Your Pre-Thanksgiving Topic Dump, vol. 11

My parents are on their way up here for Thanksgiving, and we’re still scrambling, trying to get everything ready.  Toney left me an email to-do list, and three items remain.  So, this one is probably gonna be brief…

That’s right, at this point in our lives we communicate mostly through Gmail and text messages.  It’s bizarre.  Sometimes I feel like Plankton, talking with his computer wife, Karen.  I’m sure I’ll recognize the real Toney at the dinner table tomorrow, but it’s been a while since we’ve met.

From the That’s My Boy desk: The older hooligan was telling me (via telephone, of course) that one of his teachers, a “hippie” according to him, told everyone to invent a new national holiday, and write a report on it.  And since this woman is apparently a vegetarian, he came up with Meat Day.

In his report he talked about having a tree decorated with meatballs and sausage links, and hanging raw meat from the fireplace, and things along those lines.  And sure, it’s funny, but it also illustrates why he spends so much time in detention.  I don’t know where he gets such inclinations…  I really don’t.

But let’s help him out with his little project.  What do you say?  What else could people do to celebrate Meat Day?  Hide Cornish game hens around the property, and let kids go around with a basket hunting for them?  Dress up like your favorite cut of meat, and go door to door asking for cutlets?  If you have any ideas, please tell us about it in the comments.

And after the latest setback with my novel, I was upset and briefly considered just saying fukkit, having a professional cover designed, and making the thing available in the Kindle store for three bucks or whatever.  It’s something I might still do, but not until every traditional publisher has passed on it first.  I’m stubborn that way.

During my little “episode” I did a lot of online reading about people who have had success selling their books through Kindle, and self-publishing in general.  And I came across this little gem, which shows why self-published works aren’t generally taken seriously.  It’s the first page of a novel I’d love to finish reading.  Great stuff!

As of this writing, the entire Circus of Kookery is still scheduled to descend on the Surf Report Compound for Christmas.  It’s supposed to be Nancy, Nostrils, the translucents, their hammerhead snapper-dog, Sunshine, Mumbles, and Toney’s brother.

I believe train (Sunshine and Mumbles) and airplane (Toney’s brother) tickets have already been purchased, so it’s starting to look like it might actually happen.  I’m excited!  Oh, it’ll drive me up the freaking wall while it’s happening, but just think about all the secret updates…

Stay tuned for further developments.

I probably won’t be able to post anything on Friday, so this might be it for a while.  I hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving if you’re in the U.S., and a fantastic weekend if you’re not.

And since so-called Black Friday is fast approaching, I’d like to remind everyone to PLEASE use our Amazon links while doing your holiday shopping.  On Black Friday, or any other day.  It costs you nothing extra, and helps support the goofiness.

Also, I’m gonna leave you with a Question concerning gifts you’ve received, but never — or rarely — used.  Do you have any kitchen gadgets in your cabinets, which have never been out of the box?  Or maybe just once?

We had a bread maker years ago that seemed like a good idea in the abstract, but was almost never used in the real world.  Do you have anything like that around your house?  Please tell us about it in the comments.

And I’ll see you guys next time, whenever that happens to be.

Pass the beer nuts!

Now playing in the bunker