Yeah, We've Become Cat People

It's official. We are now cat people. I don't know how it happened, how it slipped past my carefully constructed layered defenses, but there is now a cat living in our house. That's right, felis catus (latin for evil beast-monster) has invaded the Mongoose Den. Every self-respecting dog lover knows that no good can come of having a feline presence establishing a foothold in staunchly canine territory. Before you know it, the darn thing will have a soft fluffy bed laid out on the foot of my bed. It will be expecting friendly scritches behind the ears and under its cute little chin whenever I walk by. I'll hardly be able to pass her soft cuddly form without being distracted by the gentle purring...

Aahhh!!! It's too late! Well, crud. I guess all I can do is accept it and post a picture to join the 50 bazillion other cat pictures on the web. That makes this blog official. Everyone knows, nothing really exists on the web unless there is a picture of a cat.

Z - Zeke and Bubba

Hey, Zeke!
Yeah, Bubba?
I've been thinkin'.

And so begins most of Zeke and Bubba's adventures. Zeke is the smart one, Bubba is the thinker. Together, they bring a lighter side to Torah teaching. Currently available for viewing only on YouTube and Sermon.net, they will soon be making their presence known on Hebraic Roots Network. That's right. Everyone's favorite Hebrew rednecks will be joining HRN in short segments between regularly scheduled programming.

Imagine if you will; you've just finished watching a particularly deep and brain-stretching teaching by Brad Scott, Bill Cloud, Ed Harris, or any of the other wonderful teachers at HRN. There is still a few minutes until time to watch Mason Clover or another of the talented musicians bringing praise and worship. What will you do? You need a light spiritual snack to keep you going. Enter Zeke and Bubba. One to two minutes of their trademark redneck perspective on the Bible. Below is a sample. Enjoy.



I'm not going to tell you which one is me, but I'm thinkin' you might be able to figure it out.

Y - Yarny

Yarny is one of the best tools I've found for my writing. It was designed by writers with NaNoWriMo in mind. With Yarny, you are writing in the cloud. Your writing is saved automatically, with auto-versioning. And did I mention it's free? Check out their website to learn more about their features.

I found Yarny when I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in 2011 to write Dogs of War. I was able to write from anywhere that had an Internet connection. I also exported my writing to my laptop so I could work on it offline if necessary. When I had a connection again, I just copied and pasted the new text into Yarny. I didn't really have time to learn all the features of Yarny that first year. I didn't take advantage of the snippets to divide my work into chapters and subchapters. I didn't realize until I was editing several months later that Yarny will export the snippet titles as chapter titles. I used it again for 2012 to write Dogs of War: Infiltration, knowing more about what I was doing. I also upgraded to the paid Premium version of Yarny. It's not really necessary, but it allows you to save multiple titles. With the free version, you can only have one writing project in the cloud at a time. I upgraded so I can keep all of my writing together and edit one while writing another, etc.

Yarny added a new feature for 2012 that has me really excited. It's called Publification. Like Yarny, it is free. It allows you to export directly from Yarny to Publification's online self-publishing site. Remember that feature of exporting snippet titles? Publification automatically recognizes them as chapter titles if you choose, saving you a big step in formatting. You can import cover art, apply for an ISBN, share links to your e-book through social media, and sell your book right from their site. And the best part is, you retain all rights to your material. Publification does not get any rights to your book. They simply collect a percentage of sales.

Both of these tools are great for the aspiring author. Together, they can be indispensable.

X - Xenophobia

Xenophobia refers to an irrational fear of things that are foreign or strange. In other words, alien. Usually people use it to refer to ultra-nationalism and fear of other cultures and nations. But I want to discuss another use of the word.

Aliens! That's right. The irrational or unreasonable fear of aliens. If you've seen the movie Alien or its sequel Aliens, or Independence Day, or Predator, you know that irrational is not the right word. It seems to me that it is completely reasonable and rational to fear aliens after seeing xenomorphs, alien invaders, and invisible big-game hunters with weird dreadlocks and a built-in self destruct button. What's up with that?

Am I xenophobic? Am I afraid some intelligent lizard or a pod person is going to make me the main course at an alien buffet? No. Aliens don't exist. But xenophobia is a great plot line for any scifi novel. Without it, my entire trilogy would be stillborn. While it's not the main point of the novels, it plays a significant part in advancing the story line and adding tension. Without it, the entire conflict would have been resolved much quicker and easier. Good for the people fighting the war, bad for the reader who gets bored three chapters in and puts the book down. Therefore, xenophobia. Much better for everyone. Except the poor guys getting blasted by alien spacecraft. Sucks for them.

W - Wigging Out

I was sitting on the couch trying to figure out what to write for "W". Then it happened. Someone, or something, tapped me on my right shoulder. I thought this was strange since I was the only person in the room. Anyone coming in from another room would have entered from my left and tapped my left shoulder. I casually looked to my right to see what was there. Then I wigged out.

Sitting on my shoulder, looking pleased with itself and obviously contemplating evil intentions, was a yellow jacket. Clearly, one of us was going to die. Being a man, I responded in the appropriate way.  First, to my everlasting pride, I prevented the girly scream that wanted to erupt from the very depths of my soul from escaping. Then, I thumped the yellow jacket in the face. Hard. It may not seem manly, but I guarantee it felt manly to that flying denizen of the darkest pits of hell when my fingernail intersected his face at high speed.

My next step, after several deep breaths to calm my nerves and lower my heart rate below 200, was to quickly find something lethal to send the demon back from whence it came. Enter the shoe. I proceeded - in a manly way - to beat that thing into the floor with reckless abandon. After ten hyper-violent expressions of my displeasure, I checked for remains.

It was still moving. There could only be one explanation. It was the undead. That's right. Zombie yellow jacket. It made complete sense. The reason it was on my shoulder was to get easy access to my head and thus, my brain.

After further examination, it is quite possible that the soft sole on the shoe combined with the thickness of the plush carpet prevented my vigorous application of percussive justice from achieving the desired effect. So I did what any red-blooded male with a generous infusion of adrenaline would. I flushed it down the toilet. Asta la vista,  ya brain-eating hellion!

V - Vermithrax Pejorative

Yes, you read that title correctly. Vermithrax Pejorative. Some of you are reading that title and thinking "Nice, this is going to be a cool and interesting blog entry." Others are thinking "Shiny!" That leaves the last group of you who are looking at it cross-eyed and thinking "What the heck is Vermithrax Pejorative? I think my brain just broke."

For those in that last group, Vermithrax Pejorative is a dragon. The dragon in the movie Dragonslayer to be exact. Now, I must go on record as saying I didn't care for the movie at all. I just saw it recently and thought it was significantly subpar. The dragon, however, is still one of the greatest movie dragons of all time. It exuded pure malevolence and reptile wickedness. It looked like a dragon should look. It was all scales and spines and fire. There was no cuteness or adorable eyes or anything else that would make you feel bad that our protagonist was determined to kill it. Live and let live? Not a chance. In this movie, with this dragon, it's kill or be eaten.

That's not to say that there isn't a place for the noble dragons of other films and television. Draco in Dragonheart was a great character. I rather like the dragon in Merlin as well. However, they are sympathetic characters, even when acting with deliberate malice. You don't want to root against them, despite the fact that they sometimes try to kill the good guys. It's just hard to hold that against them.


Vermithrax Pejorative

Enter Vermithrax. So evil, so malevolent, so powerful that it is even given an ugly name. Its name means "The Wyrm of Thrace that makes things Worse". I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very warm and fuzzy to me. It sounds like the Big Bad that everyone wants to avoid. You know just from his name that no matter how bad things are, he's going to make them worse. And that is what makes him an effective movie dragon.

U - Unusual

I'll admit it. I'm unusual. I'm fine with that. I got married at age 19 to my 18 year old fiancee. Almost 22 years later, we're still married. I have four kids, while most people today have one or two. I own guns and love to shoot them, but I've never hunted a day in my life. I am an ultra-conservative that writes Sci-fi novels for fun. (I'm currently unpublished, but that will change.) I am a pilot that hasn't flown in 18 years. I carry a gun on a daily basis, but I've never shot anyone or even considered shooting someone, even when they cut me off in traffic.

Oh wait, that isn't unusual. That makes me just like 99+% of all gun owners in America. Especially those with a carry permit. So scratch that off the unusual list.

The thing that makes me most unusual to people I know is that I'm Messianic. Not Messianic Jewish. As far as I know, I am not Jewish at all. However, I believe in and follow the Torah and the rest of the "Old Testament", or Tanakh. I also believe in and follow Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and the "New Testament" or B'rit Chadasha. This makes me stand out at work or in many social situations. Keeping the Sabbath on Saturday and eating kosher (biblical, not rabbinic) will definitely make you noticeable. Especially when you tell your boss you won't work when he says he needs everyone to come in on Saturday to move equipment. As my co-workers have gotten used to my work and dietary restrictions (no pepperoni on my pizza, please!), I haven't felt as odd. Until I try to visit Messianic websites from my work computer. There's just something strange about seeing them blocked and categorized as "Non-standard religions, folklore, or cults."

Unusual indeed. But that's how I like it. Besides, turkey pepperoni is better for you anyway. Shalom!