Things and Ideas (plus 12/12/12)

Everybody is blogging about 12/12/12 so I figured I better get in on this stuff cuz I don’t want my blog to be the only one that Internet archeologists dig up in a thousand years that doesn’t have a mention of this numerical alignment.  So, yeah – it’s 12/12/12 which is the last such combination of dates possible in my lifetime.  (Unless I do manage to extend my life beyond statistical norms through the use of amoral and illegal genetic experimentation and manipulation.  Or bionics.  Or magic.  Whichever becomes viable first.  I’m not picky.)

I know it’s special, but it doesn’t feel like anything other than Wednesday to me…

It does remind me of Halley’s Comet, though.  I remember when Halley’s came through and everyone was so excited because it’s an event that (generally) you will only see once in your lifetime.  So the next visitation isn’t due til 2061 and I’ll probably need those bionics to kick in to see it…

I also remember my brother and I fighting over Halley’s Comet t-shirts that were purchased for us; one black, one blue.  We both wanted the black.  He ended up getting it and I was stuck with stupid blue.

Wildly weird tangent – I looked up how to make your own t-shirts / start a t-shirt business recently.  What?  I’m unemployed.  Thoughts happen.  And the online stores (Cafepress for example) are too expensive. You have to charge $23 to make a ‘profit’, and no one will buy a $23 t-shirt…  Anyway, found out that it’s deceptively simple to start a t-shirt business.  I use the word ‘deceptively’ because there has to be a catch.  Like, tons of contact burns while using the press.  Or every time you plug it in, it trips a breaker.  Or the transfers cost a billion dollars.  Or using one creates a tear in the space time continuum and heralds the destruction of the human race, and who wants to be responsible for that twice?  I don’t know.  There has to be a catch.  Essentially, you can get into the t-shirt business for under $2k for the equipment (less if you are willing to use (what looks to me to be) less reliable equipment.  There’s a wide format printer, a heat transfer press thingie (that looks like the tortilla press/warmer thingie from Chipotle (on steroids!!)) and supplies.  Supplies would be the heat transfer paper, toner for the printer and, of course, blank t-shirts.  The idea is that you print your design (mirrored) on the laser printer/transfer paper.  You place the shirt on the tortilla press/warmer thingie, line the paper up (this has to be where the catch comes in – I bet you make a lot of crooked shirts when you start out), then press the press down until it dings.  Open it and peel the paper off – t-shirt made.

I admit, I kinda want to do it.  I COULD MAKE MY OWN GEEKY SHIRTS TO WEAR PEOPLE! NO MORE THINKGEEK FOR ME – NO NO! BWA HA HA!

…it’s been pointed out to me that people were doing this with -irons- in the 70’s.  Whatever.

Click this: http://www.masswerk.at/google60/  Seriously, just click it.  It’s freaking cool.  It’s what a Google search would be like in the 60’s and it’s just awesome.  Reminds me of the computer that used to run my Uncle’s business back in California.  They had these two massive boxes that took up space in the warehouse (under the stairs, I believe).  I remember them as being about the size of a soda machine if you laid it on its back.  (I was little, so they may have been smaller)  Each had a giant removable disk.  Each disk had a module on it.  They kept the Point of Sale disk running all day and would change out the disk in the other machine as needed.  Doing the ordering?  You’d put the Purchase Order/Inventory disk in.  Doing the books?  Trade it out for the Accounting disk.

Yeah.  Imagine if today, you had to essentially swap out your hard drive to switch from whatever program you use to write, for whatever program you use to do your email.

Now, imagine a three-headed Squirrel with Magneto’s power of magnetism!  You totally didn’t see that coming.

Conversations with my Cat is selling like hot cakes!  …or, at least, I’m selling a few copies here and there.  Hot cakes probably sell better.  Stupid hot cakes.  The funny thing is, according to Kindle, someone returned one!  I think I’m more amused by this fact than by the sales.  I don’t know why.  I just am.  If you’re one of the folks who have purchased a copy (THANK YOU!), please consider hitting Amazon and putting in a review.  I NEED YOUR VALIDATION PEOPLE!

Along those same lines, An Uncommon Collection would be a nice purchase this holiday season.  My short story, titled Charisma, appears on page 103 of the physical copy.  It’s the touching story of a woman who wants to help people by locking away magical items that might cause PAIN AND DEATH WHEN YOU MESS WITH THEM!  Also, there’s a creepy kid, a demon, a ritual, a car, Peter Gabriel’s commercial hit Steam, and so much more.  In the spirit of A Christmas Story, I double dog dare you to stick your tongue on a frozen flag pole and then, once you’ve been freed and taken to the hospital to recover from your injuries, buy this book so you have something to read to pass the time…

I want to do an anthology.  I’ve always wanted to do one.  From the earliest moments where I started writing, I was thinking about this shared world anthology thing I wanted to do.  I should get on that.

Oh wait – what’s that over there?

*wanders off to chase the shiny*

~P