BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I’m officially back in my room for the evening. Opening ceremonies are over and the groups have split off to engage in FRPG’s, MMORPG’s, and the like. Others are exuberantly bouncing around the campus sticking battery powered LED’s to metal rafters by attaching them to magnets and launching them at the ceiling. Have to admit, the student center is pretty colorful right now.

Unfortunately, I just don’t party into the night as well as I used to. All part of that aging thing I suppose. At any rate, here is my evening report from the WillyCon XI Odyssey.

@mrsellars – Noon noms, more good chow. Szechwan chicken stir-fry with lots of veggies and a small spinach salad with some sunflower seeds and beets.

@mrsellars – Wish I could afford to eat this healthy at home.

@mrsellars – Where the hell is my flash drive?

@mrsellars – Dammit… That flash drive has manuscript stuff on it that doesn’t need to be released just yet…

@mrsellars – Shit. Must have lost it when I was walking this morning.

@mrsellars – Walkies… Lookies…Walkies… Lookies… Walkies…

@mrsellars – [Back at room] Well hell… hopefully someone turned it in.

@mrsellars – Hey… What’s this in my coat pocket?

@mrsellars – #fuckme

@mrsellars – Universe is definitely making sure I get that exercise… What next? Am I going to end up shoveling snow?

@mrsellars – Forget I said that… Srsly. Just pretend it never happened.

@mrsellars – Did the big cheese leave a badge for me?

@Con_Registration –  Yeah, Murv. Number 2.

@mrsellars –  No thanks, I did number 2 this morning. I probably need to do a number 1 though.

@Con_Registration – O_o

@mrsellars – [Watching a segment of Omega Man with Charlton Heston] [shakes head] I just can’t watch this without expecting him to say, “Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape!”

@Con_Registraton – LOL

@Movie_Watchers – O_o

@mrsellars –  I wonder why that maintenance guy is cleaning that rock with a wire brush?

@mrsellars – Went to campus coffee shop. Business so slow today they didn’t make any more coffee.

@mrsellars – Young lady behind counter made me huge espresso latte thingie for same price. She is now my new best girlfriend.

@New_Best_Girlfriend – [Notices my badge] Are you a speaker for WillyCon?

@mrsellars – Yes. I’m actually the author guest of honor.

@New_Best_Girlfriend – Really?!

@mrsellars – Yeah.

@New_Best_Girlfriend – What do you write?

@mrsellars – Books.

@New_Best_Girlfriend – O_o [Pause] LOL! No kidding?

@mrsellars – Why would I kid you about that? (grin) But seriously, I write Paranormal Suspense Thrillers.

@New_Best_Girlfriend – Really?!

@mrsellars – O_o

@mrsellars – Watched part of Logan’s Run. Jenny Agutter was kinda hot.

@mrsellars – E K needs one of those outfits…

@mrsellars – [wistful stare]

@mrsellars – Ahem. Ummm. Need to stop thinking about E K in one of those outfits.

@mrsellars – Watched part of Family Guy Star Wars spoof…

@mrsellars – All kinds of wrong happening on that screen.

@mrsellars – Really liked lightsabre = bug zapper gag. LOL at that one.

@mrsellars – When visual Doctor Who reference happened, excused myself for dinner.

@mrsellars – Not very hungry at dinner, but it was my last chance to eat for the day. Just had a couple of fish sticks , a small scoop of rice, and some coleslaw. Still very good.

@mrsellars – Fruit punch and Sierra Mist. Not bad. Bet a couple of shots of Vodka would make it even better.

@mrsellars – Dry campus.

@mrsellare – Do I really need to use the hashtag at this point? Y’all already know what I’m going to say…

@mrsellars – [mingle] tell stories [mingle] brag about kid [mingle] brag about wife [mingle] re-tell stories and chat [mingle]

@Darth_Doodie_Shirt_Girl – So, what kind of books do you write?

@mrsellars – Scary shit.

@Darth_Doodie_Shirt_Girl – Cool. I like scary shit.

@Attendee_on_Balcony – Mister Murv!

@mrsellars – [looking upward] Hi!

@Attendee_on_Balcony – Mister Murv, you need to change your Facebook photo.

@mrsellars – [still looking upward] Why?

@Darth_Doodie_Shirt_Girl – No he doesn’t.

@Attendee_on_Balcony – Yes he does… Wait, I’ll come down.

@mrsellars – Okay.

@jeopardy_theme – Do da Do da Do da Dooo, Do da Do da, Doop da do do do do…

@Attendee_from_Balcony – Hi. Nice to meet you.

@mrsellars – Hi. Nice to meet you too.

@Attendee_from_Balcony – So, you need to change your Facebook photo. It makes you look like a dork, and not in a good way.

@mrsellars – O_o

(Note: @Attendee_from_Balcony had some valid points if looked at from her point of view, even though @Darth_Doodie_Shirt_Girl didn’t agree with said points.)

@mrsellars – Heard that weather service is now predicting a possibility of 16 inches of snow starting tomorrow night.

@mrsellars – Have elected to form a survival plan.

@mrsellars – Might be able to find the necessary items in this dorm room to make snow shoes. Maybe even a sled.

@mrsellars – Currently investigating what will be involved with disassembling the bunk beds on the other side of the room in order to begin construction of aforementioned items.

@mrsellars – Heard several dogs barking earlier. Will investigate in the morning in case I need to assemble a sled team in a hurry.

@mrsellars – Side benefit of sled construction: leftovers from bunk bed frame can be used as firewood.

@mrsellars – As of now @skippy_the_squirrel and his friends are considered livestock.

@mrsellars – Will steal salt shakers from cafeteria tomorrow in order to preserve  them.

@mrsellars – Using pages from convention program book to make pattern for squirrel hide snowsuit.

@mrsellars – Just to be safe, presently designing multi-tiered defense system for room. I know what happened with the Donner party, and I ain’t gonna git et.

More to come…

Murv

(Note: If you are reading my blog for the first time please understand that what I post here is not only observational humor, but satirical as well. For the record, the folks at WillyCon are absolutely wonderful, have been a joy to hang out with, and I am having a great time. Really.  And they didn’t even force me say that or anything… 🙂 )

I talked to my child’s principal today… But, we’ll get to that in a minute… Right now, the wayback machine is calling…

The last time I was called to the principal’s office, I was in high school. Yeah… Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and all that jazz…

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t a troublemaker by any stretch of the imagination. As it happened, my infraction had more to do with freedom of the press, and the administration wanting me, as well as a few other student journalists, to roll over on each other regarding a source from a news story. Fortunately, we had a hell of a staff advisor and the inquisition came to a swift end, minus the use of thumbscrews, detention slips, or suspensions.

Yeah… We were a regular bunch of Woodwards and Bernsteins back then.  I don’t even remember the exact story to be honest, but it probably had something to do with seriously hard hitting news, like some football player’s grades being fudged to keep him on the team, (because, of course, that so rarely happens). Or, maybe it was about a particular inferior brand of floorwax was being used by the janitorial staff.

Truth is, the story probably wasn’t even that “sexy”… We probably managed to get our hands on the lunch menu for the following week a few days early and broadcast it on the student radio station, KRSH, or something stupid like that… I really and truly don’t remember…

Suffice it to say, as you can see, the incident was so traumatic that I’ve simply blocked it out after all these years…

Yeah… Well… Saying it was traumatic  sounds much better than saying it was just so unimportant that I didn’t bother to remember… But, I digress…

Anyway, like I was saying, we took our Journalistic integrity very seriously back then… Last I heard, some of my cohorts even went on to become actual paycheck earning, byline having, Journalists, while I went the direction of writing Fiction instead… Of course, judging from the news I read in the papers and see on the tube these days, it would seem they went in the direction of Fiction too…

But, I suppose I should keep my opinion to myself where the integrity of today’s Journalism is concerned… Besides, this is really supposed to be about getting called to the principal’s office… So, let’s get back to that.

As I said at the beginning, I had occasion to chat with my child’s principal  on the phone today. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything too serious. The reality is I had recently voiced a concern over the school district’s Internet policies. As it happened, the principal was kind enough to call me to discuss it.

Very cool… I was impressed by the attention to the matter, the timeliness, and the overall concern expressed… By the principal, that is.

The district’s policies, well, that’s a different story… But, we won’t go there right now.

The thing is, because of the subject we were discussing, I happened to mention that my feelings about the policies were partially driven by the somewhat ugly things I have learned doing research for my novels. I mean, given the subject matter about which I write, I’m bound to learn some pretty disturbing things about human nature and sociopaths, correct?

So, no big deal, right?

Well, if you remember one of my previous blog entries, (They’re Creepy And They’re Kooky… – March 2008), I don’t exactly run around broadcasting my profession to folks at my child’s school. In fact, other than Internet marketing and when I am actually “working,” (i.e. at a book signing,) I don’t say all that much about it at all, unless asked, of course. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it, but hey, it’s just my job. I mean, after all, it’s not like I would walk in to a parent-teacher conference and say, “Hi, I’m Murv, the plumber,” or “Nice to meet you, I’m Murv, the aircraft mechanic.”  Therefore, why would I go around announcing that I am an author? Again, unless asked of course.

My point here being, apparently the principal did not know what I do for a living. Or, at the very least, he didn’t know what the subject matter of my novels happened to be…

…And, by the same token, he probably didn’t, and still doesn’t, know what I used to do for a living… That being the fact that I was a Senior Level Electronics Tech and Internet Systems Administrator for 25 years…

“So, what does that have to do with anything, much less being called to the principal’s office?” you ask.

Well, you can take the Tech out of Geek land, but you can’t take the Geek out of the Tech… What I mean is, I still have my finger in the whole electronics and Internet thing… Including, analytics and IP tracking…

So, imagine my amusement when within an hour or so of hanging up with the principal I do a quick scan of my website logging and see, plain as day, that my legal name has been Googled, along with the tag “books,” all originating from an IP address registered to the school.

And, of course, Google dumped him right into my blog…

Given the sometimes racy jokes, unsavory words, and often tongue-in-cheek innuendo  my posts generally contain, I have to wonder how long it will be before I get called to the principal’s office…

Oh, do you think they’ll let me bring my notebook computer with me to detention? I have a lot of work to do and I could use the quiet time…

More to come…

Murv