BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

…Goes Unpunished.

That’s the old saying, and you know, I’m beginning to believe it.

I had this acquaintance. Fortunately, I don’t have this acquaintance any longer, but the following anecdote about him is relevant to this rant – You see, at Christmas time he expected you to go shopping for him and buy him something nice. Well, that really isn’t the spirit of the season, but so be it. The thing is, you couldn’t give him cash or a gift certificate (gift “cards” weren’t around just yet). If you did something like that, then you didn’t “care.” You hadn’t put any “thought” into his gift. And, he wasn’t about to give you any hints about what he wanted. You should “know” if you were his friend, family, whatever…

Okay, I can kind of see that first point, the second is a bit thin, but whatever…

However, here’s the rub. No matter how much thought you put into the gift, no matter how much attention you paid, or how much shopping you did, come Christmas day, after opening said gift, he asked for the receipt.

Yep. He would take EVERYTHING anyone had given him… I’m SERIOUS… EVERYTHING he had received and then return it, most often for the cash.

Kind of makes you think, “Why bother?” Know what I mean?

Well, that’s the feeling I’m getting right about now… As you all know, I rarely if ever publicly respond to negative criticism. Truth is, I don’t even read reviews – good or bad – because they are nothing more than an opinion of an individual, and in the end don’t mean much of anything.  It has been my experience that negative reviews sell just as many books and positive, so it’s a wash – all except for the fact that negative reviews tend to make you feel bad. So, I’m just fair about it – I don’t read any of them. No offense intended to reviewers out there. That’s just a little quirk of mine. However, what I am responding to HERE is a little different. While it’s still the opinions of a handful of individuals, said opinions were delivered directly to me via email and social networking sites, and they are so rude under the circumstances, that I feel compelled to make my feelings known.

So, here you go…

On Sunday last – that being December 12, 2010, I made an announcement. I was, to say the least, pretty damned excited about it. You see, I had an idea. Not only could I do a little marketing, but I could give a gift to all of my loyal fans. I could write a holiday-themed, paranormal suspense thriller novella, and just give it away.

Yeah. Free. No cost. FREE.

To do that and not go broke, of course, it would have to be an e-book. Trust me, the publisher is in this to make money – and so am I. But I convinced them that the benefit of giving away the e-book as a marketing tool would be worth the investment they were making in my work, the piece itself, and all of the things necessary to create said e-book. Not having an e-reader really isn’t an issue either. You can download free e-reader software from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc that allows you to use your PC. Or even your smartphone.

But, just to be sure, we plan to make it available as a PDF and provide the option of reading it online as well.

No biggie. Everyone is covered. Everyone who wants to read it, can read it.

So, that’s what we did. I wrote it. I set aside everything else I had to do for a two week span and I wrote. Granted, I had fun writing it, but my schedule will now likely kill me because I have to do two weeks worth of stuff I neglected, all in a matter of 4 days. But, that’s MY problem.

Now, another reason I had fun was NOT just because I have fun writing anyway, but because I was excited to GIVE something back to my fans this holiday season.

So, on Sunday I announced it. Just like I announce any of my book releases.

And, you know what?

For every ONE “Yay, I can’t wait” email I have received, (which is NOT the reason I did this, mind you) I have also received THREE “I don’t want that, I want a hardcopy” or “E-books suck” or “I don’t do e-books” and even “Why can’t you just send me a free paperback?”

Not a very heartening ratio…

There were others, equally pissy and rude. (Receiving THESE types of comments was also NOT the reason I did this, as you can imagine.)

And then there is also my personal favorite, “Oh, I thought it was a REAL book.”

In all honesty I had convinced myself to not say anything. To simply let this slide and forget about it. But the “Real Book” comment was the last straw.

So… If you are one of the folks who sent me a nice email, and are excited about the release of Merrie Axemas, thank you. Even if you didn’t send a note and are still excited about it, thank you. AND even if you don’t plan to read it, but had the presence of mind to NOT complain as if I owed you something, thank you.

YOU are the reason I write for publication, and not just for myself…

However… If you are one of the people who felt you had some sort of entitlement to open your mouth and complain, or say something insulting and rude about a FREE gift – one that you aren’t obligated in any way to accept  in the first place, and has no strings attached – Well… You’re welcome. Way to get into the spirit. Happy Freakin’ Holidays to you…

I’m just sorry I don’t have a gift receipt to give you  so that you can return it.

Murv

My apologies to the B-52’s. I’ll buy y’all a round of drinks next time you’re in town, okay? (Watch ’em all order B-52’s…)

So, anyway, Facebook and Twitter folk know that last weekend we were finally able to get around to re-roofing our shed. Many of you have asked about it… Okay, okay, so none of you have asked about it. Be that way… Sheesh… Tough crowd everywhere I go.

Be that as it may… or as it were… or was… or is… Oh, what the hell. Thing is, it’s too damn hot for me to sit in the office and be funny. I’m much funnier when chilled. Therefore, by way of blog entry I am going to provide you with a few pictures and captions from the Great Shed Re-Roofing of 2010…

To the left we have “Le Shed.” The E K and I built it something on the order of 15 or 17 or maybe even 112 years ago. I can’t really remember. At any rate, it has served us well. However, it lives beneath a black walnut tree that is infested with Tree Rats (aka Skwirlz… not Squirrels, mind you. We have Skwirlz. Trust me… I’m pretty sure McSquizzy is their leader.) Anywho, after umpty-jillion years the asphalt shingled roof gave up the ghost. Once that happened, McSquizzy and his crew began their own demolition work.

Between the Skwirlz and weather, tolls were taken, but no receipts given. Problem is, with our schedules, getting out there and re-roofing the thing was proving a challenge. It wasn’t that we didn’t know how. We just didn’t have time.

Finally, this past winter we were able to do a quick tear-off, but the weather turned on us, and with time being a factor once again, a tarp became the interim roof.

Me, being the early riser that I am, got out there and pulled the tarp, then set about the process of replacing the damaged trusses.

Eventually, Loota-Chack and the Mikester showed up, followed by Johnathan “Mentos Rib Fest” Minton. Oh, and E K was there too. Once we managed to get the trusses replaced, E K and the Mikester went up top and set about the process of installing the purlins. These were necessary because we elected to go with a corrugated roofing material this go around.

During the initial installation, we were entertaining ourselves with some tunes. Much to our  dismay followed by delight, we discovered that the Mikester was unfamiliar with Aphrodite’s Child. We made it a point to change that.

This educational interlude, however, seemed to annoy the disembodied voice behind all of the pictured foliage, and he yelled sarcastic silliness at us. He should really leave the sarcasm to the professionals, because he wasn’t any good at it at all.

Here we have the offending radio. It even has its own chair. We allowed it to continue playing in the back yard while we were working so that we could keep an eye on it. However, since it was bad and offended the neighbor so much that he had to yell over the top of his weeds, when we were finished we sent it to its room and took away its power cord. Bad radio. No batteries for you!

It never ceases to amaze me…

No matter how hard I work, no matter what power tools, hand tools, or lumber I happen to be using, cutting, hammering, or otherwise busting my ass with, the only picture of me is where I am in supervisor mode.

I think E K does that to me on purpose, just to make me look bad…

Of course, at least I was supervising.

Loota-chack, on the other hand, was working just as hard as she could holding the ground down so it didn’t float away. I mean, after all, if the back yard had floated away we wouldn’t have any place to put the shed, right?

But, seriously folks, this is just the A-Bomb taking a break. We were all bustin’ arses on this project. Even “Little Miss 57 Languages” here…

Speaking of Luets-es-es… Here we have The Mikester. He’s kind of a trip. Has do-rag, will travel. He even comes with his own tools.

One of the amazing things about The Mikester is that he shows up, tools in hand, then does ANYTHING and EVERYTHING the redhead tells him to do. Seriously. She points and barks orders. Mikester jumps and carries out her commands. Somehow or another she has him even better trained than she has me. Not sure what that’s all about.

And, what’s a shed re-roofing without a gratuitous “Kilroy Was Here” photo.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Johnathan “Mentos Rib Fest” Minton is the culprit.

Unfortunately, this is the best pic we have of the Mentos during the project, which is too bad.  The T-Shirt he wore that day is actually an On The Edge Graphics original from the online store. Any guesses which one? Yeah… “Wearer Property of Evil Kat“… Hmmm… wonder why he selected that particular shirt on that particular day?

And finally, The Evil One herself… She hates having her picture taken so this is pretty much the best I could manage… Not that it isn’t perfectly lovely in its own right…

She actually had to take frequent breaks, because she’s so hot that she was warping the Ondura Roofing Panels. Go figure…

Still, here the roof is almost halfway installed… By the time we were done we were all too tired to take a picture of the finished product – besides which, E K and I had to get cleaned up and rush downtown to MAC for my 30th HS reunion.

Yes. Seriously. We busted our asses on the shed ALL DAY, then went to the reunion dinner… So, if you were there and wondered why we looked a little cooked, there you have it.

Okay… I’ll see if I can come up with something funny for  this coming Wednesday.

Hey! It could happen…

More to come…

Murv