Look at all the SNOW!
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Can’t see this? Click here.
If you read my blog regularly, you’ve already heard about the preview chapters and the songs, so the news is for my Youtube peoples. And yes, that’s the amount of snow it takes to shut down a college campus in Texas 
Posted in College, Videos
Tags: College, Poetry, Snow, Snow Day, Texas
Wowsa, what a busy year this has become. It seems like at this same time last year, I was lounging about with hardly any homework, hours upon hours of writing fun, and bits and pieces of even more spare time between to eat lasagna and explore. Now, I’m lucky if I can snatch enough time to write a simple blog post. What changed? How did this travesty of a schedule become imposed upon myself? It makes me recall the reaction of my professor from this time last year, after a group of students (myself included) confessed that we had gobs of free time on our hands:
It was just as encouraging back then as it sounds now. The most dreadful part of it is that her words came true, as evidenced by my lack of posting this semester.
Anyhows, I have some bits and pieces of news and stuff people might enjoy, whilst we wait for that cover art and release date on my book (I’ll know mid-March, I’m hoping?). First off, I just added another one of my songs to Youtube, with the corresponding link to download the song for free:
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[click here if you can't see the video]
Also, I’ve finally decided to open up the gates and just let people download preview chapters for The Farfield Curse from my website! Before, I wanted everyone to email me and request them, so that I knew who had the chapters and when they got them (I don’t know, I just like knowing I suppose). But with the number of emails I’m getting per day now, it’s just impossible to reply in a timely manner, and people are waiting for months just to get the chapters, which I have been informed is like getting one of these and then being banned from feeding it raisins for months.
So, from now on, if you want the preview chapters, you can head on over to this page and download them for free! I’m not advertising these preview chapters too much (it’s not being linked on the Bran Hambric site yet) since they’re not edited, but for the people who read my site I’m putting them up a bit early.
Back to music again, here’s a clip of an entirely new song that I am working on for the Bran Hambric soundtrack. I get the feeling that this will be the final one I create for The Farfield Curse, since I have 8 or 9 songs already, and I have an urge to start making new ones for Book Two . Here’s the clip (or check out the song’s page):
Tell me what you think the comments!
Posted in Bran Hambric, College, My Music, Videos
Tags: Bran Hambric, College, medusa, music, My Music, Videos
In case you live under a rock and haven’t heard, Hurricane Ike is coming through Texas right now, and it looks as if it might actually hit as high as my apartment in Dallas. Observe the reasons for citywide concern:
In this image, you can see Ike (the ginormous whirling demonic thing in the corner) and me (the tiny red trembling dot). Ike appears to be nearly the size of Texas, which for all of you geographically challenged people is the second largest state in the US.
Yesterday, it was very sunny, which was very sneaky of the hurricane because nobody would have believed it was coming. We were told to chain down all of our bikes and porch furniture. I got to work on that, and then looked in the mirror, and saw something like this:
My hair had become horrifyingly long, as I haven’t had it cut since three weeks before I went to Austin. And as the Robert Pattinson, just-slithered-out-of-bed-and-I’m-ready look doesn’t exactly look good on me, I decided it would be a wonderfully prudent idea to get it done now. My reasoning behind this:
This had the negative effect of my hair being a little lopsidedly short, as it usually is the day of it getting cut (added benefit: during hurricanes, you can’t leave the house, and nobody sees). Unfortunately, I had to pick that day to go test out my new BlogTV channel, on which me and someone famous are going to be doing a live show. After we got it working, we thought we needed some people to test it with us, so we went to my chatroom and invited everyone over for a sneak peek. This turned into a broadcasting-until-2-am party, which was riotously fun until my eyelids began to droop. So, whoever happened to be in there: you got a look how monstrous I can appear after 2 AM
I’m looking out the window right now and it’s slowly getting darker, and the pre-40-mph winds are starting to brush the trees about. Coincidentally, it is hitting on a weekend (no doubt some diabolical plan from the college so that we don’t get a bad weather day from class). We have been told to stockpile water and food. If we get flooded in, I’ll be living off water and lasagnas for quite a while longer.
I failed to mention the break-in of my apartment a week or so ago. It was probably the oddest crime I’ve seen before, as the only things taken were boxed, frozen lasagnas and pizzas in my freezer. While taking nearly $80 worth of food, The Lasagna Burglar completely overlooked the stereo on the floor, and also decided to leave behind my frozen salmon and Reese’s ice cream. So if anyone spots a starving Italian who abhors music and hangs around college campuses, please let me know.
The reason I recall this story is because when I returned from my week in Alaska, I came to my door and found a note that said my locks had been changed. After the break-in, the police came and the locks were changed back then, so this is the second time in a week. This meant that the key to my home did not work. Also, it was Memorial Day, which meant the offices were closed, and I had to sit outside my own house for nearly 2 hours waiting for someone to break me in. Obviously, the burglar had an easier time getting in my home than me. The exhaustion brought on by all the flying had me seriously considering a brief career change (<—).
Coincidentally, I discovered the magic way to make these apartment maintenance crews move. In the third call to them, I simply made my voice sound upset, at which point they began recording the line (you know they are doing it when you hear a low beep every five seconds). I then said, in an exhausted tone, that if I am not in my home in ten minutes, I am calling the campus police to break me into the apartment for which I pay rent every month, at the manager’s expense. The crew was there in five minutes to let me in.
This is the sort of thing that happens to us writers and ends up somewhere in a book. Strangely enough, my book is filled with burglars, though I hadn’t previously run into one before — so I suppose I could just think of this as gaining experience in the field.
But somewhere out there, this fellow is still loose, munching away on my food. Beware, all frozen dinner enthusiasts. No freezer is safe whilst The Lasagna Burglar runs free.
Posted in About Me, College
Tags: burglars, College
The full realization that the Great Week of Freedom known as Spring Break had ended hit me late Sunday when I decided it was probably best to take a peek at what was on the roster for Monday. Luckily we just took an exam in Algebra the Friday before and thus had nothing to study for it, and the History class didn’t have much to do in it either. I slept well.
Then I realized halfway to morning that I had a Campus Event due by Tuesday. A Campus Event is something that one of my professors (rather devilishly) added to the syllabus that forces us students to actually shut off Youtube, step outside of our apartments and do something with ourselves. We’ve got four of these, each due at a different deadline throughout the semester, and they always seem to creep up when you least expect it. Mine crept up on me the day before it was due.
Around 3 AM, unable to sleep because of the dread, I got the campus events calender and found the only event that was left and didn’t require me dressing up as a leprechaun: an innocent-looking talk on health and time management that was coming up a good hour before my first Monday class. I’d blend in with the crowd, grab some pamphlets for evidence, and be on my merry St. Patrick’s Day way.
Unfortunately, the 1-line description of the talk failed to mention one thing. The talk wasn’t intended for students. It was meant for their aging and much-abused professors. So I show up looking for a crowd of students only to be greeted by a group of middle-aged women at the door.
“Is this the health and time management panel?” I asked, hoping to get a nay.
“Yes,” they said. I peered around the corner.
“Are there any students here?” asked I.
“No,” she replied, grinning from ear to ear. “This talk is part of the staff health benefits package. But you’re welcome to stay. We luuuvvvvvv students!”
For a moment I felt like a delectable treat in the snack tray. Still, I cautiously said I’ll stand in the back and watch so I didn’t stick out like a tortoise at an all-hare dinner party. She obliged and none-too-quietly turned to her accomplice.
“He wants to sneak out halfway through, that’s what!” I heard her say in a hoarse whisper. When you suspect every innocent bystander of spontaneously wanting to ‘sneak out the back’ anytime they’re in a room, you’ve been professorin’ too long. And ten minutes through would have been a better estimate.
Oh well, I thought, resigning to watch this talk and pick up some public speaking tips. Maybe I will move to a seat after a while.
But then she passed the handout with a little plastic card- on which to record my cholesterol, blood pressure, and where my bones ached. And the talk began. I stayed in the back. And I made this face:
Posted in College
Tags: College, Jack Black
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