Attack of the Pernicious Pig Virus!

Okay, I know you don’t really get it from pigs and it isn’t necessarily pernicious, but that title sounds kind of cool, doesn’t it? Anyway, as you have probably guessed, I’m talking about the H1N1 virus, also known as the Swine Flu. Since it seems to have arrived (at least in our house) well in advance of the innoculation for it, I thought it might be useful if I throw out a couple of links that can help parents (and the rest of you who haven’t felt the agony and the ecstasy of raising the wild crumb-snatcher) cope with this viral menace.

As our excellent physician, Doctor Christine Eady, told me, if you are going to do medical research at home, make sure you get your information from trustworthy websites. This is an excellent point. Hearsay, misinformation, and the grapevine aren’t going to do anything but confuse us and possibly freak us out more than we already are, or need to be. With that in mind, here are links to two websites that will give you the straight poop; WebMD and the Mayo Clinic.

That’s it. That’s all I got. Get your information from one of those sites, your family doctor, or at least somewhere trustworthy, take care of yourselves and your kids, and we’ll hopefully all get through this with nothing more than some whining, headaches, runny noses and sore throats. And maybe some diarrhea and vomiting, but the less said about that the better. Nobody around here wants to clean that stuff up, including our Roomba!

The Texas Book Festival is coming up soon!

I want to let everyone know that this year the Texas Book Festival will be held on the weekend of October 31st and November 1st. That’s Halloween weekend, and it’s coming up pretty quick. The TBF is one of the premier literary events in the country and this year, I am honored and excited to say, I get to be there too. If you love books and you will be in the vicinity of the Texas State Capitol building that weekend, I hope you’ll check it out. If you do attend, please come by and say hi.

You can find me there at the Writer’s League of Texas booth on Sunday, November 1st, from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. I will be selling and signing copies of my first novel, Doctor Diablo, and handing out flyers about my second, The Legacy of the Silver Scorpion.

Doctor Diablo is the story of a super villain’s reluctant journey toward enlightenment and is available from Third Millenium Publishing.

The Legacy of the Silver Scorpion is the tale of a masked pulp-era gangbuster who is transported into a dystopian future in order to save it. It was just released in ebook format (which is why I’m only handing out info about it at the book festival instead of selling it there) from Mundania Press and can be purchased at their website. To buy either book, just click on the name of the book’s publisher above and you should be taken to the place where you can do that.

I hope to see you there!

Renaissance, in the Heart of Texas

There are so many fun things to do in Texas. Like yesterday, for instance. My wife and I took the kids to the Texas Renaissance Festival in Plantersville. We had a truly fantastic time. Not being originally from Texas, I wasn’t sure what to expect from a Texas Renaissance shindig. Knights in Tony Lamas and ten gallons, maybe?

I needn’t have been concerned. It was by far the most fun I have had at a Renaissance festival, and I’ve been to a few of them, in four states now. First of all, you need to know that the place is huge. There is no way you can see and do all the cool things in one day, so expect to stay overnight if you want to see it all, or plan to come back before the festival ends. If you check out the festival website (click the link above) you’ll see that they’ve made staying overnight easy for us, there is dry camping onsite, camping areas offsite, and several area hotels and motels to stay in. Secondly, the festival only runs from this weekend through November 29th, so don’t dawdle. Thirdly, know that anything you want to see and do at a Renaissance festival is available at the TRF, and some others that I’ve never seen anywhere before. Well, okay, they don’t actually put on any of Shakespeare’s plays in full, but they do have an act that quotes from the Bard. I didn’t get to see this performance so I can’t say much more about it. They have jousting tournaments, of course, several per day. They have all the food and drink you can consume and imbibe, in wide varieties. Although, I did hear a few guys complaining that they no longer serve Budweiser at the festival, so I’ll pass that along. You wouldn’t know it by me. They had Bass Ale, so I was happy. If they start serving Newcastle, I’ll go every week. Okay, maybe not, but I would like that.

I gotta tell ya, it is gangs of fun to wander around aimlessly in a re-creation of a 16th Century western european town all day with a beer in one hand and a turkey leg the size of club in the other, while extremely authentic-looking knights, ladies, barbarians, warrior women, wizards, witches, magicians, and all manner of other real and fictional characters walk by (I even saw three characters from Star Wars and a Teletubby–Apparently they didn’t get the memo).

Admission and the shows are free, but food, drink, rides, and anything else you buy costs extra. The shows alone, however, were worth the admission price for us, and we only got the chance to see a few of them. Definitely don’t miss Arsene Dupin. I won’t give away anything about his act, but I will say that we thought it was hilarious, he’s got a major league resume–including a private performance at the White House for President Bush (Senior) and Mrs. Bush–and he’s the guy that the Cirque du Soleil go to for juggling instruction. Also, don’t miss the Ded Bob Show. It was a tad bawdy, but very funny.

It’s a great time. Check it out, if you’re looking for something new and fun to do this fall.

Here are some pictures we took:

That’s a whole lotta folks…

Here’s a factoid that has been a constant source of wonder and amazement to me for awhile now, so I thought I’d share it.

Fact: when I was born, in 1960, there were roughly 3 billion people on the planet. Okay, admittedly, that’s a lot of people. But, the thing is, it had taken all of previous human history to build up a population that large. And, for most of that history, the population wasn’t anywhere near that mark. For instance, in 1800 the world population was about 978 million. In 1700 it was about 700 million. In 1 A.D. the population was about 150 million. That’s about the current population of Nigeria or Bangladesh.

But that’s not the fascinating part. The fascinating part, to me, is that since I was born in 1960, in just that 49-year span of time, the population has more than doubled! The current world human population is racing toward 7 billion and is already real close, at about 6.8 billion. That’s a heap o’ people!

If you want to see the numbers click by, check out this link: http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

Okay, so what does all that mean to you and me? Additionally, what does it mean to the planet? Also, what does it mean to every non-human living thing on the planet?

What, did you expect me to answer that question? I’m just a guy with a B.S. in Computer Science. I don’t know!

What I do know is that those are important questions to ask, maybe some of THE most important questions that we and our kids (and their kids) will have to deal with now, soon and in the future. Just sayin’…

Next time: I blog about something inane and hopefully amusing!

Great News Comes in Twos!

Okay, I really was planning to blog about current events or movies or something today, but the news I received yesterday evening was so cool I have to mention it.

First, I found out that I’m going to be appearing at the 2009 Texas Book Festival this year. This is a truly awesome event that takes place at the Texas State Capitol building on Saturday, October 31st and Sunday, November 1st, and features somewhere around 200 Texas and nationally known authors. This year’s attending authors will include the second man to set foot on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, Joe R. Lansdale, Margaret Atwood, Kinky Friedman, and many others. It’s an honor to be able to attend and I’ll post more of the details once I know what they are. For now, though, if you want more information just click here. Thanks to the Writer’s League of Texas for giving me this opportunity.

Secondly, but certainly no less important (to me, at least!), The Legacy of the Silver Scorpion just received its first official online review. And it’s a great one!

Please take a look at it here and then, if it makes ya feel like you just gotta buy the book right now, click here. Many thanks to the nice people at You Gotta Read Reviews for their kind words.

Next time, I promise I’ll back off of the self-promotion stuff…unless something else happens.

The obligatory, periodic, shameless self-promotion post…

Well, it’s that time again. I know you all want to hear about super heroes, Austin-area activities, Goobers and Dr. Pepper, but I need to get a plug in for my new e-book, so here goes. I promise it’ll be painless (well, mostly):

It’s called The Legacy of the Silver Scorpion. It’s a science fiction/adventure novel that’s sort of a cross between The Time Machine (not that I’m implying that my writing is even in the same hemisphere with Wells’s but, you know, it’s about time travel) and a 1930’s Green Hornet radio show (only with a little more blood and violence). It’s available for purchase right now from the great folks at Mundania Press. If you’re into that kind of thing, please check it out. Here’s another look at the awesome cover illustration:

Thanks for your indulgence!

Next Time: More of the stuff I usually post about!

So what about movie theatre snacks? What’s your fav?

When I was a kid, going to the movies with my buddies or my older brother in Sacramento, my movie theatre grub of choice was always the same; Goobers and Dr. Pepper. A winning combo and still two of my favorites. And now, to think that I live less than an hour’s drive from the place where Dr. Pepper was invented. The mind boggles. Nowadays, though, I sometimes go for the popcorn with the nacho cheese seasoning on it. Love that stuff!

That’s for the walk-ins, though. I’m also old enough to remember enjoying drive-in theatres, although the circumstances were somewhat different then. Except for the times I went as a very small child with my parents and older brothers, where I sat in the back of the station wagon in my pyjamas and usually fell asleep (but only after annoying everyone else in the car through most of the movie) most of my trips to the drive-in were as a teenager. I was old enough to drive by then, had a crappy (but functional) car, and generally went with girls, buddies, or small groups of people. I don’t remember much about the drive-in food, mainly because we usually brought whatever we intended to ingest or imbibe from some clandestine location far from drive-in property, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, what’s your favorite movie snack? Hmm?

Big Fun at Austin’s Barton Springs Pool

Last weekend the fam and I took a drive down to the Barton Springs Pool at Zilker Park. We had hiked by before, but had never actually gone in for a swim. We had a great time. It was the perfect place to go on a hot day, which we’ve been having plenty of lately. The pool is huge and kept at a constant 68 degrees by the underground springs that feed it. There are also plenty of big, old growth shade trees to park your towel under. They even had a diving board.

Outside the gate there’s a concession stand that sells food, drinks, snow cones and, apparently, bees. As soon as the kids got their snow cones the bees were all over them. We tried to run but they hunted us down. One of them finally got my daughter, Alaina, but not before she snuffed the villain.

After that we hiked down below the pool to the place where everyone lets their dogs swim, rented a couple of canoes, and paddled around in Lady Bird Lake for awhile.

We were pretty tired by the time we finally made it home, but we’d had a great time and a fitting last hurrah to the summer.

Trying to pretend the water is 80 degrees instead of 68

 

Yeah, funny...you won't be laughing so loud when you're my age.

Austin Bat-Fest 2009

Austin is a very cool place. Some say weird. I say cool. The city likes its parties and I appreciate that. Austinites will find any excuse to throw a party. Bat-Fest is a case in point. It’s a party that takes place on a bridge (Congress Avenue Bridge) to celebrate the nocturnal hunting habits of the 1 to 2 million Mexican Free Tail bats that live under it. Every evening at somewhere around dusk these amazing critters take off from under the bridge, en masse, to rustle up their dinner. If you’ve never seen it, I gotta say it’s a fascinating sight. On August 22nd it was even more than that. It was a fascinating sight surrounded by a big party. There was beer, live music (The Wailers!), food, beer, margaritas and other alchoholic drinks, arts, crafts, t-shirts and stuff, beer, rides for the kids, and even Batman. What more could you want out of a party? We couldn’t think of anything. The wife and kids and I had a bunch of fun. Here are some pictures.

Crowd at Bat Fest

Bats at Bat Fest

And this guy at Bat Fest

The Green Lantern Must Shine!

I was going to write about BatFest today, but that will have to wait. I just finished reading this article at AICN and I had to comment.

Apparently the planned big budget, live-action Green Lantern movie that’s in the works, slated to star Ryan Reynolds and be directed by Martin Campbell (a great start right there), may be running into money trouble and, as a result, may not get made.

Warner Brothers studio heads, don’t be stupid! You own a pantheon of modern-day mythological gods called the DC Super Heroes. They contain some of the most well-known and archetypal characters in modern literature (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, ring any bells?).  And the archtypes don’t end with the big three, you’ve also got the first super-fast super hero (The Flash) and the first magic ring-bearing super hero (Green Lantern), among others. Any one of these characters (and several of your others) could be used to make movies (or movie franchises) that are both artistically and commercially gigantic successes!

Sure, you may have to take a few chances, but look what can be achieved. Look what your competitors at Marvel have done with Iron Man, for example. They took characters that I personally didn’t give much of a crap about in the comics and turned them into one of the greatest super hero movies ever made and a budding industry, to boot! If that doesn’t convince you to take a chance, look a little closer to home. What about your perrenial moneymaker, Batman. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are certainly two more on the list of greatest super hero movies of all time. And how did they come about? You took a chance and allowed great artists to interpret great characters.

Now I’m not naive enough to suggest that there’s no way you can lose or screw this one up. That can happen with any movie. You could have done it already if you had used Jack Black as Hal Jordan. But now you have an actor that can play the role, and hopefully you’re no longer writing the movie as a comedy, so there are two bullets dodged.

What you will need to do is get yourself a perfect script. Easier said than done, of course. But it can be done. Iron Man did it. Both Batman movies did it. To do it you will need to make sure that the scriptwriter respects and loves the characters he or she is writing about, for one thing. Secondly, you will need them to understand the great potential of the characters and the universe they are writing about.

Green Lantern is the tale of a fearless man who thrives on action and adventure and is about to experience both on a level even he never dreamed of before. It’s a galactic level. It’s a Star Wars/Star Trek level, or bigger! And then, after experiencing things no man or woman has seen before, this guy comes back to Earth and realizes all the good he could do for his home planet with the power and knowledge he now possesses. It could be a movie as big as Batman Begins, even without the same level of name recognition.

Need inspiration? Check out Darwyn Cooke’s wonderful take on Hal Jordan in The New Frontier graphic novel. Hell, check out the last fifty years of DC Green Lantern comics! Or the tales of the Golden Age Green Lantern, which began in 1940.

Don’t let this opportunity slip by you, Warner/DC! Yes, you might have to spend more money than you originally planned to, but when you’re dealing with great art and great entertainment, the rewards can also be great. We’ve all seen that. We all know it’s true.

So, come on Warner Brothers! It’s time to put a hero into space! Remember, no fear!

The above image is (obviously) copyright DC Comics (not to mention a really cool cover by one of the best comic book artists of all time, Neal Adams!)