I think this may be the all time best one in history:

Steinbeck's Cannery Row

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing."

I have a long, long, long way to go.

Rhapsody of the Bones is: "The Muzak played on and on and on, achieving an annoyance level usually reserved for screaming babies. If he was healthy, he thought, he would get out of this damn box and walk up the stairs the rest of the way. The weight of the cane in his hand made clear that was just another wishful thought. This elevator was so slow that he was pretty sure it had stopped altogether. He looked at his reflection in the gold spidered glass and a part of him just gasped. When did it happen? When did he go from being a sex symbol to being this sickly looking old man? Last month he hadn’t looked sick. He hadn’t looked sexy either, but he had always known better than to believe his PR."

A Drop in the Hand is: “Wow! A squid for a friend!” Karen had never imagined anything so peculiar, but she had come to the city for new… Well, for a new adventure; for new spaces; new air and even new smells and a giant squid certainly delivered on all those things, especially the smell."  

No Gifts for the Gifted: "Forty corgis in a full pack howl is such a barbaric sound, such an unrestrained sound, that the goose bumps on the back of his neck could have been used as extra pillows."   (I have no idea about the real title for this novel yet.)

Sorry I’ve been so quiet. I actually wrote a whole novel. It started with NaNoWri Month, but I didn’t finish it until December 6th and have been furious edit since then. It’s going to my Mom’s agent Dann as soon as I have it ready for him. We had hoped to make that on Friday, but Ruth’s cancer needed some attention. She is still OK, but they will be doing another operation to make sure that the abnormal cells they found along the edges are gone as well.

I’ve been working on my one sentence description:

A black comedy, well perhaps a gray comedy, about a rock star, his nephew the banker and their eccentric friend’s journey to come to terms with coming to terms for tragic events in the far past.

All should bow down and behold the power of the fraternity of published authors.

Just felt like starting these up this week. 

Me!!

Click on the image if you want to take the test.

Seventh Sanctum - Name Generators

It amazes me how I will happily be writing along and then something little like the the guy who delivers pure water stops by my main character's house and this guy needs a name and then ALL WRITING GRINDS TO A HAULT.    Like if I get anybody to read my stuff, the difference between Chuck and Timmy is going to make one wit of difference to them.  But still I sit there and chew on a virtual eraser and stew about it.

So I *really* like this name generator site.  It get's me past naming third cousin in 30 seconds rather than 20 minutes.

Here is a random list of people names it generated based on US Census data:   (it does other types of names as well)

Alejandro Giles
Anderson Velazquez
Arnold Jeff Doyle
Arturo Wilford Buchanan
Beau Darren Keith
Carmine Allen Pope
Carter Ricky Mckee
Chance Brooks
Clark Hudson
Dalton Larson
Darrick Hobbs
Darrin Lee Walter
Darwin Burton Cervantes
Deandre Phillips
Desmond Pate
Domenic Craig Sweet
Erich Francesco Gibbs
Erick Lynwood Rich
Eusebio Dodson
Fausto Donte Knox
Felipe Jefferson Evans
Felipe Ramirez
Forest Christian
Huey Rivera
Hugh Vazquez
Javier Boyd Coleman
Jody Cody Preston
Jordan Vargas
Lamar Jenkins
Leroy Alva Nixon
Lonnie Woodward
Loren Hines
Marcos Cox
Margarito Elmer Mays
Mathew Emmitt Joyner
Micah Delgado
Michal Galloway
Michel Atkins
Parker Lavern Daniel
Ralph Campos
Ralph Fletcher Mcdowell
Raymundo Cary Griffith
Ronnie Jordon Bowers
Sang Head
Sheldon Jacinto Jones
Vince Louis Mayer
Wade Rafael Bass
Weston Reginald Leblanc
Williams Little
Zachery Barber

I'm going to have to write this program.

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070930.html 

Ok, I wouldn't actually sit there with a line, but even if you just marked the spot with a quarter it would add a certain zest to the day.  This is also the perfect application for Social Networking.   Contests for Accounting .vs. Sales.   What's the old bet?  First fish, worst fish and biggest fish?  

I'm not joking about the title.  

Yesterday I was throwing Chiwa a yummy, yummy baby carrot and I managed the exact trajectory needed so that it bounced off of the floor and disappeared inside her ear.  Like a hand in a glove.  She had to stand up to shake it out.

And I'm sitting there thinking, I have *so* got to blog this.  And you are probably thinking, ummm, why? 

Because it's a once in a life time, one in a billion chance thing.  Something extremely out of the ordinary happened and I'm not sure we paused the TV.  And somehow that just doesn't seem right.   So I would have preferred the lottery or something like that, but I got a carrot in the dog's ear and I should at least be thankful that I got something!

In a year I won't remember this.  Unless I take the time to mark this event something so utterly unlikely and so cool will pass into the mists of time.  It's either a sign of the "Get enough monkeys in a room" theory or proof of something magical in the universe.  Except I always thought that getting that many monkeys in a room would also have to be a sign of something magical in the universe as well. 

A Holiday.  I'm going to start a holiday for this.  I added a schedule+ annual reminder of "Unlikely Event Day". 

I'm happy to take suggestion for how to celebrate it.