From brendee, whom I met doing the fabulous 2007 New York City Blarg Crawl.

I know I haven’t written anything in a while, what with working 55-hours a week and all (gotta make up for all that $ I didn’t make last year). And while exciting things have been happening at The Orchard, I didn’t want to bore you with that or turn this into a fanboy-obsessed blog. So I was thinking that tonight when I got home after both work shifts that I would possibly write about

Last Saturday. I caught a whiff on Twitter that Rana Sobhany, the world’s first iPad DJ, was going to be “spinning” a set at Bluebrain, a special night at The Fridge, which is a new (to me at least) little art gallery on Capitol Hill. I was working last that night but I tweeted her and she said she wasn’t going on until 11 or so and that worked with my timetable of getting back on The Hill. The show included a downloadable iPhone app where the audience could twist the knobs and affect the sound output of the DJ, but unfortunately I missed that portion of the art show. But on the good side, I got in without paying the $5 cover. Rana was on when I got there and I listened and grooved to the rest of her set. It was pretty poppy but still fun. I talked with her afterwards and she seems like a nice person, really warm and conversational. There was some other fun art showing there too, and a live painting in process that anyone could add to. Fun.

Or I could have written about

Last Sunday. Eric H, sky mattress extraordinaire, art curator and sometimes blogger, was celebrating his 40th birthday. And what better way to do that than to get 30 friends together, start them drinking mimosas at 11:00 am and then throw them into a disco bus and take them out to the Virginia wine country for the afternoon? Some bottles of champagne made it onto the bus and there was a wide selection of yummy nibblies being passed around. We stopped at two wineries, sampled some wine, bought some wine and sat out in the hot sun. The 2nd winery had lawn bowling setup under some shady trees and that provided some recreation as well as relief from the sun. Needless to say, knowing this crowd, we all had a good wine buzz going by the time we rolled back into DC. Then topping the evening off with La Lomita? Perfect.

Or I could have written about

Today. I’ve been thinking about Mom all day, as this would have been her 73rd birthday. I miss you Mom, not only today but everyday.

And then this happened:

I’m biking down Maryland Avenue, on my way from the full-time to the part-time. Apparently I am not paying too much attention to the road as I hit a major bump and am sent flailing head-first over the bike, at 20 mph. I crash down on the pavement in a twisted heap with the bike twisting up my legs so that when I realized I’ve stopped on the street I’m not sure which way I’m facing and I cannot move. I remember at that moment being in extreme pain, yelling out “Fuck! Fuuuuuck!” and having visions of dropping florescent lighting tubes from four-story buildings, tomatoes and what it would feel like when you think you’re standing in your life and all of a sudden the walls, ceiling and floor get stripped away and you’re then standing on nothing in darkness wondering where the fuck everything went.

Luckily the kind folk who live on Maryland Ave came to my rescue. An older gentleman from across the street, who had seen the whole crash happen, came over and helped me untangle myself from the bike and get me to stand up and get out of the street and onto the sidewalk. A woman came out of her house asking if I was okay and went back in to get me a bottle of water and a wet towel. After realizing I was basically okay with only flesh wounds (no broken bones, no head injuries) and telling them I was only going one more block down the street they reluctantly left but took many thanks with them.

I hobbled on down to The School and immediately looked for a first aid kit, finding supplies and getting into the shower to rinse the blood (and hopefully the gravel too) off and clean my wounds. My left elbow and left knee took the worst of the fall, which is weird because I think I remember the wheel turning left as I fell, meaning I would have fallen on my right side. I guess it all happened so quickly those details might not be clear.

So I’m pretty beat up but at least no broken bones in this old body and thankfully there were no cars directly behind me that might have run me over. As the man from across the street said “It may hurt now but you’ll really feel it in the morning”. That’s what I’m afraid of.

Do you know the blog Post Secret? Probably, but if you don’t it’s an interesting site that puts up postcards that have been mailed in by viewers, allegedly revealing some secret they would never reveal. It’s easy to reveal it if you’re sending it in anonymously and that’s the beauty of the site. Of course Post Secret has a Facebook fan page that you can join that does what I’m not exactly sure, but you can join it if you want. I haven’t joined it so there’s no way for the site bots to know who my friends are, so imagine the chances when, at the bottom of their page, is a pulling from all their 700,000 FB fans and I know two of them!

spotted on JMG.

Can you see how frequently I’m writing here? Answer: not very. Or at least that’s how it seems to me. With nothing going on to really write about, except resume sending-out and that can get pretty dull real quickly, well, there’s nothing to really write about.

A blogger friend I mostly keep in touch with through Twitter started mentioning the hashtag #NaNoWriMo. I clicked on it and saw that others were tagging it at as well but I couldn’t figure out what it was by their tweets. A quick google search provided the answer I was looking for.

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? Well it is. Look it up. It’s an online project where writers “feverishly” pound out a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. That’s 1,666 words a day. The outlook on it is not to edit and not to think about it too much. Just write. They even say “it’s about quantity, not quality.” So while it’s not supposed to be stream of consciousness (although I guess it could be) the idea is to write without knowing where your characters are going, but for you to keep going with the writing.

In 2008 5% of the 119,000 who entered finished the lofty goal of 50,000 words. Seeing as how I started already a day behind (November 2) I really doubt I will finish successfully. 1,666 words a day, every day, is a lot of tappity-tapping. We’ll see how it goes. If I can finish with 20,000 words I think that would even be an accomplishment. I’ll post a downloadable pdf once it’s complete and you can read the missing plot and lack of character arcs for yourself.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

If you’d like to join the madness yourself, please link your author name to “futurejunkie” so I can see how far behind you are as well.

If you don’t already know, MTV’s The Real World has started filming here in DC. MTV has also started airing the RW Cancun so the DC chapter will probably air early next year. rumor has it they’re going to film until Thanksgiving, which would mean a solid four months of footage.

The house is at 20th & S, NW. You can’t miss it at night, it’s lit up like the daytime and during the daytime I’m sure there are camera crews everywhere. Local residents of that intersection aren’t necessarily thrilled with the media and personal interest onslaught that has taken up camp in their neighborhood. And I can’t say I really blame them, seeing as these interlopers will have no vested interest in their neighborhood and, relying on past RW chapters, will end up vomiting, pissing, fighting and all those other things 20-year-olds with starry eyes will do. The Anti Real World DC’s (new) blog is here.

Last night I was out with an out-of-town friend at Black Cat and told her about the RWDC and she wanted to go by the house. I thought it would be fun to piss off some of the cast members, as it appears to be the new fun thing to do in DC this summer. So we did.

It was late, around last call, so I was hoping some of the cast would stumble around the corner and then we could yell things at them to disrupt their filming (this is the de facto act to commit I’ve heard, as then they will have to edit out the audio of “Real World sucks!”). But the security detail in the truck across the street looked pretty relaxed so we surmised they were all already inside shooting pool or making daquiris or whatever they do. We did notice some movement in the glazed-over windows, but it looked mainly to be the crew.

We chatted with  security for a while but they weren’t budging on giving us any info. All of a sudden, there was movement the front door. Two of the cast members came out to eat their late night take-out on the front steps. So I hurried over to snap some pictures and one of the narcissist started cowering with his head down, as if he didn’t want any limelight. Um, dude, you’ve got cameras following you for the next four months. It’s a little too early in the game to be shying away from the cameras so soon. They had glowstick bracelets on, so they had been out partying somewhere that evening. Needless to say, after a few minutes of heavy sighing they packed up their styrofoam packs and went back inside.

It was a fun bit of fun but I’m really dreading the time they invade a restaurant or bar or some other venue that I’m at because I’ve heard the camera crews are pretty pushy and rude. Anything that gets the shot, right guys?

Wow so fun!

My assignment for Evolve’s parade float was to pass out beads towards the front of the three-car float. The first truck played the sound system and the second truck was the float with the constructed apartment building. The third truck a vintage truck from the 50s, nicknamed “Hank” and was a repository for more beads.

The staging area was a very vibrant area, everybody playing their music and getting in a good mood and walking around and taking pictures. It was a great community.

Once the parade started, it was on. The people screaming and yelling for beads in Dupont Circle and also on 17th Street was amazing, and the feeling of euphoria felt while passing these beads out was absolutely incredible. I couldn’t throw beads to everyone who was yelling for them but it was great to sail them to those that you could pick out of the crowd. If you didn’t scream or yell out, then you didn’t get beads from me! Being a participant in the parade was so much more fun than being an observer on the sidelines.

I tried to connect with friends along the parade route, they let me know where they’d be. Some I couldn’t find (too bizzay throwin’ beads) but some I did have a quick chance to run over and say hello to. Other friends I found along the way was a great surprise, the biggest being Joe.My.God, whom I did a blargcrawl with a couple of years ago. Joe remembered me, even knowing my last name, which was a great honor coming from only the biggest and best blogger from NYC. His slideshow of the parade is here, giving me a shoutout by name. Joe, when is the next blargcrawl in NYC?

There’s an article in this weekend’s New York Times about abandoned blogs. This happens when the author gets busy, bored or moves onto another form of press release. I’ve followed some blogs that have had a formal “Cya l8r!” entry, some have had detailed explanations for the reason they’re shutting them down and others have been simply set adrift. That’s all fine, ain’t nobadi mad at ya.

I’m waiting for this to happen in the Twitter world, too. Everybody’s all gaga over getting a Twitter account, and drooling to find out how they can make money from it. Chill, people, it’s not a gold mine. Some have taken to Twitter as an easy form of (the original) status update or quasi-press release. Others have signed up and nary posted a tweet. Or rapid-fire tweets within the first week of signing up and then nothing for months. To each their own.

Me, I’m doing both and have been doing both. I don’t see the tweet as a replacement for the blog or vice versa. A blog entry of “On the beach now. Can I get some WiFi out here please?!” doesn’t make sense, but as a tweet it does. And there’s no way that I could sum up this entry in 140 characters. But I’ll tweet a link to this post and they work in tandem.

That said, today is my three-year blogging anniversary. At this address at least. I have some archives from ten years ago when I was posting a journal on OpenDiary.com (before it was called “blogging”) and a secret Blogger site that I used for a few months in ‘05 but it’s really too dark to share any of that info.

Here are previous June 07 posts:

2008
2007
2006

Spotted on JMG.

Ooooh…I thought there wasn’t going to be a Cyclops cameo in the new Wolverine movie. Geek-gasm!

Oh good…Crazy is up next. This is what I’ve been waiting for. 

Oh jesus. 

Dang…she can sing. I hope everyone voting just remembers how friggin crazy she is…and PUNISHES her for it.

Sarah Palin “surprises” Greta VanSustren while she’s interviewing Bristol. For conservative repubs…i’ts “less than ideal”

Say what you will but the Martian Manhunter’s death in “Final Crisis” Requiem” is pretty powerful and moving.