BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Somewhere back in ancient history, that being 2009, I had myself a crisp stack of “Office Depot Rewards Dollars”… Okay, so it wasn’t really a stack. It was more like a gift card looking thing. However, the point is I had this handful of  their somewhat free money that I had received in exchange for spending a whole lot more of my not so free money in their stores.

But there was a problem… The “free money” had an expiration date  and it was rapidly approaching. Compounding that problem was the fact that I didn’t need any office supplies at the moment. I know, totally effed up, eh? I mean, I suppose I could have bought another case or two of paper, but my cabinets were pretty much stocked and I didn’t have anyplace to store it.

So instead, I went out and bought myself a webcam. Why? Because it was free money… Well, free in a Miracle Max sorta way. You know, mostly free, but I already explained that. And since I didn’t need any office supplies, and I didn’t have any room for storing extra supplies, I needed to get something small. And a webcam is pretty small. I should also note that I picked up a couple of flash drives and some stuff for the o-spring too. In order to offset the frivolousness of the webcam, of course…

But anyway…

After setting up the little plastic ball housing a CCD and a cheap lens, then farting about a bit, I used my new webcam to create my profile pic on Facebook. Soon afterward I ran off at the mouth about how I had done this really cool thing with my new bit of technology…  “Born Again Luddite” that I am, although I know about, understand, and in most cases can repair  all of this “new technology”, I’m way behind the curve in the ownership department where tech toys are concerned, and I know it…

At any rate, it wasn’t long before someone suggested I use this toy to do a daily picture, just for the sake of posterity. You know, one of those progressive “Murv Gets Older” sort of things. Well, since E K uses me as her “picture in the attic” so to speak, I already know I’m graying prematurely and don’t need any reminders. Still, the idea had some merit if one applied a bit of warpedness to it. And me being me… Well… I couldn’t leave it at something as mundane as posterity. I had to step across the line, stick my tongue out at everyone, then go all willy nilly with knees bent running about advancing maneuvers on the other side of said line.

By that I mean The Daily Swervin’ Project was born. An new profile pic each day on my Facebook Page – with a few exceptions when I was out of town and didn’t have access to a computer. When conceived, the plan, much like the mostly free money, was given an expiration date – that being 1 year from inception. And so, it began on November 14, 2009 and in keeping with the date stamped on side of my head, November 13, 2010 was the final Daily Swervin’.

What may come next in the realm of Facebook Profile Pics remains to be seen. However, for now, as promised, a flash presentation has been created. A retrospective of sorts. 365 profile pictures all in sequential order, complete with a bit of classical music from Handel.

“Why with classical music?” you ask.

“Simple,” I reply. This way the 6 minutes of your life that you’ll never be able to get back won’t be completely wasted…

The Daily Swervin’ Project

I’m going to break my own rule again. Yeah, for real…

No, I’m not going to defy The Evil Redhead. That’s not “breaking a rule,” that’s “committing suicide.” Really. Just try it and see what happens.

So… Anyway… Back to breaking that rule. As you all know I despise writing about writing. I’m not even a big fan of writing about being an author. That’s what the book writing thing is all about. This, on the other hand, is my shot at being a humor columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper. Not that any major metropolitan newspapers are taking notice, mind you…

Yeah… That’s the rule I’m going to break. Well… Bend, more or less. I’m going to write about writing. Or more specifically, about what happens when you’ve written something and it gets published.

You see, there’s this thing in the industry called BSSP. That stands for Blatant Shameless Self-Promotion.  Now this differs a bit from SP, which is just Self-Promotion. Why? Because those of us who engage in SP are ashamed. Well, not really. But we DO make it a point to show restraint, courtesy, and manners. Self-promotion is necessary. However, being like a cracked up used car salesman about it is not.

Allow me to give you an example…

Let’s say I’m having a conversation with someone:

Random Person says: “I had a really great corned beef sandwich at Bob’s Deli the other day.”

Murv says: “Never been there. I’ll have to take EK. She really loves corned beef.”

Now, let us imagine this conversation with a new author who has been bitten by the BSSP bug:

Random Person says: “I had a really great corned beef sandwich at Bob’s Deli the other day.”

BSSP Newbie says: “Well, since you like corned beef then you would love my new novel, The Pickling Brine Murders, because my main character Lazarus Q. Ladysmith always has corned beef sandwiches for lunch.”

Believe it or not, while the book and character name have been changed, the above example is NOT an exaggeration. Yes. Not only did it happen, but this sort of thing happens all the time.

Now I’ll be honest. We were all new once. I’m sure I did some self-promoting that toed that line just a bit – although I can guarantee you I was never as bad as the example. Fortunately, I settled down pretty quickly. Like I said before, self-promotion is a necessary evil. But if you pay attention you discover that you can be much more effective by selling yourself – not the book. Once you’ve done that, folks will generally buy your book. If you keep being an idiot, however, they will not only NOT buy your book, they will tell everyone they know to NOT buy it as well.

So… Why is this blog entry called “This Space NOT For Rent”?

Simple. The BSSP is happening all over the social networking sites too. On the FB Wall, on the Myspace Comments. It is running rampant. Just the other day I received a friend request from another author I’d never met and didn’t know from Eve. I approved it, no biggie. Less than 24 hours later a post appeared on my wall. It said, “Congratulations on your success! You deserve it!” I found these opening sentences a bit odd, because since we didn’t know one another she had no clue whether I deserved my successes or not. For all she knew I could be a complete ass.

In fact, I guess I am a complete ass because I removed the post and deleted her as a friend. Why? Because as I said, that was just the opening two sentences. The rest of her post contained several paragraphs about her new book along with links to the places where I could buy it. There was even a picture of the book cover.

Sorry honey. I am not a billboard company. This space not for rent…

More to come…

Murv