I'm a computer programmer now

Soon I'll be able to do this.

My parents were both computer programmers, and when I was a kid they often would teach me little tricks and try to get me interested in computers. I'm not employable as a programmer or anything like that, but I have some marginal awareness of how things work as a result. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

For instance, I know that the internet is caused by information leaking into a substance called "the ether" and we can use ethernet cables to suck it back into "real space" or "virtual reality." Or something.

Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself this week for doing some minor coding here on the site, where I made drop down menus for purchasing my books. You can see them in the sidebar on the right or by clicking the "Matt's Books" tab on the top of the site (that's new, too, by the way).

It looks like this:

BUY THE BOOK Select one Amazon Barnes and Noble CBD Indie Bound Powell's

I think it's pretty nifty, and I'm pleased that I understood enough html to steal the bones for this thing off the internet and make it my own. I know, all I had to do was replace the link content, but still. Allow me a moment of pride at doing something at the beginner's level.

OF COURSE, the best way for you to celebrate this monumental achievement is for you to test out the drop down menu thing. Click on a link, press go, make sure it works. And just to be certain, go ahead and purchase a book or two to make sure everything is working correctly. Egggggggscellent. Moowhahahahahahaaha.

For all you authors out there who want to make your own, I'll put the basic code after the jump so you can use it for your own (just replace the links with links to your books from the correct site). I stole the basic code from here.

You can get the code after the jump.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES takes over my blog's traffic statistics

I just noticed this today.

Top five posts in March

Here are the top 5 posts for the month of March:

Numero uno, a "Ridiculous Reviewers on Amazon" piece about people who think Moby Dick deserves one star.

Number two, the post leading you all to my gospel "translations" on the Western Seminary blog. This is largely in part to a shout out from blogger and author, Rachel Held Evans. Thanks, Rachel!

Three, and I can only assume this is because of St, Patrick's Day, many people came to the blog wanting to read about "God, rainbows and leprechauns."

Fourth, a guest post from my friend and author Anna Broadway.

Lastly, the post about how Neal Patrick Harris shocked me by revealing that the Walt Disney Company does, indeed, have a sense of humor!

Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour for Night of the Living Dead Christian

Hey friends...

Bullet the Vampire Dog

For the next three days, my friends at Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy are doing a blog tour about my second novel, Night of the Living Dead Christian. Today, tomorrow and Wednesday, all the sites below will be sharing between one and three posts about the book, their thoughts related to it, and, if I know them, interesting thoughts spurred by the book but not having much to do with it.

It's an always enjoyable round up of thoughts, reflections, insights and violent arguments (okay, not that many violent arguments). There's always an award given out to the best blogger of the tour, and to sweeten the pot this month I'm giving the winner of the blog tour a free, signed copy of the book as well as a limited edition NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD poster (the image of which does not match the book cover, is beautiful, and that the publisher has asked me not to share publicly).

I'll be dropping into the tour as much as possible in the days to come, and you should feel free to stop in, lurk, comment, share your own thoughts, or even do your own posts about the book.

Here are the participating blogs/bloggers (if you'd like to only see blogs which have already posted about NLDC for the day, Rebecca LuElla Miller usually goes through and marks which blogs have posted as it happens):

UPDATE: I've fixed the broken link problem, mostly by ripping them off from Rebecca Luella Miller. She had also put checkmarks by those who had already posted for the tour. The names below are also links.

Gillian Adams
√ Julie Bihn
Red Bissell
Jennifer Bogart 
√ Thomas Clayton Booher
Thomas Fletcher Booher
√ Keanan Brand
√ Beckie Burnham
√ Morgan L. Busse
Theresa Dunlap
Amber French
Tori Greene
√ Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
√ Bruce Hennigan
Janeen Ippolito
Becky Jesse
√ Jason Joyner
√ Carol Keen
Leighton
√ Shannon McDermott
√ Nissa
√ Joan Nienhuis
√ John W. Otte
Crista Richey
√ Sarah Sawyer
√ Chawna Schroeder
√ Rachel Starr Thomson
√ Steve Trower
√ Fred Warren
√ Shane Werlinger
Nicole White
Dave Wilson

Today's an Important Day!

Three years ago today I wrote my first blog post. That's right, today is The Burning Hearts Revolution's BIRTHDAY! Yaaaaay!

If you read that first post, you'll see from what humble beginnings BHR has come. Just look at who our first commenter was! Awww, we miss seeing that guy around here.

To celebrate BHR's birthday, we're going to kick off a month of celebrating. I'll give flashbacks to my favorite BHR moments. Maybe we'll have another poetry contest. I'm thinking, "The Clay Aiken BHR Celebratory Poetry Contest." That ought to be something worth seeing. There might even be gifts for my faithful readers.

In the meantime, if you would like to write a love letter about BHR to be posted here on the site as a guest blog, please send it to matt.mikalatos(at)gmail.com. Write "Happy Birthday BHR" in the subject line. Please remember that I am sneaky as all get out and if you are trying to slip some spam into my mailbox I'll totally catch you. I've seen more spam than a Hawaiian kicthen.

Happy Birthday, BHR, I hope your next three years are twice as strange, fun and interesting, and that you finally get the recognition you so richly deserve... like if President Clinton could come and make comments on the blog like in the old days.

I didn't feel like blogging yesterday

And yet somehow the world goes on. More Pearls Before Swine here.

Welcome Home Mikalatos

I can tell you all missed me. All the comments and questions... "Where are you?" "Are you okay?" "Time for an update!"

Well, I'm back. And since I haven't been blogging, I thought I'd send you over to the blog of my boss. That's right. My boss has a blog. He's been calling me "Blogalotos" all week. So, please be sure to stop by and leave a comment for Keith Blogalo. He's swell.

In addition to not blogging, I've also been not writing. I know what you're thinking: How does he have time to not do so much? It's a gift, my friends, a rare and much envied gift.

But my daughter, Z, wrote the first chapter of a story tonight. She said I could share it here if I promised to fix all her spelling errors. So, here it is:

The Pony and the Wolves: Chapter One

Illustrated by Z

Once upon a time there was a pony. And she grazed in the grass. And she grazed and she grazed and she grazed but wolves came.

Tune in tomorrow for chapter 2.