In which I tell you nuffink! NUFFINK!

On November 5, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Music3 Comments

I have no idea what that line is actually from, but it’s running through my head.

I met with my therapist on Tuesday. My wife had the day off, since she’s a state employee and it was election day, and when I got home she asked me how it had gone and what we’d talked about. And then she got this weird look on her face and said “Well, unless you can’t really talk about it, or something like that.”

“I’m a blogger,” I said. “I tell 20,000 people what happened to me today three times a day. Yes, I will share my discussion with my therapist with my wife.”

And I did.

And, uh, here’s the problem: I’ve got a hell of a lot I want to talk about, but damn near all of it is embargoed for some reason or another, most of them having something to do with my real life and counting unhatched chickens and various things like that. So instead I’m going to just write this frustratingly ambiguous blog post and leave you with a music video, since ~~it’s Friday~~ no goddammit it’s Thursday screw it you get a Friday song anyway.

Hah. I’m a rebel like that.

ANOTHER!

WHY NOT, ONE MORE

…aaaand I’m spent.

A couple of observations on that #EpisodeVII trailer

On October 20, 2015October 20, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn movies10 Comments

I still think this is going to be too scary for my son, which is very disappointing. We haven’t even managed to get him through the OT yet, which is my current greatest failure as a parent. We have not tried the prequels.
I think my favorite thing about this is what they’ve done with the music. The Force Awakens trailers have had a very different tone and feel than the previous six films, and this one is the most sonically different. I really like it.
In the very last shot, Finn takes one look at Kylo Ren’s lightsaber and does a little hop backwards like he wasn’t expecting to see it. You’re in trouble, bwah.
Speaking of John Boyega, make sure to check this out.
…and I haven’t mentioned Daisy Ridley’s Rey yet, but check this out too.
The amount of stuff I still know nothing about going into this movie is astounding. Did you know Max von fucking Sydow is in this movie? And NO ONE knows who the hell he’s playing? That that’s Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata character doing the voiceover along with Rey and we don’t know what the hell she looks like?
My wife and I thought it was Leia; I don’t actually know Nyong’o’s voice, and am going by what everybody else is saying on that.
The shot of Rey descending into the bowels of the Star Destroyer is outstanding.
There’s been a lot of talk about the complete absence of Luke from these trailers, other than (presumably) the shadowy, robot-handed figure reaching for Artoo in that one shot. Fewer people appear to be noticing the absence of C-3PO, who hasn’t appeared in a single shot in any of them. I can come up with plenty of reasons to hide Luke. Fewer for Threepio.
It’s looking more and more like the movies are going the opposite direction from where the original Expanded Universe went: Luke does not appear to have re-founded the Jedi order, and damn near no one has seen a Jedi in several generations (since the purge) by this point. I wasn’t super happy with losing the EU but at least they’re not bothering to retread any of the same stories.

What did you think?

#WeekendCoffeeShare: Reasonable Positivity Edition

On September 19, 2015September 19, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories5 Comments

If we were having coffee, I’d be pretty happy. I badly want to be having coffee right now, but our coffeepot wants for a vinegaring, and it’s running slllooooowwwwww.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad week. The boy made it through a week of school with no poopery issues. At my school, we had a couple of notable suspensions that kept my afternoon class functional all week, and the first math test of the year went way better than I thought it was going to. My homeroom girls ate the thing alive, and my afternoon class showed a somewhat unexpected haves-and-have-nots pattern, where the kids either did great or very poorly. I was expecting the poorly part, mind you, as they don’t pay attention and there’s way too many special ed kids in there to be able to teach them effectively, but the number of them that did really well was really gratifying. What I didn’t see was kids in the middle. They either missed one or two or they missed eight.

I would probably point at my wrist at some point and remark about how there wasn’t a brand-new Pebble Time Steel on it, because the post office is screwing with me (if you want to take it personallly) or having some issues with their tracking system if you don’t. The tracking on the package is simultaneously insisting both that my watch is in California (where it has been since “shipping” on Tuesday) and that it will arrive yesterday. I’m crossing my fingers that a slew of updates will pop all at once and I’m getting it today. We’ll see.

I am looking forward to being mugged when some nitwit mistakes my $250 red and gold Pebble for a $17,000 Apple Watch, by the way.

And then I’d point out that it’s #SilerSaturday again, and Skylights is free, and since Skylights is my favorite of my books you really ought to download it and give it a read because it’s great.

How’re you?

#Weekendcoffeeshare: Fear and Self-Loathing edition

On September 12, 2015September 11, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories20 Comments

I’ll be honest: if we were having coffee, the very first thing I’d do is point out that it’s the inaugural #SilerSaturday and hey my book is free at Amazon have you downloaded Benevolence Archives yet you really should no risk it’s freeeeeeee.

After that I would look sheepish and apologize and try not to bring it up again but I’d probably mention it at least once more because the book’s good dammit and if you love me you will download a thing for free.

But anyway.

After that? Parental and husbandly anxiety, mostly. My son, who is four, is enrolled at an insanely expensive private school that my wife and I can only barely afford, and that was before I took a twelve thousand dollar pay cut since my last job isn’t my job anymore. And he got suspended at the end of… well, not last week, the week before that, because he’s still pooping himself, for reasons that I’m not getting into right now (because coffee) but just trust me they make sense.

And my wife has been home with him for the entire time, because I’ve missed too many days of school already, and she’s letting me get away with the sort-of-excuse that it sort-of is. My kids have a math test this upcoming week and they’ve had a week less instruction than the other fifth-graders because I’ve either been sick or pulled out of my room to do something else so many times already. The boy is still inexplicably diarrhetic and he’s been back in pull-ups for the last couple of days after months in underwear, and we’re quickly getting to the point where we’re worrying that they’re just going to suggest un-enrolling him and trying again next year.

Now, my kid’s birthday is in August. He’s the youngest kid in his class. It would have been entirely reasonable to leave him in day care for another year (where they change diapers) and wait a year to enroll him in school. Plenty of people have made the decision that they’d rather have their kid be the oldest in his grade instead of the youngest, and some of them will defend it fiercely. We didn’t make that call, but there is a non-zero chance that we may be about to have it made for us.

And… hell, I’m taking it personally, I’ll be honest. This is a perfectly normal damn thing and I’m acting like he’s doing something to me, which he’s not, but… dammit. Insanely expensive private school, did I mention that? Insanely expensive exclusive private school. Like, I don’t feel like I belong there. Masters of the Universe type private school. And there’s a chance that my kid is gonna get kicked out because of poop.

It’s got me twisted. Really twisted, in a way I don’t like.

Eventually we might get around to the fact that I saw someone from high school this week who I haven’t seen in maybe fifteen years, and that’s still got me weirded out too, which happens every time I see someone from high school. I’ve not made a secret of the fact that I’m not super happy about living in the same state I grew up in, much less the same town. The conversation was perfectly happy and innocuous and pleasant, mind you, and even ended refreshingly, without the typical “We should hang out sometime!” lie that frequently accompanies these sorts of things. But… yeah. I’ve got a lot of reasons for my head to be muddled right now. I need to get it cleared out.

Download a free book. It’ll help. 🙂

As of right now…

On March 27, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized4 Comments

…I’m taking today off from blogging. Which probably means that sometime tonight something will piss me off and I’ll write a 2000 word screed about it. But it’s been a long week and my thinkybits are sorta melty, so I’m gonna use tonight to recharge.