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Saturday, March 30, 2002
A landmark day. Attended a KKK rally, packed up and shipped the book off to the printer, went cosmic bowling, and topped it off with a visit to ye olde Waffle House in Pinellas Park. Yes, we listened to "Special Lady" and "Friends in Low Places." More on all these activities, including pictures of the Klan rally (such as it was) on the morrow. Or later today, since it's 1 in the morning. You know what I mean.
Happy Easter, everybody. Friday, March 29, 2002
Once we had the book printed out, mistakes became obvious. Due to a layout error, pages 115 and 116, between parts three and four, are blank. We couldn't fix the problem without throwing the whole index off, so we added an index entry: "strange blank pages, 115-116."
There were still typos here and there, which Amy Eisenman caught. (Did we all just miss them before? Did I fail to make some corrections? I didn't go back to the massive copy-edit e-mails to check.) The Ocala Star-Banner is getting its money's worth with their copy editor, I suppose. The table of contents was missing entries for the last three or four reviews in the first chapter. Scott wanted to remove a seriously dated joke, so we did, and checked the index to make sure the deletion hadn't screwed that up. It was a comedy of errors. Since it was fairly obvious that she wanted to go over the whole thing, I sent Amy back to Scott's apartment with the printout in hand. Today at lunch I should get the corrected copy back, after which I will print up the corrected pages, assemble the final document, and get it sent Fed Ex to Nebraska, probably to arrive Tuesday. Another delay, but a reasonable one. Otis and the Night Visitors Amy and Tanya showed up in the middle of the night, about 3:30 or so. Otis poked his head out to check out these late arrivals but spent the rest of the night in the bedroom while A&T collapsed on the futon out front. Of course, this morning Suzie was a complete bitch and yowled until I shut her in the study. I don't think that was the sort of attention she sought. Christina and I slipped out the front door as quietly as we could, leaving the cats sequestered in the study until the girls wake up and decide to let them out. Many kudos to Christina for making that room livable and for hauling the kitty necessities back there. Thursday, March 28, 2002
Apparently, the old guard in Hollywood was just waiting to get through this year's Oscars. Milton Berle, Dudley Moore, and Billy Wilder saw Halle Berry win Best Actress, and figured it was time to shuffle loose the mortal coil.
If any of the three had still been working, I would have said that Billy Wilder would be the one I'd miss the most. I was never much a fan of Uncle Milty – especially after B-Fest this year, and his appearance in Hieronymous Merkin. And Dudley Moore? Well, let's put it this way: when I saw Berle's huuuge photo on the front page of today's paper, my first thought was, "Annoying guy from Arthur – also dead." Then I started thinking that perhaps it was the shock of Liza Minelli's wedding that did him in, and reminded myself that speaking ill of the dead is rather tacky before I really got to chuckling. Wilder, on the other hand, was a master of his craft. The Apartment is darn near my favorite film. He regularly tops lists of respected American film directors. But let's face it, he hadn't directed anything since 1981. Since I didn't know the man, it's tough to say that I'll miss him any more than I'll miss Dudley Moore. But I certainly feel his passing more keenly than I do that of a diminutive British comic who rose to fame playing a sloppy, drunken millionaire. Take me out to the – oh, you know. I had planned to spend the evening proofing over the book one final time before printing it all out and packing it up for the printer, but convinced myself to take some time outside and went to (what I think was) the last spring training game of the season with Trent, Heather, and Bryan.  This is the view from where we were sitting.
 The park (Florida Power Park, home of Al Lang field, formerly just "Al Lang Stadium," which we always called "All Angst Stadium") was fairly full for a Thursday night; I guess even the Devil Rays and the Tigers can draw a crowd when the training season is coming to a close.
 This cute kid was stealing the show a bit. Certainly she was more interesting than Raymond, the official Rays mascot.
 Heather and Trent seem to be enjoying themselves.
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Things around here are not as grungy as usual
I might have titled this entry, "embracing my inner slob," but the truth is that my inner slob is already loose, and I have done nothing to make him think that he is in any way unloved. Christina and I spent the evening scrubbing various surfaces and expressing amazement at these here new-fangled chemical sprays what can free said surfaces from grease and grime. A bit of "Mop'n'Glo," combined with some elbow grease, has resulted in somewhat shiny floors. Mildew-annihilating Tilex has reduced the number of black spots on the wall near the ceiling in the bathroom. It wasn't until I was already on the stepladder erected precariously inside the tub that it occurred to me that such a position might, in fact, be considered dangerous. So Amy and Tanya, when you visit this weekend and you carefully survey the ceiling of our bathroom – as I'm sure you do in every house you visit – please realize that there are fewer black spots up there now than there were yesterday, and that further cleanliness might have been at the risk of my life. Just how many scrubbing bubbles does it take to get rid of that nasty grey streak in the tub, anyway? Do I have to sandblast the bathtub floor, or what? And it's not until you're scrubbing its side witha brush that you actually contemplate the shape of your tub's outer wall. At least that's the way it is for me. More boring book talk  I think we're done. Lisa sent me the final version of the index this morning (she rocks), incorporating the changes I asked for. I finished up the cover layout (larger version of the image at right, plus the back cover). I even called our printer of choice (Morris Publishing) to clear up a few technical details. Now all that remains to be done is to print up a hard copy and ship it all off to Morris.
This will involve paper printouts of all 208 pages of the book (yup, the index pushed us up an entire half-signature, not that Morris cares about such things), a copy of the cover's design file on a zip disk, and an order form with all of our specifications. That, plus a credit card number, will be sent overnight to Morris on Friday, so that Monday morning they should receive all of the materials and be ready to go. 35 to 45 "working days" later, we get printed books in the mail. This translates to seven to nine weeks, which is a bit long compared to their competitors, but their publishing guide is impeccable, they have a good reputation among self-published authors, and they're cheaper than everyone else, too. We're hoping that the production falls on the short end of things, because we would really like to take advance copies of the book with us to the New Orleans Worst Film Festival in early June. But things will happen when they happen, I guess, and even books in mid-June will be with us in plenty of time for our September publish date. Once we place our order for our final books, we will also order about 50 "bound galleys," which are essentially printed copies of the book with plain covers. These should arrive by the end of April, and we'll send them out to book critics, etc., for advance reviews. The bound galleys are actually quite a bit more expensive than the finished books, but the snobbery of the book world is such that galleys are expected by critics. A finished book represents a publisher who was not "serious enough" to buy galleys, even if it arrives in plenty of time to be reviewed before its publish date. It's probably $300 or so well-spent, but it seems silly. I'm looking forward to getting some of my time back for web site duties; Stomp Tokyo has been neglected since book production began to take precedence. Since Stomp Tokyo is the marketing engine that will help drive sales of the book, we need to keep the fresh reviews coming, and keep the traffic to the site flowing. And heck, I just miss watching the movies and writing the reviews, which is (supposedly) what it's all about.
Howdy. Just coming up for air for a sec to share my latest favorite index entry:
ham, exploding, condiments for, 59 True, I requested this entry, but "condiments for" is pure Lisa. Monday, March 25, 2002
We're gonna bo-oh-owl tonight
...or rather, we did bowl on Saturday. Amy E. and I finally managed to drag Scott and Christina out to the bowling alley to take my new shoes for a spin. Lucky us, it was Cosmic Bowling night, which means they turn the house lights down and the music up. Add a few disco lights and black lights for emphasis, and some flourescent bowling balls for oomph. The shoes are great; one of them has inserts in the sole to adjust its slide. The other is pretty obviously the "stopping shoe." (My terminology – I don't know a damn thing about the theory of bowling.) In any case, I managed to break 100 on the first game, which is something that doesn't happen to me normally. Of course I totally wiped out on the second game, but a good time was had by all, and I didn't have to pay for shoe rental. Woo hoo! Christina seems to be feeling better this evening, although she did fall asleep again at about eight o'clock. The cats have taken turns coming into the bedroom to cuddle. It's Suzie's shift now. Have book, will travel I wrote to one of the organizers of Atlanta's DragonCon today, pitching myself and Scott as prospective panelists. The woman I wrote to is in charge of the writers' track, which usually focuses on science fiction and fantasy, but I think I gave a pretty good pitch as to why we should be included. Scott mentioned to me the other night that Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy, a couple of the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000, will be the convention "hosts," emceeing the costume contests and whatnot. For those of you who live in blissful ignorance of such things, MST3K is a show in which a man and two robot puppets watch a bad movie and mock it. (Or at least it was – it was cancelled after its tenth season.) We couldn't ask for a better weekend in which to launch our book, and DragonCon just happens to be at the end of August. Whether they invite us to be guests or not, the opportunity to market the book at this convention will be massive. Of course, it will also be my 6th wedding anniversary, but I'm hoping Christina will forgive the intrusion. I still have to make up for last year's DragonCon. And speaking of the book, we are so very close to being done. It's a maddening process of tiny details right now, but we must must must have it buttoned up by the end of the week. Then off it goes to the printer. Stay tuned. Watching: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial - the only science fiction movie that my grandmother liked better than I did. Also, The Minus Man. Owen Wilson stars as an oddly benevolent serial killer. Don't ask me to explain, watch it yourself.
My favorite index entry for this evening:
boots, kick-ass knee-high, 132 Lisa's going to get one of my food processors. (Yes, she asked for it. And I thinks she deserves it, don't you?)
When nerds need to let their cats in and out of the house, this is what happens. Notice that the system relies on image recognition – not only will it recognize and allow the cats in and out, but it also keeps the cats out when they want to bring prey into the house. Raccoons and skunks are also not allowed entry. I found it fascinating, although I disapprove of allowing cats to roam in and out of the house unsupervised.
Christina was very ill this morning, so I stayed home for a few hours to make sure she didn't need medical attention. It was just as well; I was wiped out from the late Oscar night. She seems to be doing better and took a few sips of chicken broth before I left. I'm hoping it's just a one-day stomach bug. Sunday, March 24, 2002
And the winner is...
Albertson's. I chose them for my Sunday afternoon grocery run, figuring that they were the only local grocery chain I hadn't checked for Famous Chocolate Wafers and by God, I was going to check. The parking lot was remarkably free of traffic, especially for a Sunday afternoon. Maybe everyone was at home preparing their Oscar hors d'oeuvres, but if Albie's is that deserted every Sunday, then that's where I'm doing my shopping from now on. Albertson's has always been the low-rent grocery store on that particular street – the Publix across the way renovated a few years ago and is considered hoitier and toitier. But Albertson's, apart from being laid out in an infuriatingly obtuse fashion (lots of corners and aisles laid out at 90º angles), is actually not a bad store. The first aisle I went down was the ice cream aisle. I figured if I didn't find the FCWs, I would head across the street to the Publix, where I shop normally. But lo and behold, at the end of the row of freezers: 
Funny, funny stuff. Thanks, Lisa. This is really going to make the book. Of course, we may have to add a few pages just to accomodate the index, but if it pushes us up over the 200 page mark we probably won't complain. Scott mentioned that he was surprised there was no entry for "Wookiee porn." But Scott's always thinking about porn.
I recently bought a copy of The Celebrity Directory to aid in gathering endorsements for Reel Shame. I think the review I posted on the item's page on Amazon says it all. (Please note: the celebrities I mention in the review are not the people I was looking for, but their absence does highlight the book's shortcomings.
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