Favorite commercials out there right now:

"Don't judge too quickly - we won't."

and the series of commercials from pharmacutical reps to undertakers thanking the american people for working themselves to death, skipping vacations.

Way to go, ad people. Way to go. They're funny, creative, and yet get the point across. When I see them, I actually feel like calling the mortgage company and then going on vacation.

Books: I overworked myself getting my application together for Clarion West. I discovered at the last minute that one of the pieces I planned on sending in wasn't actually finished. Gah. I guess I knew how it would end, and somehow thought it got translated onto paper. Wow, it so didn't. Anyway, so I finished writing it and sent it off without showing it to anybody. So if I don't get in - it's no secret why. (I promise I didn't use sentence construction like that last one, though.) Oh, and they required a 700-800 word autobiography. I wrote extensively about my life, did the handy-dandy-MSWord wordcount thingy and found I had.... 300 words. What do other people find to write about for so long? Ex husbands and trouble-children, I guess. I dunno.... I even started with my wacky childhood, mentioned high school, college, jobs... I quit when I hit 650. I figure it won't be astonishingly short, yet no one will probably count to see I missed by 50 words. Really - nobody cares that much about my real life.

So one of the big news stories out there right now is all about the painkillers that increase your risks of heart attacks (cox 2 inhibitors). They're usually described as drugs for arthritis. The press seems just shocked and appalled that they ever got on the market and that they aren't going to be pulled.

But here's the thing. Cox2 inhibitors aren't just used for old people who wake up a little stiff in the morning. I don't have arthritis, but I've been trying to treat pain for years. I've tried every drug now making the list as potentially dangerous. The one that worked best for me was Bextra. I took it every day for about a year. The others - just a few months usually.

So yeah - I'm one of the people "at risk." So I had a long conversation with my doctor about it. His attitude is pretty much, eh - you're not taking it anymore, don't worry about it. Nobody really knows what's going on with these drugs.

But here's the thing. If my pain relapses, I'm going to demand somebody give me Bextra. I'd fight tooth and nail for it, if it were taken off the market. It was the only thing that put a dent in incapacitating pain. The slightly increased risk of heart problems is definitely a risk I would be willing to take. Don't get between me and my Bextra.

Anyway, as usual - news reports are all about the fear. Don't take it at face value. Cox 2 inhibitors should definitely stay on the market.

Books: Working on finishing up a comic script I thought I'd already finished.

Still recovering from a really nasty bout with the flu.
Some of the dark nights were truly dismal. But now I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and I took a little time to update my website. There's a new series of pictures and I updated the FAQ. If I'm lucky, I'll even get the links updated today.

Books: No progress here. I tried a little, but quickly discovered that my fevered brain was doing more harm than good.

Charlie Rose is doing another segment on blogging. He's got four prominent bloggers sitting around the table having a conversation. The funny.... typical thing about the conversation is that they're coming off as unbelievably uncivilized. They keep talking over each other, interupting each other - not quite shouting each other down, but definitely all talking at the same time becoming incomprehensible. How very typical of bloggers. Myself included. I don't think I'd be able to keep my mouth shut in this conversation.

Some of them are way too optomistic about the future of blogging. Lots of them are a little older and have only come to the blogging experience skipping over newgroups, mailing lists and mmorpg. They're all thrilled about people leaving comments on their sites and growing online relationships. This isn't new. The scale is a little bigger than usenet ever was, but I don't think it's fundamentally different.

But these guys are very enthusiastic about it, and that's one reason they're the ones on TV and I'm not.

Also - none of them are talking about how the blogosphere was so sure about a Kerry win for the presidency. A case where the popular blogosphere was wrong. (Or, at least the blogosphere I'm familiar with.)

Laf. A website I used to work adjacent to just got a mention. I feel the reflected glory.

Books: I've decided I'm going to apply for Clarion West this year. I have to submit 20-30 pages of my "best fiction work." Oh dear. Wish me luck. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

So once again I feel the need to blog, even though nothing thrilling is going on. Blame it on Sarah - she has a way of putting people on hiatus when they stop blogging for a while, no matter what the reason.

I've been trying to keep my mind off a lull in the freelance work by building some wedding clothes for a friend of mine. (She is, actually, getting married. I'm not just randomly sewing things for people as a hint or anything.) She's getting married on Valentine's Day and needs a fancy white cape because she's getting married at the top of a ski hill in Colorado. Everyone getting married at 12,000 feet needs a fancy white cape. And I'm just the person to sew one for her. It's my little way of being involved since I can't attend.

Books: I did write three sentences today, and I hope they're not awful when I read them in the morning.

I'm pretty sure I have nothing interesting to say today.
Yep... not a thing. Sorry.

Well, I guess it's a little weird that I'm sititng here writing my blog while Charlie Rose is talking about bloggers.

Books: Nothing good going on there, either. I think maybe I need to do some more work on character sheets. Just filling out more detail on the individuals. Stuff that'll never end up in the book, but maybe I need it in my head to really roll ahead.

What is the world coming to? Now people are taking our toys hostage. I guess nothing is sacred.

If we're really lucky, maybe Buzz Lightyear will save him before it's too late.


Books: It's like I'm taking two steps forward and three steps back. I write stuff, come back to it the next day and discover it's awful.