Cavity warning: major cuteness* ahead

I found out exactly what happens when you have a two year old girl who loves baby dolls, but has never had (and may have never seen--I'm not sure) a bottle. 

She will "feed" her older baby dolls and little girl dolls with a spoon and a cup of baby food (empty, of course), but she doesn't feed her infant dolls.  They're too little, and she doesn't have a bottle, or really know what a bottle is.

So, when I looked up earlier this afternoon, I found that my daughter was breastfeeding one of her many baby dolls, earlier.  Snuggling it up to her chest, helping baby "latch on," telling the baby to nurse, petting the baby's molded, plastic hair, rocking the baby, and singing to it.  Oh, and leaning down to kiss the baby every now and then. 

And doing this pretty much absently, while watching television.

Don't know where she got that last  I was always grading papers, answering questions, or reading books on my laptop. 

*At least, her father and I thought it was really cute.

Criminal Masterminds...oy.

26.  Look in the closet before you shut the homeowner in it, especially after you've already knocked him around a bit.  If you don't, the closet will end up being the one where the household's guns are stored, and the homeowner will shoot your stupid, unobservant ass.

Thanks and welcome

Thank you to Rufus King, who hit the follower button.  I've got Scotch, Irish whiskey, bourbon, and honey whiskey, as well as coffee, tea, juice, and Coke--let me know what you'd like to drink, and kick your feet up on the coffee table and relax.

(Sorry--no cookies until late next week.)

Hmm...good question.

I was asked in the comments a few posts back how one might go about getting a signed copy of one of my books.  For someone who doesn't live in the same town, I'd recommend buying yourself a copy on Amazon, then shooting me an email at heroditus.huxley@gmail.com with your name and address.  I'll sign a bookplate for you and send it to you.

Not that I'm expecting a flood of these requests, but...if you want such, just let me know. 

Right. Pull the other one.

Did y'all know that the CDC is convinced that 1 in 5 American children is suffering from a mental disorder?  And by "mental disorder," they mean anything from Autism (which is a developmental not just a mental disorder) to anxiety (caused by parental issues, anything from emotional abuse to divorce to a lack of set and enforced boundaries) to ADHD (which has been suggested to be caused, in something like three fourths of cases, by sleep deprivation, in turn caused by bad parenting and not setting bedtimes). 

Does this stink to anybody else of the government trying to take control of our children through backhanded methods?

random ramblings

The kids have spent as much time as possible outside playing this past week.  The imp has figured out how to balance on the swings, and enjoys pushing himself with his feet.  The pixie...is too short to climb into the swing and sit, so she lays across the seat on her belly and pretends to fly.

I got slammed with a migraine, yesterday, about half an hour after Odysseus left for work.  The kids, once I got through to them that being noisy hurt Mama's head worse, they were remarkably quiet.  Very good kids.

(Yes, I've still got the headache.  Oddly enough, while bright light makes it hurt worse, the laptop screen doesn't.)

The dog, on the other hand...she refused to come inside.    She refused at eight, at eight thirty, at nine, and at nine thirty.  At which point, I gave up.  I did not feel up to chasing her around her pen and hauling a struggling dog that weighs only ten pounds less than my daughter out of her pen and into the house. 

Besides that, the dog was having so much fun chasing June bugs!  If my head hadn't been hurting so bad, I'd have been giggling watching her. 

The cats were also badly behaved last  night.  They decided that the perfect time to start thundering around and flinging themselves and each other into closed doors was...after I'd gotten the kids to bed, behind those closed doors.  So, the cat that I caught first got tossed into the pantry with the door closed behind her, and...silence.  For a few minutes.  Because then, the other cat found her toy.  And she talks to her toys while she's playing with them.  Loudly.  And then, after I went back to lay down in a dark room, she realized that she was all alone, and started crying.  Loudly.  And refused to come back to where I was...because her toy wasn't already back here.  (She also farts when startled--and she's easily startled--and drools when she's very happy, but those are other faults.)

I am startled, pleased, and impressed with the sales of my books this month!  I've sold (with thanks to everyone who's mentioned my work on their blog) twenty-six copies of The Last Pendragon--the last seven or so after DaddyBear and Larry wrote those awesome reviews.   Another copy of The Godshead sold, too, bringing that total for the month up to three.

I'm currently working on a sequel to The Godshead, tentatively titled either Road Trip or Highway to Tartarus.  I plan to be finished by the end of this month, so that I can write the follow-up (and final book) to The Last Pendragon, titled Resurgent.  That one is outlined in pretty good detail, so I should be able to knock that out this summer, too.  After that, they'll sit on my computer for a while, while I rewrite my fall textbook.  I'm planning on a publication date for the next Modern Gods book sometime in late November, early December, and for Resurgent of sometime next April. 

After that?  I've got about a dozen other projects in mind.  Three more in the Modern Gods world, three more in another world, a redemption story, a horror story, a kind of experimental in form alternate history/reality story, a stand alone, and Lost Girls (which I'm currently stuck on, but I'm sure will come unstuck sooner or later).  In other words...I've got between four and six years' writing worth of books lined up. 

Time to go write. 

Uh-huh. Felons, all of them.

Who?  Why, the federal government, of course.  They break the laws set down to restrict their actions against us daily.  Remember this?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.--Amendment IV, United States Constitution

I do believe this violates both the spirit and the letter of that particular law restricting government from looking for things to convict us of, without any suspicion that we're actually breaking the law to begin with. 

And I also believe the government and government goons that are trampling on the citizens (as in: equals who hire government to run the country, NOT subjects controlled by a government) may go fuck themselves.  Go ahead and get my phone records.  I rarely talk to anyone other than my mom, or a couple of friends.  I don't give a damn if they've got them, and I will not comply with anything they demand while insinuating that they've got my phone records. 

After all--I receive a copy every month.  In the mail.  I've never been under the impression that any form of communication other than face to face with NO cell phones, computers with microphones, or any other sort of sound recording capable device present.

Wow. Big surprise, there.

It makes enormous sense that physically strong men are more independent, more conservative, more likely to believe that they, and they alone, are the only ones entitled to their hard work, while weaker men are more likely to believe in a welfare state. 

If they're not working out (and learning the value of hard work as they build their muscles artificially), they're working at hard, physically demanding jobs.  Jobs that are either very high paying, or very low paying.  And they understand the value of being willing to work, and work hard. 

Weaker men, on the other hand...see the stronger men, and think, "I want what they've got.  But I don't want to work for it.  I'll just have the government hold a gun to their head, and make them hand it over to me."

They carefully noted that there was no difference between stronger and weaker women.  But that's not where the divide lies, there: the divide lies between women married to a breadwinner, and single women who spread their legs for all-comers, and depend on their low-hanging crotch fruit as income generation. 

You know...the ones screwing the pansies that want the government to pay for everything. 

FFOT: No words.

Fucker.  Don't want a kid?  Use a condom.  Do not get an abortion pill, relabel it as an antibiotic, and give it to your girlfriend who had picked out a name for the baby she'd seen on the ultrasound, and had planned to keep, whether your sorry ass was around or not.

I have no words harsh enough for this self-centered cuntdrip.  None.  May he be sentenced to death for first degree murder, and spend eternity being buggered by spike-dicked demons for what he's done. 

Fucker.

Umm...no.

Should my local PDs (and there are half a dozen in my local area) or Sheriff's Departments put out a call for ammo to the local people...

Yeah, no.  Especially not the largest of the surrounding area PDs--they pushed for (and succeeded in getting) a law preventing Sudafed from being sold over the counter, even with it behind the counter. 

So, no.  Not our ammo.  Just not gonna happen.  Local cops are probably great people.  Lovely people.  I happen to know the local sheriff, and like him quite a lot.

But.

These are still the people who enforce the unconstitutional laws handed down by D.C.

Edited to add: Okay, what?  What kind of glue have "retailers" been sniffing when they accuse the customers of stockpiling ammo in the face of more restrictions, and blaming the current ammo shortages on that rather than DHS's orders?  

Hmm...I wonder if they will help the PDs they're deliberately shorting with those orders...

Edited again to add: First saw the stories over at Wirecutter's place, and forgot to link it.  I really shouldn't blog while drinking, either.

Holy shit!

Check out number 12.  Then, number 13. 

Now, check out who's at number 1 and 2 in the Hot New Releases:

Pretty freakin' awesome.  I'm certain that will change as soon as Tolkien's work is released, but it's awesome right now.

Surprisingly good quality.

I ordered several paperback of The Godshead for placement in local bookstores when I published it, and found (to my great surprise) that CreateSpace print on demand publishing does excellent work.  That impression was (mostly) reinforced yesterday. 

I ordered four copies each of Survivors and The Last Pendragon a couple of weeks ago.  Like Godshead, Survivors and Pendragon had a cover of glossy-printed heavy cardstock wrapped around nice, crisp white, satisfyingly thick paper pages.  No tissue thin pages where the print rubs off on your fingertips, here.   

Survivors is a slightly smaller book, measuring at about 5"x8", and the printers weren't really careful in the shipping--the books I'd ordered previously were shrinkwrapped together in stacks, packed into boxes, then shipped.  Survivors and Pendragon weren't shrinkwrapped, nor were they packed into a box--rather, they were wrapped in cardboard, like Amazon does sometimes when you order something relatively small.  And the end Survivors was in...came open a bit.  No, I didn't lose any books, but the ends of the spines were scrunched.  Other than that, though, they're as high a quality of books as you'd expect to find in any book store, and higher quality than some mass-printed books.

Pendragon came through with flying colors.  No scrunching, no damage. 

Honestly, if I were shopping at a bookstore, and happened to pick up these books, I'd check the price after looking to see if it were something I wanted to read, then run cackling to the checkout, convinced I was getting a steal, judging by the quality. 

Overall, CreateSpace print on demand books rock the quality.

I am...outside. Trying very hard to laugh at myself.

It's a gorgeous day, out here.  Public school is still in session, so I have the kids out in the back yard at a time when I won't have to drag them inside because the twit teenagers next door are blasting rap and hip hop "singing" about sex, crime, and other things the kids don't need to hear about at four and two years, with language they don't need to pick up, yet.

Yesterday was hot.  Hot enough that even the imp didn't want to play outside in the afternoon for more than a half an hour--which kinda sucked.  The pixie decided, yesterday, that she needed a morning nap, then went down in the afternoon, too--right as the imp was waking up from his nap.  And he's impossible to keep quiet in the afternoons.  So I was really hoping to keep him outside until the pixie woke up.

No such luck.

Today is supposed to be a bit cooler, but still on the warm side--lower rather than upper eighties near ninety.

My morning today started out sucking.  The pixie woke me up (can't vouch for Odysseus because he didn't move if he did wake) by banging a little toy skillet on something in the living room.  So, I got up, threw on clothes, and trudged back to put dog food out in the dog's pen (her favorite place in the world), before I put the dog in the pen.

And so, of course, she pees in her crate--on her bed, no less--between the time I stepped out the door, and the time I stepped back inside to get her less than thirty seconds later.

Grrrr...

Then, after I got the pup safely shut in her yard, I went to get the kids' breakfasts.  Imp wanted a green cookie (one of these), and pixie wanted pancakes and sausage (as usual--two mini pancakes, and one sausage link).  As I'm fixing this, I happen to turn around and notice...that I hadn't put up the beef enchilada casserole from the night before.  Half of a casserole wasted because I was too tired and frazzled to think of things I needed to do when I needed to do them.

Grrr...

So, after I got the kids' breakfasts to them, it was finally my turn.  I flipped my laptop open and got it winding up to start checking my blog roll, my sales statistics (eighteen copies of Pendragon sold), my email, and Facebook, then grabbed my coffee cup.  Filled it.  Stuck it in the microwave.  Checked on laptop, and clicked through to get to my desktop.  Went back to get my coffee...and dropped the full cup on its side as I'm pulling it out of the microwave.  Lost every drop.

I will admit, that on top of everything else kinda did a number on me.

And I just am not in the mood to sit through children's programming this morning.  So...outside it is.

The kids are having fun, at least.  And when Odysseus gets up and gets out here, I'll go in and see about making myself another pot of coffee.  Because coffee isn't just my energy drink, it's also my go-to for comfort after a shitty morning.

And I haven't even been up for quite two hours, yet.

Serves 'em right.

Speak up for others' rights.  It doesn't matter if you like a group, or see the relevance to you and your interests or not.  If you don't speak up for the rights of others...who's gonna speak up when it's your turn to have the fist of government shoved up your ass?

And, isn't it specifically the job of the media to shine a huge fucking halogen spotlight on injustices perpetrated by government?  Isn't that the whole purpose of "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of the press"?

Unfortunately, for at least my lifetime, the press has been an arm of the political left.  Which means that, now that the political left has one of their muppets* on the throne in the White House, the press has been an arm of the federal government for the past five years.  And, until now, they haven't given a damn that conservatives have been targeted for reprisal for their opposition to King Putt.  They have not only not given a damn, but actively rewarded those who ordered the targeted auditing of TEA Party groups and other conservative associations.

Now that the Associated Press has been found to be wiretapped--and wiretapped by probable White House orders (despite their whole "Not us--look to the DOJ" attitude), who among us is doing anything but sitting back, pointing and laughing at the useful idiots in the media.

Nobody.  Because they fucking deserve to be laughed at.

The National Socialist party in the 1930's gained power through catering to minority groups like the gay lobby.  Not long after starting to gather power, the party abruptly turned on the gay lobby, treating them much like Jews, only marked with a single pink triangle, rather than a yellow Star of David.

It's good that the media is learning exactly what their political masters are capable of, and discovering how the rest of us feel on a near-daily basis: violated.

*A puppet and a muppet both have strings, but a muppet also has somebody's hand up their ass talking for them.

Excitement is...

...watching copies of the books I've worked so hard on actually selling.  The Godshead came fast and easy--I've enjoyed watching it sell, and enjoyed knowing that people have enjoyed it.  The Last Pendragon took a lot longer--four years for the first draft, rather than about five months, total--but part of that was because of how I wound up hitting a wall because I tried to take the book in a direction it didn't want to go.  I'm also very proud of my first book, Survivors, mostly because it shows how I refused to let someone else's actions knock me down and keep me there.

I'm still a very new author, and I know I have a long way to go before I can call myself a success.  I also know that, no matter how long it takes, I will keep trying and I will get there eventually. 

Again, thanks to all of my readers who've bought copies of one or more of my books.

Welcome!

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Robert Fowler, of Robert's Gun Shop who clicked that little blue follower button.  I don't have any cookies, but I do have a fresh pot of coffee.  Kick your feet up on the coffee table and relax for a while.

Fucking cowards.

Cops in Trenton, NJ, are called because of an imminent threat to human life, and instead of calling in SWAT (useless fuckers that they otherwise are) on day one, when they first noticed a dead body, they retreat and hide outside for three days.  Leaving two kids alone with a crazy fucker who's going crazier, after said crazy fucker killed their mom and one of their siblings. 

Not all cops are fucking cowards, nor are all cops useless.  The ones in that case, however...yeah. 

What really frosts me is that this guy was a registered sex offender living in a home with children. 

Makes sense.

The prosecutors railroading someone who legitimately defended himself under Florida's Castle Doctrine laws want his attacker's past--which would help build a picture of a dangerous criminal instead of the innocent, black choir boy facing a slavering, racist, gun-happy bigot that the media would prefer to see--kept out of the trial.

I am so sick of shit like this.  Throw it all out there: Zimmerman was an idiot, and Martin was a thug.  Let the law and the jury decide what is and isn't relevant.

Hoping...and praying...

I'm expecting to hear back about the counter tops sometime this week or next.  Here's hoping nothing goes wrong.  I want my kitchen back.

Tell it, brother.

A young man in high school, Jeff Bliss, was caught on a classmate's cell phone camera telling off a history teacher for refusing to teach, doing nothing more than handing out packets. 

The disturbing part of the story is that she kicked him out of class for speaking truth to her: "If you would just get up and teach them instead of handing them a frickin’ packet, yo. There’s kids in here who don’t learn like that. They need to learn face-to-face. You’re just getting mad because I’m pointing out the obvious." 

Her response was to tell the young man to quit wasting her time.

That isn't a teacher.  That's a chair-warmer.  That's a classroom monitor.  That should be paid less than an actual teacher is paid. 

I do have a textbook I'm writing.  I do expect my students to read it.  What we do in class is different from what is in the textbook, but what we do reinforces the textbook: I actually walk them through the steps of writing a  paper with a sample topic after they've read the unit. 

I do not hand them a textbook and go "there you go.  I won't help you learn it; leave me alone."  Not if I have any choice and control in the matter (which I didn't last semester).  I don't do that with packets, either.  I don't assign busy work.  Everything we do in class ties directly into the project we're working on.  And if a student asks, I'm happy to explain how it does, or go further in depth with any part of the project.

I cannot imagine handing most students a packet and expecting that to be the whole of the thing.  I may learn best like that, but I am fully aware that most of my students don't.