Brian's Thoughts About Airplanes » Super Airplane

My Twitter Got Hacked

Brian — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:29:26 +0000

(Guess who has as early look at the first 24 segments of Flight of a Super Airplane.

Yep, it’s @milquetoast7, and she’s even reading it in an airplane station.)

My Twitter got hacked over the weekend, and while what I assume was a program/bot of some kind only got up one Tweet, it did an uncanny job of being me.

Here are two Tweets that came out of my timeline the day of the hacking. See if you can guess which one I actually composed.

Number one:

Interesting how online careers have gone up 40% in 2011. I just received my first payment from my website thanks to cnbc.com-article.in/k/?13222 =D

And the second:

lol this girl is eating a hamburger in her car

For every person who guesses it right, I will draw a picture of a Time Lord from Dr. Who and mail it to my dad in a Christmas card that says, “Dad have you ever seen Dr. Who it’s pretty good sometimes even though a lot of the times I can’t figure out what’s going on thx.”

How To Write Book Blurbs

Brian — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:46:49 +0000

(Yes, I am putting together the Flight of a Super Airplane cover.)

This is an actual, real serious post about writing, so go relax about something if you’re not into that.

I was going back and forth with another writer about book blurbs, i.e. those words on the back cover or in your Amazon description.

Because she was “afraid of giving too much away”, hers was complicated to the point that I couldn’t decipher what the story was. My advice – and I often have to remind myself of this – was to keep it simple.

This was my last email to her. I think she died after this, so there probably won’t be any further ones. :(

Well that’s why writing these are a tricky skill haha – I would say start with a one sentence description and work outward from there. What is the absolute baseline plot of your book?

For a movie example, Back to the Future is “A teenager travels back in time and accidentally keeps his parents from meeting, putting his own existence in danger.”

This tells you exactly what the movie is about without really telling you anything. At the same time, it’s compelling enough that you want to know more.

You can then build the full description outward from there:

“Marty McFly is your average ordinary teenager, except for one thing: his zany scientist friend Doctor Emmitt Brown has built a time machine…out of a car!

When Marty uses it to travel back to the 1950s, he accidentally prevents his parents from meeting, putting his own future at risk. Now – with the help of the 1950s version of Doc Brown – Marty must fix everything he’s broken and find his way Back to the Future!”

That’s basically the same one sentence description, but with some more details thrown in.

Is it giving too much away that the time machine is a car? No – that’s window dressing and makes it seem exciting.

Is it giving away too much that he screws up his parents meeting? I guess it’s a spoiler of sorts, but that’s what the whole book is about. You have to tell people that.

Anyway, next post I promise to write something ridiculous in backward English. Do you like carrots still.

Target Sells That Pan You Need

Brian — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:15:36 +0000

I tried really hard to take a picture of these two people in Target today, but they were making me have my laugh so hard that I couldn’t get close enough.

They were pacing up and down the pan aisle and like he was holding a pan, and she was like looking at it like she was trying to decide whether to have an abortion or not.

All I could think about was how they were at home and were all like, “Well, let’s go get the pan,” and whichever one didn’t say that responded by putting on a hat.

If it was the boy it was a baseball cap, and if it was the girl it was a horse-racing audience hat.

The best part about the whole sequence was when I fell on the floor and starting rolling around, like on the internet.

That was when the girl came over and asked what was so funny, and I told her the pan was on sale last week, and she clapped her hands all angry, like people do at the doctor’s office when they find out they have aids.

Help Me Not Use This Adverb

Brian — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:33:19 +0000

For real, I am struggling with something, so circle your grammar wagon and let’s make a train.

I know you’re not supposed to use adverbs when you have your writing happen to you, and I am good about not doing that.

Why is my grammar so perfect and also why does it flow so well.

But no like Christian Bale, I am having a hard time with the first sentence below, because of how it reads better with the adverb than any other way.

Michael had become increasingly distant and sullen in the days leading up the Super Airplane’s Opening Ceremonies.

Michael had become distant and sullen in the days leading up the Super Airplane’s Opening Ceremonies.

Michael had become an increased form of distant and sullen in the days leading up the Super Airplane’s Opening Ceremonies.

Michael had become more and more distant and sullen in the days leading up the Super Airplane’s Opening Ceremonies.

What do you think, and also tell me, so that I can make it become part of the book, and maybe I will put your picture on the cover of the book, and you can have a little bragging moment happen to you with your mommy.

This part of the book-making process is annoying and tedious to do the writing on.

The Best Comic Book Story in History

Brian — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:06:57 +0000

Sometimes people are like, “How do you get so many ideas and why are they so random and great. Where did you get your muscles also.”

I have no answer for them.

For example, sitting at a stoplight yesterday morning – with everyone honking and complaining about me not using my gas pedal enough – I Tweeted out the following.

Did anyone get the new issue of Captain Sunshine where he goes bad and throws Dr Windvane into the sun. #soldout
19 minutes ago via Twitter for Android

Oops #spoilers for Captain Sunshine #701 in that last tweet
16 minutes ago via Twitter for Android

That’s the irony of Captain Sunshine is he’d gone 700 issues without using his powers (throwing people into the sun) even once.
13 minutes ago via Twitter for Android

In #702 like he’s making up for 700 issues of not using his powers, ie stay out of his way unless you want to get thrown into the sun. Lol
10 minutes ago via Twitter for Android

On the surface, that’s not all that interesting outside of Captain Sunshine’s amazingly one-note powers. Super-heroes have gone bad plenty of times.

But what about the story of the writer who’s brought in to write this controversial story when Captain Sunshine’s creator (who’s written his adventures for 60 years) refuses to do it.

Also, Captain Solar Throw is funnier and Captain Sunshine is a Venture Brothers thing – I figured someone must have used that before.

How embarrassing – always check your work. I was at the stoplight for 9 minutes.

Did I Write Post-Modern Airplane Fiction

Brian — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:00:50 +0000

This is from a comment in an old post I found on Cleveland Frowns DOT COM about my book Prelude to a Super Airplane.

That cartoon is fantastic. And I enjoyed Prelude, despite the fact that I despise most postmodern fiction. Or is Prelude post-postmondern? I lost track somewhere of the difference when I stopped dating English major undergrads and graduate students, but it is worth a buy, and a read.

I don’t know what any of that means except undergrads, which are like co-eds for the East Coast.

Anyway, I was reformatting a couple things in PTSA for the Kindle version in Word and this came up.

How post-modern is that.

LOL!

Flaming Moon Tattoos

Brian — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:01:53 +0000

I have to be really careful, because sometimes when I get it in my head to do something, it won’t leave until I do it.

That’s how I ended up with my first two tattoos.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been revamping and creating content for all my book websites, but somewhere this passage from PTSA ended up embedded in my psyche.

She dialed the phone with contempt, and endured a short and dismissive conversation.

“He must be ten years my elder,” she thought to herself. “What a fool.”

Melinda Slanteer looked at her amazing, sultry body as she listened, and decided she would get a massive tattoo on her forearm of a flaming moon eating the Earth alive. It would symbolize the child eating the parent, and the resultant euphoria that came from destroying something thought indestructible.

Wow, do I want that tattoo, and also for that fictional girl to be real.

There’s no way I’d ever get that on my forearm, but I could see it elsewhere. If anyone wanted to draw up some sketches of what such a tattoo might look like, I’d be willing to get your signature or artist initials or whatever tattoo’d on along with it.

Now let’s wait and see how long until Mom emails me about this.

The Christmas Bridge is Open

Brian — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:00:38 +0000

Click to see larger size.

To say my latest book is accidental would be accurate.

It all started with this post back in April.

You can see right there in the parenthetical postlude how I knew instantly that something was about to happen.

Alas, here we are five months later or whatever and the book is released.

Everything in that post adapted itself into the story to some extent – you can get the full low-down in the tab at the top of this page or at the Christmas Bridge website.

Here are my personal thoughts on the novel itself:

1) It’s unforgivingly stupid, but has a lot of fun being just that. I don’t remember a lot of the writing process. Thus, I enjoy it as a reader.

2) While this stands alone 100% on its own, if you’re a fan of my little universe I’ve been piecing together, you’ll find even more between the lines.

It takes place 8 years after Prelude to a Super Airplane, Bruce Willis is the President, and there’s a favorite Who Shot Mamba? character who has an important (and shocking) supporting role.

3) The chapters are brief. This was almost made to be read on a phone in short bursts. These are types of books I like, therefore I write them like that. Grab a Kindle app and TCB becomes a great 3 minute distraction at your job or a traffic light.

4) Lost fans: in many ways, this is a love letter to that show. That the writing of TCB began right around the final episodes definitely influenced a lot. I make no secret of it in the text.

5) I don’t know that this would ever work as a live-action movie, but it should make for a phenomenal Adult Swim Christmas Special or the most insane Pixar film to date.

6) If you’ve caught the videos of people reading excerpts to their animals and children, those will continue. Keep them coming and let me know if you want to do one by emailing brian [at] turtlecalls [dot] com.

It nets you a free copy and they get posted on the Bridge website. I’m still figuring out what I want from them creatively, and I expect the balance shall arrive soon.

Of course, they also let you know where your child or animal falls in the book’s big conflict and if you want me to link to your site or whatever in the vid, I’m happy to do so.

Okay go buy the book – and if you read it, please let me know what you think, either directly or via an Amazon review.

Thanks for your support – I’m on my way to Cleveland for the rest of the week, but will continue to make blogs happen.

Well Here Is Why My Famous Isn’t Big Enough

Brian — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:30:54 +0000

(Check out that website for The Christmas Bridge and how someone wrote me a poem about the book before they even read it.

Yep that’s where all your doggie videos you are making me will go, too.)

Hey so here is a girl who was taking my Prelude to a Super Airplane book on a romance vacation and she sent me this picture of it and it’s a nice picture.

Is that her leg or just some pants that are going to live inside her suitcase for awhile. Who knows.

In other PTSA excitement news, I was on my secret cool kids message board I go to and this happened inside a thread about the publishing industry having a heart attack so much.

Dan
Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:35 am
By the way, I just try to buy Prelude to a Super Airplane on my Kindle…. it just sent me Dark Tower VI – Song of Susannah by Stephen King. WTF?!?!

Brian
Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:57 am
Are you serious? Is that why I am not huge – Stephen King is getting all my sales?!

Dan
Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 12:11 pm
100% serious. Weird glitch. It’s also telling me there was a problem with my credit card on file (there isn’t), but sent me the Stephen King book anyways.

Brian
Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 12:43 pm
Do me a favor and keep buying it until it works – you’re probably just an idiot who’s doing it wrong.

If anyone knows that guy Stephen King he owes me two money dollars.

Also if anyone knows the king of Amazon I want some money for my trouble and also get that guy Dan his digital book file for his little Kindle buddy.

Goodbye I will see you later. lol

Call For Christmas Dogs, Cats, Kids or Babies

Brian — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:58:34 +0000

Okay, so I’m giving away some media to celebrate my new book, etc.

Here’s exactly how it will go:

1) I’ll send you an excerpt from my new book The Christmas Bridge: A Timeless Excitement Fable.

2) You read said excerpt on video to your animal or child. This is preferably a dog, cat, or baby. You yourself don’t need to be on video unless you want to – just the receiver of the reading is fine.

NOTE: If you don’t have a dog, cat, or baby, you may use someone who’s willing to pretend they’re a dog, cat, or baby. I actually prefer this, and if they bark or go “goo goo ga ga” while you read to them, that’s even better.

3) You send me the video file via email to brian@turtlecalls.com.

4) I’ll put it online, adding a handsome www.christmasbridge.com thing at the end or overlaid in some fashion.

5) I’ll send you a hard or digital copy of the full book. If you’re a Kindle person, I’ll send you some money dollars you can use to buy the book. (It’s not out until October 4.)

I already have a few of these ready – I need to finish the book’s excitement website before they can go up.

Please note that the offer for a free HARD COPY is only happening if you email me by next Friday, September 24.

After that it’s digital only, because of how I hate going to the Post Office. I only intend to do that once.

If you’re one of the first 20 people to do this, I’ll also send you a copy of either Brad Radby’s Brad Radby, or Prelude to a Super Airplane, or my movie Who Shot Mamba?.

Maybe all of them – it depends on how many I have sitting around on that day and how angst-ridden I am about having to go to the Post Office.

Okay, so email me at brian@turtlecalls.com and we will do all of this – thanks!

Cliff Notes of All of My Stuff

Brian — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:33:53 +0000

I was doing a read of @nullster‘s Tweet that he made and one of them was a Tweet that had me in it which is why it got bonus points and I bought the digital reprint rights.

Here it is and that’s so you can see it so much.

I’ve decided what I’m going to do in life … I’m going to write the cliff note guides to all of @brianspaeth’s books
14 minutes ago via web

Well buddy come on down because now there’s something to beat with your career and it’s this video from @needsrebooting and she has the trophy right now because of how maybe you remember this Calvin Stadiums art that became real art that she did.

Taking the rest of the week off sounds like a good thing because of how my week is made from that one. Here comes a smile and it’s for me.

Being Internet Pretty

Brian — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:52:17 +0000

(Thanks to @beavercheese for the pic and how it shows that you want that dictionary right there because of my vocabulary.)

Hey if you are like me you are always getting chats on your Google mailbox screen and the chats are from girls and they are nice girls.

Sometimes they are like, “who is this guy sending me weirdo emails tee-hee-hee,” and you’re like, “hey big man is busy over here babe lol,” and yep typing that ‘lol’ is a for sure decision to help hide your ego that is raging so much.

That goes on for awhile and then she sends you the email and you put it on your website blog.

Also you tell her not to worry about telling who she is and that you will cover it up and maybe just don’t go to your blog tomorrow just in case.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: [redacted]
Date: Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 4:04 PM
Subject: So beautiful!
To: [redacted]

Kristin [Brennan],

you are soooo beautiful! Just wanted to let you know that!

Okay so you know Kristin’s Twitter is right here so did I keep a secret in a way that is good or what.

She is pretty like that email guy said so good job on that honesty. Oops here comes another round of emails from my girlfriends.

Oops again because now they all know there are more than one of them. I should email [redacted] and ask how he makes his smooth moves work.

Am I a smart guy or what.

This is What a Fun Vacation Can Be Like

Brian — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:17:51 +0000

So that was a boring post yesterday and it was boring because of its normal guy writing it had.

Maybe coming back from vacation was making me have my crazy time, but oh man good job to me for catching that one.

Here’s the hot news and that’s thanks at @bonniebell for telling everyone about my vacation and Twitter is where she did that.

Break it down.

missing person’s alert: @brianspaeth @JimCarrey @johncusack @tomhanks … let me know if any of them turn up :( thanks! :)

Yep we had a secret vacation and it was just me and my pals who like to be famous so much. Surfing is mostly what we did but also supper a little is another thing we had fun with.

The annoying part was when Jim kept saying “RUN FORREST RUN” at Tom 500 times.

Also we did some group reading of PTSA and I bet one of these buddies did up a new review at Amazon and here is part of that review and I wish all reviews told about the different parts of my secret origin like this one.

We hadn’t spoken for 56 years when this book arrived with a hand written note. “To Max, from Brian.” The choice of words meant more than I could ever tell him. I read it from cover to cover in a few days. I cried a lot, but inside, I felt a peace I hadn’t felt in years.

I took Mr. Spaeth’s book and took a trip to Seoul, hoping to rekindle my love affair with mahjong. I re-read it on the intercontinental flight, learning about super airplanes, airplane rides, and what it meant to have a dream. I too have a dream now, for the first time in years.

Thank you Mr. Spaeth. God bless you.

Okay wait maybe that one was from @worstfan because of how me and Team Famous weren’t really on vacation and instead it was a trip to buy an island for a vacation next year that we want to have.

Also remember you can have that PTSA book and I will buy it for you just go here.

Tom likes to eat lobster bisque more than regular lobsters. lol

Who Is This Cool Dude Ntosm

Brian — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:57:01 +0000

I was having a type at my qwerty keyboard after Allef’s Android Vignette App photoshoot that he was having and my typing was for an email to tell Allef thanks for coming to the photoshoot.

He is a famous guy who likes to get thank you notes in his inbox maybe is where I was coming from.

Then this happened and I told about it inside that Twitter website.

lol I was just perfectly one key to the right in typing my name all the way through and it came out Ntosm.
half a minute ago via TweetDeck

Okay well the post was going to end early because that’s all it was that was supposed to be in the post, but here is some excitement news instead.

Maybe you can imagine Buzz Lightyear is telling you the news and that will make it even more fun?

If you haven’t read the first book I wrote well I need you to go and get it for free on your Kindle or Kindle application and as long as you have a computer or phone you can get it in like two seconds just go do that here and you’ll learn how, and the way is that I’ll send you an Amazon Gift Perk Email.

Thanks I don’t ask favors at you much so boogie down productions. lol

Sometimes You Need A Fresca

Brian — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:29:42 +0000

(Submitted without comment.)

BRAD RADBY’S FOREWORD
by Brad Radby

I think holidays are cool things to have happen at you.

Like I was born on July 4th, and fireworks always make me think, “Time to get out of the uterus!”

Okay let’s get real for you about the book. The story is a cool one and maybe you can find the Christmas meme Brian put in it so you can learn about yourself and how deep you can be.

That’s how we grow and save the poor people from those mosquitos the internet nerds are always complaining about. How come they can’t fix that one again?

LOL!

I hope you like the book when you do your reading with it.

Brad Radby
Augtember 46, 2023

Brad Radby is the two-time Academie Award winning director of Brad Radby’s The Exploders, among many other theatrical motion pictures. He is a survivor of the Super Airplane ride, and resides in Los Angeles with his wife Melinda.

I Almost Wore Jeans to the Gym LOL

Brian — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:26:30 +0000

(This is my outgoing mail today.

Yes, I’m giving away the Simmons basketball book. It was fine, but my time with it is now complete.

Also, this picture happened with a pseudo-Polaroid Android app.)

So I was at the gym yesterday getting ready to make my muscles happen some more, and as I opened my gym bag, I realized I hadn’t put anything in it.

There was just one stray weightlifting glove – I never use these cause I’m a tough man – and a pair of old ePod headphones.

There were no workout pants and/or shorts.

I had a t-shirt on, so no problem there. But I also had on jeans.

I sat in there contemplating what to do for about 15 minutes. I took off my shirt while I did this so anyone who walked in would think I was in the middle of changing, and also so I could do my narcissism I like to have sometimes.

Ultimately I decided to drive away in my car to someplace to buy some pants, and then came back to the gym.

I crawled in so the staff wouldn’t have deja-vu and get scared about how their minds worked.

Have you ever worn casual clothes to the gym.

Napkin Writing Question

Brian — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:57:13 +0000

I’ve been working on this script for something that’s being put together, and I’m a little back and forth on the writing style – I do think my time in novel-land messed with me just a bit.

Anyway, here’s a small piece.

Chelsea follows Jazz to the back – she’s all giddy as she passes Colleen, who notices Timothy being all fidgety and nervous. She sits next to him and gives him a napkin.

COLLEEN

Here.

TIMOTHY

We’ll get out of this, right? He can do this?

He takes the napkin all thankfully, but he’s terrified – NOT EVEN THE NAPKIN IS HELPING.

COLLEEN

(hesitant)

I’ve seen Jazz do some...

(beat)

I was at the Jefferson Incident. The Memorial.

TIMOTHY

I know that, Miss Burns.

He unfolds the napkin and starts tearing it up.

TIMOTHY (CONT’D)

I know a lot of things I shouldn’t.

Anyway, the part I’m questioning is the action line that ends with the big “NOT EVEN THE NAPKIN IS HELPING”. Especially the end, but the whole line is in question.

Debating with myself:

1) It does nothing to help from a production angle – it’s really a bunch superfluous words, and there are more compact ways of getting the point across that the napkin isn’t making him more at ease.

Example: He takes the napkin – it brings no comfort.

2) On the other hand, this isn’t a shooting script, and the way it’s written all over-dramatic to the point of stupid helps put across the ridiculous-played-straight tone of the material.

It needs to be played like this napkin should be a Xanax or something, and this is a way to do that without having to be all “even though it’s a napkin, he takes it from her like it should be relaxing him”.

At the same time, I do know that some readers will need their hand held like that, though. (And that’s fine – they’re not predisposed to like this, if I had to guess.)

3) A lot of the script is written in this style, and it reads FUNNY. So tell a coherent a-b-c story along with that, and you’re in good shape – a good story that made you laugh is a successful comedy screenplay.

I dunno – my thoughts – would love yours.

NOTE: For you Prelude to a Super Airplane fans, Timothy is someone you will know, at least indirectly. (It’s not Colonel T, and this story takes place in 2001.)

Prelude to a Two Gun Girl

Brian — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:27:35 +0000

So my sister did some photoshoot for a friend last week, and I just got my eyes on the pictures.

If you have no idea what a Two Gun Girl might be, go watch this Two Gun Guy thing.

Anyway, most of this week has been spent brooding and being happy about how sad and happy I am. Also, lots of self-important writing.

Over at AOL Fanhouse, I wrote up my problems with LeBron James, and did a podcast with Brett Pollakoff, wherein I talked about LeBron’s Dancing Crisis, Bill Simmons’ basketball book, and of course some Who Shot Mamba? plugging.

At Yahoo!’s Ball Don’t Lie, there’s a small essay about the logistics and fun of shooting at Bill Walton’s house. Couple cool behind-the-scenes pics – I think in that one I’m trying to explain what an Orange Roundie is.

LOL!

What.

At CT Kingston’s blog – otherwise known as @CTK1, I did maybe my favorite Photoshop work I’ve ever done for part of her mega-super-2009-roundup-post.

Thanks also to @DennyMayo, @mfeige, @cjrider, and @thegnc for joining me in that Matt Bullard-based Houston Rockets chat, helping to bring Calvin Stadiums, Petey Skippen, Sherpa, Peter Ovaire, Brad Radby, Russell Slanteer, Monstero, and others to vivid life.

Keep in mind we are twins, but I’ma go ahead and say it – do you want to date my sister?

Andreanna Marsupial & the New Moon’s Glow

Brian — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:38:00 +0000

I was doing a reformat on the Kindle version of Prelude to a Super Airplane over the weekend, and totally forgot there’s an amalgamated Twilight + Harry Potter series of novels that are part of the 19th subplot.

Anyway, Chapter 30 of PTSA was actually an excerpt from one of the books.

I thought this an apt time to post it here – if you’ve never read the Twilight books, sadly this is exactly what they’re written like. Everything after this sentence is lifted directly from my book.

30
(I know this has nothing to do with airplanes, but I wanted to put it here, because I’m hoping if I put like a blurb on the cover, I can sell more copies of the book.

This is an excerpt from “Andreanna Marsupial and the New Moon’s Glow”, the fourth book in the Andreanna Marsupial saga. All material is copyright of the author, Stephenie Piperbraum, or however you say that correctly.)

CHAPTER 143 – THE END OF ACT 1

I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if I should or not. The television was sitting there in front of me, and I’d been looking at it for several hours, debating whether to turn it on or not. My father, Lugustus, had bought the television many years ago – it was old now, but when he bought it, it was new.

Lugustus liked to buy things, because he was a detective. I call him Lugustus because that’s his name, and I like to use names. When I was living in Unicorn Valley County, everyone called each other names. Their real names. That was before I moved here, where I had to watch Lugustus buy things. The day Lugustus bought the television, it was raining, which is when water falls from the sky. Some people call it precipitation, but I call it rain, because it takes less time to say, and because I’m an outsider. That means I’m not like everyone else, and it’s only worse here, because I moved here from somewhere else. Sometimes that means I don’t fit in with the people in this place, which is a different place from the place I came from before. I wish I were tan, and that my tail weren’t so sleepy.

The rain on the day the television was purchased was a heavy rain, which means that in terms of water, there was more of it coming down than if it were lighter. The heaviness of the rain made me a little sad, because I don’t have as many friends as I did in the other place I lived. The rain here was heavy.

“Hey, let’s go buy a new TV,” Lugustus said to me. “It’s raining, and the old TV doesn’t work good in the rain.”

The old TV was a seven-inch hand-held from Casio. We had it propped up in the corner on an old cereal bowl. The bowl had a chip in it. I’d put the chip in that bowl when I moved here – I’d been trying to eat some cereal, and because I was so new and had no friends, I dropped the bowl. This is where the chip came from.

The chip was one-quarter inch by one-eighth inch. I knew the exact measurement because I’d used a ruler to measure the chip. The chip I made because I had no friends. I never did eat that cereal that day – instead, I took the bowl, and used it to prop up the old Casio handheld TV. This way Lugustus, who’s my dad who I call by his first name, wouldn’t have to hold the TV in his hands anymore. I couldn’t believe how big the chip in this bowl was, and when I measured it, I knew everything would be different. Thank god I had that ruler. Ugh…life.

The ruler was blue. It wasn’t a light blue, and it certainly wasn’t a dark blue. This meant the blue fell somewhere in the middle, although it wasn’t quite royal blue. Maybe it was plain blue. Plain. There’s a word to describe my life in this new place. P-L-A-I-N. Plain. What a word. Five letters, and not one of them the same. I had no friends here – I couldn’t believe it.

I took the plain blue ruler and picked up the bowl. The bowl with the chip. The chip that reminded me my heart was empty. The actual chip itself was little. I kicked it under the refrigerator, which was pale yellow in color, and had two doors. One for things we wanted to just make cold, and one for things we wanted to freeze. That part of the pale yellow refrigerator was called the freezer. It made sense to me. Nothing else did. I was so confused in this new place. This new place that was so new to me, because I’d never lived here before.

Lugustus was a professional detective. He would hate the chip in the bowl, and would feel like he had to do his detective work on it. This is why I had to hide it under the pale yellow refrigerator. The kick I used to kick the chip was just soft enough to get the chip underneath. If I kicked it too hard, it might hit the wall and bounce back out. If I kicked it too soft, it wouldn’t make it under at all, which would mean I’d have to kick it again. I didn’t want to do this, because I was so tired from not having any friends, because I’m an outsider in this new place. Everyone looked at me weird. Like I was weird. Lugustus wouldn’t understand. He was just my dad, and not my mom, and I called him by his first name. He couldn’t figure this out, because he didn’t understand me. Some detective.

Once I had hid the chip, I took the bowl and looked at it. I noticed for the first time that it was white. A pale white. All white was pale, but maybe this was paler. Paler than white. I laughed to myself. Maybe I was going crazy from not having friends to go places with. It’s not like I’d know where to go anyway – I wasn’t even from here. I was from somewhere else. Someplace that wasn’t here. I looked at the bowl for another minute, and started walking to the living room. I tripped – just a little. Not a lot. Not enough to fall down. My heart ached again. I couldn’t tell Lugustus about Handsomar Horsebuck coming back into my life. Not now, and not ever. That means never. Not even later than now. My dad could never know about Handsomar’s return. He was just my dad, and he wouldn’t understand. Nobody understands me, because I’m not from here. Except Handsomar. We still love our staring contests so much.

I tripped over a chair. The wooden chair. The same one I’d eaten dinner in last night. I’d gotten home late from school, because I’d been out with Handsomar, who when he first came back, I thought had become a vampire man-horse. He wasn’t. He was still a regular man-horse. Something else had changed about him though, and it would change my life forever, but I need to explain the chair. The chair. The wooden chair – that’s what was important right now. It was a wooden chair, made of wood. When I sat in it last night, never in a million years did I think I would trip over it that morning. But I did, because I was lonely, because I had no friends. This place was so strange.

I’d made chicken for Lugustus and I for dinner. The dinner where I sat in the chair I had tripped over, after I’d hidden the chip in the bowl, which I’d used to prop up the Casio, which one morning Lugustus and I were going to replace with a new TV, which I was sitting in front of now, wondering if I should turn it on. The chicken was good. I’d bought fresh fowl at the grocery store that afternoon, which is the time between morning and evening. The time of day I’m most aware of my lack of friends. No friends. Wow. How did I get here?

The grocery store Lugustus had told me to go to was big. This was because it was one of two stores in town. It had been remodeled recently, because the other store was selling more food than them. I guess they thought they should make a bigger store to hold more food. Maybe if I had a bigger heart, I could have more friends. I was so alone. The other store was big. I’d only been there once, because I didn’t know how to get there, because I wasn’t from here. I was from somewhere else. Yeah, somewhere not here.

The outside of the other store was a dull beige, with bricks lining the top and bottom rims of the roof and ground. In front was a sidewalk, which was made of cement. Cement was heavy. Like my heart, which was alone from not having friends.

Brad Radby’s eBook Theory

Brian — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:11:08 +0000

At the start of the movie, Brad is finishing the new cover for his book, which he did because he has his exciting ADD and wanted to make people confused.

The inside of the book was still the same, and like that was so the paparazzi would not go crazy?

Brad used inDesign.

So like then Brad looked at the 14,000 different formats he would need to re-create to make the eBook version of his excitement book widely available, and like that made him do his vomiting, and he cursed society again.

But Brad saw that now the Kindle software was available for PCs, and so that was a good thing that he liked to have happen, even though Kindle formatting robs him of all the exciting fonts that he likes so much, and that it was a somewhat archaic device the day it was released.

Brad right then like at that moment made a decision that until the Apple Tablet arrived and fixed society, he was only going to keep it simple and have his book only available in three ways: Paperback, PDF, and Kindle.

He also decided this would include any related books that he appeared in as a character, like Prelude to a Super Airplane.

(Brad also knew that he thought it was funny how the publisher was like, “Hey, do you know that you state this Brian Spaeth person is the author, but the cover misspells his name, and doesn’t even list him as the actual author?”

Brad was just like “LOL!! Hit that publish button BRO.”)