A Few Words About Elevator Pitches

Don’t Throw Spitballs. Seriously. Nothing turns an agent or prospective employer off like a second shower. (Even if (s)he needs one.) Today (July 29, 2011) is national “Talk in an Elevator Day” so the elevator pitch seemed like a natural topic. For those not on the writing side of the equation (most of you come here for the seahorses, but I won’t hold that against you) an “elevator pitch” refers to the thirty-second hook-and-summary of a novel or other creative project that a writer presents to an editor, agent or other interested trapped third party. It should be short, sweet,

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Something Needs to be Aired

July 27 is official “Take Your Houseplant For a Walk Day” in the United States – proving once again that Europe, Asia and Oz haven’t quite cornered the market on crazy. We’ve still got plenty of the home-grown variety too. I won’t be observing myself, however, for the following reasons: 1. My cats have eaten all the indoor plants at my house. 2. The last time I walked the office plants, they couldn’t keep up a reasonable pace. 3. My palm tree has a crush on the pine outside the window, and it’s embarrassing to stand there while it stares.

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Are You Smarter Than a Squee-Horse?

Tuesday “Tank Day” means another post about my aquatic obsession hobby, and specifically what Tesla has begun referring to as my “Squee-horses.” He gets full credit for that pun. If this isn’t squee-worthy, I’m not sure what is: (That’s Sputnik, the female. The all-black male is Cygnus.) The seahorses are growing and happy, after a scary week in which Cyg almost stopped eating due to a parasite. Two freshwater dips later (Yes, fresh water – think the scene in The Abyss where they put the rat in the liquid oxygen – the first one almost gave me heart failure) little

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October 11, Water. October 12….Pure Hydrogen.

Saturday afternoon I was drinking a bottle of water (and eating a brownie…) when I noticed an expiration date on the bottle. Which started me thinking. What happens to water when it expires? Does it no longer taste like water? Do the chemical bonds weaken and burst, leaving a bottle filled with separated hydrogen and oxygen gas? (For the record, Tesla kind of hopes for this, largely due to the increased flammability quotient.) Do water-bottle-Oompa-loompas appear and carry away the offending beverage? (Or the consumer, for proper de-oxygenating at some Wonka-esque underground facility?) I was half-tempted to close the bottle

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Shiny Dinglehoppers: Samurai Swords

Many people know that Japanese samurai carried swords. Fewer realize that it was the nature and existence of these swords that set the samurai apart and enabled members of the lesser social strata (farmers, artisans, merchants, and the untouchables, in descending order of social status) to recognize them immediately on sight. Many men (and a few women) in Medieval Japan carried swords. Some carried only a tanto, or dagger, and more carried a single, one-edged sword of the type most modern readers might identify as “a Japanese sword.” (Mostly single-edged, long-bladed, forged from folded steel and deadly sharp.) After the

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We Represent the Lollipop Guild

And we’ve come to tell you this is Lollipop Day! July 20, 2011: National Lollipop Day – at least for those of us in the U.S. Ironically, in Oz your mileage may differ. I’m a big believer in lollipops. They’re not cupcakes, mind, but in a pinch they’ll do just fine. When I was little, Tootsie Pops and those unicorn pops you get at Disneyland were among my favorites.  See’s Lollipops have edged them out in the past few decades, however. (The butterscotch ones in particular.) Some (shamelessly stolen) facts about Lollipops: – The name “lollipop,” as used to describe

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Out of the Doghouse, Wearing the Pants of Shame

Little did I know that my previous post was prophetic, or that the weeds would grow so high so quickly. Wednesday was eaten by locusts. Thursday was not much better. Friday evening Tesla greeted me at the door with, “Angry fish disapproves of your posting frequency” and a request that I post something interesting ASAP. (For the record, he will not consider the first part of this post interesting.) In other words, I spent the weekend in the Pants of Shame. Fortunately, July is official “Doghouse Repairs Month” so I was able to get some much-needed renovations done while I

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Angry Fish Disapproves of Your Work Product.

I’m in the weeds today, trying to get through the piled-up work and onto some writing this evening. I had a great lunch with friends, and am finding it difficult to get back into a diligent frame of mind. Upon my return to the office, I also realized I had forgotten to set up today’s blog post, so on top of everything else it’s 3pm and I’m hideously far from completing Today’s Productivity Goals. In fact, I’m thinking I might as well write today off as lost. Here’s hoping tomorrow will result in higher success. For now I think I’ll

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Twitter – The New and Improved Magic 8 Ball

Many, if not most, in my generation will remember the “Magic 8 Ball.” Some probably even had one. I never did, though I played with them at friends’ houses (and truthfully, never got that into it so seeing one “abroad” was plenty). The concept was simple: ask the 8 Ball any question, turn it over, and your answer appeared in the window at the bottom of the ball, courtesy of a 20-sided “answer die,” a ball of liquid, and the mystical, all-seeing properties of the miraculous plastic sphere. Something like that, anyway. In my case, the ball never gave very

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See? Horses.

Slogging through weeds today, but I thought I’d throw out a couple of gratuitous introductory shots of the seahorses. In keeping with the blogging standard, I didn’t introduce them until they had names, but now that they do… The male is Cygnus (aka “Munchkin”) and the female is Sputnik: The photos don’t do justice to the cuteness, but they come pretty close. They arrived almost exactly six months from the date I set up the tank, and now that I’ve had them almost a month I can say with confidence that the result is worth all the effort. They’re small,

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