I have to apologize, audience. I have been absolutely horrendous at updating this blog lately. I can only say it's because I've been  mildly busy!

Aside from the general running of the coffeeshop I'm assistant manager at, I was running for props for the commercial I'm working on. Shooting on that should begin within the upcoming week or two. I'll keep you readers up to date on that, should any problems arise.

I also acted in a web series called Baked Cookies. It's the brainchild of Matthew Dryer, of Kansas City based Dragon Fro Productions. He acts, produces, and directs the series. He's also worked on music videos with The Popper and Nesto the Owner that are really taking off. The man is a video production powerhouse!

My role in Baked Cookies was that of a Willy Wonka-inspired character that produces smoking paraphernalia instead of candy. It was intense, hilarious, and worth every minute of it. The embedded link will take you straight to Baked Cookies shenanigans. It's fun stuff.

And somewhere, in the midst of all that busy, I managed to get a haircut. Don't worry, friends, next update will be much sooner. I promise!

I may be a little behind in regards to my weekly update, but at least this time I have news!

Matt Dryer of KC-based video production "Dragon Fro Productions" and I will be in total cahoots together making a commercial for a disclosed small business. My credits will be writing and the miscellaneous drudgery, I'm sure, whereas Matt will assume a more authoritative directorial role. Granted, it's merely a commercial, but this will be my first paid writing gig and a blast to work on nonetheless. Speaking of Mr. Dryer, if you're interested in creating a music video, documentary, or other video project (or know someone who does) and live in the KC metro area, the guys at Dragon Fro are independent, quality-concerned, and cost-effective. You can check out their work here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DragonFroProductions

Until next time, then.

So, lovely readers, I didn't make it past the first round of the Amazon novel thingy. I didn't suspect to get very far in the beginning, only because I'm not sure my style is one you could call "breakthrough and sell-able." But entertaining? About as much as watching a grizzly bear battle a tiger... with a machine gun.

And so I trudge on, with pursuing an agent to represent my own brand of absurdity.

But, I will be moving to Denver in June, at the latest. I think the mountainscape will provide me with a much needed distraction and hopefully stoke those fires of creativity. You should all move there to soak in the scenery and drink delicious beers. And get piercings and tats while you're at it, because everyone's doing it.

Until next time, sirs and madams.

You know what? Weekly updates are nice. I think it's the perfect pace for me. So it shall go.

As has been noted, I was sick before leaving for Denver. While in the land of mountains of rockitude, I started to feel better. As soon as I returned to Kansas, I relapsed into my sniffly illness. My roommate suggested the house may be having an affect on my health. I've decided I'm simply allergic to Kansas and my body is telling me to leave for a different, and more exciting, environment. I hope I can oblige it with a long-term residence elsewhere fairly soon.

Minecraft: call it crack, a designer's tool, or whatever, it as an entity defies definition. One can build, destroy, and learn. In the latter, I've been learning how to manage a public server. So far, it's been a slow but rewarding process. If it interests you, feel free to ask me for info how to enter into the Land of Knives.

Every day I wake up with a severe thirst for water, I am thankful. It means I remain rabies-free one day more.

I was lucky enough to visit the wonderful city of Denver over the weekend. It was a business trip of sorts (mainly for a roommate and applying the rest of trip timing to her schedule) so I didn't get the chance to go ballistic and catch up with everyone I know out there. Nevertheless, I sat in awe of the mountains, drank much of their fine beer, and visited many locales that we squeezed in along the way. It's truly a place I could find myself settling into for some odd years, all things permitting.

In other news, the clock ticks down to the day when I will find out whether or not I passed the first round of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest. There is a 5,000 applicant cap and the first round cuts the number of prospects down to 500, I believe. If I'm not a part of that 10 percent, it's a bit hard to be too upset about it. If I do manage to succeed in proceeding to the next round of judging, then I'm part of the elite and peasant-writers can suck my awesome.

...with all due respect, of course.

I've been fairly "sick" of late. Notice the quotation location, as it's strictly  a noncontagious, sinus-stifling, mild, mainly annoying throat sickness. It's not even something I could use to call in to work with, hence my grumblings with it. I can't use it to my own benefit or infect others with it; where's the fun in that?

Hopefully, I'm over it by this weekend; I'll be venturing to Denver along with the roommates, as one of them has an interview to acquire a teaching position in the city district. At the same time, the other roommate and I shall be looking for places to live, should she get the job. It's all boiled down to this, in a way; The hammer's about to strike and we'll see if the blow lands true, or if the product is flawed, shattered, and begun anew once more.

I've continued to be fairly terrible with regular updates, so perhaps irregular updates will be the regularity?

I have, however, submitted the novel into another channel of possible publishing. To be fair, though, becoming victor of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is statistically a 1 in 5000 chance of success. Thankfully, I'm not a statistician and enjoy gallivanting against the grain of odds and reality. I'll put twenty bucks on dark humor coming out on top of the contest.

More snow and ice hit the Midwest this week, proving that one can become stuck without even moving two feet from your parking place in the driveway. Father Winter, ye olde tool, you can leave and not return until November.

Expect to hear from me in less than a week. Adios, cyberspace.

I'm averaging a weekly post and, given the lack of anything interesting or noteworthy in so far that I'm observing, I guess that's not too bad. I could always stand to post more frequently though, dear blogspace, so I'll attempt to do so.

Query rejections are bound to happen. So far, my queries I've sent out have garnered a 33% rejection rate. The other 67%, however, are simply no-replies. Having that query in agency-pick-up limbo, suspended in some cruel, unknown balance, is worse than getting a "no." But, life's a bitch.

I saw a writer's pitch coming up on Monday. The plan is to attend and knock it outta the ball park, major league style (minus the frothy 'roid mouth, of course). I think I stand a good chance of success in the long run. After all, I'm not setting out to write the next young adult blockbuster saga, or the next Great American novel, dripping with timeless satire and social meaning.

My goal as a writer is to craft comedic works, whether cheap laughs or intellectual wit, and thus etch out a meager to moderately successful (moderately is relative) living. If bringing home the fatback bacon bucks is the real American dream, I'll settle for some nice salami dollars; tasty enough, but not so rich that my arteries clog.

I wish I lived in New York right now so I could watch the pigeons do their thing. I sometimes experience spontaneous familiarity with flying rats. Go figure.

Apparently, the entire world is frozen today. Oy. It definitely makes working, getting to work, and anything involving the word work (woodworking? leatherworking?) difficult to do.Yet still the snowplowers plow, the police police stuff and direct traffic, shovelers shovel and salt, and professional insurance scammers stage their own "weather-induced" accidents.

So, thanks to you all, freezing your asses off for the public good. I'd offer you free coffee, but my wallet isn't deep enough yet. I hope my gratitude will suffice for now... except for you scammers. You should go scam each other. Let's see how that works out for ya.

Also, looking out the window, I'm confused as to why a police officer helping a stopped car isn't wearing a jacket. For extra-frosty badass points I guess?

She's got gloves though, so she just lost the x4 icy multiplier.

Somedays I feel more like a manager than others. Working ten and a half hours, waiting for two interviewees to show, reprogramming the cash register, dealing with price changes, and exhaustion can have that effect on one I guess.

The book's been completed. It's been edited. Agents intimidate me. Comics take a while to draw. Old friends returning to town spark old memories.

Beer is still a delicious panacea. Copperhead Pale Ale, to be exact. Pick up a six-pack today!

The Chiefs are out of the playoffs. They suffered a pretty bruising defeat at the hands of the Ravens. But it's not all bad news for Kansas City. Next year should be very exciting for Chiefs fans.

We're talking about a team that went from a miserable 4-12 straggler to a 10-6 AFC West Championship team in a single year.

As promising a leap as that is, they also have the worst record of straight playoff losing streak in NFL history. The last seven times the Chiefs have gone to postseason play, they've lost seven times. They've battled through a veritable gauntlet of the greatest sevenfold since 1994 and been turned away every time.

However, I find positives in both statistics. I can only hope to one day experience such flattering levels of defeat, to rise from a dismal stance and challenge the very best, only to march once more into the fray.

I really liked throwing the Bigfoot comic on here as a post. It's like a cop-out for an update, but still a sparkly bit of fun, so everyone wins! So, expect more of those.

On the topic of webcomics, one should check out "www.harkavagrant.com" and look at some of the lovely Kate Beaton's work.

On a sidenote, I've now eaten Habanero Poppers alongside Dragonfro Production's Matt Dryer. Henceforth, I shall call them Devil's Testicles.

And now, I think I'll go scribble a bit.

A word of advice: never make an "I will not..." resolution. Resolutions of restraint are fragile things. Even resolutions such as "I will quit smoking" can be translated to "I will not smoke." "I will lose weight" becomes "I will not weigh as much later as I do now." All it takes is one little temptation to send 298 days of dedication tumbling into defeat. If it can be overturn, these resolutions will forever be in jeopardy.

My single resolution for 2010 was met, and I can never reverse its status. And it was?

"I will take a shot of mezcal with the worm."

Did I walk the easy road? Yes. Was it a fun one? Believe it.

Do it right this year, resolution-bound.