STATUS: I’m still at the office way too late on a Friday.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? Nothing at the moment.
I’m not afraid to admit this is a total punt of an entry today. It’s almost 7 pm. I’m still at the office and I’d really like to head home. I also have a bad head cold so applying my brain isn’t going to happen.
This is such classic, it’s so worth posting again. Mitchell & Webb’s WRITE THIS. Enjoy!
STATUS: Another quiet day as NYC gets socked by snow. Our marketing director who is based in New York hasn’t had electricity since midnight. In Denver, it’s sunny and supposed to be 50 degrees tomorrow. Gotta rub it in when I can.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? MODERN LOVE by David Bowie
My husband forwarded this link to me and it’s perfect for a Friday. I’ve been chuckling all morning.
It’s urban dictionary.
My favs so far?
that’s crazy!
It’s the perfect response when you haven’t been listening at all.It works whether the other person has been saying something funny, or sad, or infuriating, or boring….
Them: ‘my girlfriend’ dumped me last night’ You (thirsty, not paying attention): ‘oh man, that’s crazy’
dead cat bounce
Wall Street expression describing the phenomenon of a stock or share bottoming out to near zero and then recovering with a sharp buying spree from bargain hunters: the notion being that even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from a high-enough point.
darth breather
One who breathes loudly, sometimes unknowingly, sounding like Darth Vader.
TGIF! I’m out.
STATUS: The best way to start a day is with a smile on your face. Hope today’s entry helps.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? JUST LIKE HEAVEN by The Cure
My fav?
“At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.”
Oi that’s funny! Enjoy.
They’re Back! Those wonderful Church Bulletins! Thank God for church ladies with typewriters. These sentences (with all the BLOOPERS) actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:
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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
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The sermon this morning: ‘Jesus Walks on the Water.’ The sermon tonight: ‘Searching for Jesus.’
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Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
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Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say ‘Hell’ to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
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Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.
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Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
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For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
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Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
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A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow..
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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.
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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered..
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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
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Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
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The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
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Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done.
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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
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The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance..
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The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday: ‘I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours.
STATUS: TGIF! And all the 1099-misc forms are done.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? Otra Día Más Sin Verte by Jon Secada
This is so bad but I found myself just laughing and laughing.
Enjoy!
Why Men do not Write Advice Columns
Dear Mike,
I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work leaving my husband Allan in the house watching the Raiders game as usual. I hadn’t driven more than a mile down the road when the engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get Allan’s help.
When I got home I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor’s daughter. I am 45, my husband is 68, and the neighbor’s daughter is 22. We have been married for ten years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him. He retired 14 years ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. He won’t go to counseling and I’m afraid I can’t get through to him anymore.
Can you please help?
Sincerely,
Sheila
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Dear Sheila:
A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the injectors.
I hope this helps,
Mike
STATUS: Plowing through stuff.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? O HOLY NIGHT by Paul Potts
Hey readers, sorry for the blog silence yesterday. I was literally at the office from 9 in the morning until 10:30 at night. I just couldn’t muster the extra energy to squeeze in a blog entry. I, as well as many other agents, are working crazy hours to wrap things up by year’s end. Our agency always closes around the 18th, 19th, or 20th (depending on which date is that Friday) and we are closed until the new year.
No queries, no reading, no religiously checking emails, no nothing.
I do plan to blog all next week. Monday through Thursday, I’ll continue Q&A. I still have a ton of Qs from the last comment round but if I see some good ones in the comments over the next couple of days, I may add some. Friday will be our year-end stats and let me tell you, they are pretty sweet.
But today I’m doing Friday Fun with a shameless plug that has nothing to do with publishing but is just too cool not to share. Besides, it is peripherally connected to the agency because it’s about Sara Megibow, her husband Mark, and his band FACE.
FACE is premiering on TV this Monday, December 14 (8 pm EST) on NBC’s new show The Sing-Off. They will also be on Tuesday, December 15 and Wednesday, December 16.
Squee! They did a lot of filming in Colorado for the back story (you won’t see yours truly but Sara is definitely featured).
The show is set up kind of like American Idol. Monday and Tuesday night will be pre-judged elimination rounds but on Wednesday, it’s up to the viewing public to decide the winner.
FACE really rocks so I hope you agree and will tune in and vote for them.
STATUS: I’m done for the night.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? LANDSLIDE by Dixie Chicks
Considering all the chatter over the last two days, today has been relatively quiet. SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) did issue a statement. You can find that here.
Also, the Ashley Grayson agency blogged with their response.
On a wholly different note, I have a Friday funny—sort of. Do you remember my blogging about an Eddie Murphy movie being shot on our street about two summers ago? For two days in a row they had the extras and the movie crew filming. Sara and I remember it vividly as a car alarm kept going off incessantly. With our windows open on a nice summer day, it was all we could hear for two days running.
Can’t imagine why if you don’t remember. That was a year and a half or two years ago. I only remembered a couple of weeks ago when my husband said he caught the film while on an airplane trip.
The movie is called IMAGINE THAT and no, neither Chutney or I are in the film. In fact, I can’t imagine what they were doing on our street for all that time because in the film itself, there is a brief flash of the front façade of our office in the SH Supply Company building in the scene where Eddie Murphy is fumbling in his briefcase for something while driving. About 10 seconds later, the car drives down the alley behind the building.
Exciting stuff I’m telling you. Grin.
There is one big scene where Mr. Murphy dances on a concrete wall and there is a beautiful lit up staircase behind him. This leads to the bridge that goes over the railroad tracks and into lower downtown. Very noticeable by the bridge support which looks like a ship’s mast. (You can actually see that scene in the movie trailer.)
Well, that takes place right in front of the Platte River Park where Chutney and I often go walking on nice days.
Anyway, highly amusing to watch a movie set in Denver and in Lodo where our office is located.
I’m out. Have a great weekend.
STATUS: The day has just begun but I’m hoping to really finish my entire To Do list before I leave tonight.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? I WANT YOU by Marvin Gaye
This is such a classic from the New Yorker on the marketing plan. It begins with an introduction from the unpaid intern who has replaced the promotion department at XYZ books.
Need I go on from here? Oh but I must! My favorite line is this one (coffee alert!):
“Once we get back from Frankfurt, we’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.” If I’m not here—which I won’t be, since after the book fair I go on vacation for two weeks—just tell Jenni, my assistant, when she gets back from jury duty.”
Grin. All in good fun, certainly, but every day I’m happy for having our marketing director.
Enjoy and have a great weekend.
STATUS: My office is three blocks from Coors Field. Really, what did you expect?
What’s playing on the iPod right now? TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME by Harry Carry (Not really but I couldn’t resist.)
Here I am. Hard at work on a late Monday afternoon. Not that it did a lick of good. Curse those Phillies! Grin.
STATUS: I let the mail pile up all week so I’m finally going through all stuff that didn’t need immediate attention.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? CAUGHT UP IN THE RAPTURE by Anita Baker
I was on my laptop last night and found this picture that Simone Elkeles sent me. I just laughed and laughed. Only in New York!
She snapped this shot from the back of a cab where she was riding to the marketing meeting we were having with the Walker team for PERFECT CHEMISTRY.
I definitely think pink is his color. TGIF! I’m out.
STATUS: TGIF. I cleared some contracts off my desk by finishing them up. I always feel accomplished after that.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? MACK THE KNIFE by Bobby Darin
I got a hilarious email via our query inbox today, but I’m thinking the writer didn’t mean for it to be funny.
The writer asked if I thought revising a manuscript was worthwhile in this current fiction market. Was it worth the time and effort for the writer to pare down a 200,000 word manuscript into 100,000 word manuscript?
And the writer was not writing fantasy either (where at least a heart-stopping book length could reasonably be argued).
Now what exactly could an agent say to that? I’m really curious as to how this writer thinks we would reply (and we only reply to queries so we won’t be responding actually but for the sake of argument). What are we going to say? For you, no, definitely not worth the effort.
Sheesh. If you’re passionate and serious about writing, wouldn’t any revision be a worthwhile one? And I know you guys will come back with the idea that the writer was only trying to gauge market viability but that is a moving target of a question. The market is forever shifting. Not to mention, there wasn’t any description of the novel the writer wanted to revise.
I know, I know. It shouldn’t make me smile when the writer is only trying to figure this all out but I just couldn’t help it.
