Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in jonfmerz's LiveJournal:

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Friday, March 7th, 2008
11:41 am	The Importance of Googling... So today, I'm finally on the mend from a rather nasty stomach bug that crept in after a trip to Chuck E. Cheese (or, as I like to call it "the Cafebacteria") for my youngest son's 3rd birthday on Tuesday. Despite my rigorous decontamination procedures, I still got nailed. Go figure... Anyway, I'm better today but still quite fatigued, which means I won't be doing much except sleeping and typing a few random keys. As I do every so often, I just Googled myself and found something rather...surprising. There's been a lot of talk about those who Google themselves. Some argue it's a pointless vanity exercise whose only purpose is an occasional ego stroke. I won't deny that it's always nice to see others posting nice things about books I've written. You don't always see all the reviews and it's gratifying to come across a new one that might help motivate you when you need it. However, given the incredible amount of information spinning throughout cyberspace, Googling oneself isn't just for the vain anymore. In fact, I would argue that it should be a habit for anyone concerned about what type of information is being bandied about in relation to them. Case in point, I Googled the following search string "The Fixer TV Merz" for reasons that...well, you'll just have to wait on that front. Anyway, this is one of the results that came back. In the blink of an eye, a post this past January by this person potentially tied me to a book about swift-boating in the current presidential campaign. Yikes. Now, obviously, the author of the post isn't out to spread malicious rumors about me or otherwise vilify me in some fashion. They're just doing research and drawing hypothetical conclusions about a possible connection. But the problem is that due to the wealth of information available on the Internet, it's entirely possible to construct something like this that then becomes quite believable. And if you didn't know the story behind the limited edition of The Fixer, it might look all the more damning. Googling nowadays is almost more a matter of making sure that what is out there is as factual and accurate as it can be than it is about the occasional ego stroke. Finding inaccuracies like this becomes all the more crucial for anyone with any type of public persona. Correcting those inaccuracies is vital to keeping your persona where you want it to be. Not correcting them enables a foundation (even a shaky one) to construct itself whereby an eventual morass of untruths obscures the true picture of who you are. I'm hoping the comment I left at the blog clears things up enough to undo the minimal damage the post might cause. But even the little things can produce devastating results given enough time and free reign. Just look at the stomach bug I caught the other day. On second thought, don't. It wasn't all that pleasant... Current Mood: tired (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
3:33 pm	Meetings, meetings, meetings Next week promises to be a busy one around BIG THING A. Here's hoping it starts off with a bang. A big bang. In writing news, I'm halfway through my next novel. I'm also writing a Lawson script and fine-tuning some other work. The flu has hit my house with both my wife and youngest son sick since last week. Fortunately, my oldest son and I have thus far managed to battle it off. Of course, now that I've written that, my next blog entry will no doubt be from under a tent in the ICU ward. Gah. Too many things to watch on TV tonight: the Clinton/Obama debate, Lost, American Idol results, Celebrity Apprentice, Survivor, and Bobby G Adventure Capitalist on Mojo (I'm still watching Start Up Junkies, too, but for the life of me simply cannot look at Earth Class Mail and see a viable business entity/investment) My Tivo's gonna melt. Current Mood: busy Current Music: "Strap Me In" - The Cars (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
11:17 am	Amazon Reviews & Google I like to check Amazon every week or so and see how my latest books are selling, if anyone has written a new review, and generally surf the site for anything interesting. This morning, I was checking in to see how Rogue Angel: Warrior Spirit is doing. WS is the first installment I was hired to write for the series and it came out in November of '07. There are two well-written reviews for it that both give it five stars - always nice to see. But there is also a one-star and a two-star review out there. Now, if you want to believe all the good things said in nice reviews, you also have to give the same chance to those reviews which aren't as nice. I read them all as objectively as possible, and since I'm one of those masochistic types who grooves on getting criticism I can use to improve my work, I actually enjoy a really good negative review provided it has somethign concrete to offer. Sadly, these two reviews are pretty dull. The first (2 star) is "old" and I've seen it before. The one-star was new, however, and "crafted" by someone named "chekrdemon." (I say "crafted" as opposed to "written" since it appears obvious that uppercase, apostrophes, and contractions are completely out of the realm of ability for this person). According to chekrdemon, I have now ruined the Rogue Angel series because Annja doesn't pull out her sword for at least one hundred pages. He said some other things, but nothing I could really use to bump my game up. Amused as I was, I decided to Google "chekrdemon" and see what came up. The first hit showed that someone using the same handle posts over on James Axler's message board. And given the quality of posts over there, I'd say it was a pretty sure bet they were one and the same. Interestingly, chekrdemon's review of WS was the first he'd posted on Amazon. I did find a site where he is a lot more of an active reviewer, however... Adult DVD Empire. Yep, ol' chekrdemon likes his porn. "Take it Black" and "the Adventures of Shorty Mac" were just two of the many titles that chekrdemon apparently loves and raves about Adult DVD Empire's service and prompt delivery. Now, obviously, I'm not casting dispersions on someone for their love (or hatred however the case may be) of porn. But I did get quite a laugh out of seeing a LOT of activity by chekrdemon on that site. Combined with the fact that he claims to work for the Library of Congress on Axler's message board, along with being married for 25 years, it paints quite an amusing portrait of whoever this person happens to be. Gotta love teh power of teh Google. So, if you know anyone in the Library of Congress down in D.C., make sure you ask them all about "chekrdemon" and whether he enjoyed watching Lucy Lee "take it black" from Mr. Marcus. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Queen - Greatest Hits I, II, & III (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
11:10 am	Miami Vice Getting out to see new movies can be difficult given that I've got two young dudes running around. I'm therefore relegated to seeing new flicks when they get to cable. Such was the case last night when I finally got a chance to sit down after everyone had gone to sleep to see Miami Vice. A couple of caveats before I get into the review. First, I loved Michael Mann's work on HEAT, which I think is arguably one of the best crime dramas in the last twenty years. He did an extraordinary job of painting the grit of Los Angeles, the downward spirals of the lives of both major and minor characters, and spun them together with such dexterity that the movie was simply and completely engrossing from start to finish. The gun battle was a spectacular adrenaline rush with phenomenal camera work. I think Heat deserved a lot more kudos than it ever received and I wanted both DeNiro and Pacino to somehow walk away clean at the end, rather than simply rooting for one over the other. Second, I loved Miami Vice the TV series back in the 80s. No other show managed to encapsulate the glitz and the horror of the drug world and combine it with some of the more interesting characters on TV. It was sexy and violent and always had a killer soundtrack. Plus, the folks were never happy that I wanted to watch it, which of course made it all the more alluring. Sadly, Miami Vice the movie was terrible. Yes, the cinematography was a pleasure to look at. Mann knows how to shoot a movie. The question I was left with was "does he know how to write one?" Vice suffers from all of the things that Heat never did. Colin Farrell and Jaime Fox have absolute ZERO chemistry as two supposedly I-got-yer-back-and-you-got-mine partners who are willing to bend the rules to get the bad guys. Fox's performance is as engrossing as watching paint dry, a true shame considering the range he's shown in other fantastic movies like Ray. Farrell can't control his accent enough to ever convince me that he's a southern boy. Neither Fox nor Farrell has any kind of backstory. And tragically, the dialog track is forever muted. I had the TV volume so high just to struggle to hear what they were saying. And when I was able to hear it, it was so terribly laced with technical police procedural jargon that anyone who didn't have a law enforcement or intel background might simply scratch their heads in wonder at it. The two cardboard heroes aren't aided by any kind of wily, wacky team. Nor do they face any type of intriguing villains. By and large, I simply didn't care about the characters at all. Even when one of the team is nearly blown up, it was tough to feel drawn in. The payoff gun battle is a static exchange that completely lacked any type of aggression or over-the-shoulder camera work that made the gun battle in Heat so enthralling. Bullets simply fly. People kinda move. People die. Blah-blah-blah. I've seen video games with more adrenaline pumped into them than that scene. Even the sex scenes lacked any kind of intensity. Given the enormous pressures of undercover operations, none of it came through on-screen. Mann does do well with the soundtrack and the lingering piano motif is a good one that nicely underscores the somewhat rising tension in certain scenes. Unfortunately, he uses the same tune several times, thereby lessening its effect. I don't know if they only had an Entourage-esque ten grand to blow on a song, but surely they could have commissioned a bit more from the composer. In the end, Miami Vice is a slipshod patchwork of badly-acted scenes, muted lines, zero chemistry, characters you don't care about, and a tame level of violence that are hashed together to make a forced venture from a director who is capable of so much more. Avoid this and hope that Mann does better - a LOT better - in the future. Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
Friday, February 15th, 2008
10:44 am	Thoughts on the Writers Strike They caved. In the end, the fact is, it's a crap deal. The strike achieved nothing except to demonstrate how utterly moronic the leadership at WGAw is for accepting a deal like that. 17 days of internet TV before the writers get paid? Who thought that was a good deal? And what about the animation and reality TV writers? They got sold out faster than new Air Jordans. This brings me around to why, in essence, all writer organizations are basically crap. The sole exception I've seen thus far is the International Thriller Writers - they have their stuff straight. But I've been a member of other orgs, including the Horror Writers Association, (which desperately tries to paint itself as a professional organization devoted to furthering the agendas of its members, but usually ends up looking like more of an after school Dungeons & Dragons club without the cool dice) and the fact is, they're little more than a collection of people who don't understand very much about business, but are simply ready to praise god hallelujah that someone actually deems their work valuable enough to pay them for it (even if that pay is insultingly meager). They establish silly little awards in a vain attempt to achieve some semblance of credibility in the eyes of the public, most of whom have never even heard of the organizations in question. Every year, a new leader takes over promising to lead the org in a new direction that will get them the respect they deserve. Bull. In the end, the best thing any writer can do is to work their butt off to produce the very best work they can. Study the freakin' business side of *everything*! If you understand how tangential industries make money, then you'll know when someone is trying to screw you over. You can take steps to protect your interests. I don't know how many times I've seen so-called experts waxing prophetic over box office returns of new movies and utterly fail to comprehend the business model of how the film industry works nowadays. When was the last time they read an issue of Fortune or Entrepreneur or Business Week? Probably never. But Writer's Digest? They devour it. And they stay ignorant. Writers tend to live in this tiny fishbowl, content for the occasional scraps that float down from heaven. They try not to complain that the water gets dirty from their own effluence because then they might not get fed again. It's a ridiculous existence. And it's one I'm certainly not content to live in. There's a big ocean out there and it's filled with food and space. But only if you stop thinking the same way 99.9999% of the rest of the writing world thinks. Go forth, write, get published. Learn the rules, get the street creds. Then rewrite the rules to benefit yourself because no one else is ever going to. Never quit. Current Music: It's No Good - Depeche Mode (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
2:53 pm	Grunt I stayed away from training last night, preferring to rest my foot some more. Earlier today, we took the boys bowling and that was a bit of a test for my foot as well. It's sore now, the result of putting weight on the outside edge when I bowled. Also, I discovered that I really suck at candlepin. My six year old kicked my butt and my three year old tied me. It didn't help seeing various funny pictures flash on the screen that read stuff like, "Bummer!", "Stinker!", and the like. I think I'm better at bowling on the Wii. Writing-wise, I'm working on some new episodes for BIG THING A. Also, I need to formalize the proposal for BIG THING C. And I should hear something about BIG THING B this week now that Sundance is finishing up. Have a great weekend! Current Mood: calm Current Music: The melody of sleep... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
2:09 pm	Ouch So, I'm still limping around the house. Last Friday at martial arts class I was doing a throw, rolled my foot and took my weight and the body weight of my training partner on to one of my metatarsals in the left foot. Not good. Hurt like hell but a trip to the doc's on Saturday confirmed it wasn't broken (thankfully, since that's a 6-8 week recovery time) just badly bruised. Half of my foot is a swell shade of dark blue. Anyway, it's getting better and I'll probably hobble my way into class again tomorrow night since I can't stay away from training. For those of you who know or might be interested, I've been studying at the above dojo run by my teacher and good friend Mark Davis for the better part of twenty years. But Mark's top student and a very good friend of mine, Ken Savage, has just opened his own dojo out in northwestern Massachusetts. The Winchendon Martial Arts Center opened officially two weeks ago and provides the very best training in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu and Ninjutsu in that part of the state. Ken's an amazing man and has certainly taught me an incredible amount over the years. We first traveled together with Mark to Japan in 1997 as the first official Boston dojo trip back to the birthplace of our martial art and it was a fantastic trip. Anyway, if you've ever wanted to get involved in martial arts and live within the area, please be sure to check out Ken at his new school. You won't regret it! In other news, I'm appealing to any of you who might happen to have any friends in the reality show world. Specifically, I'm looking for producer contacts to pitch a new show to. I have some but I'm always interested in meeting others who might dig the pitch. Drop me a line at zrem AT earthlink DOT net if you have any tidbits to throw me. Thanks! Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: Bad Company (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 21st, 2008
3:21 pm	Cloverfield Loved it. I won't waste time rehashing the premise of the movie. I will, however, state that Cloverfield is the first movie in a long time that I sat through with a smile on my face. A big smile. And not because I was laughing at the screen, but because I had such a completely absorbed fun ride with it, which is exactly what it seems designed to be. There are some truly good moments of suspense in the movie and I found myself wishing the camera would stay still long enough to get a real look at the creature, which is part of the vehicle for keeping the audience on the edge of its seat. Really excellent stuff. The narration by character "Hud" is fantastic and gives the necessary comedic moments needed to balance the unrelenting full throttle of the movie. In short: I wish I'd written and then made it. Kudos to everyone involved. Cloverfield, at a brisk 75 minutes, fulfills all the hype and more - something too rare in the current entertainment world. I can't wait for the DVD and all the bonus features and extras. Great stuff. Go see it. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Godzilla Sounds To Snore By (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
2:37 pm	Out & About I'm out of town taking a few meetings again. Sometimes it seems like I do that more than actually write, but then this is a part of the business and a necessary part at that. It's simply not enough to "just" write anymore and given the integration of content across a broad spectrum of multimedia platforms, writers in the new millennium must be able to successfully navigate all of them in order to ensure our own continued existence. As I'm traveling, I'm engrossed in "The Roman Soldier" by G. R. Watson, an academic look at the daily life of a Roman soldier. It's fascinating stuff and given my own background having graduated from Boston Latin School, it's a bit of a reminder that I should have paid more attention in some of my classes. Someone wrote me an email today asking why I call the site "Boston Nocturne." The short answer is that I like a lot of noir and "Harlem Nocturne" by Earle Hagen remains one of my favorite songs (it was also the theme song for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer TV series back in the '80s). I love being in Boston when the sun goes down - it's a fantastic city that manages to combine a rich history with cutting edge atmosphere. Great food at a fantastic restaurant with a good bottle of wine while you look out at the skyline is a great way to spend an evening. In other news, I'm closer to signing a new deal with a major comic company. News on that when I can let it out. Things are also progressing on BIG THING A. BIG THING B is on hold while my contact attends the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. And BIG THING C is tied directly to BIG THING A, so there's progress on that front as well. Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: The Planets by Holst (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
1:10 pm	A Review & Update First the review: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was one of those much-heard-about shows that I had little optimism for. After T3, which bored me to tears, I pretty much gave up hope on a franchise that for me, was great in terms of the original and T2. However, it being Sunday night and me being in a good mood after the most loathsome duo ever seen on the Amazing Race mercifully got kicked off, I decided to tune in and witness the spectacle that Fox has been banking on. Opening scene: Um, wow. A dream sequence? Are you kidding me? You open with a dream sequence that shows Sarah getting killed? God, what a shocker! Way to insult your audience's intelligence in one simple step, because, y'know, no one watching the show would ever suspect such an amateur move. Then we progress to other silliness. Summer Glau (who is a hot package, no doubt) immediately latches on to John Connor's character (you can tell I couldn't possibly care less about this kid because I can't even recall his name) and saves him from the evil terminator who apparently suffers from an acute inability to HIT A STATIC TARGET AT TWENTY FREAKIN' FEET. Perhaps we're supposed to believe that, like us pesky humans, robots also find their target shooting skills suffering if they don't hit the range every day and pump out a few hundred rounds. Sure, uh huh. "Come with me if you want to live." Sigh. Yawn. Boring. It was a good line back in T2. Hey writers, how about coming up with your own snazzy one-liners, you know, to help set this show apart from its predecessors? Despite its obvious failings, I decided to tune in last night and at least see how the debut finished itself up. Now, in all fairness, I was in a more forgiving mood last night mainly because Prison Break (aka, TV's Stupidest Show) just finished grossly insulting its audience with cheap tricks and stupid plot devices to enable it to continue when it should have been finished at least a season ago. Where to begin...oh, yeah, the time travel incident. Okay, no prob, I can buy into that. But now, along with everything else happening, we're supposed to believe that Connor sent back a whole team of folks to outfit the bank vault with the time machine and tinker toy isotope cannnon. Along with that guy, he sent back other resistance fighters who apparently enjoy living in a hovel of an apartment building WITHOUT ANY FREAKING DOGS???!!! Are you nuts????? What, the co-op didn't allow them? Because, you know, looking at the other denizens of that joint, I really can't imagine that pets were number one on their list of things you couldn't own in the apartment. So, natch, the resistance team gets wasted (oh except for one guy who was watching them find the Shawshank Redemption-safe scam) because they were too stupid (scratch that, the writers were too stupid). Sigh. But it gets better. So Sarah goes to visit Enrique. He starts talking about The Finisher. Gads. Can you hear the writers talking about this one? "Duuuude, check this: howzabout we have Enrique talk about some boxer dude named - dude, you ready for this? The Finisher." "Whoooooooooa, man, you mean like The Terminator...." "Totally!" "Dude!" "Dude, I know." "Dude!" "I know, dude. It's so cool." "Totally." Luckily, Sarah visits Enrique's nephew and is able to secure all the documentation needed to survive in the post 9-11 world. The nephew's gang has plenty of dogs that bark at Glau's character, proving, once again, that we should turn over all national security issues to gangs, who clearly have enough brains to be on the look out for Terminator robots while they dispense their wares. Smart dudes, those guys... So, my estimation is that while T:TSCC is a promising idea, it has utterly failed to live up to the lineage it claims as its birthright. Shame on the writers for packing it full of idiocy that any even-slghtly intelligent viewer would know is bogus, cheap throwaway lines that lack any originality, stupid cliches (a la the safe behind the kitty poster) and a host of other dumbacity and you'll see why this thing won't last very long at all. About the only thing I liked about the show was the music. I had the original soundtrack to Terminator, composed by the rather awesome Brad Fiedel, and the soundtrack to the TV show might be its only redeeming feature. And that, fine people, is why I refuse to let Hollywood gets its uncreative brain syrup all over Lawson. Which, naturally, leads us right back to http://www.thefixer.tv which I will be writing myself so a room full of people who know nothing about what I've created can't utterly blaspheme my work. Lunch. Current Mood: determined Current Music: Skynet Sings Da Blues (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
10:40 am	Beija Media Party Last night the lovely wife and I attended a nice get-together at Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square for the ultra-premium cachaca brand, Beija, which is co-owned by my agent's son. Beija is a remarkable brand and the first "virgin cane rum" to be recognized for its superior distillery process. As a drink ingredient, it's extraordinarily malleable and some of the concoctions are truly amazing. Boston's best mixologists were there and Jackson (voted Boston's best bartender) whipped up some incredible drinks. I think there are some pictures floating around somewhere on the 'net from the event, which precedes the formal launch party happening later this week. Kudos to Kevin Beardsley and Steve Diforio for their remarkable entrepreneurial spirit and drive to get this company off the ground. I think they're going to be huge in the high-end liquor market. Also got a chance to meet Jeff Lahens, one of the partners at ECC Life & Style, LLC super custom tailors for men. Jeff and one of his partners Sean were wearing some of their work and from the look of it, these guys have a real flair for old world craftsmanship. News on the BIG THING: things are starting to percolate nicely. Prior to the holidays, the inevitable slowdown meant we stalled out a bit despite best intentions. Now, with the new year upon us, things are crackling. We should have some exciting announcements soon on a number of fronts (tentatively titled, Big Thing A, B, and C). Current Mood: busy Current Music: Black Rain - Ozzy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
7:26 pm	At the IFL Grand Prix Championship So thanks to the new iTouch I got for Christmas, I can write this entry from the floor of the IFL championship at Mohegan Sun. Joe Nassise and I are in the media section. Check it out if you're watching at home! Current Mood: crazy (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
11:41 pm	Nuttin' Much... More snow. Seriously. I fully expect to wake up one day soon and see a glacier heading for Massachusetts. Sheesh. Over on Facebook I've started a new group for fans of the Rogue Angel novels. As you know, I'm one of the writers on the series, and there was no RA presence on Facebook, so I took the opportunity to create one. Join us. You will be assimilated. Christmas shopping is almost done. Got a few more things to pick up tomorrow and dat should be dat. I'll spend much of next week finishing up my next novel and also working on a possible new project I just heard about today from a good friend of mine down in NYC. And, of course, once the holidays are over, it's back to work on the BIG THING. Christmas celebrating is fairly local. Up to New Hampshire on Christmas Eve and down to the southeast coast of Massachusetts for Christmas Day. Bit of driving, but nothing too earth-shaking. Can't wait to watch my boys open their Santa gifts on Christmas morning. Hopefully Santa brought me a few, too! Here's hoping you all have a very safe and fun holiday season this year! Thanks for your support and patronage. Current Mood: creative Current Music: Vivaldi, "Winter" (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 17th, 2007
11:47 pm	The Holiday Rush First and foremost: almost two feet of snow in DECEMBER? Never happened before in my lifetime. Makes me wonder what the rest of the winter will hold in store for us up here in Massachusetts. Time to put in my order for that flamethrower I've been wanting so I can melt all the snow around my house. Still, it's very cool having some on the ground at this time of year. The "Read a Novel for Charity" drive isn't going nearly as well as I'd hoped. My fault for getting it started late, but then again, things have been utterly crazy lately. A tremendous thanks to those of you who have read and donated to the Horizons for Homeless Children. I'll be delivering a check to them within the next week or so. Every little bit helps, but it would have been nice to see this thing take off...next year we'll get going much earlier. Progress on the "Big Thing" is slowing just a bit as the holidays loom. I expect we'll get cranking up again after the New Year. I'm very close to landing a nice deal with a major comic company. Can't speak much about it now, but if we get approval from one of the companies involved, I believe it's a lock. Off topic, but I only just tonight got a chance to watch the Mayweather/Hatton bout on my DVR. Or, should I say the first three rounds because - natch - my DVR crapped out for some reason and didn't record the rest. Suspiciously enough, there was a recording on there for High School Musical 2 that I don't recall adding to the list. My eldest son swears he has no idea how it got there. Uh huh. Back to the fight, it seemed to me that Hatton clearly was looking for a street brawl and would certainly have been my favorite to win if the ref just let him get on with it. Mayweather looked uncomfortable with the relentless pace of Hatton's attack. I like Hatton a lot, and even if his accuracy leaves something to be desired, his zest for a good brawl really makes him a fun fighter to watch. I hope to see bigger and better things from him in the future. Christmas shopping: almost done. I made the mistake of buying my son The Cheetah Girls Christmas Album tonight and of course, was then forced to endure it on the ride home. I dig "Marshmallow World" as sung by Sinatra and Martin. It's a fun tune by the Rat Pack dudes. I do not dig it as sung by TCG (scary that I know this is what real Cheetah Girls fans call the group) with a drum machine pumping at 130 bpm over some technotronic melody line. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Hurt me now. Please. I had to come home and put some Donnie Iris and Eddie Money on just to cleanse the cranium. Current Mood: dude, it's like freezing! Current Music: "Ah Leah" (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
10:55 am	G-G-G-Good Heard back from the manager of one of the folks we're reaching out to: they're very interested. Awesome! Had a great dinner of perhaps the best Indian food I've ever eaten last night with a buddy of mine who has worked with the incredible Werner Herzog on a number of films. More discussions about the "Big Thing." In other news: this time of year I always like to do something for the kids who might not have the best of holidays. This year, I've dusted off an old unpublished novel of mine PARALLAX (which will eventually see print) and I'm offering it via my website as a free download - well, not exactly free, because I very much hope that while you're reading it, you'll make a donation of at least one dollar to me via PayPal (send it to zrem@earthlink.net) and I will then send it along to the charity I've chosen this year: Horizons for Homeless Children. All proceeds (minus Paypal fees and expenses) goes to them. They're one of the best children's charities around and their work is incredibly admirable. I also hope people will spread news of this around and get more people to take part. I'd like to see if we can reach $100,000 donation in rapid time. Not sure if we'll even come close, but you have to aim high! Current Mood: busy Current Music: A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, December 7th, 2007
12:12 pm	Rockin' More meetings. More talks. More everything. Time to start reaching out to certain folks "we" (as in the collective force behind the Big Thing) need to talk to. I'm guardedly optimistic about everything going on right now. If we can nail down certain aspects beforer the holidays, that will mean a lot of action immediately after the holidays. Don't you just love it when I talk in ambiguous terms? Yeah, me too. In other news, Bruce "Boo" Smith, a kind-hearted friend from the message boards passed earlier this week. He'd struggled with a long illness but never lost his gift of making others smile and laugh at his gentle brand of humor. In a time when most boards are filled with rampaging idiocy and pretentious fools who think the world revolves around them, Boo was a force for good and funny. He certainly didn't deserve to go out as he did, and the world is a much poorer place now. I wish him the very best as he makes his journey on. Current Mood: Hustlin'! Current Music: Bad Company: Bad Company (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
10:30 am	Updates & Idiots Last night's football game against the Ravens was not a good one. Pats receivers looked like crap for the most part, but we pulled it out anyway since the Pats are supreme at capitalizing on mistakes and penalties. The game calling by the ESPN moron crew was pathetic and ridiculous. It was completely one-sided and bordered on complete lunacy, especially when they called the game for the Ravens two minutes into the first freaking quarter. They definitely earn the Idiot of the Week award. Work continues on the Big Thing. Lots of meetings coming up this week and next. Finished a key component yesterday and I'm pleased. It need some tweaking but I'm happy it's done. Now I need to add some more things to it and then keep cranking on the novel that's due and the proposal that came back for some additional work. BTW, Rogue Angel: Warrior Spirit just grabbed a five-star review from a well-known SF blogger who also posts at Amazon.com. She loved the book and I thank her for the insightful review. Now, go grab a copy! Current Mood: excited Current Music: Peter Gabriel: The Rhythm of the Heat (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
10:31 pm	Crazy Workload I really wish I could fully post everything that's going on right now. Seriously. It'd probably help me sort through it all. But I can't, so again, you'll have to bear with me until the time is right for me to make all the announcements and all the rest of that jazz. Needless to say, my life is quite literally insane these days. How insane? Let's see...my next novel is due in about ten days. Then there's the pilot I'm writing (don't ask, I'll never tell and I held out longer than anyone else in my interrogation survival class) that will most likely absorb my day on Sunday when I get the house to myself for a big chunk of the day. I've got several proposals out circulating around (and please don't ask about the International Fight League projects - publishing is so ass-backwards sometimes with people simply NOT seeing how many gazillions of dollars they could make by publishing a book, that it will literally make you scream) including another, possibly two non-fiction books, a WWII action series, some stuff for the kids, and more. I've got to nail down a date for my talk at my cousin's senior high school class (weird, since my 20th reunion is in May '08) about the wonderful world of professional writing. Then there's the usual rush with the Christmas holiday fast approaching. I put up about a thousand lights the day after Thanksgiving, but I'm determined to enjoy my holiday season more than I did last year when it all seemed over so fast. I'm milking it this year even though I'm busy as hell. We took time out today to meet with my son's Kindergarten teacher, who is fantastic in every sense of the word. My son is doing very well and his teacher had nothing but praise for him. Given how many rude and undisciplined children I see being herded about by parents simply not interested in raising their children to be properly-behaved productive members of society, it was nice to hear her say those things. He's obviously one of the kids that makes her life easier rather than harder. Cool. He's doing well in his martial arts training also, something we work on for about thirty minutes every day before the bus comes along to take him to school. It's a dangerous world out there and I simply refuse to send my kids out there unprepared for anything that might come about. At the rate he's progressing, I think he'll have his first test around his 6th birthday. Time to get him a uniform and a white belt for now. Man, I wish I could spill the beans on stuff. But no-can-do. Another month or two and then the floodgates will open. Probably literally, but there ya go. hang tight. I have to. Current Mood: busy Current Music: Oakenfold "Ready, Steady, Go!" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
6:14 pm	Halloween 2007 So we took the boys out trick-or-treating the other night and, of course, being nothing more than an oversized kid myself, I had to get dressed up. I threw a costume together, sprayed my hair white and called myself "Badly-Aging Rock Star." And yes, the hand sign is deliberately wrong. Part of the gag and all. Anyway, there was a distinct lack of parents who dressed up, which was a bummer since Halloween is a cool time to let your hair down and get your groove on. Even the guys at the pizza place didn't say word one. Like I dress this way all the time in my small suburban town, yeah... How were your Halloweens? Current Mood: calm Current Music: Timbaland (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 5th, 2007
3:28 pm	Latest News... Last weekend was the New England Warrior Camp and I was honored to be one of the instructors again. We looked at a variety of material from the Kuki Shinden-ryu tradition and had a blast doing so. Here's picture of me and my good friend Arthur engaged in a technique (My back is to the camera). I heard yesterday that Harlequin/Gold Eagle wants me for three more books on their ROGUE ANGEL series. This will bring my total thus far to eight. The first one I wrote for them, WARRIOR SPIRIT, comes out in about a month and is filled with all sorts of Japanese ninjutsu martial-arty goodness. Pick up a copy and let me know what you think. I did a podcast interview with The Fightworks Podcast earlier this week. It should be up soon and is mostly about the Complete Idiot's Guide to Ultimate Fighting. Although... I also mention a new project that my good friend Joe Nassise and I have put together along with the International Fight League called MISSION:IFL. I can't say too much about it just yet except that it's currently being shopped to multiple publishers. We're hoping for a big score. Got a couple of other interesting projects brewing. It's shaping up to be an exciting October, helped by the fact that I turn 38 on the 24th. (4 Comments |Comment on this)