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My first tour stop in 2008 will be the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, where I'll be a part of the fifth-annual CityLit Project. The event is free to both the public and exhibitors, which is not typical for most book-related events. It's pretty annoying to go to some events where either you have to give up a large percentage of your sales or you have to pay an upfront fee.
For Christmas, I received one of those Page-A-Day calendars to keep on your office desk. Normally, when I have one of those, I pull off about two months' worth at the same time because I completely forget about it. And I still do that for the newest one I own, but this one is a little different. This calendar is full of odd and wacky websites, which of course, is great research for my columns. I'll highlight some of my favorites here, and try to give a little bit of info when necessary.
As a huge fan of baseball, I enjoy reliving the past seasons, teams and players that I may have seen, read or heard at some point in time. Rob Neyer cleverly combines the best and worst of every Major League Baseball team in his "Big Book of Baseball Lineups".
It helps tremendously to have the chance to work with an actual editor with any writing project ... especially a full-length novel. Patrick Coyle provided a lot of great feedback with "Polos to Ties," which is probably one of the main reasons I've received decent feedback so far from literary agencies. I'm still looking for a reasonable deal, though, as finding the right agent isn't always the easiest thing to do.
In the near future, I plan to post the first five chapters of the book, but I'm also waiting a response from a second editor as well.
You'll notice that I haven't been writing much, for a few good reasons. At work, we've been pretty busy, and we just moved into a different office. In my spare time, I've been devoting most of my time sending out book queries and proposals and also working on my girlfriend's school's website.
But let's face it: The important thing happening right now is men's college basketball. Who will win their conference tournaments? Which teams will make it to the Big Dance? What team will win it all?
There are two important links you need at this stage:
Many of you know that I used to work at Kentucky Kingdom, an amusement park in Louisville, Ky. The park closed three years ago after Six Flags filed for bankrupcy. A group of Kingdom alumni are trying to generate interest in the park at SaveMyPark.com. Join us in saving the park!
Even though it might be after Dec. 25 by the time you read this, it is still not too late to make that last shopping run. This year, especially if you live in the Midwest, your excuse will work even better:
"I ordered your present online, and it hasn't arrived yet."
That simple sentence should give you at least an additional week to make purchases. And with the 236 inches of snow some areas have received, there's no telling when a present, even ordered after Lincoln's birthday, will appear.
So the news out recently is that PayPal is going to block "unsafe browsers." I'm not talking about people here, but actually web browsers. How will PayPal know if something is unsafe? Good question, but one way they will tell, according to this article, is by determining the version of the actual browser.
If only college basketball could take precedence over other things, like work, sleep, eating, etc., it would be possible to consume all of the necessary information to select a perfect bracket this year. Most of us, though, do need to continue our regular life, and due to unforeseen upsets, all of the information available still might not help us win our office pools.
But it doesn't hurt to try. Here are a couple of sites you should be familiar with, so you'll be ready when the brackets are finally announced:
Hopefully this gets to you before you open your inbox and see that it has been forwarded by 500 of your "closest" friends, including that guy from the gym who always tries to steal your towel.
People have reported receiving emails regarding bizarre sea creatures, apparently trudged up by the recent tsunami disaster. While the message does sound plausible, it is completely incorrect. Check out snopes.com for the full story.