Football’s back, now let me tell you about my novel

How’s that for a segue?

The title of the book is ”Heavenly Hash” and it’s about a guy who runs a candy factory. He has to dispose of a hundred pounds of marijuana-laced chocolate before anyone eats it.

His solution is simple, elegant, and completely wrong.

It’s on Amazon Kindle. It only took a month, and the help of two experts, to get it there. Twenty minutes after it was published, I found a typo. (there are probably others) I’m trying to fix the one I found. Hope it doesn’t take another month.

The typo is on page 96. If you’re reasonably quick, you can buy it before I get it fixed.   

If you don’t have a Kindle, they offer a free app for your computer. Install it and buy my book.

NFL season ticket holders are screwed

Season ticket holders can’t get their money back. What a pity.

But the rest of us don’t have to suffer through the dreadful product The NFL is peddling. Just don’t go. And just don’t watch it on TV.

If you pay for a ticket to a Broadway show and see a summer-stock performance you’d want your money back, right? And you’d tell your friends about the dreadful experience. And they wouldn’t go.

If the ratings were to drop and the advertisers were to drop the games, we’d see those very rich owners put a better product on the field in a New York minute.

I know, you’re gonna go and you’re gonna watch anyway. Another pity.

Hey, NFL, trying real hard doesn’t cut it

The experts on TV always preface their remarks about the poor job the replacement refs are doing by saying: It’s a really difficult job and they’re doing the best they can.

Give us a break.

If you watched tonight’s game you know what I’m complaining about. Professional football players are being refereed by amateurs. I lost count of the missed calls. And they (the missed calls) changed the outcome of the game.

Worse: The league financially penalizes anyone who points that obvious fact out. So basically, the truth is being bought off.

Worser: The league doesn’t have the guts to go back and fix it the next day. What’s so sacrosanct about game-day? Fixing mistakes the next day would be more professional and more honest.

Worserest of all: They’ve lost me as a fan.

Yeah, I know those aren’t real words.

Hello? Is anybody there?

I’ve finally gotten around to putting my novels on the Internet.

Actually trying to put them there.

There are sites that help you, but if you’re not a real computer jockey, as I am not, even that is confounding.

I sent these people my phone number, but don’t expect to get a call.

I’ve communicated with two or three of these experts via my computer screen, but so far it ain’t workin.

The folks are all very nice. They want to be helpful. They just don’t seem to want to talk to anyone. I say anyone rather than me to avoid sounding paranoid. And I say folks to sound friendly, in case they should read this.

Will there come a day when our mouths will be used only for eating, our vocal cords shrivel and grow useless, like our appendix, and we grow a few extra fingers to type even faster?

Will there come a day when a child is born and the doctor says, “Oh, no. He only has five fingers on each hand? He’s a throwback.” Then the mother bursts into tears and the father faints? 

What’s with list makers?

My wife loves lists of things to be done.

The only thing she loves more than lists, is checking things off the list after she’s done them.

This is especially exciting two days before a long vacation. The list is long, sometimes as long as the vacation. The pace is rapid, verging on frantic, and the joy of that little check mark on each item is close to indescribable.

I am occasionally sucked into the vortex. And I try to do my part. Not as joyfully as my wife, mind you, but I’m in there, hackin’.

Fortunately, my part of the list is miniscule compared to hers. And in the end things generally work out for us.

But, man, do I hate lists.

Haunted Houses

A famous 200-year-old landmark burned down in Corrales, a village near Albuquerque. It was tragic. Weddings were performed there, and many other events.

And, it was said to be haunted.

At least five people were gunned down in it at one time or another. The paper listed two of the dead as two parts of a love triangle. I didn’t have the patience to read all of the article, but I’m guessing the two lovers are probably now ghosts. Maybe not.

It got me to wondering; what happens to the ghosts when their house burns down? Do they move next door? Is there a ghost directory where Ghosts can find new lodgings? Is there a waiting list for the really good haunts?

A real beer pro

We went to the ballpark the other night.  Two rows in front of us, I watched a man and his son take their seats.  The man carried a hot dog for his kid and one for himself, plus napkins and a beer.

The little boy carried his own soft drink.

The man helped his kid get the seat down, get settled, gave him a hotdog, gave him a napkin, got his own seat down and sat down.  I watched, intently as he focused on getting his charge settled.  In the process he never once looked at his beer.  It was less that a quarter of an inch from the top, but he never spilled a drop.

I was impressed.