This is the one with links.

Here’s some stuff happening on the web that you shouldn’t miss.

If soda makers started making “naked cans” that is, aluminum cans without paint, they could save the world. Seriously, this no-paint can would reduce air and water pollution.  It would also reduce energy and effort to separate toxic color paint from aluminum in the recycling process.  Huge amounts of energy and paint are required to manufacture colored cans.  The cans are made with a pressing method.

Read the whole story at: Gizmodo.com

A pub owner in the U.K. was fined the equivalent of about $13,000 because someone illegally downloaded copyrighted material using his Wi-Fi hotpsot.

The law surrounding open Wi-Fi networks is kind of gray, and it’s interesting to see cases like this one.

Read the whole story at: Cnet.com

What the hell?  How does a huge company like Kellogs fuck up like this?  There’s going to be an Eggo Waffle shortage.  You probably won’t be able to buy one until next year (which is just a month away).   Kellogs blames factory difficulties to explain the sudden death of the toaster-friendly treat, but conspiracy theories abound.

What’s the truth?

Read the whole story at: TheWeek.com

The University of Chicago is estimating that the total number of Americans with diabetes will double in the next 25 years.  Currently 24 million people are living with diabetes.  They’re guessing that 44 million will be living with the chronic illness by 2034.  And if that number goes up, so must too the cost of treating those people.  They’re estimating the cost to treat diabetes to triple from the current $113 billion to $366 billion per year.

It’s a bitch.

Read the whole story at: Time.com

This is the one where I’m a novelist.

I did it.

Pitted against a merciless deadline and battling hordes of distractions–including the most tempting fall TV season that’s been unleashed upon novelist in decades–I kept at it.

I’ve done something amazing this month, and to be frank, I couldn’t be more proud of myself.

Now I’ve got to worry about re-writing this piece of shit novel.

This is the one where I give you plenty of warning.

I know that Thanksgiving 2009 just passed, but I wanted to give you enough warning so you can get your shit together and make sure you can come to our new tradition that will start on Thanksgiving evening in 2010.

Next Thanksgiving will mark the inaugural (that’s what you’re supposed to say instead of “first annual”) Thanksgiving Dessert at Dan & Mike’s.

I’m serious.

You’ll go spend the time with your family, or whoever you spend Thanksgiving with.  Then you’ll stop at your house and change into something more comfortable, grab that bottle of wine you’ve been saving, and come over to our house.  Depending on the weather, we might be sitting outside.  We might be playing some board games, or we might just be eating pie and drinking.  Who knows.

But you’ve been invited.  Don’t act like you’re too busy.  This was totally on your calendar first.

This is the one with an update on NaNoWriMo.

I’m hurting.

In the last week I’ve fallen so behind in my NaNoWriMo novel.  To prove that to you, I’m here blogging instead of writing a novel.  But look at some of the interesting stats I’ve come up with (instead of writing):

I’m about 4,932 words off of my goal right now because of the last few days.  Luckily I don’t have to work Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  I’d really like to wrap this thing up by Sunday.  I just need to find the motivation.  I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.

This is the one with the kid’s Xmas list.

Today at work a kid got caught working on this when he was supposed to be working on homework.  I had to confiscate it, but after scanning it I gave it back to him.

This is the one with my mistake.

At my work, we have this five-year-old that we’ll call Matthew.  Matthew’s 11-year-old sister died of Leukemia in October and their mother is devastated.  The mom works as a housekeeper at a local hotel, and makes very little money, and before the death was spending all of her free time in the hospital.

I had a contact at a local online university and told her all about the horrible things that Matthew’s family has been going through in the past few months, and she told me that her co-workers at the local online university would do a food drive and collect things to give to Matthew and his family for Thanksgiving.

I told Matthew’s mom not to worry about Thanksgiving this year, that some people were going to take care of everything for her.  And I specifically told her that there was going to be a turkey (this detail comes into play in a couple of paragraphs).

I arrange for the donations to be delivered yesterday, which happens to be the same day as our Club’s community Thanksgiving Dinner (mistake #1), and I let Matthew’s family know that they should come by to pick up all of the stuff when they come to eat dinner with us.

So Monday night is happening…I’m running around like a crazy person. The worst kind of crazy person: A crazy in a tie.  And someone yells, “Hey Mike, Matthew’s dad is here.”  So I talk to the guy a little.  Walk him to my office and explain which boxes are his to take, and I notice that Matthew’s dad is wearing house slippers.

“That’s kind of tacky,” I think.  “He wore his house shoes to our Thanksgiving Dinner?”  But whatever.

And as Matthew’s dad is loading up his car, Matthew’s mom walks in with her older son and I tell her the same thing I told Dad.  We had about 6 boxes of food and a big turkey for them.  I warned them ahead of time that it was going to be a lot of food, so I was glad she brought so many men to help her carry it out.

Skip ahead thirty minutes to an hour.

Matthew’s mom politely motions me over.  “I don’t want to be pushy or rude,” she said.  “But is there going to be a turkey?”

“Yeah,” I said.  And then I looked at the table of people sitting with her.  I was about to say your husband took the turkey and one box of food, but then I remembered that she doesn’t have a husband.  And her non-husband wasn’t even sitting with them.

I gave the turkey to some unknown man in house slippers!

Matthew’s family had no idea what to expect as far as food, so they wouldn’t miss the box of food that the house slipper bandit took, but she was expecting a turkey.  I specifically told her not to go out and buy one.  Damn it.

This story has a happy ending though: We had 16 turkeys donated for our Thanksgiving feast last night, and only cooked 15 of them for the dinner.  I was going to raffle off the last turkey to one family, but I just gave it to Matthew’s family before they left.  And I raffled off a bike that was donated a few months ago.  And chances are, the house slipper guy probably needed the food.

This is the one about ‘Band Fags.’

I thought that I wasn’t going to read anything during NaNoWriMo, but it’s just too hard to resist.  What do non-readers do on the toilet?!?  And what do they do during the thirty frustrating minutes after you’ve tucked yourself into bed but can’t fall asleep?!?

Seriously.

So I read Band Fags by Frank Anthony Polito.  I first heard of this book when Kenneth in the (212) took a vacation and Frank Anthony Polito was a guest blogger.  I added the book to my Amazon Wish List (which has reccently been updated for Xmas, bitches), and there it sat for close to a year.

When I finally got around to reading it, I was pleasantly surprised.  At first I was a little put off by the strong 80s references and jokes…I was born in 1981, so some of jokes were lost on me.  This book, however, turned out to be a pretty good

And I was a band fag in high school, too.  Even though I crossed over and was a part-time drama queer too.  And I honestly identified with the main character’s best friend Brad more than I did the main character Jack.

If you were a band nerd, and you enjoyed/endured the stigma that went along with being in band, you’ll enjoy this book.

If I were to criticize anything in Band Fags, I’d say that it’s too lengthy with no strong theme or sense of urgency.  I felt like I was going to have to see every GD day in Jack Paterno’s high school life.  The story did bring back memories of high school, some painful and some happy.  But the book didn’t have to mimic the “will this ever end?” theme of h.s. so accurately.

I’ve already started on Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris.  It was a random find at a used book store.  I know nothing really about the book, and can’t even tell you why I bought it.  Let’s see how that works out.

This is the one with our dogs in ugly sweaters.

This is the one where I’m a famous photographer.

When I went to the Arizona State Fair in 2008, I took a bunch of photos and posted them on my Flickr account.  And then about six months ago I got an email from the people that run Schmap City Guides…which is a website and iPhone app that guides people to places around cities.  They wanted to include one of my photos in the description of the AZ State Fair.  They picked this one:

The State Fair is under the Zoos, Farms & Aquariums page (don’t ask) located here.  And my photo is even credited.  Pretty sweet.

This is the one with the NaNoWriMo Song