Tag Archives: readers

Romance Advice From William Shakespeare – Part 3

Do you believe in love at first sight?

That’s not a trick question.  I’m not going to ask you if I need to walk by again.

Do people instantly connect and have metaphysical fireworks explode in their hearts, or does it take time for love to grow?

Personally, I feel like the older one gets, the harder it is to feel those instant fireworks.  But what do I know?

Shakespeare believed in love at first sight.  And since this is a series about how to get chicks using the bard’s most romantic passages – well, if you meet someone and feel that instant connection, maybe you can recite this to said individual:

No sooner met but they looked;
No sooner looked but they loved;
No sooner loved but they sighed;
No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason;
No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy;
And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage…

– William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Love at first sight or love that grows with time?  Is one better than the other?

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Reddit

Some kind person put a link to my review of Blade Runner and the result was I had an all time record of 238 visitors today.  Previously, I have yet to break 100.

I’ll have to look into Reddit – has anyone tried posting on it?  Any experiences using it you’d care to share?

Thanks to whoever did that.

In other news, I’m almost at 3000 followers, if you want to obtain the coveted position of 3000th follower.

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Vote for Walking Dead Bookshelf Battle Banners

Well, this is getting ridiculous. As my 3.5 regular readers are aware, the theme of this blog is an ongoing “Bookshelf Battle.”  I have limited shelf space.  Books want it.  They fight.  And they send soldiers, robots, assassins, ninjas, or whatever to attack each other.  Battles are constantly being waged on my bookshelf, and frankly, all the racket is keeping me up at night. So imagine my surprise when I woke up in the middle of the night last night to find none other than Sheriff Rick Grimes blasting away on zombies with his big ole revolver. Conveniently in time for tonight’s midseason premiere! I snapped a few photos of the action.  You tell me which one you like the best.

Vote for #1 - Rick blasting one solo walker.

Vote for #1 – Rick blasting one solo walker.

Option 2 - Rick, more zombies, and Merle, who may or may not be a zombie.

Option 2 – Rick, more zombies, and Merle, who may or may not be a zombie.

Option 3 - Merle on opposite side with zombies

Option 3 – Merle on opposite side with zombies

Option 4 - Rick, zombie, random crawling walker

Option 4 – Rick, zombie, random crawling walker

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Asked and Anticipated Questions Re: One Post a Day Challenge

Blogger/Author Tommy Muncie posed this comment, so finely crafted, that I felt it merited an entire post:

Respect to you for doing this…I couldn’t write a short post if I tried (you’ve probably noticed) and trying one per day would probably give me an aneurysm. On that note, I reckon you’ll achieve the goal but I’m wondering how you’ll get past the day you get sick, as in the kind of sick where you’re bedridden and narcoleptic and running the kind of temperature the Sahara Dessert would be jealous of and thinking ‘Must…get…to….wordpress!’ and then your body knocks you out when you try. I read your random questions post tonight as well, so here’s a question: could you get past a day like that and still post?

– Tommy Muncie

ANSWER – I’ve been scheduling posts in advance, in the hopes of avoiding this very scenario.  However, should I fall violently ill, I will use my last bit of energy to make a post.  It won’t be anything fancy or spectacular, it will just be “post” or I’ll just bang on the keys and click “post” just to meet the once a day requirement.

Further, if, say, I am hit by a bus or otherwise left incapacitated, I have engaged a team of individuals to post in my stead, mimicking my subtle nuances and character, so that you will not even notice I am gone.

Actually, I haven’t done that, but now that I’m worried about illnesses and bus attacks on my person, I will have to do so.

Thanks a lot, Muncie!

Now that I’ve answered that question, here some others I anticipate you, my audience of three readers, may have:

QUESTION:  Suppose you are cornered by a team of robot ninjas who stand between you and your computer, preventing you from making a post?  Will you yield on your promise to us, the readers, to make one post a day?

ANSWER:  Absolutely not.  I scoff in the face of danger.  Few are aware of this, but I was trained in the martial arts by Chuck Norris.  I payed it forward by training Steven Seagal, teaching him all the moves he displayed in his movies from the 1980’s and 90’s, though I take no credit from his later films where he got fat and teamed up with Tom Arnold.

QUESTION:  An asteroid is careening towards Earth.  You have one minute to save the world and you have not yet posted on this particular day.  What do you do?

ANSWER:  I make a quick post, then I frighten the asteroid back into space with a glare so fearsome that it clearly communicates to the asteroid my disapproval of its tiresome behavior.

QUESTION:  A grizzly bear demands to fist fight you in a steel cage UFC championship bout.  The prize?  Your computer.  If you win, you get to post.  If you loose, the bear eats your computer.

ANSWER:  My post will be a selfie of me wearing the bear’s oily hide as a coat.

QUESTION:  Aliens invade.  They detonate an electromagnetic pulse that renders all electronic equipment useless.

ANSWER:  It’s fine.  I scheduled an advance post.

QUESTION:  You didn’t.  You were too busy watching Game of Thrones, that show that Tommy Muncie is not impressed with.  Blasphemy, I say.

ANSWER:  I did post.

QUESTION:  You didn’t.

ANSWER:  Well, if your computer is taken out too, then how can you be sure I didn’t?

QUESTION:  Well played, sir.  Well played.

QUESTION:  You are kidnapped by Russians, who want your blog down because it is too awesome.  They throw you, your computer, and a parachute out of a plane, but separately, not together.

ANSWER:  I dive myself to the computer, post, then put on the parachute.  Note that my first instinct was to post, not to save myself.

QUESTION:  Katy Perry and Katee Sackhoff, two of your favorite Katies in the entire world, barge into your domicile, each wearing their customary garb.  Perry is in her California Girls video costume, while Sackhoff is in her Battlestar Galactica pilot gear.  They offer to have their way with you, but the price?  You must not post for one day.

ANSWER:  Define “have their way with me.”  I understand the classical connotation, but it is an open ended term that can be taken a variety of ways.  Thus far, in my experience, a woman “having her way with me” means she sucks up all my money, provides me with a longwinded speech about how we should just be friends, and then said friendship inevitably requires that I console her while she, with a cat in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other, whines to me about how the men she wants to be more than friends with aren’t nice to her.  I feel such a situation would not be worth sacrificing the respect of my three readers for.

QUESTION:  The classical connotation.

ANSWER:  Ah.  Wow.  That is a tough one.  They won’t even allow me to post just so I can brag about it?

QUESTION: No.

ANSWER:  Well, I made a promise to all three of my fans, so I would invite the Katies in for a rousing game of Parcheesi, perhaps build a few jigsaw puzzles with them, then send them on their way in time to make a post.  That’s just what a selfless man who has made a commitment does.

QUESTION:  Would you resent us forever for it?

ANSWER:  Yes.

Do you have questions about what I would do in a potential scenario that would make it difficult for me to post?  Ask away in the comments.

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And I Thought I Was a Slow Writer…

Harper Lee, the now 88 year old author of the classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, has announced that her second book, Go Set a Watchman, will be published this summer.

According to this CNN article, Lee originally wrote Scout as an adult, with flashbacks to her youth. Her editor preferred the flashbacks, urged Lee to write an entire novel about young Scout, and the rest is history.

To Kill a Mockingbird was published on July 11, 1960 and this sequel, which will feature an adult Scout, will come out July 11 of this year, a full 55 years later.

In other words, calm down wannabe writers.  If one of America’s most beloved authors took five and a half decades off between novels, you can forgive yourself for putting your novel off for a week while you binge watch Breaking Bad.

I’m not sure about the name though.  Go Set a Watchman.  It doesn’t really sound very sequel-ish.

My To Kill a Mockingbird Sequel Title Suggestions:

Mockingbird II – Judgement Mock

Mockingbird II – Scout’s Revenge

Mockingbird II – Scout’s Honor (that’s actually pretty witty)

2 Mock 2 Murious

Journey to the Center of the Alabama

Mockingbird vs. Mockingjay – the Ultimate Scout vs. Katniss Royale

Mockingbird II – Electric Boo-Radley-ga-loo

Mockingbird II:  Atticus’ Revenge

By the way, one of the morals of this story?  Save your work.  According to the above article, Lee thought the novel was lost, but it was found by her lawyer.  Alas, Ms. Lee didn’t have the ability to save a copy on a flash drive because back in those days, your options were either a typewriter or, yeesh – pen and paper.

I hate to admit it, but I’m only half-way through To Kill a Mockingbird.  Ten years ago, I started to read it, found it marvelous, got busy, put it down, forgot about it, have been meaning to re-read it all the way through this time ever since.

Now I actually have to since there is a sequel.

And I’m just throwing it out there, but even though she’s 88, Lee really needs to push out a third, just so she can enter the ranks of today’s authors who now pretty much start out with trilogies from beginning.

“Hello, I’m Harper Lee, Author of the Mockingbird Trilogy.”

Hey, all joking aside, this is great.   I look forward to it.   What do you think?

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Tess Gerritsen’s Gravity Lawsuit

Here in our little community of bloggers, we all like to kick around the idea that one day we might write a book that gets turned into a movie and we’ll end up the toast of Hollywood!

Well, it sounds like it doesn’t always work out.

I just read this post by Tess Gerritsen, author of the Rissoli and Isles series, and she is apparently having quite a struggle vis a vis the movie Gravity and her book by the same name.

For what it’s worth, I wish her the best of luck and hope she prevails.

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Meg Rosoff on “Your Writing Voice

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.
 – Meg Rosoff, Novelist, Author of How I Live Now

True or false?  Discuss.

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Tomorrow on Bookshelf Battle…

I’m going to have a special announcement.

Will it be…

a)  So big that it will take people’s attention away from the big sporting contest I hear will be taking place?

b)   that all of my readers will get free Kindle fires?  Even my Aunt Gertie?

c)  that the dawning of the Age of Aquarius is finally here?

d) that I have acquired a guest spot on Game of Thrones, in which I inspire everyone with my near victory, only to be murdered in a gruesome and unexpected manner?

e)  None of the above?

Whoa nelly, such suspense!  Stop by tomorrow to find out!

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Blog Contests

Has anyone ever run a blog contest before?

Something like, oh I don’t know, the next twenty people who subscribe to bookshelfbattle.com have the chance to win a prize?

I don’t know what the prize would be. A book? A toaster? A date with Charlize Theron?

Yeah like I’d give that away.

I’m just curious – if anyone out there has run a successful blog contest, how do you do it?

Comment away if you have advice.

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Let’s Talk Sci-Fi – What’s the Difference Between an Android and a Robot?

Gonna go out on a limb here and guess this is a robot.

Gonna go out on a limb here and guess this is a robot.

Geeks, dweebs, nerds, and poindexters of the world, assemble, for I have a doozy of a question for you.

What is the difference between an Android and a Robot?

As we’ve previously discussed, I’m working on a science fiction novel, and seeking the advice of nerds everywhere for help.  Don’t be offended by being called a nerd.  It’s a badge of honor, really.  Frankly, who wants advice about robotics from a non-nerd?

This is total nerd stuff, baby.

I find that in the science fiction world, the words “android” and “robot” are often used interchangeably.  But should that be the case?

The best advice I’ve found thus far:

“A robot can, but does not necessarily have to be in the form of a human, but an android is always in the form of a human.”

– Edmond Woychowsky, TechRepublic – “The Difference Between Robots and Androids, 2010

Click here for Woychowsky’s Full Article

Well, wait a minute.  That sounds simple enough at first, but what about C3P0?  He and his buddy RD2D are invariably referred to as “droids” in the Star Wars universe.  Haven’t you heard the infamous line from Obi-Wan Kenobi, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for?”

C3P0 has a torso, arms, legs, a face with eyes, he is definitely modeled after a human, but he’s also built out of a golden colored metal, his arms and legs only move so much, his eyes are pretty much just sockets, and there’s just a slit where his mouth should be.

That’s not exactly a human, is it?  What did Edmond have to say?

“It can be argued that an android should be able to pass as a human in natural light. So, if you subscribe to this belief, C-3PO from Star Wars and R. Giskard Reventlov from Isaac Asimov’s The Robots of Dawn are robots, not androids.”

Seriously?  So George Lucas got something wrong?  In addition to Jar Jar???

So, if you take this android vs. robot information seriously, then C3P0 is a robot.  The robots from the film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, are robots (that’s a given, since they didn’t call it, I, Android).

Rosie, the Jetson family’s maid, is a robot.  C3P0, Rosie, and the I, Robot bots, all might have human-inspired designs, but if you were to see them, you would say, “Hey, that’s a robot!”

Apparently, the question of whether an “artificial being” is a robot or an android boils down to whether or not you can tell when you first meet said being.  As Woychowsky notes, Data from Star Trek: Next Generation, does appear to be a human, “albeit with an odd complexion.”

As an additional example, I would submit that Ash from the original Alien movie is an android.  He was so passable as a human that this is actually a major plot point of the film – he was passing as a crew member but in secret, was an android with a special mission.  For part of the film, the audience doesn’t even know he’s not a human.

So what say you, readers?  I need your nerdy opinions, because the novel I am working on, and sadly, procrastinating on, might feature robots, or it might feature androids, but I want to make sure I’m using the right terminology so that my nerd credentials are not questioned.

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