Left Coast Crime Anyone?

Met up with Reed Farrel Coleman on Wednesday and it turns out we'll both be headed over to Denver this weekend for Left Coast Crime. I know what you're thinking: What coast is Denver on? Just think - in a few short decades, global warming might well make Denver the new Los Angeles. Or, maybe, the new Miami.

In any event, I'm going to be on a panel with wonderful people like Libby Fischer Hellman, Neil Placky, Rick Mofina, and Cara Black. Actually, it's not "people like" them so much as it's them. We'll all be talking about the male/female split - can men write female characters? Etc. I'm not sure about this topic - I figure it is as settled a question as can come up. Obviously men can write female characters. And women can write male characters. Imagine if we couldn't - that's right single sex novels. The arguments against must be along the lines of "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus." We cannot understand each other and all those occassions when men and women converse happily are just so many lucky coincidences...

Still, this should be a good convention for me. I have absolutely nothing to flog - not even a short story out. This means I get to see some of Denver. Anybody else headed out to Colorado?

Insults

Cruising around BBC News, I found insults...none directed at me personally. Some I didn't quite get. "Scouse git" for instance. Anyway, if you're into insults, enjoy.

Quarterlife is Coming! Quarterlife is Coming!

It's a new show on NBC concerning the Life, Loves, and Laughs of a group of twenty five year olds. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry...Presumably in the right places.

Here's the deal...two deals actually. First, so far, there are no real commercials. By that, I mean the type of commercial that makes you want to see the show. There's a shot of someone making drinks, others playing fooz-ball, people sitting around a living room, things like that. Someone says he feels like throwing up. I'm not sure which part of the commercial is intended to appeal to me. I can sit in my living room. I've never played fooz-ball (am I even spelling that correctly?). I've never had a drink (of alcohol) but I have vomited. Doesn't draw me in to watching this.

The commercial says it's the first show to make the move from the internet to the network. Of course, I was thinking "Does that mean there'll be more?"

Second, though probably related - I was too young to care about Thirty-Something way back when. I'm too old to care about Quarterlife. Maybe. Maybe I'm too old. Maybe, on the other hand, the show is crap. I always think that when the commercial fails to spark interest. Kind of like watching the trailer that is only action sequences without a hint of the story that these sequences are supposed to be in service of. Just in this case there are scenes of nothing and no hint of the story BEHIND the nothing.

Crotchety? You be the judge.

Stripper Names...

So Jon Stewart says that if you add your pet name to your street name (from when you were growing up) you'll get a stripper name. I tried that, but it didn't work. The problem is that I've had several dogs and we moveed around a lot when I was a kid. Here are the options - leaving out streets from adulthood.

Dogs:

Peaches
Chico
Cookie

(Not so bad you're thinking, right?)

Streets:

Spofford Avenue
East 233rd Street (near Gun Hill Road)
Washington Avenue
Route 110
East 233rd Street (this one was near White Plains Road)
Purdy Street
Holland Avenue

Peaches and Cookie have potential, but you see I'm at a loss for a last name. I suppose Chico Washington is a good character name (I call dibs) but more for a ne'er-do-well than a stripper, I think. Purdy Peaches? Anything with Holland?

Not, mind you, that I'm obsessed or anything...

Bar Question

I don't frequent bars. If you're part of the after work crowd in a NYC bar - where nobody knows your name - and you have three beers (which I'm figuring an adult male can handle without getting tipsy) do you pay for each beer individually as they are served or does the server bring a bill for the three drinks after you call them over and ask for the check?

As you may imagine, this is a point in the next novel I'm writing. Not a major one, but it might be so minor that getting it wrong will just make me look dumb.

Take me through this...

How do they project winners a minute after polls close? Or when they say only 2% of the votes have been counted? Right now Obama is projected as the winner in one state with a 52% to 42% after 2% of the vote counted. How does that happen? I mean is it sound mathematics?

Also, is anyone expected to drop out after tonight? I'm kind of hoping...

And did the Hollywood writer's strike make this race more interesting? You know, in a "there's nothing else to watch" kind of way.