What I Don't Like Could Fill This Screen To Capacity

whips out his trusty bullhorn and whistle. blows the dust bunnies out of the whistle and turns on the bullhorn. and blows whistle into bullhorn.

Okay, it's been a very, very, very long time since I went off on a multi-tangent tirade on this blog. In fact, it's been so long that I probably don't know where I should start looking in the seventy-five plus tags that I got floating on the main page. But, in the past few weeks, I've experienced a litany of annoyances that have aggravated me so much that I decided to unload what's been bugging me on this blog toot sweet.

"But G.B., why not unload on Facebook about it?"

Because what has been annoying the crap out of me covers all spectrums of cyberspace, including Facebook, so the safest place to do it is here on the blog. I figure no one reads this much anyways anymore, so I think I'm pretty much safe from any blow back.

In no particular order of importance beyond a proper numerical countdown, here's what's been bugging me lately.

1} Google: three weeks ago, when I caved in and changed my name on my YouTube account, I got automatically dumped into Google+, which I neither want, like or give a rat's ass about. Sadly, with one of two options not viable right now because pursuing it would run the risk of not having a blog anymore, I was left with the option of making sure that I am not bugged with Google+. That option was unchecking every notification/tag option under the sun. Forewarned, if you try to add to me to Google+, I will bad mouth you on Facebook and this blog.

2} Spam: Six months ago, I got rid of the ability of people to comment anonymously because I got sick of dealing with spam. Less than one week after being shoved into Google+, I got spammed by someone from Google+. On an unrelated note, I got a junk e-mail from a SEO company about my adult blog getting lots of page views. Seems that a post on my adult blog, specifically an excerpt from one of my WIP's is being touched by the gods of spam. F them.

3} Facebook. While I love my publisher's private group for the fact that I can keep up to date about what they're doing, the fact that it's quickly turning into a ginormous lovefest is bugging the crap out of me. Example: whenever I log onto FB, I have anywhere from 10 to 20+ notifies for the group (that translates to roughly 50-60+ per day). I click on the link, and almost immediately, people are posting things like 5 star reviews that they've gotten for their books. Not jealous, but at this point, I'm taking any and all 5 star reviews that I see, with a huge boulder of salt.

4} Back to Google. Depending on the browser and said age of browser, you get a different log in screen. I have IE 8 on my old computer and I use it mostly to print stats from this blog (Chrome doesn't print in color) and other assorted odds and ends. The log in screen for Google on IE 8 is different than the log-in screen for Chrome on my old computer and different for IE 10 on my new computer. Seriously irritating.

Oh and they updated the Google website so that the toolbar is gone and thus is now non-user friendly.

5}Writer's blogs. Nothing irritates me more than hooking up with a writer's blog that is more style than substance. To me, there are two kinds of writer's blogs: writers who already have such a heavy/long term presence in the blog world that their blogging is simply an extension to their regular writing, and writer's who establish a blog way after they've started publishing their stories. The later blogs become mostly cannon fodder for blog hops, boring author interviews and the latest pimping of their books.

Piece of advice to those writers who fall into the second category: DON'T DO IT! BUILDING A BLOG AUDIENCE TAKES AS MUCH IF NOT MORE TIME AS BUILDING AN AUDIENCE FOR YOUR WRITING!

6} Commercial radio. Redundancy and lack of originality is taking a toll on my ability to listen to commercial radio longer than fifteen seconds.

7} College radio. While I love college radio, I detest and despise fundraising drives. Right now, I equate college radio fundraising drives with PBS fundraising drives. One of my favorite stations is doing one, so now I'm forced to listen to other stations that play hip-hop. 'Nuff said.

8} My health. As most of you know, I suffer from this. Because of that, I have a tendency to not put up with a lot of crap from my body whenever it decides to rear its ugly head. Right now, it's rearing its ugly head in the form of pulled muscles in both of my thumbs. That's right, both thumbs. And no, it's not carpal tunnel, because I made a point many decades ago to switch off when using a mouse for my computer. At work, my left hand works the mouse, at home, the right hand works the mouse and both hands will work the little mousepad on the computer. Back to the thumbs. It's creating a little bit of havoc with my driving because obviously, you need a minimum of seven digits to turn a steering wheel, and when you're down a few, it because very difficult. And creating a bit of havoc with my writing at work, 'cause you know, you need at least a finger and a thumb to hold and write with a pen.

9} Blogs. If you're gonna decide to throw in the towel, please kind enough to let your readership know that you're saying "Adios!" as you ride off into the sunset. Nothing worse than going to a blog and seeing all the content erased from the blog.

10} Phone spam. About once a month, I get a phone call from ASI (Author's House) asking if I want to purchase any more books to sell. Usually I don't answer it and the reason why I can say with confidence about they're asking me is that they leave the question in a voice mail. With the latest voice message, I'm sorely tempted to call him back and make him question the reasoning behind him working there.

In the meantime, here's food for thought. ASI is owned by Penguin Books. Yes, that Penguin Books. So if you're thinking about submitting a manuscript to Penguin, remember, they own vanity press Author's House.

11} Facebook. I still have the usual complaints going with Facebook (what's popping up in my newsfeed and not with the actual website), so there really is nothing new to talk about there.

Okay, I think I'm all set for the next few months with my ranting. Unless a few more irritating things raise their collective head which forces me to unload on my blog yet again.

ReDeauxing Post #11 And Why I Still Have A Sense Of Humor

I was getting ready to start digging deep within the dark recesses of my brain today, when it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, you needed a short break from reading yet another post about why I write what I write. So I spent, oh I say, 3 1/2 seconds thinking about what to write before saying to myself, "Hey doofus! How 'bout doing a little bloviating an old post? You certainly haven't done that in a while!"

So I went to my old computer and found my leftover list of blog post numbers. If I remember correctly, I had people choose a number between 1 and 941, and I would write a new post on that number. The weird ending number has more to do with the fact that I reached 941 posts by the end of 2012.

Therefore, we will bloviate about post #11 and hopefully we'll come up with something halfway decent.

I believe that post #11 was created from a short e-mail that I got from a co-worker back in the 1990's. Compared to today's sick puppy dog humor, it's pretty inoffensive. Back then, as now, California was known for marching to the beat of Keith Moon than to Buddy Rich. So people always made jokes about the various lifestyles that were embraced: M&F, M&M, F&F, MM&F, FF& M, etc. etc. etc.

So while my sense of humor was deliberately set to flying under the radar back then, it is now set mostly to high jump/low ceiling. Although it may be of the high jump/low ceiling level of crudeness, the crudeness that we profess has been sorely lacking for the past few years.

Let's face it gang, you know as well as I do that my sense of humor is more suited towards your comment section of your blog/timeline than it is to my blog/timeline. Some 5 1/2 years later, I still have a tendency to censor myself and my humor. Having been burned by ex-friends from the real world and cyber space over the years has a tendency to make me gun shy.

But...I still have my moments of brilliance, as they say. My personal humor does pop up on this blog from time to time, as well as my adult blog, while what I find funny pops up all the time (check out my e-mail tag, newspaper tag, humor tag, and anything else that looks out of the ordinary).

So my friends, while my sense of humor has evolved from #11 to what you've read in the past year, I am still the same person with the same skewered outlook on life.

And in the end, isn't that all you can really hope four?

So You Feel Old, Eh?

From time to time, I hear people complain about feeling old. This I find highly amusing, since the comment is often uttered by people who are least fifteen years younger than I am (I'm forty-eight).

Whereas some of the younger generation can and should be scoffed at for uttering such a phrase, older folks like myself, who happened to utter that phrase, should not be scoffed at. Why? Well, to quote Fire Marshal Bill, "Let me show you something!"

I often utter that phrase because more often than not, I'm coming across staff members who were born starting with my freshman year of high school (1979) through my five year reunion (1988). So when I say, "I'm feeling really old", I mean it.

Having said that, here are a few interesting tidbits about me that the average reader of my blog probably has never experienced.

1} I grew up in the pre-public Internet age.
2} The most popular pre- IBM or pre-Apple computer for public consumption was the Tandy computer. Retail price: around $3K.
3} Computer language was either BASIC or COBOL.
4} I loaded programs via cassette or 5.25" floppies.
5} Yes, I said 5.25" floppies.
6} I am an original first-generation MTV viewer. MTV came out during my senior year of high school.
7} I am pre-cable TV. You know, rabbit ears for analog?
8} Vinyl was king, cassettes were queen, and eight tracks were going bye-bye.
9} All those shows you watch on either TV Land or ME-TV I watched first run.
10} I've watched about one half of M*A*S*H as first run.
11} I remember when Fox Television was created.
12} Pay phones were in vogue.
13} Cell phones did not exist.
14} Regular leaded gasoline, the environmental community's stupidest and most successful banning to date, was around when I was growing up.
15} You could smoke and buildings.
16} Jai Lai was a major thing here in Connecticut.
17} No social media, unless you count the tabloids that were prevalent, as well as TV Guide and the entertainment section of the newspaper.
18} Speaking of newspapers, I read them voraciously.
19} I had hair.
20} PBS was the only station that had quality children's programming.
21} All those cartoons that you see in reruns from the seventies and eighties? I watched them when they were FRESH AND NEW.

So my friends, these are the kind of things that I have experienced while growing up, and if I should happen to mention them to others, I get blank faces as a response.

So how 'bout you? Have you grown up with a few things that the younger generation has a problem in comprehending, understanding or relating to?

Two Turntables And I Ain't Scared To Use 'Em

One of the main reasons why I wanted to purge and clean out my den last June (and in the process get completely wasted and sick), was that I wanted to be able to listen to my monster record collection. Prior to this past June, my music and stereo were spread out on two floors/three locations in my house: the 45's (about 1200+) located in the dining room, the majority of my LP's (about 1700+) located in the cellar buried in back of a pallet of old booze and the remaining LP's (about 500+) and two turntables located in my soon-to-be man cave.

So after doing a ginormous non-medical three day purge of the contents of my soon-to-be man cave and some killer vacuuming, coupled with the three hour titanic non-food binge, I had my music set up to where I could properly access it. Not only was I finally able to figure out just exactly what the hell I had (for the first time in five years), but I inadvertently created a nice place where I could play bad air guitar, bad air bass and bad air drums.

Anywho, I also found a great place to put my two turntables. Originally they were just to left of me and my computer, but after the remodel, they wound up on top of the 45 record cabinet.

About the turntables. Ever since my one piece stereo (turntable/cassette/AM-FM tuner) vanished while I was moving back to Newington in 2004, I've been on a major search and destroy for either a new turntable plus components or a one piece stereo to play my vinyl on. I succeeded in the late 2000's by buying a combined turntable/radio tuner/cassette/CD player & burner stereo. So I spent some time not only to listening to my music but burning CD's as well. Eventually I gave up using the turntable as the cheap stylus (plastic) wore out, and just concentrated on the CD player portion.

This went on for a few more years, until I was able to buy one of those turntables that I could hook into my computer and burn CD's/listen to music via my computer. However, we did a slight swerve as we took a few of the funky colored wires that came with it and hooked up the turntable through the seldom used one piece stereo.

Presto! Instant semi-killer stereo system!

Or so I thought. In my haste to get a decent stereo system up and running, I neglected to think about one very key concern: speakers.

That's right boys and girls. I was so wrapped up in getting my turntable up and running that I completely forgot about getting separate speakers (and thus having twin stereo sound) in my man cave. So the end result is now a crappy stereo sound in my man cave and a unhappy camper.

But... there was a little light at the end of the long dark tunnel. Even though I had a crappy stereo sound that mostly drove me batty, I did have that one key accessory that all people need if they want to play air guitar or air drums without bothering the outside world.

Headphones!

So now all is right with my world, because now not only do I have a semi-killer stereo system but I have a pair of killer headphones that will help me properly fry out my brain cells, whether I listen to 45s, LPs, or CDs.

I tell you, not only is music a beautiful thing but it can push you to do things that you long thought were too aggravating or tedious to do.

Music? What's Dat?

When I was growing up in the 70's (born in '65 thus childhood was in the 70's), I had a major problem about listening to music. While I knew it was out there, I rarely listened to any of it. In fact, as a matter of record, the only time that I listened to any music for any length of time, was if I was traveling with my mother. As far as I could tell, my dad didn't listen to music while us kids were in the car, as he listen to mostly AM (I think until he passed away).

At home, I quickly grew to hate listening to music. As a kid, a good chunk of your down time (for me at leat) revolved around two distinct entities: reading and television. So whenever my dad had papers/quizzes/tests to grade, more often than not he would slap on an album of folk music or (real) country music, which in turn would require me to become bored out of my mind because I couldn't watch television in the living room.

If I wanted to watch television during those times, I had to watch it on a crappy B&W in the kitchen. But, I digress.

Having said that, I did learn to appreciate the music I did listen to, like the classical incidental music for WB Cartoons. And teeny bopper music (i.e. The Brady Bunch & Jimmy Osmond). And, as I got older, the pop music that is currently being murdered on radio, I listened o when it was FRESH AND NEW.

However, because I didn't know up from down when it came to music, I would do stupid things like request an Eddie Rabbit song on a rock station.

As I got older my exposure to other genres came along in fits and starts. For example, I didn't really get into Motorhead like normal people my age, which was exploring a particular sub-genre of music. Instead, I got interested in Motorhead by watching television.

Back in the early days of MTV ('83-'88), they would show the occasional comedy show from the U.K. Like a really warped show called "The Young Ones". Anyways, on one particular episode, they had the band Motorhead playing at a protest rally in their apartment. The song in question was The Ace of Spades, which completely blew me away.

Unfortunately, those exploratory moments were few and very far between, as I basically stumbled through my 20's and early 30's totally clueless about music beyond my parents era (notable exceptions were discovering the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys via non-music sources).

It wasn't until 1996 that I started discovering other types of music. The reason for that watershed moment had a lot to do with starting a brand new job with the state of CT prepping newspapers (see this tag) and in order to keep myself awake, I began listening to the radio.

However, it wasn't until a particular co-worker was added to my department a couple of years later that my musical education began in earnest. How so? He introduced me to college radio, and from that moment on, I started a musical exploration that some seventeen years later is still surprising me with all of the various exits, highways, byways and rural roads that I've grown to love.

Without college radio, I probably wouldn't gotten exposed to and learn to appreciate the following genres:

1} Folk
2} True country aka Americana
3} True alternative rock
4} True R&B
5} Soul
6} Heavy Metal in all of its glorious sub-genres
7} Hard Rock
8} Funk
9} Punk and its various sub-genres
10) Techno
11} Reggae
12} Bluegrass

And without exposure to those and many others, life would be pretty much a dull journey of ginormous proportions.

Don't you think?

Is This The End?

A fourth of a score and some change ago, I started this little blog that you happen to be perusing today. Called Cedar's Mountain, it basically contained my witty and sometime acerbic observations about life, the real world and the cyber world.

For 1,047 posts, I managed to keep not only my readers, but myself entertained as well. Through the various peaks and valleys, and yes, even through the cyclical nature of people's tastes, attitudes and their lives, I tried to be that anchor of calm in an ocean of chaos.

This past week, after posting two throwaways (1048 & 1049) on my bog, I've come to the bitter realization that maybe it's time to ride off into the sunset.

I came to this realization not gradually, but rather suddenly, in that while I was supposedly procrastinating about writing a post about turntables & music, I was really procrastinating about having to write something for the blog.

Sometimes, after we do something that we love for an extended period of time, we wake up one day with a case of "WTF am I doing this for?"

In other words, we are nauseated by what we love to do.

My friends, after five and a quarter years of blogging, I am suddenly overwhelmed with a bad case of nausea. I look at my blog and say to myself, "What am I doing here?"

Previously, the answer would be, "You're here to write a blog post, so get to it."

Now, the answer is, "Damned if I know."

Granted, it's a bad answer to give yourself. It's also a bad answer to give everyone else who depends on you to fulfill their weekly dose of you.

But, as I'm want to say from time to time, there is more to this than meets the eye.

Burnout coupled with disillusionment can often cause people to make snap decisions that they later regret (guilty as charged). So my friends, I need to think long and hard about what I want to do versus what I need to do with this blog.

And because I need to think long and hard about my blogging future, I'm going on hiatus for short spell. You'll still be able to peruse my blogs, as not only do I detest closing a blog for any kind of reason (FSG notwithstanding), but I still intend to be a presence in the cyber world.

I'll still read and comment on your blogs, because quite frankly it's the perfect mental break for the day and/or evening.

Piltdown Man, Lovecraft and Tequila Sunrises for all.

I remain yours in perpetuity,

George

Ouchies 2!

Okay, so I'm a blithering idiot, which isn't too hard to understand or deal with on a regular basis. I still don't have anything written for my topic of choice (turntables/music) as I'm in my den with the door shut, with a lazy family member blasting the t.v. that is ultimately preventing me from stringing enough words together to form an interesting post.

I would say that you can still drive on by, 'cause you know, I don't have anything of substance (or subsistence for that matter) to give to you.

But....being that I got you here, how 'bout another video? This time, a Rube Goldberg style video.

 I promise that tomorrow, come hell or high water, you will have a post of substance to read that will feature a seldom talked about slice of myself: my taste in music.

Processing Random Thoughts

Hiyas!

Got a few random thoughts that I would like to process today and what better way to waste several non-precious minutes of my life and yours by inflicting said random thoughts on the millions of brain cells that make up the gray matter that's situated in that bony case called a cranium that most of us, save the 700 odd people that make up the three branches of the federal guv't, possess.

Up last, we have the Facebook thought.

As most of you know, I can be found either privately or publicly on Facebook. In regards to the private, you can either friend me or follow me. As of late, I much prefer that people follow me. I don't really mind friend requests, but unless I personally know you (like current co-worker or former co-worker), chances are that you're better off following me. Why? For starters, I dig controlling my info and to a certain extent, you really can't do six degrees of G.B. Miller when you're a follower, as opposed to a friend. And for finishers, you can comment on what I post for status updates 'cause everything I post is for public consumption, and since everything is for public consumption, why gum everything up by becoming a friend?

Up second to last, we have the personal health thought.

As most of you know, I suffer from CMT (no, not Country Music Television, although I think a good chunk of "country" music fans do indeed suffer from that) and from time to time, it rears its ugly head and proceeds to make my life miserable. The past few weeks, it has indeed made my life miserable, mostly in a bum shoulder (again, although this is a preexisting condition) and the increasingly inability of me to either grab things on the fly, grab things in general and simply hold onto the things I grab.

By all means I am not looking for sympathy or a shoulder to cry on, but simply venting my frustration over my increasing inability to make my body do what my brain says it should do on the first try. I will say that most people do not offer their assistance when they see me having problems, which believe it or not, is refreshing. Strange I know, but as I've gotten older, I've grown to really hate the fact that certain people in my immediate circle want to treat me as an invalid.

Basically, to those people who probably don't read this blog, I would like to say this: If I need help, I will ask for it. Otherwise, don't treat me as a cripple.

Up third to last, we have the author thought.

Over the weekend, I decided to take advantage of a new thing that Smashwords had added to one's author profile: the author interview. The interview itself is a mixture of pre-asked questions and questions that I created myself, so let me know what you think of it and if you have any suggestions on what I can add to it, by all means let me know.

Up fourth to last, we have the book thought.

In regards to my free e-book promo for "Line 21" that was done the weekend of the August 25th & 26th, I gave away 170 copies. While that is considered to be in some circles a rousing success (a writer friend gave away 850 of her four books), I'm hoping in the coming weeks to capitalize on that by making my other writings known and/or available. Speaking of other writings, apparently my short story trilogy "Broken Promises" has 19 likes on Facebook, so that means I must be doing something right, eh?

Up fifth to last, we have the work thought.

Work is about the same. I put my eight hours in, I occasionally apply for other jobs, occasionally get an interview before continuing on my merry way. There are the occasional change, like co-workers leaving, but overall it's been pretty much the same old same old. However, I am getting a raise for the first time in three years, but that is already partially disappearing due to the concessions package that people were bullied into voting for in 2011. My raise is 3% but .5% is disappearing this fiscal year so that I can have health insurance when I retire (goes up to 2% in FY '14/'15 and 3% for FY '15/16 thru FY '22/'23) and .72% is permanently vanishing until I retire so that I can retire under the normal rules. And on a sadder note, a valued co-worker is leaving (I wrote about it here) Thursday, and she will be greatly missed.

Up six to last, we have the writing update thought.

I've been making very slow and incremental progress on my latest project, with the main reason being is that finding both the time and the peace & quiet that I need in order to write is becoming increasingly difficult. While I've been able to find the time, I can't find the peace & quiet, which is due to certain pain in the ass family member who shall remain nameless. So I've been forced to actually change a bit of my writing routine, which is listen to music while writing.

However, because of the genre in question I'm working on (crime), I can only listen to certain types of music. Through quick trial and error, ragtime, classic country and 60's folk are not allowed. Neither is soul, true r&b, flamenco, funk, classic pop and regular rock allowed as well.

Which narrows my choice down to the following: heavy metal/hard rock, true alternative rock and punk.

At the moment, on my turntable, which believe it or not is putting me into the proper frame of mind for writing, is the album which features this kick ass song.

I thank you.

The Hardest Thing To Write

What is the hardest thing to write?

Novel? Well, no, not really. If you got a good idea that is slapping you upside the head, then you got it made.

Novella? No. Been there, and still doing that as it's my weapon of choice.

Short story? No. Been there, did that.

Flash fiction? See previous answer.

Intelligent Facebook update? Well............no.

Jacket blurb, query letter, synopsis? Well....sometimes. But this ain't about that.

A comment to a story/blog post/status update that thoughtfully engages people? Sometimes, but this isn't about that either.

I'm quickly finding that the hardest thing to write isn't any of the above nor any kind of business correspondence, but a reference letter.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. A reference letter.

I very rarely lend myself out to be a reference of any kind, simply because one of the few things that I treasure the most is my word. I've developed my current reputation in part because when I say I'm going to do something, it gets done. Reliability as one would say. So when I offer someone the option of using me as a reference, that usually means that they impressed the hell out of me over a long period of time.

Such is the case now.

As most of you know, I do payroll for a social services agency. Because our agency is so large, we often have people who are our eyes, ears, and hands out in the field offices. They are our go-to people for when we need payroll issues resolved out there and when we need to have timesheets entered (yes, about 25% of my job is auditing). I do both a facility (aka prison) and a field office, and whereas I do an outstanding job with my facility, there is a need to have a competent person to be my eyes/ears/hands out in the field office.

I have such a person in my field office, and when I found out earlier in the month that she is leaving our agency after Labor day, I was very surprised and shocked to say the least. I've gotten to know, appreciate and become a close co-worker to this person over the past 1 1/2 years, and to lose such a person would indeed make things a little less interesting at work.

Because of the exceptional quality of her work and what she has done for me in those 1 1/2 years, I made the offer to her of using me as a reference, then up the ante that I would be more than happy to write a letter of reference for her.

She graciously accepted my offer, so now I have to actually produce a reference letter. And let me tell you, I am doing a boatload of procrastination on this. I really want to do this letter as perfect as I can possibly get it. I do have a few templates to work from as I've had a few co-workers write some for me, but still, the pressure is all on me not to screw this up.

How 'bout you? Do you agree with my assessment that a reference letter is the hardest thing to write? Or do have something else that is harder?

I Can Too Sing!

The other night I was jammin' to some music on YouTube: Tom Lehrer, Carl Carlton, Reunion, while I was trying to think of something to write about. I wasn't getting quite the inspiration, so I started singing along to this particular song:

Now usually when I'm listening to YouTube, I use headphones and I'm playing air bass/air guitar/air drums, all lefthanded (go figure). I also sing at the same time, and apparently I torture my family members in the process, 'cause no sooner than I starting singing the lyrics, my wife yelled down to ask if I was swearing to someone on the telephone.

Hardy-har-har-har.

I've often gotten very bad comments, some tongue in cheek and some not, about my singing. While I haven't been blessed with a good singing voice, I have been blessed with impossibly anal retentive rhythm and backbeat, courtesy of roughly spending ten years playing a clarinet.

I've also developed, in addition to that anal retentive rhythm and backbeat, impeccable timing of the music persuasion. But I digress.

About my singing.

I basically can't sing any rock song that came out after grunge rock era of the early 90's to save my life. But...apparently for someone who likes rock music (sort of), I can sing most country and folk, as well as country rock. And for some very bizarre reason, on a good day I can do a halfway decent impersonation of this singer's falsetto:

Don't ask me why, I just can.

Anywho, like I was saying, I can sing country. And I'm not talking about the urbane country pop that's been polluting radio since Garth Brooks was a money grubbing somebody. I'm talking about the urban country of this singer:

I can also sing classic folk, like this song for example (one of my faves):

By the way, I have a original copy of what is pictured in the video.

Now I'm sure you're wonderin' why I'm talking about something as personal as singing to songs (fess up, you do this all the time in the privacy of your own home/car/office/outdoors, etc. etc. etc.). I have two reasons for doing this: 1} I enjoy poking fun at myself and what better topic there is for me to bloviate about on a Friday than my singing (serious and parody). 2} Tripping down memory lane a little bit as I found out that earlier this week was the nine year anniversary of my dad passing away from pulmonary fibrosis.

But let us not dwell on the sadness of the moment and instead, dwell on the love of early country and folk music that he managed to pass on to one of his children. We all need a positive memory of a loved one to use as an anchor in the stormy seas from time to time, and what better anchor to have than realizing that your loved one passed onto you the kind of music you swore you would never listen to as an adult.

I leave you with my absolute favorite Buddy Holly song (got a few originals of him as well) that I enjoy singing to as well.

Medical Update

Howdy folks!

Not much in the way of a post today and quite possibly not much might pop up this week for blog posts.

As I've previously mentioned in the comments, in a blog post and on Facebook (for those of you who are part of my circle, and if you aren't, why aren't you?), my lovely wife Joanne shattered her ankle a couple of weeks ago while camping.

Today, at 12:30p (give or take), she'll be undergoing outpatient surgery (yes, I said outpatient) where she'll be having pins and plate inserted into her ankle. Being the loving dutiful husband that I am, I'll be taking today off from work to help transport her to and fro (how the hell am I gonna get her up the stairs and into the house??) from the surgical center and basically waiting on her hand and foot.

Which means that I'll be stressed out to the max trying to keep the household from imploding, which also means that I'll have precious little down time to do anything constructive with the blog this week.

So if on Wednesday and quite possibly Friday, you see a post that can only be described as "phoning it in", you can refer to today's post for the explanation as to why I'm "phoning it in".

So feel free to send a few positive thoughts towards Connecticut during your day as they'll be greatly appreciated.

5 Cubed Minus 5 Squared Times 10 Equals 1,000!

The old cliche that every journey and every goal that you undertake always starts by putting one foot in front of the other, most definitely applies to this blog.

Except that this particular journey was started not by me putting one foot in front of the other, but by getting the traditional bum's rush out the front door.

My abnormal journey (yes abnormal) began when I fell victim to the current malady that has infected this country for the past five years back in 2003. In 2002, our state was hemorrhaging red ink, which like today, was due to one party being unable to practice fiscal restraint. So in 2003, I was made redundant.

In July 2003, I was made non-redundant and eventually made it back to the agency that made me redundant in the first place. In January 2004, I made the fateful decision, although I didn't know it at the time, that eventually got me to where I am today.

I accepted a transfer to another agency.

Fast forward to 2007.

I was roughly one year into my writing journey (although at the time I was a pretty sucky writer), when by happenstance I decided to comment on a news story, which in turn led me to the world of the chat rooms, where I proceeded to spend 3 1/2 turbulent years losing what little sanity I had to begin with and developing full blown paranoia. But this post is not about that.

In 2008, a cyber friend to whom I had reconciled with, suggested that I should move my ramblings over to the blog world. That way, I could still be funny, not worry about censorship issues and most importantly, I could practice my writing.

About my writing: I never did any kind of creative writing until 2006 (age 41). Until then, most of my creativity was verbal and the most writing I ever did were monthly reports and business correspondence.

So on May 24, 2008, I introduced the cyber world to my fractured little mind that is Cedar's Mountain.

About the blog name: It's partial tribute to the mountain I live next to and partial tribute to one of the most divisive chat room personas that was ever created in the latter part of the 2000's.

I will now spare everyone the overly redundant minutia about this blog and my writing that has been covered in more ways than the OJ Simpson car chase, and instead concentrate on writing a free-form monologue that pays tribute to you the reader.

YOU THE READER

When I had first starting writing this blog back in 2008, the only person I wrote it for, was me. I figured that if I had any other people show up to read my ramblings, then it was considered icing on the cake. But after doing a few months of writing for myself, I kind of got tired of writing for myself. So off I went to do the blog surfing that is part and parcel of bringing people to my neck of the woods.

Sure enough, that blog surfing paid off as for the next five years, you have honored my blog by gracing it with your presence, because to be brutally honest, my blog would be nothing without you being here to read my ramblings, to comment on my ramblings, to commiserate, to cajole, and every once in a blue moon, call me on a few of my more provocative posts (Gracias Dave Barber and Lynn).

Only you the reader, has inspired me to be my very best, which at times has been detrimental to my well being, since my high standards have exacted a toll that I'm still paying for today. Nevertheless, no matter what my high standards may have done to me negatively over the years, they are minuscule to what they have done for me on the positive side of the chart.

For if anything, they have made me keep this blog going on consistent basis for almost 5 solid years. Why? Because the one thing I have going for me, and everyone has this trait in them, is my word. I told myself years ago, and I've mentioned on this blog periodically as well, that I don't dare disappoint my readers. My readers have my word that above all they come first in this blog, for without you, then all I'm doing is sucking up space and not making a world of difference to anyone.

You have kept me going through all of my highs and all of my lows. You are what helps me keep going whenever I get down in the dumps, suffer burnout, suffer through doubt and even bouts of self-pity.

In essence, you are my friends. Whether you choose to lurk and read or read and actively comment, I treasure each and everyone of you that stops by to visit Cedar's Mountain.

So to all of my new friends, my old friends and friends that have passed me by, let me reintroduce myself to you.

My name is G.B. Miller and I welcome you to my little slice of heaven located smack dab in the middle of suburbia that is called Cedar's Mountain.

And believe it or not, I really do go out in public like my picture, 'cause you know that the world indeed does revolve around me.

Except when Joanne says otherwise.

Number 456, Take Duece

Today's repeat will feature a new twist on my b'day, as post #456 was published on my b'day in 2010. Whereas that post from almost three years ago was somewhat bittersweet, today's will not. If you get a weird vibe from reading this, chances are that weird vibe is probably correct.

My family rarely celebrates my b'day on the actual day. Why? Because my b'day is on the 27th of May, and in the larger scheme of things, that is the kick-off to the summer camping season (Memorial Day weekend). If I want to celebrate my b'day with my family on the actual day, I usually have to drive up to Litchfield (although this season, I'll have to drive down to Bozrah), waste gas for two+ hours and spend a (usually) dull afternoon with my wife and mother, 'cause you know, the kids really can't be bothered much beyond saying "Happy B'day, Dad!"

Last year though, it really wasn't that dull. In fact there was a lot of excitement, which was due to an encounter of the moronic kind with an officer from the state constabulary. For those you who have not had the displeasure of listening to me grump about this, either in person or on Facebook, there is a seriously major legal battle going on between two ownership groups.

Anyways, long story short, the state constabulary was called in and I came within minutes of having a very unpleasant experience with that particular egotistical wannabe military man. Fortunately, my lovely wife grabbed me by the arm and shooed me out of the way.

So the usual thing that happens (which has been going on for about 15+ years), because more often than not I do not go to the campsite, is that we go out later in the week to celebrate my b'day.

Yay.

So while a b'day is something to be savored, remembered and celebrated, to me, my b'day is just another day signifying that I'm another year older (48) and the start of wondering what the hell am I gonna do to improve my life in the next 365 days.

Three Weeks To The Day And I'm So Ready For This

On February 28, 2012, I announced that I finally accomplished this seriously major goal that I had set for myself.

On February 5, 2013, I will be having my very first book signing for Line 21, as I will be appearing as a vendor at my job. Even though I'll have a semi-captive audience, as the building isn't really open to the general public beyond the ground floor, this will be the first time that I'll be presenting myself to my co-workers as a writer, and not as a flaky co-worker. More importantly though, this vending gig will allow me to properly pimp my book without getting into trouble or violating the rules.

I'm pretty sure I got almost everything that I need for the book signing, but let me double check my list.

1} New business cards?

2} Business cards of the book cover?

3} Bookmarks?

4} Displays pimping the e-book? Absolutely!

5} Extension cords for the mini-DVD player? Yup!

6} DVD to show the potential book buyers what the book is all about?

7} But most importantly, do I have this bad boy in print to sell?

Damn straight that I do.

I have everything that I need in order to (hopefully) pull off this five hour book signing. I've also did as much word of mouth that I could get away with doing to let people know that I got this book signing happening.

I also like to point out that I did the one thing that probably all writers do when they publish their very first book and get their hands on a print copy: I drooled and spent a nearly a whole minute completely speechless as I opened the big ass 25lb box and took out a pristine copy to hold, study, read and basically savor.

Whether I wind up selling out of my initial purchase of 25 books or if I sell just one is beside the point (almost). The fact that I'm putting myself out in public to pimp something of my own that I really and truly believe in is seriously major step in the right direction for me.

I would like to close out this post by once again thanking everyone who have stuck by me through thick and thin, not only on this blog, but behind the scenes in the real world. I really couldn't have done this without your support or your encouragement. Without it, I don't think I would be doing what I'm doing now.

And I promise not only to post a link at my book blog where you can purchase an autographed copy after the book signing, but I promise to give you an update on Wednesday to let you know how everything went.

Tweaked

Hey-lo.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I finally broke down and after almost 5 years of allowing people to post either anonymously or connecting a website to a name, changed the way people can leave comments.

The reason being is that I was getting very tired of dealing with spam comments. Even though Blogger is doing a fantastic job of channeling 98% of my spam comments directly into the spam folder, it was the remaining two percent that I was getting tired of dealing with. Plus, do you know how disconcerting it is to check the spam folder every three days and see at least 160+ spam comments in it?

So for the foreseeable future, the only way that you can leave comments is by one of the following methods:

1} Using your Blogger/Google+/Google account (I'm pretty sure about the Google+ account, since it's part of the same Google family).

2} Open ID.

I'll still be moderating because I just can't see myself not doing that, simply because I don't allow anonymous comments.

I sincerely apologize in advance to all my friends who come to visit and want to leave a comment, but can't due to not having either a Google account or any other blogging type account.

When things get back to some degree of normalcy here and I can see with a reasonable degree of accuracy what kind of traffic I'm actually getting, I'll give some serious consideration to allowing anonymous comments again.

G.B.

If A Blog Repeats Itself, Is It Really A Bad Thing?

Last Sunday, I had a few hours to kill while waiting for the Patriots to ultimately lose to the Ravens in the AFC Championship game, so I decided what better way to kill those two hours than to go through the previous years on this blog to find posts about my current novel and my current project and add a few new labels to make them more readily accessible.

So, starting with mid 2009, specifically, this post, I proceeded to go through each and every post on my blog to see which posts fitted the criteria I had previously stated. Along the way, I discovered one troubling fact: my posts for 2010 thru mid 2011 were some of the salient, zany, offbeat and downright peculiar pieces of delectable prose that it was my pleasure to have wrote.

Somehow and somewhere during the past couple of years, I have seem to taken the road way less traveled and apparently found myself on a tiny ledge with no easy way to get down. I'm not saying its a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, but when your prose goes from something like this particular post, to what you've been writing for the past few months, it does have a tendency to make self-doubt start creeping into your blog writing.

Nevertheless, I am determined to make something good come out of that troubling fact. The first thing I plan on doing, which I actually started doing years ago, but stopped due to a short attention span, is to print out all of my posts and organize them either alphabetically or chronologically. The second thing I plan on doing, which I've already started with two new tags called "The Info Dump" and "My Blog", is to explore the vast archive of my blog and try to incorporate some of those old but wickedly solid posts of yesteryear into some new and updated versions.

I'm not quite sure what kind of reoccurring title I should come up with. I've already established a decent one for music called "Vanishing from the Megahertz", so I would like to come up with one that I can use as a reoccurring title for explore the archive that is Cedar's Mountain.

However, I would like to give everyone a fair warning about this little adventure. While during the years of 2009-2011 I was writing with a smoothness that I haven't experienced in quite some time, I was also keeping a tight rein on what I really wanted to say about certain things (like the above mentioned post). I think that this time around, I probably will go from a PG-13 point of view to about an sub R-rated point of view when I write new versions of the old scene.

In any event, this new facet won't debut for about a month or so since I need to get all of my ducks facing in the right direction. Which means not only do I need to print and organize my posts (yay), but I need to finish the project that I'd started this past Sunday. Plus, I need to wiggle this in with the upcoming querying process for my novella A Shadow Warrior's Redemption.

In the meantime, a dual question for you the reader:

1} Would this be something that you might find interesting to read and maybe explore?

2} Do you have a suggestion on what I should call this new reoccurring post series?

How Do You Feel?

First up, let us celebrate the fact that today is post number 950. Can you believe it? I've written 950 posts for this nifty little blog. This calls for a very brief video blast from Connecticut's Hockey past.

Now, on with our post.

If you happen to be reading this not in your reader or in your e-mail, but live on the blog itself (that means you've clicked through) and you noticed that my follower count has grown, there is a very good reason for that.

Now it just so happens that the title of today's post is pulled from a new thingy that Facebook had introduced for it's users. Instead of seeing a blank box, users now see cutesy phrases like the one that you see up above.

So to answer the question, "How do I feel?" I feel purty good, and I'll tell you why I feel purty good.

About a week ago, I was invited to a general purpose event from a new writer friend. Now normally, I usually decline these events because I'm never around when they actually go off. But this time, I decided to participate.

Best thing that I ever did, because by the end of the week, I gained almost 20 new writer friends and after posting links to my blogs, gained 7 new followers to this blog. I can safely say that it was without a doubt, the best thing that I've ever done. Beyond gaining new writer friends in genres that I'm starting to explore, the networking experience has been invaluable.

For example, I managed to score an ARC from an indie writer and I'm in the process of reading & reviewing it for her.

But more importantly than that, all of this friending and networking got me motivated to write a query letter for my novella A Shadow Warrior's Redemption. For those of you who are on Facebook, you can check out the query letter in its entirety at my facebook page, which is called simply enough "Query Letter".

The absolutely funniest thing about writing this query letter is that, unlike the one I wrote for Line 21 that took me about two and a half weeks, this one I hammered the first draft out in 10 minutes. I wrote the brief synopsis in a post last week and used that in the letter. This past Saturday (1/19), I sat down to write a hook, a summation and a new synopsis for it. The 2nd draft took me about 15 minutes. I would now like to share the meat of that 2nd draft with you and I would like your opinion on it. I will tell you I got some nifty comments on it so far on Facebook, including a request from a fellow writer to read the story because her curiosity was piqued after reading it.

The meat of the letter (hook, synopsis and summation) goes like this:

The hotter the humiliation, the more sickening the payback.

Ashanti, a demonic spirit that escaped from Purgatory centuries ago, is blackmailed by Kevin to turn Keisha, the girl of his obsession, into the hottest slut of any male or female's desire, so that he can ride to her rescue and make her beholden to him. A distress call sent out by Ashanti's eldest child prompts two archangels, Michael and Raphael, to appear in the flesh and help Ashanti not only obliterate Kevin but to become Keisha's personal savior.

A Shadow Warrior's Redemption tells the story of how a supreme demon bitch from the bowels of Hell, when pressed, can briefly become a genuinely compassionate being.

All that I have left to do before submitting, is to clean/tidy the synopsis and do one last round of editing.

So even though I'm still of the opinion that Facebook is not the be all to end all when it comes to social media, it does help you as writer to get your book, your voice, and more importantly, yourself, for all the world to see and experience.

How about you? Has Facebook been able to help you in the things that you do?

Extreme Waffling!

I have two folders sitting on top of my printer next to my computer. One is labeled "Blog Posts" and the other is labeled "Blog Posts". While this does sound confusing, the reality is anything but. The first folder called "Blog Posts" is the one that contains blog posts which are 99% complete and thus ready for posting.

And before you ask how 99% complete equals ready for posting, the answer is that the remaining 1% involves the simple annoyance of inserting links into the post (which is also 99% of the time).

The 2nd folder labeled "Blog Posts", which the first folder rests on, contains posts that fall into three unique categories of waffling:

1} Sleep inducing.

2} No longer relevant.

3} Misconstrued.

These three particular categories were create by me for the express purpose of hoarding pre-written posts until I feel comfortable enough in unleashing them on you the reader.

Confused? Welcome to my world. But we'll try to make your visit to my world (not necessarily this blog, which are two completely different animals) as painless as possible.

Sleep Inducing.

In most circles, I'm known as a reasonably bright goy, in that a good chunk of the time, I can hold my own while talking about a particular subject. By the same token, there are times when I can't, and I'll admit to that fact and politely disengage.

But then there are times when I can positively put people asleep simply by bloviating on a personally chosen topic. One such post I have stored away is about health insurance.

Now, unlike some people who don't have a clue about health insurance (i.e. politicians, social activists and the media), I can talk with a reasonable degree of knowledge about health insurance, mostly from a financial standpoint.

Sleep inducing? You bet your sweet ass it is. Hot button topic? Absolutely. Which is why you'll won't see it here for the foreseeable future. I like you and I don't want to bore you to death.

No Longer Relevant.

Because I write so many posts ahead of time, there are times when a given post simply isn't relevant any more.

Case in point: I had originally written a three part post about what I should work on next back in mid-October. However, by the time I was ready to post part one, my novel was released. This was no big thing as it forced me to tweak the post before putting it up.

However, by the time part three rolled around, the post became irrelevant. Between part 2 & part 3, I did a little networking and thus developed a small lead for one of my novellas.

Doing that made my mini-series relatively obsolete for the foreseeable, and thus the remaining post went to the folder of no return.

Easily Misconstrued.

This one is the most sensitive category I have, in that I have a couple of posts that I wrote during one my numerous bouts of self doubt. If I were to post any of these, I believe that you the reader would easily, and possibly permanently, take it the wrong way.

Nothing can destroy a friendship/relationhip faster than saying something that people could misconstrue.

To sum it up, not everything that I write for the blog makes it to the blog. Sometimes, self censorship is better than shoving your foot down to the ankle in your mouth 'cause you blew your emergency brake.

Dinner!

Breakfast, Lunch

To complete this meal trilogy we shall now bloviate on the topic of dinner.

Unlike breakfast, in which I usually inhale the same thing day in and day out, I can usually vary what I eat at dinner, and just like lunch, I can get a little creative as well.

At dinner, because I take the same amount of meds that I do at breakfast, I have the same kind of leeway with my calories like I do at breakfast. And just like at breakfast, I have to make sure I eat the right kind of calories. If this sound confusing, it's not. To simplify, if I have the right mix of sugar based and non-sugar based calories, then I don't suffer from a low blood sugar attack. Wrong mix, then we suffer from a low blood sugar attack, which in turn freaks out anyone who has the unfortunate experience of witnessing it.

Anyways, back to dinner.

Because I have basically eliminated certain types of cuisine from my dies (most Italian, Chinese and some American BBQ), the variety I have to play with isn't much, so I try to get the most out of it.

My dinner (usually) consists of three items: meat/fish/poultry, side dish and veggie. Because if anything, my dinner may not be 100% healthy, but at least its relatively balanced.

On the entree side, I will usually cook up either bratwurst, kielbasa, Italian sausage (hot, not sweet, 'cause sweet has corn syrup), skinless thighs or homemade hot wings. Sometimes I'll season with hot sauce, garlic or crushed red pepper, before chucking it into the oven. If I'm having chicken, sometimes I'll marinade for the oven, or cut it up for a mini stir fry (with olive oil). If I'm having seafood like scallops or popcorn shrimp, maybe a dash of lemon juice added to it. If I'm having cold seafood (imitation crab for example), then lemon juice or tartar sauce.

For sides, not only does it depend on what I was in the mood for while shopping, but it also depends on how much effort I want to put into making it. For the purpose of this post, we'll go with being overly enthusiastic about cooking. Since I'm being overly enthusiastic about cooking today, we'll be having a side of either chicken flavored, beef flavored or non-flavored rice. More often than not, we'll go with non-flavored rice as it's much more fun to add other flavors to it.

And finally, we move on to the veggies. 99% of the time, the veggie of choice is corn. I love corn, be it canned or fresh on the cob. I like cooked peppers and onions, but only as a compliment to a main entree like sausage. The other 1% of the time I will have a (usually) pre-made side salad that I will sometimes beef up with other assorted odds & ends. Dressing is usually red-wine vinegar and oil, simply because it contains about a gram of sugar per serving (lemon juice).

So my friends, this concludes my mini-series on what I eat for the three basics Monday thru Thursday. What I eat on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, is a whole other post entirely.

And lest we forget to ask the all important always duplicated by better people elsewhere question, what's on your plate for the evening meal (or morning, if you work the overnight and your meal habit is flipped)?

Vanishing From The Megahertz 3: Uncensored Songs

Censorship has always been alive, well and living not only in the suburbs, but in a myriad of other places as well.

Like radio for example.

For the longest time you could not hear songs on the radio that contained George Carlin's List of Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say On Television. It's only been the last 15-20 years that you could listen to those songs on the radio, and even then you were limited to college radio on the overnight .

Recently, listening to that kind of music has moved itself to satellite radio, Internet radio and cable digital music channels, which although is a good thing, you still won't hear those songs on normal commercial radio.

However I have discovered as of late, a disturbing new trend (or an old trend, since I don't pay attention enough anymore) that some conglomos are doing to the radio stations. They're tearing a page out of MTV's playbook and censoring words that 99% of America would probably consider to be mild-to-non-offensive.

To refresh your memory, MTV is notorious for applying a double standard when it comes to words vs. images. More often than not, they have no problem in showing videos by rap artists which feature scantily clad (aka video vixens aka borderline hardcore) woman prancing and dancing around, yet when it comes to certain words, they'll censor it out.

Example: The word joint from You Don't Know How It Feels.

Example: The word .45 from ".45".

Anyways, I came to this epiphany when I was listening to the song "Sweet Home Alabama". Near the end of the song, the word Goddamn was scrubbed out and simply changed to "God".

Now granted, I'm sure back in the day that the word goddamn was considered to be somewhat offensive, especially on the radio. But people, this is 2013 and language like this is considered to be so common place that it doesn't even register on a typical person's offended meter.

Anyways this has got me wondering about how many other classic songs from the early 70's thru today that got scrubbed of mild-to-non-offensive words.

Honestly, I can understand the scrubbing of swear words out because most swears are bad, although there is the rare occasion when scrubbing a swear word kills a song.

Example, Pearl Jam's "Jeremy".

Lyric He was a harmless little fuck, gets changed to He was a harmless little.

Unless you're overly familiar with the song, you won't get the implied meaning.

But I draw the line when you start scrubbing words out of songs (and videos) because of some remote possibility that some advertiser might get offended.

An old song is just that: old. And to scrub it clean is in my opinion, the worst possible thing you can do.

Now please keep in mind, I'm talking about scrubbing out allegedly offensive non-swear words and not when someone rearranges a song to suit their singing style. A good example of this would be Pat Boone's CD "In A Metal Mood". Don't laugh, because not only were the classic rock songs rearranged into a brassy big band swing sound, but some of the original performers of those songs actually joined in.

So my friends, do you have a problem when radio stations scrub a song so that certain words are eliminated (not counting blatant swear words)? Or it doesn't really bother you that a favorite song gets scrubbed?