've got it.

It's an Xmas Miracle!

And I bet you didn't even know that Xmas had been imprisoned!

Starting today, and for the next three days, you can free Xmas... I mean, you can get Xmas free, I mean.

Let me start over. 

The Greatest Xmas Story EVER TOLD 

is now 

FREE!

"Santa, Godzilla, and Jesus Walk Into A Bar," a/k/a The Greatest Xmas Story Ever Told (By Me).

Nick, a nearly-failed UFO maker, finds a tiny brass trumpet lying in a gutter – moments before a dead body drops from the sky and he’s chased down the street and into a major adventure by Sexy Cop. Before he knows it, Nick is doing battle with Wenceslas’ Xmas Machine, helped by Angels, the Secret Army Under The Bed, and a man in a robe, as attempts at world domination mix in with Nick’s attempts to convince Sexy Cop that they are soulmates. 



"if you've ever wondered what Douglas Adams might have produced if he'd been locked in a room for weeks at a time with only Twinkies and Jolt cola, you should read "Santa, Godzilla... it has that same frenetic energy that Adams has only weirder."
-- Andrew Leon, speculative fiction author.

CLICK HERE TO GET IT FREE On your ereader from Amazon!  

Get some help the "write" way.

At our firm, we employ a lot of students, and this time of year is tough for them, because not only are we busy (which means they have a lot of work to do) but they have final exams and term papers due, so they are extra busy outside of work.

Which is why I think they might want to look into one of those my essay writer type of services.

Essay writing services, like Powered Essay, can help busy students (especially nontraditional ones like older students going back to school) by providing valuable research and drafts of papers.  The point of school is to learn not just the subject you're taking, but how to learn, and in the real world, research assistants exist to help people who are busy pare down the busywork associated with projects.

I use research and draft writers for articles I write, seminar materials, even drafts of briefs.  So I don't see a problem with getting some help in writing big papers for school or work or whatever it is you're working on.

Patrick Byrne: A CEO from a different mold.

It's common these days to paint with a broad brush when talking about groups of people -- like corporate CEO's, who tend to have a bad rap in this era of #occupy protests.

But lumping all CEOs in to the same bad group ignores the good ones, like Patrick Byrne.

Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com is anything but a prototypical 1%er CEO.  He's been running Overstock.com since 1997, became its CEO in 1999 -- but rather than act the way we might expect, Byrne began using his influence for good.

An example? He started, in 2005, a campaign to end 'naked short selling,' a campaign which saw him accuse one trader of being a "Sith Lord" (AWESOME Star Wars Reference) and sabotaging his shareholders' prices.

Byrne now serves on the board of "First Class Education," a lobbying group trying to make sure 65% of all school funding is spent for the classrooms; as a longtime opponent of inflated pay for administrators, I wholeheartedly back that. Byrne's commitment to education is impressive: he spent nearly $4,000,000 of his own money pushing school reform in Utah.

Get paid for your writing!

ANNOUNCING two ways to get paid for your writing!

lit, a place for stories, is now paying for your stories! That's right -- or should I say that's write ha ha!-- this website is now a paying publisher, in two different ways.

First, you can submit any short story you want for publication. If it's accepted, I will offer to pay you between $1-$10 to publish the story on this site and in any collections of stories on this site.  Make sure you read the rules about what rights you are giving up and what rights you are giving up.  They're on the "We Pay For Stories" tab/page.  Submission rules are there, too.

Second, you can submit to

The "My Story Can Beat Up Your Story" Contest.

This is a weekly contest between two stories, which might get YOU, the author, PAID! Here's how it works:

You submit your story: any word count, any topic, any style.  It doesn't even have to be a story; it can even be a poem or essay or whatever -- basically, if you've written it, you can submit it -- to me here at "lit."

Once we have at least two stories, they will go head to head for 7 days, with readers voting by comment on which story they liked better.  After 7 days, the story with the most votes wins, and moves on to a new challenger the next week, where the process is repeated.

This gets you paid this way: When your story has its first win, you get $1.  If you win a second week, your story gets $2, and that continues to climb until it reaches $5. If your story wins 6 or more weeks in a row, each consecutive win is worth $5.  But that's PER WEEK, so if you story continues to win, you'll be making $5 a week off your writing.

And if you lose? You can submit a new story to take on the new challenger, and start trying to get paid again.

AND, your work might appear in an annual compliation of the WINNINGEST STORIES!

Again, read the official rules on the "We Pay For Stories" tab/page.

But long story short: you can get paid for your stories.  The contest could make you more money -- but the traditional way gets you guaranteed dough, so you choose!

"This news is overwhelming!"

People who read this far will be rewarded with some inside info:

What I'm really looking for is anything -- story, essay, blog post, poem, random assortment of syllables -- that either demonstrates a mastery of a traditional kind of story, a story we've read before but this is too good to pass up -- or a story that is so new, unique, or entertaining that it makes me see writing in a whole new way.

So get creative: use pictures. Embedded videos. Drawings. Play around with structure. Make up words (but not too many).

Stories about time travel will generally move to the head of the pack.

CLICK here to go to lit and learn more!

Get paid for your writing!

ANNOUNCING two ways to get paid for your writing!

lit, a place for stories, is now paying for your stories! That's right -- or should I say that's write ha ha!-- this website is now a paying publisher, in two different ways.

First, you can submit any short story you want for publication. If it's accepted, I will offer to pay you between $1-$10 to publish the story on this site and in any collections of stories on this site.  Make sure you read the rules about what rights you are giving up and what rights you are giving up.  They're on the "We Pay For Stories" tab/page.  Submission rules are there, too.

Second, you can submit to

The "My Story Can Beat Up Your Story" Contest.

This is a weekly contest between two stories, which might get YOU, the author, PAID! Here's how it works:

You submit your story: any word count, any topic, any style.  It doesn't even have to be a story; it can even be a poem or essay or whatever -- basically, if you've written it, you can submit it -- to me here at "lit."

Once we have at least two stories, they will go head to head for 7 days, with readers voting by comment on which story they liked better.  After 7 days, the story with the most votes wins, and moves on to a new challenger the next week, where the process is repeated.

This gets you paid this way: When your story has its first win, you get $1.  If you win a second week, your story gets $2, and that continues to climb until it reaches $5. If your story wins 6 or more weeks in a row, each consecutive win is worth $5.  But that's PER WEEK, so if you story continues to win, you'll be making $5 a week off your writing.

And if you lose? You can submit a new story to take on the new challenger, and start trying to get paid again.

AND, your work might appear in an annual compliation of the WINNINGEST STORIES!

Again, read the official rules on the "We Pay For Stories" tab/page.

But long story short: you can get paid for your stories.  The contest could make you more money -- but the traditional way gets you guaranteed dough, so you choose!

"This news is overwhelming!"

People who read this far will be rewarded with some inside info:

What I'm really looking for is anything -- story, essay, blog post, poem, random assortment of syllables -- that either demonstrates a mastery of a traditional kind of story, a story we've read before but this is too good to pass up -- or a story that is so new, unique, or entertaining that it makes me see writing in a whole new way.

So get creative: use pictures. Embedded videos. Drawings. Play around with structure. Make up words (but not too many).

Stories about time travel will generally move to the head of the pack.

CLICK here to go to lit and learn more!

Hair's a little tip for you. (See what I did there?)

As a guy, and particularly as a guy with thinning, weak hair that is rapidly graying, I do not normally spend a lot of time thinking about hair styling and hair accessories.

But as a guy who is married to a woman, and who has raised to daughters, I have probably had to spend more than my fair share of time thinking about just that kind of thing, since women place an emphasis on their hair. Or at least the women in my household do.

Which is why I can share with you my find:http://finefeatherheads.com/ , which is sort of the newest hottest thing around for hair style, or so I am told, since I also am not the kind of person who knows when things are new, hot, or in style. (Or so I am told.)

Anyway, what this site mostly has is "feather hair extensions," which is a modernist and/or naturalist take on the traditional hair extensions, incorporating feathers into the look, and while the look may not be for everyone, it is striking and I could see people really liking it.  The site also has something called "hair chalk," which is almost exactly what it sounds like -- a coloring product that apparently lets girls get that dramatic hair they sometimes want as teens (think pinks and purples) without the change being as permanent as dye, so they could get their rebellion in and still not ruin the family photo at Christmas time.

So it's definitely a site worth checking out if you have hair and want to show it off.

The Best Rock Band

It's time I took America, and the rest of the world which looks up to us like little brothers look up to big brothers (i.e., with a mixture of grudging respect and secret loathing, always ready to tell Mom and Dad what we're up to but still hoping that they'll get invited along), under my wing and explained what rock music really is.

This is necessary, unfortunately, because people are throwing around the term "rock" rather loosely and diluting it. I first noticed this trend when U2's album "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was released. Here's what one reviewer on Amazon had to say about the first single from that album:

"Beautiful Day" signaled the return of U2 to their classic rock mold.

That was okay, as far as it went since "Beautiful Day" was sort of a rock- ish song, but the rest of the album was similarly lauded for U2 returning to "Rock and roll" when in fact, they had not. Critics were all agog over how U2 had given up on the techno of the Zooropa era and returned to "classic rock," but almost nothing on "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was "rock." It was mellow, adult-contemporary, easy-listening pop music that probably had guitars in it but they were unobtrusively hidden behind the plaintive lyrics about regretting your past.

That's not rock.

The trend of calling things "rock" that were not "rock" continued until it reached a head with the release of not one, but two Coldplay albums that were identified as "rock." First, X&Y came out and people called it a great "rock" record, mostly (I think) because Coldplay had a rare-for-them uptempo song with guitars and a video that was as far as I could see entirely ripped off from The Killers.

I know you baby boomers and music critics missed it, so I'll prove that last point:

Coldplay's Speed Of Sound:





The Killers' Somebody Told Me.



Do you think Coldplay had to wait until The Killers left to sneak onto the set and film their own video? Were they trying to save money.

The rest of X&Y was otherwise typical Coldplay: moody, slow, thoughtful... and not rock.

Then, Coldplay got set to release another album soon and people referred to the first single off that one as "rock," too.

No, it's not. Sorry. Just because somebody appears in Rolling Stone and/or uses a guitar in their music and/or you want to feel young and hip does not make something "rock" music. You can't simply take every song that has a guitar solo and call it "rock," but that's what's happening; people call everything "rock" or "rock and roll" and that's just wrong. There are categories of music just like there are categories of books and movies and tv shows and people. But only in music do people take the thing they like and try to cram it into the category they want to be in.

Would it be correct to say that every book is a "thriller" because that sounds exciting? No.

Would it be correct to say that every movie is an "action-adventure" because doing that promises that it will get the adrenaline flowing? No.

Would it be correct to say that every tv show is a "drama," every person is a "hunk" or "hottie," or every meal is "spaghetti" just because those are things you want? No, no, and no!

So why, then, does everyone refer to the music they like as "rock," no matter how non-rock-and-roll it is? And is there anything less rock-and-roll than Chris Martin promoting soccer? I don't think so.

Frankly, I blame the baby boomers; they're pretty much responsible for everything that's wrong with the world right now, anyway, and they are definitely responsible for attempting to blatantly recategorize "easy listening" as "rock and roll," because baby boomers are getting older and don't want to hear real "rock" anymore; they want to hear easy listening rock that doesn't cause heartburn, doesn't have lyrics that embarrass them in front of their kids, can be played over their iHome in their office without unnerving the staff, and would blend in very well as background music on either Grey's Anatomy or CSI: New York, those being what pass for "edgy" shows on TV nowadays.

But, baby boomers do not want to admit that they're getting older and mellower. They want to still be the people who claimed to have been at Altamont the people who pretended to like Hendrix even though he was a little over the top, the people who sang along with Roger Daltrey about wanting to die before they got old (but they didn't do the stutter part because they thought that sounded lame.) They want, in short, to still be the kind of people they used to pretend they were.

I get it. It's not easy admitting you're getting older. It's not easy admitting that your tastes have changed and nowadays you have less sympathy for the devil and more sympathy for your tired feet. It's not easy admitting that you have become a real-life version of Chevy Chase in "National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation," tapping your hands out of rhythm and getting the words wrong.

I couldn't find that clip, but I did find this, which makes the point almost as well:



It's not easy, that is, unless you're me and you were always like that and always knew it. I'm not a baby boomer; I'm a member of the real Generation X, which is the one the media never discovered because they were too busy calling kids who turned 16 the year "Smells Like Teen Spirit"came out "generation X," no matter how wrong that was, too.

As a member of real Generation X, I had no "rock and roll" fantasy to cling to. We didn't think we invented rock and roll; we didn't invent anything, musically speaking, unless it was the use of those video game sounds in "Rock The Casbah" by The Clash. That was Gen X's great contribution to music history-- mixing in random bits of sound here or there.

So I had that going for me, and also I had the fact that I was never considered cool. Never in my life. Kids who look forward to their weekly trip to the library, who have a shirt with iron-on letters that spell out "The Great Brain", who play D&D and have glasses and an eye patch, who never know what's going on, do not grow up to be rock-and-rollers. They grow up to be bloggers and lawyers who leave work early on Friday so they can go pick up three new CDs: Kraftwerk's Autobahn, a collection of Barbershop Quartet songs, and classic bagpipe music.

It's that distance, that lack of anything to cling to, that makes me understand far better than anyone else what "rock" really is. And it's that distance that makes me so upset when people refer to everything they like as "rock."

So with that incredibly long intro, I'm going to teach the US and the world what "rock" is by defining it the only way it can be: through giving you the groups that are essential rock bands and highlighting some of their more rocking songs.

Note: Not every song by a great rock band is "rock." It's possible for rockers to make a non-rock song; after all, Elvis recorded some gospel songs and they sounded great. So the fact that a band is called a "rock band" doesn't mean that everything they ever did is "rock." I just put that out there so that I don't get a bunch of snide emails saying "Yesterday isn't a rock song, jerk-face." Save your typing fingers. I know it's not a rock song. It's a non-rock song recorded by The Best Rock Band, The Beatles.

Sometimes, The Best in a category is just obvious, isn't it? I don't think there can really be any argument that there was ever a better rock band than The Beatles. I've been listening to their music the whole time I've been writing this and each time I listen to anything they played, I get astonished all over again at the passion they played with, the breadth of their musical ability, the music they created and influenced, and the span of their reach over music.

The Beatles didn't just take over America with their peppy natures, crazy movies, and catchy tunes about being in love. They tore into America with songs that aren't as well known as the poppier "Eight Days a Week" and the like but which had an undeniable rock and roll snarl to them. Songs like the first Beatles' song I ever heard, I'm Down:



If that song doesn't get your feet moving and head bobbing and make you want to get up and dance and do the splits, then you're just a weirdo. From Paul's a capella intro to the jamming synthesizers to the bold, striking guitar chords to the screams, I'm Down is the Indy Car of early Beatles' rock songs: all exposed parts and raw speed and danger. Nowadays, we hear about the early Beatles and it's all "moptops this" and "fainting girls" that, but I'm Down presented a rock and roll that was dangerous and moody and rebellious and dark -- while driving forward full-speed.

Now, that's rock.

They didn't stop there. The Beatles stripped rock down early on and then began rebuilding it. Listen to "Baby You Can Drive My Car":



It's got the same instruments and feel to it as I'm Down -- raw guitar, tambourines, piano, but it's different. It's more layered, more developed. It's rock-and-roll with all the edges sanded down so that they're not as sharp -- but they take curves better.

Oh, and they threw in the "beep beep beep beep yeah," a bit of nonsense that as I sit here more or less set the tone for, nearly 20 years later, The Clash to throw in their little video-game sounds. That's one of the many things that makes The Beatles The Best Rock Band: they were an influence, acknowledged or not, on every single band that came after them. They invented most areas of music.

Don't doubt me. Don't ever doubt me. Heavy metal? Wouldn't exist without The Beatles' Why Don't We Do It In The Road -- which had the same bass, the rolling undertones, the heavy guitars, that would come to mark the more moody parts of Led Zeppelin's work.

Oh, Darling was the same way:



Psychedelic stoner rock? Sorry, Pink Floyd, you just ripped off The Beatles' third stage, the one that came after Rubber Soul. Long before there was a Mother to say Goodbye Blue Sky, The Beatles had "Mother Nature's Son" and "Glass Onion." And even then, they could rock:



And that little ending song on The Wall, the quiet little meditation on life that follows the overwhelming grandure of the album? Done before, on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, when after the wall of rock and roll that was "Golden Slumbers/The End," The Beatles' gave us this runout groove:



Overall, for years and years and years, The Beatles proved that not only could they craft ear-pleasing pop songs, tender love songs, and humorous little throwaways, but they could rock, with a ferocity that could not be matched, and a new-ness and creativity that would serve to set the tone for all rockers that followed them. They didn't take old R&B and build on it, like Elvis and the other early rockers had; they took the essence of music, ripped it apart, and put it back together for us in a new way, a way that grabs each corpuscle of your blood, each nerve ending, and each hair on your body, and electrifies them, making them appreciate the power of the sound and making you want to get up and move.


That's rock and roll. Rock and roll is powerful and fast and new and creative... and it makes you move. Like The Best Rock Band, The Beatles did, making rock and roll so good and so new and so excellent that everyone thereafter just copied something the four guys from Liverpool had already done in the course of making great rock, great rock like this:

Plus, I will probably need a lumberjack-ish shirt. One with extra spots for all my manly muscles.

I have been on a real home improvement kick this year -- I built me a walk-in closet, and I cleaned out the garage, and I cleaned the gutters, and the next thing I might do is start reining in the overwhelming abundance of trees in our yard.

And for that I will need the RIGHT EQUIPMENT, which means I will need to check out the stuff available at www.sherrilltree.com.  Believe me, I have learned the hard way that trying to do something with the wrong tools just makes it harder and less effective.  That's why it took me four days to pull down our old shed years ago -- and I'm not going to spend the next few weeks (or months!) dealing with these trees.

Sherrill Tree has got all the tools you'll need whether you're a weekend warrior like me or a professional arborist doing this for a living: stuff to help you climb up the trees, get rid of dead branches, prune trees back, everything you might need to do.

And I need to do something, because things are bad.  There's this one tree that overhangs our roof and it's got about a zillion smaller branches, many of them already dead, on it -- and all I need is for a windstorm to come along and knock that thing off and take out our satellite dish or do some serious damage to our roof.

So I'm going to be doing this, for real, and it's just my luck that I may probably have to buy some extremely cool gear like chainsaws and spiky boots and that little belt thing guys use to climb trees.  I mean, what guy WANTS to have to buy stuff like that? Not me, Sweetie. It's a necessity.

I think I WILL use it to discuss t-shirts. Some day.

As I ponder what will become of this website next, and as I think "I will use it to discuss t-shirts," so the pondering is DONE, let me take a break from discussing all those t-shirts with you to say this:

You can get  hot shopping deals at Best Online Coupons.  Today is the day that I spread the word about this site, again, telling you ONCE MORE about the only website you ought to have bookmarked on your computer, because Best Online Coupons is your destination site for deals.

Deals like discount video game deals.  Don't you WANT new video games? You should: people are DONE with "Zaxxon," man!  Upgrade: get some "Rayman," or "Lego Lord Of The Rings" by clicking that link -- they're about 1/3 off, and that's a big savings!

And while you're at it, maybe upgrade your computer with some of Best Online Coupons' discount computers: you can get gaming computers like the Newegg Cyperpower PC gaming computer for 1/3 off, too -- that's saving like two hundred dollars!

Aren't you glad I told you about that stuff, instead of t-shirts? Of course you are: and there's more.  Best Online Coupons saves you money no matter what you are looking to buy.  Here's some free advice (free, like many of the deals you can get on the site!): whenever you want or need something, go to Best Online Coupons first, and see what kind of deals you can get. Heck, maybe don't even wait: just go there daily and start upgrading all your old stuff.  New computer in, old computer OUT.  New shirts in, old shirts OUT.  New friends in, old friends OUT.  Sorry, Steve: you're not making this cut. Good luck with your new life.

Aw, wait: Steve, I can't quit you.  C'mon, let's play some Rayman! Dibs on the new controllers I got on a discount.

DISCLAIMER: Best Online Coupons can help you save money on every thing you buy, and help you get deals on shipping.  It cannot actually replace your friends, which is lucky for Steve, who would not be at risk if he'd just learn not to interrupt people while they are telling a joke.  SERIOUSLY, STEVE.

When it comes to law, experience counts.

I say a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff on this blog, most of it well above my paygrade, but if there's one thing I know about, it's law, and if there's one thing I know about law, it's that when you're in trouble of ANY kind you need a lawyer.

People invariably have one of two kinds of legal problems: a minor one or a major one.  If you have a minor legal problem, it won't be expensive or time-consuming for a lawyer to give you advice and help fix it.  If you have a MAJOR legal problem, well, it's going to be a bit more expensive, I'm sure -- but don't you NEED a lawyer if your problem is a major one?

Of course you do.  And experienced lawyers are the best kind.  Like the Ludlum Law Firm, and Attorney in Clinton NC.  The firm's been around for 35 years, doing criminal defense, DUI, and traffic cases.  The experience they've gained in that 3 1/2 decades of being in court and working with (or against!) prosecutors will no doubt serve them, and their clients, well as they try to minimize or eliminate the harm that comes from making a mistake.

Experienced lawyers know which judges are particularly harsh, how to negotiate good plea deals, what types of diversion programs might be available to avoid a criminal conviction and get help for the underlying root causes of many criminal or negligent acts, and more.

If you need a lawyer, click that link.

"I always knew I was going to Hell..."

BLOG TOUR UPDATE:

TODAY, I am on Andrew Leon's blog Strange Pegs, with PART TWO of the terrifying short story "This Is How I..." being written LIVE based on READER SUGGESTIONS.

Andrew is the brilliant author of great horror/spec fic stories like "The House On The Corner" and the brand new serial horror story "Shadow Spinner." Kids who can control shadows? CHECK. Man with no eyes? CHECK. Otherworldly father who must judge his son for leaving Eden? CHECK, I THINK.  Shadow Spinner is available in complete, hard-copy book form, or you can get it electronically in chapter-and-section format.

CLICK HERE to to go Andrew's blog,

CLICK HERE to go to Andrew's Amazon author page.


But first, the girl of your dreams becomes the ghoul of your nightmares, as Anne learns, just before she dies of a way she can avoid going to Hell.  It's a gruesome life she leads for centuries after that, but it beats dying... just barely.

Temporary Anne:
 GET IT FOR FREE On 9/16 by clicking here!

A contemporary horror classic, "Temporary Anne" presents the terrifying tale of a woman who avoids eternal damnation by sending others to take her place, scrambling to avoid the minions of Mephistopheles while searching for a way to allow her ravaged body to serve her indomitable will. The frightening images -- demons made of ice, babies' souls consumed -- will stick with you for as long as Temporary Anne exists -- which is FOREVER.

Get it on Amazon for $0.99!  


And follow the blog tour to get a live short story, This Is How I..., written based on your suggestions:

1. PART ONE was on Life Is Good on Friday 9/13

2. PART TWO is posted today on Strange Pegs: 9/16

UPCOMING DATES:

3. Laws Of Gravity 9/18

4. The Blutonian Death Egg 9/20

5. Nigel G. Mitchell Author, Blogger, Geek 9/23

6. Jessica Bell Author/Musician 9/26

7. Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, Speculative Fiction Author 9/30

8.  Jess' Book Blog 10/3

9. Lara Schiffbauer's Motivation For Creation 10/7

10.PTDilloway.com 10/10

Taking The World By Storm! (Books)

If you have been on the Internet in the past several years, then the odds are you have felt Alex J. Cavanaugh's presence.  Alex is not just an extraordinary writer of extraordinary sci-fi, but also is (I believe) 2,317 people, judging by his sheer output.  THE MAN NEVER SLEEPS, which is lucky for us because it means he's finished his sci-fi trilogy with the release of CassaStorm!

To celebrate, Alex is taking the world by storm, via a massive blogfest in which his readers were asked to submit questions to him and he'd answer! Any question! Anywhere! Any time! With ANY NUMBER OF TOPPINGS... sorry. My mind tends to focus on pizza.

You can visit and Comment on Alex’s blog this week for a chance to win a Cassa mug, mousepad, magnet, and swag!

Now, here's the question I asked:

Which would you rather have exist in real life: Muppets, or Dinosaurs?

And Alex's answer:

Muppet dinosaurs! I’d like giant, felt dinosaurs in assorted colors. Preferably big and scary but with funny voices.

"We love Alex!" -- Muppet Dinosaurs.

Brilliant answer, Alex. It kept your political future alive by angering neither the Muppet NOR the Dinosaur voting populations.   

Here's a preview of what you'll get in 

CassaStorm

By Alex J Cavanaugh

From the Amazon Best Selling Series!

A storm gathers across the galaxy…

Commanding the Cassan base on Tgren, Byron thought he’d put the days of battle behind him. As a galaxy-wide war encroaches upon the desert planet, Byron’s ideal life is threatened and he’s caught between the Tgrens and the Cassans.

After enemy ships attack the desert planet, Byron discovers another battle within his own family. The declaration of war between all ten races triggers nightmares in his son, threatening to destroy the boy’s mind.

Meanwhile the ancient alien ship is transmitting a code that might signal the end of all life in the galaxy. And the mysterious probe that almost destroyed Tgren twenty years ago could return. As his world begins to crumble, Byron suspects a connection. The storm is about to break, and Byron is caught in the middle…

“CassaStorM is a touching and mesmerizing space opera full of action and emotion with strong characters and a cosmic mystery.” – Edi’s Book Lighhouse

"Cavanaugh makes world building on the galactic scale look easy. The stakes affect the entire known universe and yet Cavanaugh makes it intensely personal for our hero. The final installment of this series will break your heart and put it back together."- Charity Bradford, science fantasy author of The Magic Wakes “With a talent for worldbuilding and a compelling cast of characters, Alex J. Cavanaugh combines high powered space battles and the challenges of family dynamics to provide readers a space opera with heart.” - Elizabeth S. Craig, author of the Southern Quilting and Myrtle Clover mysteries

 “…the racial conflicts propelled much of the plot in this story, driving home a message that's relevant to our own world and giving the book an interesting texture.” 
- C. Lee. McKenzie, author of Alligators Overhead

$16.95 USA, 6x9 Trade paperback, 268 pages, Dancing Lemur Press, L.L.C.

Science fiction/adventure and science fiction/space opera

Print ISBN 9781939844002 eBook ISBN 9781939844019

$4.99 EBook available in all formats

Find CassaStorm:

Barnes and Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1116848619?ean=9781939844002

Amazon -

http://www.amazon.com/CassaStorm-Alex-J-Cavanaugh/dp/1939844002/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378484337&sr=1-1&keywords=cassastorm

Amazon Kindle - http://www.amazon.com/CassaStorm-ebook/dp/B00F2O9QMC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378811366&sr=1-1&keywords=cassastorm

Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17670532-cassastorm

Book trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Umm2l0XdHc&feature=youtu.be

Alex J. Cavanaugh -

Website – http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

Twitter – http://twitter.com/AlexJCavanaugh  

Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4287922.Alex_J_Cavanaugh

___________________________________________________________________________________

I prefer to call it "FootballNarok," but then I've always had a thing for Norse Gods. (Nassau Ungranulated.)

A brief update on the ALL BLOGGER ALL WRITER fantasy football league that is NASSAU UNGRANULATED!

Author Rusty Carl -- who wrote the brilliant book "A Dead God's Wrath" (among other works), posted about it on his blog The Blutonian Death Egg this week, in a post titled "Footballocalypse!!"  Excellent use of exclamation points, Rusty -- you don't want to overdo it.

I'm sure you already read Rusty's blog and own all his books, but on the offchance that you have been under a rock for several decades and do not/have not own/done those things:

Click here to go to his blog,

Click here to go to his Amazon author's page where you can buy each of his books for just $0.99!




Or just look at this for a while:

FANTASY FOOTBALL INDEED!


But seriously, check out Rusty's stuff. He's awesome. 

CURRENTLY LEADING THE LEAGUE IN NASSAU UNGRANULATED:

ROOM WITH BOOKS: This team, run by Patricia at Room With Books, is 1-0, and scored 117+ points in the season opener last week.  has Eli Manning at Quarterback, and Arian Foster at running back.  

Eli Manning football fans will recognize from his time on the Tumblr "Eli Manning Looking At Things."   Arian Foster's    just this guy, you know?

ROOM WITH BOOKS the blog gives you "all things books," and boy, does Patricia deliver.  If you like books, write books, read books, use books to balance out your bed until you get around to fixing that loose board (um... guilty...), then check out Patricia's blog by clicking here. 

Bonus points if you can tell me who I'm sort of quoting about Arian Foster.

WITH EACH DAY OF MY LIFE I SANK DOWN CLOSER TO HELL...

"Temporary Anne," my all-new, all-terrifying, horror novel, comes out TODAY! To celebrate, I'm writing a short horror story LIVE! Well, not live, but sort of: I'm writing it AS I GO, on 10 different blogs, in sections, with each plot twist chosen by those blog hosts and their readers!

Part ONE is up today and hosted by Tina Downey at 
Life Is Good. 

Tina, an ice-wall climbing, Super-8 Monster loving, someday-going-to-Mars blogger, tells hilariously engaging stories about her life; check her blog outnot just TODAY, for the introduction to the superfrightening This Is How I... short story, but EVERY DAY.


CLICK HERE to go to Tina's blog and check this out.

Temporary Anne:
 GET IT FOR FREE On 9/13 by clicking here!

A contemporary horror classic, "Temporary Anne" presents the terrifying tale of a woman who avoids eternal damnation by sending others to take her place, scrambling to avoid the minions of Mephistopheles while searching for a way to allow her ravaged body to serve her indomitable will. The frightening images -- demons made of ice, babies' souls consumed -- will stick with you for as long as Temporary Anne exists -- which is FOREVER.

Get it on Amazon for $0.99!  And watch for the blog tour where you can win free copies of this book and all my others.  The tour will be:

1. Life Is Good: Friday 9/13

2. Strange Pegs: 9/16

3. Laws Of Gravity 9/18

4. The Blutonian Death Egg 9/20

5. Nigel G. Mitchell Author, Blogger, Geek 9/23

6. Jessica Bell Author/Musician 9/26

7. Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, Speculative Fiction Author 9/30

8.  Jess' Book Blog 10/3

9. Lara Schiffbauer's Motivation For Creation 10/7

10.PTDilloway.com 10/10

Yemas de Santa Steve Jobs: iPhone scores a Buffalo Win! (Nonsportsmanlike Conduct!)

Yesterday was the unveiling of the new iPhone (TM!), now featuring 100% more plastic.

I like to start these posts with a sexy picture related to the topic.
This is one of the pictures that comes up if you google "Sexy iphone."
I don't know what kind of deal she made with what kind of supernatural entity,
but I'm very afraid.

I felt like the unveiling of the new iPhone -- now made of the same kind of material (TM!) that your kids' toys are! -- was the perfect time to talk about the Buffalo Bills and the new sports-related phrase that I have come up with: The "BUFFALO WIN."

Or, if you must have some hype,

Buffalo Win 

Longtime readers know that I am a fan (?) of the Buffalo Bills, the only football team to have not gone to the playoffs in this milennium, and longertime readers know that I also am not a fan of Steve Jobs, who I consider to be improperly canonized given that while he may have been an innovator, he also (publicly) was a complete jerk who managed to make even the simple act of buying a sofa some sort of stupid, egotistical, phenomenally annoying zen koan, apparently taking 8 years to purchase a couch, about which task his wife said:

“We spoke about furniture in theory for eight years...We spent a lot of time asking ourselves, ‘What is the purpose of a sofa?’” 

That kind of stuff drives me nuts.  The purpose of a sofa is to sit on, and if it can serve a secondary purpose of not necessarily showing stains from the time Mr F put macaroni and cheese on it, then that sofa has achieved everything it ever dreamed of in life.

Well, almost everything.

Steve Jobs, privately, drives me nuts because it was apparently at his insistence that all Apple devices not use certain kinds of programs, which means we spent money on an iPad to help our boys learn to talk but that iPad won't play "Curious George" games on the Internet because of some gripe Steve Jobs had, and it means that iPad doesn't have buttons that are intuitive or easy to use, because Steve Jobs had a fear of death, or something, and, also, I have had to pay more than $9.99 for books for the past several years because Steve Jobs was so ticked off that Jeff Bezos' Amazon was working that Jobs got Apple and other companies to violate antitrust laws by price-fixing books.

Steve Jobs: Genius icon Robber Baron One Percenter.

Anyway, that's why the unveiling of the new iPhone (now made of material less durable than that Pepsi (TM!) can you're holding!) was the second-best event this week, an event so noneventful that the only people who really paid attention to it are the people who still know all the characters on Mad Men -- hipsters (and Slate) who speak only SEO and exist in a tiny loop of buzz reinforced by NPRs Pop Culture blog and Tumblr.

McKayla Maroney is not impressed with the Movember Iphone Eli Manning Is Looking At.

The iPhone's biggest feature -- besides now being made of the stuff which used to be used to pack it in for shipping -- in fact was that because it is so cheaply made, now regular folks can afford it!  This complete downfall of Apple went unremarked on in every single article about the new iPhone.  Or so I'm guessing. I didn't read any articles about the new iPhone, opting instead to get all of my news about it from Twitter, which means that while I think I've got the basics of it, I'm a bit confused about why Jimmy Kimmel twerked on one, or whatever.

But let's assume that the 43,000,000,000,000 words written about the new iPhone (shown below)

Can also be used to flip burgers (TM!)

didn't mention the fact that Apple has officially lost, because people don't like to make the Major Powers (Apple, the NSA, J.K. Rowling) mad by pointing out how stupid they are (NOT YOU JK ROWLING PLEASE DON'T SUE!), so it's up to me to point out that Apple has officially lost.

Or, to put it more hypefully,

Apple Has Officially Lost! 

Apple's whole thing all along has been how sleek and beautiful and high-tech and SUPEREXPENSIVE UNAFFORDABLE YOU CAN'T GET ONE SO SHUT UP all their stuff has been all this time: while ostensibly trying to put an iPhone in everyone's hand, what Apple was really doing (besides trying to figure out a way to get Iran or North Korea to nuke Samsung because lawsuits only go so far, know what I'm saying?, here's a couple of billion for your coffers, third-world despot) was trying to convince you that you wanted an iPhone but couldn't afford one.  Apple was like Cadillac, or maybe Rolls Royce, or maybe something else that was expensive (Starbucks coffee), marketing itself as something everyone would have, if they could afford it.

That was the real appeal of Apple, right? That's why they had commercials reveal that Zooey Deschanel is so breathtaking

...Wait for it...

-ly stupid

Finish a sentence, will you!

that she had to use a computer to tell her if it was raining while she stood in front of a window.

Stars! They're just like us!

WHICH IS DEPRESSING!

The point was that the stars could afford iPhones, no matter how terrible Suri was at actually working, and iPhones could therefore be smaller, less functional, less affordable, and more easily tracked by the NSA than all other phones, because none of that mattered: they were expensive and if you had one, it was like having a Mercedes.

Which no longer is the case, because now anyone can own a Mercedes, or at least the hood ornament, which is probably why Apple made the plastic phones come in all sorts of colors: it's the only way to tell the Sneetches apart anymore, and it's how Apple can try to have their elite image while still allowing Kmart shoppers to get this blue light special: Even though they are marketing cheap, plastic phones, now, Apple wants people who only Tweet about "Downton Abbey" on an iPhone to know that there is still a way to tell if people really have an iPhone: if you have a colored one, it's cheap and plastic, so that'll be the new code among the tiny minority of people who still think Apple will be a company in 2020 (it won't, because Steve Jobs cannot have enough temper tantrums at enough minimum-wage baristas from the afterlife to keep his company going): if you have a colored iPhone, you've gone through Sylvester McMonkey McBeans' machine and are not really one of them.

Instead of that, I suggest that Apple instead embrace my new concept, the "Buffalo Win" (REMEMBER THAT'S WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT?)

The "Buffalo win" concept came to me this past Sunday, when I was not watching football because I had better things to do.

Pictures like this don't just find themselves, you know.
Also: Rashida Jones shows up if you google "Zooey Deschanel."
Not that I'm complaining.

The Buffalo Bills, who had a chance to make one kind of history this past week -- by starting Jeff Tuel, their backup quarterback who wasn't even drafted and would've been the first undrafted rookie to start a regular season homeopener -- ever! -- as well as being a powerful image of a team that actually lost all hope of the playoffs even before the season officially began -- instead failed to make any kind of history other than the kind of history I made up.

I sincerely apologize for that sentence, but I'm assured it's grammatically correct.

The Bills played, instead, their quarterback "E.J. Manuel," who I'm told was the least qualified quarterback to go in the first round of the NFL draft -- YAY, BUFFALO?-- and gave me even fewer reasons to try to watch the game against the Patriots* (*they cheat), not that I could've anyway because no station was showing it in my market.

So instead, I opted for the equally-exhilarating course of putting up shelves in my spare room and following the game on Twitter, and then got (briefly) (almost) excited when the Bills led with six minutes left in the game.

It was at that point, though, that I had to load my two youngest into the car to get them to the swimming pool I'd promised them in exchange for accidentally dropping a screwdriver on one's head, and so I missed the final six minutes of the game on Twitter and got into the car and put on ESPN radio and learned that the Bills had lost.

AS EXPECTED.

But they did BETTER than expected, commentators said, and fans said that E.J. looked "solid", which is good because it's very very tough to be a quarterback if you are in a gaseous or plasmatic state, and overall the feeling was that things were looking pretty good for the Bills.

Aside from that 0-1 record thing, BUT WHO IS COUNTING? OTHER THAN THE NFL?

Later that day, the same thing would happen with the Green Bay Packers, who put up a better than expected fight -- and only one illegal bounty hit on Colin Kaepernick YAY! --

Later, Mathews would run over Kaepernick in the parking lot, and explain he "hadn't heard the whistle."

The Packers, who have now lost to the 49ers in consecutive games, to end and begin their seasons, weren't about to admit defeat just because they had been defeated:  fans and commentators and even people who know about football.  Bleacher Report (NOT in that last category) said that despite the loss, the Packers proved "capable of dealing with anyone", which is not to say "capable of beating anyone" and found solace for Packers fans in the idea that the game wasn't over even until just after the game was over:

The Packers will not face a better opponent all season, and yet forced the Niners to play more than 60 minutes to beat them (the pass falling incomplete well after the clock expired).

The Packers didn't give up -- even after the game was officially over and the 49ers were heading off the field! NEVER SAY DIE!  I heard that Green Bay just scored a touchdown yesterday morning.  TAKE THAT SAN FRAN.

So we've gone, as a country, from honoring McKayla Maroney for adequately summarizing how to feel about not-winning, to deciding that losing isn't losing, it's almost-winning.

For the first time ever, parents are correct when they say it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game, and even though somewhere the ghost of Vince Lombardi is barely restraining the ghost of Steve Jobs, that's where America -- its tech gadgets and sports, at least, which are America -- is headed.

To the "Buffalo Win."

I came up with the concept of calling an almost-win a Buffalo Win when Drew Magary on Deadspin pointed out that Buffalo Bills fans are the only fans who routinely wear "Conference Champion" t-shirts -- the point being that if your team was an NFC or AFC champion, then either it also won the Super Bowl (which means that the conference championship isn't that big a deal) or it lost the Super Bowl (which means that your team is Buffalo).  So why celebrate a conference championship? Because you almost won.

Bills fans, Magary said, also wear fans celebrating Frank Reich.  You don't remember Frank Reich: Frank Reich led the single largest comeback in college football, and then went on to lead the single-largest comeback in pro football, and then went on to lose the Super Bowl, and now is selling plastic iPhones at a kiosk in the Buffalo Galleria.

(Actually, he runs a chain of successful boot shops, and invented a stand to display footballs that also looks like a football field!)

I heard he also designed an Escher Staircase display for fine art, but it requires 13 dimensions to
work properly.

The point of all that being: Frank Reich's probably doing okay for himself.  Also: Buffalo fans are pioneers in the field of making losing seem like almost winning.

A viewpoint I can get behind: Why should we have just winners and losers? I mean, besides the fact that if we don't keep score and everyone's a winner all contests immediately become meaningless? And why shouldn't we celebrate almost winning? That way, Peyton Manning can continue to be considered great!

We need to expand our thinking, create new jobs, as it were.  Don't you want new jobs? Why should we limit ourselves to just wins and losses?  How will we ever measure those near-wins that increasingly are the best anyone can do and all anyone shoots for?

So with that in mind, I came up with the concept of the Buffalo Win.  A Buffalo Win, as you've gathered by now, is when your team doesn't actually win, but does better than people expected or, barring that, at least looked good losing.

The "Buffalo Win" will revolutionize society.  Take my own occupation, lawyer.  Well, it's not actually an occupation. I mean, it doesn't occupy me very much.  I spend a lot of time blogging.  Like now.  But that's beside the point.  The point is, if the concept of a Buffalo Win takes off there will be even less pressure on me than there is now, and I already exist in what is essentially a pressure-free life where I can spend my weekends trying to bake eponymous foods, like Yemas de Santa Teresa, which I recently made and which are essentially just condensed egg yolks rolled in sugar. I do not recommend them.

You'd think a dessert popularized by impoverished nuns and named in honor of a Saint who
reportedly had the power to levitate would at least have nougat.  

If "Buffalo Wins" -- note the similarity to "Buffalo Wings," similarly an idiotic concept that caught on among amazingly stupid people with disposable cash sports fans -- catches on, lawyers like me will not have to worry about whether a jury is crushing so hard on our client that they decide to forget about the whole "murdering our child" concept, and instead will simply tell our clients "Hey, we got a Buffalo Win! You're going to prison."

Under this thinking, Tea Partiers don't have to take solace only in the fact that gerrymandering means they will control the House of Representatives for another 20 years despite the fact that they embrace a failed, racist philosophy founded on "hating the black guy people elected," and can instead celebrate Mitt Romney, their Buffalo President!  The Academy of Motion Pictures Whatever could hand out Buffalo Oscars -- that's what it means when a picture tells you it was nominated for an Academy Award, after all: when you see "Nominated for Best Picture" on the DVD cover, it means (A) that picture lost and (B) for some reason you're still buying DVDs. Have you not heard of the Internet?

Buffalo Wins are a way to embrace losing and cushion the blow of being second best, at best, and even if you think you're not already using the idea, you're wrong.  Obama's recent attempt to bomb Syria because if you don't use those missiles they expire, only to back down and say "Okay, well if you promise to give us whatever chemical weapons you have leftover, we'll pretend this never happened"? That's a Buffalo Win for interventionism!

So I propose that from here on out, we no longer have just "wins" and "losses," but we add this third category: Buffalo wins.  You can still lose, but under this method losing would be largely confined to those teams or persons that do horribly, or are Danica Patrick, which is the same thing, really.  Sports pages, financial sections, whoever else keeps tally on things (accountants? I don't know) should immediately start toting up whether a team got a win, a Buffalo win, or a loss.  We'll all be better off for it, and at the very least, Apple's CEO will get another six months on the job, during which time we can look forward to the release of the cardboard iPHone.

Pictured: Your kid's Xmas present, 2014.

OUT FRIDAY: GET IT FOR FREE On 9/13:

A contemporary horror classic, "Temporary Anne" presents the terrifying tale of a woman who avoids eternal damnation by sending others to take her place, scrambling to avoid the minions of Mephistopheles while searching for a way to allow her ravaged body to serve her indomitable will. The frightening images -- demons made of ice, babies' souls consumed -- will stick with you for as long as Temporary Anne exists -- which is FOREVER.

Get it on Amazon for $0.99!  And watch for the blog tour where you can win free copies of this book and all my others.  The tour will be:

1. Life Is Good: Friday 9/13

2. Strange Pegs: 9/16

3. Laws Of Gravity 9/18

4. The Blutonian Death Egg 9/20

5. Nigel G. Mitchell Author, Blogger, Geek 9/23

6. Jessica Bell Author/Musician 9/26

7. Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, Speculative Fiction Author 9/30

8.  Jess' Book Blog 10/3

9. Lara Schiffbauer's Motivation For Creation 10/7

10.PTDilloway.com 10/10