Sure Good Eatin'

For those of you out there interested in food (and, let's face it, with the possible exception of certain supermodels and some obstinate three-year-olds, who among us isn't?), my lovely wife Christine has started a new blog on the subject of eating and its usual precursor cooking. It's called Into The Kitchen and it can be found at this new location right here. There will be recipes, reviews, and anecdotes galore provided, and a good time is guaranteed for all. Drop on by and check it out when you get a chance and tell her your humble blogger sent ya.

Oh, BTW, for those of you counting such things, that now makes three blogs for my Best Beloved, compared to my one, all of which are updated far more often than I ever seem to be able to get around to here. Frankly, I think this is all just some sort of sinister plan on her part to guilt me into posting more often.

Women! Can't live with 'em, can't outblog 'em.

>sigh<

Yes, I'm Still Alive. Thanks For Asking.

Well, one of the things I've learned since starting this blog is how it utterly changes your relationship with the world around you and your friends at large.

In the old days, if I was under a really tight deadline or just wasn't feeling terribly social for whatever reason or had been snowed in to the rafters, with the house surrounded by ravenous wolves, I could just vanish into the woodwork for a time to pop my head back up, groundhog-like, when circumstances had changed for the better. Now that I have this here blog, if I should fail to post anything new for a few days (or, okay, I'll admit it, a whole month this time), many of you Gentle Readers out there start writing in, concerned about my general well being, afraid that I may have somehow contracted Death Cooties or the like and am sprawled senseless beneath my desk, unable to gasp for help.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not. In point of fact, I find it extraordinarily comforting to know that, should my lovely wife Christine ever be out of town for an extended period, and if I were to contract Death Cooties while she was gone, there are so many of you out there who would notice my absence. Not that you could do anything about it, of course.

I mean, really, Death Cooties are incredibly contagious, and you'd have to break into my house past my state-of-the-art security system just to check if I was under my desk, and most of you don't even live locally to begin with, so you'd have to drive here all the way from wherever or buy airline tickets and then go through hours of aggravation with stupid airport security just to get on the plane, and by then, by the time you finally got here, I'd probably already be dead of the Cooties anyway.

But thanks for the thought.

The truth of the matter is that I really have been under a tight deadline for the past month. I'm in the final stretch of writing an incredibly cool video game that I really wish I could tell you all about, but promise I will once I'm legally able to. I've also been spending a lot of time dealing with the declining health of my beloved old Golden Retriever Muffin, about whom I've written here a time or two before. At the age of thirteen-and-a-half, rather old for a dog her size, she's become somewhat senile, extremely arthritic, and occasionally incontinent, a horrible hat trick for such a sweet-hearted friend. So I give her her medicines, scratch her loving head, and keep a watchful eye on her, hoping for the best as time goes by.

I have made the time over the past month to catch all of the new summer blockbuster movies (with the singular exception of Sex and the City, since I never watched the series) and I'll try to post my opinions of same over the next few days, should any of you out there actually care what I have to think about them. The lovely wife and I also caught a test screening last night of the new Viggo Mortensen/Ed Harris/Renee Zellwegger western Appaloosa, which Christine covers in more detail over on her own entertaining blog which can be read by clicking on the appropriate link to the right.

Beyond that, I'll try to show up here more regularly, if for no other reason than to relieve your collective concerns. Yes, I know I've promised that in the past, but good intentions have got to count for something.

Oh, and if it'll make you all sleep any easier, just yesterday I got inoculated against Death Cooties, so now all we have to worry about are the ravenous wolves.

Levitz is Listening

Well, here's an enthusiastic "Welcome aboard!" and a deeply-concerned "Are you out of your ever-lovin' mind?" to my dear old friend DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz, who has begun blogging about the comics biz occasionally over at Newsarama.com. You can read Paul's latest post here and then check back over there weekly for more updates.

If there's anyone who knows more about the comic book business than Paul, I don't know who it is (but then I don't know the square root of pi either, which says something about me, I suppose, but I digress), so his column should be well worth your time.

Drop by over there when you get a chance, won't you? Oh, and be sure to tell Paul I sent you.

To Blog or Not to Blog

The problem with starting a blog, says my good friend What's My Line? Live On Stage director Jim Newman, is that it's pretty much like beginning a diet or joining a gym; once you start, you really need to stick with it for it to do you any good. Hence, you may well guess, our little problem. When I started this, I intended to blog every day -- honest to Pete, I really did -- but life seems to keep getting in my way.

To give you an idea how bad this has become, I started to write this particular blog last Saturday. Not the Saturday just past, mind you, but the previous Saturday, ten days ago, and I still haven't finished it. I guess a big part of the problem is that I'm trying to figure out what the purpose of this blog, if any, really is or should be.

I know many people use their blogs for self-promotion, to advertise any upcoming products or appearances. Trouble with me is, much of what I'm doing right now, the expert witness work for a local law firm, the super-secret gaming projects, are things I'm not allowed to talk about, and most of my comic book work appearing these days is usually reprints in the Marvel Essentials or DC Showcase format. I feel weird somehow promoting the old work, and the new material like the Conan: Book of Thoth mini-series I wrote with Kurt Busiek, or the various Simpsons and Futurama issues I've done for Bongo Comics have generated no response at all here, nada, zip, zero, so I'm wondering why I should even bother. Also, with What's My Line? back on hiatus for Heaven know how long, I have no upcoming appearances to plug. I mean, my next out-of-town convention appearance will be in Memphis next March. So, for now at least, there's no point in promoting it this far in advance.

Other people use their blogs to talk about what's going on in their lives but, frankly, not all that much is going on in my life right now worth talking about and that which is gets covered much quicker than I can seem to get around to it by my lovely wife Christine over on her blog. Thus, if you'd like to know what's been going on in my world for the past month, just click on Chris's link over on the right. So, again, what's the point in my being redundant?

Still others use their blogs to discuss movies they've seen or upcoming TV shows. Now, while I've see a number of movies over the last few weeks -- Hairspray (absolutely adored it and can't wait to see it again), Stardust (starts off slow, but picks up steam, and Robert DiNiro's performance alone is worth the price of admission), Ratatouille (occasionally oddly creepy -- these are rats, after all -- but ultimately charming and endearing. Can Pixar make a bad movie?), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (loved it, especially the last 20 minutes in 3D; gotta love IMAX) -- but, again, Christine has already mentioned these in her own blog, so I'm a day late and a dollar shy. I've also seen many of the new fall TV shows so, if you folks are interested, maybe I'll talk about those in another post. But again, reviews need to be timely, and that's one thing I'm not.

Then there's politics. A lot of folks use their blogs as a platform for their political agenda. Now, while I consider myself a lifelong Liberal Democrat, I've generally been a pretty apolitical person, at least until the Clown Prince stole the office six years ago. I could rail on about that, but what can I say that more well-informed, more articulate political pundits cannot and haven't already said far more ably than I? Besides, the one time I mentioned global climate change on this blog, I started getting nasty comments from several right wing ostriches, and who needs that in their life? So it looks like politics is out.

And what does that leave me with? Well, it turns out that when I fail to blog for any long period of time, I start to get email from many of you wondering after my health. Am I all right? Am I suffering from Death Cooties? Please, let us know. First, let me thank those of you who've done so from the bottom of my heart for your concern. It truly is touching. Second, let me assure you that, as far as I can tell, I'm in as good a shape as I can be for a guy missing most of his internal organs. But that, and that reason alone, seems to be why I've got to continue with this. I appear to be suffering from an affliction unique to the Computer Age...

Bloguilt.

I'll try to stay in touch.

This is Getting Out of Hand

Okay, so there I am, sitting in a fancy dining room having a formal breakfast with legendary Broadway stars Angela Lansbury and Nathan Lane, when suddenly I realize I have absolutely no idea what either of them is talking about because all I can think of is how cool this is going to be to blog about.

At which point the alarm clock goes off and I snap awake, to discover that it was all just a lovely dream.

Only a dream.

For the love of God, people, now I'm even thinking about this cockenlocker blog thingie in my sleep.

Is there no escape?

Okay, I'm Finally Back

Well, this week bore pretty much no resemblance whatsoever to the week that I had planned.

I did get back from the wonderful 29th Annual Superman Celebration in the terrific town of Metropolis, Illinois, last Sunday night on schedule and I will blog at some length about all the fun I had and all the fabulous people I met there as soon as I a) have a little time and b) figure out how to download all the pictures I took there to this here blog. My good friend Bob Skir picked me up at LAX and drove us both over to the legendary Canter's Deli in Hollywood to meet my lovely wife Christine and the What's My Line? - Live on Stage gang for a late dinner. Last Sunday's panel included Boston Legal's Gary Anthony Williams, the remake of The Parent Trap's Elaine Hendrix, Bones' Eric Millegan, and The Daily Show's Beth Littleford. The Mystery Guest for the evening was the wonderful Sharon Lawrence (of NYPD Blue and now Hidden Palms fame). You can check here for this coming Sunday's cast and how to order tickets. I'll be back on the panel on Sunday July 1st and will remind you of that in plenty of time before then. Anyway, I'd planned to blog about the trip when I got home, but it was well after midnight when we pulled into the driveway and I was a little jet-lagged and I figured I'd blog on Monday instead. Yeah. Right.

I got up Monday, ran a few local errands, and prepared to blog when I got a call from the aforementioned Bob, asking if I could come over the hill from the Valley into LA proper to pick him up at his car repair place. I said sure, put aside the blogging, and headed over the hill (which, of course, is where some say I've already been for a long, long time). Anyway, I picked up Bob, we had some lunch, did a little shopping, and then Bob asked me if I'd mind helping him pick up his beloved dog Barda from the vet. Again, I say sure, and we're back over the hill to the Valley. By the time we collected the dog, I realized I didn't have time to go home before my improv class that evening and, since Bob's home isn't far from the studio where the class is held, I hung out with him a little longer, then headed to class. By the time class was over and I've had my dinner, it was about midnight, and I was exhausted. I'll blog tomorrow, I decide. My readers will understand.

Now Tuesday was my birthday, and I was looking forward to the day. I was going to blog, have lunch with friends, maybe catch a movie, then have dinner with Christine and our dear friend, TV writer (Profiler, Reasonable Doubts, others) and novelist (the Circuit series) Melinda Snodgrass. But when I got out of bed, I noticed my big old beloved Golden Retriever Muffin seemed to be having trouble walking, and that she was groaning as she laid down. Concerned, I rushed Muffin to the vet, and x-rays revealed she had a mass of some sort around her spleen. The vet said they'd have to operate to remove the mass -- and possibly the spleen -- if she was going to survive. I told him to do whatever it took to save her, to call me if there was a problem, and went home. I wasn't good for much of anything else for the rest of the day. Bob came over to keep me company. We still went out to dinner. But my mind was on the dog, and not the company. Blogging just wasn't gonna happen.

Wednesday was basically devoted to sitting by the telephone, waiting to hear from the vet how the surgery went with Muffin. Bob came by, took me to lunch, then over to Golden Apple Comics to check out the week's new releases, but I really wasn't all there until the vet called to tell me that, although they'd had to remove her engorged spleen, Muffin had come through the surgery with flying colors. You could hear my sigh of relief in Australia. The vet did tell me that they'd sent the spleen to be biopsied to find out what had caused the problem, and we're still waiting to hear back the results, but at least she was alive, and that was all that mattered.

Yesterday, I spent some time visiting my old dog at the vet's, and was told I could take her home late in the afternoon. I went home, prepared the house, then picked my big old baby up and brought her back where she belongs. She moved slow, and she had big patches of her fur shaved, but she was home and everything else was incredibly unimportant. I spent the remainder of the day and evening keeping company with my dog. I didn't blog. So sue me.

Anyway, here I am at last. I'm back. I'm blogging. And I'll do my best to keep it up daily. Unless, of course, God forbid, something happens to my dog.

A Science Question

Can somebody who speaks Luddite please explain to me the difference between a view of my blog and a visit? Every week, when I receive the traffic report on this here blog, I note that there have been considerably more views than visits and it dawned upon me this morning that I have no idea what the difference is. So, if one of you out there could educate me about this, 'twould be greatly appreciated.

Also, could all of you on your various own blogs (those of you who have them, of course) make some mention that I'm back here blogging regularly again? I appear to have less than a hundred people a day checking in here and, for my ego's sake if nothing more, I'd like to get those numbers up.

Once, of course, I finally learn what those numbers mean. Thanks in advance.

To Blog or Not to Blog

Several dear friends (Hi, Becky, Gillian & Michael C.) have lovingly chastised me for not blogging here more often. They've reminded me that the basic purpose of having a blog is to open channels of communication between the blogger and his readers, and by failing to blog on a regular basis, I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain. I, in turn, have argued that there are many days when I have absolutely nothing that I feel is of value to share with you all. They counter that it doesn't matter, that all that's truly important is the connection between us, and the fact that you can rely on me to be here.

Fair enough then. Henceforth, I promise to blog every day I'm in town, even if it's only to say that I had the Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich Combo at Jack-in-the-Box for breakfast, and it was surprisingly good.

So let's see. Today's big news...

Oh, yeah. I had the Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich Combo at Jack-in-the-Box for breakfast, and it was surprisingly good.