humour

The Spandex Menace

/ Diane Henders / 35 Comments

I just got back from another road trip, and I feel it’s my duty to warn everyone about the threat I discovered while travelling:  stretch pants.  They may feel comfy, but the truth is that those spandex tubes are plotting against our health and fitness.

Oh, they conceal their evil intentions well enough.  They call themselves ‘exercise wear’ and pretend to encourage us in a healthy lifestyle, but all the while they’re sabotaging our efforts.  In fact… (call the tabloids, ‘cause this is hot stuff) spandex actually nourishes fat cells.

How did I determine this, you ask?

Through rigorous scientific observation and testing, of course.  After all, have you ever known me to jump to a conclusion or engage in hyperbole?  Never in a million-zillion years!

Here’s how I figure it:

I’m normally a jeans girl.  Whether I’m digging in the garden or working on a car or banging together some ridiculously over-engineered carpentry project, jeans provide practicality, comfort, and protection.  But when I know I’m going to be sitting in the car for hours at a time, I change into stretch pants.  So last week I put on the spandex and hit the road.

Well.  Let me tell you.

After six days, I donned my jeans again only to discover that my butt runneth over.  My muffin-top has grown into a dinner roll.  And the only possible culprit is (you guessed it) stretch pants.

I mean, really, it couldn’t have been anything else.  I was eating my usual three meals a day plus one dessert.  Maybe the meals were approximately double my normal portion; but six days shouldn’t make that much difference, right?  I even skipped my four o’clock snack most days, so I’m sure I should’ve been losing weight.

And eating a giant ice cream cone every day couldn’t have been the cause.  Ice cream is a dairy product, which is healthful.  Health food couldn’t possibly make me gain weight.

Plus, all that time in the car was hard on my nerves, and everybody knows stress ratchets up your metabolism.  I should have been melting the pounds away.  It’s simple logic.

But I didn’t.  So it must have been the fault of the stretch pants.

Those bastards clung to my body for six straight days, whispering sweet nothings to my fat cells and feeding their egos until they swelled up like little pillows.  Then the fat cells invited all their friends over to my waistline and had themselves a party.  The friends invited more friends, and pretty soon the whole place was overflowing.

Now, like disapproving parents, my jeans have returned to the scene of the party to evict the interlopers.  So far they’ve only succeeded in squeezing them up and over my waistband, but I hope if I call the calorie police right away they’ll be able to banish the last of the stragglers.

But meanwhile, no more stretch pants.  Take it from me, those suckers are the enemy.

Remember, you heard it here first!

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New discussion over at the VBBC:  Stemp Then And Now.  How has Stemp changed the series, and how has it changed him?  Click here to have your say!

What’s That Rusty Colour?

/ Diane Henders / 59 Comments

A few years ago I confessed my lack of regard for fine distinctions in paint colour, and I should have known it would come back to bite me in the ass.

This week I’ve been doing some touchups around the house.  Nothing big – a couple of swipes of drywall compound, light sanding, and a feathering of paint to blend in the patch.

I’ve done it dozens of times over the years and usually it’s easy.  But sometimes the stars and planets misalign and the patron saint of painting goes on a bender and can’t be roused from the hangover.  Then everything that can go wrong, does; and several things that couldn’t possibly go wrong, do anyway.

The drywall repairs went smoothly (pun intended).  Then I trotted out to the garage to find the leftover house paints, which were all labelled, colour-matched, and ready to go (I thought).

I decided to start with the small patch on the bathroom ceiling.  There were two paint cans, both labelled ‘flat white ceiling paint’.  Fine.  I optimistically pried the lid off one, mixed it, and applied a test swatch.

It wasn’t white.  Nowhere near.  Nope, it was an odd rusty colour.

I repeated the process with the second can.

Same weird colour.

I was beginning to question my own sanity when I realized the rusty colour was spreading like some vile algae on the test swatch.

Yep, there were rust flakes in the paint.  I’d like to say ‘I’ll never understand why paint comes in cans that rust and wreck the paint ten seconds after you open them’, but the truth is I do understand.  It’s a diabolical scheme to force us to go out and buy a whole new batch of paint for every single project, no matter how minor.

So I succumbed to the inevitable and headed for the paint store.  Little did I know that my karmic debt was about to be called in, with interest and penalties:

  • I was in a hurry (first mistake) so I asked the paint person for a quart of flat white ceiling paint, took the can she handed me, paid, and left.
  • She screwed up. It was untinted neutral base, which is translucent.  Back to the store, stand in the returns lineup, then go back to the paint department.
  • Decide to get drywall primer instead, thinking that’s what I had used as a finish coat last time anyway. (Second mistake:  relying on my shitty memory.)
  • Discover the drywall primer is also translucent. Back to the paint store.
  • Find FLAT WHITE CEILING PAINT. They don’t have any quarts; only gallons.
  • Buy a gallon of paint (approximately 20 times what I need for my small patch) because it’s only $7 more than a quart, and I’d spend more than that in gas, time, and annoyance going somewhere else.
  • Take the paint home, open it, ascertain that it is in fact the right paint and the right colour.
  • Paint over my patch and feather the edges onto the existing painted ceiling, finally accomplishing the ten minutes of work that I set out to do about eight hours ago.
  • Go to bed, not exactly happy but at least relieved.
  • Wake up the next morning to discover the new paint has dried to a different shade of white than the original, so now I have to repaint the entire ceiling.
  • Slit my wrists, staining the ceiling a very unpleasant rusty colour indeed…

How was your week?

P.S. I’ll be away from the internet most of the day today, so I’ll catch up with comments as soon as I can in the evening or tomorrow.  ‘Talk’ to you then!

New discussion over at the VBBC:  Is John selfish or supportive?  Click here to have your say!

Riffing On The ‘Raff

/ Diane Henders / 66 Comments

Every now and then reality smacks me upside the head and shouts, “Hey, get a clue!”  This has been one of those weeks.

It started the other day when I was in my gym uniform of yoga pants and T-shirt with a fleece jacket over top.  I looked down and realized I was colour-coordinated from my shoes to my sunglasses:  Black sneakers with green and turquoise on them, black yoga pants, turquoise T-shirt, black jacket, and sunglasses with the same green as my sneakers.

It was a wholly unnatural state, and I felt like a poser because I’m normally neither yoga-panted nor colour-coordinated. (Granted, pairing black with black isn’t much of a fashion achievement, but it’s still far more presentable than I usually look.)

Other than a momentary twitch of surprise, I didn’t think much of it at the time.  But it came back to me later while I was talking with a real estate agent who had apparently mistaken me for a member of the DINK upper-crust.  (That’s an acronym for ‘Dual-Income, No Kids’; not the lowercase ‘dink’ as in ‘prick’.  But I suppose some might dispute the distinction.)

Anyhow, she was promoting a property that had stringent architectural controls and restrictive covenants.  She dropped the name of a big celebrity who lived down the road, and rhapsodized about how wonderful the restrictions were because they maintained the property values.  She didn’t actually go so far as to say “It keeps the riff-raff out”, but the subtext was clear.

While she nattered, I was thinking, “But what’s wrong with having a flagpole?  And if it’s a 20-acre property surrounded by trees, nobody will ever see the house anyway – so why should it matter what colour it is?  And what’s wrong with leaving a dirt bike parked beside the house?”

That’s when reality jumped up and bitch-slapped me.

Well, shit.  I’m the riff-raff that they want to keep out.

I’ve always thought that someday I’d grow up and develop taste and sophistication, but y’know what?  I’m over fifty.  If it was going to happen, it would have already.

The stark realization is staring me in the face:  I’m never going to wake up in the morning with a burning desire to wear expensive designer clothes.  I’m never going to want to live in a fancy gated community where the cream of society looks down on people who are gauche enough to park their recreational vehicles… wait for it… outside the garage where the neighbours might see them!  *gasp*

I’ll always be the woman who, when Hubby asks if we need to fuel up before driving out of town, replies, “Nope, I’ve got gas.  Oh, and my car’s fuelled up, too.”

So maybe it’s time to leave my matching gym ensemble in the drawer and embrace my inner riff-raff in my baggy faded work jeans with the contact cement on the knee and grease smear on the ass.  And maybe I should get some ratty T-shirts with obnoxious slogans like “Love me, love my dirt bike” or something equally shocking.

After all, if I’m gonna take my place among the riff-raff, I’d better do it right.  It’d suck if I wasn’t good enough for them.

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New discussion over at the VBBC:  How important is realism in fiction?  Click here to have your say!

How To Be A Slacker

/ Diane Henders / 64 Comments

*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

My internet research frequently goes off into the weeds and/or down rabbit holes, so I wasn’t particularly surprised the other day when I found myself reading a list of impromptu speech topics.

I used to enter public speaking competitions when I was a kid, and I enjoy presenting prepared talks to audiences large or small.  But I’ve always loathed impromptu contests, where they assign a random topic and you get one minute to prepare before giving your speech.  (Or, in my case, you get one minute to sit frozen in sheer panic before standing up to mumble humiliating gibberish.)

So it was with a shudder of sympathy that I read the list of topics designed to torture juvenile victims:  Deadly stuff like “Why I deserve an allowance” and “Interesting things you see in the sky”.  Then I came across this one:  “How to be a slacker”.

Wait, what?

Where was this topic when I was a kid?  Not necessarily for an impromptu speech (nothing could have helped me through that) but as a life-skills course.  The more I thought about it, the clearer my realization dawned:  I don’t know how to be a slacker!

I mean, I guess I know the basic recipe:  Sprinkle incompetence liberally over the task at hand, lock up your flying fucks and rat’s asses (you don’t want to give any of those), and marinate the whole thing in apathy before leaving it half-baked.

But it just doesn’t seem to work out for me.

I’ve never quite managed to chase every last flying fuck from the vicinity – there’s always a little one hovering around somewhere.  And I’ve been down to my last pox-riddled rat’s ass a few times, but I’ve never been completely out of rat’s asses to give.

I’ve got a decent supply of incompetence, but I prefer not to use it – it leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

And by definition apathy is hard to procure:  as soon as you attempt to generate it, you’re trying too hard.

There must be some trick to slackerdom.  Maybe I need to drink more.  I’ve heard that rat’s asses and flying fucks dissolve in alcohol, and booze also seems to bulk up incompetence nicely.  Even the elusive apathy precipitates well from an alcoholic solution.

When I told Hubby I was writing a post on how to be a slacker, he inquired, “Why didn’t you ask me?  I could have advised you.”

I replied that I didn’t think he was good enough at it… but on second thought, I’ve reconsidered.  After all, he’s the one who introduced me to this concept:  If you do it badly enough the first time, they won’t ask you again.

So far he’s successfully applied that technique to dusting, being my administrative assistant, shovelling snow, and bookkeeping.  I guess I should’ve been watching him and learning; but every time I try, those pesky flying fucks keep getting in my way.

Any advice?  What’s the best way to be a slacker?

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New topic in the VBBC discussions:  Do you trust Hellhound?  Click here to have your say!

Subversive Shorts

/ Diane Henders / 63 Comments

I was chatting with my nephew about university and its associated hi-jinks, and he mentioned Bermuda Shorts Day.  It’s been an end-of-term tradition at University of Calgary since the 1960s, but there was a kerfuffle this year because the administrators prohibited the campus pub from serving alcohol during the event.

My mind boggled.  It’s a university end-of-year party and they’re shutting down the pub?!?

I guess I’d understand it if I pretended to be a responsible adult for a moment.  A massive piss-up isn’t healthy for the participants or pleasant for those who have to clean up afterward, but still.  The twenty-something rebel inside my brain was scandalized.  It’s university!  End of classes!  It’s supposed to be a piss-up!

The funny part was the apparent implication of Bermuda shorts as culprits, as if none of these mature and responsible students would ever even consider partying hearty except while under the influence of evil garments.

I made some crack about ‘subversive shorts’, and my nephew laughed.  “That sounds like a title for one of your blog posts,” he said.

Well, dang, he’s right.

So what constitutes subversive shorts?  Judging by the news photos in which they’re wearing either long pants or Daisy-Dukes, these kids wouldn’t recognize real Bermuda shorts if they crawled up their legs and gave them a wedgie.  But that’s okay.  I wasn’t sure what was so special about Bermuda shorts, either, so I looked them up.   Turns out the only defining characteristic of Bermuda shorts is their length, about 1” above the knee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_shorts.  How anti-climactic.

But I speculated that since the military have worn them for so long without causing chaos, there must be something else about them that incites people to the kind of uncontrolled drinking and mayhem that the U of C apparently fears.

When I envision Bermuda shorts, my mental image isn’t of the restrained and dignified version described in the Wikipedia article.  I tend to think of them in bright madras plaid, which might be enough to incite violence among those opposed to plaid.  So maybe the psychotropic component of Bermuda shorts is loud patterns paired with pasty white legs:

Okay, now I need a drink. And those aren’t even Bermuda shorts.

Okay, now I need a drink. And those aren’t even Bermuda shorts.

But maybe this is all merely the deranged imagining of a heavily medicated mind.  I’m currently stoned on antihistamines, so my brain function isn’t to be trusted.

In fact, neither are my optical functions:  A few days ago I served myself a slice of pizza at the table before turning away to replace the pan in the oven.  Hubby’s laughter made me turn, only to realize that the plate I’d seen in my mind wasn’t actually there at all.  My hot slice of pizza was lying in the middle of a naked placemat.

And get this:  I had modelled those loud shorts only a couple of hours earlier.

Coincidence?  I think not.  The shorts must’ve subverted what was left of my brain.  An uncontrollable drinking binge can’t be far away.

Loud shorts:  Love ‘em or hate ‘em?

* * *

P.S. The first VBBC (Virtual Backyard Book Club) discussion starts today!  Check it out here!

Hedge-Sabres And Sky-Mice

/ Diane Henders / 41 Comments

We watched Star Wars Episode VII a few days ago.  I’m not a rabid Star Wars fan, yet I still found myself re-enacting the epic lightsabre battle in my front yard for the amusement (or possibly bemusement) of the neighbours.

It started with a shrub.

Our house is one of those crappy layouts with vehicle access from the front, resulting in an unattractive “garage-with-house-attached” look.  Most of our front yard is occupied by the concrete driveway, but we’ve created a perennial bed beside it.  The bed contains a bunch of flowering plants, plus a single cotoneaster shrub that I keep trimmed to a manageable size.

The cotoneaster is not, however, in a convenient location.  The driveway is on one side and there’s a stepping-stone path on the other, but the shrub is smack in the middle, just out of comfortable reach.

Enter me, stage left, wielding an electric hedge trimmer.

I had two choices:  step into the perennial bed to get close enough to use the hedge trimmer with both hands the way it was meant to be operated… or balance precariously on one leg while leaning over to decapitate the cotoneaster with one-handed swipes of my deadly hedge-sabre.

Yeah, you know which one I chose.  (For the record, about the worst time to get the giggles is when you’re balanced on one leg, flailing around with a power tool that’s capable of shearing off twigs the diameter of your finger.  Fortunately I managed to escape a well-deserved painful injury.)

We also have a small decorative pond and waterfall in front of the house.  We take the pump out for the winter, but the piping remains year-round.  Somehow the water in the pipes manages to get stagnant and stinky even though it’s been frozen solid for six months, so we usually restart the pump on a breezy day.  Even so, the area around the front of our house always reeks for a few hours.

The pond last spring. It looks benign, but don’t inhale for a day or so…

The pond last spring. It looks benign, but don’t inhale for a day or so…

So imagine me, surrounded by stink and locked in a duel to the death with the cotoneaster, then add this to your ridiculous mental image: a swarm of frenzied sky mice swooping and chirping around me.

What are sky mice, you ask?  Maybe you’ve heard pigeons described as ‘sky rats’; I call sparrows ‘sky mice’.  They’re just as annoying, useless, and prolific as pigeons, just not as big.  (I exclude song sparrows from this category – I’m talking about Chipping Sparrows, the little brown-capped guys that relentlessly repeat the same strident tuneless chirp from dawn to dusk.  It’s like a dentist’s drill to the eardrum.)

The Chipping Sparrows love our pond, our sheltering trees and shrubs, and the bird-friendly seed and berry plants in my garden.  I enjoy watching them through the window, but outside their incessant chirping drives me nuts.  I once christened a scare owl ‘Rodney’ because he got no respect from the sky mice, but they don’t respect me, either.

Maybe I oughta go after them with my hedge-sabre.  There’s a tiny chance that it might throw a scare into them, but more likely they’d just crack up with birdy giggles that sound just like their regular irritating chirp, only more derisive.  They’re laughing at me, I know it.

Then again, considering my performance a few days ago, I can hardly blame them…

P.S. The Virtual Backyard Book Club kicks off today!  Please click here or use the new Book Club button in the right-hand sidebar to join me on my virtual backyard patio for introductions! (I’m still ironing out the last of the wrinkles, so please bear with me…)

UPDATE:  Speaking of wrinkles… If you tried to access the Book Club site and got stymied with logins and passwords, that was my fault.  I messed up the settings, but they’re fixed now – please try again.  I’m very sorry for the inconvenience! 😦

Ping-Pong Brain

/ Diane Henders / 32 Comments

It’s a small feather-weight sphere containing nothing but air, and it ricochets wildly off hard surfaces (such as the inside of my skull) at approximately Mach 2.  Yep, I’ve got Ping-Pong Brain.

Between the release of Book 11, a Bookbub1 promo for Book 1, and my website redesign, the past few weeks have slowly drained my brain’s contents while accelerating its activity until there’s nothing left but a frantic sense of urgency and the attention span of a super-caffeinated gnat.

For instance, moments ago I clicked over to the internet to find out whether the Style Guide recommended capitalization on the word ‘Mach’, and I found a site dedicated to those pesky word usages that are so easy to screw up:  http://stage-door.org/stampact/traps.html.  The first few paragraphs are standard fare, but if you scroll down to the alphabetical list below there’s a fascinating (and immensely time-sucking) list.

I got sidetracked and wasted a good 15 minutes before I smacked my brain back in the direction I’d originally intended.

After a few more attempts at concentration, I realized that the probability of producing a coherent post for today was approximately equal to that of being picked up by a squadron of flying pigs for a nice aerial tour of the frozen flames of hell.

So I’m not even going to attempt it (neither the coherent post nor the scenic flight with AirPorcine). Instead, here are a few random things that have made me giggle lately:

The following article is a few months old by now, but I still find it funny (in a sad sort of way) that the people of Siberia preferred Barsik the cat to any of their other political options: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/barsik-cat-siberia-russia-barnaul-1.3373334.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a follow-up article, so I don’t know whether Barsik actually won the election.

Next there was a salvo in the ongoing good-natured culinary skirmish between Hubby and me.  I tend to get creative when I’m cooking, while he prefers to follow detailed recipes.  This creates a certain amount of friction when he’s trying to duplicate one of my dishes:

Hubby:  “How much (ingredient) do you put in?”

Me:  “Um… a bit…  Maybe, um, a teaspoon?  Or maybe a bit more.  This much.” *dumps ingredient into palm and displays the small heap*

Hubby (long-suffering):  “And how long should I cook it?”

Me:  “Until it’s done…?”

Hubby:  *grinds teeth*

So he sent me this:

Measuring spoons for a tad, dash, pinch, smidgen, and drop

Measuring spoons for a tad, dash, pinch, smidgen, and drop

These are the official conversions:

  • Tad = 1/4 teaspoon = 1.25ml
  • Dash = 1/8 teaspoon = 0.625ml
  • Pinch = 1/16 teaspoon = 0.3125ml
  • Smidgen = 1/32 teaspoon = 0.15625ml
  • Drop = 1/64 teaspoon = 0.078125ml

(He thinks this will help, but in fact he’s only given me more obscure units of measurement with which to annoy him.  Shhh, don’t tell.)

And finally, my diminished concentration resulted in yet another silly misread.  A couple of days ago, this article came up in my news feed:

nose hair conditioner

I must have a nostril-hair fixation, because I read “Your Nose Hair Is A Bad Conditioner”.  It speaks to my disordered state of mind that my mental critic said, “Well, yeah; duh.  Who’d use nostril-hair as a conditioner?”  I had actually scrolled down about three articles before I went, “Wait, what?”

And that’s my brain this week, ping-ponging from cats to cooking to conditioners.  How was your week?

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If you’re interested in the Book Club, I’ve posted a few thoughts about the format for discussion.  I’d really appreciate your input on 4 questions – please click here to reply.  Thanks! 

1 If you haven’t discovered Bookbub.com yet, you may or may not thank me for mentioning it.  It’s a bargain e-book notification service, and you can sign up to receive emails (daily or weekly) containing free and discounted e-books in the genres you select.  It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to my to-read list… but then again, I’m happy at the sight of 50 books piled up ready to read.  If a burgeoning TBR list stresses you out, you may want to skip Bookbub. 😉

A Sticky Situation

/ Diane Henders / 61 Comments

Adhesives hate me.  No matter how they’re ‘guaranteed to stick’, I’ll somehow create a situation in which they won’t.  Or they’ll stick exactly long enough to lull me into believing they’re set, and then fall apart.  Or worse, they’ll create an unbreakable bond at the wrong moment, in the wrong place, and with the most unpleasant consequences possible.

Take Crazy Glue, for example.  “Glues Anything!” they shout.  “Super Strong!  Bonds in Seconds!”

Maybe that’s true for everybody else, but not for me.  They don’t call it Crazy Glue because it’s crazy-strong; they call it that because it’s guaranteed to make me crazy in short order.

I carefully peruse the instructions.  Prepare all the surfaces as directed.  Apply the glue, hold the pieces together…

And hold.

And hold…

Five minutes later, I’m still holding the damn thing and it’s still not stuck.

Apply more glue.  Repeat the process.

Nope.

Then, after the third attempt, it finally sticks… long enough for me to breathe a sigh of relief and gently, carefully, place it on my workbench to cure.

Then it falls apart.

If I’m smart, that’s when I quit.  But I’m not good at admitting failure.

So I try one more time.  By now glue is oozing out of the joint and it sets up like stone, creating great gobs that are far more durable than the original material.  So there’s no way to clean it off without damaging the item (farther) beyond repair.

I don’t have any better luck with other products.

Shoe Goo is supposed to be ideal for repairing boots or shoes (unless you’re trying to repair hiking boots that have been waterproofed with mink oil).  Tuck Tape will stick to vapour barrier without fail (unless you’re outside in sub-zero temperatures trying to rig up a plastic shelter to keep the snow off your grapevines).

A few days ago I tackled a simple project:  mount a 2’x3’ poster on a painted wall.  I asked Hubby for some of the sticky poster-putty he’d used (successfully, I might add) only last week.

Putty in hand, I eyed the poster.  It wasn’t thick or heavy, but it had a glossy finish.  Already I sensed impending doom.  But I squished it onto the wall, hoping for the best.

By the time I got to the fourth corner, the first one was already peeling off.

Not off the glossy poster.  That would have made sense.  No, the putty was peeling off the painted wall, where it should have stuck.

I tried again.

Failed.

Fine.

Got out the masking tape and taped the poster to the door instead.  Done deal.

I’d walked a whole ten paces away when a derisive whisper reached my ears:  the sound of a poster slithering to the floor.

The masking tape had let go of the door.  It bonded permanently to the poster, though, so of course it wrecked the edges when I tried to peel it off.

But wait! I will wrest triumph from the jaws of defeat!

I’m gonna wash down my door and walls, bottle the result, and sell it to politicians in a fancy canister labelled “Spray-On Weasel Grease – Inconvenient Promises Will Never Stick To You!”

And then I’m gonna NAIL that goddamn poster to the wall.

I anticipate this:

nailed cartoon small

Note:  I’ll be doing website updates over the next several days, so expect some changes around here!  I hope it’ll all be fine, but I never quite know what’s going to happen until I press that final button. If the site looks odd or doesn’t seem to be working properly, please comment below or email me.  Thanks in advance for your patience and assistance!

What’s Your Hippie Name?

/ Diane Henders / 84 Comments

This week’s post comes to you with many thanks to @glbryant, whom you will likely recognize as one of my dedicated commenters on this blog.

Last week he emailed me to say he was re-reading Book 10 in preparation for the release of Book 11, and he’d realized all over again how absolutely irritating one of the characters was. (Fortunately I had intended Tyler Brock to be annoying.)

For those who haven’t read the series, Brock could make a saint blaspheme, which led @glbryant to speculate that even Moonbeam (an earth mother from Book 9 who renames everyone with hippie-type handles) wouldn’t be able to tolerate him.

This quote from his email says it all:  “…if Brock had spent any time at the commune, his name would’ve been Astral Penis-Pox Douche-Weasel.”

Which left me both inspired and rolling on the floor in tears of laughter.  Not only that, but it was remarkably prescient on his part, because both Moonbeam and Tyler Brock are in Book 11. (Unfortunately, Moonbeam doesn’t assign a hippie name to Brock.  Missed opportunities. *sigh*)

So, without further ado, I present the Earth Spirit’s Name Generators, one for the good guys and one for the bad guys.  Discover your hippie name below by looking up your initials in the tables, or feel free to make up one of your own.  Post your good-guy name below (and your bad-guy name if you dare).

Turns out my good-guy name is Starry Shining Poem (which is a little lame).  But I totally make up for it with my bad-guy name:  Deranged Zit-Nibbler.

(Note:  I swear I didn’t purposely assign words to the initials of people I know.  That would have required far more forethought and evil intent than I can muster.)

Good-Guy Hippie Name

 First Name  Middle Name   Last Name
 A – Astral  A – Misty  A – Dreamer
 B – Venus  B – Floating  B – Song
 C – Blessed  C – Flowing  C – Karma
 D – Starry  D – Singing  D – River
 E – Heavenly  E – Cloud  E – Stream
 F – Moonbeam  F – Shining  F – Dancer
 G – Cosmic  G – Desert  G – Whisper
 H – Aurora  H – Soaring  H – Poem
 I – Sage  I – Sky  I – Breeze
 J – Sunbeam  J – Earth  J – Heart
 K – Beloved  K – Soul  K – Journey
 L – Zen  L – Rainbow  L – Miracle
 M – Dharma  M – Star  M – Butterfly
 N – Infinite  N – Peace  N – Prophet
 O – Harmonious  O – Sparkling  O – Seeker
 P – Emerald  P – Crystal  P – Spirit
 Q – Summer  Q – Flower  Q – Nirvana
 R – Ambrosia  R – Blazing  R – Freedom
 S – Feather  S – Glowing  S – Universe
 T – Crimson  T – Daylight  T – Quest
 U – Sundance  U – Serene  U – Daydream
 V – Autumn  V – Secret  V – Hope
 W – Wind  W – Brilliant  W – Utopia
 X – Dusk  X – Sunray  X – Singer
 Y – Tranquil  Y – Truth  Y – Ocean
 Z – Azure  Z – Revelation  Z – Jewel

Bad-Guy Hippie Name
(Firstname with hyphenated Middlename-Lastname)

First Name Middle Name Last Name
 A – Sleazy  A – Douche  A – Groper
 B – Stoned  B – Pox  B – Gargler
 C – Creepy  C – Rat  C – Bucket
 D – Deranged  D – Toad  D – Humper
 E – Slimy  E – Spit  E – Fondler
 F – Easy  F – Zit  F – Waffle
 G – Wacko  G – Weasel  G – Blister
 H – Pantywaist  H – Poop  H – Nibbler
 I – Diseased  I – Dong  I – Gobbler
 J – Sucky  J – Scum  J – Juggler
 K – Nutjob  K – Booger  K – Poker
 L – Whiny  L – Pube  L – Chomper
 M – Brown-nosing  M – Donkey  M – Squeezer
 N – Snivelling  N – Wombat  N – Butt
 O – Obnoxious  O – Jizz  O – Guzzler
 P – Babbling  P – Vulture  P – Muffin
 Q – Wimpy  Q – Goblin  Q – Licker
 R – Lecherous  R – Monkey  R – Stroker
 S – Sick  S – Platypus  S – Whacker
 T – Twisted  T – Snot  T – Crumpet
 U – Skeezy  U – Puke  U – Banger
 V – Sketchy  V – Turd  V – Picker
 W – Wasted  W – Meat  W – Jiggler
 X – Bombastic  X – Pus  X – Sucker
 Y – Squirrelly  Y – Slime  Y – Dongle
 Z – Wanking  Z – Pecker  Z – Tickler

* * *

And in other news…

I’ll be updating my blog and website in the next few weeks, and since you’re the ones who have to look at it, I’d very much appreciate your input.  I’m just in the planning stages right now, but here are a few things I’m considering:

  • A larger font
  • More obvious menus to get to pages like Books and Guest Book
  • A link to Pinterest boards where we can all indulge our fantasies by selecting actors to play each of the characters
  • A techno-geek page on the inventions
  • A trivia page
  • A virtual book club where readers can discuss questions supplied by me and/or readers.

Any requests/suggestions/comments?

Also, since the virtual book club would require frequent contributions from readers in order to make it worthwhile for everyone, would you please vote in the poll to give me an idea of how much interest there is?  Thanks!

My Life’s A Thriller

/ Diane Henders / 60 Comments

The weeks leading up to a new release are always stressful for me – so much to do!  So little time!  And after spending the last five years immersed in writing, I’ve developed a few habits that spill over into my ‘real’ life (such as it is).  For example, the habit of building as much tension as possible into even the smallest events.

Sometimes I get a little too caught up in my work…

caught up in my work

And, in other thrilling news:

First:  Is that a turtle in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?  http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ont-man-fined-for-smuggling-nearly-40-live-turtles-in-his-pants-1.2792723

I suspect it wasn’t much of a thrill for the turtles, but, as my blogging buddy Beth Younker points out, if one of them had been a snapping turtle it might have been an exciting time for both smuggler and border guards alike.  Sadly, no snapping turtles were included, but the article does have a rather questionable reference to ‘red-eared sliders’.  Sounds like a euphemism to me…

And this:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/wynne-photo-op-goes-wrong-1.3470752. ‘Cause seriously, how often do you get to see a premier posing with a giant pink phallic object?  I doubt if it did much for her, but the media got a cheap thrill from it… and the rest of us laughed our asses off!

Any thrills in your life this week?

Pre-orders are available for Book 11: The Spies That Bind!  So far Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Apple are up, but I’m still waiting on Kobo (as usual).  As soon as they’re all available, I’ll send out an email to everyone on the New Book Notification list.  I’ll also send a second email on March 18 when the book is released. 

If you’d like to sign up for new release notifications, just click here.  (If you already signed up for a previous book, you’re still on the list unless you unsubscribed or changed your email address.)