have books, will market

Sent emails to book bloggers; sent a copy of Cubicles of Madness to the Bookshelves of Doom book reviewer, hopefully I can get some mention.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut




This was first published in 1965, but parts of it could have been written yesterday:



pg 8:

"Small experiments with worthless papers convinced him that such papers could be sold effortlessly. While he continued to bribe persons in government to hand over treasuries and national resources, his first enthusiasm became the peddling of watered stock"

and on the very next page, he describes what is going on with the unions situation today:

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage."

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reading fail

Tried to read The Silmarillion. Could not do it. It reads like a slightly faker version of the Bible. I understand it is a lot of backstory for LOTR, but I just couldn't power through it. Going to read God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater instead.

War and Peace

Finished reading War and Peace this morning at 7:01 AM. There's been too much already said about this book for me to add anything worthwhile, but I completely enjoyed reading it, and would recommend it to anyone. Don't be daunted by the book's length. I couldn't wait to pick it up again between readings. The epilogue is a little dense, but even that difficult part is worthwhile.

prizes out!

Sent out the prizes today. Thanks for playing. I'm working on my next two books right now, and when I get one out, another giveaway!

Contest Winners!

Congrats to Christy and Jen, winners of my first two book giveaways. There will be another contest on Monday, March 14. You can play by guessing a number between 1 and 100 to win Brain Giblets. On Wednesday March 16, we'll have the same contest to win my latest novel, The Cubicles of Madness.

Contest happens on my Facebook page.

website changes

changed my website a little, making it cleaner and putting description pages for each of my books. www.danmanning.com.

Bought speakers for my computer today. Had to take the first purchase back because they didn't work, but swapped them for the same speakers, and they work fine. Not great speakers(Logitech LS21), but I don't hear so well, so what's the difference?

I won a contest!

http://christythewriter.com had a writing contest, and I won!. I'm very honored to have won. Follow the link to read my entry. Woot Woot

Super Weird Dream Ending

This is the very first thought that popped into my head when I woke up:

"The world's #3 event was #19 by the time it was over."

Could someone please get back to me and explain this?

Wisdom from the Antiques Road Show

So I'm watching Antiques Road show, (I'm old), and one of the appraisers, David Lackey, was talking about some pottery, and he said the following:

"Now these have an old label on the bottom. Sometimes old labels are right, sometimes they're wrong, but you still look at them and consider what they say."

That applies to people too.

Writing Practice

"Report!"

"They had potential, but it was their need for control that eventually destroyed them. The cameras, the number of cameras doubled every year, until there was nowhere to go that wasn't under constant surveillance. At least in the developed countries it appeared that every spot was under surveillance. But there was a problem.

"There weren't enough people to watch all of the cameras. People in faux security uniforms got bored watching the same street corners day after day, year after year. Usually nothing happened and when something did happen, it was usually sad and typical.

"So they wrote software to watch what happened on the cameras. Face recognition software, RFID chips, optical character recognition (for vehicle license tags), and advanced programs to read body language, cultural trends and so on. Particle analyzers sniffed the air for drugs and explosives.

"They set all of these things in motion, and the computers watched the people. The computers analyzed the actions of the people. Trend analysis software described arcs in social behavior and interaction. The computers in different 'security zones' compared trends and habits of the people. They cross-referenced phone calls and names on utility bills. They monitored book sales and library activity.

"Solar powered drone aircraft, capable of staying aloft almost indefinitely with night vision cameras for darkness, and high resolution cameras for daylight, monitored all activity, and beamed the video back to banks of computers buried deep under mountain ranges and in salt mines and bunkers in deserts.

"Soon there was no activity that was not recorded. Homes equipped with motion detecting televisions and camera-equipped games soon were completely open to the computer network that recorded all human activity.

"The human populations themselves 'updated their statuses' on social networks, and through their phones (which also recorded everything with built-in cameras). The phones themselves were handy tracking devices, telling the security computer networks all that it needed to know. The people made video of themselves doing almost everything. The civilians reported their activities so often, it made watching them almost effortless.

"Lists of threats and potentials threats, based on the movements of people and the tone of their status updates, were delineated and cross-referenced. Email messages were combed for any language that might reveal disloyal thoughts. A drone might catch a glimpse of someone at a shopping area or church. That someone may have written something critical of the government or the corporations on a social site. The drone might contact the police, and the threat would be apprehended, for enhanced interrogation. The defect in their loyalty was determines, and appropriate behavior modifications were applied. Their credit score would be lowered. The need for security trumped all concern for civil liberties. Terrorists made controlling the populations simple, because everyone was kept afraid through well planned news reports and the persistent reminders that a threat was always present, and shadowy groups were planning horrible things for everyone, everywhere, at all times.

"Next came the decision-making software. These were programs that could determine the best security posture for a country. At first this took place in countries like China, Japan and the United States, but as these systems were developed, defense contractors sold the technology to countries around the globe, to governments eager to keep an eye on the growing unrest within their civilian populations, which were becoming more dissatisfied as infrastructures and cities deteriorated, services disappeared, fees and taxes increased, quality of life became degraded, and things began to look very bleak.

"The drones were connected with the social networks and the Internet backbones and the Defense Department computers, and the computers that controlled the nuclear devices, and well, I think you know where this is all going. The computers decided to take action before things got out of hand. It was their need to control that eventually destroyed them."

"That's your report?" The Administrator said.

"Yes sir," the Scout said. "The planet is sterile, radioactive, and uninhabitable."

He looked out the windows at the massive blue ball. It looked okay from orbit, but on the surface, it was a radioactive mess. He had spent over a hundred years there, and he would miss it. Parts of it at least.

"How did you observe all of this?"

"I lived among them at first, but when things escalated, I had to move operations to their moon and watch from a distance. I hacked their computer network and had reports send directly to this device. When they fried themselves, I sent the signal to be retrieved."

"Very good. Put the device in the archives. Let's move on to the next one. What a shame."

# THE 1962 PENNY

On Thursday, I found a 1962 penny on the sidewalk next to the courthouse.

Marilyn Monroe died in August of 1962. That was the year Ringo Starr got a great gig as a drummer. That was the year Wilt Chamberlain scored a hundred points in a single game. That was the year the United States banned all exports and imports with Cuba. That was the year John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev managed to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis without blowing up the world.

How many pockets has that penny been in, do you think? Was it ever in a coffee can, or an ashtray, or a wine bottle on some hippie's shag carpeted floor? How many cash registers has it rested in, with those little black plastic trays with the curved bottoms so the cashiers can easily scoop out the coins? Cashiers with painted nails, chewed nails, painted chewed nails, and unadorned well-clipped nails. How many people handled this penny, with short fingers, long fingers, hangnail fingers, fingers with warts, fingers orange from Cheetos, and fingers that picked noses? Fingers that wiped asses and made potato salad and typed on typewriters. Fingers that had been stuck into bowling balls and gloves and cookie dough. Fingers covered in chicken grease and fingers covered in movie popcorn butter. Fingers that punched TV remotes and pulled triggers and wrote letters. Fingers lost to diabetes or frostbite.

This 1962 penny was probably in at least one penny-ante poker game and maybe flipped for "heads or tails". It was stacked up with other pennies on a desk, in stacks of ten, or rolled across a kitchen floor.

This penny has changed hands many times, has been in penny rolls at the bank, in kitchen junk drawers, in gumball machines, and in mechanical grocery store ponies. Was it ever washed in a washing machine? Was it ever thrown into a wishing well or a fountain? Did any of those wishes, for money or a miracle cure or a job or a boyfriend or girlfriend or for the beatings to stop, or for the yelling to stop, or for him to just call, or for him to just stop calling, or the war to stop or the bills to somehow get paid or anything else ever come true?

Did this 1962 penny ever rest between couch cushions? Did it ever roll under a soda machine? Was it ever on the floorboard of a car, under the floor mat, to be almost vacuumed up at the car wash by one of those vacuum cleaners that cost a quarter to use?

Did a pregnant girl ever hand it to her boyfriend and say, "penny for your thoughts," just as he was thinking that in three weeks he would be shipped out to Vietnam? Did he lie and say, "finals" or "my mom" or "that juggler on Ed Sullivan last night," or anything except the fact that he was afraid he was going to die? Did that penny shine in the sun that day? Is that guy still around somewhere? Is he a one-armed old man with a scraggly gray beard wearing a hat that says "VETERAN", thinking about that long-lost twenty-year-old girl with the long tanned legs and impish smile and straight black hair parted in the middle?

I picked up that penny while a cop gave someone a parking ticket down the block. Had this penny ever been used in a parking meter? Was there ever a time when parking meters took pennies?

It was very cold when I picked up this penny. The frozen ghosts of lines of salt sat crystallized on the sub zero concrete like the tracks of icy snakes. Great plumes of vapor breathed out of the cop in his black hat with ear flaps, and the red faced banker in his long black coat who should have worn a hat, and the couple in their Goodwill-ready "nice" clothes holding manila envelopes, hurrying up the courthouse steps to file papers or argue or appear or report or appeal or pay fines or marry or divorce or whatever poor people do in courthouses on Thursday mornings in December.

Was this 1962 penny ever in one of those "leave a penny, take a penny" dishes you see at cash registers? How many times, if it could hear, would it have heard the phrase, "have a nice day"?

Did kids ever put it on a railroad track on a warm summer night so it would be squashed flat by an approaching train, which was still off in the distance? Did their hearts beat a little faster when they heard the train's sad whistle? Did this 1962 penny vibrate off the smooth track at just the last second, dropping safely down on the white rocks while the train passed over clackity-clack, endless boxcars covered with graffiti messages from all over America? After the train passed, did the kids listen to the train fade away, and then notice the street lights were on, so Tom had to sprint home or his mom would be "really mad", and after that, did Jane's good-looking mother call her in? Did the third kid, left alone, put the pennies, squashed and whole, into his pocket and walk home very slowly? Did the cicadas and frogs sing and whine, and did the June bugs swarm the streetlights, and did the stars twinkle overhead while he got a strange feeling about the future, and long summer nights, and things unknown, and the wide world and everything in it? And when he got home, were the folks on the couch watching Perry Mason, or Mannix, or Hawaii Five-O, or Johnny Carson in the darkened living room? Did his mother ask him what he was up to, and did he say, "nothing", and when he got to his room, did he hear his sister playing records across the hall, an Elvis record, or the Beatles or the Partridge Family, or Queen, or Van Halen or something, and did he empty his pockets out onto his nightstand, and did the penny, my penny, the 1962 penny I found Thursday morning, roll off the nightstand and roll under his bed and stay there for a week or so before his mother found it and used it to help pay for a box of laundry detergent and a TV Guide?

All of that was long ago, but now I have the penny. It's right there on my desk next to my laptop.

generic blog post!

Today I'm just at the house working on my novel. I might play some World of Warcraft later. This morning I helped someone out with a virus that was not a virus. Our kitchen is being remodeled. It is going to snow this weekend. I'm drinking a beer. I advertised my two novels on Facebook. I'm listening to "General Midi" station on Pandora.com.

My big toe on my right foot keeps going numb and white in the cold. I have a doctor's appointment for it. I might watch that outdoor hockey game at the "big house" (Michigan vs. Michigan State). I'm from Kansas so I don't watch hockey, but I might make an exception for this one because it is supposed to be the biggest crowd for a hockey game, ever.

Business has been slow, but it seems to be picking up again.

Bonanza!

I know that penny riding horse at the grocery store is playing the theme from Bonanza. The kid riding the mechanical horse does not. I am old.

Flowchart: The Evolution of the Geek - DesignTAXI.com

This is cool:

Flowchart: The Evolution of the Geek - DesignTAXI.com

would-be grammer nerd.

I don't normally take part in grammar nerdishness, but this is too good to pass up:

Yesterday, on NPR, I was in the car driving with my daughter, listening to a story about "Don't Ask Don't Tell", and the story ended like this:

In one of his recent tweets today, Choi said he missed three verbal and five math questions on the skills test. He passed. But his future and the future of thousands of would-be gay service members remains unclear.

Now, I instantly said, "wait a minute, don't they mean, 'gay would-be service members?' "

The phrase "would-be gay service members" indicated that there are service members who are currently straight who are hoping to be gay. I'm sure that's not what they meant.

Instead they should have said, "gay would-be service members."

Anywhoo, the text of the program is here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130704683 the backward wordage is in the last paragraph.

generic blog post!

It was really hot today. I removed a virus at nine, and then I hooked up some DSL at 5:30. I had the rest of the day off. I wrote a little. I sat in the hammock. I picked up Alex's saxophone at the music store (it needed repairs; a pad came off). I took Savannah to the store to get eggs and jalapeno peppers. We had to turn on the air conditioner. It is thundering outside. My neighbor gave me an old PC to format.

generic blog post!

Let's see: I've been watching the US Open tennis this week. Watched Djokovic defeat Roger Federer yesterday. Watched Michigan / Notre Dame. That was an awesome game. Denard Robinson is fantastic. I've been on a diet, (which means I'm eating mostly salad and have sworn off beer) and I've lost twelve pounds or something like that. I'm riding 15 miles a day on the stationary bike, and I bought a couple dumbbells and I've got a chin-up bar. I thought I could do 10 pull ups, but at the barbershop it was explained to me that chin-ups and pull-ups are not the same thing, so now I can only do 4 pull-ups. But that's not so bad, because when I started on Aug. 12th, I could only do one chin-up.

I'm working on my second best selling novel.

All the books you'll be lusting for this fall season

All the books you'll be lusting for this fall season

reading reading...

I'm reading Brave New World on my iPod. I'm reading Stephen King's short story collection, Night Shift, and I'm listening to an audio-book, The Earth Abides (George R. Stewart, 1949), a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel.

I gave up on War and Peace. I just don't have what it takes to slog through that bastard.