The Week in Review

Another Friday so it’s time to post all the things you missed if you logged on to this here site every day this week to find out what’s going on in the world and instead found one measly post.

The most wanted man in America (since the death of Osama bin Laden) was arrested.  Whitey Bulger, notorious Boston kingpin, was arrested in Santa Monica on Wednesday.  The last two most wanted men in America both worked closely with the US government (bin Laden with the CIA in Afghanistan and Bulger with the FBI for years helping them dismantle the mafia, because the FBI likes Irish mobsters better than Italian ones).  Maybe CIA and FBI officials will learn that using sociopaths will usually not turn out the way you might have hoped.

The House of Representatives rejected Obama’s measure to authorize U.S. military action in Libya, with a whopping 70 Democrats voting against the President’s proposal for a final vote of 295 to 123, and only eight Republicans voting in favor of the measure, although they might have been busy sexting pictures of their genitals and not realized what the vote was about.  Many Congressmen are angry at the Obama administration for taking action without seeking their approval, a move Republicans say violates the Constitution’s 1973 War Powers Resolution.  Obama now realizes that it is best to follow the W. Bush playbook and just do whatever the fuck you want and don’t bother to ask Congress for approval at all.

The NBA draft was held with probably the worst draft class of the last ten years, ensuring that Cleveland with the 1st and 4th picks will continue to be fucked by LeBron James for years to come.

The Winklevoss twins are suing Facebook.  Again.  They finally dropped their appeals of their last suit and are now suing again.  These two just won’t give up the ghost.  What is it about twins who are men that makes them downright creepy?  The Winklevoss twins.  The Sedins.  Those tennis playing twin brothers.

The Florida Marlins hired 80 year old Jack McKeon to be their manager.  Hopefully they play a lot of daytime games so that Jack can still catch the early bird special and be in bed by seven-thirty to catch Matlock reruns.

Don’t Play Poker With Spiderman

Apparently Tobey MaGuire, best known as the actor who played Spiderman and the go to actor whenever a jockey needs to be cast for a horse racing movie, is being sued over an illegal gambling ring that ran secret multi-million dollar poker games.

An FBI Investigation found that Brad Ruderman, the CEO of Ruderman Capital Partners, lost $25 million of investor money in the poker games, including over $300,000 to Maguire. The games had a $100,000 buy-in.  So, Brad Ruderman is a shitty poker player and a fucking moron.

Lawyers for Ruderman’s clients are filing several lawsuits against the winners, in order to retrieve some of the money. Maguire was reportedly the biggest winner in the game, winning up to $1 million a month for three years.  Is Tobey that good a player or is he a fucking mechanic fixing the deck?

Other taller actors were involved in the poker ring, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon; however, they are not being sued. Despite his role in Rounders as the legendary poker player Mike McD, one source recalled, “Matt never won.”

The Week in Review

This being a historic day and all, I thought I’d memorialize it with a week in review.  Historic day, you ask.  Yes it is.

Where were you seventeen years ago today?  Probably watching the world’s slowest police chase of all time unfold on live tv.  That’s right, seventeen years ago today, Orenthal James Simpson was riding shotgun in a white Ford Bronco piloted by his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings (“My name is AC. You know who I am, Goddamnit.”) as a phalanx of police cars chased them at speeds reproducable by most country club golf carts if the regulator is disabled.

So, the week in review.

My hometown Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals leading to an all out riot that made downtown Vancouver more closely resemble Beirut circa 1983 and led to the following iconic picture:

Nothing gets me randier than a few canisters of tear gas and the smell of burning garbage.

Also, the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Superfriend Miami Heat in game 6 of the NBA finals.  Dirk Nowitski is finally bigger in his home country of Germany than David Hasselhoff.

Mmm.  Hamburgers.

Anthony Weiner buckled to the pressure and resigned from Congress…Or, he finally saw the light and realized that he was wasting his talents in politics when he could be unleashing that monster snake of his on porn stars all over the San Bernandino Valley.

Bam!

Self Publishing vs. Legacy Publishing

As this blog was originally conceived as a place to post my thoughts on publishing as I embarked on self publishing (or indie publishing as some who do it like to call it) my novel, The Emperor of Glitter Gulch, I thought I’d actually, you know, post some thoughts on publishing.

So far, over a month into self publishing The Emperor, I’ve got to admit that I’ve been disappointed by the process.  I’ve managed to sell very few copies of the book, while at the same time the few people who have read it (both those I know and those I don’t) seemed to have overwhelmingly enjoyed the book and the writing.  In a way this makes the shitty sales worse.  If everyone who read the book said that it was a piece of shit, then I could say, “Of course it isn’t selling well, it’s a piece of shit.”  Instead, I’m left feeling like I’ve got a good book, with no way to get it into the hands of readers.  I gave away quite a few copies to try to get some more reviews on Amazon, but so far none of the people who got copies of the book have posted reviews on Amazon, good or bad.  Which again keeps the book hidden away from view.

So, I’m seriously considering pulling The Emperor off of Amazon and sending it to agents to see if I can get a traditional publishing deal (or legacy publishing deal as Joe Konrath, who is a key figure of the self publishing movement has coined it http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/).  When I first put The Emperor up on Amazon, I had hoped that I could sell a decent amount of copies and if I got really lucky it would catch on and I would sell a ton of copies.  Neither of those possibilities seem to be in the cards and I am left with the reality that I might be better off going the traditional route where I will sign one of the Draconian contracts the publishers insist upon (and most probably make very little from the book), but at least my book will get into the hands of some readers.

We shall see.

At least the Miami Heat didn’t win the NBA Finals.  ALthough my joy was tempered by Mark Cuban not telling David Stern to orally pleasure him during the trophy presentation.  They must have finally perfected his lithium regiment.

NBA Finals

I’ve tried my best to keep my posts about the NBA playoffs to a minimum, but I can’t keep quiet any longer.  This is quite possibly the best finals in the last ten or twenty years.  The overmatched lone gunslinger (Dirk Nowitski) against the group of talented but heartless mercenaries (LeBron, Wade and Bosh).  Everyone outside of Miami-Dade County hoping for the Mavs, or barring that some sort of zombie apocalypse to keep the Heat from winning the title.  LeBron James shrinking as the pressure mounts for the second consecutive year (although the guy is pretty fucking talented when people say he had a shit game after he posted a triple double).

But there is one thing notably absent.  Where is Mark Cuban in all this?  Sure, I saw him signing autographs in a sleeveless shirt (not kidding, for the love of God, Mark, keep those hairy hamhocks covered), but where has the loudest mouth in the NBA been?  No outbursts at all.  But I’ll still be watching the Larry O’Brien trophy presentation if the Mavs can manage to win one of the next two in Miami to see if Cuban goes all Big Ern McCracken on David Stern.

And on a completely separate note, if any of my readers happen to be single men looking for love, look no further:

Back on the Weiner

Hmm.  That title might not have been well thought out.

So, last week Congressman Anthony Weiner twittered a pic of his junk in form fitting underwear and then claimed that his twitter account was hacked and someone else was disseminating this lewd picture (which picture he could not say was his junk or not).  Of course, he has now come clean and admitted that he was lying and there was no hacking of his account.  He has now also admitted to sending other pictures of himself in various stages of undress to young women following him on twitter.

Amidst calls to resign, Weiner is holding up both middle fingers high in the air.  Weiner’s refusal to resign has prompted House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, to call for an Ethics Committee investigation to determine whether any violation of House rules occured.

Isn’t that beside the point?  I mean, who really cares if there was an official breach of House rules (and is there a rule that states, “Members of the House of Representatives shall not by electronic means disseminate photos of themselves in varying states of undress to members of the public?”).  Isn’t the very fact that this guy is this big of a fucking moron enough to disqualify him from service?

On a side note, if Weiner is drummed out of Congress, he might have a future in porn.  For christ’s sake, look at the size of that thing, it looks like he’s got a fucking kielbasa sausage smuggled in there:

Please don’t hurt ’em, Anthony.

Ilyas Kashmiri World Series Champion

For the last number of years, the US intelligence apparatus had operated under the assumption that Al Quada operatives were hiding in the wilds along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border and funding their operations through the heroin trade.  The death of Ilyas Kashmiri has uncovered how making an assumption can make an ass out of u and umption.  Alledgedly killed in a drone attack over the weekend, Kashmiri’s role as the closer for baseball’s defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants was uncovered.  It is unclear at this time which building(s) in San Francisco were demolished in the drone attack.  It is also unclear who the Giants plan to promote to the role of closer now that Brian Wilson/Ilyas Kashmiri has been placed on the 60 day disabled list with death caused by drone attack.

Fear the Beard.

Ilyas Kashmiri/Brian Wilson

 

Brian Wilson/Ilyas Kashmiri

Random Thoughts

Turned off the game last night with Miami up by 15 and Lebron and Wade dancing around like a couple of ass clowns.  Of course Dallas stormed back and won the game.  Fuck.

So, Mitt Romney has announced a second bid to run for President.  In early polls he is the strongest Republican candidate trailed only slightly by, wait for it, Sarah Palin.  If this holds, voters are going to have a choice between Obama or a guy who believes in Magic Underpants or a woman who once said “But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies,” when asked about her stance regarding the hostilities between the two Koreas in late 2010.

Apparently there is some guy robbing banks in Ohio whom Federal investigators have dubbed the “Mullet Bandit” owing to a particular haircut that is business in the front and party in the back.  As he enters the bank, does a Flock of Seagulls song start playing on the bank’s sound system?  Gino Vanelli?

The US Customs and Border Protection Agency has made all of us a little safer…from drunken Asian businessmen singing “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Wanna be Startin’ Somethin'”.  Almost 2,000 counterfit karaoke machines were seized at the Los Angeles port.  In other news, you can still be an eight ball next to virtually every grade school in the United States.

Looking for something to read this weekend?  Try The Emperor of Glitter Gulch.  Link to the ebook to the right.

Weiner’s Junk

Perhaps looking to one-up Congressman Chris Lee, who sent a woman he had met on craigslist a photo of himself shirtless and flexing, Congressman Anthony Weiner reportedly went Brett Favre and twittered a photo of his genitalia to a 21 year old woman.  Now, Weiner has claimed that his twitter account was hacked and that he is the victim of some elaborate prank, but, and this is key, Weiner “can’t say with certitude” that the picture of dangling genitalia is not his.

Hmm.  So, while he claims that he is definitely not behind the dissemination of the photo, he cannot say that the photo is not in fact a photo of his frank and beans.  Quick question, Weiner, what the fuck are you doing with a picture of your junk?  I mean am I the only guy who doesn’t snap candid shots of my weiner with any old cell phone or camera I stumble across.  Yawn, I’m bored.  Maybe I’ll just snap a few shots of my dick with this here Blackberry.  How’s the lighting in here?

To add further strangeness to the matter, NBC reports that Weiner “suggested that the lewd picture may have been ‘manipulated’ and he has retained an internet security firm to investigate.”

So, is Weiner claiming that the depicted penis is bigger than it appears in real life?  Smaller?

Ah, technology.  remember when a political sex scandel only involved the President inserting a cigar into the vagina of an intern in the Oval Office?

Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming

Memorial Day weekend is over and I didn’t manage to get to a theater to see the Hangover 2.  Very disappointing.  On the bright side, the Blog Tour I took part in was a huge success (by this backwater blog’s standard).  120 commenters are getting a free ebook copy of my novel and even better, I’ll be sending 600 copies to U.S. miltary service men and women.  Hope they enjoy it.

What else has been happening?

Somewhat disappointing that no aging action stars/former governors (of which I believe the list is two, Arnie and the now completely batshit crazy Jesse Ventura) have been caught in new sex scandels with the hired help.

Oprah Winfrey wrapped up her show.  I was hogtied to a chair with my eyelids pried open Clockwork Orange-style by my wife to watch the DVR recording of the two part farewell spectacular.  Painful.  Like glass rod in the urethra smashed by a hammer painful.  But there was one moment when the entire show could have been redeemed.  Will Smith (who takes himself pretty fucking seriously considering he used to walk around in Dayglo jumpers and sing shitty rap songs as the Fresh Prince) and his wife were bouncing around on stage like two kids jacked up on eight bowls of Cap’n Crunch when they announced that there would be one final superstar guest to bid adieu to Oprah.  I found myself hoping against hope that this final guest would be Pauly Shore.  Could you imagine the deafening silence of the entire United Center (yes, that’s right, this whole fucking thing was put on in a 20,000 person capacity basketball arena) when Will Smith announced Pauly Shore after Crazy Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Fox (who also takes himself pretty fucking seriously considering he was the guy who dressed up in drag as Wanda on In Living Color), John Travolta and all the other Scientologists?  That would have been a great moment.  Even Oprah couldn’t have faked being so very moved by Pauly Shore’s appearance.  Of course it wasn’t Pauly Shore.  It was that obnoxious midget Usher (I’m 5’8″ so I get to say such things).

For some reason my blog ate the post where I started a new interactive game for my readers.  So, back by popular demand, here it is again.  I will post a picture and you will tell me if it is the DVD cover of a gay bukkake porn video or a picture of a basketball superstar and a guy worth $2 billion dollars.  Ready?  Here goes:

And go!