seriously

I can't believe President Obama has the time to make music videos

President Obama lip synching to "Call Me Maybe." Ha ha ha. Oh, pop culture, I think I love you most of all.

If you hate clowns, you'll love this

Remember when The Batman was hilarious? Ah, the good old days. NOW DANCE, BATMAN, DANCE!

Today is the first day of the Portals Writers Conference

Hey friends... today I'll be at the Portals Writers Conference at Corban University in Oregon.

I'll be teaching three workshops over the next couple of days. Here are the descriptions:

The Launchpad: How to Get Started Writing Your Fiction Project

Come to this class for a fun, interactive time designed to help you start a story (or novel, or screenplay, or whatever) and get it finished. In addition to learning an easy structure to jump start almost any story, we'll also produce some "flash fiction" in class, meaning that you'll end the day with a complete first draft of a story. If we have time and feel devious enough, we'll explore how to create realistic dialogue and human interactions by experimenting on your friends and family. Moowhahahahahaaa!

Embracing Your Inner Weird: How To Write What You Love and Still Get Published

Plenty of people will tell you to study publishing trends and write what sells. Matt Mikalatos will share how to study yourself, write what you love and sell that instead. As a professional author who has sold a novel about Jesus, talking donkeys and atheists ("Imaginary Jesus") and one about vampires, zombies and Christian living ("Night of the Living Dead Christian"), Matt know what he's talking about and is passionate about helping others get professionally published.

A third possibility (or I can repeat one of the ones above):

Destroying Writer's Block

Here's a secret: Writer's block is a myth. Come to this seminar to learn how to get unstuck, destroy writer's block and move forward in your fiction. We'll discuss how to "write your way" out of a jam using brute force, how to take detours around your writer's block, and the disciplines that can help you crawl over and out of writer's block every time.

It's not too late to come by. I hope to see some of you there!

Wonderful Wednesday: An Ode to the Human Brain

I wish the world was like this, where even the stuffiest scientists would suddenly burst into song when talking about things they're passionate about. Thank you, Autotune!

I totally stole this from Luc Reid's website.

That's pretty much the definition of disappointment

Yesterday I took my kids to the dentist.

"I see five cavities, nurse. Write that down."

For some reason my 2-year-old, M, seemed really excited about this, happily getting dressed, eating her breakfast and generally being antsy to get out the door.

On the way to the dentist, one of the other girls said something about going to the dentist to get their teeth looked at, and M said, "We're going to the circus!"

Apparently she didn't remember what the dentist was, and thought we were going to the circus. Needless to say, she cried when we got there.

I'm a bad father

My 2 year old came up to me today. There were three comic books sitting nearby. She pointed at the one I had in my hand and said, "That's Spider-Man."

I was shocked. I couldn't remember showing her anything about Spider-Man.

I held up a picture of Superman. "Do you know who this is?"

 She said, "Dunno."

 I showed her a picture of Batman. "Do you know who this is?"

"Dunno."

It's time to set up a superhero classroom around here.

This would also be a cool way to get engaged

But wouldn't it be cooler to get engaged to a guy who could fly and bend steel? I mean, maybe this girl should hold out....

Wonderful Wednesday: Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" on ukulele

I know you need this today. Jake Shimabukuro (ukelele player supreme) playing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" on his ukelele. It's pretty amazing. And Jake clearly loves playing, as you can tell by the look on his face while he plays!

"WE ARE YOUNG" and why old people shouldn't try to fake it

Yesterday, on the way to drop my nine-year-old, A, off at swimming, we heard the song "We Are Young" by Fun. playing on the radio. If you're unfamiliar with the song, here it is:



During the song A asked me: Why do they keep saying "We are young"?

Me: Well, you know, when you are young you want to get older, but when you get old you want to get younger. So they're saying, like, tonight they're young (or are pretending to be young, or wishing they are young) and so they're going to go crazy and set the world on fire, try to change it and then they're going to be so amazing and full of glory that they'll shine bright as the sun and everyone will want to look at them.

A: That's dumb. Because if they burn too bright everyone will just shield their eyes and say, "AAAAH ALL THOSE OLD PEOPLE ARE SHINING TOO BRIGHT!"

Me: ....

Anyway. Today. I am old. So I'll let the whole world smolder til she gets older and joins the fold.

LATER:

A: Dad, can you get senior discounts yet?

Me: No!

A: But I thought you were 47 years old?

Me: What?! No!

Most popular posts from May

It's JUNE! I can't believe it. Well, okay, I guess I can believe it. But still, that was fast. Here are the top six posts at BHR last month:

#1 Ridiculous One Star Review of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. If you didn't like this one you can go to bed without any dinner.

#2 The most elaborate and lovely marriage proposal ever captured on film. Not that it rivals my own, in which SCUBA-diving villains attacked us on a beach, I beat them up with awesome kung fu and then took a ring in a waterproof bag off their machine-gun toting bodies. But it was pretty good anyway.

#3 Mixed Messages. In which my children are told by their teacher to eat healthy while the PTA collects soda and promises ice cream parties. If you didn't like this post, chances are you were skipping dinner anyway to eat chocolate bars.

#4 How the Avengers Should Have Ended. In which we learn that if you do something REALLY REALLY good like saving the Earth, you shall be rewarded with shwarma for dinner.

#5 In which we meld the Avengers and Maurice Sendak, creating a unified whole. It's the cuteness of justice!

BONUS: JEDI KITTENS LIGHTSABER DUEL! Bad kitties!

Tasty baby zebras at the Portland zoo

My kids are going to the zoo with their Aunt Dawn this morning, and they are Very Excited.  A skirmish broke out about whether or not the Portland Zoo has lions. It does. To prove it, I dressed each of the kids as a different animal from the African savannah. Special thanks for the idea to Jack the Baby Zebra!

The Dark Knight Rises (as portrayed by hot dogs)

Here's a complete re-shot of The Dark Knight Rises trailer, except all the people have been replaced with hot dogs.



I can't wait to see the feature length event this summer.