Keeping Your Spirits Up

"Still below the weather, hon?"
"Much better now."
"The nap helped?"
"No, finding the poison you used on me and dosing your tea did."

Finding Your Inner Freak

“Huh. We tried abuse, vinyl, shoes, nothing.”
“Can't I just not have a fetish?”
“C'mon,” she said, lashing me from below, “that’d be weird.”

The Final Battle

“I’m a wizard,” he cackled, from his room below our stairs. And maybe he was. But it turns out that the wizard’s natural enemy is the Taser.

Results will be posted January 7th, and I'll be sure to harangue… um, ask nicely for your vote, if I make it that far.

Recap: NYCMidnight's "Tweet Me a Story" gives contestants 5 hours to write a story of 140 characters or less which must include a supplied word. My word was BETTER. Entrants could submit up to 3 stories, and 25 finalists were chosen. Two of my stories made the cut. Now the judges will select the top winners, but there will also be a reader's choice winner and that's where my shameless begging comes in.

If you've got a mind to, please consider going here and voting for my stories. They are:

From my blanket, I watched the surf. "It doesn't get any better than this."
From his time machine, me from 2023 sighed. "No, it doesn't."

"That's it, I have to know. You've been with me and with Mike. Which one is the better man?"
I smiled. "The one who didn't have to ask."

Both are marked as BY CHRIS BRIDGES. You can vote for as many as you like, but only once. No registration required.

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE or not, you know. Up to you.  You can see the rest of the finalists in the other groups here. Voting ends 6 p.m. EST tonight.

Thanks.

Most of a Moon

Originally uploaded by CABridges

Beautifully clear night tonight, after several days of heavy cloud cover. Perfect for long hours of night time photography of black nights fading into violet over the trees, sparkling stars and a 3/4 moon presiding over it all. A sturdy tripod, some careful metering and timing and waiting for just the right moment, just as I've been wanting to do for days.

Instead I'm going to bed early. Getting chilly out there and a warm bed calls. But I did take a pic of the moon from the parking lot at work, leaning on the roof of my car for support. Have I mentioned I like my new camera?

I like my new camera.

I have acquired my Guilt Camera, the camera Teresa bought me to help assuage her guilt over spending money on the Bon Jovi concerts she plans to see in a few months. Never mind that she saved from her own money for over a year to do this; since her fairly low income childhood she's never quite gotten over the guilty feeling she gets when she buys something for herself, especially if she is forced to (gasp) buy it for the full price.

So she spent some of it on a new camera for me — which, coincidentally, will also be used to take pictures at the aforementioned Bon Jovi concerts — and I've been playing with it. My old Canon Powershot A630 has now been replaced with a Canon Powershot SX20IS. A bit more oomph than before, and much better in low-light conditions. Like, say, concerts.

More photos to come, I'm sure. And yes, this was bought at a discount with me chipping in, so she still managed to avoid retail.

I, by the way, have no problem whatsoever spending money on myself and am slowly teaching her the knack.

The results of the first round are in, and of the 25 top stories selected in my group, two of them are mine. This pleases me, and causes me to weep for the next generation of writers.

Starting at midnight, you can vote for your favorite Tweet Me a Story story, and I'd appreciate it if you would consider voting for mine. If you thought them worthy, of course. Or even out of misguided friendship, shameless pandering, or guilt. It all works for me.

The stories chosen were:

From my blanket, I watched the surf. "It doesn't get any better than this."
From his time machine, me from 2023 sighed. "No, it doesn't."

and

"That's it, I have to know. You've been with me and with Mike. Which one is the better man?"
I smiled. "The one who didn't have to ask."

And you can vote here. Vote early and vote often!

Self-Improvement

“Dammit, could you be a better man just once in your life?”

"Oh, sure," he laughed, lunging for her.

“Could you hurry?” she said, and fired.

Memories

From my blanket, I watched the surf. "It doesn't get any better than this."

From his time machine, me from 2023 sighed. "No, it doesn't."

Dying to Know

"That's it, I have to know. You've been with me and with Mike. Which one is the better man?"

I smiled. "The one who didn't have to ask."

I'll keep you posted on the results, because you know you're desperate to know. And here's one that didn't make the cut:

Keeping Your Spirits Up

"Are you feeling better, hon?"

"A little."

"Did the nap help?"

"No, but finding the poison you used on me and slipping it in your tea did."

Written for the "A Thank You for Dollhouse" book compiled of fan messages for the cast and crew of Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse." The book was delivered Friday night, Dec. 4, just as we were watching two of the best episodes of the season so far.

Citgo Sky

Originally uploaded by CABridges

The interesting thing about this picture was not the funky sky, although that's why I walked away from my car after filling the tank to get a picture, but that a Citgo employee immediately came out to ask me what I was photographing, which confused me.

I don't look especially terroristic. I wasn't pointing at anything sensitive or governmental. I have to assume they didn't want me to take pictures of their sign, which is idiotic since there's no law against it. They could maybe make a case for stopping me from taking pictures on their property, but I could have taken two steps onto the road and taken pictures of their sign all day.

Were they ashamed of their price? Were they changing it more than once a day and were afraid I'd get proof? Were they in the process of trademarking the sky and afraid I'd infringe?

No clue, and I doubt they know either. But I'm considering a new hobby of taking pictures of the Citgo sign every day.

Yeesh.

Monday night I was idly wondering if I was close enough to cheat until I added up how many times I'd have to copy what I'd already written and paste it in again to win, and gave up.

My excuses this year? I was caught up just before my Save Hiatus buddy Adam Levermore showed up to stay for four days so we could attend the STS-129 Shuttle Atlantis launch Tweetup at the Kennedy Space Center, which was an amazing experience.

Plus I had to show him around a few spots in Daytona (OK, one spot) (OK, the speedway) and then I figured it would be rude to ignore him while I wrote even though a) I knew he wouldn't mind and b) at least one evening he was busy ignoring me to write his own stuff. But hey, there was a guest in the house.

Then after he left I had just a few days before Teresa would be leaving for a week-long trip to NYC so that time was precious and I knew I'd have a whole week to myself to write. No problem! Plus I had a lot of shuttle photos to work up and stuff.

That week was spent dealing with errands, dinners, coordinating rides, IMing to Teresa, and reconstructing the contents of my iPod Touch after my iTunes library lapsed into a persistent vegetative state and forgot that I had any apps. All vitally important.

Then Teres came back, and joyous time was spent catching up with her.

And and and… (Coincidentally, my excuses for not working out for three weeks are strikingly similar to these)

Actually I did do a fair amount of writing, in my Flickr descriptions and e-mails and forum posts and articles and Twitter tweets. The problem wasn't getting me in front of a keyboard, it was getting me to write my novel, and looking at it now I still don't get an urge to work on it (although I did think of stuff I wanted to put into a previous unfinished NaNo novel). Which means that a) my novel idea isn't thrilling me, and b) I'm not enough of a novelist to write it anyway and make it thrilling. So this one goes on the shelf.

However, to get myself back into the habit of writing I'm lowering my bar a bit and leaping into Hollidailies, where I commit to posting at least one blog post a day for a month, Dec. 7 to Jan. 6, 2010.  Instead of 1,667 words a day I need only produce 50, and I think I can blather that long, so be prepared for at least a steady trickle of brain leakage.

Hmm. Maybe I can write my novel in 50-word bursts…

Most of the entries so far seemed to be variants of the existing one — many of them submitted by the same few people — so I decided to go a different direction with just an image depicting his trademark white mic stand.

Winner gets a T-shirt with the new design, signed by Jon. In my case, winning would mean an ecstatic Teresa, which is way more fun. We'll see if this is anything close to what they were looking for.