These are the pointless ramblings that would take too long to post at www.biffmitchell.com. None of them are important and you really don't want to read any of this, so go away. Read somebody else's damn blog.
Susan DiPlacido is swiftly earning a rep as an “important” Chick Lit writer, a writer with something to say and a beautifully flowing style with which to say it. Trattoria is a satisfying read with twists and turns and characters that will populate your mind long after you’ve read the book.
Read the review at The Compulsive Reader.
You can visit Susan at her web site.
posted by Biff at 8:22 a.m.
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Friday April 21, was busy as bees staring down a bear at the Charlotte Street Art Center. First off, The NB Film Co-op had a wine, dine, meet and greet in their new digs in the Art Center. For anyone who’s worked on films with them in the past at their old York Street quarters, you’ll appreciate the new fixings, like big beautiful windows that open, ceilings that don’t scrape your nose off when you look up, and a great location with lots of artsy vibes charging the air.
Executive Director, Tony Merzetti and Member Services Guru Kathy LeBlanc were there to steer folks to the food and drink and give live demonstrations of windows that open.
Gia and Crystal were there to watch me knock down a poster, fall backwards while putting the poster back up, get my foot trapped in a folding theater seat and knock the poster down again … all while I was trying take their picture. Notice how they’ve gathered protectively around the marquee. Notice the pleasant smile as Gia says: “Biff, go near the marquee and we’re going to chop your feet off.”
Notice the lack of ceiling .5 inches above everybody’s head. Notice the photographer with the glasses and black jacket. I was in a helicopter over a nuclear power plant under construction many years ago. He was leaning out the window taking pictures of the plant and yelling to the pilot to bank the chopper further to the side so he could get a good shot. I watched the horizon spin sideways and was amazed that Glen was still with us hundreds of feet in the air snapping pictures with one hand and holding on nonchalantly to the door frame with the other. It was about the forth time he yelled, “More!” that I figured it would be a good idea for him to fall out so that we could get the horizon back to normal. And no, in spite of what he says, I didn’t throw. Close. But I didn’t.
That’s Tony on the right. The other two are anonymous IT workers who will be submitting horror stories for my book NotAPixelOfSanity about the absurdity of the IT industry. Once I have their stories, I’ll publish their names.
Not really.
Right after the Film Co-op spectacular, the action moved downstairs to the Underground Coffee Shop and Bookstore for the multimedia-packed arts feast Criptych featuring members of the city’s artistic collective Emerge.
The poster shows your brains on art.
This is part of the crowd. These particular people were working out an insidious plan for world domination. Later on, they rose as one and took over the evening. At daybreak, they let it fly away. I hear they’re planning their next world domination in your neighborhood.
Joss had some of his work on display. Mike didn’t. His girlfriend didn’t either. I think they were part of the world domination plot.
I don’t know who this woman is. But she has a great smile. Later, she took a picture of me taking a picture of her.
Joss admires art as his wife keeps an eye on the groups planning world domination. She was going to stop them until she realized that we’d all probably be in better hands. And then she joined them.
posted by Biff at 11:33 p.m.
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Double Dragon has just released the strangest anthology of all time, Twisted Tails. Read more about it on my web site.
And here's the first review.
posted by Biff at 10:13 a.m.
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Summary: Programmer and web developer Brad Parks has SteveJobs.name and he’s auctioning it off at eBay.
He’s the icon of an entire generation of computer geeks. He started the computer revolution in 1984 when he debuted the most advanced computer of its time. He embraced the Internet as the wave of the future.
But in 2006, he forgot to register his own domain name.
Web developer and programmer, Brad Parks, didn’t forget. He owns the domain name SteveJobs.name. And he’s selling it on eBay right now.
“I missed the big domain name gold rush years ago,” said Parks. “But I wondered if there were any celebrities who might not have registered their names as Internet domains. I figured that prominent figures in the computer industry like Steve Jobs would have their names registered, but I was curious and started entering them at GoDaddy.”
Parks was amazed when he keyed in stevejobs in the .name category and it popped up STEVEJOBS.NAME is available! “I couldn’t believe it,” said Parks. “I got out my credit card and bought it on the spot.”
Parks debated whether or not to inform Steve Jobs that he had his name. “What with spam filters and so forth, I figured it’d be impossible to get in touch with him,” said Parks. “But who knows, maybe he’ll hear about the auction and bid on his name.”
Parks has some ideas about who might bid on the name besides Mr. Jobs. “Avid fans of Steve Jobs and avid Mac users would love to have the name as their personal domain,” said Parks. “It’s easy to remember, and any Mac user would instantly recognize and remember the domain. It’d also make a great gift for a Mac or iPod user who can’t get enough of Steve Jobs and the world of Mac.”
The auction for SteveJobs.name can be viewed on eBay at http://tinyurl.com/ny9mb
The auction ends April 6 at 1:55:04 PDT.
Contact: Brad Parks bradparks@bradparks.com
posted by Biff at 10:29 p.m.
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Summary: After years of dreaming about becoming both a novelist and the owner of a wilderness getaway for women, author Biff Mitchell chooses to finish his next novel and put his second love, Water Cowgirls, up for auction at eBay.
Read about it here.
posted by Biff at 8:55 p.m.
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******************************************************* Volume 1, Issue 3 April 2006 ******************************************************* * BIFFMITCHELL_dot_NEWS is a free quarterly (except when it’s not quarterly) newsletter with stuff from the desk of author Biff Mitchell.
The enhanced edition of this newsletter is now available here.
***************************************************** In this issue:
Editorial
My Writing Friends - Susan DiPlacido - John Heinstein - Barbara J. Gill - MD Benoit
An Interview with Joe Blades (Part 1)
You Asked About Princess of Art – The Real People in the Blog
News and Announcements - Team Player Now in Paperback - Seven Short Stories to Appear at Fictionwise - Maritime Writers’ Workshop Now Has a Blog - Twisted Tails Soon To Be Published by Double Dragon - NotAPixelOfSanity Call for Stories - St. Paddy’s Day Weekend – A Poetry Weekend for a Prose Writer
Recipe for Dandelion Wine
Recipe for Dion Sisters’ Doggie Treats
“The Ten Worst Writers I’ve Ever Had to Read” Contest
posted by Biff at 10:10 p.m.
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“Jack Meter ain’t no Sam Spade, ya see, but he’s one helluva private dick,” said my gay cat Pico after reading M.D. Benoit’s Meter Made. Pico, as always, was right. Sam Spade got to bump around in Los Angeles playing with the small fry looking for treasure in clay falcons; Jack Meter gets to chase the big fish all over the known universe, including one or two unknown.
This is a fast-paced, hardboiled, non-stop, seat-of-your-pants, action-packed SciFi mystery that asks the question: Where’s the damn brakes? It starts right off with a millionaire land baron wanting Meter to find his missing building. No, not gelding. You heard right: the man’s building is missing, along with the lot it occupied and all the documentation that proved it ever existed, and, of course, the fourteen people who lived in it. Just the kind of case that’s right up the alley for Douglas Adam’s Dirk Gently, only Jack Meter, unlike Gently, doesn’t wait for anything to happen. Like Sam Spade, he barges in and stirs things up to the boiling point and takes the action right in his face when it explodes all around him.
From the first novel in the series (Metered Space, Zumaya) Meter has a device melded to his arm by aliens that allows him to jump around Earth and the universe just by thinking about it. This comes in handy when you’re just about to be arrested by the police in a house full of dead bodies, or leaving a room that’s just about to blow up, or finding yourself on the receiving end of a hail of bullets from a woman you thought you might get it on with not much earlier.
Jack Meter is not one to stay out of trouble, and he doesn’t. Single-handedly – well, with a few friends, some of whom can’t stand him and others who try to kill him – he jumps into the middle of alien wars, universes on the edge of collapse, his best friend’s wife’s cooking, and a fog planet that nearly strips the flesh from his bones, all in pursuit of the missing building and the people who stole it. What he uncovers is a mind-boggling secret that threatens to change everything that we know into something we can’t even imagine.
This is a great read for the beach, an evening with the boob tube turned off, or an afternoon by the barbecue and a cooler full of beer. It wastes no time getting to the action and keeping it up, something that’s sorely missing in so many action stories these days. The universe of Jack Meter is full of weird creatures, danger at every turn, deadly beautiful women, side-slapping dialogue, and most of all, according to Pico, “action, Action, ACTION!”
Title: Meter Made Author: M.D. Benoit Publisher: Zumaya Publications eBook ISBN: 979-1-55410-302-7/1-55410-302-9 Pages: 259 Reviewed by: Biff Mitchell
posted by Biff at 11:24 a.m.
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Here it is - the Deron Douglas masterpiece cover for the weirdest collection of stories from the most eclectic collection of writers ever ... including Yours Truly with four of my best stories.
Read more about Twisted Tails.
posted by Biff at 10:31 a.m.
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Biff Mitchell lives at the edge of the world. He has no life. He has no friends. Neighborhood children throw stones at his hovel. At night, Biff throws stones at his hovel. Someday Biff plans to write a book about a man who lives in a hovel that is stoned daily by neighborhood children who—through some magical twist of events—turn into snowmen. When Spring arrives, the man’s house melts.
And so goes the bio at my new store front at lulu.com.
The fact is, I'm trying an experiment. I'm publishing three books on my own at lulu and seeing how sales (and royalty payments) compare to the traditional publishing model. This is all in anticipation of the talk I'll be giving on epublishing at the Maritime Writers' Workshop this July.
And now ... Team Player is available once again in paperback format with an all new lurid cover by Brock Parks.
posted by Biff at 10:04 p.m.
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So there I was last Friday, the last day of March and the day before April Fool’s Day. For the second time in less than a month, I was at a gallery opening. This Time I didn’t have to read and there was free booze – it just keeps getting better.
The gallery was no less than cool, but then that would be expected given the gallery is owned and run by Ingrid Mueller who once reviewed my novel Team Player with the headline: Local Author Shows Enormous Talent.
Her gallery is something to be drooled over by art lovers and anybody with a taste for something that might give their lives even a moment of meaningful reflection. It was one of the most eclectic collections of work I’ve ever seen, but it all fit together with the precision of a successful birth. Or something like that.
It was great.
Just kidding. In fact, there were some pretty accomplished artists in the opening preview crowd. In further fact, the crowd was a big one full of star-studded local celebrities. See if you can pick them out. If you’re not from Fredericton, you may have to move here for a few years to identify a few of them. But the other are, indeed, those people who haunt your dreams. This is where you can meet them.
BTW, the name of the gallery is Art Concepts and it’s on the York Street squeezed in tightly between King and Queen. You might call Ingrid Fredericton’s Princess of Art.
This is Karen (a weaver extraordiaire who lives along the banks of the epic Saint John River with her musician husband Eric. The woman beside her is not Margaret Atwood.
Guess which one is a famous publisher – the beautiful woman or the so-so hairline? I might publish the answer in the next edition of my newsletter. Maybe. The back of the head in the distance does not belong to Jerzy Kosinski. Jerzy’s dead now. Let go.
Which famous poet and publisher is this? See the newsletter. The man with the glasses looking up is not Kurt Vonnegut.
Notice how, when I walk into the room with my camera, everybody looks away and pretends that I’m not there. The woman in the left foreground is not Ayn Rand. The woman in front of her has a black belt in Karate.
And then, right after I introduce myself … (BTW, the woman to the right in the background is not Tess Gerritson.)
Guess which one is Ingrid. She's not talking to Kilgore Trout.
posted by Biff at 8:34 p.m.
0 comments
Biff Mitchell lives at the edge of the world. He has no life. He has no friends. Neighborhood children throw stones at his hovel. At night, Biff throws stones at his hovel. Someday Biff plans to write a book about a man who lives in a hovel that is stoned daily by neighborhood children who—through some magical twist of events—turn into snowmen. When Spring arrives, the man’s house melts.
