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All of a sudden

Posted on by Patrick

Things change in a twin­kling some­times. My judo sen­sei, who has had can­cer for a year and a half — maybe longer, I can’t remem­ber what year it began — died this morn­ing at 2 AM.

I saw him on Wednes­day, and he looked fine, if a lit­tle thin. Now he’s gone, and I still can’t quite believe it.

One step closer to a theory of everything

Posted on by Patrick

May 6th was McHap­py Day, when McDon­ald’s restau­rants donat­ed a por­tion of sales to chil­dren’s charities.

May 5th was Cin­co de Mayo, large­ly cel­e­brat­ed around these parts by going to Mex­i­can restau­rants and drink­ing booze that makes you think of Mexico.

∴ if you woke up on the 6th with a hor­ri­ble hang­over from your Cin­co tequi­la-and-Coro­na ben­der, need­ing some greasy food stat — why not go to McD’s and at least gorge on Egg McMuffins for a good cause?

Coin­ci­dence, or clever mar­ket­ing by the Clown Prince of Capitalism?

The movie deal (now with picture!)

Posted on by Patrick

Contract

So a friend of mine took a degree in film, and has made some short films. The oth­er day he said, “Hey, I’d love to do a short film based on Res­ur­rec­tion Radio. How much would you want for film rights?”

I said, “Let me think on it.”

Today I gave him a fig­ure, and he agreed.

And yes, he’s got a deal with Stephen King, and yes, I’m mak­ing more than King — by a con­sid­er­able mar­gin — but no, it’s not going to pay off the mortgage.

(Hint: The deal he’s got with King is on a dol­lar baby story.)

It’s not so much what she’s saying, it’s how she’s saying it

Posted on by Patrick

So I’m walk­ing over to the machine room to reboot a serv­er, since there’s a cri­sis going on (peo­ple can’t log in to a web­site). There’s a cou­ple sit­ting on the bench by the win­dows — cute girl, guy wear­ing one of those toques with strings*. They’re hav­ing a chat, turned to more or less face one another**.

As I pass, I hear her side of the con­ver­sa­tion: “I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

It goes from an “awwwww” moment to an awk­ward one in just a mil­lisec­ond. I keep walk­ing, because I’m not sure I want to hear his response.

I leave the machine room after the server’s reboot­ed, and they’re already gone.

___

*That’s pret­ty much all I noticed about him.
** As much as you can, sit­ting side-by-side on a wood­en bench.

Recipe for reality TV

Posted on by Patrick
  1. Recap.
  2. Dra­ma.
  3. Con­tes­tants talk­ing to the camera.
  4. Dra­ma.
  5. Com­mer­cials.
  6. Repeat 2–5 as required.
  7. Big, unfore­seen twist.
  8. Vot­ing.
  9. Dra­ma.
  10. Cry­ing.
  11. Cred­its.
  12. Pre­view of next week.
  13. Off-screen: Two real­i­ty-show pro­duc­ers meet up at the bank, but can’t actu­al­ly speak to each oth­er because they’re laugh­ing so hard they’re lucky they can even breathe.

{edit}—I guess I could’ve saved this for a Thurs­day Thir­teen. Is that even a meme anymore?