2010/02/28

Birthday Scavenger Hunt 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Tone @ 8:38 AM

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Oh man, scoring this was a lot of work and it took all day to upload half a gig of pictures to flickr. I think next year I’m going to offer a 50 point bonus to any team that doesn’t submit any extraneous pictures or else I’ll have to scale back.


25 – TM and a Stranger with a hand in each other’s pants pocket.
{5,10,15} – TM as a doe–eyed innocent.
{10,15,20} – TM is furious at an inanimate object, the less appropriate the better.
10 – A book by Tim Powers
15 – TM with two gummi fried eggs over their eyes. Buy them at The Candy Depot 3955 5th Ave.
10 – An animatronic chimp.
10 – “Babycakes
15 – TM and a Stranger being eaten alive by ants.
15 – Both TM’s being photobombed by a stranger.
15 – TM striking a pose from Muscle March in front of the protein powder store.
10 – “39
{10,15,20} – TM coveting an inanimate object, the less appropriate the better.
20 – A dog is talking on my cell phone, your argument is invalid.
25 – A Stranger as keyboard cat playing off a TM.
{10,20,30} – The Question. 30 pts for drawn by Ditko, 20 pts for Cowan, 10 pts for anyone else.
{5,10,15} – The gayest non–sexual thing in Hillcrest.
20 – “Panda
15 – A number (like a phone number) consisting of only the numbers from Lost.
20 – TM very excited by nudity in a book, pictured nudity must be pictured.
20 – “Eric Elegado
{10,20,30} – TM with the lower half of the face on any US currency imposed over the lower half of their face.
15 – TM laughing while a stranger dies.
30 – TM holding the elusive Major Meteor.
{10,15,20} – TM in fear of an inanimate object, the less appropriate the better.
20 – “Five Two Tattoo Shop
20 – A monkey being served by a crab.
10 – Worms–eye view of a TM.
15 – TM’s arm being twisted by a Stranger.
15 – TM giving Edward Cullen the finger.
15 – TM doing Tai Chi with a Stranger.
30 – TM pointing at another team taking a picture, other team loses 30 pts. (I think I’ll be retiring this rule this year.)
25 – TM giving a hug to gay Italian from another team. Teams with gay Italians don’t qualify for this item but will get 5pts for every hug they get. (I should have written this rule as “getting a hug” because this resulted in a lot of hug-rape.)


  1. 460 pts The Princess Paisanos
  2. 425 pts The Bod Squad
  3. 385 pts Drunk in Curlers
  4. 355 pts Even More Awesome Sauce
  5. 340 pts The Awesomes
  6. 270 pts Hell Is Other People
  7. 220 pts Jesus Punchers
  8. 195 pts Hairdressers On Fire
  9. 160 pts The Main Meals

2010/02/15

In which I receive a disturbing Birthday wish.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 5:00 PM
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

2010/01/05

But I want it now! Like I wanted Google Wave now and then barely use it.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 12:54 PM

The Nexus One comes out today!
…and Verizon will have it something this Spring…
Well that’s sooner than I thought it would.
Hopefully the Android app I’ve been working on will pay for it.

2009/12/21

Breathing New Life into an Old Contempt

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 11:34 AM
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It’s hard to believe that I’ve been hating on The Phantom Menace for almost 10 years now. Though that’s not really true, I don’t feel strongly enough about Star Wars to really hate anything about it. I don’t even hate Ewoks, never did. I need a new emotion for how I feel, whatever is at the midpoint between hate and ambivalence. Because it’s not Star Wars that I’m rejecting, it’s the hype surrounding it and the industry that drives it.

Red Letter Media over at Youtube has awakened a sleeping anger in me. He points out how sloppy The Phantom Menace is as a story. Driven not by plot or character but by hubris. There are so many of us who’re out here carefully working on our art, trying to make it the best it can be but this hamfisted dinosaur is sucking up all the market share.

And he’s pretty damned funny too. I hope that hooker’s okay.

In seven parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven

2009/12/18

As sane as the typical Twilight fan of his age.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 9:42 AM

(His real age, not the 100 years he’s claiming)

King of the Vampyres goes to pound a stake in your ass prison.

The windows will have to be very thin to restrain his Form of a Bat.

2009/12/15

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 1:16 PM

After I spend 15 minutes cleaning shit out of my dog’s butt hair it’s hard for me to work up the will to make a sandwich. No matter how hungry I am. He’s hairier than a Greek sailor back there and we’re getting it trimmed tomorrow. He couldn’t wait 24 hours, could he?

2009/12/11

Kickstart: Tu Publishing

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 12:51 PM
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Tu Publishing is hoping to kickstart within the next couple of days and I want them to. Because they’d be a good match for Picking Up the Ghost.
My endorsements are purely motivated by self-interest.

2009/12/09

I don’t gush autobiographical for a reason.

Filed under: Book Stuff — Tone @ 7:37 PM
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In my queries a lot of agents want to know about me. “What is it about you that makes you uniquely qualified to write this book?”

Nothing. Picking Up the Ghost is about a poor, African-American kid dealing with ghosts and voodoo in a run down Midwest town. I’m a white, software engineer from San Diego who reads too many comics. But I wrote the book anyway, I used research and imagination.

But they want to be able to market fiction like they market celebrity biographies. Someone they can sell on the talk show circuit. Like James Frey, the Million Little Pieces guy.

Are good writers really that interesting when you put them on paper? Or even better, are financially successful writers interesting on paper? Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown. You know what else these people have in common? They’re not story material.

The only thing interesting about King was his cocaine addiction and that was after he’d hit the best seller list. J.K. Rowling’s life was a struggle but she kept that to herself even as the first Harry Potter book took off. She even kept her gender a secret at first. Meyer was a housewife with fantasies about 17 year old boys.

I’m not saying that these people aren’t interesting in conversation. In fact I’d love to talk to any one of them. I’m just saying their stories, the stories of their lives, like most of us, are pretty dull.

If my success as a writer is determined by how interesting my life has been then I’m doomed because I’ve been working as a software engineer on accounting software for the last five years. I have to believe that the agents are wrong. I’ve been rejected by over twenty of them so of course they’re wrong.

Or maybe I could fictionalize myself. It worked for Hunter S. Thompson, Baron Munchausen and Grant Morrison.

2009/11/09

How we got our marriage on.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tone @ 10:33 AM

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The pictures speak for themselves. We kept the ceremony short and sweet and everyone seemed to have a good time.

For the honeymoon we used the book Weird California as our travel guide, hitting The Queen Mary, Madonna Inn, Sutro Baths, The San Francisco Ghost Hunt, Hearst Castle and the Olivus Adobe.

It was my first grown-up vacation, I didn’t sleep on a couch once.

If anyone needs me I’ll be in wedded bliss.

2009/10/13

He can’t be promoting The Graveyard Book, can he?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Tone @ 1:17 PM
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Neil Gaiman’s in China which is weird to me. Because just about everything he’s written has had a ghost or spirit in it and as I understand it ghosts aren’t allowed in books or movies by the Communist government (which gave up on actual communism years ago) .

Why? Because they’ve been trying to suppress the Chinese superstition of ancestor worship and it’s easier to say “no ghosts across the board” than get into the ghost’s family tree.

This is been one of my success/power fantasies for the last couple of years; that Picking Up the Ghost is successful enough for my to afford to have it translated into a Mandarin ebook which I would distribute freely inside China.

I have politically charged fantasies.

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