I can has publications?

Yes I can.

A week ago Friday morning I received payment for the script rights to my short story, Bloodsuckers. It has been adapted into a play along with three others from Necrotic Tissue magazine. Three Zombies and a Demon, by Roy C. Booth is now available from Stygian Publications. Of course, this is not my publication, it's Mr. Booth's, but nevertheless, I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s done with my quirky little story.

On September 1st, Aspen Mountain Press published Blob and the Sous-Chef and Other Stories, a collection of horror and dark humor short stories, written by yours truly. There are eleven stories in all, covering everything from zombies to ghosts to serial killers to monsters to vampires. For some reason, I forgot to include werewolves, so if hairy shapeshifters are your thing, you're out of luck with this book.

If you do happen to pick up a copy (and my creditors would love it if you do), I'd appreciate hearing what you have to say. For positive, complementary comments, feel free to append them to the comment section of this post. For negative slams, harping at me because I happened to have a character hiss a complete sentence one lousy time, send your comments here, where they will be given full attention.

I'm Strange, and I Have an Award to Prove it.

Effie Collins thinks I'm strange. Strange enough to be worthy of the strange award which is the picture heading up this post. Not too strangely, I'm grateful for her confidence in my strangeness. What I didn't know was that strangeness came with certain responsibilities. I present those to you below:

***

The 'Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits' award is given to only the strangest of folk, and as the recipient of such you are deemed very strange indeed. Congratulations.

Now you must go forth and celebrate the strangeness of friends (and strangers - strangers are always allowed) by nominating blogs run by strange folk. *Beware, some people don't like you to refer to them as strange…Try to avoid them if possible.

Some rules:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog post.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you (don't mess with strange people).
3. Nominate seven other blogs telling us why you think the recipient is strange enough to deserve the award.
4. Leave a message for those nominated on their blogs.
5. And, if you email catephoenix(at)gmail(dot)com and tell her you've received the award for your strangeness, she'll enter you in the biggest kick-ass Strange Men competition ever. Details over at strangemeninpinstripesuits.com (click on the award link on the home page)

***

So, as you can see, this is a highly coveted award. I know I've coveted it since I first found out about it five or ten minutes ago. Let's see if I can nominate seven more covetous people:

1. Stacey Graham has a blog called Betwixt & Between that I've only recently begun to follow. I asked Stacey if she would like one of the awards, and she replied, "Brains."

I'm taking that as a "yes." A strange "yes," but a "yes" nevertheless.

2. Angie Mansfield is one of those zebras that starts and stops blogs at random, confusing the poor old people like me that try to keep up. I've just found her new blog, The Wandering Zebra, and I'm going to nail it down with an award before I lose it again.

3. MisterBastard is.

4. June "Rusty" Kramin, she of the famous For the Love of Bug blog radiates strangeness wherever she goes. She also wears little boy's boxers, though I'm not sure which little boy had them first.

5. Bea Sempere who writes "Skipping Stone" Memories is really not all that strange, except her name is unpronounceable and she hangs out with that reprobate, Bug. She doesn't believe in fairy doors either. Come to think of it, that is strange.

6. Owen The Dog of Super Owen fame isn't really that strange either, but he barks with a Mexican accent and that is strange.

7. Ed "Shadow_Ferret" Pahule has gone from hero worship to hating Brett Favre. That's pretty strange, isn't it? You can read all about it in his blog, Upon Reflection.

Well, that's it. That's my seven strange people.

And now I'm off to give them seven strange awards.

Ego Surfing and a Case of Mistaken Identity

Admit it. You do it. And if you say you don't, you probably don't masturbate either, which means you're either a saint or a liar, and I don't know too many saints.

Ego surfing, or vanity Googling, is when you plug your name into a search engine, hit enter and see what comes up. It's a fun way to spend a few minutes, and although it may be habit forming, it doesn't grow hair on the palms of your hands.

I'll admit to being a seasoned ego surfer, and every so often I find a new and interesting addition to my collection of alter egos. On occasion, I even find myself. "Myself," I'm sorry to say, is not really named "Haggis," but has a much more common name, which probably accounts for the large number of hits I find.

Here are some of my favorites:

An artist.

A composer.

An exceptionally talented photographer.

A Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist.

Several attorneys and corporate executives.

A former star baseball pitcher. Actually, there were two MLB players who shared my name, but one sparkled only ever so briefly, then disappeared into the ether. The other had a solid major league career.

A highly respected model maker.

A former TV news hound in my home town. I wonder how many of my high school friends thought I grew up to be him.

A number of Town Councilors and, I believe, an unsuccessful candidate for parliament in Britain.

An east coast heating and cooling guy with a shaky reputation.

A troubled college student who probably shouldn't have brought that gun onto campus.

And a college professor.

I came here to talk about the college professor today.

I knew of him for some time. He's well known and respected in his field (English Literature), and he's widely published. So when I began writing and submitting for publication myself (genre trash, not literary works like the Professor), I didn't use my proper given name as I had originally planned to do because that's the name he writes under. Instead, I used the nickname for my first name, skipped the middle initial and added my last name. Of course, I still used my full name in my Gmail account.

A few months ago, I received an email asking me questions about the entries for a short story contest that had been run by an eastern university. Now, I hadn't submitted to that contest, so I was a bit puzzled. Then the next mail came.

"The place is not the same since you stepped down as chairman," the writer said.

Chairman of what? I wondered. And then the other emails followed.

We had the job seeker, the colleague asking for a reference on a possible new hire and we had the fawning grad students. Yes, my email addy was somehow being mistaken for that of the college professor.

It got worse. My email address was in the university's online catalog under the Professor's bio and course descriptions. But this gave me the leads I needed to finally get hold of the right person to make the appropriate changes so the good professor could start getting his email again.

A couple of weeks ago I received yet one more email, but the course catalog had been changed, and I now had the professor's real email address. I responded to the sender, copied the professor and we all had a good laugh over it later. At least I had a good laugh over it. I'm still wondering how disappointed those grad students will be when they find out they wasted their fawning on a horror writer with a lowly BA.

Momma Haggis' Homemade 3-2-1- Lemon Sherbet

Strictly speaking, this should be called Momma and Poppa Haggis' Homemade 3-2-1 Lemon Sherbet because my sainted mother always got the ingredients ready, while my father always took care of freezing the mixture using the old hand-cranked ice cream maker. He'd pack it with ice, rock salt and a little water, then he'd burn off about a bizillion calories cranking away until it became sherbet.

While progress has not always been such a good thing, it has as far as the development of ice cream makers goes. While Dad had to crank his behind off, I simply push "start" and go back to my computer games.

I was busy blowing up Toledo yesterday (see post below), so I haven't had the chance to make any yet this weekend. But rest assured, it's on the docket for this evening.

Ingredients:

3 lemons

2 cups of sugar

1 quart of whole milk

Yup, that's it.

Are you ready? Here we go:

Zest one lemon

Juice 3 lemons and set aside

Add sugar to milk (or milk to sugar--it works either way) and stir until dissolved. This is easier said than done. You may want to zap your sugar in the food processor first to make it dissolve easier. Alternately, you can heat your milk, which will make the sugar dissolve more readily, but then you'll have to cool it before proceeding.

Add sugar/milk combination to ice cream freezer and start cranking

When sugar/milk mixture has the consistency of soft-serve ice cream, add lemon juice and zest. It's important that you not do this earlier, unless you prefer a curdled mess.

Here's where you can add food coloring if you so choose, but really, why bother?

Continue cranking until mixture re-thickens

Turn off ice cream maker and put sherbet in refrigerator freezer to firm up

Remove from freezer and eat with relish. No, not pickle relish, with people relish

Coming next week--recipe for people relish

Another Reason to Hate Ohio

Michigan and Ohio don't like each other very much. The root cause of this is, I believe, the petty jealousy Ohioans have of Michiganders because of our natural superiority. But there are other causes too, and a long history behind the hate.

Back in 1835, Ohio got all uppity because they'd been made a state (something that was still a year away for Michigan) and decided they'd try to steal some of Michigan's territory. At the time, Michigan's borders included the town of Toledo, a port on Lake Erie, and that's what those vile Buckeyes wanted. Insults were exchanged and troops rode hither and yon, and both Michigan and Ohio came very close to thinking about the possibility of perhaps, maybe, shedding some blood sooner or later. But through some kind of chicanery, Ohio convinced President Jackson to cede the strip of land to Ohio. In exchange, Michigan received a whole bunch of land in the Upper Peninsula--land Jackson stole from Wisconsin. It turned out to be an equitable trade off for Michigan, in that we got Mackinac Island, Lake Superior and Yoopers, and nobody really wanted Toledo anyhow. Still, the animosity between the two states continued, and in fact, got worse.

Unless your cave doesn't have cable, you should at least be marginally aware that the University of Michigan and Ohio State University plan a football game against each other every year, and that it's the longest running college rivalry in the nation. Yep, kids, back in 1897, Michigan beat Ohio State thirty-four to zip, and OSU's been trying to get back at us ever since.

Which brings us to today.

I was idly flipping through my copy of Ohio Fireworks Laws (What? I don't make fun of your hobbies, do I?) and came upon this interesting tidbit:

Sparklers, trick noisemakers & novelties are exempt under Ohio Law. Other consumer fireworks may be sold to Ohio residents upon execution of a form agreeing to take the items out of the state within 48 hours, or to out-of state residents upon execution of a form agreeing to take the items out of the state within 72 hours.

Do you see what's going on here? Do you? Ohio has no problem at all if their folks and other states' folks buy explosives. You just can't use them in Ohio. You have to use them out of state. And what's the closest state? Michigan.

Dude, they're trying to blow up my people.

So I think it's time to revive the Toledo Wars. I say we all tromp on down to Ohio, buy a bunch of shells, rockets and repeaters, toss in a few missiles and some roman candles, sign their stupid papers, then sneak back under cover of darkness on July 4th and attack Toledo.

I'd be there with you, but my asthma's been acting up, and, you know, I don't want to slow you down.

So go for it. Make me proud. Do it for the Chihuahua. And if you happen to see some guy wearing a red vest who happens to look like an OSU football coach, why not lock him away for, say, 50 years or so? That's the best way I can think of to honor your state.

Go Blue!

#

And when we're done with the killing, let's all head over to MacAllister Stone's house for a 4th of July picnic. Make sure to bring any extra fireworks. And if you happen to find a couple of cases of quality beer in your car, bring those too.

Have a fun and safe Independence Day.

Happy Birthday, America!

Letters to teh Puppeh

Dear Haggis,

I love how you've managed to cover a variety of topics in your blog, from personal observations to politics, while still managing to throw in a horror story or two along the way. You are obviously an extremely brilliant individual. Your parents must be proud of you.

Sincerely,
Anonymous


Dear Anonymous,

No doubt.

Thanks, Mom.

Haggis


Dear Haggis,

Why don't you blog more often?

Sincerely,
A follower


Dear Follower,

Why don't you stop in less frequently? We'd accomplish the same thing.

Best,
Haggis


Dear Haggis,

It's been a year since you've updated your short story sales listing. Can't you tell us where to look for your new publications?

Sincerely,
Curious


Dear Curious,

You haven't seen any new publication updates because everything's been rejected this year, you hateful bastige. Now go pick on MisterBastard and leave me alone.

Best,
Haggis


Deer Hagiss,

I rely lik puppehs and I watn a Chihooa just lik yuo. Woud you come live with me? Im eigth years old.

Luv,
Missy


Dear Missy,

Do your parents have lots of money? I hope so, because you seriously need a remedial course in spelling. I've had ringworms that can spell better than you.

Best,
Haggis


That 's it for today, folks. Keep those cards and letters coming in.

Your Government at Work, Part II - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

I first noticed the signs Sunday afternoon while on a mission to refill two empty growlers at a craft brewery a couple of counties away. The signs weren't everywhere--only at a few places along the highway--but there were enough of them to keep the thought of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stuck in my head. It was kind of insidious the way they did it, really. Too many signs would have been overkill, but these few seemed hardly conspiracy-worthy.

The signs, as you'll know if you paid attention to the picture at the beginning of this rant, point out to the traveler, certain, specific projects funded by the former contents of his wallet. Those projects, as the signs explain, are designed to create jobs.

The signs were nice and all, but I didn't see any actual working projects. No bulldozers digging up dirt. No workers with hard hats leaning on shovels. Of course it's clear that the signs at least created jobs for sign makers. In fact, at $2000 a pop, they must be high paying jobs too. Still, a stimulus recovery package that only benefited sign makers seemed kind of short sighted.

Eventually I got home, and while sampling the contents of my newly filled growlers, I started to think more about the signs. It's true there were no actual work projects happening near the signs. But then I remembered seeing the orange and white traffic barrels.

In fact, nearby every sign, were a minimum of one hundred or so traffic barrels.

Now, this might not seem important to you at first glance, but the fact is, those barrels don't come cheap. The average price is about $100 per. What that means is that each sign (providing $2,000 worth of sign making jobs) generates an additional $10K in traffic barrel making jobs. When you toss in the jobs created for the folks needed to install the signs and move the barrels into the rode at daybreak and off the road at sunset, you can begin to see the genius of the government's plan.

I just hope they don't get all giddy with success and go and do something stupid like try to actually fix roads or repair overpasses in a way that might last, say, twenty years. Because then the sign jobs would go away, and the traffic barrel jobs would go away, and then where would we be?