Jackal Wants Everything

 The Sweet Pickles book, Jackal Wants Everything, is not the kind of book the world is looking for, but it's the one it deserves. It is not a cute story, and it takes a dark turn, concluding that Jackal is never happy, even when he gets everything he wants. It's not a satisfying ending, but it's an important message. Some people just can't be pleased, and will never find contentment because they are consumed by jealousy.

Highschool Spanish

 I can tell when an actor is faking Spanish. If I can speak it better than they do, that's really fake. Giancarlo Esposito speaks that kind of Spanish in Breaking Bad and Maze Runner (I cringe whenever he says hermano). He may have Spanish blood, but no, that's not good. 

I was thinking about that when I heard Will Patton speak it in Outer Range, but Will has  a good excuse. He plays a white guy.

Plot holes

 Don't be afraid of writing stories with plot holes. Fiction is like a dream. Keep it relatively consistent and keep going. Successful people do this all the time.

Advantages of prose

 Only in TV and movies do you need filler dialogue. You don't need to quote the full text of Bible quotes in prose, just mention the verses. You can skip boring stuff, like if a cop is in a car and hears sports commentary on the radio, you don't have to write the commentary. You can bypass sounding stupid and writing stuff you don't know about with a couple skillful sentences. Not so easy with live video.

Sweet Pickles

 I have done some fan art of Sweet Pickles characters. I updated them a little and made them a bit more realistic. I'd actually like to get permission to make a new Sweet Pickles book, but I don't know who to contact. I know Richard Hefter and Jacqueline Reinach have both passed away. Wish I could have written to them and let them know how much I enjoyed the books. Not sure who handles the estates.

I looked up Ruth Lerner Perle. She seems to be alive, but doesn't have a website, and she was just the editor on the books. I saw a series of books she came up with that appear to ride on the popularity of Sweet Pickles theme without continuing the series.

I'd like to get a biography of these people. Why did they make the books? Where did they get the inspiration for the outfits? And it's so seventies!

Did they intentionally make the characters gender ambiguous? In Turtle Throws a Tantrum, Vulture looks very feminine, but the blob-like turtle is the girl. Any thoughts?

Were these characters in any way inspired by Egyptian gods, or is it just coincidence? 

How about the racial equality of the books? Hefter was white, and Ruth is African American. How did this affect the production of the books, and the message?

What was the unveiling of the first Sweet Pickles books like? Was it huge, or did they just sell it person to person like a micro brew? Are there photos of the first book signing?

Did they ever have a big banner in Times Square or something? How did they make that commercial with the bus? What happened to the animal suit?

Did anyone model for Sweet Pickles books? Were any personalities based on real people? Was Xerus based on someone that made it hard for them to publish?

Do Sweet Pickles action figures or stuffed toys exist? And what's the story behind Stickybear?

Creativity prompt

 If you're stuck and unmotivated to finish a project, like a novel, add a sentence you're excited about, then work on something else, adding a sentence to that. If it's not writing, add some other equivalent piece to your project and bounce back and forth.

Crazy People Assignments

 Assignment 593: Open every manhole cover in the city, searching for trapped children and ninja turtles. Set up cones in those problem high traffic areas, wearing an orange safety vest. You know, for the children's safety.

Assignment 585: You know when you hear something near the jukebox in the bar making that steady tapping sound? That's a child trapped in the basement, sending you messages in Morse code. Decipher it, and check all around those employees only areas. Make sure the owners know your intention is to free the children from their evil clutches.

Assignment 586: Never eat mashed potatoes. They give you elephantitus. 

Assignment 587: Never believe online song lyric sheets. Go online and forcefully argue for the lyrics you know to be correct, even with the musicians themselves.

Always turn in your equipment

 One thing my job has taught me. Always take the cable equipment back to the store when you're done with the service. Don't trust the apartment manager with anything. They will not return the equipment, they'll let someone else use it, and leave you with the bill. 

I can only hope I remember when it's time.

Also, never trust the post office to forward your mail. If you owe someone, make sure it's completely paid, and you notify them of the address change. You can get put in collections and not be notified, if they keep sending everything to your old address. 

Get a pet

 Some people have dogs or cats. Other people can't have pets, so they dress up like a dog and sell cakes and hot dogs from a roach coach. Don't be that guy.

Bassoon

 Nothing says British drawing room mystery more than a soundtrack heavy with bassoon.

Bassoonists need to have incredible skill with their tongue. I wonder why nobody talks about this.

TA agents

 I have a love hate relationship with outsourced transfer agents. They bring me paying customers, but they don't know how to do a warm transfer.

Ideally, they should tell me if they got the customer to verify security or not. Instead they just tell me a mangled version of the customer's name and dump the call. "I have Jen Dmalther on the line" when it's John Smith. Often I accidentally slip and say the mangled version without thinking about it.

I have the same computer system. When the call comes in, I can clearly see the name. I want more information than that. But, alas, they get paid for the amount of live people they send over.

To their credit, they will hang on the phone like a dumbass until I at least grunt in response to them reading the name off the file. So it's a "warm transfer," but only on a technicality.

Duh, I know "you have Ron Demelter on the line", or you wouldn't be talking to me.

I look at their computer notes in vain. Although sometimes it says they verified for security, a lot of times it just says "Clear, yes, transferred to agent." What the hell does that mean.

The worst part: Sometimes they will sit on account and go to lunch, which makes it impossible for me to edit the account. It's locked.

Bad books

 The worst novel you will ever read is your first one you wrote ten years ago.

Chinese monopoly

 I suspect that Chinese companies are using shell companies to bypass American monopoly laws. I've ordered a few things that have other company names on Amazon, only to find the real name is iefiel when I get it.

Safety tip

 If you ever find a huge wormhole through time in the middle of your farm property, make sure to take careful measurements before attempting to cover it with a tarp or pieces of plywood. If you don't have access to surveying tools such as a rangefinder, tie the end of a roll of twine to a spike driven in the ground and walk around the hole to the side opposite the spike to get the diameter. Simply mark the twine where the hole ends and take the twine back to the workshop to build the first board across the hole. You might want to get someone to help you, but it's up to you.

Home Babysitter

 People who made computer software in the eighties were a little optimistic. Take for example "Home Babysitter" for the Commodore Vic-20. It taught you the alphabet and math and some other stuff, but could it watch the kids while you took the wife out for the evening? I think that's putting a little too much faith in a device that saves data on cassette tapes.

Currently att yahoo

 The AT&T / Yahoo news site is full of inaccurate story titles. They posted one about Franklin Graham with a title saying something about perversion when it was really about how people said he was perverted due to praying for Putin to have a change of heart and stop the war.

Today they had one that said a "convicted actor" got arrested. I didn't know you could get arrested for acting.

Silver lining

 I've always spoken English. I never really thought about why it's so difficult until I thought about it recently. 

My pastor told me about how his Chinese Bible student didn't know that "bought the farm" means dying. 

Honestly, I don't know why that means death, but it got me thinking about something that has bothered me all my life: What the hell does it mean when you say that every cloud has a silver lining?

I've heard it used both positive and negative ways.  "Well, I totaled the semi, but there's a silver lining to all this - insurance paid for a brand new replacement." 

But then I hear it used the other way: "I inherited the estate from my rich uncle, but there's a silver lining - I have to pay a huge property tax every year."

C'mon, what the hell?

Crazy People Assignments

 Assignment 589: Become a door to door salesman. In the hardware store. Where they sell all the doors. Don't worry if people aren't standing behind the doors, or that you can walk around and check. Just keep knocking all day and all night , on each door. If they call security, you can buy some doors and take them home to keep going.

Assignment 590: To change a color picture to black and white in Adobe Photoshop, open the file, go into the "image" menu, drop down to "adjust," select "levels" , click "cancel" in the levels window, go to "file", select "close", open the file again, and repeat the same process three thousand times.

Assignment 591: Everyone loves gambling. Find a malfunctioning toilet and have people place wagers about whether or not the toilet paper will flush.

Assignment 592: Write out an elaborate book of beautiful poetry, using sandpaper and an ink pen.

Contentment

 As human beings, we strive to achieve various goals and think "if I just manage to get that thing," or "If I just accomplish that, then I'd be happy." But when we get what we were striving for, it's never enough. There's always another goal on the horizon. 

I've been laboring under the impression that if I just got famous, or got a girlfriend or both, I'd be happy. But now that I think about it, I'd probably be looking for something else after that. That's why people who make big movies feel compelled to keep making more, even though they don't need to. It didn't make them complete or happy enough.

Historical BS

 Recently I've been seeing movies that begin in the ancient past of the 1980's. Having grown up in that era, I call it BS.

It gets me wondering about all those movies I've seen about paranormal events dating from the roaring twenties or world war 2. I'm thinking there were senior citizens groaning and rolling their eyes when they saw those films.

Fiction to historical fiction

 Wonder Woman came out in the 1940's. The people who produced it just wanted a story about a female superhero in the present day. New movies set these stories in the past, to give it more authentic flavor, but if the author were alive today, they probably wouldn't want to see it depicted as historical fiction.

The same goes for a lot of things. Like Dracula, or Tarzan. When they were originally written, they set the stories in the present day.