September 17, 2016 · 7:09 pm

The Pinterest Problem

I suddenly find myself back on Pinterest for the first time since the Spring of 2014.  It is not that I have been forgiven by the powers behind Pinterest, rather that I have created a new email account which apparently wipes the slate clean of accusation and animosity.  But I have to explain what the problem is between me and Pinterest.

First, here are the good things;

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  • Pinterest is a way to make use of my insane hoarding-disorder urge to collect internet images of all kinds.
  • Pinterest is another place to promote my artwork and I can link covers of my books back to Amazon or I-Universe where crazy people might just be goofy enough to buy one.
  • I am hoping that in three months I will have another book to put on Pinterest.  Page Publishing was goofy enough to offer to publish Magical Miss Morgan, as long as I pay my way.
  • Pinterest allows me to organize my collections into “boards” which are actually free-flowing collages made up of the pictures I have collected.
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  • The Down-Side;
  • I was blocked from Pinterest back in 2014 for being a pornographer.  They had a lot of sexual content running rampant in their social media site in 2014, which, being a site created for women to share favorite recipes, they didn’t really know how to handle.
  • I am not shy about liking nudes and boobs in artwork.  I was not aware that some of the nude photography I was liking and even sometimes sharing had been added to Pinterest from porn sites.  My bad!
  • After being warned, I stopped liking and re-pinning nudes.  I even tried to remove what boobage I had on my boards.  (They were popular boards, and some of the bad stuff was among the most popular and re-pinned.)
  • I got kicked off for copying an artful nude off my list of recommended pins to my computer instead of any of the Pinterest boards.  I think it was a Waterhouse oil from the 1800’s, but I don’t know for sure what the problem item actually was.  Pinterest for a while was extremely sensitive to depictions of female breasts.

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But getting kicked off of Pinterest was a good thing for me.  Though embarrassing… at least a little bit… it did help me cure the problem I was having with Pinterest filling all my hours that should have been used for writing.  It also helped me self-censor a bit more effectively.  The last thing I want to do on social media is give offense.  I do not wish to promote my brand in any way similar to how Donald Trump does it on Twitter.  And it allows me to bring my artwork, with the appropriate link to WordPress to old ladies collecting recipes and Disney cartoons everywhere.  I am happy to back on Pinterest.  (And please don’t tell the Pinterest administrators how I did it.  I promise to behave.)

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September 16, 2016 · 7:57 pm

Because of Pinkie Pie

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I was bummed out today by bankers.  But it made me forget that there are side benefits to throwing up in the bathroom at Toys-R-Us.  Yes, I found Pinkie Pie.  I completed a My Little Pony collection.  Good times!  Yeah!

“Mickey, do you really believe that talking about that is humor?”

“Yes, Michael, bizarre things are funny.”

“Kinda like talking to yourself when you are depressed?”

“Yes, Michael, yes…  Pinkie Pie!”

“You’ve got me there, Mickey.  You’ve got me there.”

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September 16, 2016 · 3:37 pm

Because Bankers Are Evil

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Yes, Bankers are evil, so I need pie.

My post today is just a bunch of old artwork because I had to spend the morning fixing a bank problem.  My mortgage payment got lost.  Yes, I had an Uncle Billy moment that turned out not to be my fault at all.  All the other payments went through the automatic bill pay system normally.  But the mortgage payment did not.  Even though it went through normally every month for the last three years.  The mortgage bankers apparently misplaced the electronic payment.  So I tracked down the proof of payment at my bank and printed it out.  The mortgage bankers, of course, will not accept it until I can get my wife’s signature on it.  And what will you bet that they are going to charge a late-payment fee?

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Unfinished Stag n snow

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September 15, 2016 · 4:01 pm

Twits and Wits Tweet on Twitter

Unlike Donald Trump, Twitter is a complete mystery to me. I was told by a publisher that to sell my writing, I need to create a writer’s platform.  And  to do that I had to blog and create a presence on Twitter.  So somehow, goofy little Mickey needs to learn how to tweet.

“Like a bird?”, asked Mickey innocently.

“No, you feeb!  Like a true Tweet-Wit like Ricky Gervais!”

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So I gave it a try.

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Basically I spend my Twitter-tweets on tweeting my blog posts.  It makes me happy, though I don’t notice any affect on the flow of the Twitterverse.

I get lots of followers like this one who appears a little over-friendly.

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I’m not sure what to make of tweeting twits on Twitter.  They all seem to want something from me, and I have no idea what it is… unless they want money… which I have none of…

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Disney cartoon characters trick you into following them because they seem to be cute little Disney things, but they only tweet stuff about sex and women with big baby-feeders.  What is up with that sort of mixed-hormonal nightmare?

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The political stuff all seems to be conservative in nature.  Twitter, just like Facebook, wants me to vote Republican and forswear my wicked communist-democratic leanings that make me think terrible un-American thoughts, like “maybe Colin Kaepernick is not entirely wrong-headed about his protest.”

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Some of them just want to gross me out.

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A lot of it, however, looks amazingly like Facebook stuff.  And if you look hard enough, there are funny and insightful things too.

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So, I will try harder to Tweet like a tweet-wit, and make a mark on Twitter that is not hopelessly twit-like.

 

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September 14, 2016 · 3:39 pm

900!

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I have reached 900 followers.  Who knew there were 900 people in the blogosphere goofy enough to follow a cartoony former school teacher who collects dolls because of raging hoarding disorder?  I am a loony conspiracy theory lover (though only a believer of a select few).  I have six incurable diseases and am a cancer survivor since 1983.  I am a writer goofy enough to believe I can write stuff that people want to read, and some of the comments seem to indicate that they really do.

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Here’s this morning’s dawn.  Every one of these I can photograph is something of a miracle.

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The day before yesterday I got sick from Texas heat and diabetes while driving to pick up my son from school.  I had to stop and dash into Toys-R-Us to throw up in their restroom.  Yeck!  Why did I have to talk about something as disgusting as that?  Well, I feel guilty about having to do that in a business’s public restroom.  So I felt compelled to buy something.  Wow!  PEZ dispensers!  And I found Rainbow Dash!  Um, yeah… every dark cloud has its own form of silver lining.

So, there is my goofy, disorganized post about 900.

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September 13, 2016 · 2:47 pm

Stardusters… Canto 12

Galtorr Primex 1

Canto Twelve – The Alien Space Station, Site of the Tadpole Crash

One might expect a tadpole like George Jetson to be a little bit cooled on the subject of space exploration after having crashed and wrecked the very first Golden Wing he had ever flown.  Alden remembered crashing his father’s Pontiac the first time he drove by himself.  It had made him into more of a foot-bound youth than ever until he was a senior in high school and had to drive to get groceries when his dad had that broken leg.  But George was special.  George was also a rather slow learner.  George walked around the hole and laughed about it.

“We are so lucky!” George said.  “There is a hole in the side of the space station that should have catastrophically depressurized and maybe exploded it.  There is also a hole in the front of the Golden Wing that should have killed us all.  But the two holes match up like we intended to do it!”

“George, we can still die if this thing splits apart from our ship,” reminded Davalon.  Dav, unlike most of these tadpole brat-types was clear-thinking and resourceful.

“Do we have any way to weld them together to keep them from splitting apart?” Alden offered as a possible solution.

“Yes, but then we can’t separate and fly away,” said George.  His stupid grin finally faded.

“True,” said Davalon, “but we can’t fly away without dying in the process as it is.  We can use skortch pistols on heat mode to melt the metals together.  That would make a fairly strong seal against the vacuum.”

Tanith and Gracie were also looking at the holes and hopefully thinking about everything that was being said.  “Why don’t you boys fix that, and we girls will explore the station,” suggested Tanith.

“Isn’t that too dangerous for a girl to do?” asked Alden.  He could tell by the dark look on Gracie’s face that this was the absolutely worst thing he could’ve possibly said at that moment.  “Um… yeah.  You girls take care of that and we’ll do the repair work here.”  Maybe that saved both his twelve-year-old neck and his supposedly grown-up and forward-thinking dignity.

“Take skortch rays,” said Davalon.  “But remember, burning holes in things is a bad thing to do in the vacuum of space.  If you find anyone you have to skortch… don’t miss.”

Tanith smiled winningly.  “Don’t worry.  I was programmed in the egg to be the best shot with a skortch ray that Tellerons have ever seen.”

“Very reassuring,” said George frowning, “and hilariously funny.”

“I thought so,” said Tanith.

“Brekka, Menolly,” called Gracie, “bring skortch rays.  We are going exploring.”

An Earth year ago, Alden would never have believed that such an adventure would be possible, especially when you considered that this really was a life and death situation.

*****

george-jetson

George Jetson, Telleron Tadpole

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September 12, 2016 · 3:18 pm

Opinions Are Like Onions

The REAL Sarah

“Why does something always smell bad when I am talking?”

Opinions are like Onions.

All you have to do is subtract 3.141592 and they are exactly the same.

The people that like the way they taste like theirs a lot.

They want you to try them.

And if you don’t like the taste, then you just don’t know what’s good for you.

Onions are good for you.  They make you fart and they clear out the bad gasses made up of methane and other toxic waste from your colon and digestive tract.

Opinions are good for you too.  They make you fart out of the mouth, clearing bad gasses made up of stupidity and toxic ideas out of your little old brain.  You should not be holding that stuff in.  It is poisonous and it could potentially explode.  Not something you want to happen in either the colon or the brain.  Only stupid people hang on to them in the face of contradictory evidence.  (It makes me nervous that I don’t see people exploding more often, because I hold the opinion that there really are a lot of stupid people out there.  I, too, am probably in danger of exploding at some point.)

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And see, that’s the important point here.  Opinions are only as valuable as fart gas.  For the all-important progress of ideas to really happen, opinions have to be tested.  And I don’t mean opinions like whether or not you like the taste of onions.  I am talking about opinions that lead to policy.  Politics are crammed full of opinions.  (I got that right, didn’t I?  I didn’t say “onions” when I actually meant “opinions”, right?)

Hillary Clinton is apologizing now for the opinion-based fart-gas of saying that “half of Donald Trump’s supporters are deplorable people”.  The facts are that the KKK has voiced support for Trump, as have a number of immigrant-hating racists like Ann Coulter who will tell you in detail about all her onions concerning Mexicans and brown people.  People at Trump’s rallies have physically assaulted black people and protesters of any variety.  And to “deplore” someone is to speak out against their ideas or actions.  So the critical word that is not a fact, but rather an onion, must be “half”.  This is the word where Hillary went wrong.  I am sure that “half” is an under-estimation.

And Mr. Trump, as a connoisseur of truly stinky onions has said that Clinton and Obama are literally the founders of ISIS.  And in his onion, Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than President (of this country) Obama.  One wonders why no one has really sliced and diced these particular onions.  One imagines that if Hillary were the chef serving these onions, no one would be willing to have them in the dining room, let alone eat them.  Onions need be tested for flavor and rightness long before they are served.

So, to close up this onion-smelling essay before it makes me fart again, let me just say, we need to not get stuck in the onion patch and mistakenly convince ourselves we are smelling roses.  Roses shouldn’t make you cry.

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September 11, 2016 · 3:41 pm

Flubtastical Floundering

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Seeds of despair have been growing and blooming into black orchids of depression.  Doubt creeps in.  It is true that the publisher I just signed a contract with is the kind of publisher that squeezes their money out of the authors rather than readers.  That seems to be a dominating trend in the publishing world now.  You don’t make as much money as a publisher by investing in advertising, editing services, and printing services at your own expense, even paying advances to authors for the rights to their works.  The old way is dead.  One way or another, to compete in the modern market you have to squeeze more and more profit out of your workers.  More productivity for less money in wages puts more money into the hands of the owners, the corporations, and the CEO’s where it obviously belongs.  I suppose, as one of those little guys at the base of the poo-poo volcano of American business, I have a right to feel cheated and abused.  My hard work is taken supreme advantage of by others.

Lots of stuff has been going wrong lately.  The yard has gone untended for too long and is now overgrown and wild.  The dog got hold of number two son’s $350 retainer again.  Both of my kids at home are groaning under the strains of work and school.  My health continues to slide down the old hill.  They are even cancelling one of my favorite Facebook games.

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I must now say goodbye to Avengers Alliance on Facebook.

But despair is not really in my nature.  I knew going in that publishing my book this way was going to cost me money I will probably never make back in my lifetime.  But it will be available in print.  It will even have my own artwork on it.  And if I have to publish the other novels as digital Kindle copies only, at least I will actually have three books in print.

The yard looks unkempt, but there are blossoms everywhere, and our plants are at least processing carbon dioxide and putting oxygen back in the air.

The dog got hold of the retainer, but this time apparently realized how much trouble she was in.  She doesn’t appear to have bitten or chewed on it at all.

Broken spirits and weariness are the intended products of the modern American school system, so we are doing that right, at least.

And not being able to afford to go to the doctor any more has made my wallet a lot healthier.  I have the money… er, credit… to spend for the first time in ten years.

Maybe the orchids are not so black as I thought.

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September 10, 2016 · 3:47 pm

Spitzen Sparken Compu-BOOM!

Yesterday I had to start a post over again that my computer wiped out completely just as I was finishing it.  I had intended to rewrite the post today, but found key parts of it that I really liked were gone from my diabetic old memory.  Life is like that.  We get old and we get all futzed up, and no… the computer did not malfunction and save me from using a bad word there.  I meant to say “futzed”.

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It is a Yiddish sort of word… so I guess you could argue it is not a real word.  Yiddish, after all is a language intended by God to provide Jewish comedians with words that sound like insults but really aren’t… and words that don’t sound like insults that really are.  (Have you ever looked up what “putz” actually means?)

But that is what the Mickian computer has been up to.  It mashes, mangles, impedes, and implodes my writing.  If it wasn’t so handy for coming up with a funny post about fighting with a computer, I might actually become aggravated enough to throw this old computer out the upstairs window and into the sickly, green, unused swimming pool below.

I have used my computer daily and put it through all sorts of contortions and convolutions in the past three years of ill health and bed-ridden retirement.  It is probably no wonder it is wearing out.  I not only write and turn drawings into jpegs on it, I use it to mess with photography, play Facebook games, and keep up with the international clown show that other people generally refer to as politics.  I shed beard hair on my keyboard.  I drop popcorn on it when I am trying to jam too much in my mouth at once.  And I occasionally baptize it with a juicy sneeze or projectile cough.  I confess that I probably deserve the revenge it wreaks upon me.

Besides randomly deleting my posts and instantly saving the changes, it will also shrink the view of the entire page so that I can’t even read what I type with a magnifying glass.  The only way to correct the problem is shift to a different browser for a while until Firefox or Chrome stops hating me long enough to reset.  I have also had problems with the computer blowing things up.  One time I was trying to write on WordPress when only three huge letters at a time would fit on the screen.  That can make it quite hard to pull the old train of thought out of the darker parts of the tunnel of stupid ideas.  (I also just now had to re-type the part in italics when the computer deleted it.  I am making a back-up copy on Microsoft Word, but sometimes I can’t copy and paste fast enough.)

Truthfully, something is seriously wrong with this laptop.  The mouse pad malfunctions and the control key sticks.  I may have to buy a new computer soon.  But this one has given me numerous goofy smiles, and I will miss it when it joins the pile of old dead computers in the garage.

If you haven’t quite figured it out, these are some of the numerous goofy smiles.

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September 9, 2016 · 2:49 pm

Novel News

Cool School Blue

I was going to tell you a lot about my novel Magical Miss Morgan today.  My computer had other ideas.  I was almost done with the post and working on the final edits when the computer suddenly burped and wiped it all out.  Nothing was saved but the title.  Well, I signed a contract for the novel.  I will tell you more about that  as time goes on.  The computer doesn’t want me to do more today.

class Miss Mcover

 

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