Self-Indulgent Ramblings Part II: Electric Blogaloo

Hello. Because the last time was so much fun, here's some more self-indulgent ramblings about anything that comes to my mind. Once again, with apologies to Larry King and Breakin' 2, here I go:

That new show Resurrection only works for me if I imagine that all of That '70s Show was really Red Forman's fantasy regarding his dead son.

Chocolate Toast Crunch is like crack to me.

Actually, I've never tried crack, so this is only an assumption.

I don't know what this says about me, but the look of Wes Anderson's films creeps me out a little bit.

On second glance, my "John Travolta pronounced name" in my first self-indulgent ramblings was too close to my real name. So how does "Reggie Howitzer" sound?

Coming up with your "John Travolta pronounced name" is so two weeks ago.

I think Chris Hardwick wishes that Talking Dead would always start with a group hug, audience members included.

If Daniel Bryan doesn't win everything at WrestleMania XXX, I will riot.

Okay, maybe not, but I'll never watch wrestling again.

Okay, I won't do that, but I'll take a break from watching it.

Okay, I won't do that, either, but I'll complain incessantly on every wrestling forum I can find.

Okay, I won't do any of those things, however, I will bitch and scream at my TV, and then watch Raw the next day. Happy now?

My unabashed, no holds barred review of Son of God: I didn't see it, but I've heard that the ending is uplifting.

I don't know about you, but some of those anti-smoking ads make me want to smoke more.

Is it wrong for a middle aged adult to enjoy Teen Titans Go! so much?

If so, I don't want to be right.

Two words I don't want to hear ever again in my lifetime: "polar vortex."

Two more words I don't ever want to hear: "It's yours."

It doesn't take the Sports Almanac to see that the NBA conference finals will be Heat vs. Pacers and Thunder vs. Spurs.

Of course, now that I wrote that, I'll be totally wrong and look like an idiot.

It won't be the first or last time.

Everyone should give Agents of Shield a second chance.

Def Leppard should have been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame years ago.

Actually, is there anything less "rock n' roll" than having a Hall of Fame?

Why hasn't anyone made a straight-to-DVD Expendables knock-off featuring Kevin Sorbo, Lorenzo Lamas, Billy Blanks, Jeff Speakman, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Brian Bosworth, and Hulk Hogan? I would so watch this.

Maybe they did and I just haven't heard about it yet. Time to check out Netflix.

I find it hard to believe that they're still making new episodes of Survivor after all these years.

That being said, I've also avoided watching all those "singing competition shows." Really, you'd think they would have run out of contestants by now.

Twenty years from now, Dan Henderson's right hand will still be able to knock people out.

I've just started reading Doctor Sleep, Stephen King's sequel to The Shining. Other sequels to Stephen King's earlier works that I'm looking forward to: Son of Cujo, The Deader Zone, Bags of Bones, The Ears of the Dragon, The Rage: Carrie 2, Stand By Me Again, Fire-Restarter, The Girl Who Loved Rollie Fingers (this is actually a prequel), Rose Maddest, and It Too.

Why all these sequels have similar titles to their originals while Doctor Sleep sounds nothing like The Shining, I have no idea.

With that, I have to depart, thanks for reading, see you next time.

Here's a Self-Indulgent Preview of What's to Come

I've heard it said that to build up the anticipation for your next writings, you should give constant updates to wet everyone's whistle. So I thought I'd give you a brief description of what I'm currently working on.

While I was writing my first book, I Am Annoyed: One Man's Rants Against This Annoying World, I was brainstorming about everything in this world that annoyed me. There were a lot of thoughts that I had that were compelling enough to write about, but for some of them I asked myself: "This is interesting, but am I really annoyed by it?" I Am Annoyed was supposed to be a book that's just about everything that annoys me, so anything that I thought about that really didn't annoy me that much, I didn't put it in the book. I had a fair amount of those kinds of thoughts, so the idea came to me that this would be good material for my next book. So I've taken these thoughts and started writing about them, while coming up with even more new thoughts that hopefully will make a complete book that will be published later this year. At first, I was going to call this book, Random Observations, but these thoughts aren't really random. The title is going to have something to do with thoughts or thinking, I have something in mind, but I'm going to keep that to myself. Doesn't that build your anticipation?

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I wrote all these screenplays that never went anywhere. I mentioned there was one that I'm converting into a novel. I'm kind of alternating between writing the book about my non annoying thoughts and this novel. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I can tell you this novel contains: small city robbery, unrequited love, pot smoking, an independent bookstore, a nympho, obscure pro wrestling references, foul language, tons of violence, and dark humor. Yeah, not your typical novel. Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll have this done sometime next year.

So, that's what I got coming down the pipeline. Stay tuned to this blog for even more updates and other fun stuff. See you soon.

Here's Some Awesomely Self-Indulgent Ramblings

Hello. Welcome to the first and hopefully not last Awesomely Self-Indulgent Ramblings. This is going to be a series of comments mostly about pop culture and anything else that comes to my mind. With some of these ramblings, you may not have any idea what I'm talking about. Well, I guess that's what Goggle is for. The funny thing is, a couple of years from now, if I go back and reread this, I may not have a clue what I'm talking about, either. Anyway, and with apologies to Larry King, here I go:

Have you ever gone to a pizza place and saw a girl working there, or known any girl that works in one, and thought to yourself: "She's just a punk kid making pizzas"? What the hell, Dominos?

Speaking of commercials, almost all of them are lame, however, the Sprint ones with James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell are great. Which probably explains why I haven't seen their commercials in weeks.

Have you noticed that a lot of commercials feature a cute girl as their spokesperson? You have the T-Mobile girl, the Wendy's girl, the Toyota girl, the Kindle Fire girl, now there's the AT&T girl, who looks pretty fetching. I don't know if they make me use their products more, though. I guess they do cause me not to change the channel right away when their commercial comes on. I think I need to go outside more.

Also, that will be the last time that I will use the words "pretty fetching" to describe someone's looks.

My unabashed, no holds barred review of The Lego Movie: It was pretty good.

I want to see what kind of "selfie" they would come up with at the AVN Awards.

Then again, I probably don't.

My "John Travolta pronounced name" is Armin Schwartzman.

True Detective spoiler alert!!! Don't read the next four lines if you don't want to be spoiled:

Weren't you kind of disappointed there wasn't a twist ending at the end of True Detective? I thought the ending was fine, but (and I hate to place blame on anyone, but it's probably M. Night Shyamalan's fault) a part of me wanted Woody, I mean Marty, to roll Cohle in his wheelchair into oncoming traffic.

By the way, how long is the statute of limitations in regards to spoilers? There are probably some people who would get pissed if I spoiled The Empire Strikes Back, The Crying Game, The Sixth Sense, and Titanic.

And the spoilers are, in order: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, that chick had a penis, Bruce Willis is a ghost the whole time, and the "unsinkable" boat sinks.

To be fair, my newspaper recently spoiled the last season of Sons of Anarchy for me, which royally sucks. Is it my fault that I'm trying to play catch up on Netflix?

Yes, I still read newspapers.

So, Game of Thrones on HBO is reportedly going to end after seven or eight seasons. With how long it's been taking George R. R. Martin to write, this could be the first time ever that a TV show ends up spoiling the books.

Of course, I am so behind on the books anyway, that this will have no effect on me. #extremelyslowreader

I'm not going to read the last book until all the movies come out, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that in Mockingjay, Peeta gets his ass kicked...a lot.

Jane Leeves is the most underrated comedic actress ever.

And she's still very hot. (And I'm not just talking about Cleveland).

I may be the only person on the planet that doesn't have any sort of opinion about Justin Bieber.

Can you imagine making it all the way to the last game in the Quicken Loans' Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge, only to lose on a last second shot? That would be the worst feeling in the world.

If there was ever a time to fire up the Delorean to 88 mph and grab the Sports Almanac, now is the time.

That Anonymous guy is always the harshest critic, no matter what he reviews or comments on.

He's pretty prolific, too.

I want a device that permanently embeds the WWE Network into my brain.

Yes, I'm a wrestling fan, deal with it!

How come the only new Get Fuzzy cartoons are the Sunday ones? I'm still waiting for Calvin and Hobbes to come out of retirement, now I have to deal with this?

I'm still on Team Coco.

Adding Jonathan Banks to anything makes it even better.

In real life, I am the bizarro Jonathan Banks.

On that sad note, that is all, thanks for reading!

The One Hang-Up I Have About Writing About Pop Culture

Although I do enjoy writing about myself and my book, there are times in this blog that I'd like to write about other stuff. There are goings on in the world of pop culture that I might like to comment on, in a humorous way, of course. But there is one hang-up I have about writing about pop culture: I really don't feel comfortable criticizing or making fun of anyone personally. In my book, I wrote about certain things that annoyed me in the entertainment, sports, and political worlds, but I tried not to single anybody out. I did mention that it annoys me when the popular music radio station plays the same Adelle song over and over again to the point of complete agony, but I actually don't mind her music. It just drives me batty when I have no control over the radio so I have to suffer through hearing the same ten songs ten times a day. I also wrote about how annoying it is when directors cast their untalented spouses or relatives who end up wrecking their movie, but I don't get into specifics. I guess I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Of course, I know that it's not likely that these famous people will read my book (though, they should), and if they did, they probably wouldn't care anyway. Still, to play it safe I don't mention anyone by name so that if I ever meet a famous person, and they wonder if I was insulting them in my book, I can say to them: "No, no, when I said I was annoyed by directors that cast their untalented relatives in their films, I didn't mean you."

I guess I could just write about things in pop culture that I like. But can I write a thousand word blog focusing on something I enjoy without gushing so much that it ends up coming across like an obsessive fan letter? Also, and this is something I kind of wrote about in my last blog post, is it arrogant to assume anyone will care what I like or don't like in regards to pop culture? Well, should anyone really care what anyone else thinks about anything? Probably not, but if I can be somewhat entertaining with my pop culture posts, it'll be all worth it. Plus, one of the advantages of writing a blog is that all of the subject matter is current and not outdated. That's another reason why I tried not to mention specific things too much in my book. I guess with an ebook, I could always go back and update the topical references, but I still like the idea of a book as a snapshot in time, and constantly going back and changing things would change the "feel" of the book.

So, the idea I have is to write some "quick hits" about whatever comes to my mind about pop culture. I realize that Larry King used to write a newspaper column that did something similar. Well, I don't think he has a patent on this idea. I figure if I do criticize anyone or anything, I'll do so in a benign, light hearted manner that won't hurt anyone's feelings and more importantly, won't make me feel guilty. I can also rave about stuff without it becoming too gushing and long winded. So, sometime in the near future, I'll probably give this idea a shot. There's something for all of you to look forward to.

Is It Arrogant to Assume People Would Want to Read Your Work?

As a newly self published author, that question has definitely crossed my mind. I'm just an average person (or slightly below average if you ask certain people's opinion) with a few strange ideas floating around in my melon, why did I assume my ideas were something that people would love to read? With a landscape of millions of books out there in this world, does a writer have to have a bit of arrogance to think that it's HIS book that needs to be read? Especially since my book is non fiction humor. It's one thing if a non fiction book is about a certain subject that someone would want to learn about, whether it's about investing, health, history, etc. But to think my writings are funny and entertaining to other people, well, that may be a bit presumptuous. I mean, they make me laugh, but I laugh out loud when people trip and fall right in front of me (not exactly true, I'm just laughing out loud on the inside).

So I'm spending all this time trying to convince everyone out there in this world to buy my book. I can say it will be an awesome and hilarious reading experience for everyone, but do I really know? I guess the best selling point I have is that, good or bad, my book (or should I say "books?" There is more to come) will get a reaction out of you. For example, I would guess after reading that I laugh when people trip and fall, some of you were thinking to yourselves, "That guy is a disgusting, uncaring cretin, and a poor excuse for a human being!" But I bet a lot of you were thinking, "I hate to admit it, but I do the exact same thing," while laughing at the memory. Either way, it got a reaction out of you.

So it may be a bit of arrogance, but I do think there are enough of you out there that would enjoy reading my stuff. That being said, in my life, I have been frequently wrong about tons of things. Hopefully, this isn't one of those times. After all, you did just read my blog, right?

The Saga of the Ever-Changing Book Cover

Finding the right cover for your book is a tough task. Especially if you can't afford a proper book cover designer, and if you have no discernible artistic talent whatsoever. My first idea for the cover of my book, I Am Annoyed: One Man's Rants Against This Annoying World, was simply a picture of myself with an annoyed expression on my face with I Am Annoyed written in big bold letters above my head. The first problem with that was that I don't like displaying my ugly mug for the whole world to see, which is why I don't have a picture of myself in this blog. The second problem was that in attempting to make an annoyed face in the mirror, I looked more like I was constipated than anything else. I guess if I ever were to write I Am Constipated: One Man's Struggles With a Clogged-Up Poop Chute, I'd have the perfect cover image. I tried finding stock photos of people looking annoyed, but they never looked right, plus, even though I'm not totally comfortable putting my own face on my cover, I don't want anyone else's face on there, either. So I decided a simple cover with a huge I Am Annoyed and a smaller One Man's Rants Against This Annoying World was the way to go. So, despite their ugliness, here's some examples of my attempts at creating my book cover:





                                             Really??? Dude, this is terrible!!! 



                                                 Not bad...for a four year old.

                                                 

                                         Maybe I reached the first grade level?

                             This looks okay, but it did take me a week to do this. 

 

So yeah, this was a huge struggle. Finally, though, after googling "annoyed man stock illustration,"  I found an image that perfectly sums up my annoyance. Okay, so the illustration is called "angry boy." but he can also be "annoyed," right? Plus the guy does kind of look like me. He has more hair, though. So after buying this image, (by the way, thanks to canstockphoto.com and Davi Sales, the artist), and some quick work writing in my title, here's the final cover:

The final cover. Yes, I do sort of look like this.

 

 

So there you have it. My words of advice to those of you that are trying to create the perfect book cover: be born with some artistic talent, or know someone who has artistic talent that will work for free, otherwise, I have nothing else to tell you. Thanks for reading.